Gilded Latten Bones

4

After turning up Jimmy Two Steps, the brothers gave us nothing more. A lot of clever questioning went to waste. I told Scithe, "Take these guys over to your shop. Tomorrow I'll check with my old contacts and see if somebody doesn't know where to find Two Steps."

Tinnie blistered me with a look because she was part of the subtext of what I'd said. I didn't feel the heat.

Once the brothers dropped the name they stayed busy whining about how they knew Jimmy only from drinking with him at a place called Raisin's Bookshop.

I remembered Raisin's Bookshop. It was the lowest of low-life bars. The kind of place where our night visitors would hang out. Nobody knew why it was called the Bookshop. If somebody named Raisin was ever connected with it that was so long ago nobody remembered that, either.

Scithe suggested, "Garrett, stick to your job as a security specialist. You try to pick up where you left off, you'll find out how much you don't got it anymore. Miss Tate? He's in your custody. Keep reminding him that TunFaire's Civil Guard handles these things these days."

"I will." I had no doubt that she would-often, and strongly.

My natural-born cynicism failed me. The tin whistles had been amazingly effective, lately. I took the lieutenant at his word, thinking the Guard would wrap the mess in a day or two.

"All right. Do your job. Just don't leave us twisting in the wind. Let us know why these cretins were after Tinnie. In case we need to be ready to entertain another clutch of numskulls."

Tinnie gave poor Scithe a look that made him forget he'd been happily married for years to a perfectly wonderful but ordinary woman. "I'll do that," he promised. "I'll do that for sure."

Tinnie turned on the heat in the distractions department as soon as I got back from making sure our guests had actually left the premises. "I know what you're going to say, darling."

"Which would be why a roasting holiday goose is usually better dressed than you are right now."

"I can't fool you for a minute, can I?"

No, but she could do a damned good job of diverting me, after which, to be contrary, I didn't have anything to say. I lay there and brooded till I woke up in the middle of the next morning.