Cruel Zinc Melodies

52

‘‘I forgot to ask last night. Did Winger show up?’’

You were distracted. She did. She and her biographer are on the payroll. I offered each a challenge suited to his or her pride.

What did that mean? ‘‘You split them up? How clever are you?’’

An appeal to pride and ego, presented with sufficient subtlety,ofttimes will do where even bribery is futile.

‘‘You did split them up.’’ Word was, that hadn’t happened for months. Even when Winger herself wished it would. It was why Jon Salvation was called the Remora by those who played his game. Those who just saw an obnoxious little geek still called him by his real name, Pilsuds Vilchik.

Both were motivated at the time but that may not last.

‘‘What are they supposed to do?’’

Jon Salvation will execute the library search you were unableto complete, assisted by Penny Dreadful.

‘‘Definitely wouldn’t want Winger along on that.’’ That woman loose in a building full of rare books? She’d burn them to keep warm.

Miss Winger will round up persons I wish to interview, inasmuch as you are unable to find time.

Ouch! But he was right. ‘‘Oh, for those slower, lazier days of yesteryear.’’ And, ‘‘But I’m up irrationally early today.’’

I ate while we talked. Multitasking, Tinnie calls it. Didn’t matter if I talked with my mouth full. Old Bones knew what I wanted to say before I said it.

I wondered what Tinnie was up to. I hadn’t seen her for hours and hours.

Himself disdained the opportunity for a disparaging remark, offering instead an observation about my unnatural wakefulness.Which affords you the opportunity to pursue some basic work at and around the World.

He filled my head with chores, the most immediate of which was to have the construction workers build a shack so Saucerhead and his troops could get in out of the weather without having to be haunted. He thought I ought to add a stove so they could keep warm, make tea, and cook a little something.

‘‘You expecting winter to last forever?’’ I was thinking, if I gave them someplace warm, then they wouldn’t go out where it was cold.

You will see. Then:Fuel. They will need fuel to heat the shack. You may have to go to the waterfront to arrange a delivery. Because all of TunFaire’s fuels have to be barged in from up or down the river.

Yet one more chore. And one I didn’t know how to execute. That’s Dean’s area of expertise. We’re profligate with fuels here. We’re too prosperous. Except in the Dead Man’s room, of course. Wood, coal, and charcoal all are delivered. At some expense. The delivery folk have to travel with armed guards.

Not many villains will go for a load of firewood accompanied by guys with crossbows. That’s a quick way for a dimwit to commit suicide. Though stupid is as plentiful as air.

Make good use of the time available to you today.

That sounded portentous.

Tomorrow will be your turn at the shovels.

‘‘Oh, don’t tell me!’’

It is about to come down. It could go on for days.

A professional storyteller once clued me that the way to drag your audience along is to hit them with One Damned Thing After Another. And that’s my life. The malevolent, sniggering, buggering toadlet gods tugging on the threads of my tale plot it by that very method.

The older religions—we’re afflicted with several hundred—generally assign three vindictive crones to work the warp and woof of individual destinies. But that all goes on in a side room. The main stage features a team of fifteen working Poor Garrett’s Ever More Miserable Homespun.

Singe says I overdramatize. Which only proves that she hasn’t been paying attention.

Do you suppose this might be a good time to roll out your equally absurd tendency toward equine hysterics?

‘‘What?’’ Then I got it. He was needling me.

Horses.

Because I have a rational, reasoned attitude toward those fiends.

People mock me when I report anything about the innate wickedness of horses. Those monstrous beasts have most people so fooled that every damned idiot out there thinks they’re man’s best friend. Big old cute pals who carry civilization itself on their backs. But the truth is, the beasts just lie in the weeds, waiting for a kill shot they can score while leaving nobody the wiser.

You don’t want to be alone with a horse.

Never, ever, under any circumstance, do you want to be alone with a whole bunch of horses.

Amusement tainted the psychic atmosphere.

There seemed to be a lot of that lately.

But what does he know? Even when he was breathing and waddling around on his hind legs he couldn’t have ridden anything smaller than a woolly mammoth.

You know what needs doing today. And you have finished eating. I suggest you earn some of the buckets of money the Weider interest has thrown your way.

Buckets? I hadn’t asked Singe how much more money Gilbey had sent over. Old Bones made it sound like it would be worth finding out.

Time to go, Garrett. It cannot be long before Miss Winger begins delivering persons of interest who may not wish to be seen by you.

‘‘Harsh.’’ But what I was really thinking was, who could that possibly be? Which tossed up an ‘‘Uh-oh!’’ as I caught a whiff of something maybe called plausible deniability.

He wanted me away from the house, stumbling around, making myself a fat, solid alibi.

Time to go.

I took care of personal business, pulled myself together, dressed for winter, and stepped outside. And ducked right back inside for a sock cap and muffler to add to what I had going already.

The cold had hit me like a punch in the snoot. That meant Dean and Singe were keeping the house too damned hot. They were turning silver into smoke.