Bitter Gold Hearts

______ XL ______

The first thought that entered my mind when I walked in on Skredli was drowned sparrow. He looked very small, very weak, very bedraggled, and like he'd never been dangerous to anything bigger than a bug. Curiously, I recognized him now. I hadn't during the excitement in Ogre Town or later in the coach. He was one of the gang who had waylaid me the afternoon of my date with Amiranda, while I was on my way to the chemist for some stink-pretty. Skredli was seated on a rumpled cot. He glanced up but showed no real interest. Ogres tend toward fatalism. Morley held the door for Chodo, then stepped aside. The kingpin backed his chair against the door.

I studied Skredli, wondering how to get to him. A man has to have hope before he's vulnerable. This one had no hope left. He was deader than the Dead Man, but his traitorous heart kept pumping and his battered flesh kept aching.

"The good times always come to an end, don't they, Skredli? And the better the times are, the bigger the fall when they end. Right?"

He didn't respond. I didn't expect him to.

"The chance for the good times doesn't have to be gone forever."

His right cheek twitched, once. Ogres and ogre breeds may be indifferent to the fates of their comrades, but they aren't indifferent to their own.

"Mr. Chodo has gotten what he wants from you. He doesn't have any outstanding grievance. Mine isn't with you at all. So there's no reason you shouldn't be let out of here if you give me what I need."

I didn't bother checking to see how Chodo took me putting words into his mouth. It didn't matter. He would do what he wanted no matter what I said or promised. Skredli glanced up. He didn't believe me, but he wanted to.

"The whole scheme is in the dump, Skredli. And you're down at the bottom. No way to go but up or out. The choice is yours." I had asked Chodo only one question coming to the cell: did Skredli know Gorgeous was out of it? He did. "Your boss is gone. No reason to stay loyal to him or be afraid of him. Your fate is in your own hands."

Morley shifted his weight against the wall, gave me a look that said he thought I was laying it on too thick.

Skredli grunted. I had no way of telling what that meant. I took it as a go-ahead.

"I'm Garrett. We had a run-in once before."

One bob of the head. I had him. For a moment, though, I feared it had been too easy. Then I reflected that it was the ogrish way. When you've got nothing you've got nothing to lose.

"You recall the circumstances?"

Grunt again.

"Who put you up to that?"

"Gorgeous." That in a dry-throated croak.

"Why? What for? I'd never had anything to do with either of you."

"Business. We had a thing going on in the daPena warehouse and they thought you were going to horn in and spoil it."

"Who is they?"

"Gorgeous."

"You said they. Gorgeous and who?"

He'd reached his next point of decision. He decided to tell a warped truth. "A guy named Donny something who set up the deal."

"You mean a hooker named Donni Pell who worked for Lettie Faren and had a thing for ogres. Don't do that again, Skredli."

His shoulders sagged.

I took a moment to reflect. There was a question of timing that deserved it. Skredli had been in town, leading that pack, after Junior was snatched. But then he'd been at that farm the afternoon before Junior walked away, and the next morning he'd led the crew that did in Amiranda. I tabled that for the moment. "I'm interested in that warehouse scheme. All the petty little details."

I'd caught him on Donni Pell, so now he was determined to spin me a good tale. "That was one of Donni's ideas. She was always bringing us things she'd dreamed up from stuff her Johns told her. Some of them we went with, and she got a cut. This one was real sweet. Raver Styx had left town and Donni had a foreman that would let us siphon off ten percent of everything that went through. We took it on a fifty-fifty split with Donni, on account of she was the one keeping the daPena side in line, but the foreman's cut and expenses had to come out of her half. We moved a lot of stuff. As much as we were doing from the rest of the waterfront, practically. But then Donni warned us that people were getting suspicious. Raver Styx's woman Dount sent the kid to nose around. Then there was you, starting to snoop just when we had decided to close the thing out by cleaning out the warehouse in one hit. So they had me try to discourage you."

Interesting. Not worried about me and my reputation for getting into kidnap cases? "When we hit the place in Ogre Town, we saw a guy leaving. A Bruno off the Hill. Who was he?"

