Glen Cook - Deadly Quicksilver Lies

I said, "You ever feel the need to get in touch, just go up Macunado Street. When you get to Wizard's Reach, start asking around for where the Dead Man stays."

The lady offered a weak smile. "I might do that. I just might. Just to see what happens."

"Fireworks. For sure."

Winger suggested, "Save yourself for marriage, honey. If there's anything left."

The lady's smile vanished.

You can't win them all. You especially can't when you have friends intent on throwing the game.

We'd reached the street in front of the Bledsoe. I tried to sprint off into the night at a fast shamble. I figured I ought to make tracks before some avenging orderly appeared.

After I'd gone a few steps, Winger observed, "That was the most disgusting display I've seen yet, Garrett. Don't you ever stop?"

"We have to get out of here." I glanced over my shoulder at the Bledsoe. A glimpse of the place nearly panicked me. That had been close. "We got to disappear before they send somebody after us."

"You think they're not going to know where to look? You all but gave that bimbo your address."

"Hey! You're talking about the love of my life. She won't give me away." I didn't let her see my crossed fingers.

Winger shifted ground. "Why would they bother, anyway? Really?"

At this point, they probably wouldn't. Anything they did now was likely to draw more attention than they could stand.

I shrugged. That's always a useful, noncommital device.

I waited till we had a good head start, just in case the hospital gang did decide to come after me. Then I grabbed Winger's hand in a comealong grip.

"Hey! What the hell you doing, Garrett?"

"You and me are going to sit here on these steps like young lovers and you're going to whisper sweet nothings about what the hell is going on. Got it?"

"No."

I added some muscle to the hold.

"Ouch! Ain't that just like a man? No gratitude. Save his ass and—"

"Looked to me like I was doing an adequate job of saving it on my own. Sit."

Winger sat, but she kept grumbling. I didn't let go. I wouldn't get any answers if I did.

"Tell me about it, Winger."

"About what?" She can turn into the dumbest country girl that ever lived.

"I know you. Don't waste stupid on me. Tell me about Maggie Jenn and her missing daughter and how come as soon as I take this job I get jumped, cold-cocked, and shoved into the cackle factory in such a big hurry the fools don't bother to empty my pockets? All the time I'm in there, I'm wondering how this could happen to me when only my pal Winger knows what I'm doing. And now I'm wondering how my pal Winger knew I needed help getting sprung from the Bledsoe. Stuff like that."

"Oh. That." She thought a while, making something up.

"Come on, Winger. Give truth a try. Just for the novelty."

She offered me a Winger-sized dirty look. "I was working for this pansy name of Grange Cleaver... "

"Grange Cleaver? What kind of name is that? Come on. Tell me there ain't nobody named Grange Cleaver."

"Who's going to tell this? You or me? You want to sit there and listen to the echo of your lips clacking, that's all right with me. Only don't expect me to hang around listening, too. I know how corny you get when you're up on your high horse."

"Me? Corny?"

"Like some holy joe Revanchist roll in the aisles preacher."

"You wound me."

"I'd like to, sometimes."

"Promises, promises. You were working for a character with a name even a dwarf wouldn't tolerate."

"Yeah. His mom and dad were probably named Trevor and Nigel." She gave me another dirty look, thought about getting stubborn. "I was working for him, you like his name or not. He had me watching Maggie Jenn. Because he expected her to try to kill him, he said."

"Why?"

"He didn't say. I didn't ask. The kind of mood he was in most times, it didn't seem like a bright idea to nag."

"Not even a guess?"

"What's with you, Garrett? I get three marks a day if I mind my own business and do my job. I maybe get kneecapped if I don't."

Thus did we head for an argument about moral responsibility. We'd had it about fifty times before. The way Winger saw it, if you covered your own ass you were doing your part.

She was trying to divert me.

"Guess it don't matter, Winger. Go on. Explain how you ended up here."

"That's easy. I'm a big dummy. I figured you for a pal. Somebody what didn't deserve that raw a deal."

"How come I feel like there are some details shy here? You think you could put a little flesh on those bones?"

"You can be a real pain in the butt, Garrett. Know what I mean?"

"I've heard that rumor." I waited. I did not relax my grip on her hand.

"All right. All right. So I was working for this Cleaver. Mostly on watching the Jenn bimbo, but on other stuff sometimes, too. It was like regular work, Garrett. Top pay and always something needed doing. Tonight I figured out why. Cleaver was putting me out front. People watched me while him and his nancy boys pulled stunts in the shadows."

I grunted but provided no sympathy. I can't find much of that for somebody who won't learn. Winger had gotten herself used before. She was big and good-looking and a woman, and because she was a woman hardly anyone took her seriously. This Grange Cleaver probably just thought she was a handy freak, though he was a freak himself.

"I know, Garrett. I know. You heard this one before. Probably you'll hear it again. Sometimes it works out profitable."

Meaning she took advantage of those who used her, playing dumb country girl while she pocketed their silver candlesticks.

I gave her a shot at my famous raised eyebrow.

"I know. I know. But I got to get by while I build my reputation."

"I suppose." Getting a nasty rep was an obsession with her.

"Thanks for the passionate support. At least I caught on before it was too late to get out."

"Did you?"

"Get out? Damned right I did. See, this Cleaver told me, yeah, Winger, that's a great idea, putting somebody next to Maggie Jenn. Somebody else on account of she'd recognize me. But when I told him it was you I got to cover it, he got a face looked like he was about to have a shit hemorrhage. You'd a thought one of his buddies sneaked up and showed him he loved him by surprise. He got me out so fast I got suspicious. I sneaked around to where I could listen in on him."

I suspected Winger had done plenty of eavesdropping. "I've never heard of Cleaver. How come he's shook up about me?"

She spat. "How the hell should I know? You do got your rep as a super straight-arrow simp. Maybe that done it."

"Think so?" Winger was after an angle all the time. "So you wised up. Hard to believe. Usually it takes—"

"I ain't as dumb as you think, Garrett." She refused to provide proof, though. "What Cleaver was up to, he called in this bunch of street brunos. Not his regular butt buddies, just some muscle. He told them he had this big problem name of you and asked could they solve it for him? How about they sent you off to the Bledsoe? The brunos said sure and laughed and joked about how they done it before with some guys Cleaver didn't like. He's got people on the inside on the pad. He's connected to the hospital somehow. Probably through that blond baggage you was drooling on when I was trying to get you out of there."

"Yeah. Probably." But I didn't believe that and neither did she.

"Anyways, it took me a while to get away without nobody noticing. I came straight to the hospital."

I could imagine why it had taken her so long to slip away. Once she decided to quit Cleaver, she would want to collect everything valuable she could carry. Then she'd have to take that wherever she kept her stuff. Then she might have tested the waters to see if she couldn't carry off another load before she finally got around to me.