Faded Steel Heat

89

"Who had a chance to plant something on you?" Morley asked. We were headed toward Playmate's for real. Dotes was the only one of us walking normally. At a glance we must have looked like beggars. I was dressed the part.

The clothes I'd been wearing lately all came from the Weider place. All Tad's stuff. Could have been anyone there though the list of suspects that occurred to me was very short. And it had to be somebody at the Weider mansion. Nowhere else had anyone had a chance to get to all the clothes. And only a few people there had known I was getting them.

The actual mechanics did not interest me much. Somewhere in each pair of trousers, perhaps, would be a scrap of paper or a loose button with a spell attached. I could round up a dozen half-baked hedge wizards in an hour who would sell me something similar for enough to buy a bottle of wine. There would be some gimmick like an enchanted tuning fork or a feather floating in a bowl of mineral oil that would point at me all the time.

"It's starting to come together," I said. "I don't know who or why but I'm beginning to sniff out a how."

"Well?" Morley asked after I failed to go on.

I turned to Pular Singe. "Singe. The parade following me... following Puddle and my stuff. Was the shapeshifter the one who was actually on my trail, with everyone else following him?"

Singe had to think about it. Although she was intensely interested, she hadn't been included in on everything so wasn't sure what mattered. Also, some of what she had was human stuff that made little sense to ratfolk, anyway.

"The one who had no scent. Yes."

Morley asked, "What's that look mean, Garrett?"

"It means the haze is clearing. The clothes were marked so I could be tracked and watched. By shapeshifters. The clothes were delivered straight from the Weider place. Before the engagement party. But there were no shapeshifters inside the house before the party preparations began. Belinda. You promise me you didn't have anything to do with the attack on Marengo North English?"

"I promise, darling. Cross my heart and hope to die. Though I would've done it if it needed doing."

"Does that extend to all his crackpot pals? The human rights movement lost several big names."

"I'd reached an understanding with those people. They would stay off our turf. They hadn't had time to violate it. I'm sure they would've gotten around to it, though."

"Not even using Crask and Sadler?"

"I'm not as hotheaded as you think, Garrett. I considered that. I decided that the Marengo I met thought too much of himself and his prejudices to have hired those two. He'd use his own people. I suspect that argument holds for other rightsists chieftains as well. First try, at least."

I recalled Tama telling me they were having trouble finding a librarian because Marengo and the other big fish were reluctant to pay actual wages. I muttered, "That fits."

"What does?"

"Singe. How would you go about tracking the one who leaves no scent?" I added deaf sign so we were sure to meet on a common border between our languages.

Pular Singe was a serious young woman, determined to get the most out of the abilities she had. She would go far if she remained motivated. Desire and determination do seem as important as raw talent in this world. She thought hard. "I would track those who follow it. The sight-hunters. If they do not give up that when they discover that you have outwitted it."

I hadn't outwitted anybody but myself lately. Didn't seem to be much point in reminding Singe, though.

Morley and Belinda both sneered at me when Singe was looking the other way. Friends always have to get those little digs in, just to let you know they love you. The evidence suggests that the whole world loves me.

"No point me hiding out at Playmate's," I said. "If they've done any digging into my background, they'll know we're friends. I'll go to the Weider place." I'd abandoned hope of getting back to The Pipes. It was getting dark. "Singe... Where'd she go?"

"Off to tail your tail, probably," Morley said.

"She's infatuated, Garrett," Belinda chided. "It happens to a lot of women when they first meet you. This one's still at that stage where she'll do any damn fool thing to make you like her back. Give her a week. Reality will catch up."

They both had a good snicker. So did something on a windowsill two stories overhead. Morley failed to catch the flash of green and yellow and blue and red as the little buzzard took off, but I did. Possibly I was supposed to, now that it knew where I could be found later.

90

"Pardon the expression but you look like shit on a stick," Max told me. "I've seen better-dressed bums. What happened to the clothes we gave you?"

Gilbey said, "That's what he's come about." Manvil was a little cool.

"I didn't turn up here sometime in the last twenty hours and do something unpleasant, did I?"

"No. Why?" Gilbey was just tired.

"There was a copy of me running around trying to do naughty things. And you seem a little standoffish."

"Excuse me. Unintentional. Possibly it's because you haven't gotten anywhere. Or because bad things happen when you're around."