"I never heard his name. A guy Donni knew. He worked for the guy who was taking the stuff from the warehouse. The guy was worried. He hired some other guy to keep track of you and you grabbed him, he thought. He wanted us to do something about you. There was a big panic about covering tracks because Raver Styx had been seen in Leifmold and could turn up anytime."

I turned to Morley. "Pokey?"

"Probably."

"What became of him?"

"I turned him loose. He went home and sat tight. He knew I was watching."

"Uhm. Skredli. Who did the Bruno work for?"

"I don't know. I don't even think Gorgeous knew. Donni or the Bruno delivered all the messages."

"A cautious man. And wisely so, considering who he was stealing from. But the goods had to be transferred somehow."

"We had our own warehouse, partly legit. The Bruno hired teamsters to pick up the stuff there."

There was an opportunity for some legwork if I decided I really wanted to know where the Stormwarden's goods had gone. I wondered if I ought to ask what goods a Stormwarden dealt in that were so attractive to thieves, but decided ignorance might prove beneficial at a later date. I needed who's and whys but not many what's.

"Let's talk about the younger Karl daPena. One night as he was going out the back door of Lettie Faren's place, somebody popped a bag over his head, choked him, and threw him into a carriage. And after that the story gets confusing."

Skredli had come around to where I wanted him. He was able to volunteer information without upsetting whatever minuscule conscience resides in an ogrish heart.

"That whole mess started out as a fake. The kid wanted to run out on his old lady and rip her off at the same time. He fixed it up with Donni to make it look like a snatch and he'd split the payoff with her and start traveling. Donni was going to split her half with us for making it look good. It wasn't the kind of thing Gorgeous usually got into, but it looked like money for nothing, so he sent for the old gang and we did it." "Only it didn't come off that way. What happened?" "I don't know. Honest. The same night after you and me go around in the street, Gorgeous calls me in and says there's a big change of plans. I seen Donni leaving, so I know where the change came from. Anyway, he told me I had to go out where the kid was hid out and turn it into the real thing. And when the payoff came through, we was supposed to be a whole lot better off than with the old plan. We was going to leave the kid twisting in the wind."

"Uhm." I thought a moment. "What about Donni's cut of the fatter pot?"

"We got that whole wad. All the kid's share." Something told me Donni Pell had gotten her share somewhere else.

"So that's that? You just went out, got the money, and headed north?" My tone warned him. "No. You know that, don't you?" "You had to kill a girl to get that extra chunk." "Gorgeous said it had to be done. I didn't like it." "Why?"

"I don't know. Look, no matter what you do, I'm going to tell you that a lot. Because I don't know. I wasn't his partner. Gorgeous told me to do things and I did them and he paid me good. And part of what he paid me for was not asking questions. You want to know who wanted something done and why, you got to find Donni Pell and ask her."

"What you say is probably true, but you have eyes and ears and a brain. You saw things and heard things and you thought about them. Why do you think the girl had to die?"

"Maybe she knew too much about something. She knew the kidnap was a fake because she was supposed to run off with the kid and the money. Maybe she found out the fake turned real. Maybe she just did something to make Donni want to get her. Maybe it was just because she was set to take the frame for the kidnapping and Gorgeous didn't want her turning up saying it wasn't so. I know we was supposed to make her disappear forever. Only when we showed up to do it she had some son of a bitch with her and he turned out to be a goddamned one-man army. And by the time we got him down, there was traffic coming and we had to throw them in the bushes and make it look like nothing happened. When we got back, we found out that big ape wasn't dead at all. He'd grabbed the girl and took off through the woods. I never thought he'd get far, cut like he was. And he left us with a lot of cleaning up to—"

"That's enough of that. Tell me about the payoff. Where. When. How."

"On the Chamberton Old Road four miles south of where it runs into the Vokuta-Lichfield road, just north of the bridge over Little Cedar Creek. Set for midnight the night before what we was just talking about, but the delivery was two hours late. I guess Gorgeous wasn't pissed because he never complained."

I didn't know the place. On the map the Chamberton Old Coach Road cuts up through woody hill country four miles west of the route I'd taken when I'd gone out to explore. "Why that spot?"

