Deadly Quicksilver Lies Read Online Free PDF

and a half hours.
    “Sometimes we cannot relinquish our pasts, sir.”
    “Maggie Jenn used to be a mammoth hunter?”
    The peace was over. Just like that. He hunked along sullenly. I think that was because I’d admitted I didn’t have the faintest idea what Maggie Jenn used to be.
    How come everyone thought I should know who she was? Including me? My famous memory was doing famously today.
    Zeke ushered me into the worst room yet. “Madame will join you here.” I looked around, shading my eyes, began to wonder if Madame didn’t used to be a madam. The place was for sure done up in whorehouse modern, probably by the same nancy boys who did the high-fly joints down in the Tenderloin.
    I turned to ask a question.
    Ichabod had abandoned me.
    I almost squeaked for him to come back. “Oh, Zeke! Bring me a blindfold.” I didn’t think I could stand the sensory assault otherwise.
     
     

8
    It got to me. I stood around like I’d just made eye contact with a medusa. I’d never seen so much red. Everything was a red of the reddest reds, overwhelmingly red. Ubiquitous gold leaf highlights only heightened the impact.
    “Garrett.”
    Maggie Jenn. I didn’t have the strength to turn. I was scared she’d be wearing scarlet and lip rouge of a shade that would make her look like a vampire at snack time.
    “You alive?”
    “Just stunned.” I waved a hand. “This is a bit overpowering.”
    “Kind of sucks, don’t it? But Teddy loved it, the gods know why. This place was Teddy’s gift, so I keep this part the way he liked it.”
    I did turn then. No, she hadn’t worn red. She wore a peasanty sort of thing that was mostly light brown and white lace and a silly white dairymaid’s hat that set off her hair. She also wore a heavyweight smile that said she was amusing herself at my expense but I was free to join in the fun. I told her, “I’m missing something. I don’t get the joke.”
    Her smile faded. “What do you know about me?”
    “Not much. Your name. That you’re the sexiest woman I’ve run into in an age. Various self-evident characteristics. That you live in a classy neighborhood. And that’s about it.”
    She shook her head. Red curls flew around. “Notoriety isn’t worth much anymore. Come on. We don’t stay here. You’d go blind.”
    Nice to have somebody crack wise for me. Saved me the trouble of thinking them up and pissing her off.
    She led me through several memorable rooms which weren’t important enough to note. Then we roared out into the real world, bam! A dining room set for two. “Like a night in Elf Hill,” I muttered.
    She hadn’t lost her hearing. “I used to feel that way. Those rooms can be intimidating. Go ahead. Plant it.”
    I took a chair opposite her at the end of a table long enough to seat two dozen people. “This is a love nest?”
    “Smallest dining room I’ve got.” Hint of a smile.
    “You and Teddy?”
    “Sigh. How fleeting infamy. Nobody remembers except the family. That’s all right, though. They’re bitter enough for everybody. Teddy was Teodoric, Prince of Kamark. He became Teodoric IV and lasted a whole year.”
    “The king?” Bells began to ring. Finally. “It’s starting to come.”
    “Good. I won’t have to put myself through a bunch of explanations.”
    “I don’t know a lot. That all happened when I was in the Marines. In the Cantard, we didn’t pay much attention to royal scandals.”
    “Didn’t know who was king and didn’t care. I’ve heard that one.” Maggie Jenn smiled her best smile. “I bet you still don’t follow royal scandals.”
    “They don’t affect my life much.”
    “It wouldn’t affect your work for me, either, you knowing or not knowing all the dirt.”
    A woman came in. Like Zeke, she was as old as original sin. She was tiny, the size of a child about to lunge into adolescence. She wore spectacles. Maggie Jenn took good care of her help. Spectacles are expensive . The old woman posed, hands clasped in front of her.