Whispering Nickel Idols

51

I napped while Colonel Block read. The trudge over to the Cardonlos place had worn me out. Even with Tinnie along to pick me up if I got lost in a snowdrift.

My honey shook me when it was time. The poor girl was ragged.

Block was done. And hot enough to boil water. He glared at me. “How dare they? How dare they?” Then, less rhetorically, “Did you really have a close call?”

“You’re going to worry about me? That makes me nervous.” But I sketched my age of suffering.

“I don’t need to hear about every twitch and burp, Garrett.” Then, “That doesn’t allay my natural cynicism. I can’t help wondering, if you’re willing to turn this over, how much more interesting is the stuff you’re holding back?”

“It’s hard, going through life misunderstood.”

“I doubt that anyone misunderstands you even a little, Garrett. Eh, Miss Tate? Nevertheless, we’re in your debt.”

“Really? We could use a visit from some Green Pants guys.”

“That might serve our purposes.” Without hesitation or argument.

“Send a clerk, too. Somebody without imagination enough to be scared of the Dead Man. I can’t write anymore.” I showed him a hand shriveled into a claw.

“It isn’t that I don’t believe you’re literate, Garrett. I’ve witnessed incidents. What I can’t envision is you doing that much work.”

I shrugged. I’d surprised him before.

His heart wasn’t in his banter. It was broken. Somebody out there was so indisposed to the rule of law that he meant to make war on it. “Where is Merry now?”

I shrugged again. I was getting a heavy workout. “I was asleep. They put him out in the snow. In a state of confusion, apparently.”

“Assuming your story has a nodding acquaintance with the truth, then, Rory may guess that his baby brother ran into the only Loghyr left in TunFaire.”

Not all of TunFaire’s crooks are terminally stupid. Only most of them.

I asked, “Any idea where Belinda Contague is?”

“No. She’s as elusive as her father. Why?”

“Curiosity.”

Block grunted. He was antsy. He wanted me to go away so he could go talk this over with his unsocial sidekick. His claw within the shadows.

Sighing, Tinnie hoisted me to my feet. I groaned. It would be a long, cold trek home. I told Block, “We wouldn’t mind seeing one of the foreman type Ymberians, in addition to the standard wide load with the bad fashion sense.”

The good Colonel nodded, distracted. He wasn’t exactly caught up in the moment.