Gilded Latten Bones

25

As promised, Belinda turned up with several burly henchmen after supper. DeeDee and Crush got Morley back into the rags he was wearing when he showed up. Most of the blood had been scrubbed out. The holes hadn't been mended. Mixed feelings floated around. DeeDee and Crush were sad to see Morley go, though neither ever exchanged a word with him. Despite all the attitude, Miss Tea was unhappy, too. She turned out the off-duty staff to move Morley and my stuff.

"A hearse?" I asked Belinda when I got down to the street. "You're taking him away in a hearse?" Where did she even find one? There can't be ten in the whole city.

"Yes. Put on the hat and coat that Joel has for you. Then climb up and take the post position."

"What are you talking about?"

"Get up on the seat beside the driver. Try to look like a professional."

"A professional what?"

"That's always the question with you, isn't it? Move! We don't have time for games."

Four men emerged from the back door of the hook shop. They behaved exactly like men sneaking a corpse out of a place where it shouldn't be found. I considered leaving Miss Tea with a buss on the cheek and Crush with a promise to visit soon, decided to be more mature, walked away from what would have been signature behavior a few years back. My best pal was on that litter, under that black woolen blanket, and several people, including me, were counting on me to get him where he needed to go with no damage added.

I hustled over for a costume fitting.

Joel was a slim hard case with zombie eyes. He put me into a long black coat and a semierect black hat, like a soft cone, nearly a foot tall. With the hat I acquired the long, twisted sideburn curls of the morticians' guild. The hat had wig elements built in. Joel said, "Quit grab-assing and get up on the post. And, yes, the hat is real. Move!"

Maybe that was why you never recognize a mortician when he isn't on duty. He wears a disguise at work.

The coat cramped my shoulders. It hung to my ankles. The climb to the seat was difficult. The goofy damned hat slipped down into my eyes.

I settled to brood and nurture my resentment of the man who had overturned my life by getting himself all stabbed up. If the damned fool could've skipped that I'd have been snuggling with my favorite redhead.

The hearse was not a tall wagon, though the seats were high. The driver, seated to my left, asked, "You heeled, Slick?"

"Lightly." I showed him my head knocker. "The character with the ratty ginger hair put my heavy equipment in with the client."

The man chuckled. He was an old, long drink of water who looked like this might be his true calling. "Client. I like that. Nice stick, too. Good enough for tonight. Won't no resurrection men mess with this mob."

Two mounted men led, followed by Belinda's coach with thugs all over it. Then came another armed rider, the hearse with the mighty Garrett in the post and an armed thug on a running board to either side. One of those was my new pal, Joel. Behind the hearse were two more horsemen.

"What might resurrection men be?"

"Body snatchers. It's a problem lately. Somebody is buying youngish corpses that're in good shape. Where you been, Ace? Out of town?"

"So to speak. Stealing corpses, eh?" This was the first I'd heard about that. But there had been no reason for the subject to come up while I was babysitting. And less so before that. Nobody had a reason to keep me posted. My business was to protect Amalgamated from the larceny of its workers and the predations of intellectual pirates. Ditto for the Weider breweries.

The hearse jerked. I slammed against the back of my seat. The driver said, "You got to pay attention, Stretch. You're supposed to be looking out for me and him inside. Him being dead and all, he probably won't come back on you if you nod off and the boogie boys get him. But your old pal Cap'n Roger, here, he's gonna come back hard. Especially if'n he gets kilt."

"I have problems paying attention." Problems I had not had in ante-Tinnie times. "You notice me getting glassy-eyed, give me an elbow in the ribs. I'm hell on wheels when I am paying attention."

"I sincerely hope I don't get to see you in action, Bud."

I guessed Roger to be about sixty. That meant he had done a turn in the Cantard and had made it home. Which meant he remembered guys who couldn't focus. All of us who made it back remember guys who couldn't focus. Their bones decorate the desert down there.

The convoy headed south, swung onto Grand, then took that down to my home neighborhood. The streets weren't busy. We didn't attract an unusual amount of attention. I strove valiantly to stay alert, for the sake of my best pal and my new friend Cap'n Roger. It took about half an hour for Roger to decide I was ready for an elbow.

I could not turn off my mind. Calm just would not come.

Cap'n Roger's elbow wakened me as the parade neared my place in Macunado Street. I settled into reality with the suspicion that I'd had an epiphany that I could not now recall because I was too dumb to pay attention at the moment of revelation.

Since I mostly worried about how Tinnie and I were getting along, I guessed that I must have lost a surefire means of dealing.

The hearse stopped even with the steps to my stoop. As I dismounted I noted the neighbors coming out. The door opened. Singe and Dean came outside. Then I felt the reassuring presence of the Dead Man, awake and deeply interested.

Thank you Singe, you wonder child.

In moments I felt more at home and more relaxed than I had for a long time.