Deadly Quicksilver Lies

9

The way things started, I became convinced that a certain eventuality had been foredoomed from the moment I'd opened my front door. I'm not a first date kind of guy, but I've never strained too hard against the whims of fate. I especially don't struggle to avoid that particular fate.

Dinner ended. I was unsettled. Maggie Jenn had been doing these things with her eyes. The kind of things that cause a bishop's brain to curdle and even a saint's devotion to monasticism to go down for a third time in those limpid pools. The kind of things that send a fundamentalist reverend's imagination racing off into realms so far removed that there is no getting back without doing something stupid.

I was too distracted to tell if the front of me was soaked with drool.

There had been banter and word games during dinner. She was good. Really good. I was ready to grab a trumpet and race around blowing Charge!

She sat there silently, appraising me, probably trying to decide if I was medium or medium well.

I made a heroic effort to concentrate. I managed to croak, "Tell me something, Maggie Jenn? Who would be interested in your affairs?"

She said nothing but did the eyebrow trick. She was surprised. That wasn't what she'd expected me to say. She had to buy time.

"Don't try to work your wiles on me, woman. You don't get out of answering that easily."

She laughed throatily, exaggerating that huskiness she had, wriggled just to let me know she was capable of distracting me as much as she wanted. I considered distracting myself by getting up and stomping around to study some of the artwork decorating the dining chamber but discovered that rising would be uncomfortable and embarrassing. I half turned in my chair and studied the ceiling as though seeking clues amongst the fauns and cherubs.

She asked, "What do you mean about people interested in my affairs?"

I did pause to reflect before I gave away the store. "Let's back up some first. Did anybody know you were coming to see me?" Of course somebody did. Else Winger wouldn't have come to me first. But I needed Maggie's perspective.

"It wasn't a secret, if that's what you mean. I did ask around once I decided I needed a man of your sort."

Hmm. What was a man of my sort?

This was not an unfamiliar phenomenon. Sometimes the unfriendlies get the jump because they hear about my client asking after someone who can help. "Next step, then. Who would be bothered if you started looking for your daughter?"

"Nobody." She was getting suspicious.

"Yeah. It would seem like nobody ought to care. Unless maybe they were to give you a little support."

"You're scaring me, Garrett."

She didn't look scared. I said, "Might be a good idea to be scared. See, I knew you were coming."

"What?" She was troubled for sure now. She didn't like that at all.

"Just before you showed up, a friend who's in my racket stopped by to warn me you'd be coming." Saying Winger and I are in the same business is stretching a point, maybe. Winger is into anything likely to put money in Winger's purse, preferably fast and easy. "He thought you were coming to buy a hit. That's why he warned me." Catch that clever misdirection. Not even a dead Loghyr often mistakes Winger for male.

"A hit? Me?" She knew the argot. She was off balance but coming back fast.

"He was sure of it." But I wondered. Winger took shortcuts. Big, slow, lovable, goofy, crafty, bigoted, and lazy Winger. She was confident that anybody she couldn't sweeten with reason she could bring around with a good old-fashioned ass-kicking. She was just a big old simple country girl with simple country ways—if you accepted her the way she wanted to be taken.

I was going to have words with Winger about Maggie Jenn. If I could find her. I didn't think that would be tough. The big goof was bound to turn up on her own, soon. Probably before I was ready.

I said, "Then somebody followed me here."

"What? Who? Why?"

"Got me. I only mention it to show you that somebody out there is interested."

Maggie shook her head. It was a fine head. I was starting to lose my focus again. I concentrated on describing the villain who'd followed me.

Maggie smiled wickedly. "Garrett! Don't you ever think about anything else?"

"Lots of times." I thought about starting a little contest in which we would see who could run the fastest.

"Garrett!"

"You started it."

Unlike many women, she did not deny her complicity. "Yeah, but... "

"Put yourself in my place. You're a red-blooded young man who's suddenly alone here with you."

"Flattery will get you everywhere." She chuckled. Ouch! This was getting painful. "You do dish up a ration of shit, don't you?"

I chuckled right back and put myself into my own place, assuming she meant to put herself into her own place and things would proceed to proceed. But after a painful pilgrimage to her side of the table all proceedings proceeded to grind to a halt. Reluctantly—it seemed—she slipped away from me. I muttered, "We can't keep on like this if you want to sell me on looking for your daughter."

"You're right. This is a business arrangement. We can't let nature get in the way."

I was willing to let nature play havoc, but I said, "Durn tootin'. I don't sell that way, anyway. I sell on logic and facts. That's me. Just-the-facts-ma'am Garrett. How about you start giving me some of those instead of using all your energy on those come-hither eyes?"

"Don't be cruel, Garrett. This is as difficult for me as it is for you."