"So?"

"So Eagle's treasure is one of the big prizes treasure hunters yak up when they get together. One of their myths says the earliest version of No Ravens Went Hungry contains all the clues you need to find it. The copyists supposedly actually found the treasure, after they produced maybe five copies of each volume, but they murdered each other before they dug it up." Morley touched the highlights of a tale of greed and double-dealing worthy of Eagle himself.

Tell the truth, Morley's story sounded like one of those worth the paper it was written on. If he hadn't had a certain familiar gleam in his eye, I would have ignored everything he said. But that gleam was there. I knew his gold sniffer had been excited. He believed. He was thinking of paying Wixon and White a visit that had nothing to do with mine.

"The second volume?" I asked, hoping to cool him down. "Why that one? It wasn't until the end of the third that Eagle buried the treasure."

Morley shrugged, smiled. Poor dumb Garrett couldn't see the obvious. Chastity gave us a funny look. She knew something was going on but wasn't sure what it was. Morley said, "You could be right," which I assume he said to confuse everybody.

He knew something he didn't want to tell. Like everyone lately. I shrugged and said, "I'm going to visit Maggie's house. Want to come along?" His gold sniffer would respond to that, too.

He said, "Why not?"

Saucerhead got it, too. He gave me a dubious look but asked no questions. No need letting Chastity in on everything. Especially since she had friends in the Guard.

She knew we were closing her out. She didn't like it, but she had a strong notion she wouldn't want to know anyway.

I asked her, "You familiar with Grange Cleaver? He ever hang out at the Bledsoe?"

"I've seen him. More lately than in the past. He seems to be living in the city, now. He's Board. Board are in and out all the time. The rest of us only pay attention if they start throwing their weight around."

"I see. What's he do there?"

"I don't know. I'm a ward physician. I don't fly that high."

Morley was ready to go. He asked, "What's he look like these days? He used to play around with disguises. Only his closest friends knew what he looked like."

Perplexed, Chastity said, "How would a disguise do him any good? There aren't many men that short."

"He wasn't always a man," Morley told her. "He could be a dwarf if he wanted."

"Or an elf?" I suggested.

"Never was an elf that ugly, Garrett!" Morley snapped. "Not that lived long enough to get out of diapers."

I thought about the prince at the warehouse. Effeminate but not ugly. Just an unlucky gal fate stuck with the wrong plumbing. "Could you describe him, Chastity? I mean, besides as short."

She did her best.

"Good enough for me. That's the guy, Morley."

Morley grunted irritably. Chastity looked perplexed again. "I'll explain later," I promised. I wondered what it was between Dotes and the Rainmaker.

Morley did have his share of feuds. I stayed out of them. And I figured it was just as well I didn't know their details. I hoped he would explain if I needed to know.

I would keep my eyes open, though. He'd been known to wait a bit too long in the past.

"You going or not?" he grumped.

"I'll catch up with you later," I told Chastity.

"Promises, promises."

Saucerhead gave me a look that told me, yes, he would look out for her. I wouldn't suggest it because it was a big sore spot with him. Once upon a time, I asked him to guard a woman and he didn't come through. She died. He slaughtered a whole herd of villains and came within an inch of death himself, but all he saw was that he'd failed. There was no talking him out of thinking that.

Chastity was as safe as it was possible for her to be.

38

"Hey, Garrett! How about you do away with the goofy grin and the glassy eyes long enough to let me in on the plan?"

"Jealous." I wrestled with the grin, got the best of it. "We're going to take what I call the Dotes Approach." We were nearing the Hill. Soon we would be on patrolled streets. I had to get my grin under control, stop daydreaming about remarkable blondes. The thugs up there had no patience with happy outsiders.

"The Dotes Approach? Dare I ask?"

"You ought to know. You invented it. Straight ahead and damn the witnesses—we'll just bust in."

"One time. During a thunderstorm in the middle of the night. Talk about exaggeration."

I didn't grace his protest with a reply. I told him, "There's an alleyway runs behind those places. Used for deliveries and by the ratmen who haul the trash away."

"Haul the trash away?"

"A novel concept, I admit. But it's true. This alley is cleaner than the street out front. I never saw anything like it."

"Almost unpatriotic, what?"

"Un-Karentine, certainly. High weirdness."

"A conspiracy."

He was needling me, probably because I was running the inside track with Chastity.

"That thing about a wife and kids wasn't playing fair." He glanced back casually.

"Sure it was. You're just sore because you didn't try the gag first. They still back there?"

"Stipulated. Maybe. She is worth a trick or two. They're still there. A whole parade of potential witnesses. This one is a first-class lady, Garrett. Don't mess up the way you did with Tinnie and Maya." Before I could object, he added, "You do attract it, don't you?"

"What?"

"You said it. High weirdness."

"I can't argue with that. Though this one is only weird because it doesn't make sense, not because I've got guys walking through the sky or refusing to stop committing murder just because we've killed and cremated them. I haven't seen any shapechangers and nobody is going around biting anybody's neck."

"There is an occult angle of some kind."

"I think it was planted by Cleaver. I think Cleaver has the girl. The occult crap is to throw Maggie off the trail."

"You going ahead anyway?"

I'd been considering. "For now. For them back there. Might be interesting to see who does what once they figure out what we're doing." We were on the Hill now, strutting like we were honest. Act like you belong, who notices you? Even on the Hill there's plenty of legitimate traffic. The local guardians didn't dare roust everybody. I remarked, "Someday these clowns will recall their training and set up checkpoints and start issuing passes."

Morley snorted. "Never happen." He didn't think much of the Hill brunos. "People who live here won't tolerate the inconvenience."

"Probably right." That's the problem with public safety. It is so damned inconvenient.

"You counting on those people back there being as crooked as you are? That would be as bad a bet as counting on everyone to be honest."

"Crooked?" I protested, but I knew what he meant.

"You know what I mean. One might be secret police." The secret police were a new problem for TunFaire's underworld. Always flexible, though, Morley seemed to be having no trouble adapting.

"Might be." But I didn't believe that and doubted that he did. The Guard were less shy than these people. Even Relway's spies.

Morley did have to say, "Winger could have that kind of connection."

Damn! "Yeah. If there's a profit in it." I wondered. Could Winger turn up the closest thing she had to a friend, just for money? Scary. I couldn't answer that one.

I said, "You gave me some advice one time: never get involved with a woman crazier than I am."

"And I was right. Wasn't I?"

"Yeah. Oh, yeah."

We turned into the alley that passed behind Maggie Jenn's place. Luck had given us clear sailing so far. Not one patrol even came into sight. We were as good as ghosts in the official eye.