Cold Copper Tears

32

As Dean let me in he whispered, "There's a young woman here who wants to talk to you about Maya." His wrinkled nose told me what he thought of the visitor. And gave me a good idea who she was.

"Tey Koto?"

"She didn't offer a name."

Tey had gotten into the beer while Dean was away. "You got it whipped, you know that, Garrett?" She tried to pour beer down like she'd been drinking for twenty years, got some down the wrong pipe. She coughed foam all over the kitchen. Dean wasn't pleased. I pounded her on the back.

And as though he'd been waiting for me to get home, someone started pounding on the front door.

"Damn it! Now what?" I stomped up the hall, took a peek. It wasn't anybody I knew. He did have the rangy, weathered, impoverished look I associated with the Master's gang. So Chodo hadn't gotten them all.

I gave a look around to make sure he wasn't part of a tribe, then eyeballed him to get an estimate of what he might do himself. He kept pounding away.

"Guess I'd better talk to you before Saucerhead eats you up." Having a flight of guardian angels occasionally gets in the way.

I yanked the door open, grabbed him by the jacket, jerked him inside, and slammed him against the wall. He was astonished. "What?" I demanded.

He gobbled air and stammered.

I slammed him against the wall a couple more times. "Talk to me."

"The Master... The Master..." He had a set speech to make me think my welcome had put him off his pace. He'd lost his lines.

Slam! "I can't play all night, low grade. You got something to say, spit it out. I'm ticked off at you guys already. Try my patience and I'll hurt you."

In a semi-coherent babble he let me know that the Master felt the same about me and was going to allow me one chance to get out of his way and start minding my own business. Or else.

"Or else he'll put a bug down my shirt? Come on. The creep has more nerve than brains. He's dead meat. He's got about as long as it takes Chodo Contague to find him. If you and your buddies have the sense of a goose you'll dump him and run back where you came from." I started muscling him out the door. "Tell your harebrained boss he is my business and I intend to mind it real close."

"Wait!"

The "or else" came. It wasn't the personal threat I expected. I've been threatened plenty so I don't pay much attention anymore. But this guy told me, "The Master said to tell you he has your friend Maya Stump and it will be she who pays if—"

Wham! Back against the wall. "And I have you, old buddy."

"I am nothing. I am a finger on his hand. Cut me off and another will grow in my place."

"You really believe that crap?" He did. What our commanders in the Cantard wouldn't give for a few thousand guys who didn't mind being expendable. "Tey! Come in here."

She came. She'd been eavesdropping, anyway. "What?"

"This guy says his boss has got Maya and they're going to do nasty things to her. He doesn't care what we do to him."

She sneered. "He'd care before I got through with him." Oh, the easy cruelty of the young.

"He would. But his boss wouldn't have sent him if he knew anything. So I think I'll just bruise him a little and throw him out with the trash."

Like I said, she was a smart kid. She figured out what to do. "Well, if I can't have him, the hell with you." She pranced back to the kitchen. And out the back door to talk to the Sisters she would've left around the neighborhood.

I banged the guy off the wall again. "You tell your boss if he messes with Maya he better pray Chodo finds him first. All Chodo wants to do is kill him.

"There. We've threatened each other and pounded our chests and acted like jerks. Get out before I lose my temper."

He looked at me like he thought it was a trick. Then he edged toward the door. When he was almost there I jumped at him. He yelped and took off.

I settled on the stoop and watched him go.

All that bullying hadn't accomplished a thing. I hadn't gotten any pleasure out of it. It didn't make me feel good now. I couldn't even convince myself there had been purpose in it.