Dread Brass Shadows

4

The Tate place will fool you. It's supposed to. From outside it looks like a block of old warehouses nobody bothered to keep up. You can see why from the street out front. First, the Hill. Our overlords are buzzards watching for fortunes to flay through the engines of the law Second, the slums below. They produce extremely hungry and unpleasant fellows, some of whom will turn you inside out for a copper sceat.

Thus, the Tate place pretending to be poverty's birthplace.

The Tates are shoemakers who turn out army boots and pricey stuff for the ladies of the Hill. They're all masters. They have more wealth than they know what to do with.

I gave their gate a good rattle. A young Tate responded He was armed. Tinnie was the only Tate I knew who faced the world outside unarmed. "Garrett. Haven't seen you for a while."

"Tinnie and I were feuding again."

He frowned. "She went out a couple hours ago. I thought she was headed your way."

"She was. I came to see Uncle Willard. It's important." The kid's eyes got big. Then he grinned. I guess he figured I was going to pop the question. He opened up. "Can't guarantee he'll see you. You know how he is."

"Tell him it can't wait till it's convenient."

He muttered, "Must have been hell being snowed in." He locked the gate. "Rose will be devastated."

"She'll live." Rose was Willard's daughter, his only surviving offspring, hotter than three little bonfires and as twisted as a rope of braided snakes. "She always bounces back."

The kid snickered. None of the Tates had much use for Rose. She was pure trouble. And she never learned.

"I'll tell Uncle you're here."

I went into the central garden to wait. It looked forlorn. Summertimes it's a work of art. The Tates all have apartments in the surrounding buildings, They live there, work there, are born and die there. Some never go outside.

The kid came back looking pained. Willard had scalded his tail for letting me in but apparently hadn't told him to get hurt trying to throw me out.

The thought made me grin. The kid was as big as any Tate gets, about five two. Willard once told me there was elvish blood in the family. It made the girls exotic and gorgeous and the guys handsome but damned near short enough to walk under a horse without banging their heads.

Willard Tate was no bigger than the rest of his clan. A gnome, almost. He was bald on top, had ragged gray hair that hung to his shoulders in back and on the sides. He was bent over his workbench tapping brass nails into the heel of a shoe. He wore a pair of TenHagen cheaters with square lenses. Those don't come cheap.

One feeble lamp battled the dark. Tate worked by touch, really. "You'll ruin your eyes if you don't spring for more light." Tate is one of the wealthiest men in TunFaire and one of the tightest with a sceat.

"You have one minute, Garrett." His lumbago was acting up. Or something Couldn't be me.

"Straight at it, then. Tinnie's been stabbed."

He looked at me for half the time he'd given me. Then he put his tools aside. "You have your faults, but you wouldn't say that unless you meant it. Tell me."

I told him.

He didn't say anything for a while. He just stared, not at me but at ghosts lurking behind me. His had been a life plagued by loss. His wife, his kids, his brother, all had gone before their time.

He surprised me by not laying it off on me "You got the man who did it?"

"He's dead. I ran through it again.

"I wish I could have had a piece of him." He rang a bell. One of his nephews responded. Tate told him, "Send for Dr Meddin. Now. And turn out a half-dozen men to walk Mr Garrett home." Now I had me a "mister."

"Yes sir." The nephew bounced off on a recruiting tour.

"Anything else, Mr. Garrett?"

"You could tell me why anybody would want to kill Tinnie."

"Because she was involved with you. To get at you."

"A lot of people don't like me." Present company included. "But none of them work like that. They wanted to get my goat, they'd burn my house down. With me inside it

"Then it has to be senseless. Random violence or mistaken identity."

"You sure she wasn't into anything?"

"The only thing Tinnie was involved in was you." He didn't say it but I could hear him thinking, Maybe this will learn her a lesson. "She never left the place except to see you.

I nodded. Undoubtedly he kept track.

I wanted to believe it was random. TunFaire is overcrowded and hagridden by poverty and hardly a day passes when somebody doesn't whittle on somebody with a hatchet or do cosmetic surgery with a hammer. I would have bought it except for those guys who danced the waltzes with me and Saucerhead.

I said, "When we caught him, the guy said ‘the book' just before his friends croaked him." If those were his friends. "Mean anything to you?"

Tate shook his head. That straggly hair pranced around. "I didn't figure it would. Damn. You get any ideas, let me know. And I'll keep you posted."

"You do that." My minute had stretched. He wanted to get back to work.

The nephew returned and announced he had a squad assembled. I said, "I'm sorry, sir. I'd rather it had been me."

"So would I." Yes. He agreed a hundred percent. Man. You be nice to some people. .