Sweet Silver Blues Read Online Free PDF Page A

and prefer instead to snatch up a sword at the first hint of . . .
    He was off on his favorite crusade. Soon he would begin the paeans to the infinite superiority of Loghyr reasoning and logic and wisdom. I shut him out.
    That can be done if he is distracted by musing upon his own magnificence, if you’re subtle and don’t draw attention to what you’re doing. I hid behind my beer and counted silently. Having heard it all before, I knew how long he needed to get it out of his system.
    Garrett!
    So I miscalculated by a few seconds. He probably cheated. He knew me pretty well, too. But he was abnormally mellow. He employed none of his usual childish devices. Maybe I had given him enough to crack the boredom of being dead.
    “Yes?”
    Pay attention. I asked if you are determined to go ahead with this.
    “I’m not sure.”
    Your body calls your mouth a liar. I have this advice for you, inasmuch as you mean to go ahead despite all reason. Do not go this one alone. And do not permit emotion to get in the way of your usually strong instinct for your own best interest. Whatever else this woman may be or may have been, she is not the girl you loved when she was seventeen. No more are you that callow Marine of nineteen. If ever, for a minute, you allow yourself to believe that those days can be restored, you are lost. They are dead. Take it from an expert on being dead. There is no way to get your health back. You live on memories of what was and fancies about what might have been. Both can be deadly to the man who loses sight of the demarcation between them and reality.
    “End of speech?”
    End of speech. Were you listening?
    “I was listening.”
    Did you hear me?
    “I heard.”
    It is well. You are a pestilence upon my waning centuries, Garrett, but you keep me amused. I do not want to lose you yet. Be careful in the Cantard. You will not have me there to lift you out of the consequences of your folly. It grates, but I fear I would miss you, insolence, disobedience, and all.
    Which was about the nicest thing he ever said to me. I had to get out before we started getting maudlin.
    I made a beer run before going back to give him his bath and his place a bit of cleanup.
     
     

7
     
    It was past suppertime when I left the Dead Man’s place. The shadows were long and indigo. The sky was turning colors you usually see only in elvish portraiture. It had been a long day, and there was a lot of it yet to go.
    The first order of business would be to see the Dead Man’s landlord and get him a few months ahead on his rent.
    I’ll buy the place for him if I ever make the big strike, though he could do that for himself if he wanted. It would, however, take several months of concentrated work for him to earn enough money. The very thought sends him into psychic spasms.
    Next step would be to look up Morley Dotes, which I’d had in mind even before the Dead Man admonished me against following my usual lone-wolf course. He was right. The Cantard is no place to go alone.
    A massive hand hurtled out of an alley mouth, snagged my arm, and yanked.
    Sometimes the city isn’t so safe either.
    I slammed into a wall and slid away from a fist I sensed more than I saw. I threw a feeble right that was just a distractor while I unloaded a girlish shin kick. The mountain of muscle and gristle before me waltzed back far enough for me to take in its true dimensions. They were awesome.
    “Saucerhead Tharpe.”
    “Hey, Garrett. Man. If I’d knowed it was you, I’d never have taken this job.”
    “Shucks. I bet you say that to all the boys.”
    “Aw. Don’t be that way, Garrett. We all got to make it the best way we know how.”
    I caught a glimpse of a familiar short person watching from across the street.
    I dragged out a fat purse containing part of the largesse her uncle had bestowed upon me earlier.
    “Hey. Come on, Garrett. You know you can’t bribe me to lay off. I’m really sorry this’s got to be you and me. But I got paid for the