Bitter Gold Hearts

______ XLVIII ______

I decided to make a brief detour to Lettie Faren's. Maybe it was wrong. There are times when ignorance is bliss. The man on the door knew me and knew my presence was considered undesirable, but he made only a token effort to keep us out. Inside, Amber gawked and whispered that she wouldn't have believed it if she hadn't seen it. I gawked myself, but not for the same reasons. The place wasn't open for business. Never, to my knowledge, had the house been closed before. Alarmed, I pushed past a barman and a swamper who made halfhearted efforts to stop us. I slammed into the pest hole Lettie calls home.

It only took one look. "Stay out there," I instructed Amber.

The mound of ruin that was Lettie Faren tried to glare with eyes blackened and swollen, and failed. She couldn't strike the spark. What remained was a feeble mask for fear.

I asked, "Chodo's boys?"

She croaked an affirmative.

"You should've told me where to find Donni when you knew, before the hard boys decided they wanted her too."

She just looked at me. Chances were she'd just looked at Chodo's boys too. For a while. She was damned near as tough as she thought.

"I'm working for Raver Styx these days. That's a tight crack to get caught in, between the Stormwarden and the kingpin."

"I didn't have nothing to tell them and I don't got nothing to tell you, Garrett. Bring on the old witch if you want."

"The wicked flee when no man pursueth. I'll wish you a speedy recovery. Good-bye."

As we headed for the exit, Amber asked, "Why didn't you want me to go in there?"

I gave it to her straight. "I'm not the only one looking for Donni Pell. Those other guys beat her up trying to find out where Donni went."

"Bad?"

"Very. They aren't nice people. In fact, I'm about convinced that you're the only nice person anywhere in this mess."

She laughed nervously and said, "You don't know me very well yet." Then, conversationally, "You're not so bad yourself, Garrett."

Perhaps she didn't know me very well yet either.