Sweet Silver Blues

17

Vasco didn't want to play the game my way, though he brought the women when he came to argue. He came on time, too, which told me that he would do it my way if I didn't bend.

He left Rose and Tinnie fifty feet up the dock, guarded by a half-dozen men, and marched aboard. "Still in there pitching to get your throat cut, aren't you?" I asked.

His lips tightened but he refused to be baited. The sergeants teach you to control your temper, down in the Cantard. He looked around, did not see anything to disturb him.

He should have been disturbed. It had been all I could do to restrain Morley, who wanted to bushwack the bunch and leave them floating in the river.

"Before you start," I told Vasco, "you'd better realize that I've got no special need for those women. I don't have any for Denny's papers, either. Which is why I'll make the trade."

"Where are the papers, Garrett?"

"Where are the women?"

"Right there. You can't see... ?"

"I don't see them on the boat. You don't get squat till I think it's too late for you to screw me over."

"Why would I do that?"

"I don't know. You haven't shown a lot of sense so far."

"You won't needle me into doing something stupid, Garrett."

"I don't have to. You do fine without me. Get those women over here." Master Arbanos was ready to cast off.

"What guarantee do I have that you're not cheating us?"

I ticked off points. "One: I always play these things straight. You know my reputation. Two: I don't need the papers for anything. Three: I know who you are, so I don't have to mess with you now. I can come for your head whenever I want it."

"Keep talking tough, Garrett. You'll get burned."

"Maybe you'll send Barbera after me?"

His mouth tightened even more. He jerked around, jumped to the wharf, gestured at his goons. They released the women. I waved them toward Sequin.

They came forward slowly. I guess they thought blood would fly any second.

Vasco stopped a few steps from the edge of the wharf. "So where are the papers, Garrett?"

I didn't have anything to say. He was still between me and the women. I just sort of looked around like a bored sightseer.

That's when I spotted the two guys from Morley's place, Big One and Ugly One. Not together, but both hanging around, relaxed, just part of the crowd eye-balling the goings-on.

I backed up a couple of steps like I was giving the gals room to jump aboard. I whispered down to Morley, who was crouched between onion sacks, "Take a peek at the guy sitting on the cotton bales."

"Give, Garrett," Vasco said.

I ignored him. The women had a few yards to go yet. Even Rose's sour face had begun to show some hope.

Master Arbanos began letting lines go.

Morley whispered, "I see him. What about him?"

"Who is he?"

"How the hell should I know? I never saw him before."

"I did. Once. The other night. Hanging around with the big guy over there leaning against those navy pork barrels." I started to tell him where and when, then decided it might be wise to save a little something for my old age.

"I don't know him, either," Morley said.

"Give, Garrett." Vasco had just about decided I was going to cheat him. He started after the women.

"Run!" I yelled at them. And to Vasco, "They're in a box in an abandoned house on the Way of the Harlequin, half a block west of Wizard's Reach."

"It's your ass if they aren't, Garrett."

"Anytime you think you can take a piece of it, Vasco. Anytime."

The boat began to drift away from the wharf. The women took my advice, sprinted and jumped. A delectable bundle of goodies plopped into my arms. Morley popped up and caught Rose, making suitable purrs at the advent of unexpected treasures. I tossed him a sneer.

Vasco trotted away, barking orders at his troops.

I couldn't restrain a chuckle.

"What's so funny?" Tinnie asked. She made no effort to peel herself from me. I thought about pushing her away—sometime next week.

"Just imagining what might happen when they try to collect those papers."

"You mean you lied to them?"

The wharf was fifteen feet away now. Ugly One got down off the cotton bales. He paid us no special attention. And I had trouble paying him any, either. Tinnie would not hold still.

"Oh, no. I told him the truth. I just didn't tell him all of it."

"Amateurs," Morley said, taking a break from Rose, who was doing to him what Tinnie was to me. "They had any professional smarts at all, they'd know that's the Dead Man's place. Slick, Garrett. Remind me not to get on your wrong side. You're so slick you'd slide uphill."

I glanced at the two men on the wharf and wondered.

"I told you I was going with you, Garrett," Rose crowed, as if she had planned the whole thing. She got over her frights fast.

"You might think," I told her. "You might think." I figured to have Master Arbanos put in a mile or two down and get shut of those females.

Damn! That Tinnie was merciless.

I decided I liked her.

About then old man Tate came charging out the dock, too late for anything but the bye-bye. "Master Arbanos, where are you going to put in so we can get rid of these women?" I figured I'd yell the news across to Tate.

"Leifmold."

Leifmold. All the way down to the coast.

He would not relent. He was deaf to offers of money on this. He had a reputation, a schedule, and a tide, and he would waste none of them for any puny bribe I could pay.

Rose grinned wickedly while I argued.

Tinnie's smile was more promising.