"Garrett."

I turned, less surprised than I expected. There must have been subconscious clues. "Winger. Kinda hoped I'd run into you again. Wanted to warn you. You got some bad people looking for you. Not in too good a mood, either."

That surprised her. "You can tell me about it on the way. Let's go."

I didn't think to ask where or why because her attitude tapped my anger. "I have a previous engagement. With my bed. You want to talk to me about something, come around in the morning. And try to ask nice."

"Garrett, you seem like a pretty good guy, considering. So let's don't butt heads. Let's don't do it the hard way. Just come on."

She had a problem. A serious problem. Now I wouldn't have gone anywhere with her even if I'd planned to before. "Winger, I kind of like you. You got balls and style. But you got an attitude problem that's going to get you hurt. You want to make it in the big city, you got to learn some street manners. You're also going to have to know who you're messing with before you mess. You cut somebody who has friends like Chodo Contague, your chances of staying healthy just aren't good."

She looked baffled. "What the hell you talking about?"

"That guy you cut in the alley off Pearl Lane. A couple thousand of his friends are looking for you. They don't plan to slap you on the back and tell you you did a great job."

"Huh? I never cut nobody."

"I hope not. But he was following you when it happened. Who else could've done it?"

She thought about it for half a minute. Then her frown cleared as she decided not to worry about it. "Come on."

"Not smart, Winger. You're pressing where you don't know what you're doing."

She was one stubborn woman. And just a whole lot too confident. Maybe where she came from men wouldn't defend themselves against a woman. Maybe she was used to them hesitating.

Hell, I might have myself. But she'd let me talk and that had given me time to get my mind right.

She got out a nightstick not unlike my headthumper. So I got out mine, a replacement for the one I'd left down by Dwarf Fort. She came in figuring to feint a few times and tap me up side the head. I didn't cooperate. My head had taken enough dents already.

I just slipped her guard, rapped her knuckles, then her elbow when the pain froze her for an instant, then jabbed her in the breadbasket as her stick tumbled toward the street. "That's how you use one of these things." She wasn't very good. All bull offense.

She didn't seem upset because she'd been disarmed so easily, just surprised. "How'd you get so damned fast?"

"There's two kinds of Marines, Winger. Fast ones and dead ones. Better get something through your head right now, before you run into somebody who won't cut you some slack. There isn't a man in this town, over twenty-three, who wasn't tough enough and fast enough to survive five years in the Cantard. A lot of them, you make a move on them, they'll leave you for the ratmen and not look back. Especially the bunch that are looking for you. They like to hurt people."

"I said I didn't cut nobody. Not yet."

"Then you'd better be able to tell them who did. Fast."

She raised both eyebrows. A strange woman. She wasn't afraid. You have to worry about the sanity of somebody who doesn't have sense enough to be afraid of Chodo Contague.

"You be careful," I told her. "Come by in the morning if you still want to talk." I turned to head for home.

Damned if she didn't try again. Barehanded.

The reflexes still worked. I heard her move, pranced aside, stuck out a leg and tripped her, grabbed her by the hair on the fly. "That's twice, Winger. Even nice guys run out of patience. So knock it off," I turned loose, started walking.

This time she listened to the message.

21

Dean almost got his marching orders when he went to get me up for my morning run. He's worse than a mom about not buying excuses. "You started it, you stick with it," he told me. "You're going to run, you're going to run every day."

Grumble grumble grikkle snackfrortz. Go take a flugling fleegle at a frying forsk. I said something like that. I fought the good fight till he went for the ice water. Then my yellow stripe came out. He'd do it, the driggin droogle. I didn't want to stay in bed that bad.

Carla Lindo was heating up the kitchen when I stumbled in. I grumbled a greeting.

"He always such a ball of sunshine in the morning?"

Dean told her, "This is one of his better mornings." Thanks, old-timer. He plunked honeyed tea down at my place at the table. He had bacon frying, biscuits baking. The smell of the biscuits was heavenly. I gathered he hadn't bothered to go home. Not much point. Wouldn't have been much time to sleep.

His nieces were used to it. They'd know I was into something. Now, if they'd just forget to use him not coming home as an excuse to come hang around, cooking and baking and batting their eyes and uglying up the place.

I sipped tea and stared into a fog, nothing much else happening inside my head. Carla Lindo stared at me but didn't say anything. She wore a teensy frown. Maybe her confidence was rattled.

You may suspect that morning isn't my best time. You may be right. I'm waiting for some genius to figure out a way to do without it. The sad truth is, too often it sets the tone for the rest of the day.

"How do you feel this morning?" Carla Lindo finally asked.

"Black and blue. My bruises got bruises." I hadn't been a lovely sight when I got dressed. I'd seen corpses in better condition.

Dean took the biscuits out, set the baking sheet directly on a trivet on the table. "You ought to figure a way to trade with His Nibs. He could get out and run while you loafed all you want."

He takes advantage of me mornings. Snipes away, knowing my brain isn't working. The best I can do is threaten to send him job hunting. A hollow threat if ever there was one. Crafty old dink don't play fair. He made himself indispensable.

He asked, "Did you learn anything last night?" as he brought the bacon.

"Yeah. That Winger character's only got one oar in the water." I told him about it.

He grinned. "I didn't think she killed that man."

"World's best judge of character," I told Carla Lindo. "Somebody sent Squirrel to the promised land, Dean. That character Blaine, too."

That got Carla Lindo. "What?" She looked stricken.

"Somebody did him. Busted his door down, tore his place up, left him dead."

"The book!"

"I guess."

"Damn it! Now she has it again." She jumped up, started pacing. I wasn't so far gone in the morning blahs that I wasn't distracted. "What will I do? Father was counting on me."

"Take it easy, love." My, wasn't she a sight when she was excited, bouncing and jiggling and... "Whoever did it didn't find the book. If that was what they were after. They were still trying when they were interrupted."

"Then..."

"It wasn't there to be found. Carla Lindo, my sweet, sit down. You're doing things to my concentration. That's better. You sure there isn't something you haven't told me? You been holding back something that would make sense of what's been happening?"

Big-eyed, looking shocked and hurt, she shook her head. I doubted she was telling the truth. Well, maybe, by her own lights, she was telling her own version. But it sure felt like there ought to be something more.

Breakfast usually brightens my outlook. I had been known, recently, to go into my morning runs with a smile on my puss. This morning was going to be an exception. This morning my mood just got blacker. I didn't finish eating.

I pushed back from the table. Carla Lindo was still shoveling it in. Where do those little ones put it? "I'm going to see Himself." I walked out. Dean looked hurt, like I'd made some nasty remark about his cooking.