Faded Steel Heat

6

The ladies departed, headed not for the brewery but Tinnie's family compound. The Tates had to be hurting. The recent outbreak of peace had to be terrible for business.

That's the trouble when some darn war goes on too long. Life begins to revolve around it. We live and die by it at home as much as do the soldiers on the battlefields. Now that the fighting is over, except for mopping-up exercises against the last of Glory Mooncalled's raggedy-ass republican partisans, regiments are demobilizing as fast as the navy can haul them home.

These days many jobs belong to nonhumans because we humans went off to war and only a fraction returned. Today's soldiers come home to find there's nothing to come home to.

The door closed behind those three luscious behinds. I returned to the Dead Man's room and settled into my own chair. The seat was still warm. A clash of perfumes hung in the air. I asked, "What's your boy Glory Mooncalled up to?"

Years ago Mooncalled entered the war as a mercenary captain on the Venageti side. Though a successful campaigner, he failed to have been born into the ruling clique of sorcerers and nobles and so was treated badly. He resented that so much he changed sides. He spent the next decade embarrassing and picking off the men who had injured his pride.

His treatment by Karenta's overlords was not much better. He got paid on time but received few honors, however dramatic his victories. He defected again. This time he collected the tribes of the Cantard under the banner of a republic that rejected both Karentine and Venageti territorial claims. He provided spankings to armies from both kingdoms.

But fate wasn't kind. Karenta got some breaks. The Venageti collapsed. Karentine forces began exterminating the republicans.

The peoples of the Cantard immediately began migrating into Karenta, and especially to TunFaire, where their presence only adds to the social stress. Something I stumbled over during a recent case made me suspect that Mooncalled himself was now in TunFaire.

The Dead Man seemed disgruntled. In all likelihood he is fomenting disorder under the illusion that his past popularity still assures him support amongst the lower classes.

"You seem disappointed."

Perhaps heroes are best kept at arm's length. Up close their flaws are too easily seen.

The Goddamn Parrot had taken station on his shoulder. Nicks' fault. She'd put him there. I hadn't been able to talk her into taking the flashy little vulture with her.

The bird started to relieve himself.

He ended in a tangle amongst the mementos on the Dead Man's knickknack shelves. He was so startled he could hardly squawk in parrotese. He got his feet under him, shook his head, took a tentative step, fell off the shelf, and smacked into the floor.

If that thing fails to survive please extend my deepest condolences to Mr. Dotes.

"Wow! What a great idea! Why didn't I think of it before? I'm slow but I'm brilliant. I'll tear him apart in here and blame it all on you. I'll have Morley come over, see all the feathers and parrot shit, he'll just shake his head and forget it. He won't go getting into a feud with you."

Very creative. Try it and I will hang you by your bootlaces from the rooftree. That bird is far too valuable even to joke about.

"Valuable? You can't even eat those damned things unless you're so hungry you already ate up all the snakes and buzzards and crows."

I mean valuable as a communications tool.

"Not to me."

Silence!

"I was only going to—"

We are about to have company. Strangers. Receive them in your office. They do not need to be made aware of my existence.

Dean beat me to the front door but got a silent warning from the Dead Man. He peeped through the peephole, backed off frowning.

"What's wrong?"

"I don't like the looks of those two." He retreated to the Dead Man's room. The Goddamn Parrot flapped into the hall when he opened the door. It landed on my shoulder. "Argh!" I started to swat him. Dean came out of the Dead Man's room, lugging the chairs back to my office.

Easy on the bird, Garrett. Dean, when you finish, shut the door to this room. Do not open it again while those people are in this house.

"Put a kettle on, too. For hospitality's sake."

Dean gave me the look that asked what I thought he should do in his spare time.

The pounding resumed. It had started polite. Now it seemed impatient. I used the peephole myself. "Do I really need to talk to these guys?" The two men on the stoop looked just like the guy Dean wanted me to be when I grew up.

It might be of value. Or instructive.

"To who?"

That would be whom, Garrett.

"I'm beginning to get it already," I grumbled, starting in on Dean's battery of latches. He was done moving furniture.

The Dead Man would stir the sludge inside their pretty gourds, ever so discreetly, while I sat through some kind of sales pitch.

