Cruel Zinc Melodies

32

Someone pounded on the front door. Dean must be too damned lazy to use his key. I went to answer.

There was no light in the hall so I wouldn’t give myself away by blocking it when I used the peephole.

There wasn’t much light outside, either, but there was enough. I didn’t know the man but I knew the type. All muscle, no brain. And this one had hair like a wild man. There must be a nest where they turn them out like a queen ant turns out workers. This one did what they all do when they don’t know about my partner.

He decided to let himself in. He hurled his right shoulder against the door.

He had a solid work ethic. He put everything into the effort. Twice.

The door is made to withstand a mature bull troll. It endured this bruno’s best without creaking.

He said, ‘‘Ah, shit!’’ after the second impact. I heard him distinctly. He staggered back, slipped on the slick surface, hit the porch rail, went on over. He landed on his back and slid into a pool of slush. His luck was in. The cold water wakened him before he drowned. It made a nasty mess in all that hair, where it started to freeze.

Bring him inside before the Guard’s watchers send collectorsafter him.

So. Chuckles wasn’t completely out of it. ‘‘How come?’’

He may know something interesting. But his mind is too well shielded for casual exploration while he is being manhandledby the Guard.

«He might object.»

Which, I assume, is why you maintain a store of lead-weightedoaken arguments.

Well, maybe.

I keep a ‘‘store’’ because I lose them, forget where I left them, or have them taken away from me.

Trusting Old Bones to help, I took the headknocker hanging behind the door, opened up, went down after the man with the muscles. It had turned damned cold again. I really needed a new coat. As soon as it got warm enough to go looking. But then I wouldn’t need one anymore, so where was the point? ‘‘Let’s go, big boy. Somebody wants to see you.’’

The big man got his feet under him. He reached out for support, wincing because his shoulder hurt. He didn’t grasp the actuality of his situation.

The Dead Man can do that to you.

Big Bruno and I were at the door when Dean’s voice asked, ‘‘What in the world?’’

‘‘You’re finally home?’’

‘‘I am. What’s this?’’

‘‘There have been developments. How was your day?’’

‘‘Marginally unpleasant. I spent it at a wake with relatives I loathe. But it could have been worse. This gentleman looks like a professional thug. Why are you fishing him out of a wet gutter?’’

‘‘He fell in after he bounced off the front door.’’

‘‘One of those.’’ With no excitement.

Some days it rains those guys around our place.

‘‘One of those. With the added spice of being difficult for His Nibs to read.’’

Dean must have sucked down some smart brew at that wake. He landed on it with both feet just as I got there myself. ‘‘Which would make him the running dog of someone on the Hill.’’

‘‘Look at you, getting all tooled up and working things out.’’

‘‘Nobody appreciates a smart-ass.’’ He held the door while I guided the failed door mauler inside. Wondering if Director Relway’s serfs had noted the occasion.

The thug was still dripping when we seated him in the Dead Man’s room. I left him in his street apparel. He had begun to melt.

Tomorrow I need you to find Mr. Tharpe. I should not have let him get away today.

‘‘Easier said than done.’’

Dean headed to the kitchen for a mop.

You are a professional of substance. Finding people is what you do.

Sarcastic old lump.

Your ambition deficit begins to concern me, Garrett.

He should talk.

Dean yelped in outrage. I heard him all the way from the kitchen. ‘‘What’s his problem?’’

Did you and Singe clean up after yourselves?

Not me. I was busy answering doors and wrangling teenagers.

‘‘What did she do?’’ Any problem couldn’t be my fault.

Do you suppose you can focus on something more significant?

‘‘You’re not that attractive. Neither is Bruno, here.’’ But he has a beautiful mind. Once you penetrate the ugly surface.

I thought he was bantering, playing the snaps. But he was serious.

Indeed. This Barate Algarda is a mixture of contrasts.

