Angry Lead Skies

34

The Palms by daylight is a different world. As a soft light will flatter some women, so night and candlelight do wonders for Morley's nightclub. By day the cheap wall coverings and decorations that had upgraded the place from its former status as The Joy House revealed their shabbiness.

The Joy House hadn't been what it sounds like. It used to be the same thing it was now, just patronized by a different clientele. Lowlifes. Grifters and pickpockets and low-level professional criminals. Ticks on the underbelly of society. The Palms, on the other hand, caters to parasites able to afford new clothes. But the upscale appurtenances have begun to show wear.

I sat at that same back corner table sucking down herbal tea and trying to figure out if my head hurt because of the ratmen's drug, the brandy I'd consumed, or because various blunt instruments had thumped my skull in passing. It was a valuable exercise, in theory. If I could figure it out I could shun the causes in future. All I'd have to do is give up drinking or get a real job.

Morley bent down to look me in the eye. He couldn't restrain a smirk.

I grumped, "This place is starting to look tacky, buddy. Maybe you ought to start setting yourself up for another format change. Try selling granite wine to dwarves and trolls for a while, maybe."

"Those kinds of people are much too hard on the furniture. The overhead would be too high. You started to remember anything about what happened?"

He knew blows to the head sometimes work that way. Chunks of memory from right before the trauma disappear.

"Some. I was headed for Grubb Gruber's place. Katie's dad had just told me to get lost. I hadn't seen the guys down there since before that business with The Call. It seemed like a good time to drop in."

Morley offered me a thinly veiled look of despair. He asked, "Why would you want to hang around with that tribe of has-beens?"

Because what they has been is what I has been, I didn't say. Morley would never understand. Guys down at Gruber's know what everybody else went through. Not many others do. And less than anyone those who stayed home to comfort the lonely soldiers' wives. Some of us don't need to go in there as often as others. "Because I learn more from them about what's going on around town than I can anywhere else. None of those guys feels like he's got anything to hide or anything to hold back."

"Ouch! How the bee doth sting."

I asked, "Did you perchance send word out about what happened? I was supposed to meet some people this morning."

"I informed your partner. At his request I passed the word along to Playmate, too." Morley grinned. "He had a huge row with Winger. About whether or not she ought to get paid. Until he decided he had to relay the news to someone else."

Morley seemed more curious than I found comfortable. Naturally suspicious, I examined that from a couple of angles while also wondering if it wasn't natural to want to know what was going on when you were involved. Hell, I wanted to know what was going on myself.

Some of Morley's guys were sweeping, mopping, otherwise halfheartedly getting ready for the coming evening's business. Of a sudden, with no perceptible change in attitude or speed, they all headed for the kitchen. In moments the place was empty except for myself and the owner. And the owner no longer looked happy.

I muttered, "Maybe I should head for the kitchen, too." Because I had a feeling I wasn't going to like what was about to happen.

Imminence became actuality.

The approaching coach, the rattle of which had cued the troops to vanish, wasn't approaching anymore. It had arrived.

Morley said, "I do wish she'd take a little less of a personal interest in her business. It's your fault, you know. Nobody ever sees her till your name comes up."

Two thugs pushed into The Palms. Once they stepped out of the bright sunlight they looked like miniature trolls, ugly and hard as jasper. I don't know where they find them. Maybe there's a mine where they dig them up. One held the door for Belinda Contague.

Despite being who and what she is, Belinda persists in dressing herself as the Slut of Doom, the Vampire Whore in Black. She wore black today but with the light behind her not much of her shape remained a mystery.

That ended when the door closed. Her dress was black and unusual but not particularly revealing without the backlighting.

She said something to her henchmen. Both nodded. One went back outside. The other assumed a relaxed stance watching Morley and me.

Belinda approached, perfectly aware of the impact she had because she worked hard at creating it. She was tall, with a shape well-favored by nature. She had a particularly attractive face, which, unfortunately, she insisted on covering with makeup as pale as paper. Her lips were painted bright red and slightly exaggerated by the color.

We have been lovers. We might be again if she really insists.

Very few things frighten me. Belinda Contague is one of them.

Belinda isn't sane. But she has her madness under control and uses it as a weapon. She is deadlier and scarier than her father ever was because she's so much more unpredictable.

She bent and kissed me on the cheek, lingering in case I cared to turn for something with a little more bite. I had to fight it.

Belinda has her positive attributes.

She sensed my temptation and was satisfied. She dropped into the seat beside me. The one Katie had occupied just last night. Luckily, Katie had gone home.

