86.

I moved carefully homeward. I hadn't spotted a tail since we left that woods, but I was getting used to the idea that I could be followed without being able to catch somebody doing it. I didn't like it, though.

I was more concerned about the new malice in the streets. Trouble has a way of finding people who look like they're vulnerable.

I spent a little concern on the G.o.dd.a.m.n Parrot, too, but because I had no control over that situation I did not let it interfere with business.

Approaching the house cautiously is ancient habit. It felt justified today, though I saw nothing indicating trouble-unless the absence of Mrs. Cardonlos const.i.tuted a harbinger. Nor did I note any damage to the house itself. Clearly, the bad boys had not yet worked up the nerve to give it a try.

I let myself inside-and froze before I shut the door all the way. Something was wrong. I smelled an odor that didn't belong.

Somebody had been inside. Somebody who wore lilac water to disguise the fact that he found bathing an unhapppy ch.o.r.e. Maybe Saucerhead? Tharpe wasn't a stickler when it came to personal hygiene. Or maybe Winger?

Not Winger. Nothing was disturbed. Winger couldn't keep her hands off stuff.

I moved along the hall slowly, avoiding the creaky boards. I don't know what cues there were, other than odor, but I knew I wasn't alone. Which meant somebody had gotten past the wonderfully expensive lock that Dean had had installed.

I told him that d.a.m.ned thing was a waste of money.

I slipped sideways, not into my office but into the Dead Man's room. Amongst the memorabilia were tools useful for removing uninvited guests. I returned to the hallway prepared to repel boarders. I had everything but my eye patch and my parrot.

A mountain of blubber wobbled out of the kitchen, a platter in each hand. "Puddle!" I barked.

"Hey! Garrett! I was just havin' a snack while I was waitin'. How the h.e.l.l did ya get in wit' out me hearin'?"

"How the h.e.l.l did you get into my house? And why? To swipe my food?"

"I come in tru' da door. Ya got to get ya a better lock, Garrett. Dem Hameways ain't s.h.i.t, ya know what ye're doin'. Ya get out an get ya-self a Piggleton combernation with da t'ree tumblers..." As he nattered Puddle eased into my office. It was obvious that he'd made himself at home there and that he'd been around for a while. And that he was used to having busboys there to pick up after him. He plopped the platters onto my desk, atop the abandoned battlefields of previous snacks. My personal chair groaned as his ample behind settled.

"Make yourself at home, Puddle."

"Tanks."

"To what do I owe the honor?" I wondered where the food had come from. Puddle definitely wasn't thoughtful enough to have brought his own supplies. Dean must have taken pity. Obviously, I couldn't take care of myself. Well, the whole move-out thing was just for show. For the benefit of my new political pals. I hoped.

"Boss wants ya, Garrett. Sent people out wherever ya might turn up."

"What's the story?" I snagged a chicken drumstick I knew hadn't been in the house last time I was home. I supposed I could hunt up Mrs. Cardonlos and sweet-talk her into telling me what I'd been missing.

Was that a gang of pigs oinking as they fluttered around my chimney?

"Boss'll tell ya all about it." Puddle had his mouth full. Maybe it was him making the porker noises.

"Give me a few minutes, then we'll do it." I headed upstairs. There's a linen closet in the second-floor hall that has no linens in it. I spent a few minutes filling my sleeves and pockets and shoe-tops with a.s.sorted instruments of mayhem. I should think about buying a couple of eggs from Venable when I got back to The Pipes. I could hatch them and keep pets around the place if the Dead Man decided not to come back. If I kept them a little hungry, even wizards off the Hill would have trouble sneaking in.

When I got back downstairs Puddle was digging around in the kitchen again. He had no shame. "I don't get much a dis tasty stuff 'round Da Palms."

"You could've picked a boss with fewer quirks."

Puddle grunted. "Ya ready ta go?" He shoved a couple of pieces of chicken into his pockets.

"Not quite." I needed to get outside some food myself. It had been a long time since breakfast.

87.

Sometimes I've got an edge like a brick. We must've traveled half a mile before I realized, "Hey! We're not headed for The Palms."

"An' I tole da boss ya'd never notice. Dey's people followin' ya, ya know? An' dey's maybe not all da kind what ya want to know ya got da boss for a fren'."

"There's times I wonder about that myself," I grumbled, having noticed a green and red and yellow and blue ringer amongst the nearest gang of eaves-perching pigeons. A puff of cooler wind raced down the street, which seemed unnaturally calm for late afternoon in a city mad for bickering. Autumn would be along soon. Maybe, if I got lucky, the G.o.dd.a.m.n Parrot would have a little goose in him and would head north for the winter.

