Whispering Nickel Idols

24

When I wakened I ambled back into the kitchen in search of fuel.

Dean was darning socks and slow cooking a sauce involving tomatoes, spices, garlic, and shredded onions. He had an admirably large mug of wine in front of him, which was out of character. He splashed some into the sauce. Oh.

Singe had swilled enough beer to get silly. Time to order in a new backup keg. Melondie Kadare was in a state where she wasn’t much more than a sack of jelly, venting noises vaguely reminiscent of primitive language.

I said, “We need to lock Mel in a box until she dries out.”

Singe snickered. A sight to behold and a unique, gurgly sound to hear. She was feeling less pain than I’d first thought.

There were kittens all over. I couldn’t keep track.

Dean said, “Get the front door. I’m too busy.”

His ears were sharper than mine. This guy must have mislaid his sledgehammer.

I was the only hind-legger able to navigate, so I snagged my mug and headed south. After a weary trek, o’er dale and under mountain, I positioned myself at my peephole.

One gorgeous, thoroughly frazzled, blue-eyed brunette had taken station on my stoop. I was surprised. I was more surprised to see that it was dark out. And still more surprised that she’d shown up without bodyguards or her ugly black coach. She wasn’t wearing her usual vampire wannabe look, either. She wasn’t stylish at all. She had gone lower-class, raggedy, housewifey instead of whorish.

I opened up. Eyeballing the darkness behind her, I observed, “A lot of work go into the new look?”

“Yes. You want to move so I can get in before somebody figures it out?”

I moved. Belinda got inside.

“You by yourself?” I was used to seeing her motate around with several shadows who resembled woolly mammoths operating on their hind legs.

“All by my lonesome. I don’t want anybody guessing I’m me. Not to mention that I lost my whole crew in the fire.”

“Uhm?” My vocabulary word of the day.

“You know how many people are watching your place?”

“I have a notion. What I’m not sure of is why. I thought they’d go away after they swept up the last bunch of vandals who tried to wreck my door.”

“I have no idea what you’re babbling about. From a business point of view it would make sense to look over your shoulder twenty-five hours a day, eight days a week.”

“Uhm?” There I went again.

“Shit happens around you, Garrett. Weird shit. Really weird shit. You draw it like horse apples draw flies.”

“And here you are, buzzing around my hall.” A gurgling peal of pixie laughter reminded me. “We’re having a party in the kitchen. Come on back.”

Belinda scowled.

She’d lost something. Emotionally, she was back where she’d been when I’d met her. Scared, beautiful, crazy, in a shitload of trouble. She wasn’t as scattered as she’d been back then, but she wasn’t the ferocious Contague crime queen anymore, either.

I said, “Come on. You need to relax.”

Not the best strategy, possibly. Belinda wasn’t beloved by anyone in my kitchen-though Dean probably thinks her worst flaw is her willingness to be seen with me.

Singe gave me bitter looks Belinda didn’t recognize because she doesn’t know ratpeople. Melondie Kadare didn’t contribute. She was on her way to becoming extinct. The kittens were pleased to see Belinda. Fifteen or twenty of them piled on as soon as she sat down.

I scooped Melondie off the tabletop. “I’ll take Mel home. Before one of these critters forgets his manners.” The pixie buzzed feebly. I got a grip so she wouldn’t flutter off and smash her head against a wall or ceiling she couldn’t see.

I checked the peephole, saw nothing but bats zipping through the moonlight. I opened up, whistled softly. There would be a sentry. He might need waking up, though. Pixies greatly prefer the daytime.

They found Melondie’s husband. He and her family took over. She was snoring like a six-inch-long, horizontal lumberjack. They bound her wings so she wouldn’t do anything lethal in her sleep.

I went back inside.

Belinda was at the door to my office. She had a pitcher of beer, a pot of tea, a small oil lamp, and appropriate auxiliaries on a tray.

“What’s up?”

“I didn’t feel welcome in there. And I don’t want them listening.”

