Glen Cook - Angry Lead Skies

I know of no one in the Tate clan who likes cousin Lister. He's tolerated because he's kin and because he's good at what he does.

Cousin Lister has no clue how his relatives really feel about him.

Like every human family in TunFaire, great or small, the Tales have menfolk buried in the Cantard. Full-length frog fur coats are more common than grown men who avoided military service in the war zone.

Lister Tate, without halfway trying, wangled himself an army assignment that kept him right here in TunFaire, as the armed forces' liaison with their biggest suppliers of boots and leather accoutrements. He didn't even move out of the family compound. Nevertheless, he promoted himself an out-of-barracks housing allowance that exceeded the pay rates of men like myself, at my highest rank, even including the combat bonus I got while I was in the islands.

I worked my way around to Tinnie. "My good fortune never ceases to amaze me. I was daydreaming about meeting a beautiful redhead. Look what walked through the door."

"I saw what you were daydreaming about. A slutty blonde young enough to be your baby sister."

Alyx snickered and bounced over a seat so I could settle between her and the redhead. She made some crude remark about the chair's warmth, that would've had her father looking for a switch had he heard it. I gave her a wink. "You could come be my baby-sitter."

Tinnie told me, "You ever call her bluff for real, big boy, you'd better have your running shoes on."

Alyx said, "If he does, he won't be able to do anything but crawl."

"You're going to put it all on me when she's talking like that?" I winked at Alyx again. She stuck her tongue out at Tinnie and started to hop into my lap. Then she noticed her father, Gilbey, and Congo Greeve all glaring at her. She needed to learn that some teasing wasn't acceptable in public.

"Yes. Because I expect you to know how to say no."

That seemed a tad unrealistic but I didn't insist. Instead, I said, "Uh-oh," with very little regard for Tinnie's opinion.

Kayne Prose had arrived. Making a grand entrance, just ahead of Cassie Doap, who seemed to have adopted a flamboyantly flirtatious personality for the evening. Tinnie stomped a foot. She wasn't used to this level of competition.

In fact, she was rather exceeded.

Mother and daughter wore newly made gowns. Their creation must've required the needles of all Kayne's cooperative sisters. Both gowns flattered outrageously what begged for very little flattery in the first place.

Slack-jaw disease raged among the menfolk in Morley's private dining room.

Even Dean's imagination seemed to come to life.

Rhafi came in behind his mother and sister, rendered almost invisible by their glory.

As happenstance had it, Lister Tate was the only married man in the room. The bachelors and widowers all looked ready to revel in their status.

When time and doom catch up with me and I have to slough off this mortal realm, I mean to thank the gods for having blessed me with the chances I've had to get to know so many comely women. I expect to start working on my speech about ten thousand years from now.

Manvil Gilbey caught my eye, projected the unspoken question: Was this something I'd laid on for Max? Max could not seem to stop staring at Cassie Doap.

I shook my head, mouthed, "But if it'll help... "

Puddle showed the newcomers to their seats, near Playmate and Kip. Even he was having trouble breathing. There were far too many beautiful women in that room, each of them trying to one-up the others.

Tinnie let me have an elbow, putting plenty of force behind it. "That's for what you're thinking."

"I apologize. I'll never think of you as an object again. From now on it's nothing but business. From now on you'll be Mr. Tate in my every act and thought."

That earned me a repeat stroke of the elbow. "I'd better not be." The fickle woman.

Alyx said, "Look at Dad! I think the old bull's in rut."

Tinnie muttered, "Alyx, sometimes you're too juvenile even to amuse me."

I moved up to my place beside Dean, which was my signal that the evening was about to become serious. Those who weren't in their official seats found them. Once everyone sat down there was very little room to spare. Morley had another place setting on each long side but it would've taken a shoehorn to get anybody in. I introduced everyone, including Morley as host, then Evas and Singe as they took their seats to the left of Dean and to the right of me, without explaining their presence. I thought they ought to stay mysterious. They drew stares but not even Lister Tate was gauche enough to demand information about them.

I let Morley know that we were ready to be served.

Kayne and Cassie both managed admirably during dinner. Tinnie was not amused by the regard they received. She was used to being the center of attention. But all the men at this banquet were related to her or had known her since she was a pup. Except for me and Dean and Kayne's drooling baby boys. And she already had Dean on a leash and me wrapped around her finger.

Alyx was amused. She liked seeing Tinnie have to take second chair. Just to rub it in she kept right on flirting with me. Her father wasn't worried about her anymore.

I tried not to cry when I thought about how much this evening was costing me. I tried to forget the fact that, if it didn't work out, I might end up spending several years working fourteen-hour days just to get back to the point where I could afford to save money buying beer by the keg.

As a business convocation the sequestered evening at Morley's place had to be some sort of precedent. The gang of us came out of there having created a company dedicated to the creation, production, and marketing of the fruits of the imagination of Cypres Prose, ingenious boy inventor. The Weider brewing empire would provide financing. The Tate family would handle the actual production. Kayne Prose and all her offspring would move into the Tate compound, where they would live much better than ever they had before, with no requirement that they do anything but be Kip's support and inspiration. I myself would be the genius who held it all together. Having been the genius who had gotten it all together.

I had a feeling Kayne Prose wouldn't have much attention to spare for industry. Not for a few months, at least.

When Kayne Prose met Manvil Gilbey it was lust at first sight both ways. All the rest of us had to be grateful that they didn't jump on one another right there in the banquet room.

Kayne's behavior wasn't exactly a surprise. I had a feeling she seldom met a man she didn't like. But Manvil Gilbey is as reserved as a wine butt normally.

The absolute absurdity of the universe is declared, in a bellow, once again, by the fact that Max Weider, age sixty, became infatuated with Cassie Doap, a completely ridiculous eventuation not unilateral in nature. Nor did either of those two seem conscious of the fact that Cassie was three years younger than Alyx Weider. And Alyx was the baby of Max's five children.

Max told me, "Of course it's stupid. But she's a dead ringer for Hannah when I first met her." And he was willing to play delusional games with himself in order to defy his pain.

More or less. Nobody cons Max Weider for long. Not even Max himself.

Cassie's positive response, wholly genuine, was a good deal more puzzling. We knew already that neither Cassie nor her mother were out for the easy ride, bought with their looks and bodies.

There're times when people do, honestly, connect on something besides the physical level.

That became one of the fine evenings of my life. One of those times when everything works out even better than you'd dared hope.

Sometime during the socializing, following the creation of the Articles of Agreement encompassing the founders of the new company, my good pal Morley Dotes and the silver elf Evas disappeared.