I suspected we were headed for Playmate's stables, though, as a G.o.ds-fearing, righteous man Playmate doesn't have much use for Morley. Any tail who knew much about me probably developed the suspicion before I did. I wasn't concentrating. I had found a thread to worry.

We rounded a corner, turning left. Puddle was street side of me. Two steps later he leaned into me. Hard. I staggered through an open doorway. Before I could growl Puddle started pushing. I just glimpsed an old woman squinting at something she was sewing and a homely youngster probably of the female calling who shut the door behind the fat man. Then we reached the end of the narrow, almost barren tailor shop. I looked down steep steps. A light burned a long way below. "Go," Puddle urged.

I went.

A door closed behind us. It hung crookedly. The stairs had no business surviving our combined weight. Puddle picked up the light off the earthen cellar floor once we got down. It consisted of a cracked teacup half-filled with oil. The wick was a floating glob of lint. Puddle could carry the d.a.m.ned thing. It looked hot. And he knew where we were headed.

"Morley really this concerned?"

"Bad tings goin' on out dere, Garrett. It don't hurt none ta be careful."

Everybody in town was more paranoid than me. Maybe I should get a little crazy myself. "It'll all work out. History's drama has got a way of doing that." But it sure can get rough on the cast and crew.

"Ya ever go ta da plays? Dey's a great new one at da Strand, I been ta see it t'ree times already. Called Atterbohns da Toid Atterbohns da Toid on account of it's about King Atterbohns, one a da ones from way back." on account of it's about King Atterbohns, one a da ones from way back."

I was surprised. The Strand doesn't put on the kind of show I'd a.s.sociate with a mind like Puddle's. Hardly anybody would take their clothes off.

The more excited he grew the denser his speech became. "Dat's da Atterbohns what murdered his brodder and married his sister an' had a baby by her dat grew up ta help his gran'ma raise dis army aginst his fodder..." He whooped off and gave me every detail, half of which were historically inaccurate. Not having seen the drama myself I couldn't tell if the fault was his or the playwright's. The historical Atterbohns married his brother's widow, his sister-in-law, a perfectly respectable thing for the time, though murder was a bit of a gaffe. Less respectable was the fact that the sister-in-law orchestrated everything, including numerous other murders and the revolt of the son-who perished, along with his grandmother, in questionable circ.u.mstances later, to be followed to the throne by a six-year-old brother whose paternity was somewhat dubious.

A play about Atterbohns III would have to be one of the new tragedies. Its moral would be too dark and heavy for a pa.s.sion play or traditional comedy. "I might go see it just to see how much license the playwright took with history. Who wrote it?"

"I dunno. We get ta da end a dis tunnel, ya gotta be quiet. It runs inta anudder one dat ain't ours. We don't wanna attrack no attention."

TunFaire has a million secrets. They probably extend two miles down into the earth and two up into the air. Were there enough overlapping tunnels for me to sneak all the way downtown to the brewery caverns? That sent me into a tumult of speculation. If all the tunnels and caverns under TunFaire were were connected, control of them would be a major a.s.set. connected, control of them would be a major a.s.set.

There were rumors and legends about people and things supposedly living underground. One beaut involved a king of the ratpeople who was a sort of cross between a high priest and Chodo Contague, a ratman wish-fantasy, something a Reliance would be if he had a whole lot of brains and guts and luck.

Surprisingly, none of the legends featured dwarves.

Puddle made a right turn when the tunnel ended. I stayed quiet, as instructed. Eventually we found a stairway from the same litter as the one leading down from the seamtress's shop. A door stood ajar at the top. A gray light outlined it. I let Puddle get all the way up before I risked the steps myself. Having survived him I knew they would support me.

I stepped into the entry foyer of a tenement that decades ago had entertained middle-cla.s.s pretensions. Not a soul was around. The place even lacked the usual squallings of infants, yellings of husbands and fathers, shriekings of wives and mothers, whimpers of despair that characterize such places. But you could almost feel the tenants holding their breaths behind their curtained doorways. The cellar door standing ajar must be an omen of dreadful portent.

Puddle was puffing so hard I thought he'd collapse. He wasted no energy. He used his gasps to extinguish the light, which he left on the step behind the cellar door. He closed that.

We hit the street. Five blocks later we joined Morley in a dwarfish hole-in-the-wall. None of the hairy folk seemed to mind his elven blood.

"What was that all about?" I asked. "Other than the obvious."

"The people following you have a supernatural knack for keeping track. It wanted to test its limits."

"That's all?"

"There's more. In back." He nodded. I preceded him past a dwarfish staff who saw nothing. We were ghosts.

The quest for profit makes for strange bedfellows.

88.

Spooky people were waiting in a back room. Belinda Contague and Pular Singe sat beside a crippled table with rags piled on top. "What's this?"