Those two were selling something. They were so squeaky-clean and well groomed that I feared their scam would be religion. I'd have trouble staying polite if they were godshouters. I've suffered an overdose of religion lately.

I changed my mind as soon as the door opened, before anybody cracked a word. The erect postures and humorless mouths said they were selling a true belief that had nothing to do with pie in the sky by and by.

Both were five feet six and unreasonably handsome. One had blond hair and blue eyes. I wish I could report that the other had blue hair and blond eyes but he didn't. He was a pretty hunk of brown hair and blue eyes. Neither had visible scars or tattoos.

Clerks, instinct told me.

"Mr. Garrett?" the blond asked. He had perfect teeth. How often do you see good teeth? Never. Even Tinnie has an incisor that laps its neighbor.

"Guilty. Maybe. Depends on what you want."

Nobody smiled. The brunette said, "A friend gave us your name. Said you would be a good man to see. Said as you were a bona fide war hero."

"I could throw bricks with my eyes closed and hit a bona fide war hero eight tries out of ten. Anybody who made it home is a hero. Which Free Company are you guys with?" They wore clothing as though they were headed for the parade ground. Like appearance wasn't just part of being a soldier, it was the whole thing.

Clerks.

Do not antagonize them simply for the sake of deflating their pomposity, Garrett.

I need a new partner. This one knows me too well.

They seemed surprised. "How did you?... "

"I'm a trained detective." Self-educated. From a very short syllabus.

"It's obvious?" The brunette almost whined. These would be guys whose self-image included no whinery but who would whine a lot and call it something else. In their own minds they were big hairy-assed he-men.

Clerks.

"When you're headed wherever you go when you leave, compare yourselves to everybody else. To human male people, anyway." That might have the unfortunate side effect of encouraging their feelings of superiority, but they might see what I meant. "You can't be a secret agent if you're wearing a sign."

They exchanged baffled looks. They were lost. Pretty but not bright. The blond asked, "May we come in?"

"By all means." I stepped aside. "We can talk in my office. Second door to your left."

Be hospitable, Garrett.

"Either one of you guys want a parrot?"

Garrett!

Both men had wrinkled their noses when first they saw me and my bird. Everybody was a clothes critic nowadays. Why? I was decent. I was even clean. These guys looked around like they expected the place to be a dump. They seemed pleasantly disappointed that it wasn't.

Dean does good work.

We trooped into the closet I call an office. I told them, "My man Dean will bring tea in a minute."

They eyed me uncertainly. How could I know?

My office is less ordered than the hallway. I don't let Dean loose in there. And behind my desk hangs a painting that Dean hates.

At first you just see a pretty woman running from a brooding darkness. But as you stare at the painting more and more of that darkness reaches out to you. The artist who created it had been possessed by a talent so fierce that it amounted to sorcery. It drove him mad. He put everything into this painting, including his insanity. It was personal. At one time it told a whole story and indicted a villain. It doesn't have a tenth its original charge now but still retains an immense impact. It exudes terror.

"That's Eleanor," I said. "She died before I was born but she helped me crack a case." She did a lot more.

The portrait once belonged to the man who murdered Eleanor. He's dead now, too. He doesn't need the painting anymore. I do. Eleanor makes a better sounding board than Dean, the Dead Man, or the Goddamn Parrot. She's seldom judgmental and she never gives me any lip.

Blondie said, "We understand you're often involved in unusual affairs."

"I'm a lightning rod for weird stuff. Thanks, Dean." The big tray carried the right number of cups, cookies and muffins, and a steaming pot of tea. The boys exchanged glances, nervous under Eleanor's piercing gaze and Dean's stern disapproval.

Dean left. I poured and asked, "What can I do for you guys? Really."

They exchanged glances again.

"Look, boys, I'm working hard here." The Goddamn Parrot squawked in my ear. "If you just need a place to get in out of the rain I recommend Mrs. Cardonlos' rooming house up the street. On the other... "

"Awk! Queen bitch! Queen bitch!"

"It's not raining." Literal-minded clerks.

"Stow it, bird," I growled at the Goddamn Parrot.

My visitors exchanged looks again.

This could go on all day.