‘‘He’s big. He’s ugly. Instead of one or the other.’’ If it barks like a dog and bites like a dog, I’m gonna say ‘‘Woof!’’ when I talk to it. Even if it plays the violin while it rips my leg off.

He is nearer being two people in one body than any I have yet seen.

That would be significant. We’re all two-faced, or more, and Chuckles has peeked behind a lot of masks. Still, he was amusing himself by trying to make me whine for details. ‘‘How about passing along a little substance?’’

His already overstuffed ego puffed up like a bullfrog fixing to sing.Barate Algarda is a fixer, in your vernacular. By dint of circumstance rather than choice. Circumstance sometimes compels us to choose options we would otherwisedisdain.

There had to be some subtle shot in that.

He is employed by the Windwalker, Furious Tide of Light.

‘‘That’s a new one.’’

To maintain the cosmic balance, I would suspect she has not heard of you, either. Or, sadder still, even of me. Yet.

All that is likely to change.

Again, no clear tone, but I got the impression he was uncomfortable.

The Windwalker is newly elevated. And young for one of her kind. Nor is she the sort usually found on the Hill. Barate Algarda is more than her operative. He is also her father.

‘‘Whoa! Hang on a minute, Chuckles.’’

You understood right, first time. This is an unusual family. Yet this is not an evil man. Nor stupid. He loves his children. He will do anything necessary to protect them.

‘‘Does that include busting my door down in a snowstorm in the middle of the night? To protect them from somebody who never heard of them?’’

Including that, and then doing you bodily harm with considerableenthusiasm once the door is out of the way. It is confusing. Several whys are missing or inaccessible.

‘‘You said children. Since I’ve never hear of Furious Tide of Light, it would have to be someone else. Have I come into contact with another Algarda?’’ I’ve stopped being surprised that people I never heard of want to pound on me.

There is a name that seems to be Kevans. It is hard to reach.

‘‘You’ll find a way to get to it, though. Right?’’

He has protection. It does not appear to have been put into place against me. So yes. I will get to it.

No tone? That was smug. With a reek.

He does have a high opinion of himself.

The sour truth, though, is that it’s justified.

Like they say, it ain’t bragging if you can do it.

You begin to acquire wisdom. At long last.

I kept my opinion behind my lips. Though there wasn’t much point. ‘‘Tell me more about this Bruno who’s two guys in one corpse.’’

He intended to make you discover in your charitable heart a need to leave his daughter alone. If it wasn’t for him being dead he’d fall down howling at his own stand-up routine.

‘‘Do I even want to know what that’s all about?’’ Of course I did. If I wanted to make even a little sense of this late night raid.

The Windwalker is out to protect her son. Who is really a daughter that she has always pretended is a son.

‘‘And you figured this out how?’’ It made less sense the more he explained. And, to speak true, he sounded puzzled himself.

The Windwalker failed to deceive her father.

‘‘Uh . . .’’ You run into weird stuff all the time. In my racket, weird becomes the routine.

Nothing gets weirder than just plain human beings.

Strange, yes. Exceedingly, to a neutral observer looking in from outside.

Barate Algarda knows that his daughter has a daughter herself instead of the son she has always pretended the child to be. Details are difficult to ferret out. The man’s protection is firstrate. It is reactive. The more vigorously I probe, the harder the surface around his thoughts becomes. In sum, though, it is my estimate that the Windwalker’s child is one of the Faction and your work at the World has put those children at risk, from the public, from the Guard, and, most especially, from the kind of Hill predators who would love to have command of giant bugs. Or of the sorcery necessary to create them.

After recovering from being struck numb and dumb, I said, ‘‘I’ve faced vampires and zombies. Man-eating unicorns. Insane gods. And crazier priests. Plus platoons of professional killers and career loonies. Hell, I’ve survived Tinnie Tate and Belinda Contague almost forever. So I don’t get what’s going on here. It seems like there ought to be more to it. Something really weird.’’

