Gilded Latten Bones

47

Morley was awake.

His eyes were halfway open, fluttering. He wanted to say something.

Having been in his position myself, I told him, "You're at my place on Macunado Street, being watched out for by me, Singe, the Dead Man, Belinda, John Stretch, the Civil Guard, and the godsdamned Windwalker, Furious Tide of Light. Somebody really wanted to close you down, buddy. Oh. You've been out for more than a week. They tried to poison you, too."

In retrospect, that actually helped. His wounds healed a lot while he was unconscious.

He tried to sit up. He got nowhere. His wounds were not healed enough. He felt them, too. And now had no strength left.

"Water!" was the first word I understood.

Then Dean was there, not only with water but with warm chicken broth. Singe was only a moment behind. She helped lift Morley so Dean could deliver the water and liquid chow.

After the stress level declined and the broth began to work, Morley croaked, "Tell me."

"Be easier for the Dead Man to. ."

"You tell."

I told my part and what I knew to be true with the precision I used reporting to the Dead Man.

Morley did not seem much interested in who had stabbed him. He was intensely interested in all the whos and what happeneds after he went down. Singe and I added what we had heard from unreliable sources.

Everything given him, I moved on to my own curiosities. "What were you doing in that part of town, anyway? Not that you don't have a right to go wherever you damned well please. But, unless things changed lately, you don't have much to do with those people."

Sometimes I think he was embarrassed by his ethnic background.

He was not yet in any condition for real talk. He eyed me in disbelief. Then his handsome face collapsed into despair. "I can't remember!" Moments later, "He couldn't root it out?"

"No. Unless he didn't recognize it because it didn't connect with everything else." That was my theory. Morley had been involved in something else entirely when he walked blind into something deadly.

Morley frowned. I took that to mean he wanted an explanation.

"Sarge thinks you were up there paying off your fiancee's family."

Morley looked puzzled but I didn't feel any honest emotion behind that. I didn't pursue it.

Old Bones could fill me in later.

I did ask, "How do you justify Belinda Contague against Dotes' First Law?"

"There are twelve kinds of crazy, Garrett. Romantic attraction is the worst." His first complete statement, and, probably, one of the truest things he ever said.

I am getting nothing more now than I did while Mr. Dotes was unconscious. There is nothing there. Though it would appear that chunks of memory may have been lost to concussion or that drug.

"A pity."

Indeed. All that can be done now is to protect him till he can protect himself.

"He'll want to get after this before he's physically ready."

Should he be so inclined I will make sure he falls asleep on his way to the door.

I chuckled.

Morley scowled.

I explained. "Not to worry. We're just planning your future. You'll thank us later."

He hurt too much to be amused.

I said, "There's some silliness taken care of. What do you figure on doing?"

"I'm going back to sleep." And he did, just like that. And it was the best thing he could do once he was full of high-potency chicken broth.

Soon he would get full-bodied chicken soup with noodles and bits of bird.

The Dead Man suggested that I forget Mr. Dotes for a while. I should go relax with Singe, who could help bring me up to speed.

That made me feel like I had been cast as a spear-carrier.

I had few options if I wanted to stay close to Morley.

Old Bones didn't mind not keeping me posted, but Singe had to know stuff because she managed operations and handled the money.

She commiserated over my problems with the redhead. "Pack up your pride and go talk to her. Morley will be safe."

I hemmed and hawed but I'm no good at stalling while trying to find plausible excuses for avoiding something that could turn out ugly.

"Good gods, Garrett! What are you? Thirteen and an only child? Go talk to her. What's the worst she can do?"

I told her what the worst was.

"After all the time, trouble, training, and emotion she has invested in you?"

"Yes. After all that. She's turned into a pretty selfish girl."

"How did that happen? Who gave her the idea that whatever Tinnie wants, Tinnie deserves and gets it? Garrett, you are a first-class dum-dum. Tinnie has been in your life since my mother was a pup. She came and went a few times but she was always back after whoever was distracting you moved on."

That was harsh but essentially factual. Both ways. Tinnie had had some gentlemen suitors. I had had. . Maya, Eleanor, even Belinda.

I scowled, hoping Tinnie's man friends had not gotten as close as I had to some of those ladies. Maya had been determined to marry me. She never managed to get me to hold still long enough. She had gone on to do much better. And I had gone gaga for Eleanor despite her having been murdered long before I ever met her. Her ghost and her memory were an important part of my life for a long time.

Singe told me, "You need to leave the yesteryear baggage behind. Get back to Tinnie being who she was when she was your special best friend who happened to be a girl."

I wondered if she was being coached from across the hall.

"Good stuff, Singe. Stuff worth thinking about."

She preened.

"What do you think of the Windwalker?"

"Who?"

"The Windwalker, Furious Tide of Light."

"The sorceress who tagged along when I backtracked to the warehouse where all the horror stuff was? The woman who was in your room last night?"

"Her."

"What about her?" She didn't have much of a ruff but it was up.

"You remember her from the thing with the ghosts and giant bugs?"

Several seconds of silence. "All right. That was the same woman?"

"Singe."

"What about her?"

"Singe, I'm asking your opinion of that woman based upon your exposure, interaction, and magical nose."

"I don't have an opinion. How could I? My personal exposure hasn't been enough to develop one. Probably less than an hour over both our lifetimes. Anything I said would be speculative. So. Why is my opinion important?"

That had a high bull-poop content. I didn't challenge it. "Because she's important to me. Because you're important to me. I'm extremely attracted to her, physically and intellectually. And she says she's going to marry me."

The Windwalker did say that, didn't she? Or did I dream it? No matter. It was out of the bag now.

Singe said nothing for several minutes, though she did spout the occasional interrogative sentence as she discussed this revolting development with our deceased friend.

Singe was, apparently, astonished by the Dead Man's positive attitude toward the Windwalker and his lessened enthusiasm toward Tinnie.

I must say that, though forewarned, I didn't understand him, either. And he offered no explanation.

I needed to think about that. The mix for consideration should include not just what I knew about Tinnie and the Windwalker-whose given name I did not yet know-but, also, what the Dead Man knew and never shared.

I should get Tinnie to visit. Old Bones hadn't burgled her head in ages.

I asked the air, "Do I need to be scared?"

I got no answer. Of course.

Then I got distracted by supper and Kolda's return. Then it was time to supervise the ratwomen who came to clean Morley. They were amazed and amused by a gallant salute that reared up while they changed his diaper.

He was on his way back for sure.

The caretakers gave way to a brace of armed ratmen. Singe's brother came with them. We settled in her office. We drank some beer. John Stretch had become an interesting person in his own right. I wondered how many more geniuses his mother had produced.

I wasted a lot of time wondering about nonproductive stuff.