Cold Copper Tears

44

Part of my job is to remain patient. I probably do more waiting than anybody but a soldier. It ought to be second nature after five years in the Marines and all those since in this investigation racket. But I never was very good at sitting still, especially in the cold.

I needed to get up and prowl. That would make me easier to spot but my aching butt and stiffening muscles wouldn't listen to common sense.

I told Maya, "I'm going to stroll around the block and see how many ways there are to get out of that building."

"What if she decides to come out when you're gone?"

"There isn't much chance of that. Won't take me three minutes."

"You're the expert."

The way she kept saying that made it sound like she had some doubts.

I walked away, forgetting my act for a dozen steps because I was conscious of her questioning look.

I didn't find out anything that I hadn't reasoned out sitting with Maya. There was a back way out, down an outside stair into an alley behind the place. That had to be there because we'd seen no access to the second floor while we'd been inside. Hell.

Well, I got the kinks out, anyway.

I headed for the bench and my girl.

What girl? Maya was gone.

I gaped like a cretin for maybe fifteen seconds, then looked around, jumping to see over the heads of the crowd. There was no sign of Maya. I scuttled over to my friend the lanky barker. "You see what happened to the gal I was with? Over on the bench?"

He sneered a sneer that questioned my competence. "Yeah, man. This time I caught the action. Your blonde fluff came galloping past right after you left. Your twitch took off after her. They went that way." He pointed uphill, which meant back toward the heart of the city, whence we had come, and whence most everyone else came, too.

"The blonde was in a hurry?"

"Running. My guess is, she'd made you and was waiting for a chance to run."

"Thanks." I took off, ignoring the curses of those I jostled. I wondered how Jill could have recognized us from over there... .

Damnation! How dumb can a guy be? She probably didn't recognize us at all. But she sure as hell could've recognized the clothes Maya had borrowed.

How come we never thought of that when we were being so clever about changing who we were?

I kicked up the pace as the people thinned out. Once I was out of the Tenderloin I couldn't do anything but guess which way Jill was headed.

I saw nothing.

I wondered why I bothered. I wondered if Maya would hang on. I wondered what Jill would do if she couldn't shake Maya. I wondered how Maya would get in touch if she did run Jill to ground.

I looked down cross streets as I passed them. I questioned street-side vendors. Some told me to get the hell away from them. Some just looked blank. Here, there, one gave me a straight answer. One of those actually had noticed Jill.

She was still headed toward the heart of town.

I wasn't going to get much cooperation just being Garrett. So I swallowed my pride and started alluding to Chodo Contague. That kicked the level of cooperation up a few notches. A man with a sausage cart on a corner needs the goodwill of the kingpin. Else somebody's liable to put him out of business.

That kept me on the trail until I got out of the area where there was anyone to ask, by which time Jill's course had shifted southward.

I wished I knew more about her. Where could she run? But I'd had no time to research her. In any of her guises, let alone all of them. More than ever I felt that things were moving too fast.

I'm a plodder. I get to the end of the trail through sheer stubbornness, just keeping on until I get there, doing what I have to do. I hadn't had a minute to catch my breath since Jill first turned up on my doorstep.

When you're moving like that sometimes you don't have time to think. Your mind works on things out of sight and you come up with hunches. Three minutes after Jill's trail turned southward I had one.

She was headed for the Dream Quarter.

She did have that one resource. That little gink who used the apartment across from the one Peridont provided. If he was who I thought he was... But Warden Agire had disappeared. I'd heard nothing about him turning up again. But I'd been too busy to stay in touch with that situation.

"Bet the long odds," I told myself. I adjusted my course and increased my pace. Ten minutes later I got to Playmate's stable.

He was about to close his main gate. But he brightened like a rising sun when he saw me. He always does. He is the one grateful former client I can count on any time. "Garrett. Been wondering about you. Where've you been?"

"Working. I've got a real mind-twister going. You been keeping up with the scandals?"

"Not much to keep up with lately. Too much other excitement. That your place where the demon turned up last night?"

"Yes. Part of what I'm working on."

"You're playing with fire this time, then."

"The hottest. You don't know the half. I'll tell you about it sometime."

"In a hurry?"

"Aren't I always?"

"Usually. What do you need?"

"A horse so I can make up some time on somebody I'm chasing. And some info. The horse shouldn't be one of your damned Lightning's or Firebrands, either. I want one that will run but won't play games." Horses and I don't get along. I don't know why but the whole damned tribe is out to get me. They think it's great fun making my life miserable.

"You always say that. I can't figure a guy your age being scared of horses. But since you are I picked up a nag so docile and stupid even you'll be satisfied."

Grumble grumble. He led me into the stable. While we walked I asked, "You heard anything about Warden Agire and the Terrell Relics?"

"Funny you should ask. Agire turned up last night. Minus the Relics."

"Ha!" I'd guessed right, more or less. But there wasn't time to congratulate myself. I had to move. "I need the beast fast. I have to get to the Dream Quarter before somebody who's already way ahead of me."

