Faded Steel Heat

85

"It's a different city."

Tinnie felt it, too, though nothing was immediately obvious to the eye. There were ample crowds of all ethnic persuasions working hard doing the things that need doing to keep a city going. "Nobody's talking to anybody."

She was right. And it wasn't just that. People were being careful to give one another room and especially careful not to expose their backs to anyone not of a like ethnic conviction.

It was a wary city. Everybody expected something big to happen. Probably sometime soon.

The Call's adventure hadn't been quite the disaster the boys at The Pipes imagined. The world was waiting for the other shoe to fall. When Marengo figured that out...

I was alert, yet not paying close attention. If you can figure that. I ran everything through my head again, trying to find a thread of sense to pick at. But it wouldn't hang together in one big, stinky lump no matter how much I twisted and shoehorned and ignored the usual rules. I could only get it going if I assumed two or more things were going on at the same time. But something down inside me wanted it to be just one big thing that I wasn't seeing right.

"You're the common factor," Tinnie said.

"Huh?" I looked around. We were approaching the Tate compound.

"You were muttering. Doing pretty good, too. You might have a future as a street character. You've already got the wardrobe."

The Goddamn Parrot released a startled blat more like crow slang than the king's parrotese. He flung himself into the air and flapped away. I barked, "What the hell?" Couldn't be my luck turning good.

Tinnie asked, "How did you wake him up?"

"I don't know." But I had a suspicion what was behind his excitement. What's big and sits in the dark and doesn't breathe a lot? "I'm a common thread but I came in after the fact." The Goddamn Parrot disappeared between buildings. "The way my luck runs nothing will get him."

"You going to come inside?" Tinnie asked. She grinned. She knew I didn't want to deal with Uncle Willard.

"I have to get back into that library." We crossed the street. I noted that most people moved around in large groups and that more weapons than usual were in evidence, some of them quite illegal.

"Can't stay away from Tama Montezuma's bony butt, eh?"

"Has she got a bony behind? I never noticed. I see no one else but you." I damaged my case by noticing a devastating set of twins exiting the Tate retail outlet.

"When you stop shaking and get your heels off your tongue you might try for something a little more convincing."

"Damn." Right behind the twins, chattering at them, came Tinnie's cousin Rose. Rose is a brunette as gorgeous as her cousin but she's got snakes and spiders for brains. Her face lit up like a bonfire when she saw me. "Here comes trouble," I said.

"She's not bad if you understand her," Tinnie said. "She'll try to make something out of me being with you but Uncle Willard will say, ‘So what?' and she'll go off and have a good pout." She planted a long, unsisterly kiss on me. "Be careful. Come see me. And stay away from strange women."

"Make up your mind." I kissed her back. Rose was scandalized and excited. "I won't be gone long." I hoped circumstance wouldn't make a liar of me. It did have a habit of doing so.