Gilded Latten Bones

7

I turned an ankle, not badly, when I landed on the cobblestones of Macunado Street in front of my old house. It was still my place, I just didn't live there anymore and had not been around to visit for a while.

The place had gotten a face-lift: paint and some tuck-pointing. The cracked window pane on the second floor had been replaced. There were new curtains up there. And there were planters on the front stoop with unstolen flowers in them.

The siege of law and order had become quite epic.

I stood there considering, wrestling a dread that when I went inside I would be entering a foreign country. I climbed the steps. I didn't feel the Dead Man.

I dug in my pocket for a key I wasn't carrying, then knocked my personal "I'm not here at knifepoint" knock. I waited. I examined the brickwork to the right of the door frame. The hole into the voids inside the wall had been sealed with mortar and a chip of brick. Which explained why, on a fine, warm day, I didn't have pixies swarming around me.

I'd have to get the story there. Melondie Kadare and her mob had been handy friends, if a little rowdy and unpredictable.

The door opened. The lady of the house stepped aside so I could enter.

Pular Singe had matured. She had put on a few pounds and was both better and more carefully dressed. I had nothing ready to say. "How's business?"

"There has been a slowdown. That is Director Relway's fault. But we get by. Dean is making fresh tea. Come into the office."

Her office was what we had once called the small front room, in the front of the house on the right side of the central hallway. It hadn't been used much before Singe cleaned it up and made it our bureaucratic headquarters.

"What happened to the pixies?"

"Melondie Kadare died."

"They don't live long but she wasn't that old."

"She got run over by an oxcart. She was drunk. She flew into something, bonked her head, fell down in the street. The wheel got her before anyone could drag her away. Afterward, the colony moved. I will find out where if it matters."

"It doesn't. Not right now." I settled into a chair. She had gotten some comfortable furniture in. I considered her.

Pular Singe was a ratgirl, a touch over five feet tall when she stood as upright as she could. Her sort-there are several species of ratpeople-were created by experimenting sorcerers several hundred years ago. The majority aren't very bright. They subsist at the lowest social level, doing the meanest jobs.

Singe is a freak among freaks.

She's a freak because she's a genius-not just among her own kind. She's brighter and more clever than most humans, too. So, a freak.

She scares people. Sometimes she scares me.

I adopted her, more or less, while working with her, when I realized that a dramatically fine mind would go to waste if she remained in the paws of the villainous ratmen exploiting her then. She'd been an early adolescent at the time.

Dean Creech, ancient live-in cook and housekeeper, arrived with a tray bearing tea, cups, and sandwiches. He had been generous constructing the latter. He said only, "You're looking fit."

"More exercise and less beer. It's hell." He headed back to the kitchen. I noted, "He's moving slower."

"We all are. What's the trouble?"

Singe knew I wouldn't be home if there wasn't something. That stirred her resentment. She didn't really like me walking in like I owned the place now that she was running it. But, more deeply, she did not like Tinnie telling me who my friends were and when I could see them.

I explained what had happened to me and what Belinda said had happened to Morley.

"Is there a connection?"

I shrugged. "Not logically."

"But you have no faith in the power of coincidence."

"True."

"First thing we will need to do is get Morley moved in here."

That hadn't occurred to me. I did see her reasoning. There couldn't be a safer place to stash him.

"Belinda says he's too badly hurt to move."

"You will be with him. You will know when he can take it."

I nodded.

She stared into nothing briefly, then said, "I am considering knocking out the wall between this room and your old office. Any objections?"

"Only emotionally. There are a few thousand memories haunting that room." It was the smallest in the house. I used to describe it as a broom closet with delusions.

"We will be too busy to have workmen in, anyway. The Dead Man is asleep. If you were hoping to consult him."

"I figured. He hasn't been harassing me." I surveyed some shelving she'd had installed. "That's a lot of books."

"Some days I do not have much else to do. The only call for trackers anymore comes from the Guard. They have grown so effective with their law-and-order scam that they have people turning themselves in after they have reflected on whatever seemed like a good idea after a half dozen pints. The penalties are less painful. I do some bookkeeping for Humility. I manage his investments. And yours. I study. And that is it."

I had investments? How come I didn't know about that?

Because I would have spent the money instead of investing it.

Another female doing my thinking for me.

"You are doing well with your investments."

"Especially Amalgamated?" I had a small percentage but never considered it an investment. I hadn't put money in, just me.

"Especially. But I put some of your cash into other things. You will continue to have an income stream if Amalgamated comes apart."

I wasn't paying attention. I mostly saw a ratgirl when I was with her. I didn't look for signs that she might be making sure I'd be all right if Tinnie, Amalgamated, and I had a falling out. I would get it later, though.

"I see." We had begun talking about stuff that didn't require us to confess how much we missed each other.

Dean came back. He brought his own tea and cookies. He took an empty chair. "Are you back, Mr. Garrett?"