Angry Lead Skies
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76
Sleepily, the Dead Man again asked, How does it feel to be a
captain of industry? His inquiry had an amused, sharp, mocking
edge to it. The sort of edge his thoughts take on when things go
exactly according to his prognostications.
“I feel like a man wasting his life. Like the proverbial
square peg.”
Indeed? But if you were not working there you would be here
either sleeping off hangovers or indulging yourself in some rakish
indulgence.
“Yeah. That’d be great. Indulging in some
indulgence.”
He was feeling generous. He didn’t mention the several
Visitor women I’d finagled out of the house not that long
ago.
Singe invited herself into the Dead Man’s room, then into
the conversation. Evidently the Dead Man had kept her posted. She
took a sandwich out of her mouth long enough to ask, “Are you
having problems with the red-haired woman again? I hope?”
“Absolutely. Always. That goes without saying. But not as
many as usual.” Mainly because Tinnie was too busy working.
And I stayed out of her way.
“I am sorry.”
“No, you’re not. You’ve been polishing up your
sarky, haven’t you?”
“When you are lower than a ratman’s dog you do have
to try harder. John Stretch was here not long ago. He wanted us to
know that he knows where the other Visitors are hiding. The ones we
ran into out in the country.” Singe still shivered when she
recalled that adventure, though it made her the awe of all
ratpeople who heard the tale. “They are here in the city,
now. Their skyship is hidden inside a large, abandoned structure on
the Embankment, a little ways north of the Landing.”
Way up there in strange territory.
Coincidentally within a few hundred yards of the site where
the ship belonging to Lastyr and Noodiss is suspected to have gone
beneath the water.
I frowned, trying to picture such a fantasm as an abandoned
building in TunFaire. I’d expect to bump snoots with a
unicorn first. This city is awash in refugees from the former war
zone. Nothing that remotely resembles shelter isn’t infested
with desperate, dangerous people.
Singe anticipated my question. “People lived there until
ten days ago. Something scared them into moving out.” Meaning
maybe somebody more dangerous had moved in.
“What do you think, Old Bones? Worth a look? Or are we out
of the thing since Kip doesn’t seem to be in trouble
anymore?” Though how could we be out while we still had Casey
underfoot? I wished there was some way I could give him to Morley,
too.
The Dead Man’s response was the mental equivalent of a
distracted grunt.
“Don’t you dare go to sleep on me! Who’ll keep
Casey under control?”
The question elicited only a mental snort and the equivalent of
“I was just resting my eyes.”
“You don’t keep him managed, Chuckles, I won’t
have any choice but to turn him over to the Guard. I can’t
handle him. We’ve already seen that.”
Mental grumbles. Old Bones was getting testy, a sure sign he was
headed for a long nap. He’s predictable. Kind of like the
weather is predictable. You look out the window and tell everybody
a storm is on its way. No way you’re ever wrong, given
sufficient time.
What is your attitude toward unearthing Lastyr and
Noodiss?
“Not quite obsessed but definitely still interested.
Despite all logic. They planted that one deep, whoever did
it.”
He didn’t tell me what I wanted to know.
“That was supposed to be a hint, Old Bones. Who messed
with the inside of my head?”
I am inclined to suspect Casey but I do not know. I have not
read direct responsibility in any Visitor mind yet. But the
Visitors have been exceedingly adept at concealing specific items.
Witness Evas and her sisters. Witness Casey himself. He has not
yielded up a tenth of his secrets even though he has been in direct
mental contact with me for ages now.
Also, it might be wise to consider the possibility that your
urge is not of Visitor origin.
“What?”
We might do well to recollect, occasionally, Colonel
Block’s several subtle cautions about the intense interest in
the Visitors being shown, behind the scenes, by several Hill
personages. You have been rendered unconscious with some frequency
of late. We might review your memories of those episodes with an
eye toward the possibility that some of our own folk might have
created an opportunity to implant a compulsion.
“Maybe who really isn’t as important as what. Who
wants the secrets of the Visitors’ magic isn’t truly
critical to us. Who won’t have much direct impact on our
lives.”
Perhaps. If you discount the moral dimension.
“Naturally.”
And when the talking is over, you do want to meet the
mysterious Lastyr and Noodiss yourself.
“I sure do. I know I’ll be disappointed. I always
am. But I’d definitely like to see who got the cauldron
bubbling.”
Then cease investing your time in the three-wheel business.
There is nothing you can contribute there except exasperation for
your associates.
I’d had the feeling that even Willard Tate was considering
changing the locks on the compound doors. It isn’t just that
I ask too many questions, I ask questions that make people
uncomfortable.
Even the bloodiest villains have to work hard at conscience
management sometimes. Until they get their full arsenal of
justifications filed, sanded, and polished to fit their shadowy
needs.
Indeed you do. Also, you must stop juggling the women in
your life. I understand that you are trying to live every young
man’s dream and are managing a twisted approximation. But
there come moments when each of us must step away from the
dreamtime.
Sometimes somebody besides me flops something uncomfortable onto
the table.
Find Lastyr and Noodiss. Before they perish from old
age.
I didn’t contradict him. But Evas had told me that
Visitors never grow old, nor do they die of old age. They live on
until Fate finds a way to squash them with a falling boulder or
until they do something really stupid, like going into a horse
stall all alone, without a witness around anywhere.
Which sounds like some of those old, false legends about
Morley’s people.
“Singe, it ought to be safe out there now. You ready for
another adventure?”
“Whither thou goest.”
“Oh, that’s rude. All right. First thing in the
morning. Bright and early. For real. But for now, let’s just
hit the kitchen and tip a few mugs of Weider Select.”
I am getting old. I thought about heading out to Grubb
Gruber’s to enjoy a few with the old jarheads. I thought
about wandering over to serenade Katie, whom I hadn’t seen in
so long she might’ve forgotten her favorite little honey
bunny. I thought about several other ways to fritter my evening.
And, in the end, I just stayed in, sipping the dark and exchanging
brew-born wisdom with my pal Singe. I hit the sack early, never
suffering a thought about the feuding pixies.
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