Angry Lead Skies

Weider steepled his spidery, blue-veined fingers in front of his nose. The rheum went out of his eyes. His now nearly gaunt face showed a bit of light. I'd managed to pique his interest.

Gilbey, who had moved to a post beside his employer's chair, shot me a look that told me to get on with it while there was a chance of getting Max interested and engaged.

I could do this. I know how to keep a corpse awake and interested. Sometimes.

Manvil Gilbey isn't just Max Weider's number one lieutenant, he's his oldest and closest friend. They go back to their war years together. Which makes for a hell of a bond.

"What it is," I said, "is that I've stumbled across this kid who invents things. All kinds of things. Some are completely weird. Some are completely useless. And some are really neat. What I want is for somebody with a lot more commercial sense than I've got to eyeball the inventions and tell me if I'm fooling myself when I think somebody could get rich making some of them."

"Ah," Max said. "Another business opportunity. First time this week we've been offered the chance to get in on the ground floor, isn't it, Manvil?"

I pretended to miss his sarcasm. "I'm not looking for anybody to go in on it with me. I have that part worked out. If I could just have Manvil give me his honest opinion of the stuff in the kid's workshop, and if it matches mine, I'll see if the Tates want to manufacture them. Now that the war's over there isn't much demand for the army boots and leather whatnots they've been making for the last sixty years."

Max asked, "What's your take, Manvil?" He was well aware of my precarious relationship with one of the Tate girls. And he thought I was a raving romantic instead of a tough, lone, honest man battling to scourge evil from the mean streets, which is what I know that I really am. As long as I don't have to get up before noon to work the flails.

"I think friend Garrett might be even less devious than we've always thought. You weren't going to cut us in, Garrett?"

"Huh? Why should I? You guys already got more money than God and more work than—"

Max stilled me with a wave. "See what he's got, Manvil. Garrett, Willard Tate is a good choice. He's an excellent manager. And he does have that gorgeous redheaded niece besides." He knows about Ti

We may be friends but he's also a father.

Max leaned his head back and closed his eyes. End of consultation. For now.

Manvil actually smiled. I'd managed to get his buddy interested in something, at least for a little while.

58

"Sounds like a riot," I said. Gilbey and I, in the Weider coach, were nearing Playmate's stable.

Possibly it was a neighborhood war. A lot of sturdy subject types, armed with knives and cudgels, were trying to adjust the larcenous attitudes of the biggest daytime mob of ratmen I'd ever seen. There were dozens of them. And things weren't going their way. The street was littered with ratmen already down. The survivors were trying to retreat, burdened with booty. And just as Manvil and I arrived the Domains of Chaos spewed another ingredient into the cauldron.

At least twenty more ratmen appeared. They attacked the smash-and-grab guys with a ferocity I hadn't seen since the islands. They were determined to leave bodies behind. And they got as good as they gave.

I leaned out the coach door and told our driver, "Just stay real still and try to think invisible thoughts till this blows over."

"What's happening?" Gilbey asked. There was no color left in his face. He didn't get out on the town much.

"We seem to have strayed into the middle of a factional skirmish amongst members of the ratman underworld. What it was before it turned into that I won't know until I get a chance to look around." But I had a feeling it boded no good for me and my industrial schemes.

"Your life is never dull, is it?"

"A little dull wouldn't hurt, some days. I've thought about calling my autobiography Trouble Follows Me. The problem with that is, the troubles in my life are usually waiting when I get there."

The battle outside turned tricornered. Playmate's sturdy subject type neighbors couldn't tell one ratman from another. And most of them just plain welcomed a chance to whack on a thieving ratman anyway.

Whistles sounded in the distance. The Guards were gathering. I expected that, like the Watch before them, they would move in only after they were confident that they had nobody to deal with but people who couldn't crawl away.

I slipped down out of the coach. "Better stay in here for now, Manvil."

"No problem. I used up my adventurous side a long time ago."

One thing that's never in short supply around Playmate's stable is the rough hemp twine his hay-and-straw man uses to bundle his products before he brings them into town. Playmate saves the twine and gives it back.

I gathered a load and started tying rats. Neighbors thought that was a marvelous idea and joined right in.

"Not that one," I told one of the sturdy subjects. "The ones wearing the green armbands are the good guys. Sort of. We can fail to see them getting away if they're able to go."

That earned me some dark looks but no real arguments. Emotions were surprisingly cool, considering.

I tied fourteen ratmen personally before the Guard arrived. There were more still unbound. Almost all of the neighbors had started to carry Playmate's possessions back into the stable. They ignored instructions not to disturb the evidence. Most of that, I noted, was stuff that had been looted from Kip's workshop.

I returned to the Weider coach. "Come on. Let's see if they left anything I can show you."

To my delight, the three-wheel, my three-wheel, hadn't been disturbed. "This's the main thing I want to make. The biggest thing. Right here. Watch this." I climbed aboard, zoomed around as best I could in the confined space. "I can see every rich family in town wanting one of these for a toy. Come on. Try it."

As Gilbey was trying to get the hang of making the big front wheel turn in the correct direction I caught a sound from behind me and whirled, expecting an attack from some desperado ratman who'd been knocked down earlier or who'd gone into hiding when the tide had turned. What I found was a weak, cross-eyed Playmate trying to get up from where he'd been laid low by a blow to the head.

I gave him a hand up, which wasn't the best thing to do for him in his condition. I supported him till he could get his backside planted on a bale of hay and his spine pressed against a post. "How bad does it look, Garrett?" I was checking the top of his head.

"You're going to need a real surgeon. You've got a piece of scalp peeled back. The wound needs cleaning. You need a bunch of stitches. You're going to be enjoying headaches for days. What did they want?"

"They never told me but they meant to haul off everything Kip ever made."

"Didn't I warn you?'

"Yes. You did. How's Winger?"

"I don't know. I haven't seen her. She supposed to be here? I'll look around. Manvil, would you keep an eye on my friend, here? You remember how to deal with a head injury? Don't let him go to sleep."

I found no sign of Winger anywhere. I went back to Playmate. "You sure Winger was still here?"

"I still have fresh blisters on my ears from the language she used when this started, Garrett. She was busting up ratmen like she was killing snakes or something. They won't be good to her if they took her away."

"You Garrett?"

I jumped. I hadn't heard this guy come in. He was way shorter than me but plenty wide and all muscle. He had big, brushy eyebrows that met in the middle over mean-looking little blue eyes that, surely, concealed a bright mind. He was clad in businesslike apparel that managed to look shoddy even though it was relatively new. I knew what he was before I asked, "Who wants to know?"