Angry Lead Skies

57

One of the good things to happen in my life has been the unshakable friendship I've formed with Max Weider, the brewery magnate. I've done several jobs for Max. They didn't all work out the way we hoped but we did become friends of the sort who trust one another absolutely.

Where money and women are not concerned.

Max has a very lovely daughter named Alyx. Alyx is a bit of an adventuress, in her own mind. Alyx could complicate things without even trying.

A new man answered the door at the Weider mansion. Max doesn't go out much anymore. Like the old majordomo, this character's pointy nose spent most of its time higher in the air than did that of any member of the Weider family. That nose wrinkled when he saw me. I told him, "Go tell Gilbey that Garrett is here. It's business."

I cooled my heels outside until I began to suspect that the majordomo hadn't bothered to deliver my message. Manvil Gilbey, Max Weider's lifelong sidekick, wasn't as keen on me as everyone would be in a perfect world, but he was certain to let new help know... How do you get a job like that? If you're the employer, how do you find somebody to do it?

The door opened. This time Manvil Gilbey himself stood on the other side. Behind him lurked a disappointed doorman. "I'm sorry, Garrett. Rogers only started yesterday. In all the confusion I forgot to let him know that you're one of the people we always want to see. Is there something going on at the brewery?"

"Could be. But this don't have anything to do with it." I told the doorman, "Thanks for nothing, Bubba. Hey, Gilbey, how do you go about finding and hiring a guy who can be snooty about opening doors?"

"Max is in the study. Napping when last I checked. Let's go up. Maybe if you needle him a little he'll show some interest in life. Are you involved in anything? I believe it would be useful if we had you work your magic at a few of the smaller breweries we've acquired the past couple of years. Two or three of them keep showing some screwed-up numbers."

"You kept the original workforces, right?"

"Top to bottom." Max always did, till individuals proved themselves not worth keeping. Weider wasn't sentimental about deadwood or crooks. "We only put in a handful of our takeover guys. To study their processes. We try not to change the final product. Unless it's really awful. But we do look for ways to increase profitability. You'd be amazed how many inefficiencies persist in this industry simply because things have always been done a certain way."

From the day they launched their first brewing operation Weider and Gilbey had produced a quality product the most efficient way possible. Today they control seventy percent of the human-directed brewing in the city. And they have shares in many of the nonhuman breweries. Even ogres understand enhanced profit margins and good beer.

Gilbey pushed through the second floor door to Max's study, held it for me. I passed through into the heat.

Max always has a bonfire going in the fireplace there, these days.

I missed a step. Max had aged a decade in the weeks since last I'd seen him. He used to be a little round-faced, red-cheeked, bald on top, smiling, twinkling-eye sort of guy. Not now. He looked terrible. He had suffered a severe decline in a very short time. Which wasn't that huge a surprise. Life had been exceedingly cruel to Max of late. He'd had two children murdered and his wife pass away, all on one horrible day.

Max wasn't napping after all. "Garrett. I see that you're not here to brighten my day. And that your wardrobe has begun to decline already."

"I guess I'm just a natural-born slob."

"Do we have trouble on the floor again?"

"Not that I'm aware of. Manvil did ask me to check out a couple of the new satellite breweries. And I'll get to that right away. Before the end of the week. But what I came for this time is to beg the borrow of some business expertise."

Weider steepled his spidery, blue-veined fingers in front of his nose. The rheum went out of his eyes. His now nearly gaunt face showed a bit of light. I'd managed to pique his interest.

Gilbey, who had moved to a post beside his employer's chair, shot me a look that told me to get on with it while there was a chance of getting Max interested and engaged.

I could do this. I know how to keep a corpse awake and interested. Sometimes.

Manvil Gilbey isn't just Max Weider's number one lieutenant, he's his oldest and closest friend. They go back to their war years together. Which makes for a hell of a bond.

"What it is," I said, "is that I've stumbled across this kid who invents things. All kinds of things. Some are completely weird. Some are completely useless. And some are really neat. What I want is for somebody with a lot more commercial sense than I've got to eyeball the inventions and tell me if I'm fooling myself when I think somebody could get rich making some of them."

"Ah," Max said. "Another business opportunity. First time this week we've been offered the chance to get in on the ground floor, isn't it, Manvil?"

I pretended to miss his sarcasm. "I'm not looking for anybody to go in on it with me. I have that part worked out. If I could just have Manvil give me his honest opinion of the stuff in the kid's workshop, and if it matches mine, I'll see if the Tates want to manufacture them. Now that the war's over there isn't much demand for the army boots and leather whatnots they've been making for the last sixty years."

Max asked, "What's your take, Manvil?" He was well aware of my precarious relationship with one of the Tate girls. And he thought I was a raving romantic instead of a tough, lone, honest man battling to scourge evil from the mean streets, which is what I know that I really am. As long as I don't have to get up before noon to work the flails.

"I think friend Garrett might be even less devious than we've always thought. You weren't going to cut us in, Garrett?"

"Huh? Why should I? You guys already got more money than God and more work than—"

Max stilled me with a wave. "See what he's got, Manvil. Garrett, Willard Tate is a good choice. He's an excellent manager. And he does have that gorgeous redheaded niece besides." He knows about Tinnie because Tinnie and his daughter Alyx are friends. "I like your thinking there." Maybe because a Garrett involved with a Tinnie Tate again meant a Garrett not involved with any Weider daughters.

We may be friends but he's also a father.

Max leaned his head back and closed his eyes. End of consultation. For now.

Manvil actually smiled. I'd managed to get his buddy interested in something, at least for a little while.