Cruel Zinc Melodies

45

Tinnie didn’t put away as much holy elixir as her favorite man. But she had less experience handling it. She woke up with a pounding head an hour before the early birds took wing. She turned into the beautiful woman who never heard of mercy.

‘‘Rise and shine, Malsquando. For the first time in your life you’re going to do an honest day’s work.’’

‘‘Ow!’’ Not good news. Not good news at all. I’m no Morley Dotes but I am acquainted with the comfort of a dishonest day’s work. A day with as little real work in it as I can arrange.

I was over last night already.

‘‘This may be why we can’t get to a grown-up solution to our grown-up problems,’’ I grumbled. ‘‘Here you come, six hours too early for even thinking, let alone working.’’

No argument. No snide commentary. Just another stiff finger and sharp nail between a couple of my favorite ribs.

I almost said something I couldn’t take back. Lucky me, though. I have a resident guardian angel.

Do not! open your idiot mouth!

I clung to that advice for the dozen seconds my sweetie needed to lose focus and fall asleep again.

I went back to sleep, too. Wondering, for the first time, about the discrepancies between my partner’s report on the compliance device and Kip’s. Kip isn’t real good about making up plausible stories.

Next time I woke up it was time to set the beer free. That took a while. Then I poured a little in to replace what had gone away. Tinnie snorted and snored worse than Saucerhead or Playmate, both true champions. The racket didn’t bother me. I climbed back into bed and, after a few random thoughts, got down to business making it through to the crack of noon.

Old Bones—or maybe the gods themselves—did something to the redhead while she slept. She woke up in a sunny mood. Unfortunately still convinced that Ma Garrett’s boy ought to haul out and become an important ingredient in her wonderful day. ‘‘Don’t you got some books to balance? Or maybe some bribe sheets to update?’’

Tinnie has some big generational differences with the elder Tates. But none having to do with milking maximum cash from folks interested in our manufactory’s products. Her number-one mission is to maintain the waiting list of three-wheel buyers.

Bribes paid to move names on the waiting list generate more cash flow than sales of the units themselves.

Every entrepreneur and financier in this burg hates us.

I don’t get it, myself. I really don’t. People are nuts over the three-wheels. I’ve ridden them. They’re fun. They make getting around a little faster. But not much. Not when you have to deal with everyday traffic in twisty, narrow streets. And, more especially, not when you have to deal with the upsides of hills. Not to overlook the ride on cobblestones. And the even harder pull where there are no pavements at all.

And then there are thieves. Though my senior partners had been smart about that.

Every three-wheel has a unique signature spell applied, traceable by the company Charmstalker. Should your three-wheel be commandeered by a freelance socialist, it can be located, and justice can be delivered, with dramatic quickness. It happens often enough to discourage all but the terminally stupid.

If only there were some way to deal with those people before they breed.

Deal Relway may be on to something. He’s clearing the raging idiots out of the criminal class.

There are people out there in definite need of disappearing. Problem is, once you start, how do you confine yourself to the ‘‘right’’ bad guys? And do we want our only surviving criminals to be people too smart to get caught?

Garrett. It is past time you dragged your self-deluded posteriorout of bed.

Everybody has an opinion. And, as my old platoon sergeant explained, they all reek like the waste sphincter everyone also has.

Garrett.

The sending was gentle. Like the soft voice of your father just before he lets you have it upside the head.

Old Bones wasn’t in a patient mood.

Truth on a silver tray. Get dressed. Eat. Then get in here.

While I endured attitude from my sidekick, my favorite redhead vanished. She dressed, headed downstairs, ate, and was gone before I tied into my own sausages with biscuits and gravy. A country-style breakfast Dean uses as a hammer when he thinks I need reminding that I’m not nobility.

‘‘You’re losing it, old man. Or maybe you’ve just gone loony.’’

He was ahead of me. Knowing I’d think the menu was a statement. ‘‘The thing in there expects you to work a long day. What little is left. I wanted you to eat something that will stay with you.’’

‘‘Dean, you need to test the job market. See what’s available for a man your age, with your skills. After that, come give me another ration of shit.’’

Oh. I was feeling it now. My head throbbed. My patience was short. I couldn’t work up a good goddamn’s worth of care about anything. Faced with the worst atrocity in all history—or its all-time best moment—my response would have been an indifferent, ‘‘Ain’t that some shit?’’ While I felt around for my beer mug.

‘‘I hope your attitude improves before you have to deal with people who might not suffer in silence.’’

I grumbled some. Fortified by breakfast and armed with a fresh round of honeyed tea, I trudged off to play dueling sullens with my business partner.