"The road runs straight for a mile either way from the bridge. There's never any traffic at night, but if there was, you'd spot it coming in plenty of time. And you can look off northeast and see the ridge the Lichfield road runs on. I was up there to watch in case there was any tricks. I was supposed to light one signal flare if everything was all right and two if it wasn't."

"Did you expect trouble?"

"No. We had them by the short hairs. But you don't take chances with those people."

"And the delivery was late?"

"Yeah. But I guess that was just because the damnfool woman didn't know what she was doing. Any idiot should know a covered wagon with a four-horse team won't make time like a buggy or carriage."

Oh? "You weren't there for the actual payoff, then?"

"No. But Gorgeous said it went down exactly the way it was supposed to."

"Which was?"

"The wagon came down and stopped in the road. Gorgeous and Donni had their coaches off to the side. Gorgeous and Donni had their drivers transfer the moneybags, half and half. The woman and her wagon headed on south. Donni stayed put for an hour, then headed south too. Gorgeous came up where I was and gave me my cut and enough to pay off the boys so they could go home after the business in the morning. We didn't want them coming to TunFaire, getting drunk, and shooting their mouths off."

"They knew what was happening?"

"Not the payoff. But they were in on a killing."

"There was no concern about just following the woman?"

"She wasn't told what to do about going back till she turned over the ransom."

"I see." Not very bright, this Skredli. "She didn't have anything to say when she didn't get the kid after the payoff?"

"I don't know. Maybe she did. Gorgeous never said."

"I guess you came out pretty good on the deal personally, eh?"

"Yeah. Look at me. Living like a lord. Yeah. I got my usual ten percent of Gorgeous's fifty percent. A big hit to you, maybe, but I did better on the warehouse business, even if it took longer to come in."

"You stripped the warehouse, then?"

"Yeah. I didn't think it was smart, but Gorgeous said we already had such a big investment we might as well finish it off."

"Uhm." I began to pace, to think. We'd been at it a long time. He'd given me a lot to think about. We were almost there, but I needed that moment to reflect, to reorder my forces.

"Where is Donni Pell, Skredli?"

"I don't know."

"She was there when we came after you, wasn't she?"

He nodded.

"And she ran out behind us and went for help."

He shrugged.

"It's going to be interesting, finding out who called out the troops. That was a stupid mistake. Very stupid. Panic thinking. Raver Styx will have his hide. Where's Donni Pell?"

"How many times I got to tell you I don't know? If she's got the sense of a cockroach, she's done got her butt out of TunFaire."

"If she had that much sense, she would have headed out of town as soon as she had her share of the money. She seems to have a certain low cunning, an ability to manipulate men, and complete confidence in her invulnerability, but no brains. I'll take your word. You don't know where she is. But where might she run? Who would hide her?"

Skredli shrugged. "One of her Johns, maybe."

I'd had that thought already. I suspected Skredli was mined out on the subject. And he was relaxed enough for the next stage.

"Why did the Stormwarden's kid have to be killed?"

"Huh? Killed? I heard he committed suicide."

"We're getting along fine, Skredli. I'm starting to feel kindly toward you. Don't blow your chance. I know you and Gorgeous and Donni and somebody were in and out of the room where he died. And I knew him well enough to know he couldn't kill himself that way—if he could ever find guts enough to kill himself at all. I figure you used the choke sack on him and Gorgeous cut him himself. I think Donni—but what I think doesn't matter. The thing I can't figure is why he went within a mile of that woman after what she did to him."

"You don't know Donni Pell."

"No. But I intend to get acquainted. Go ahead. Tell me about that morning."

"You aren't going to spread it around, are you? I don't need no Raver Styx breathing down my neck."

"None of us do. But you don't worry about Raver Styx. You worry about me. I'm the only chance you've got to walk out of here. You've got to make me happy."

He shrugged. He wasn't counting on me. But he did have new hopes that he hadn't had awhile ago.

"All right. What started it was you parading around with that dead woman. Somebody seen you by Lettie Faren's place. They told Donni and Donni must have told everybody in town. She sent a messenger to us. Gorgeous had a fit, but he believed me when I said she had to be dead and you was just trying to stir something up.

