which way I turned my head or how tightly I pinched my nose,
I could still 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
Bill Pronzini, Barry N. Malzberg