Sometimes it's a curse being a red-blooded Karentine boy. Especially when the red-blooded Karentine girls won't leave you alone.

I asked, "How'd you get here so fast?" I did know that Morley had sent her a message about the Reliance situation.

"I was in town already. There was a matter I had to see to personally. I'm making arrangements for my father's birthday. This one is the big six-zero. I want to give him a party. I'll want you guys to be there. I wouldn't be around if it wasn't for you."

Morley and I exchanged the looks of men suddenly and unexpectedly condemned.

Belinda said, "Tell me about your problem with Reliance."

I did so.

"Why's this Pular Singe so important to you?"

"She's my friend."

"Do you make her squeal?"

"She's just a friend, Belinda."

"I'm just a friend but you've made me squeal a few times."

"It isn't like that, Belinda. I've also helped you out a few times because you're a friend."

She showed me some teeth and a flash of tongue. She was pleased with herself. "I owe you for Crask and Sadler. So I'll send out word, the way you suggested. That'll set you up. And it'll close out my debt to him for his part in saving me from those two."

"You all over that now? You all right?" She'd been tortured and brutalized during the incident she'd mentioned.

"Back to my old self. Able to best a Marine two falls out of three. Know where I could find a Marine who wants to wrestle?"

"You're turning into a forward little sweetmeat."

Morley made a face but kept his groan to himself.

"Sometimes you've got to be direct. When all anyone does is worry about whether you're planning to cut their throat. I'm no black widow, Garrett."

So she said. I had no trouble picturing her with a scarlet hourglass on the front of that dress, accentuating her already-enticing shape. She had no reputation for that sort of thing but there was ample precedent in her own father's treatment of her mother.

"I don't think you are. What I wish you weren't is somebody who twists my head into knots every time I see you because that really gets in the way when I try to do business with you."

She leaned against me. "Poor baby."

Morley sat there in absolute silence, showing no inclination to draw attention to himself. He had no personal relationship with Belinda to help shield him from her unpredictable wrath. He preferred by far to do business at a grand remove.

Belinda told me, "Tell me a little more about this case you're working." So I did. I could see no way that it would hurt. And there was always a chance she'd get a wild hair and do something that would help.

"How does that tie in with your rat girlfriend?"

"It doesn't, far as I can see."

"I'll look around."

In TunFaire it's far harder to hide from the Outfit than it is to hide from me or Colonel Block. The Outfit commands far vaster resources.

"This have anything to do with all those flying lights everybody's been seeing?" she asked.

"It might," I conceded, grudgingly, not really having considered the possibility before. There was no evidence to suggest it.

Belinda popped up, in a bright good mood suddenly. Her mercurial mood swings are another thing that makes her a scary thing. She's much more changeable than most women.

She planted another kiss, this time at the corner of my mouth. "Give my best to Tinnie."

"We're on the outs. This week."

"Alyx, then."

"Nothing going on there, either."

"There's hope for me yet. I'll definitely want you to come to Daddy's party." Out the door she went, bouncing like she'd shed a decade of life and a century of conscience.

Morley exhaled like he'd been holding his breath the whole time. "You know what that means?"

"Belinda having a party for the kingpin?"

"Yes. He's not going to be sixty. Not yet. And I think his birthday really isn't for a couple of months yet, either."

"It means she's confident enough of her hold on the Outfit to roll Chodo out and let everybody see what his condition really is."

The purported overlord of organized crime in TunFaire is a stroke victim, alive still but a complete vegetable. Belinda has been hiding that fact and ruling in his name for some time now. Questions have arisen but the combination of Chodo's past propensity for bizarre behavior, a little truth, and Belinda's utterly ferocious, ruthless suppression of challengers have kept the kingpin position safely a Contague prerogative.

Morley said, "There're some old underbosses who'll revolt. They won't take orders from a woman, no matter who she is."

I sighed, too.

Chances were good Belinda knew that better than we did. Chances were good that Belinda was ready to retire those old boys, and might do it at this marvellous party.

I could figure that but they couldn't because they didn't know what I knew about Chodo.

"How many times have you saved her life?" Morley asked. "Several, right?"

"Uhm." He'd been there a few times.

"I think she's gotten superstitious about you. I think she's decided you're her guardian angel. That no matter how bad it gets, if she's in trouble good old Garrett will bail her out."

"That's not true."

"But she believes it. Which means you don't really have anything to fear from her."

"Except for her expectations."

A sly look flicked across Morley's features. "You think she bought your story about Singe?"

It took me a moment to get it. "You butthead."