Angry Lead Skies

26

Playmate said, "I told you you'd like Cassie."

"Hell, I love her. But I'm not so hot for the thing that's inside of her, wearing her like a suit."

Rhafi started laughing. I mean, he got one of those cases of the giggles where you just can't shut it off, no matter how hard you try.

"I didn't think it was that funny," I said.

Playmate agreed. "It wasn't funny at all."

Rhafi gasped, "But you don't know Cassie. You don't have to live with her. You don't have to suffer through it when she tries on different personalities like some rich bitch trying on different clothes." He hacked and gasped all the way through that. "I know it isn't that funny. But it was just so perfect for the bitch that she's trying to be this week."

"She's always been an actress," Playmate said, demonstratively not using the word in its pejorative form, which means whore. "That's her way of coping."

"Ever get the idea that the dysfunctional folks outnumber those who aren't? Every damned day I'm more of the opinion that everybody's knot is tied too loose or too tight. And some just cover it up better than others. It's only a matter of time. Except for me and thee, of course."

"And sometimes we wonder about thee, Garrett. I'm sorry you feel that way. You might consider surrounding yourself with different people. Excluding myself, naturally. Or you might find a different line of work. One less likely to turn you cynical."

"Me? Cynical? That's impossible. I am one with the universe. I have the perfect life. Except for the fact that I do have to work once in a while."

"You should've picked a mother who lived on the Hill."

"That was a little shortsighted of me, wasn't it?"

Rhafi, in a moment when the giggles were under control, observed, "You guys must be getting older than you look." Outside of the Prose flat, out of the shadow of his intimidating sister, he developed some substance.

"Yeah? How come do you say that?" That was a bitter draught, even from a kid as strange as he.

"You both think too much."

The little philosopher. "Damn!" I said. "There's an accusation that hasn't been flung in my face for a long time."

"Possibly never," Playmate opined. "I recall the opposite fault getting mentioned with some frequency, however... Hello. What do we have here?"

Clumps of people occupied the street ahead, staring down a cross lane and pointing at the sky.

"I have an uncomfortable feeling. Rhafi, how far to Bic Gonlit's place?"

"Next block. I bet they're looking at one of those... Oh, yeah!"

The crowd all made awed noises. Everyone pointed, reminding me of crowd scenes in paintings of the imperial circus, the people saluting as the emperor arrived.

A silvery discus, that I guessed to be pretty high up in the air, had appeared from behind a tile rooftop. It drifted our way for a few seconds, then moved back out of sight again. Some of the watchers complained bitterly because it hadn't come closer. I supposed similar groups of gawkers could be found all over town.

I overheard several people claiming to have had contact with creatures who lived inside the silver disk. One insisted that he had been a captive of creatures who lived inside the balls of light I had seen last night. That turned into a contest: who could concoct the tallest tale about the outrages done them by the silver elves.

The human imagination is very fertile. And exceedingly grotesque.

"Did I say something about them outnumbering us?" I asked. "Play, you heard of those silver things coming out in the daytime before?" Sightings had been going on for at least a month but I hadn't paid much attention. There's always something weird going on in TunFaire. Like most of His Majesty's subjects, if the something weird ain't happening to me I don't worry about it.

"Oh, sure. Just as often as at night. As I recollect, all of the earliest sightings, over a year ago now, came during the daytime."

"I do remember. It was one of those one-day wonders. Nothing happened so I forgot about it. These people are getting a little thick here," I grumbled. I eased into Playmate's wake. He had little trouble pushing through the crowd. Many of them probably recognized him. He was always out here doing the charitable side of the ministry thing.

Always something weird happening. These flying things. The silver elves. People catching on fire and burning up, up on the north side. The other day news that another juvenile male mammoth had wandered in through an un-watched gate and was creating havoc, also on the north side. If one of Block's people was supposed to have been on duty there he'd better be prepared to eat the mammoth. Dereliction of duty was close to a capital crime in the eyes of Colonel Westman Block and Deal Relway.

It might behoove me to keep better track since so much of the weird stuff pulls me in eventually.

"Is something the matter, Mr. Garrett?" Rhafi asked from behind me. "You jumped."

I'd thought about voluntarily creating work for myself, that was what was the matter. No need to share that with the kid, though. "Aren't we there yet?"

"The yellow brick dump."

And dump it was. The tenement in question, easily more than a hundred years old, was a hideous four-story memorial to the disdain lavished on housing for the poor during the last century. When they actually still built tenements with the idea that poor people needed housing. I knew the inside perfectly before we ever passed through the doorless entry, stepping over and around squatters, trying not to inhale too deeply. The nearest public baths would be miles away.

Cooking smells, heavy on rancid grease, did help suppress the body odors somewhat.

Every room in the structure would be overcrowded. Entire extended families would occupy a space at most ten feet by eight, some members possibly sleeping standing up, leaning on a rope. Certainly sleeping in shifts, the majority always on the street trying to score an honest or dishonest copper. When you're that poor that distinction is too fine to notice.

It's the way of much of the world. And once you've looked into a place like that tenement you tend to appreciate your own better fortune a good deal more.

That tenement made Kayne Prose's situation appear considerably less awful.

I asked Rhafi, "You know where he stayed here?"

The boy shrugged. "Upstairs. I think he said the top floor."

"Oh, my aching knees."