Families are all weird, from outside. But one common feature, often found in even the most dysfunctional versions, is an overpowering need to protect offspring. In this case, perhaps, there has been an overreaction. There are layers of reasoning and motivation that I am not yet able to reach.

His response to that seemed surprised and frustrated. Most thinking creatures are open books. Those with secrets keep them by staying away.

I considered Barate Algarda. He sat there like a big, numb zombie wannabe.

A loving father. And a thug. A bonebreaker for his child. Out to protect a grandchild strange enough to be one of Kip Prose’s crew. ‘‘There is something missing, Old Bones. I have a feeling our easy job is about to get a whole lot darker.’’ Until Algarda I had seen a light edge to everything. Giant bugs were sort of . . .

Those insects ate people, Garrett. There is nothing light about that. And I share with you the sense that there is a darkness gathering. But I cannot identify it. And if it exists in the mind of this man, it is hidden or disguised beyond my capacity to capture.

That had to hurt. Admitting failure was something he did not do.

In retrospective the both of us would feel like fools. We had everything we needed to define the darkness and failed to see it. Because even a trained detective will fail to see what he deems impossible. The Dead Man was blind, too.

There was sorcery and a sorcerer in the thing. Therefore, we decided, it must all revolve around the sorcery.

But we kept after it. I got blisters banging my head against the wall.

‘‘All right. How about we start over? What did Algarda want here?’’

We have determined that. He wanted to make you stop interfering with the Faction. By whatever means necessary. Because that is what the Windwalker wants.

‘‘Why?’’ That was nuts. ‘‘That doesn’t make sense.’’ But in my life nuts turns up all the time.

I cannot extract that and relate it to you in any way that you will understand. This man lives in a universe defined by laws created within his own mind and those close off every avenue I find to get past his protection.

‘‘He’s mad?’’

No. But he lives in his own reality, by his own code. We all do, but this one even more so than you.

He was recovering. He had the needle out.

‘‘I get it. It’s sad. Instead of dealing with the child’s behavior he wants to silence the child’s critics. The child being incapable of doing wrong.’’

I do not think so. Not this time.

That kind of thinking is common on the Hill. And elsewhere, with other powerful families. Algarda’s grandkid could be killing and eating ordinary folks, but the old folks would make excuses, cover up, and commit crimes to make her problems go away.

‘‘I’ve got some more general questions. Like, what’s a Windwalker? I know what a Windsinger is. Kind of a Stormwarden. I saw one call up a baby tornado one time. But I’ve never heard of a Windwalker.’’

A Windwalker uses the wind to carry himself—or herself—through the air. Swiftly. To the point where she would employ her other talents.

‘‘They are real people? Not demons? Not godlings? Not sky elves?’’

Nor even talking parrots.

‘‘And the girl pretending to be a boy business?’’

Based on my long acquaintance with your tribe, this would be a form of hiding from herself. Just for spice, BarateAlgarda believes that at least one of the girls running with the Faction is a boy who wishes he had been born a girl. And dresses accordingly.

‘‘And why not?’’

Be not judgmental.

‘‘What? You’re all right with all that?’’

I am not involved. It is not my place to judge. Nor are you involved, except insofar as the concerned individuals may be involved in what you are supposed to untangle. And we do know that they are inasmuch as they are the creators of the oversize insects.

Not judging. A stand we’d all do well to embrace—where adults are involved. There is nobody more obnoxious than the guy who tells you how to live your life. At sword’s point if you persist in your inappropriate behavior.

There is no need for you to stay awake and torture yourselffor answers, Old Bones sent.I will entertain Mr. Algarda.And he will entertain me. He cannot keep everything from me indefinitely. And, being a lifelong resident of the Hill, he knows where some of the bodies are buried.

‘‘You’re sure?’’ I didn’t want to hit the sheets just yet. There was a fresh keg in the kitchen and I had an arm that needed some exercise.