79

Two days passed. I was distinctly distracted when I headed home. I entertained only one non-nostalgic thought during the walk home. Was I the only sucker who hadn't known about the tampering with the books? Was that why nobody raced to the Tops after the Guard cleared out?

My door opened as I dug for my key. An old guy about as impressive as Ivy glared out at me. "About time you made an appearance. You turned this place into a shambles. The cupboards are bare. You didn't leave me a groat to shop with."

Beyond him, the Goddamn Parrot went to work on me, too.

"I had a feeling my luck wouldn't last."

"What?"

"You didn't stay lost." He'd aged, it seemed. Must have been rough work, keeping reality from setting in on the young couple. "You know where the money is."

He didn't like getting close to the Dead Man so he'd moped around hoping to con me. He didn't say so, though. "And you let someone use my bed."

"Couple of someones. And a good thing you took your time getting back. Your heart couldn't have taken being around the last one. You going to let me get into my own house? It's too early to be out here." My master plan included half a dozen hours in my own bed. I'd had to vacate the library at that wormcatcher time of day when only abnormals like Dean are awake.

"Mr. Tharpe is here."

"Saucerhead? Now?" Tharpe's attitude is more flexible than mine, but he isn't fond of getting out while there's still dew in the shade.

"He arrived moments ago. Inasmuch as you were expected shortly, I settled him in the kitchen with a cup of tea." Not to mention with most of the meager supplies I'd laid in recently, I discovered.

Saucerhead seldom lets a polite refusal get between him and a free meal.

I settled myself. Dean poured tea. I asked Tharpe, "What gives?"

"Message from Winger."

"Really?"

"She needs some help." He had trouble keeping a straight face.

"I can't argue with that. What's her problem? And why should I give a rat's whisker?"

Tharpe snickered. "Her problem is she needs somebody to bail her out of the Al-Khar. Seems she got caught digging around inside a certain country home and couldn't con the Guard into believing that she lived there. In fact, they were on the lookout for a big blonde who might be able to tell them something about what had happened there."

"I love it. But how did you find out? You sound like Colonel Block."

"Block came around to Morley's place on account of he couldn't find you here."

"Why'd he want me?" I could guess. Some little question about events at the Tops.

"He said on account of Winger claimed you as her next of kin when they asked who to notify she was inside so she could make bail or get bribe money for the turnkeys or whatever."

"I see." Boy did I believe that.

"And I went up and seen her. She already got into it with some screw thought he ought to collect special favors. Broke his arm."

"They charged her with anything?"

Tharpe shook his head. "Relway's just trying to squeeze her about what went down. But you know Winger. She's gonna be stubborn."

"I know Winger. She's lucky Relway's in a good mood these days. Things are going his way." Bad weather and ferocious behavior by the Guard and secret police had calmed the riots. For now.

There would be more. There had been no good news from the Cantard, like a resumption of the fighting.

"Yeah, I told her. Probably won't even beat her much."

"Then let her rot. No. Wait. Here. Run a message for me. Ask Block if he'll warn me before he turns her loose."

Saucerhead took my money. "How come?"

"So I can meet her coming out and tell her what a hard time I had getting her cut loose."

"You're wicked, Garrett."

"It's the company I keep. Been learning from a master." I jerked a thumb toward the Dead Man's room.

80

I shut the door behind Tharpe, locked up, strode to the Dead Man's door. I leaned inside. He looked the same: big and ugly. "I did all right for a guy whose help is so bone lazy... "

I kept close watch. You were less at risk than you imagine. He puts thoughts directly into your head.

"After you started siccing the bird on me, maybe. By then I'd been through the hairiest part."

You understand that the Winger creature knew the Jenn woman and Cleaver were one , right from the start?

"Sure. And she knew you were snoring or she'd never have came in here to set her hook. She still has an angle. She thinks. Only Emerald was ahead of everybody, probably from before she ever left home."

Indeed . The female of your species, if at all presentable, is capable of manipulating the brightest of you.

"If that's her scheme. The Belindas and Maggies and Emeralds aren't that common, though. Luckily."

Far be it from me to note your eagerness to be suborned by such females .

"Yeah. But not far enough." In the other room the Goddamn Parrot started preaching what the Dead Man was thinking with one of his other minds. "Got to do something about that thing."

Somebody knocked. Once more you have the opportunity to keep your word.

Becky Frierka. And her mother, of course.

"Why should I be the unique truth-telling character in this part of town?"

As I went to the door the Dead Man sent, The quest for Eagle's hoard is vain. The burial cairn lay on a slope overlooking Pjesemberdal fjord. That entire mountainside collapsed into the fjord during an earthquake three centuries before my mishap.

"Really?" If anyone around today would know, he would. "Might have been handy to know that before. When you were watching so close."

Any adventurer who deciphers the sagas discovers the truth eventually . But so much blood gets spilled that the guilty dare not give warning to the world. He loaded that thought up with a cargo of amusement at human antics. But something unrelated leaked through, too. He was worried about the political climate. He had a stake in a tolerant TunFaire.

Details plucked from my mind didn't reassure him.

I pasted on my boyish grin and got to work. It took an effort to keep smiling. Becky's mother doesn't have a husband. She's actively screening candidates.

Couldn't have been a better time for my parrot to go berserk, for my houseman to show his mean streak, for my partner to be himself. Naturally, nobody cooperated.

I am nothing if not valiant in my efforts to do the right thing. Becky got her date, exactly according to terms.