"But you did get Donni stirred. Like you said, she ain't too smart. She thought she had her handle on the daPena kid. She sent him a message that told him where to find her, that she had to see him. The dope went there. I don't know what she thought she was going to get him to do. He wasn't having none of her finger-wrapping no more. He'd figured some of it out, and like a dummy she told him the girl was dead.

"That did it. He was going to hike out of there and blow the whole thing wide open. And he would have, too, only me and Gorgeous showed up. On account of Gorgeous was worried about Donni maybe getting too excited and doing something really stupid."

"It wasn't planned, then?"

"I gotta be careful with that. I don't think it was. I wasn't in on no planning, which I usually was because I was the guy who had to go out and do things. But it did have a funny feel. Like maybe Donni rigged it so it would come out the way it did."

"You keep contradicting yourself. Is Donni Pell stupid or not?"

"She's good at coming up with schemes and playing them out, long as she's got the reins in her hands. You catch her by surprise, she don't do so good. She thinks slow, she gets flustered, she does dumb things. So Gorgeous figured we better get over there and sit on her till she calmed down and whatever was bugging her blew away."

"And Karl was there."

"There and throwing a fit. He figured some of it out and he was going to tell the world. Donni even tried to buy him off, saying she'd give him his share after all. Dumb. After the way she screwed him over, and him just about sure what was going on. We didn't have no choice. He wouldn't back down. Even with me and Gorgeous there. It was our asses or his. I thought we made it look good."

"You did. You just didn't know he was so chicken nobody would believe he did it himself. Who was the other guy who was there?"

"What other guy?"

"A man in a hooded black cloak."

"I never saw one."

"Uhm." I paced. There were more questions I wanted to ask, but most had to do with the money. I didn't want Chodo getting interested in that. And Skredli had given me plenty to untangle, anyway. Probably close to enough. Donni Pell would put the cap on it. She would throw some light into the hearts of some shadows. She would cast the bones of doom for somebody.

"I played it straight for you," Skredli said. "Get me out of here."

"I'll have to talk Mr. Chodo into it," I replied. "What will you do?"

"Head north as fast as I can run. I don't want to be anywhere around when Raver Styx hits town. And there ain't nothing here for me anymore, anyway."

"You'd keep your mouth shut?"

"Are you kidding? Whose throat would the knife bite first?"

"Good point." I wagged a hand at Morley, indicating the door. He moved to open it. Chodo rolled out of his way. Morley stepped aside. Chodo and I followed.

"Where do you stand?" I asked the kingpin, indicating the door with a jerk of my head.

"I got rid of the bloodsucker bothering me. That's just a hired hand. You can have him."

"I don't know if I want him. Maybe he swung the knife but didn't give the order." We walked for a while. I said, "You know Saucerhead Tharpe?"

"I've heard the name. I know the reputation. I've never had the pleasure."

"Saucerhead Tharpe has a grievance against Skredli. It supersedes mine. I think he deserves first choice in deciding."

We traveled through that vast room where the naked ladies played. Again Morley had trouble steering. To Chodo they were furniture. He said, "Tell Tharpe to come out if he wants a piece." And, "If I don't hear by this time tomorrow, I turn him loose." And, at the front door, "Sometimes you let one go so word gets around how it goes for those who don't get out."

"Sure." Morley and I stepped outside and waited for an escort. We didn't speak until we were on the public road. Then I asked, "You think Chodo will let him go?"

"No."

"Me neither."

"What now, Garrett?"

"I don't know about you. I'm going home to sleep. I had a late night last night."

"Sounds good to me. You let me know if anything comes of all this."

"How's your financial position these days, Morley?"

He gave me a dark look, but replied, "I'm doing all right."

"Yeah. I figured you would be. Listen, knot head. Stay away from the damned water-spider races. I'm not getting killed in one of your harebrained schemes for getting out from under."

"Hey, Garrett!"

"You've done it to me twice, Morley. This time maybe not as hairy as last time, but that crap down in Ogre Town was too damned close. You hear what I'm saying?"

He heard well enough to sulk.