Bitter Gold Hearts

______ VI ______

Strange noises were coming from the Dead Man's room. I went into the kitchen, where old Dean was cooking sausages over charcoal with one eye on an apple pie that was about ready to come out of the oven. When he saw me, he began hoisting a pony keg out of the cold well I'd had installed with the proceeds of the Starke case. By damn, I was going to have cold brew whenever the whim hit while I could afford it.

Dean asked, "A good day today, Mr. Garrett?" as he drew me a mug.

"Interesting." I tipped my head back and swallowed a pint. "And profitable. What's he up to in there? I've never heard him make such a racket."

"I don't know, Mr. Garrett. He wouldn't let me in to clean."

"We'll see about that after I wrap myself around another one of these." I eyed the sausages and pie. If he expected me to eat that much, he was more optimistic than I thought. "Did you invite a niece over again?"

He reddened.

I just shook my head and said, "I have to go out this evening. Part of the job."

There was a little troll blood on all sides of his family. I don't have any particular prejudices—who was going out with a part-fairy girl?—but those poor women had gotten a double dose of the troll ugly from their parents. Like they say, personality plus, but horses shied and dogs howled when they passed. I wished old Dean would stop matchmaking. I had given up hope that he would run out of eligible female relatives to parade past me.

Three sausages, two pieces of the world's best apple pie, and several beers later I was ready to beard the Loghyr in his den. So to speak. "Food fit for the gods as usual, Dean. I'm going in after him. If I'm not out by the weekend, send Saucerhead Tharpe to the rescue. His skull is so thick he'd never know Old Bones was thinking at him." I thought about recommending Saucerhead to Dean's eligibles. But no, I couldn't. I liked Saucerhead.

The Dead Man sensed me coming. Get away from here, Garrett.

I went on in. It was war in the Cantard again, and this time the god of the wall had all the hordes of bugdom enlisted in his enterprise. It was the combined racket of their creepy little feet and wings that I had been hearing.

"Caught him yet?"

He ignored me.

"That Glory Mooncalled is a tricky bastard, isn't he?" I wondered if he meant to clean up the entire bug population of TunFaire. For a service like that, we should find some way to get paid.

He ignored me. His bugs got busier. I sat in the only chair available to me and watched the campaign for a while. He was experimenting, not re-creating. It was no campaign I recognized.

Maybe he was even making war upon himself. The Loghyr can section up their brains into two or three discrete parts when they want.

"Had an interesting day today."

He didn't respond. He was going to punish my impertinence by pretending I didn't exist. But he was listening. The only adventures he truly had were the ones I lived for him.

I gave him all the details, chronicling even the most trivial. Somewhere down the line I might have to call on his genius.

I finished and watched him play general for a while. I got the feeling there was a hidden pattern that I was too dense to see.

It was nearing time to meet Amiranda. I pried myself from the chair and headed for the door. "See you when I see you, Old Bones."

Garrett. If you get lucky, don't you bring her back here. I will not endure such foolishness in my house. I seldom did, though occasionally circumstances insisted. It seemed too much like mocking his handicap. In life the Loghyr are as randy as a pack of seventeen- year-old boys. It was my suspicion that his misogyny was his way of compensating.

I was almost out the door when he sent, Garrett. Be careful.

I am careful. Always. When I'm paying attention and when I figure I have something to worry about. But how do you get into trouble just walking up the block to buy a bottle of stink-pretty from the neighborhood chemist?

Believe me, it can be done.

It was my lucky day in more ways than one, I smelled weed smoke and that got me curious. Not many in the neighborhood use weed, and this was less of a cloud than a minor storm. I started looking for the source.

Source was five breeds, all with a lot of ogre in them. Ogres are not fast at the best of times and these boys had spent their take getting so high their pointy heads were bumping the belly of the sky. Their professional sins were legion. They hadn't done their homework, either.

One asked me, "Your name Garrett?"

"Who wants to know?"

"I do."

"It's him. Let's do it."

I did it first. I kicked the nearest in his daydreams, spun and punched another in the throat—then tripped over my own damned big feet. The first guy bent over and started puking. The second lost interest and wobbled away holding his throat and sucking air.

I rolled and leg-whipped another one, catching him by such surprise that he fell on his back without trying to break his fall. His head bounced off the street. Lights out. It was a good start. I began thinking I might make it without getting hurt.

The other two stood around trying to get their muggy brains untangled. I got in the finishing licks on the two I had hit already. A crowd began gathering. The last two decided to get on with the job. They closed in. They were more careful. I was faster but they took advantage of superior numbers to keep me boxed. We waltzed for a while. I got in a few hits but it's hard to hurt guys like that when you can't get in a sucker punch. They got a few in on me, too.

The third such blow murdered my optimism. It left me seeing double and concentrating my considerable intellect on the age-old question: which way is up? One of them started saying something about me staying away from the Stormwarden's family while the other wound up to finish me off. I grabbed a big gnarly walking stick from an old bystander and smacked the one between the eyes before he could unwind. I went after the talker while the fighter was seeing stars and his hitting arm was flaccid. Yakety-yak did a good job holding me off, stick and all, until I got in a whack that broke his arm.

He was ready to call it quits. So was I. The bystanders were scattering. I returned the old guy's stick and scattered myself. What passed for minions of law and order in TunFaire were coming. I didn't want to get hauled in and charged with intent to commit self-defense, which is about the way the law worked when it worked at all. I left the ogre boys trying to figure out what had happened.

My lucky day indeed.

The Dead Man was all enthusiasm when I told him about the incident. He gave me a good mental grumble about wishing the ogres had been a little more competent. But when I was about to leave, to get washed up and changed, he sent, I told you to be careful.

"I know. And I'm going to keep that a little more closely in mind. Watch the cockroaches. They're about to flank the silverfish at Yellow Dog Mesa."

He detached a part of his attention from his war and used it to levitate and throw a small stone Loghyr cult figure. It smacked the other side of the door as I shut it.

I decided to ease up. When he gets that irritable, he's hot on the spoor of a solution to a problem that has been bugging him for a long time.