Bitter Gold Hearts

"You're ignoring the centerpiece at this hell's feast. The shadow that falls upon it all. The Stormwarden Raver Styx."

"Explain yourself, Mr. Garrett." "Iwill. By example. Suppose everyone involved was exactly who he or she is, but you, instead of being the dread Raver Styx, were the heiress to the Gallard wine fortune, that what's-her-name. Would anyone have done what they did if you were her and she'd gone out of town for six months? Would anyone have been tempted? Donni Pell and her gang, maybe, but they were motivated by greed going in. Who you were or weren't didn't matter till the double crosses and foul-ups started and asses had to be covered."

She didn't like it a bit, though I'd barely skimmed the edges. But that woman had to be the most hardhearted damned realist ever to cross my trail. She swallowed her ego. "I see." She made Willa Dount look like a kitten. She took time out for more reflection. Then, "What do you plan to do, Mr. Garrett?"

"I'd like to interview your husband and Willa Dount in circumstances where they can't evade questions or avoid answering them."

"It can be arranged. When?"

"The sooner the better. Today. Now. That old man with the black sword has been busy enough. Let's not give him time to sniff out anybody else." Old Death is supposed to be blind but I've noticed he never misses.

"That's probably wisest. How do you want to set it up?"

We talked about it for fifteen minutes. I said I'd play it by ear, making sure she understood I wanted to be given my head. Then she rose. "I'll have the bodies taken away now, Mr. Garrett."

"Out the back would be best. They're supposed to have been cremated already. Nobody outside this house knows they haven't been."

"I understand."

I followed her to the front door, where she paused before she allowed me to let her out. "Take very good care of my daughter, Mr. Garrett. She may be all that I have left."

"I intend to, Stormwarden."

We locked gazes for a moment. We understood one another.

It is a pitiful truth that people like Raver Styx cannot express their love in any way that their beloved will find meaningful.

______XLVI______

The door shut. I leaned against it and let out a long, heartfelt sigh of relief. I shook for about a minute while the tension drained away. I wanted to let out a big old war whoop. Saucerhead leaned out of the kitchen. "She finally go?"

"Finally."

He counted my arms and legs. "Guess you worked something out."

"Yeah. We'll see how it stays together."

"What's the game?"

"First thing is, some of her boys are going to come to the back door to pick up those bodies. You guys can hand them over. I'm going to set a fire under the Dead Man."

Saucerhead gave me a dirty look, grumbling about "them that puts on aristocratic airs," but he went and got Sadler and Crask. I waited while they removed the corpses.

There, now. That was not so bad after all, was it, Garrett?

"A snap. So why the hell are you sweating?"

That startled him. I could almost see him checking to see if, by some miracle, some of life's processes had resumed. Point for Garrett.

"You had some kind of epiphany while I was talking to her. What was it?"

/ realized that by taking a short trip upcountry you could probably put the cap on the affair.

He was all set to do some crowing about his genius.

"You mean by going out to that farm and rounding up Donni Pell?"

You reasoned it out!

"You've been telling me I have to use my own head.

Using yours is too much like work. All the kingpin's hounds and all the kingpin's men couldn't catch more than a few whiffs of old back trails. She'd used up her friends here in town. Where else would she go?"

Very good. Though we do rely on the assumption that she has not taken the proceeds of her multifarious treach­eries and gotten herself somewhere where she can become a new and possibly even respectable person.

"I don't think she has the sense or character to make the clean break. If she did, she would've gotten out days ago."

You are going to return to that farm?

"I'm still formulating strategy," I fibbed. "Meanwhile I'll go up to the daPena place for a chat with the Stormwarden's old man and Willa Dount—maybe even her staff if it looks like that'll do any good. And in the back of my head I'll be trying to decide if Skredli is smart enough to have scoped it out himself."

/ had not thought of that.