"They" probably meant Marengo North English, well-known skinflint.

Tinnie said, "Sounds like a job for Garrett. He can read and everything."

"I'm no good at organizing." Which was why I hired Dean, way back when. The old boy started out part-time. Next thing I knew he'd moved in.

"You hungry?" Miss Montezuma asked.

"Famished," Tinnie chirped. I didn't doubt it. The woman could eat a whole roast pig and never gain an ounce.

I smiled over her shoulder, nodded. I didn't want Miss Montezuma thinking my friend did all my talking for me.

Tama was amused. "I'll take you past the library on our way to the kitchen. You can poke around there after we eat."

"Marengo won't mind?"

"Marengo isn't here."

"Doesn't seem to be anybody here." There was no sign of staff although Marengo's shanty dwarfed the Weider hovel. "Though how you can tell in all this gloom... " Hardly a candle was evident.

"There aren't any servants anymore," Miss Montezuma replied. "And we're frugal with all consumables. If we need light to work, we'd better get the job done in the daytime. Though I suppose I could find a lamp for you."

They just fall at my feet, willing to do anything.

"There aren't any windows in the old dinner hall."

The Goddamn Parrot snickered.

"You better do something about that sneeze, bird." I asked Miss Montezuma, "What's going on? They say Marengo is tight, but... "

"The Cause is a vampire. Its hunger never goes away. He has to cut back somewhere."

Did North English start out less rich than everybody thought? The impedimenta of great wealth seemed plentiful enough, if old and mostly threadbare. "At least he hasn't had to sell the candlesticks to make ends meet."

"Don't be cynical. Marengo believes he has a divine mission."

I doubted that, being a cynic. "What about Miss Tama Montezuma?"

"It doesn't matter what Miss Montezuma thinks. She's just Marengo's fancy woman."

"If I buy that, will you try to sell me maps to hoards of fairy gold? Bargain-priced?"

"I'm sure Miss Tate is far too alert and levelheaded to let me take advantage of you."

I didn't look at Miss Tate. I had a feeling Miss Tate would be hard at work restraining her redhead's temper. My smirk might overtilt the load.

"I'm curious," Tinnie said, reasonably enough. "If you have no servants, how do you eat?"

"I cook better than I do what I'm famous for."

Whew!

Miss Montezuma cooked very well indeed. With Tinnie and I following her instructions we collaborated in constructing a meal featuring a wild rabbit Tama claimed to have caught herself. "A woman of many talents," Tinnie observed.

"Yeah." I made a mental note to check Miss Montezuma's background. Street legend didn't dwell on her antecedents, which was unusual. Everybody loves a scandal.

74

During supper I was ordered to call Miss Montezuma Tama and learned that North English's place really was deserted.

The man from the gate was named Stucker. He avoided conversation with a passion. Tollie was a Montezuma-stricken fourteen-year-old who managed the livestock. There was a silent old man who had one eye and a hook for a right hand. Venable constituted security at The Pipes. Venable thought thunder lizards were the most wonderful things the gods ever created. He couldn't understand why they were unpopular. He could go on about them forever. He kept a pack of his own as pets and security associates. They would have the run of the estate tonight. Venable claimed his babies only ate strangers.

I suspected that, if you got yourself eaten, Venable's position would be that you couldn't possibly have been friendly.

An advantage of thunder lizards as guards is their stupidity. You can't bullshit them. But stupid is exploitable, too. They'll forget everything and go for the snack if you toss them something like, say, a squawking parrot with his wings clipped.

Tama discouraged table talk, though Venable wanted to bring me up-to-date on things to do with thunder lizard fandom. Tollie couldn't stand to look at Tinnie or do much more than croak if he tried to talk to Tama.

After supper we headed for the library. I insisted. Marengo might say no if we waited. His racist treasures might be damaged by eyetracks.

Long ago I learned that nobody wants to share information that looks like a resource.

The room set aside for the library was huge and cluttered. Most of the stuff there had to predate any notion of a specialized library. Some, I'd bet, predated any notion of Marengo North English.

Tama said, "Marengo wants to set up his research center here. But he's never found time to get started."

I got the impression she'd heard talk till she didn't listen anymore. "It's not like he's short on manpower. He could drag in a bunch of true believers and set up in a day."

"He's too paranoid."

"Yeah?" I set my lamp on a dusty side table, assayed the job ahead. Books were jumbled into small wooden crates in no obvious pattern. Scrolls were tied in bundles of four or five. I selected a bundle. "How do you feel about what he's trying to do?"

"My thoughts aren't consulted." She wasn't going to offer an opinion.

Did she know anyone well enough to take that risk?

Tinnie prowled the room slowly. She used her lamp to illuminate books where they lay, maybe hoping to luck onto something. Luck did seem as sensible a strategy as any. She harrumphed.

I said, "Miss Montezuma, you're being disingenuous. I asked your personal opinion, not if you're a consultant to the Inner Council of The Call."

"Tama, Garrett. Tama. Listen to me. I'm Marengo's companion. His mistress. Strictly utilitarian. What I think doesn't matter any more than what the chamber pot thinks. Unless one of us actually says something. I like my life here." Most of the time, her eyes said.

"And when the bloom begins to fade?"

She understood. She'd thought about that. That was obvious immediately.

I recalled how North English had slobbered over Belinda.

Uncle Marengo was in a mood to expand his horizons.

I dropped the subject.

Tinnie exercised uncharacteristic self-restraint. "Here's something." Her timing was flawless. The volume she handed me looked like it might actually be useful. It was Werebeasts: The Monsters That Walk Like Men.

The title turned out to be the most interesting part of the book. It dealt only with people who turn into wolves or bears or big cats or critters of a more mythological conviction. Those gods or devils who turn into eagles or snakes or whatnot, with no problems in the weight differential department, were the only self-directed changers mentioned. The creatures I wanted to demystify were anything but divine.

Tama neither dug in nor read over my shoulder. Was she illiterate? Probably. A pity but common enough, especially among women. I learned to read and write because that was a good way to kill time in the long, dull intervals between war's storms of high terror. A lot of guys did. It was encouraged. Written communications get less garbled over time and distance. Karenta's more literate forces proved marginally more efficient and effective than Venageta's over the war's final generation.

Now Karenta's masters are troubled. They have begun to suspect that allowing commoners access to books may have been a grave mistake. Literacy puts crazy ideas into heads more useful when empty. Books let guys who have been dead for a hundred years pass on the one original notion they ever had, which meant immortality for countless social insanities.

There was scare talk about the mob possibly teaching their young to read, too, thereby perpetuating the abomination. Today's free-thinking insanity might continue for generations. It might destabilize the natural order.