Bitter Gold Hearts

I found myself a syrupy shadow and installed myself across from the tenement. The street was empty of people now, and of the more honest cats and dogs. The yelling and scuffling inside the buildings had died down. The slum was gathering its strength for tomorrow's frays. I waited. I waited some more. Then I waited. A band of pubescent marauders swept past, in search of trouble, but they didn't spot me. I waited. After two hours I gave up. Either the woman had no intention of running to Gorgeous and Skredli or she had left the building another way. I suspected she felt no need to take warning. I set myself for a long night. First, home to let the Dead Man know what I'd learned, then to Morley's place to find out what his people had reported and to learn what he knew about a thug named Gorgeous. Maybe more after that if anything interesting had turned up.

The interesting stuff started before I got to the house. Despite the hour there were a bunch of guys hanging around out front. I held up and watched awhile. That is all they were doing. Hanging around. And not trying to hide the fact. I moved a little closer. I could then see that they wore livery. Closer still, I saw that the livery belonged to the Stormwarden Raver Styx. Not being inclined to cooperate if they were waiting around to do evil when I showed, I slid away and ap­proached the house from the rear. We had no company back there. I rapped and tapped till I got Dean's atten­tion. He let me in.

"What have we got, Dean?"

"Company from the Hill."

"I suspected that. That's why I'm so good in this busi­ness. When I see fifteen guys hanging around in the street, I have a hunch that we've got company. What about our guest?"

"Upstairs. Buttoned up tight and keeping quiet."

"She knows?"

"I warned her."

"Good. Where is the company?"

"In your office. Waiting impatiently."

"She'll have to keep on waiting. I'm hungry and I want to let the old boy in on what I picked up. And I wouldn't mind guzzling about a gallon of beer before I face that harpy."

That made two chances I'd given him to ask how I'd guessed that my company was Domina Dount and twice that he'd ignored the bait. He has his little ways of getting even.

"Won't do no good to bother his nibs. He's gone to sleep."

"With an outsider in the house?"

"I suppose he trusts you to handle it." Dean's tone suggested he had a suspicion that the Dead Man's genius had lapsed, that maybe he'd rounded the last turn and was headed down that final stretch toward Loghyr heaven. It looked like I now had two of them who couldn't keep straight who owned the house and who was the guest or employee. I wouldn't be surprised if Dean wasn't thinking about moving in. He'd reached the occasional nag-about-money stage.

"Be nice, Dean. Or I'll leave you standing at the altar and run off with Willa Dount."

He didn't find that amusing.

"I might as well be married the way things are going around here."

He slapped a plate in front of me like an old wife in a snit. But the food was up to par.

I permitted myself a satisfied smirk.

______XXIX______

Up north along the edge of the thunder-lizard country there is a region called Hell's Reach. It's not wholly uninhabitable but nobody lives there by choice. Every­where you turn there are hot geysers, steaming sulfur pits, and places where the raw earth lies there molten, quivering, occasionally humping up to belch out a big ka-bloop! of gas. The lava pools sprang to mind the instant I saw Willa Dount. All her considerable will was bent toward re­straining a hot fury. She had an almost red glow about her, but was determined to give it no vent.

"Good evening," I said. "Had I expected a caller, I wouldn't have stayed out so late." I settled myself and my mug. "I hope you haven't been inconvenienced too much." Before I'd left the kitchen Dean had reminded me about sugar, vinegar, and flies, and I'd taken his advice to heart.

It's not smart to go out of your way to make enemies of the Hill, anyway.

"It has been a wait, but my own fault," she replied. Amazing that she would admit the possibility of fault in anything she did. "But had I sent someone to make an appointment, I would have been delayed even longer—if you would have been willing to see me at all. I'm certain you would have refused to come to me again."

"Yes."

"I'm aware that you don't hold me in high regard, Mr. Garrett. Certainly your contacts with my charges have done nothing to elevate your opinion. Even so, that shouldn't interfere with a business relationship. In our contacts thus far you have remained, for the most part, professionally detached."

"Thank you. I try." I do. Sometimes.

"Indeed. And I need you in your professional capacity once more. Not just for show this time."

It was my turn to say, "Indeed?" But I fooled her. I showed her my talented eyebrow instead.