I took it like a man. It was true. "I think that's about to change. It's coming together. What I want to know right now is who handled the clothing you sent me. Because somebody tagged them all with a tracking spell that let the shapeshifters stick to me wherever I went." Too bad I couldn't be two places at once. That would be a really useful skill in my racket.

"Genord," Max said. "Gerris Genord handled the clothing." And as soon as he said that I recalled Genord being mentioned at the time. The evidence was there. Maybe I'd gotten bopped on the noggin a time too many. Maybe I ought to stick to working for the brewery.

The news relieved me some. I hadn't wanted to suspect Gilbey. I liked the guy. "Maybe a connection with the shifters is why Genord overreacted when Lance and Ty caught him sneaking in. Maybe there really was somebody at the door, somebody he didn't want to be seen with... How would he be connected with them? We know he wasn't a shifter."

I'd already recognized one commonality between Genord and Black Dragon. The commando connection. Whether or not he seemed the type Genord had had an armband that was worn by a small freecorps made up of former commandos. Once the fair-haired thugs of The Call, the Brotherhood Of The Wolf had fallen out of favor since Colonel Theverly's arrival. But I was willing to bet they were still in business, still associated with Marengo North English. And a shapeshifter had been flushed at The Pipes. "Uhm?"

Gilbey repeated, "I said, ‘Why not ask Genord?' The Guard do have him in custody, don't they?"

I couldn't imagine why they wouldn't. But I didn't feel like walking back up to the Al-Khar. I'd put too many miles on me already today. "Can my friends and I get space to rest for a while?" The willow-bark tea was wearing off. I hurt. And I needed a nap.

"Find them a place, Manvil," Weider said. His tone suggested he'd begun to grow disappointed in me, too. I didn't blame him. I was disappointed in me myself.

Carefully failing to alert the staff to our presence Gilbey installed all three of us in a guest room probably reserved for visiting tradesmen. Belinda he failed to recognize. Morley he knew only by distasteful type. He remained rigorously polite throughout.

Gentlemen that we are, Morley and I let Belinda have the one narrow bed. I took the bedclothes to make a pallet for me. Dotes wasn't in a napping mood. He kept muttering about how trying to do a small favor had become a career. I asked, "You want to make yourself useful while I'm snoring, work this out. What could you do with a brewery? Besides make beer?"

"Why?"

"That's where this mess started. The shapeshifters wanted to replace the Weiders. Which makes sense only if they wanted control of the brewery." I snuggled down and went to sleep. The floor was softer than the most yielding cobblestone.

A toe ground into my ribs. I didn't have to open my eyes to know it belonged to Belinda. Only a woman would use a toe like a forefinger. A man would just kick you.

I grunted.

"That's four hours, Garrett. Dotes and I don't have a life to devote to your snoring, entertaining as it is. If I'm out of touch much longer I'm going to find myself out of touch permanently."

I sat up, groggy and disoriented. But I remembered, "I wanted up sooner than this."

"You needed the sleep," Morley said. "You really ought to go home and stay till you're completely recovered. You look a little ragged."

Maybe I did. People kept mentioning it.

I pulled myself together. Belinda looked ragged, too. I felt a twinge of guilt. She needed rest worse than I did. But here she was chasing wild geese with me. "There something going on that you guys forgot to mention?"

Morley looked at me askance. Belinda ignored me. Mostly.

"I appreciate you ambushing me and getting me loose from whoever was following me." I rubbed the back of my head. "I think. But I don't see why you bothered."

Morley shrugged. Belinda, without looking me in the eye, said, "The ratgirl insisted. She was scared those people might do something bad to you."

I smelled a scheme. Some kind of three-cornered deal between the Outfit, Reliance, and Morley Dotes, that would put me right in the middle. I hoped their little hearts weren't broken when I wouldn't go along.

Morley sneered. "I don't know how you do it, Garrett. That Singe would gleefully follow you into Hell. And be your love slave besides."

Sourly, putting herself together for travel, Belinda said, "And that blond bimbo walked right in here a while ago. She was really put out because you weren't alone."

"Alyx? Alyx is just a spoiled kid."

Morley grinned at me and flashed me his own version of the raised eyebrow trick.

"Maybe," Belinda begrudged. "She did come back with some food."

"And we didn't even eat it all," Morley said. "Your share is in that sack over there."

We saw no one as we left the house. The place was a mausoleum infected by despair. Maybe that spread from Tom's room. I felt a sudden fear that more evil might be headed the family's way. "This would be a good time for the shifters to come back." Unless Block's troops were on the job and alert.