Cruel Zinc Melodies

40

‘‘What now, Malsquando?’’ She was going to beat that dog hairless.

We were alone now. We had the World to ourselves. Discounting the presence of several Relway Runners driven by a need to keep an eye on what was happening. Tinnie had refused to leave with the other women. She insisted that she was smitten by my borrowed coat.

‘‘You don’t want to wear that Malsquando thing out the day you invented it.’’ It irked me for no reason I could pin down.

‘‘Why aren’t you wearing your regular coat?’’

Though she’d stared some, this was the first she’d commented. ‘‘The guys at Morley’s place tore it up fighting over it.’’

‘‘What?’’

‘‘They thought somebody left it behind. It looked halfway decent and didn’t smell too bad.’’

‘‘A found treasure. I meant well, Mal . . . All right. It’s gotten really quiet, hasn’t it?’’

Yes. There was no one else in sight. Except Relway’s guys, at rare moments.

‘‘Why aren’t we up to our ears in gawkers and opportunists?’’

‘‘You want to go inside and poke around?’’

‘‘When reinforcements arrive.’’

‘‘You’d get a better look at everything in there.’’

And there wasn’t much anyone could take from the outside. Not without prying pieces off.

Some word had to be out. Something to the effect that whoever messed with the World could expect to come up missing useful bits.

Itwas the edge of the Tenderloin, where freelancing is seriously discouraged.

Seconds after we got inside I received proof that my redheaded friend was way too subtle for me. She had a good reason for getting in out of the weather.

I should have run for it. But I couldn’t.

Tinnie said, ‘‘I’m getting a lot of pressure from the old folks, Garrett.’’ She paced and twitched, her voice taut and pitched higher than usual.

This wasn’t the Tinnie I was used to. That Tinnie is the personification of self-confidence. I’m the one who panics when personal talk gets personal.

I had a premonition. Here came a time to panic. ‘‘Oh? Yeah?’’ I squeaked, too.

‘‘I’m out of excuses. For everybody. Including me.’’ Her voice kept going higher.

‘‘So . . . Uh . . . What do you think?’’ I shoved my hands into the back of my pants. She didn’t need to see them shaking.

‘‘Uh . . . I think . . .’’ Her voice was up there in mouse talk range. ‘‘We’re grown-ups.’’

‘‘So we ought to be able to act like grown-ups.’’

That didn’t come out smoothly.

‘‘Yeah.’’

‘‘Grown-ups manage this stuff all the time.’’

‘‘Every day.’’

Both of us could hear dozens of absent voices muttering that our behavior was worse than juvenile.

Tinnie went on. ‘‘And we are grown-ups. Aren’t we?’’

‘‘Have been for years and years. Though some would argue.’’

‘‘People years younger than us manage perfectly well.’’

‘‘They do, don’t they? And we’re professionals. We’ve dealt with tough people and tougher situations.’’

Talking all around the central issue. Not getting to the heart but relaxing the defenses a little, here and there.

It went on. The consensus was, we couldn’t just keep on keeping on. There were people in our lives. Something had to give. But the risks were huge.

‘‘Am I interrupting?’’

‘‘Bill! I thought you went back to the tavern.’’

‘‘I did. Then I had a thought. On the house. Because about a dozen of those giant bugs are running around out there, even in this weather. Which means the problem could get really awful when the weather turns warm. If everything isn’t straightened out by then.’’

Tinnie seemed more relieved than aggravated by the interruption. Though the subject still had to be addressed. Soon.

I said, ‘‘You could give me more information about what’s going on down there, then.’’

‘‘I could. If I had anything. I can’t without going down there to look.’’

I could arrange that. I didn’t tell him out loud.

He might have read my mind. ‘‘Find yourself a real, legal expert. Not a necromancer, either.’’

I didn’t press. I knew where to find Bill. He was thinking that, too. And regretting it, maybe.

He said, ‘‘That’s what I wanted to tell you. That whatever is down there, it’s so ugly that you need to get a really big stick onto it. Fast. Before it really wakes up.’’

He regretted having come back. But something wouldn’t let him just cut me loose.

He wasn’t shaking now. He had been when he’d first come back outside, earlier.

It might be a good idea to take the evidence to the self-proclaimed experts after all.

I glanced at Tinnie.

I could use some expert help over there, too.

Back to Bill. I got the impression there was more on his mind. A lot more. Some of it personal. His twitchiness seemed to be the sort that comes when you think somebody is stalking you. Then, too, there must be something he thought I ought to know but couldn’t bring himself to say.

I said, ‘‘The brewery will send a nice fee along to the Busted Dick. With a retainer. So we can call on your expertise again.’’

‘‘Retainer?’’

‘‘A fee you get for keeping yourself available. The brewery has several specialists on retainer. Me among them.’’ My heels clicked hollowly on the floor planking. I heard scratching sounds. ‘‘There’s what’s been spooking our troops.’’ I glanced behind me, past Tinnie, expecting to see a big-ass bug looking for a way to escape the underworld.

I saw a ghost instead, and very, very faintly heard some kind of music.

No other way to put it. I didn’t want it to be, but that was a ghost. Someone I knew was dead. Someone who had been dead for a long time. Swaying to the music.

That was a ghost I’d seen before. As a ghost.

‘‘Garrett? What is it?’’

‘‘Eleanor.’’

‘‘What?’’

‘‘See? There? The woman in white?’’ Becoming more real by the second. Smiling. ‘‘The one in the magic painting in my office.’’ The music grew louder by the second, too. And less melodic.

Tinnie wasn’t happy. She didn’t know the whole story about Eleanor, though. Lucky for me. She hadn’t had as much claim on me then.

I was amazed and dismayed that so much emotion still lurked within me. That so much hurt still surrounded that beautiful dead lady.

She smiled as she came toward me, glad to see me, reaching with one delicate, pale hand. Backed by vague music that was turning into half-heard clanking.

‘‘I don’t see anything, Garrett.’’ Just a little put out. Then, ‘‘Oh! Oh, gods! It’s Denny!’’

Bill said, ‘‘You’re both seeing people who had a powerful emotional impact in the past.’’

Tinnie said, ‘‘Uncle Lester.’’

Two more females began to form behind Eleanor. For a moment I thought one was my mother. But she was too young. Kayanne Kronk. My first love, so long ago. The other was Maya, a street gang girl who had grown up to become a serious entanglement—till I ran her off by being the same way with her that I’ve always been with Tinnie. But Kayanne and Maya were both still alive, insofar as I knew. And they didn’t go around accompanied by bad music so soft you had to strain to be irked by it.

Both women faded as soon as I thought that.

Tinnie was distraught. Bill grabbed hold and hustled her out of the theater. I stumbled along behind, ten percent of me clinging desperately to present reality. My brother Mikey had begun to materialize behind Eleanor. Who looked real enough to bite now.

I saw Tinnie’s ghosts, too, but they had no form to my eye.

The light outside helped. ‘‘Bill, that was all inside our heads, wasn’t it?’’ I suspected that because of my long exposure to the Dead Man.

He shrugged. ‘‘You’d think. But I bet if you faced your ghosts long enough they’d come alive on their own.’’

I told Tinnie, ‘‘I begin to see why Alyx was upset. Her ghosts must’ve been her brother and sister. Maybe even her mother.’’ All people whose deaths she’d have no trouble blaming on herself.

Tinnie had nothing to say. She’d gone missing inside herself.