Gilded Latten Bones

67

Morley asked, "Do we have a plan?"

"We get us back in shape. Then we go find the people who hurt you."

"A masterpiece of strategy and tactics."

"It needs a little refinement."

"That's the usual Garrett approach. Stomp around and break things."

"It works."

"I'm not sure why. I will stipulate that you still walk among us."

Dean and Playmate turned up. Playmate carried a clever little table that folded up flat. It had the Amalgamated hall-mark burned into a leg. Another Kip Prose invention, no doubt. Playmate set it up. Dean deposited a tray featuring tea, dry toast, two bowls of soup, and the thing Singe called a breather. Fresh handkerchiefs accompanied that.

Dean volunteered, "The younger Miss Tate sent us a half dozen of these tables and some more fold-up chairs."

"Thoughtful of her."

"It was, truly." He eyed me expectantly. So I thanked him for the table and tray.

He left looking sour.

Morley poured the tea. "He was hoping you would clarify the direction you're headed emotionally."

"What?"

"They're all wondering the same thing, Garrett. I can see that and I've been dead for a month."

I sipped tea, nibbled toast, downed a few spoons of soup, then suggested, "Clue me in," before I shoved my face into the inhaler device. Which did not bear an Amalgamated hall-mark.

It had been created right here in this house by Dean Creech.

No doubt Kip Prose could polish it and make it a bestseller.

Morley said, "Everybody thinks Tinnie has run her course. That you've started to show some spine. Maybe because of this Strafa. They talk like she's your perfect woman."

They? "That can't be true. They can't know her well enough."

"They wouldn't talk about it in front of you. And they do know Tinnie."

"They? Who? Dean and Singe?"

"Don't get excited. People care about you. They worry. They especially worry about how your decisions might affect their lives."

Another worry I didn't need. "Let's get something straight. Do you think Strafa is better for me than Tinnie is?"

"I haven't formed an opinion. I don't know the new woman-except that she's scary and she's screaming gorgeous. Tinnie I do know."

That didn't sound like a ringing endorsement. "Meaning?"

"Tinnie has some wonderful points. But with some of us she resonates like the Remora does with you. You tolerate him because Winger is your friend. One could make a case for Tinnie being a particularly sinister proof of Dotes' First Law. Don't look at me like that."

"It could be my fault."

"That's the sinister part. She makes you think the problems are all your fault."

I muttered about us having to start recovery training, to avoid an inappropriate vent about him and Belinda. Then I wondered if I ought to poll my acquaintances for their opinions.

Of a sudden I had a distinct feeling that I liked Tinnie a lot more, and thought a lot better of her, than did most any acquaintance not named Tinnie. They tolerated her because she came with me. Odd, that. I was used to thinking that people tolerated me because I came with Tinnie.

Both views would be pure truth-depending where you are standing.

That was not the Dead Man. His Nibs continued snoozing. That was me imagining how Old Bones would respond if I asked his opinion.

I said, "Intellectually, I'm not feeling so good. I need time to get my mind right."

Morley said nothing. He had no need. His expression told the tale.

Garrett had had years to think. He had done his best to avoid that. Now he was caught in a cleft stick, with guilt twisting his arm up behind him.

Sometimes procrastination can be a blessing. And sometimes not, with personal things. Time passing lets opportunities get away and unresolved problems fester.

"Really? Isn't your actual problem that you think too much?"

"Hard to argue with that. Everyone I ever knew accused me of that."

"Let's get back to the plan."

"It's coming along. Since neither of us can go dancing with the devils right now we'll train till we are able."

"I understand the theory. But your thinking is anachronistic. It made sense back when you dealt with stuff that didn't attract attention from generals and princes."

What he meant wasn't obscure, but I didn't get it.

"You kept developing attachments, Garrett."

"I don't follow."

"In the beginning there was you, me sometimes, and a sleek new girl every couple of months. And Tinnie in and out of your life. Then you started getting entangled. There was the brewery connection. Then the Contagues." He made a gesture meant to warn me against interrupting. "You got entangled with Block and Relway and Singe. And Kip and the whole inventory of Tates."

I understood, then. As life proceeded I kept making persistent connections that created ever more complicated obligations. The hiatus under Tinnie's thumbs hadn't shaken me free. People had expectations. I had expectations of my own.

Morley said, "All those entangling people will go right on doing what they do."

I wasn't sure what he meant but he was gracious enough to go on crushing my grand strategy.

That's what it added up to. Our problems existed for other people, too. In this case, most everyone in the city.

"You put it that way, there's no point in us making plans."

"Now you've got it."

I took another shot at getting up off the cot. This time I made it upright.

A drooping Singe materialized before I took a second step. "Where are you going?"

"Upstairs. To bed."

"You just woke up."

I coughed heartily. The cold was getting there. "Ah, crap! You should get some sleep, too."

"Somebody has to run this circus. And I seem to be the only one who can stay awake."

"Unfair. You didn't get the magical smack down."

"Nor did I, eyes wide shut, charge into what a three-year-old dimwit could recognize as a deadly instrument."

"She's got you there, Garrett."

A point. When I charge around overturning and busting things sometimes it's me that gets overturned and busted.

I would have been better off hanging back, throwing rocks.

I picked up the breather. "Show me what to do."

What to do was take notes, for the Dead Man's delectation later, from people poking into things for us. Half of them I didn't know. Some I hadn't seen before. I had no idea how or when they had gotten hired. And they were, universally, boring, because they had nothing interesting to report.

After the fourth I told Singe, "This is impossible. TunFaire can't possibly be that quiet. People can't still be that ignorant. There were witnesses out there."

"Just means the powers that be kept the lid on. So far. Probably by manufacturing clever stories. Gang warfare. Ethnic strife. Something like that. There. I'm caught up."

Nothing interesting happened for the rest of the day.