Angry Lead Skies Read Online Free PDF Page A

smell me. And I was way past ripe.
    Maybe a sudden thunderstorm would come up and wash me down to the river.
    Maybe they ought to put all the unemployed ex-soldiers to work cleaning the city.
    Never happen. Makes too much sense. And it would cost public monies that can be put to better use lining somebody’s pockets.
    The neighbors lost interest in me when somebody hollered, “There goes one!” and everything came to a halt while the entire population stared at the sky. I was a couple beats late. I saw nothing. “What the hell is that all about?”
    Playmate looked at me like he’d just flipped a boulder and discovered a new species of fool. “ Where have you been? There’ve been strange lights in the sky and weird things hurtling around overhead for weeks. Longer than that, if you believe some people. I thought everybody in TunFaire knew about them and was watching for them.”
    “Well, not me. Tell me.”
    Playmate shook his head. “You have to get out of the house more, Garrett. Even when you’re not working, You need to know what’s going on around you.”
    I couldn’t argue with that.
     
     

6
    “What the hell?” My front door stood wide open.
    “Maybe Kip ran away.” From the vantage of his superior altitude Playmate surveyed Macunado Street, uphill and down. “Which would be stupid. He can’t find his own way home.”
    I gave him a raised eyebrow look. “Where do you find them?” He’s worse than Dean is. Dean being the antediluvian artifact who serves as my live-in cook and housekeeper. Who has several huge personality flaws. Those include acting like my mom and my dad and having a soft heart bigger than my often somnolent sidekick. But Dean does confine his overweening charity to kittens and strange young women. Playmate will take in anything, including birds with broken wings and nearly grown boys who need a guide to get around their own hometown.
    Playmate was too concerned to talk. He charged up my front steps and into the house. I followed at a more dignified pace. I wasn’t used to all that exercise.
    “Hey, Garrett! He’s right where we left him.”
    Absolutely. Kip was nailed to the client’s chair, wearing an expression like he’d just enjoyed a divine visitation. The Dead Man was holding him there. But that couldn’t account for the goofy expression.
    “Then who left the door open?”
    Your lady friend became distressed when she could find no one willing to make her breakfast. When the boy just stared at her and drooled she stormed out. That sparkling sense of amusement hung in the air once more, rich and mellow, with well-defined edges.
    “But you had plenty of brainpower left over to hold and manage this nimrod.”
    Being dead had corrupted somebody’s sense of relative values. The streets are swamped with goofballs. But Katie is unique. Katie is like a religious epiphany. “And what happened to the talking buzzard?” He would know. The Goddamn Parrot was almost a third arm and extra mouth for him anymore. He’s going to weep great tears when that vulture bites the dust. Though Morley is fond of reminding me that parrots can live about a million years. If something doesn’t wring their scrawny necks.
    I’ll weep myself when he’s gone. Tears of joy.
    Mr. Big is tracking the creature you failed to capture because you were unable keep your attention on the matter at hand.
    “You mean Bic Gonlit, the guy who made his escape on a galloping donkey? Because nobody bothered to warn me that it was him hanging around in the alley, leaving me unprepared?”
    Apparently an oversight on my part. I detected no second presence out there. Which is no longer of any consequence, now, anyway. But I would be remiss if I failed to point out that you should have been better prepared, knowing there could be difficulty.
    “No consequence? Difficulty? You aren’t the one the little pork-ball whapped upside the head.”
    Spare us your unconvincing histrionics, Garrett.
    Unconvincing? I was