16

Morley's place, that's what now.

It wasn't that far out of my way. I dropped by. My reception was no more charming than before. Maybe not as good. More people departed. The others seemed edgy, except for Saucerhead's pal Licks, who was at the same shadowed corner table stoned out of this world.

Puddle gave me a huge scowl, glanced down at his keg. I told him, "That rat Sarge said he was going to blame it on me. Morley here?"

Puddle already had a finger pointed skyward and an eyebrow up. I nodded to make sure he understood that I wanted to see Morley as well as to know if he was home. With Puddle you have to take it by the numbers. He don't fill in the gaps so good.

He was the kind of guy who thought if you couldn't solve a problem with a right cross or a club, then it wasn't a problem in the first place and therefore didn't need solving. Ignore it and it would go away.

Puddle grunted, growled at the speaking tube, fluttered a hand to indicate that I should go on up. Apparently Morley didn't have company.

I climbed the stairs, tiptoed to Morley's door, listened before I knocked. I didn't hear anything. Usually there was scurrying as somebody's wife headed for cover. All I heard was Morley telling me to come in.

I opened the door. Something zipped past the end of my nose. Morley was behind his desk, his feet up, leaning back, tossing darts. I didn't recognize the painted face serving as his target. "You doing the hoodoo voodoo on somebody?"

"Not really. Found all that in a junk shop. Velvet painting of a guy who looks like my sister's husband." Zip. Wham. Another eye put out. "What's up?"

"No company tonight?"

"Too wet out there these days. Nobody's going to be seeing much company as long as this weather keeps up." Zip. Wham. Right in the end of the nose. "Want to get those darts for me?"

"You're a bundle of ambition tonight."

"Yeah. Long as you're doing my legwork, you see that creep Licks downstairs? So I don't have to go look for myself?"

"He's there. Unconscious, I think. The smoke was pretty thick."

He snagged his speaking tube. "Puddle. Toss that creep Licks out now. Don't leave him where he'll get run over." Morley put the tube down, looked at me. "I hope he gets pneumonia."

"You have a problem with the man?"

"Yes. I don't like him."

"So bar him."

"His money's as good as yours. Maybe better. He spends it here." That didn't get a rise, so he asked, "What's up? You look like you can't wait to get something off your chest."

"I got a line on the coach."

"Coach? What coach."

"The one out front that they tried to drag Chodo's kid into. I found the man who built it. He told me where I can find it." I explained.

Morley sighed, took his feet down. "Isn't that just like you? Here I am, having the time of my life, and you have to walk in and mess it up." He got up, opened a closet, dug out a raincloak and fancy hat that must have set him back a dozen broken bones.

"What you doing?"

"Let's go check it out."

"Huh?"

"Way I see it, that beats hell out of trying to get to see Chodo. You carrying?"

"Here and there."

"Finally started to learn, eh?"

"I guess. What's the problem with Chodo? I thought you were tight. It's me that's on his list."

"I don't know. I sent word I needed to talk. That it was important. I never got an answer. That's never happened before. Then comes a roundabout kind of hint that nobody out there wants to hear from me and if I'm smart I won't bother them ever again."

"Odd." I couldn't figure that. Morley was an important independent contractor. Chodo owed him a listen.

"Been odd ever since you and Winger went out there. And getting odder every day." We were headed downstairs now.

I asked, "What's with the mustaches? That the coming thing?"

"Huh?"

"I'm seeing them all over. On you it don't look bad. On Spud it would look good if he could grow one. But on Puddle it looks like some damn buzzard built its nest on his lip."

"He doesn't take care of it." Morley darted to the counter, spoke to Puddle briefly. I noted Licks's absence and Puddle's wet shoulders. Licks remained with us in spirit. The smoke was thick enough to slice.

17

When it rains and the wind blows, it gets real dark in TunFaire. Streetlamps won't stay lighted, though those lamps exist only in neighborhoods like the Hill and the Tenderloin, where the wraths of our lords temporal and lords criminal encourage thieves and vandals to practice their crafts elsewhere. Tonight the Hill was darker than a priest's secret heart. I didn't like it. Given my choice, I want to see trouble coming.

Morley was as excited as a kid planning to tumble an outhouse. I asked, "What's your thinking on this?" I looked around nervously. We'd approached Lady Hamilton's place unchallenged, which made me just that much more anxious.

I don't believe in good luck. I do believe in cumulative misfortune, in bad luck just lying back piling up interest till it dumps on you in one big load.

"We climb over the wall, see if the coach is there."

"You could give Glory Mooncalled lessons in innovative tactics." I didn't like his idea. We could get ourselves arrested. We could get ourselves hurt. We could get ourselves fatally unhealthy. The private guards on the Hill are a lot less inhibited than their public-payroll counterparts.

"Don't get all worked up, Garrett. Won't be anything to it."

"That's what you said the time you conned me into helping deliver that vampire to the old kingpin."

"That time you didn't know what you were doing."

True. But where would he get the idea I knew what I was doing now? "You're too optimistic to live."

"Comes of living right."

"Comes of eating horse fodder till you have the sense of a mule."

"You could do with more horse fodder yourself, Garrett. Meat is filled with the juices of things that died terrified. They make you timid yourself."

"I have to admit I never heard anybody call a cabbage a coward."

"There they go. All clear."

There who go? Were we hanging around soaking because he'd seen someone? Why didn't he tell me these things?

He did have better night vision. One of the advantages of his elvish blood. The disadvantages, of course, started with a conviction of personal immortality. It isn't true, what you hear about elves being immortal. They just think they are. Only an arrow through the heart will talk them out of the idea.

Morley took off toward the Hamilton place. I followed, watching everywhere but where I was going. I heard a sound, looked for its source as I jumped ten feet high, walked right into the Hamilton wall.

"You must have been some Marine," Morley grumbled, and continued muttering about no wonder Karenta couldn't win in the Cantard if I represented the kingdom's best and brightest.

"Probably a hundred thousand guys down there would be happy to let you show them how to do it." Morley wasn't a veteran. Breeds don't have to go. The nonhuman peoples all have treaties exempting people up to one-eighth blood. The nonhumans you see in the Cantard are natives or mercenaries, and usually both. And agents of Glory Mooncalled besides. Except for the vampires and werewolves and unicorn packs, who are out to get everybody.

The Cantard is a lot of fun.

Morley squatted, cupped his hands. "I'll give you a boost." The wall was nine feet high.

"You're lighter." I could toss him right over.

"That's why you go first. I can climb up there without help."

A point. Not one that fired me up to go first, but a point. This business was more in his line than mine. He wouldn't buy my plan which was to go pound on the front gate and ask to see the deadly coach. That was too prosaic for his sense of adventure.