"Not exactly the digs you'd expect of the Bic Gonlit who enjoys gourmet dining and fine wines," Playmate observed.

"Definitely not. You think Bic maybe used this place as a safe house?" I stepped over and past several big-eyed ragamuffins, the eldest possibly four, all huddling on the bottom steps of the stairs.

I knew the answer to my question. The Bic Gonlit who had come to see me in search of magical boots knew nothing about the other Bic. The Dead Man would have winkled that out right away.

The opposite, of course, could not be true.

Possibly the real Bic had a relationship of some sort with the artificial Bic and didn't know it. Puffing, I asked Playmate, "Bic have any brothers or cousins?"

"Only child of an only child, far as I know. Top floor. How come you're having so much trouble breathing? Which room, Rhafi?"

Rhafi didn't know. Rhafi wasn't bright but Rhafi was cunning enough not to let himself be lured into something by someone weird. Unless that someone happened to be flashing coin.

There were eight doorways on that fourth floor. The one farthest back on the right had an actual door in its frame. Several others had rag curtains hung up. A couple had nothing. And the doorway on the right, next forward from the one with a real door, had been boarded up. So well that no entrepreneur had been able to pry the boards off and return them to the local economy.

I said, "Has to be the one with the door, Play."

Curious faces poked out of neighboring doorways, most of them low to the floor and dirty. Only a couple of older people had the nerve to be nosy.

In TunFaire nosiness can be a deadly disease.

Playmate said, "Look at that. A key lock." He knocked. There was no response. "Looks like the one you have over at your place."

"That's because it was made by the same crooked locksmith." After having suffered Dean to spend a young fortune to buy and install a lock I'd learned that the machine could be picked easily. I knew how myself, having had to develop the skill because, once he got the lock installed, Dean used it. Without regard to my location in relation to my front door, or whether I'd remembered to take my key when I went out.

I knocked, too. There was no response to my magic knuckles, either.

I felt the door. Like maybe that would clue me in to what was going on behind it. It wasn't hot or cold or wet so the weather was fine. The door did rattle in its frame, which was no surprise in that dump. It was a replacement door, likely to vanish as soon as some entrepreneur could get on the other side and reach its hinges.

I tried the knob.

It turned. "What the hell?"

The door wasn't locked. It wasn't barred or chained on the inside. It creaked inward at the slightest shove.

With our backs to the wall either side of the doorway, Playmate and I exchanged looks of surprise. There were whispers down the hall, tenants kicking themselves for not having noticed and seized the day.

If you want to live alone in a place this low you'd better have a pet thunder lizard or be able to leave some really nasty booby traps behind when you go out.

Nothing with lots of teeth and bad breath came to see who was calling.

I produced my oaken headknocker. I used it to push the door open a little wider.

The room behind it appeared clean and neat, almost sterile. Its plaster was in perfect repair and had been painted gray. The wooden floor had been sanded and polished. Overall, the place appeared to be in better shape than it had been the day it first accepted a tenant.

There were rugs on the floor. The furniture included a small table and two wooden chairs. One of those sat in front of a fine cherrywood writing desk cluttered with paper and both quill and metal-tipped pens. There was an overstuffed chair that faced the one small window. That window had real, clear glass in it. A little table beside the chair supported a top-quality brass-and-glass oil lamp.

I whispered, "Looks like our man does a lot of reading." There were shelves beside the cherrywood desk. Those held at least thirty books, a veritable fortune. The bindings on the bound volumes suggested old and expensive and rare, which almost certainly meant stolen.

Playmate grunted. "This fellow isn't poor."

"Makes you wonder, don't it?"

"Be careful going in there."

"What's this, army telling Marines how to play the game? Here's an idea. Why don't I just toss Rhafi in? We can wander on in after the smoke clears away." I was beginning to suspect sorcery. I couldn't think of any other reason for anybody to have so many books.

"Do that and you'll ruin your chances forever with Kayne and Cassie both."

"Right now I'm not sure that'd bother me a whole lot, Play. I must be getting old. I'm taking Morley seriously. I'm losing my taste for women who're crazier than me." I dropped down, reached inside with my stick, felt around. Slowly and carefully. The setters of traps like to put their triplines down where you're less likely to notice them. I didn't find the threads I expected. Which is what I'd have used if I was rigging a setup like this. "I can't find anything here, Play. But it still don't smell right."

This time army didn't have any advice. This time army awaited Marine Corps' professional assessment.

The Marine chose to use his magic wand some more. There was a very small throw rug lying right inside the doorway. I started to push it away, to see what was underneath it.

I heard the sound of water falling into a vat of boiling grease. Then came a blinding flash of light accompanied by a baby thunderclap. I flung myself sideways, dragged me upward until I was sitting with my back against the wall.

When my vision cleared and my hearing returned I saw Rhafi swatting at a smoking patch of wall across the narrow hallway. A couple of tenants were yelling for water. The precursors of a human stampede were taking shape.

I smelled the stench of burnt hair.

Playmate told me, "My man, you're going to have to wear a hat for a while."

I felt the top of my head. I spoke a few syllables that my mom wouldn't have approved even on this occasion. "I'll just have Dean give me a haircut. I'm sure he thinks I'm overdue, anyway." I got back down on my belly and poked that little rug again.

Crackle. Flash. Clap. But all much less energetic than before.

I slithered into Bic's place, disturbing that little rug as I went. The booby trap barely popped. And that was the end of that.