Morley let me have it behind the ear with a sap.

I said, "Wha de grungle frunz ya?..." It made perfect sense to me but apparently not to anyone else. At least n.o.body tried to answer me.

The darkness never really came. Not entirely. I remained vaguely aware of being manhandled and womanhandled and rathandled and half-elf handled around till I was the vain wearer of a tonsorial array fit to embarra.s.s most guys who haunt alleys for a living. Puddle stuffed everything in a bag-including my proud tools of mayhem-and vanished. Morley and Belinda tied me to the rickety chair formerly occupied by Pular Singe. Singe said something apologetic and drifted off after Puddle.

The scow of consciousness pitched and rolled across heavy seas. The thump had reawakened every headache I'd enjoyed lately. I talked some more but only a drunk would have understood. Or maybe Singe. I'd understood her.

Morley said something about if I was the real thing, he'd treat me to the gourmet best of The Palms. I could not express my joy.

Belinda's apologies sounded more promising.

The two of them rubbed me all over with silver.

A dwarfish voice gobbled something. Morley responded in the same tongue. Belinda began letting me loose. I tried to turn her over my knee but had barely strength enough to raise a hand. I said something in a tongue that sounded sufficiently dwarfish to me but drew no response from anyone else.

I understood Belinda when she said, "You hit him too hard."

"I hit him just right. Too hard and he wouldn't be breathing."

"I think you scrambled his brains."

"Be a little hard to mix them up more than they already are. He'll come out of it."

Bless him for his optimism. I would take it into account when I got even for all his abuses.

"Sorry," he told me, not sounding the least bit contrite. "We had to make sure Puddle got the real you. Been several Garrett sightings lately and I'm sure that, talented as you are, you're not yet able to be two places at once."

"I'm gonna work on it, though," I promised. "I'm gonna be having dinner with Relway and Colonel Block while I'm stuffing that talking vulture down your throat. Sideways."

Some of that dribbled out in comprehensible Karentine. Morley seemed surprised by my att.i.tude. But he didn't let it get in his way. "Something that looked like you turned up at The Palms last night asking for Belinda."

I glanced at Belinda. She was still hanging out there? "Not what you think, Garrett," she said. "Crask and Sadler did such a good job I can still barely move."

Morley continued, "We knew it wasn't you right away."

"Uhn?" So a shapeshifter went there pretending to be me. If there was an easy way to recognize one, I wanted to know. Later. After my head stopped hurting.

"Sarge offered you a mixed pepper platter. One of his little jokes. But you took it and dug right in."

"Now I know they're completely stupid." Even a hog has more sense than to eat peppers. Morley's pepper platter is a gorgeous mix of colors and shapes. Kind of like parrot on a plate. Just the stench, though, would've had me gagging-if I'd been into self-abuse far enough to let Sarge shove something that nasty under my nose in the first place. "What did you do with it?" In a few hours one of those critters could destroy a reputation I've worked on for years.

"We caught him but he got away as soon as we turned our backs. Those things don't have bones, apparently. It got out through a crack barely big enough for a cat."

My brain was up to about half speed. And I had a cup in hand, brought by the dwarf, which smelled strongly of boiled willow bark. I'd only have to suffer the headache another hour, then make sure I never ranged too far from a chamber pot. "Let me see. It was after Belinda. With harm in mind?"

"We took more hardware off it than we did off you just now."

"Stranger and stranger. We have shapeshifters attacking the Weiders. We have them attacking The Call. We have them going after Belinda..." I stopped. My mouth hung open. A small but significant fact had caught up. "Belinda. You've been at Morley's place since we dug you out of that tomb?"

"Mostly sleeping."

"But you've been in touch with your people."

"As much as necessary."

"How about with Marengo North English?"

"North English? Why would I?..."

I raised a paw. "Wait." I let the brain limp along for a minute. "The Call tried to bring on their season of Cleansing last night."

"It fizzled," Morley said. He showed lots of pointy teeth in a wicked grin. He wasn't disappointed.

"While the rest of his gang were having a good time bopping heads and busting shop doors Marengo North English was up north on the edge of Elf Town expecting to meet Belinda for a night's indulgence in the labors of love."

"What?" she barked. "How could?..."

"He got a message. It told him to meet you up there. He believed it was real." I'd believed it was real when he told me. "Men sometimes surrender to wishful thinking." If I'd thought about her condition, I'd have been suspicious as soon as North English mentioned getting the message. Her family owned tenements in the area. It seemed a handy trysting place if you thought in sneak-around terms. Obviously, Marengo did. "When he got there a gang dressed up as righsists tried to murder him. They got interrupted by a gang of dwarves looking for rightsists to pound."

"A marvelous irony," Morley observed, absolutely straight of face.