Angry Lead Skies

In fact, I'd forgotten them completely.

Take care, Garrett. There are unfriendly ratmen in the neighborhood.

That seemed hard to credit after so many had gone down at Playmate's stable. Still, Old Bones isn't in the habit of being excitable.

It turned out there were only two unfriendly ratmen. And one of those had a limp so profound he was no threat to anyone but himself. The uncrippled individual approached me in a ma

"Guilty." This close to the Dead Man I didn't feel any special risk. "What do you need?"

"I bring a message from John Stretch. He has the woman Winger."

This ratman was no Pular Singe. I could barely understand him.

As a point of information, Garrett, this fellow is John Stretch. He has only a handful of followers left, most of them injured. He fears they will desert him if he demonstrates any hesitance or lack of resolve.

"Couldn't happen to a more deserving guy. I hope they enjoy a long and prosperous marriage."

The ratman appeared nonplussed. "John Stretch says he will trade the woman Winger for the female Pular Singe."

"Hell, so would I. You're kidding, right? One of my friends put you up to pulling my leg. Right? Who was it? You can help me get him back."

The ratman was confused. This wasn't going anything like he pla

"John Stretch isn't likely to live long enough to harm anybody or to make deals with anybody. Rather than making more enemies John Stretch ought to be trying to find himself some new friends."

Bic Gonlit.

Yes, indeed. "I might do business if Bic Gonlit was available for trade."

The ratman had been difficult to understand when he was delivering a rehearsed message. Now I had to rely on a relay from the Dead Man in order to grasp what he was trying to say.

"You do not want the woman Winger?"

"What would I do with her? Nope. She's all yours. And she's going to take some feeding, I'll tell you. But I am strongly interested in getting my hands on Bic Gonlit. Bic Gonlit has messed me around a couple of times lately. I'm ready to settle up."

"Perhaps that could be arranged." The ratman looked thoughtful.

"Actually, there're two Bic Gonlits. The real Bic is short for a human male. He wears white boots covered with fake gemstones. The second Bic is a pretender. He's a little taller and never wears boots. This false Bic Gonlit has created a lot of mischief. I believe he was responsible for the bad advice that led to the disaster at the stable today."

The ratman had questions, suddenly. He had big trouble asking them without revealing that he was, himself, John Stretch. He was no genius but he did understand that he wasn't going to come out on top if we got into a scuffle.

I told him, "The false Bic is really a wicked elf who has disguised himself so the real Bic will get blamed for the evil he does. I still haven't figured out why he wants to cause strife and unhappiness. I guess he just does. Maybe it's fun."

I didn't believe that but it sounded like the sort of behavior and motivation that would make sense to a John Stretch.

John Stretch was a record-setter of a ratman. He had berries the size of coconuts—but limited smarts to go with them. Though a lack of brains never has been a huge handicap in TunFaire's underworld. Guts and daring get you ahead faster.

"I want them both. But the false Bic more than the other."

The ratman twitched, mad as hell. But he maintained his self-control. "I will inform John Stretch. What should I tell him about the woman Winger?"

"I don't know. She's his problem. You could let him know she's involved with The Call. And that one of her lovers is Deal Relway. Of the Guard. He might find that information useful when he decides how to dispose of her."

The Call is a virulently racist veterans' organization, armed and organized as a private, political army. It shares a good many goals with Deal Relway. I wouldn't want to be a ratman who came to The Call's attention because I'd done harm to a human woman.

And Deal Relway is Deal Relway, increasingly the bogeyman to all those who practice wickedness in TunFaire.

I stopped to visit with some of the pixies. From brief encounters I knew two of the youngsters by sight, a daring boy who called himself Shakespear and a young lady named Melondie Kadare, who was so sweet and pretty I wished I could whack her with a transmogrification stick and grow her up to my size.

Melondie was the pixie who had followed me into the alley out back on the occasion of my first encounter with a silver elf in a Bic Gonlit disguise. Back then she'd been a precocious, curious adolescent. Now she was a serious, refined young woman. More or less. When the old folks were looking.

Pixie lives race away far faster than our own. I think that may be why we're uncomfortable around the little people. They're so much like us, in miniature. Their swiftly lived lives remind us, piquantly, that our own more numerous hours are still painfully and perfectly numbered.

62

Singe let me into the house moments after the Goddamn Parrot, evidently under the illusion that he was some kind of eagle, slammed down onto my right shoulder and tried to carry me off to his aerie.

He couldn't work up quite enough lift. So he gave up.

I feared Singe was going to climb all over me exactly the way I'd wished about a thousand young women of passing acquaintance would've done in days of yore. And she might've done so if the sexier silver elf hadn't come out of the Dead Man's room to see what was happening. She wore a tattered old shirt probably taken from Dean's ragbag. It might've served as a child's nightshirt before it acquired all those holes. It was barely sufficient to cover the subject. Most of the time.

That was distracting. Even on her. Because there was nothing but her underneath the tatters.

Maybe it was some sort of experiment by His Nibs.

Singe settled for clinging to my arm. "So what great adventures did you get to enjoy out there today, while the rest of us were locked up here, dying of boredom?"

I detached the Goddamn Parrot from my shoulder. "I traded you to John Stretch for two Bic Gonlits and a sugar-cured ham." I tossed the jungle chicken in the general direction of his perch, in the small front room.

"What?" Singe shrieked.

"John Stretch really wants you. You really turned his head."

Garrett, do not be a fool. Miss Pular is about to fly into a panic. What you are saying means more to her than it should.

"I'm sorry, Singe. I'm sorry. I didn't mean that like it sounded. I was teasing you. Yes, I did tell John Stretch that I'd trade you for two Bics. But his chances of... "

Garrett!

"All right! Singe, no matter what I told John Stretch, I'm not letting you go. Nobody is going to take you away. So relax. Take some time, again, to see if you can't figure out when you're being teased. And I'll try to rein it in. If I can. Humans seldom speak straightforwardly and direct. I find that frustrating myself, sometimes." Like almost every time I spend more than a few minutes in the company of most human women. "Anyway, even if I was that big a villain, how likely is it that John Stretch would keep his word?"

"Because he's nothing but a slimy little rat, you mean, and we all know that ratpeople are nothing but stupid, lazy, lying, thieving, smelly animals?"

While Singe shouted the Dead Man passed along one or two points of interest. Well, well. The ratman who calls himself John Stretch was born Pound Humility, of the same female one litter before Miss Pular Singe. It may be that his interest in her is less political than personal. Miss Pular suspects an unwanted brother's concern for his sister's welfare. From the viewpoint of a ratman she would be making a huge mistake by getting involved with you.