Gilded Latten Bones

5

I asked, "You recall last night?" Tinnie was trying to make breakfast. Trying hard. She wanted to do good. She had nothing else left in her arsenal of distraction. Sadly, she's much better at looking good than at cooking good.

"Yep. Yep. I remember."

Ha! Nervous. Maybe even feeling a little guilty, though the Guard's inquisitors wouldn't get her to admit that.

"The sausages aren't as bad as they look," she promised. "And the toast will be fine if you scrape it a little with your knife."

"Kip Prose has a thing for making perfect toast." I let it go, though. She had used one of the prototypes to burn this toast.

"I just wanted a normal life."

I said nothing. Let her have the argument with herself. Of course, silence is my best tactic in this sort of situation, four times out of five. I let her ramble where she liked.

She ran down. She glared at me. Then she got her second wind. "Gods damn it, Garrett! I know what you're thinking. It wasn't you that those thugs came for. It was me."

Admitting that cost her. Getting any Tate to admit being wrong about anything, even obliquely, is more rare than hens' teeth. And certainly more precious. Having one 'fess up without provocation, voluntarily, is rare beyond compare.

I soldiered on, keeping my big damned mouth shut, a skill I'm still having trouble mastering. Had I done so years ago, I could've saved myself a lot of hard knocks.

"All right! You're right! It never would have happened if I hadn't insisted that we live up here. The Dead Man would have wrapped those idiots up before they damaged the door."

They might not have come at all. Hardly anybody is stupid enough to take a chance with the Dead Man anymore. They would have caught Tinnie somewhere else. They would have made her disappear quietly.

Which they should have done anyway. Why try for her here, at night, when there was such a damned good chance that I would get involved?

They wanted me involved. Had to. Or whoever sent them did. Ha! Butch and his brother hadn't been well briefed on what to expect before they set off to capture the savage redhead.

Maybe Jimmy Two Steps hadn't had a clue, either.

That is the way I would have worked it if I was in the villain trade. I'd make Jimmy a cutout.

I put some toast and sausage down and did not gag. I took a relaxing breath, announced, "I'm going to visit Singe and the Dead Man."

Tinnie stopped rattling pots.

"Singe won't know Two Steps but her brother might."

"You told Lieutenant Scithe that you would let it alone."

"The Dead Man might have a perspective that I overlooked."

"You promised."

"I'll stop by Morley's place and see what he thinks, too." Morley Dotes is my best friend.

"Garrett, you aren't-"

"He should be able to get word out that it won't be healthy to mess with my number-one girl."

Tinnie chomped some air. That made it all about her. Further argument now would make her look petty.

Not a failing she has concerned herself with much in the past.

"Nobody is likely to come after you here, now." She has a raft of draft-age male relatives. Two were outside as we spoke, illegally armed and ready for war. "Stick to business and you'll be fine. No bad guy will ever make it as far in as the financials office."

I wasn't seeing the full picture. Tinnie way far more than normally insecure. And every word out of my mouth was one she didn't want to hear. Including, "You are supposed to be getting the books straightened out today, aren't you?"

One of the draft-age cousins, Artifice, redder in the head than Tinnie, walked in without a knock or an invitation. "There's somebody out here wants to see you, Garrett." He seemed nervous. He evaded Tinnie's basilisk stare.

I made the head knocker at home in my hand. "Duty calls, my love."

My love sent me off with the kind of language used by men in combat. Then decided to come along and see what was what.

She began showing fierce verbal skills once we stepped outside.

My sweetie isn't one hundred percent contrary. There are times when reason will take hold. Times when she will accept a valid argument without herself arguing for the sake of being difficult.

This was not going to be one of those.

For half a minute she was incapable of doing anything but sputter vile accusations.