Cold Copper Tears

31

I took a bath, changed again, ate, then for lack of any brilliant plan, walked up to the Tate family compound and had a big row with Tinnie. Then we made up.

Making up was so much fun we decided to do it twice.

It was getting dark by the time we finished making up for the third time and I started having trouble keeping my mind off business, so we had another little row to give us an excuse to make up again later. Then I headed out.

On the way I bumped into Tinnie's uncle Willard and he kind of obliquely wondered when Tinnie and I would be setting the date. He had the same problem Dean had.

It was going to start with him, too?

How come there are so many people trying to get other people hitched? Maybe if they backed off and didn't keep reminding a guy, he might drift into it before he sensed his danger.

Why was I so sour?

Because it had been such a nice afternoon. Because while I was playing, the bad guys were hard at work. Because a troubled kid that I liked was in it up to her ears and I hadn't lifted a finger to do anything about it.

"Oh, boy. Here we go again." I knew the signs. Out comes the squeaky old armor and the rusty old sword. Garrett was going to get all noble.

At least this time somebody would pay me for my trouble—though I wouldn't exactly be doing what they were paying me to do.

But I never quite do what they want done. I do what I think needs doing. That is why not all of my former clients give me favorable references.

Not having any better idea what to do, I headed for the Old Shipway theater district. Who knew? I might stumble onto something blonde.

My convoy went with me. The faces changed periodically but there were never fewer than four men hovering around. It's nice to know you're loved.

I wondered why the Master's gang hadn't tried to pick me up again. Those I'd seen already had been too unskilled to notice I was traveling with protection.

I talked to everybody I knew in theater. They knew gorgeous blondes by the cartload, but none they could connect with any of the names I could tie to Jill. Since there was nothing about her that wasn't shared by a platoon of others, my sources couldn't help much. They were reduced to showing me the crop of blondes (some of them very) available, all of them squeezably lovely, and none of them Jill Craight.

Some of those lovelies were pleased to speculate on other lovelies not present, usually in less than flattering language, but that didn't help. Some just purred and begged to be petted.

It's a hard life.

Had I been in another mood it might have been a marvelous little treasure hunt. I made a mental note to cook a similar story someday and come wander through wonderland again, taking time to smell the flowers.

Where did they all come from? Where were they on my better days?

Sometime toward the end what was old news to everybody else caught up with me when I overheard a conversation among City Watch officers and their wives.

What the Watch is most famous for is its invisibility. TunFaire has one thousand men employed in the interest of public safety, but over the past century the Watch has become a place to hide freeloading nephews and other embarrassing relatives without recourse to the familial purse. These days ninety percent of those guys do their damnedest to stay out of harm's way and not interfere with the disorderly progress of life. When they do try something, it's invariably the wrong thing and they screw it up anyway.

The officers get to wear pretty uniforms and they like to show them off. The theater is a good place.

This bunch was grumbling about a crime so monstrous that popular outrage might get their butts kicked until they had to go out into the streets and do something. The consensus among the wives was that the Army ought to evict all the lower classes and nonhumans.

I wondered who they thought would cook for them and garden and do their laundry and make their cute little shoes and lovely gowns.

"What the hell was that all about?" I asked the guy who was squiring me from blonde to blonde at the Stratos.

"You haven't heard?"

"Not yet."

"Biggest mass murder in years, Garrett. A real massacre. It's all over town. You had your head under a rock?"

"A sheet. Cut the editorializing. What happened?"

"In broad daylight this afternoon a bunch of gangsters busted into a Wharf Street flophouse down in the South End and killed everybody. Smallest number I've heard is twenty-two dead and half a dozen dragged away as prisoners. They're saying Chodo Contague did it. Looks like we're in for a gang war."

I muttered, "When Chodo gets mad you don't have any trouble understanding his message." I wondered what Crask and Sadler were getting out of their prisoners. I'd hate to think they were ahead of me because they were less restrained in their methods.

What could I do? The one angle I had was Jill Craight. And that was turning up a big dead end.

Hell. Might as well go home, get in eight hours, and make an early start in the morning.