Cruel Zinc Melodies

44

Tinnie went to bed. Likewise, Singe. And Dean beat them all to the friendly sheets. I stayed where I was, enjoying my beer. And persevering.

Old Bones had let me know he wanted a word in private. Whatever that meant to somebody who could carry on multiple silent, isolated conversations at once.

I permitted myself a presumption this morning, once you were on your way. Penny came for a lesson. I hired her to check into a few things.

Brilliant me, intellect puffed by the Weider brew, I asked, ‘‘Like what?’’

The histories of the properties involved in the World constructionsite. The background of the man you knew as Handsome, for Mr. Weider and Mr. Gilbey, because you have not found time for that. I also asked her to see what she could find out about members of the Faction for whom we have names. And about their families. And I tasked her to find out what she could about the history and ownership of the property the Faction turned into their clubhouse.

‘‘And I thought you made ridiculous demands on me. A grown man.’’

Sneer.

‘‘All right. All right. Whatever you’ve got, go ahead and crow.’’

Some things you learn just being around him long enough. Like his need to show off how good he is. Or how good his protйgй can be.

The experience was humiliating. During a single day Penny Dreadful, totally marginal teenage person who would play no other role in the case, had, as a favor to her pal the Dead Man, dug out almost all the information he wanted checked.

History of the ground where the World was going up? Bland. Nondescript. Nothing interesting had happened there as far back as available records went. The first several slumlords who sold to Max were convinced that they had hornswoggled the beer baron. The procession of ownership started with an uprising two hundred eighty years gone that had destroyed every older record.

Who owned the ruined property? Fellow name of Barate Algarda. He bought it off the wife of a once-famous smuggler who got put out of business permanently by Chodo Contague’s predecessor, thirty years ago. Algarda’s daughter had used it for a playhouse, growing up. It had had a reputation as a deadly place, back then. Old hands still steered clear.

Brent Talanta, also known as Handsome? No children. Wife deceased. Survived only by his mother. Handsome was her only source of support. A forensic sorcerer had connected the knife found in the hand of a Stomper known as Funboy to Handsome’s wounds. Likewise, the shoes of several gang members to bruises on the corpse. Handsome’s remains had been sent on for cremation at a contract crematorium. Funboy’s body had been sold to a resurrection man. The rest of the Stompers were headed for a labor camp.

I told Old Bones, ‘‘I have to admit that I forgot all about Handsome. Even though I promised Max.’’

Miss Pular wrote the report. Joe Kerr will take it to Mr. Weider in the morning. Mr. Weider will do the right thing. Now. For someone who keeps telling himself how amazed he is by his advancing maturity, you do seem to work with a solid teenage mind-set most of the time.

Ouch. Possibly true. But doubly hurtful since the harvester of so much marvelous information barely qualified as a teen herself.

But wait! There is more!

There would be, wouldn’t there?

The keg I’d found down under the ruin had been purchased from the Goteborg Enterprise by Riata Dungarth. Riata Dungarth was the personal servant of Elmet Starbottle, a member of the Faction known to his crew as Slump, who was a cousin of the twins, Berbach and Berbain, who seemed to have walked away from the Faction. The keg had been delivered to the ruin, wrestled downstairs, and installed by Idris Brithgaern, who made all the deliveries for the Goteborg Enterprise brewery. Mr. Brithgaern delivered a new keg the first day of each week, always prepaid by Riata Dungarth. The ruin was outside Brithgaern’s normal range, but he did not mind. He got to keep the beer in the old keg. Sometimes that had not been touched. He could sell that beer, legally, off the back of his wagon. But, mostly, he took it home and enjoyed it himself. It was a beer that deserved a man with a discerning palate.

By this point I was ready to whimper. The little tramp obviously vamped. . . . I had a couple smart-ass questions in inventory but reserved them because I was afraid the little witch had reported what color socks Idris Brithgaern wore.

Mismatched. Gray to the left, brown on the right.

‘‘Argh!’’

I jest. But there is a lesson in all this.

‘‘Yeah. And I don’t need help from you figuring out what it is, Laughing Boy.’’ Simply, Penny Dreadful had no trouble with the concept of hard work. Given a task, she whapped it in the schnoz with both fists and pounded it into instant submission.

I could fake that kind of youthful enthusiasm. For a few minutes. Sometimes. ‘‘So, who does this Brithgaern creature work for?’’

The Goteborg Enterprise craft brewery.

‘‘All right. My mistake. Let me get focused.’’ Weider Dark Select might not match up with Goteborg, but it’s pretty damned good. ‘‘Make that Riata Dungarth. Who’s he work for?’’

Elmet Starbottle. Where Elmet Starbottle would seem to be a name chosen by the person wearing it. There are no Starbottle families amongst the elites in this city.

I could have told him that. Silly-ass name. Starbottle. Ha. ‘‘What you’re doing now is prancing around the fact that you don’t know which one of the Faction uses the name Starbottle.’’

Pretty much, there. Yes. Pretty much. Unless it might be the boy they call Slump, as I might have mentioned earlier.

He’s so smug.

I expect all that will be cleared up for sure next time I see Penny.

‘‘You mean next time she decides to mooch a meal?’’

I believe she has earned a few.

And I did feel petty even before he chastised me. So I punished myself by draining another mug of beer. Then I trundled on upstairs, clambered into bed behind my favorite gal in the whole wide world, and fell asleep in about seven seconds.