Glen Cook - Cold Copper Tears

I didn't like it but I went at it, doing a fast round first, in case something turned up the easy way.

It didn't. I hadn't counted on it, anyway. The only thing that comes easy is trouble.

I went after it the hard way.

Still nothing.

Well, Jill hadn't struck me as stupid. She'd had plenty of storm warnings.

I wondered if she'd carried whatever it was over to my place. I hadn't watched her pack. Sure she had, if it had been here and was portable.

Had I just wasted a couple of hours I could have spent sleeping?

I made only one find of more than passing interest.

A small chest of drawers stood beside the bed. It was an expensive piece. The top drawer was just two inches deep. Jill had used it to dump small change. There had to be a pound of copper in there. Junk money to her, probably, though there were characters on the street who would take her head off for less.

I sat on the bed, pulled the drawer into my lap, and stirred its contents. The coins weren't all copper. Maybe one in twenty was a silver tenth mark.

The mix was eclectic, new and old, royal and private, as you'd expect of general change. Should I let Maya know the rainbow ended here?

Whoa! A perfect, mint-condition brother of the copper coin on the card in my pocket. A gem of the min-ter's art. I fished it out.

It meant nothing, of course... .

"Garrett!" Maya called.

I shoved the drawer into the chest and headed for the front room. "What you got?"

"Take a look."

I looked. Six men moved around the street below, furtive, studiously ignoring the building while they talked.

Maya asked, "How do we get out?"

"We don't. Keep watching. I'll be across the hall. Let me know when they come inside." I got a lamp, scurried across the hall, knelt, and got to work with a skinny knife.

I had the door open when Maya arrived. "Four are coming in."

I doused the lamp and moved forward into darkness, assuming the layout to reflect that of Jill's apartment, going slowly so I wouldn't get bushwhacked by rogue furniture.

I'd gone about eight feet when somebody knocked me ass over appetite. I never saw him, just heard his feet and Maya's squeak as he pushed past her. I fought off a man-eating chair with fourteen arms and legs. "Close the door. Quietly."

She did. "What do we do now?"

"Sit tight and hope they don't break in here. You carrying?"

"My knife."

They always have that. For chukos the knife is who they are. Without it they're just civilians.

"You get a look at that guy?"

"Not really. He was bald. He was carrying something. A corner of it hit me in the tit. I thought I'd scream."

"Don't talk like that."

"What'd I say?"

"You know... Ssh!" They were in the hall. They were trying to be quiet but had invaded unfamiliar territory in the dark.

Maya whispered, "He had a funny nose, too."

"Funny how?"

"Big and bent. Like it was broken or something."

"Sshh."

We waited. After a while I sent Maya to watch from the window, in case they left without us hearing them. I got into ambush near the door in case they decided to drop in. I wondered what had become of the guy who had run out. If he'd been one of them we'd have had company by now. And if he'd run into them there would have been some kind of uproar.

It was a long wait. The sky had begun to show some color when Maya said, "They're leaving."

I went and watched. The two biggest men each carried one of the lighter corpses. The other two carried the heavier corpse. The whole bunch got out of there fast.

I figured the smart thing would be to follow their example. So of course I took my dead lamp across the hall to see if I couldn't get it lit.

I was so long Maya was in a panic when I got back. "They cleaned the place up so it looks like nothing happened."

"Why would they do that?"

"You tell me and we'll both know."

"You going to follow those guys?"

"No."

"But—"

"There are six of them and one of me and they're going to be looking for trouble. They're real nervous right now, I guarantee you. I've been there. If they've got the sense the gods gave a duck they'll get rid of those bodies fast, then scatter. And anyway, I'm so tired I couldn't not walk into something. The best thing we can do is get some sleep."

"You're just going to drop it?" There was a peculiar edge to her voice.

"What's it matter to you?"

"How am I going to learn?"

"You don't have an audience here, Maya." That proved how tired I was.

She took it like a slap in the face. She didn't have anything to say after that.

I glanced around a minute later. Maya wasn't with me anymore.

I suffered a twinge of self-disgust. I hadn't needed to stomp all over her. She'd had enough of that from the rest of the world.

I slept past noon. When I stumbled into the kitchen I found Jill Craight with Dean, the two of them chattering like old girlfriends who'd been out of touch for years. Jill asked brightly, "What did you find out last night?"

Dean looked expectant. I hadn't told him anything when he'd let me in. I'd growled and snorted and stamped hooves some and gone to bed. Anything he knew he'd gotten from Jill.

"A whole bunch of nothing," I grumbled. I plopped into a chair. It barked back at me. "That damned Pokey put up too damned good a fight. Both guys that got out croaked before they got wherever they were headed."

Dean filled my teacup. "Mr. Garrett is a little ragged before he's had breakfast."

I folded my lips back in a snarl.

"Don't work so hard at it, Garrett," Jill said. "I know you're a wolf."

"Ouch."

She laughed. That surprised me. Snow queens can't have a sense of humor. That's in the rule book somewhere.

She said, "So they're all dead. That mean it's over?"

"No. They didn't find what they were after. But you deal with that however you want. It's your problem."

Dean brought me a platter piled with rewarmed biscuits, a pot of honey, butter, apple juice, and more tea. Just a morning snack for the boss. But the boss's houseguest had eaten better than the king had this morning.

Jill looked at me. "You said Pokey did too well. Who is Pokey?"

I had stepped right in that time. I would have to be more careful not to put that foot in my mouth. "Pokey Pigotta. The skinny dead man in your apartment. He was in the same business as me, more or less. You paid him, he found things out, took care of things for you. He was the best at what he did, but his luck ran out."

"You knew him?"

"There aren't a lot of us in this racket. We know each other."

Dean looked at me weird. He didn't give me away.

She thought a bit. "You couldn't guess who might have sent him, could you?"

I did have a notion and planned to check it out. "No."

"Looks like I'll have to try to hire you again. I can't live like this."

"You ever tried running through the woods in the dark?"

"No. Why?"

"You do, you keep smashing your face against things you can't see. Running in the dark can shorten your life. I don't run in the dark."

She got the message. There was no way I'd work for her if she wouldn't tell me what was going on. "I have a prior commitment, anyway."

"What's that?"

"Somebody tried to kill me. I want to find out who."

She didn't try to con me out of that.

I told her, "Get Saucerhead Tharpe. He's no investigative genius but he'll keep you safe. You thought about what might've happened if you'd been home when those guys dropped in?"

I could see that she had. She was worried.

"Get a hold of Saucerhead." I got up. I told her how to find Tharpe. "Dean, on the off chance Maya turns up, tell her I apologize for running my mouth. For a minute I forgot she wasn't a civilian."