8

Dean didn't want any suggestions. He never does, but he doesn't mind having me offer. Then he can turn me down.

I settled at the table. Dean asked, "What was that all about?"

"I'm not sure. Somebody called Lubbock sent her to shake me down for a book."

He frowned. He's mastered the art. His face turns into a badland of shadowed canyons "That fellow who stabbed Miss Tinnie..."

"Yeah."

"There's something going on." Another genius. My place is lousy with them.

"Yeah."

"You going to find out what?"

"Maybe " I didn't have much inclination. The world is full of mysteries. Do I have to solve them all? Without even anybody paying me? But I did wonder why Winger had come to me.

Somebody pounded on the front door. I grumbled something about maybe it was time to move. Too many people knew where I lived. Dean said, "That's Mr. Tharpe."

"You can tell from here?"

"I know his knock."

Right. Sure he did. But why argue? Let him have his little fantasies. I headed up the hall..." Whoa!" There was Saucerhead. Inside. "What the hell?"

He looked a little croggled himself. "It just opened up when I knocked." He stared at the door like it would maybe sprout fangs.

Couldn't be. I'd locked it myself. That's a prime rule. There are people on those mean streets dumb enough to drop in. Dumb enough not to worry about the Dead Man. I just sent one packing.

I puzzled it for half a minute before I caught a glimmer of a possibility. "Three geniuses!" Saucerhead scowled, baffled I popped my head into the small front room.

My guest had vanished "Dean!" I'd forgotten her in the excitement of my run and those cozy moments with Winger

"Mr. Garrett?"

"Something's missing." I indicated the small front room. "And Saucerhead found the door open."

Dean looked properly amazed. He went into the room and sniffed around, making sure everything was there. Like it was his own stuff. "The blanket is gone."

She would've taken something. You have to work to attract attention on a TunFaire street, but naked will do it every time

Saucerhead asked, "What's going on?"

"You know as much as I do. Dean, get Mr. Tharpe a beer. I'm going to talk to the Dead Man."

Dean herded Saucerhead toward the kitchen. I dropped in on my permanent guest, who—I sensed before I said a word—had fallen into a surly mood. His natural state. "What's eating you all of a sudden?"

You failed to mention this visitor who has vanished.

"Why should I?" He knew all the comings and goings. He was so disturbed he didn't prance around it. I was unaware of her presence. This is unprecedented. I had not thought it possible. He went off somewhere inside himself, looking for explanations for the impossible.

He was disturbed? I was beside myself. On both sides. All three of me were one breath short of a panic. Somebody could come and go around here without us having any warning?

"This doesn't sound good, Mr. Garrett," Dean said from behind me.

"Not only a genius but a master of understatement." I considered. "She can't have much of a head start. She'll stand out in the crowd. I better catch her."

"Catch who?" Saucerhead asked. So I explained. "Naked women just falling through your door." He sneered. "How do you do it? That don't never happen to me."

"You don't live right. We don't have time to hang around yakking."

"We? You got a pixie in your pocket?"

"You'd be impressed. That is, if you ever saw her. Imagine Tinnie but with a little more in the lung department."

"I wasn't up to much else anyway. Let's go."

But that little weasel of a god who watches out for Garrett's affairs didn't figure I ought to go chasing redheads. No sense of proportion at all.

9

Maybe he was just trying to save my legs. He did deliver another one to my door.

Dean was there already. He'd been fixing to let us out when the knock came. Now he was wringing his hands. I asked, "What have we got?"

"Another woman."

I opened up and looked her over. That took a while. You're going to do a job, do it right. There was plenty there to appreciate, though in a small package. I was surprised the whole neighborhood wasn't howling. Hot stuff. All the right goodies packed together in all the best ways. Big green eyes. Big, big green eyes. Lips a dangerous red and puffy, the kind that yell, "Come and get it, I can take it, what are you waiting for?" Breasts like man oh man how did she get that on and how does she keep them in there?

But.

She was a little thing, maybe five feet two on her tiptoes. And she was another redhead. She had lots of wild red hair the way Tinnie had wild red hair. The way my naked visitor had had wild red hair. In fact, she was a ringer for that gal but definitely not the same woman. I wondered if she was a sister. Or was that little weasel in the sky just poking me in the eye by piling on the redheads?

I didn't say anything. I couldn't. I just led her into that pretentious closet I call an office. Dean brought a pitcher without being asked. He looked numb. The way I was going to be numb if I kept getting pitchers delivered.

Another redhead. I hoped some light was going to get shed here. Real soon.

All of a sudden I was convinced that guy with the mustache had thought he was hitting this woman, or the naked one, when he'd stabbed Tinnie. 1 settled, drank a mug, studied her. She looked back boldly, still without having spoken. She didn't go for come-hither but, damn, it was built in, part of the package. She was the kind of woman who'd sit there and smolder while darning her grandfather's socks. The kind that makes me want to run out back and yell at the sky in sheer joy that I share the same world.

I squeaked. "I'm Garrett. I guess you want to see me." Sometimes I'm so cool I amaze even me.

"Yes."

Yes what? I took a drink so I wouldn't pant all over her. I believe in long courtships. Fifteen minutes at least. I swallowed and croaked, "So?"

"I need someone to help me. Someone like you."

I grinned from ear to ear. Could I help her? You betcha... I'd give it my best shot... . Hey! Garrett! Let's calm down a little. Let's get the chemistry under control. Anyway, I'd already begun to suspect that this wasn't a match made in heaven. She was smoldering, but that wasn't my fault. That, was just her being her. Whoever she was. "Well?"

"I need someone to find something for me."

"That's what I do. Find things. But sometimes people are sorry when I do."

She just sat there heating the place up while I started to sweat. I turned sideways and studied Eleanor out of the corner of my eye. A tall, cool, slim, ethereal blonde, Eleanor has what it takes to bring me back to earth. I talk to Eleanor when no one else will listen. She's my rock in turbulent seas. I wondered what the real Eleanor would think if she knew how I used her portrait. I didn't think she'd mind.

The redhead asked, "Is that someone special?"

"Yes. Her name was Eleanor Stantnor. She was the wife of a client. I never really met her. He murdered her twenty years before he hired me. All he got for his trouble was found out for his old crime. I took the painting for my fee. Yeah. She's special. And if she was around, she'd be as old as my mother. But I'd probably fall in love with her anyway." I faced the redhead. "Let's get down to it."

"Have I come at a bad time?"

"You've come at the perfect rime. You're almost a ringer for a friend of mine somebody tried to kill out front yesterday. I have a feeling you could maybe shed some light on why."

She started to say something. What I'd said sank in. Her mouth made an 0. Her eyes got even bigger. She started to get up, sank back, shook fetchingly.