“Let me get the lamp going. Damn!” I missed stomping a kitten by a cat’s whisker. I dumped another cat out of the client’s chair. It bounced onto my desktop, where it puffed up and hissed at the stone that had come another whisker short of braining me.

Belinda filled me a mug and poured herself a cup of tea, added cream and a hunk of sugar the size of a flagstone. She stroked the kitten that laid claim to her lap.

I asked, “So what’s up?”

She stalled. She wasn’t sure she wanted to talk after all. She forced it. “Do you know where my father is?”

What? “No. Last I saw him, you were getting him out of the hall.”

“Oh.”

“Why? What happened? Did you mislay him?”

“Sort of. I got him out, got him into the coach, started to look for you. The coach took off and hasn’t been seen since.”

“Wow.” I found myself playing with the stone egg- in preference to the unhappy cat in my lap. In a leap of intuition I understood why folks were interested in Temisk. “Any chance one of the district captains grabbed him?”

“No. I’d feel my arm being twisted already. Instead, they’re running in circles trying to figure out what’s going on.”

“Maybe he decided to make a run for it.”

“What?”

“Maybe he’d had enough and made a run for it.”

“He was in a coma, Garrett.”

“You think? You’re sure? One hundred percent? He wasn’t just paralyzed?”

“You know better than that.”

“No, I don’t,” I lied. “You never let anybody get close enough to tell.”

She didn’t bother to argue.

I recalled Morley’s hypothesis that some guy named Garrett was the moral anchor and emotional touchstone of the spider woman. I didn’t want the job. Everybody knows what girl spiders do when boys get too close.

Maybe it was one of those deals where, you save a life, it’s your responsibility forever after.

You put the knightly armor on, and sometimes they don’t let you take it off.

“What’re you thinking?”

“I’m thinking you’re a dangerous woman to be around. And I’m around you a lot.”

“Tinnie knows you pretty well, then.”

“Unfortunately. But my personal life isn’t what I meant.”

“You’re afraid of me?”

“There’s that. You’ve got a temper. But the real problem is, you swim with sharks. I expect jaws to clamp on me any minute.”

“With all your guardian angels?”

“Angels? Name two.”

“Morley Dotes. Deal Relway. Westman Block. Playmate. Saucerhead Tharpe. Not to mention your business partners. Max Weider is no angel. Neither is Lester Tate. And then there’s me.”

Made me feel humble. For maybe ten seconds. Then my natural cynicism got its second wind. Someday I should fake my own death and see how things shake out.

“So you lost track of your dad. Let’s slink on down to the bottom line. How come you’re in a state where you sneak off?… You aren’t just looking to hide out, are you?”

“No. I walk back out of here in the morning and be who I’ve been since the first time we met.”

“In the morning?”

“I don’t have anywhere to go tonight.”

I began to fiddle with that slingshot stone a whole lot more seriously.

“It isn’t like you don’t have other friends stay over.”

“You want to know the truth?”

“Maybe not, the way you’re looking at me.”

“None of those friends are as scary as you.”

Belinda went on petting that kitten, scowling because she’d heard something she didn’t like. She stared at my hands. “What the hell is that thing? What’re you doing?”

I explained. “I left it here before I went to the party. I don’t know. It relaxes me when I handle it.”

Belinda extended a hand. I let her have the stone. “You’re right.”

Dean stuck his head in. “You need anything before I go to bed?” He was lugging a brat cat of his own.

“I can’t think of anything.”

He scowled at Belinda but couldn’t get his heart into it. He sighed and went away.

Singe didn’t bother to check us out. Which meant she was sulking but didn’t have ambition enough to make anybody miserable.

Belinda poured herself a beer once she finished her tea. We played with kittens and let our hair down, talked like teenagers deep into the night, giggling at stupid jokes. I found out that she’d never had any girlfriends when she was younger. Never had the chance. Her role models were all the sort polite folk don’t invite to holiday dinners.

We drank a lot of beer.