Cruel Zinc Melodies

56

‘‘Here comes Winger,’’ Tharpe told me.

Conditioned by an age of disappointments involving that woman, I turned, expecting a whole new set of problems.

Well . . .

Winger had a family of dwarves in tow. Mom and Pop, adolescent son and prepubescent daughter. All readable only because they’d all gone native.

In the normal scheme sexing a dwarf is something only a dwarf can manage without getting closer than I want to imagine. Male and female, they come with immense crops of hair, arsenals sure to include at least one huge ax and an amazing variety of supplemental cutlery, and a lot of attitude. In general, dress consists of a chain-mail shirt not tucked in, an iron hat, and a leather apron something like a kilt. The more pockets on the apron, the higher the status of the dwarf.

Got to be a joke in there somewhere.

The mom in this crew wore a paisley apron that started life as a carpet. Her helmet was a feminine little pillbox in blackened steel, without horns or other appurtenance. Dad wore a stylish pullover made from burlap bags, hiding most of his mail.

The younger dwarves, almost human in apparel, seemed painfully embarrassed to be seen in the company of parents. Definitely a custom borrowed from humans.

Winger boomed, ‘‘This here is Garrett. Runs things at this end. Garrett, this is Rindt Grinblatt.’’

Papa Dwarf offered the slightest of bows. It was the kind dwarves deploy when confronted by lesser beings in superior numbers.

‘‘Good to meet you,’’ I lied. And turned to Winger for an explanation.

‘‘The Dead Man hired them to poke around under that abandoned house. They have all the information they need.’’

The little one whined, ‘‘Daddy made me go in the house with the creepy thing! It messed around inside my head.’’

Rindt Grinblatt—a name either made up or adopted because it wasn’t traditional dwarfish—admitted it. ‘‘I wasn’t gonna go in dere wit’ dat t’ing. I don’t need my mind swept. Mindie don’t got no secrets to give away.’’

Fathers. You got to love them.

Generally, dwarves are inscrutable. Mindie was not. Her expression said her father didn’t have a clue what he was blathering about.

Winger told me, ‘‘The Dead Man said to tell you he put a map of the underground into her head.’’

Dwarves being folks who live in caves and tunnels in the wild, this bunch should have no trouble if the map they’d gotten was the one Old Bones based on my recollections of those cellars.

‘‘My partner told you what he wanted done?’’ Since this was all a surprise to me.

‘‘We got it,’’ Rindt Grinblatt grumbled.

‘‘The Dead Man told me. I explained,’’ Winger said. ‘‘In case Mindie gets distracted.’’

Rindt grumbled, ‘‘You just show us where the house is.’’

Grinblatt was not in a bad temper. He was being upbeat. For a dwarf. He had a paying job.

I looked to Winger for further illumination. She told me, ‘‘You take them to the abandoned house. And turn them loose.’’

‘‘Follow me,’’ I grumbled, cheerful as an employed dwarf. Snowflakes had begun to swirl. I wasn’t looking forward to manning a shovel. I wondered if Max and Gilbey would notice the charge if I hired a stand-in shoveler.

I led. Grinblatts followed, none with any enthusiasm. They were working only in response to the supreme motivator, hunger.

Very upbeat. For dwarves.

Winger brought up the rear.

We hadn’t gone half a block before a brace of flying thunder lizards wheeled through the random snowflakes overhead, hitting something on the roof of the World. The lead flyer flapped back up with a pair of struggling beetles, one neatly mounted atop the other. The bottom bug fell. It crunched into the cobblestones a dozen yards away, the fall instantly fatal.

The dwarves surrounded the beetle. Its limbs continued to twitch. Rindt Grinblatt said, ‘‘I didn’t believe it. But dere it is. You cain’t argue wit’ dat.’’

I explained, ‘‘They’re big but not dangerous. They haven’t—’’

‘‘I know dat. We’re supposed ta find out where dey’re comin’ from. An’ git rid a’ any a’ dem we runs inta.’’

Looking at those four, with all the mail and armament, I decided the Dead Man had been very clever indeed. Dwarves were perfect exterminators for these vermin. They were used to tight places, underground. And they were unlikely to be hurt by the bugs. The darkness, smells, and spells wouldn’t bother them, either.

I visited Dwarf Fort once, a long time ago, warrens where dwarves who won’t acculturate live once they come to the big city. The perfume of countless never-washed dwarf bodies, in tight quarters, while potent enough to water the eyes of a maggot, go unremarked by the denizens of the place.

‘‘Here we are,’’ I said when we arrived. The abandoned house looked bleaker than ever. ‘‘I can’t tell you much. I went in there once myself but I didn’t get very far. Be careful on the stairs.’’

Grinblatt rumbled, ‘‘We’ll let you know what we find.’’ He and his tribe had gone native, but he wasn’t going to let some mere human get too friendly.

‘‘I’ll be back at the World when you want me.’’

Clan Grinblatt unlimbered axes and tromped up the shaky steps. They vanished into the abandoned house.

Winger and I headed for the theater. I observed, ‘‘Joyful bunch.’’

She responded with a Grinblatt grunt, then asked, ‘‘You got any idea what Pilsuds is up to?’’

‘‘Who?’’ It took a moment. ‘‘Oh. The Remora. I forgot that was his real name. No. I don’t.’’ I dared not tell her that the Dead Man was more interested in enlisting Jon Salvation than her.

‘‘Why can’t you just call him by the name that he wants, Garrett?’’

‘‘Because Jon Salvation is ridiculous. And you just called him Pilsuds.’’

Winger is no addict of consistency. She ignored me. ‘‘Jon Salvation is gonna be famous. He already finished his second play. He read it to me. It’s really good.’’

Winger is no fan of the arts. Nor has ever been. Unless she can find someone willing to buy it, off the books.

She said, ‘‘The little shit drives me nuts when he’s around. He’s so damned clingy. And needy. And horny. But now that he hasn’t been underfoot for a few hours, I’m missing him.’’

She’d be nervous about the constituents of the crowd who meant to perform Jon Salvation’s plays. Alyx. Bobbi. Lindy. Cassie Doap, who had yet to show her primo self. Even Heather Soames. Every one definitely worth considering a threat.

I was nervous about the redhead of the set. Though not that a wannabe playwright would carry her off. I was afraid that someday she’d go away because old Garrett couldn’t help going right on being Garrett.

There have been rare moments when I haven’t been the most lovable guy roaming these mean streets.