Cruel Zinc Melodies

63

I went back to the World. Losing my cadence for half a step, en route, when the breeze hit me with a whiff of incredible body odor. From someone I couldn’t see.

The day, I noted, was getting on. Time flies, fun, like that, I guess. I spied Rindt Grinblatt and pack in the distance, headed my way. Brother Grinblatt looked to be in a foul mood. Though how you tell with a dwarf is subject to debate.

I went inside and found Singe. And hardly anybody else. A whole herd, excepting ratfolk, had skipped. ‘‘Darling, when you all do catch the stinking man, ask him why he’s interested in me. Or the World.’’

‘‘I can do that. Though maybe the Dead Man already knows. He had hold of the stinking man for a while. I think. But not for very long if he did.’’

‘‘I’ll ask.’’ And Old Bones would withhold the answer, most likely. He’d tell me I needed to figure these things out for myself. Or the like.

I went to look into the basement. ‘‘Hey, Rocky. I’m going to need your backup in a minute. Come on up.’’ Saucerhead and his thugs are good at what they do, but some jobs just howl out for a specialist.

Singe needs to get reconnected with her own culture. She has become too human. She was suspicious. ‘‘What are you up to, Garrett?’’

‘‘Nothing. But in about a minute a mightily pissed off dwarf is going to stomp in here. I’d like somebody handy who isn’t intimidated by all those axes and chopping swords and maces. Somebody with a natural-born knack for making hairy folk stand still and listen to reason.’’

Good old Rindt, I suspected, had talked himself into thinking he’d established squatter’s rights over yonder just by virtue of his presence. The sort of magical thinking that makes us think we ‘‘deserve,’’ and ‘‘have a right to,’’ something we didn’t earn, just because we’re breathing and happen to be passing through life. It’s a plague on all intelligent species. I was born. Therefore, I have the right to pick your pocket so I can buy the bottle of rotgut red I want to curl up with tonight.

Lately, I’ve been seeing a new species of graffiti. Traditional Karentine graffiti is human rightsist crap. Or kid gang crap. Or ‘‘Ferdie Pins wants to get into Minnie Tong’s cootch’’ crap. But the new stuff rides the premise that being required to produce, to work, if one would rather not, amounts to an egregious social injustice, inhumane involuntary servitude, and economic terrorism.

Really.

You got to wonder about the magnitude of the brass ones on a guy who could come out in public and, with a straight face, say that. I’d be inclined to give the man what he wants. But not feed him. Loaf on, brother! We’ll dump you in a skinny little grave.

That from a guy who is almost allergic to work himself. A guy with a moral imperative to avoid work as much as possible. But a guy who accepts the consequences of his inactions.

Well. There went a parenthetical diversion from the everyday.

Rocky stamped up, providing the closing ellipsis. ‘‘What’s up, Garrett? Better not take long. I’m gonna gotta get out of here in another hour.’’

‘‘Those dwarves I had you check on earlier? They’re going to be here in a minute. On account of getting evicted from under that empty house. Property owners can be such pricks. And dwarves can be so presumptuous.’’ Rocky would grasp that better than a detailed explanation. ‘‘I need you to stand around looking like you’re thinking about dwarf goulash for supper.’’

Rocky grinned. ‘‘I can do that.’’

Where were the Grinblatts, anyway? Dwarves aren’t famous for getting in a rush but Rindt and family should have arrived by now.

And here they came.

I’d just started wondering if cold weather effected dwarves the way it does trolls. But that was silly. The hairy folk hail from wild mountains where it’s chilly during the summer and there are recorded instances of snow falling during Midsummer’s Night.

If this crew got slowed down it was because their hob-nailed boots couldn’t get much purchase on icy cobblestones. And it was, for sure, cooling down out there. The slush had begun to firm up.

The Grinblatts entered, all hair, clatter, and attitude. Which began to change after one look at Rocky. Rindt shed surly with every step. Had he had a few miles to warm up he might have mustered a passable diplomatic smile.

‘‘We kind of got distracted over there, boss. Sorry.’’ He was awash in remorse. But Rindt Grinblatt just being aware of the concept was more proof that he had gone native. ‘‘Some people showed up and run us out.’’

‘‘Those would be the owners,’’ I exaggerated. ‘‘You weren’t rude to them, were you? They’re off the Hill. The skinny one is Prime Circle, though you’d never guess to look at her.’’

Dwarves can’t manage the color changes we see in the paler breeds of human. Otherwise, Rindt Grinblatt and his lady would have gone white as death.

There was an event somewhere deep in dwarfish history that marked them with a dread of sorcerers that had gotten into the blood itself.

‘‘Rindt, they aren’t looking for trouble. They just want to know what’s been going on behind their backs.’’

‘‘You knew that when you sent us down there?’’

‘‘I did not. No. They turned up. They asked questions. I answered. That’s how it’s done.’’ He knew. He’d gone native. ‘‘Now. Your job was to go down under and scout around. So tell me what you found.’’

I noted several people sliding our way, meaning to eavesdrop.

Then came Morley. Through the front door, looking like he’d barely survived a heavy date with a vampire.

Rindt Grinblatt was calm enough to earn his pay now. He began a detailed report. His family felt free to jump in wherever a point needed clarification.

It took a while. As I’d suspected, Kip and his friends had done a good deal of housekeeping.

Before the Grinblatts wrapped it up Belinda wandered in, curious. At which point I noted that I was now the only other one hundred percent pure member of the master race in the whole damned place. Most everyone else had gone off without saying good night. ‘‘Singe, you want to take Rindt back to the house so you can pay him?’’

‘‘Sorry, Garrett.’’ She had been muttering with my best pal. ‘‘Previous obligation.’’

‘‘Damn! Rindt, you go on back out to my house, my man Dean will see that you get what you’ve got coming. Damn! Poor choice of words, that.’’ They were accurate but that lineup usually rolls out only where vengeance is about to be done.

Grinblatt was distinctly unhappy. He had a few things to say about my ancestry, incestry, and sexual proclivities. But Rocky was standing by. And Rindt was hungry. He went. Leading his family gang and grumbling all the way.

I hoped the Dead Man drained him dry.

Belinda screamed.