"Yeah," Saucerhead said. "He's got a notion somebody might actually want to hurt you."

"I can't imagine why."

"I can't imagine why, neither, Garrett," Winger grumbled. "I mean, you only trample all over people's feelings—"

"Stuff it, Winger. Last time you had a feeling you beat it to a midwife to find out if it was gas or pregnancy."

Winger grinned.

The man with the cute little girl increased his pace. He ignored her demands to hear the pretty bird talk again.

The Call guys started a chant and cheer combination that was both moving and chilling. Then they started marching in place. Their feet shook the pavement. They had a band, too, we discovered to our dismay.

I never liked military bands. I don't get real excited about patriotic marches, either.

I paid attention and concentrated when I was in the Corps. I got real good at what I did. I became one of the best in a force made up of the elite of the elite. That helped me stay healthy. Never before then, then, or even now, has my soul suffered any compulsion to become an anonymous fraction of a brainless mass that has its thinking done for it by somebody who shouldn't ought to be trusted to water horses.

Another chance to cross presented itself. I stepped out. Winger and Saucerhead stepped with me, one on either side. What was going on in the Dead Man's minds?

Maybe he was finally drifting away for good, tarrying in a paranoid fantasy before letting go?

"This political crap is out of hand," I told Saucerhead.

Tharpe is no thinker. He takes a while to form an opinion so he must have applied some serious mind work to the matter. "I don't get it, Garrett. They're overreacting. It's like they're screaming because TunFaire is full of people who live here."

If Saucerhead has a prejudice, I've never noticed. Of course, he can develop one professionally if the pay is right. He's a bone-breaker by trade, though he needs odd jobs to keep body and soul together.

"The other day you told me these times would be good for you."

"Yeah. But times being good for me don't mean it's right, what's happening. People are going crazy. It's like some mad wizard cast a hate spell so everybody would act twice as stupid as usual."

Saucerhead and Winger searched the shadows as we walked. I kept an eye on the darkness myself. I was edgy. Times had not been easy lately. I thought about penning an autobiography called Trouble Follows Me or maybe Danger Is My Business.

Nothing happened except that we had to detour one small riot. Straggler rightsists had run into night folks who didn't share their viewpoint. Most of the night crowd aren't human and none have had sensitivity training so they respond to offensive behavior by breaking heads.

I don't know why when you put three drunks together they decide they can conquer the world. If they choose to start with a troll, they get hurt. No matter how much they drink that troll is still impervious to just about everything but lichen infections.

Beer may not be the root cause of social problems at all, despite what the teetotallers claim. Old Man Weider may be producing the cure for our social ills. Suppose we let the morons get tanked and go looking for big trouble? Big trouble can eliminate them. Bingo. No more problem.

You can't convince me that I'm obligated to save you from yourself. If you want to head for hell by way of smoking weed or opium, or by drinking, or by being dim enough to call a giant names to his face, go head. Enjoy the slide. I won't get in your way.

Nope. I won't hand you a bucket of grease, either. You've got to do it on your own.

22

"What's the drill?" I asked as we turned into Macunado east of my place. I spoke for the Goddamn Parrot, in case the Dead Man needed to let me know about any special plans. Saucerhead and Winger thought I was asking them. They were unaware of the special relationship between the character with no mind and the one with way too many.

Winger said, "We walk you to your door and make sure you're safely inside. You pay us."

"Pay you? That's going to come out of the Dead Man's side of the business. I didn't ask for baby-sitters."

His Nibs didn't rise to the bait. He didn't want anybody to know he used the parrot.

Saucerhead said, "Will you look at them kids, Garrett? That's disgusting."

He meant several youths of preconscription age gathered on a street corner. They were baiting a covey of adolescent elf girls who were way out of their own neighborhood, not to mention out after dark. Their fathers would have whipped their bottoms purple had they witnessed what was happening. The boys were uncomplimentary in the extreme, their vocabularies heavily racist—although the clothing they affected was borrowed directly from elven styles. The girls giggled at the boys and dared them to do something. Anything. Because then they would make the boys look as stupid as they were talking.

"You want me to go tell them to mind their manners?" I asked.

"Huh?" Tharpe responded, baffled. "Manners? What're you talking about, Garrett?"

"No. What're you talking about? If not their behavior?"

"Their hair, man!" Tharpe eyed me like he wondered if I was going blind. "Look at their hair."

"They've got a lot of it." Most of them had it up and artificially curled and it looked like hell, but so what? It was obvious already that they didn't mind being the butt of mockery.

Saucerhead never outgrew his military haircut. He grumbled, "What kind of parents would let their kids go around looking like that? You want to know why Karenta is going to hell... "

I did but I didn't think Saucerhead's theory would hold much water.

Hair had nothing to do with those boys' behavior—though behavior and hair might be two symptoms of the same disease. And the girls bore an equal responsibility. Hardly anybody, human or elven, would argue that there are any women more beautiful or sensual than the elven—and these girls were blessed additionally with the glow of youth. And they flaunted every weapon they had to get those boys to humiliate themselves.

The boys were too naive to realize they were going to lose no matter what they did. That's a hard lesson for even a man of my mature years. I'm past standing on street corners and howling at the unattainable but I suspect no woman ever gets entirely beyond belittling you, however subtly, for finding her attractive.

I was stretching Saucerhead's mind to its limit trying to explain what was going on across the street when Winger opined, "You're really full of shit, Garrett."

"Tell you what, Winger. You tell me about the women you hang out with."

"Huh? What's that got to do with anything?"

"You're going to tell me how women really think. But you hang out with me. You hang out with Saucerhead when he doesn't have a girlfriend tying him down. You hang out in lowlife taverns trying to get into fights with guys who remind you of your husband. You hang out with thieves and thugs and confidence men and none of them are women so I don't think the fact that you squat to pee qualifies you as an expert on female culture as practiced in our great metropolis."

"Shee-it. There you go cutting me down again 'cause I come from the country."

This could go on for hours. Winger always has a comeback, even if it doesn't make much sense. Lucky for me, we came to my house. It was night out and as quiet as it gets in my block but damned if Mrs. Cardonlos wasn't outside watching my place like she expected entertainment of the sort only I can provide.

I studied the area carefully. First I get an armed escort, then I find my neighborhood nemesis on point. "What's happening, Old Bones? How come the wicked witch of Macunado Street is on patrol?"