Gilded Latten Bones

15

The sun was up when I awakened. So was the queen of crime, in a good mood despite being caught in the inelegant process of riding a chamber pot. She pointed. "Look there."

"What am I supposed to notice?"

"We closed the curtains and the window."

Oh.

The curtains had been pushed aside. The window had been raised four inches. And the sill glistened with more dried slime.

"I never liked the kind of window that slides up and down."

"I don't know why I woke up when I did. I don't care. But when I did I saw what looked like a python oozing through the crack. It was about a yard in. I guess it was headed for Morley."

I eased over, studied the window close up. That allowed her some dignity at the same time. "A big snake? Really?"

"Not exactly. You saw real giant snakes when you were off in the islands. You probably wouldn't have been impressed. But that's what it looked like to me."

"It went away once it realized you were awake."

"After I hit it about twenty times with your club."

The woman was gorgeous and brilliant and evil, but she was no connoisseur of personal-use nonlethal defensive instruments. I carried nothing so mundane as a club.

"Why didn't you wake me up?"

"I hollered. You didn't even roll over. Then I was busy slamming the slime out of that damned thing."

"You should've poked me with the stick."

"I was distracted. I didn't think of that." And that was right in character. She hardly ever asked for help, even when she had no choice. This thing with Morley was a wonderment.

"All right. Tell me how it happened. In order. Exactly."

"I told you. There was this snake thing. I pounded on it till it pulled back. The shiny stuff is what it left. And, yes, I know we have to move Morley now because we can't totally protect him here."

Morley made a noise. I thought he wanted to say something. I was wrong. He had a problem with phlegm.

"That's a good sign, isn't it?"

"I think so." For a few seconds Belinda was the woman she could have been if she had chosen different parents and wasn't a flaming sociopath.

"You got anybody set up around here besides me?"

"Outside. You're my inside guy. You're the one I trust."

Somebody tapped on the door. I couldn't help myself. "What's the password?"

"How about 'Breakfast,' nimrod?" That sounded like DeeDee.

Belinda collected my head knocker and got ready to brain an intruder clever enough to mimic DeeDee's twang.

I cleared the bowl and pitcher off the nightstand. DeeDee parked the tray she carried. She turned on Dotes. "It worked! He looks a thousand percent better. He's coming back. He's going to be all right." She bounced and clapped her hands like a girl younger than Crush, then bolted out.

I asked, "What's the story there?"

"I don't know. It may be best that I don't."

I hadn't meant DeeDee's connection to Morley. I'd meant DeeDee and Hellbore. On reflection, though, there was no reason for Belinda to know anything about employees so far down the food chain that they dealt direct with the folks whose money fueled the Combine engine.

"She brought food enough for us and our childhood invisible friends. Let's do some damage." I hadn't eaten since I left Macunado Street.

DeeDee came back with Crush before we were done. Crush jumped all over me. "You weren't supposed to eat the cream of wheat!"

"The what?"

"The mush, nimrod! That was for him. The heavy stuff was for you."

The invisible friends must have gotten that. I hadn't seen anything I considered part of a hearty breakfast. "The nearest thing to a real breakfast. ."

Belinda squeezed my left elbow. She had some grip for a girl. "Garrett, your job is to keep your mouth shut, look pretty, and break the legs of anybody who tries to hurt Morley."

I could do two out of three blindfolded but the mouth thing has been a lifelong challenge.

"Belinda, silence is too hard." I was always chock-full of words that want to be free. Some even coagulate into rational. . somethings.