I shrugged, stepped into his cupped hands, heaved my reluctant bones upward, grabbed the top of the wall in expectation of getting my fingers ripped to hamburger by broken glass. Broken glass is an old trick for discouraging uninvited company.

Oh, my. Now I was really disheartened. There was no broken glass. I pulled my chin up level with the top, peeked. Where was the trap? They had to have something really special planned if they didn't use broken glass.

Morley whacked me on the sole. "Better move your ass, Garrett. They're coming back."

I didn't know who "they" were but I heard their footsteps. I took a poll. Opinion was unanimous. I didn't want to find out who they were. Up and over I went. I landed in a small garden, gently, failing even to turn an ankle. Morley landed beside me. I said, "This's too easy."

"Come on, Garrett. What do you want? You have a closed house here. Who's going to guard that?"

"Exactly what I want to know."

"You ever begin to sound optimistic, I'm going to flee the country. Come on. Sooner we do it, the sooner you're out of here."

I grunted agreement. "Looks like the coach house there." I don't like sneaking, much. I still thought we should have tried the front way.

Morley scooted to a door in the side of the coach house. I let him lead. I noted how carefully he moved, for all he did so quickly. Whatever he said, he wasn't taking chances.

In his line you didn't get old taking anything for granted. My line either, for that matter.

Neither of us had brought a lantern. You do dumb things when you rush. Still, there was light enough leaking from nearby homes to let Morley see a little. He told me, "Somebody was here before us. They jimmied the lock." He tried the door. It opened.

I looked over his shoulder. It was blacker than the inside of a buzzard's belly in there, and about as inviting. Something made noises and shuffled around. Something breathed. Something a lot bigger than me. Always a courteous kind of guy, I offered, "After you, sir."

Morley wasn't that sure he was immortal. "We need a light."

"Now he notices. This the kind of planning you re going to do when you take over in the Cantard?"

"I'll be back in five minutes." He vanished before I could argue.

18

Five minutes? It was more like twenty. The longest twenty I ever lived, excepting maybe a few dozen times in the islands when I was in the Corps, dancing the death dance with Venageti soldiers.

He wasn't gone ten of those five minutes when, from my lurking place under a crippled lime tree—where I was trying to drown less speedily—I noted a light moving past a downstairs window inside the Hamilton house. Probably a candle. It had a ghostly effect, casting a huge, only vaguely humanoid shadow on a drawn shade.

I gulped air.

Damn me if my luck didn't hold. Somebody came outside and headed straight for the coach house. I heard muttering, then realized that there were two of them. The guy with the candle was leading.

Closer. It was my old buddy with the bad stomach. He didn't look like much now, a sawed-off runt in clothes that had been out of style since my dad was a pup. He wore the kind of hat they call a deerstalker. I'd never seen one outside a painting before. He was bent and slow and shaky and a damned near perfect match for my notion of what a pederast ought to look like.

Hunking along behind, having trouble navigating, was Scarface, the guy Saucerhead had bounced around so thoroughly. He moved slower than the old guy, like he'd aged a hundred years overnight. Saucerhead hadn't broken much but he'd left both of them with plenty of pain.

Now what? Jump in and make a citizen's arrest? Accuse somebody of something and maybe get my own bones rearranged? Maybe cause the geezer another attack of dyspepsia and have him belch carnivorous butterflies all over me? Maybe just end up in court for assault? My mind wanders at such times, examining the dark side. I wish I had Saucerhead's capacity for lack of doubt.

There are advantages to being simple.

While I tried to decide and wondered where the hell Morley was with the light, those two dragged their bruise collections inside the coach house. Light flowed through cracks as they lit lamps or lanterns. Talk continued, but I could distinguish no words.

I crept to the doorway, still could make out nothing. I heard a horse snort, jumped. Boy, was I glad I hadn't gone in there before. They would've ambushed me for sure.

It sounded like they were fixing to harness a team. The cussing level suggested that was difficult when you were all bruised up. Sounded like some impressive descriptive work being done in there. I wanted to hear more. I need to expand my vocabulary.

I slipped my fingers into the gap between the door and its frame, pulled outward slowly till I had a crack through which to peek. So I could spy on a whole lot of horse stalls and tack racks doing a whole lot of nothing. Pretty dull stuff. I had the wrong angle.

Someone had the right angle to see the door move inward. I heard one voice say something soft but startled. Heavy footsteps lumbered my way, like a stomping troll wearing stone boots. I thought about doing a fast fade but thought too long. I barely had time to duck aside before the door flew open.

I couldn't run, so I did the next best thing. I bopped Scarface over the head with my listen stick. His conk thunked like a thumped watermelon. He sagged, looked at me like I wasn't playing fair. Well, why should I? That's dumb with his kind. I'd get hurt if I tried. I thumped him again to make my point.

I bounced over Scarface, popped inside, charged the little character with the sour stomach and antique clothes. Don't ask me why. Seems plenty dumb in retrospect. Just say it seemed like a good idea at the time.

He was trying to get the street doors open. I can't imagine why. His team were still in their stalls. He wasn't going to drive away. And he wasn't going to outrun anybody on foot either. But there he went, heaving away and spitting green moths.

He heard me coming and spun around. For him a spin was a slow turn. His one hand dropped to a kind of frayed rope that served him as a belt, hitched his pants. His eyes started glowing green. I got there with my stick.

One of his moths bit me. Stung like hell. And distracted me so the old boy could slide aside enough for me to whap his shoulder instead of the top of his gourd. He howled. I bellowed and flailed at bugs. His eyes flared and his mouth opened wide. I avoided his gaze and the one big green butterfly that flew from his maw. I flailed crosswise, catching him alongside the jaw.

I put too much on it. Bone cracked. He folded like a dropped suit of clothes.

My juices were flowing. I bounced around looking for more trouble, so cranked the horses just backed up in their stalls and waited for me to go away. I checked Scarface. He was snoring, getting soggier by the second. I darted back to the old man...

Who wasn't snoring. He was making funny noises that said he wouldn't be breathing at all pretty soon. I'd broken more than his jaw.

A green giant butterfly crept halfway out from between his lips, got stuck. He held on to his crude rope belt with both hands, like he didn't want to lose his pants, and started shaking.

I'm not in the habit of croaking people. I've done it, sure, but never really by choice and never because I wanted to.

Now I was wound up. This was the Hill. Up here the guardians of the peace were no half-blind, unambitious Watchmen interested only in collecting their pay. If I was caught anywhere near a dead man...

"What the hell is this?"

I didn't quite leap into the hayloft. Just maybe ten feet. Not even a record for the standing broad jump. But I was out the door the old man had wanted to use, thirty feet into the wet, before I recognized Morley's voice.