Playmate threw a saddle blanket on a monster that didn't look docile to me. There were moments when he surrendered to a nasty sense of humor. This was no time for that. I jumped him as he started cinching the saddle.

"No joke, Garrett. The animal is a pussycat."

"Yeah?" I didn't like the way it looked at me, like it had heard of me and was determined to make a liar out of Playmate.

I have that kind of trouble with women, too, and have never understood it.

"Here we go."

"Thanks." I grabbed the horse by the bridle and looked it in the eye. "I got work to do. I don't got time to mess around. You want to play games, just remember that around here you're never more than a couple miles from the glue works."

It just looked back at me. I went around and mounted up. In a moment I was pounding through the streets. People cussed me. Some threw things. What I was doing was against the law because it was so damned dangerous. But there was no one to stop me. I had several narrow misses. The horse slipped and slid on sections that were cobbled, and a couple times I thought we were going down. As we neared the Dream Quarter I began to feel foolish. I was ready to bet that I'd outguessed myself and was going to find nothing.

Wrong. They were there. I spotted Jill first, from three blocks away, passing Chattaree, blonde hair flying. She was in a sprint for the Orthodox complex. Maya was right behind her and looked like she'd decided to catch her. Jill glanced over her shoulder. She didn't see me.

I booted the horse into an all-out gallop.

A gallop wasn't good enough. Jill reached the gates. Ordinarily those were open and unguarded, but not today and not since the scandals had begun. Jill spoke to the guards, glanced at Maya, then spotted me.

Maya reached Jill when I was still a block away.

The guards grabbed both women, flung them inside, and closed up.

I reined in outside. Though I could make out no specific words I heard the women and a man arguing inside the gate house. The gate the women had gone through was a small pedestrian entrance now shut. I eyed those steel bars, then the coach gate beside it. A guard looked at me nervously. He was unarmed but determined. I didn't have to talk to him to know he wasn't going to let me in or, probably, even answer me.

I wasn't exactly heavily armed, either. I had a couple of knives and my head-knocker tucked away, but nothing I could intimidate anyone with while they were on that side of the gate and I was on the street side.

The coach gate wasn't quite five feet high in the middle.

Maya let out a squeal. Three men dragged her out of the gate house, headed toward the center of the grounds, which was concealed behind vegetation. Jill walked along with them. She glanced back, eyes huge, looking almost apologetic.

All right. That did it.

I backed my horse away, took him across the street, faced the gate and kicked him into a gallop. He ought to clear that gate easily.

Let's just say he wasn't a jumper.

He skidded to a stop. I yelled as I went over his head, crashed into the gate, and fell on my face. About ten guys lined up inside. They had no weapons but they weren't going to let me in without somebody getting hurt. I was hurt enough already—especially my pride.

I peeled myself off the cobblestone. Still on hands and knees, I looked at that damned horse. I tell you, he was grinning. He'd scored big for his tribe in its old war against Garrett. "You've had it, beast." I stumbled to my feet, limped toward him. He ambled away, moving just fast enough to stay ahead of me.

The guys behind the gate had a lot of fun at my expense.

They were going to be real unhappy because they'd done that.

A kindly passerby took pity and held the horse until I could take charge. I walked the son of a bitch back to Playmate's.

Playmate—my old buddy—took the damned horse's side. "Every animal has its limitations, Garrett. A jumper has to be trained. You don't just climb on a horse and tell it to take a leap."

"Damn it, I understand that. I placed my bet and took my chances. I lost. I accept that." Like hell. "What I'm griping about is the way he laughed at me afterward. He did it on purpose."

"Garrett, you got an obsession. You're always complaining about how horses are out to get you. They're just dumb beasts. They can't be out to get anybody."

Shows you how much he knew. "Don't tell me. Tell them." They sure had him fooled.

"What happened? Eh? You'd be laughing about the whole thing if something else hadn't gone wrong."

So I told him how Maya had gotten herself grabbed and the reason I tried the jump was that I wanted to get her loose.

"You going to try again?"

"Damned straight I am. And it's not going to be any nice guy going in after her, either. I'm out of patience with these superstition mongers."

He gave me a little of my own raised eyebrow. "Girl means enough to get you upset, eh? What about Tinnie?"

"Tinnie is Tinnie. Leave her out of it. She isn't part of this."

"If you say so. Need some help?"

He meant it. And if it came to a slugfest he might be handy, being nine feet tall and strong enough to lift the horses he tended. But he wasn't a fighter by nature. He'd get himself hurt because he was too damned kindly. "You stay out of it. You did enough, letting me use that four-legged snake. Sell the damned thing for dog food."

Playmate laughed. He gets a kick out of my feud with the equine species. "Sure you don't want some help?"

"No. You do what you do best. I need a hand I'll get somebody who does it for a living." I'd shot hell out of my disappearing act. "You really want to do something, go by the house and see how Dean and the Dead Man are doing. I'll get back with you in the morning." If I was alive in the morning.

"Sure, Garrett."

I knew what I was going to do next. I was going to make a lot of people unhappy. I'd be the unhappiest of all if I got caught.