That hunk of spoiled hawk bait blew the big one. Cleaver set an ambush. He let me slink right into it.
I was twice Cleaver"s weight and twice Cleaver"s strength and that saved me a three-story decline in fortunes. He threw himself at me. I grabbed some scaffold and absorbed the impact. I tried to glom onto him while I was at it but didn"t do real well.
He ricocheted off me, banged into an upright, bounced back toward the stone face of the Bledsoe, let loose one whimper of outrage, dropped into the gap between scaffolding and building. He scratched and grabbed and banged around as he fell but didn"t verbalize at all.
I followed more cautiously. The G.o.dd.a.m.n Parrot flapped around me but managed to keep his big d.a.m.ned beak shut. I caught up.
Cleaver had broken his fall and dragged himself onto planking maybe ten feet off the ground. His breathing was shallow and rapid. He wasn"t in good shape. But he bit down on his pain.
The vinegar was out of him, but I moved carefully anyway. A guy has the Rainmaker"s rep, you"re careful with him even after he"s dead.
76.
I dropped to one knee. A hand seized mine. I jerked away for an instant, startled. That hand was warm and soft.
"We could have had...something. But you"re...too d.a.m.ned dumb...Garrett. And stubborn."
I don"t know about stubborn, but I was doing dumb pretty good. I didn"t get it right away.
Cleaver was fading. Didn"t seem right, considering his record. A long, agonizing cancer was more in order, not this just kind of drifting off into oblivion.
My hands were trapped. I didn"t try hard to pull away. I had empathy enough to guess what was happening in Cleaver"s mind. Though broken, he pulled himself toward me, closer, closer...
Realization came slowly, sort of sideways, without generating much shock. This creature desperately grasping at one final moment of human contact wasn"t male at all.
I held her. I murmured, "Yes, love," when she returned to her notion that we might have had something remarkable.
I"d been wrong from the beginning. But so had all TunFaire. Past and present, high and low, we"d all seen only what society had conditioned us to see. And in her madness, she had exploited that blindness.
There never was any nasty little villain named Grange Cleaver. Not ever. Never.
I shed a tear myself.
You had to if you encompa.s.sed any humanity, recognizing the enduring h.e.l.l necessary to create a Grange Cleaver.
You could weep for the pain of the child while knowing you had to destroy the monster it had become.
77.
I lost Chaz at the Bledsoe. I don"t know why. Maybe, emotionally, she chose to blame me for what had happened to her father.
Her medical skills hadn"t been adequate.
Whatever the reason, the magic failed that night.
It was not one of my better nights. I blew the rest of it retailing explanations. Seemed anyone who"d ever heard of me or Grange Cleaver wanted all the dope. I was actually pleased when Relway materialized.
He was a magic man was Relway. People vanished in droves.
"It"s all straightened out now, Garrett," Colonel Block told me. I was visiting him again. After having been allowed another ten hours of cell time to ripen. I"d had to do my time with the G.o.dd.a.m.n Parrot, too. "Weren"t nearly so many bodies this time." He looked at me expectantly.
I tried not to disappoint him but kept it short and got out. He wasn"t much interested. Didn"t even ask much about the Tops. He was preoccupied with the racial strife.
I headed for home. I didn"t manage to leave the bird of doom behind. For no obvious reason, that breathing feather duster didn"t have much to say. Even while we"d been locked up he"d held it down most of the time.
Maybe he was sick. Maybe he had some terminal bird disease. I couldn"t be that lucky.
Dean didn"t respond when I pounded on my front door. Irked, I used my key, went in and stomped around hollering and cussing till I was convinced the old boy wasn"t there after all. There was no sign he"d come back.
Huh? How"d the bird get loose?
Add another puzzle. Why hadn"t Emerald taken advantage of my extended absence? The kitchen suggested that she had visited several times and was less than fanatical about order and cleanliness. But she hadn"t tried to bust out.
Strange.
Stranger still, T.G. Parrot went to his perch without a squawk.
That was more than strange. It was suspicious.
"Justina? I need to tell you something." It wasn"t going to be easy.
She was seated on Dean"s bed. She looked at me without emotion but with what seemed too-knowing eyes.
Straight ahead seemed the best way. I told her.
She continued to look at me, apparently unsurprised.
But she did love her mother-despite knowing the truth about Maggie Jenn and Grange Cleaver. She broke.
I held her while the tears flowed. She accepted that but nothing more and never said a word, even while I led her to the front door and told her she was free to go.
"Chip off the old blockhead," I muttered, a little put out, as I watched her fade into the crowds. "Oh, but she was beautiful, though."
I was in no way pleased with the case. I don"t like unhappy endings even though they"re the most common kind. And I wasn"t certain that much had been settled or wrapped up.
78.
I locked myself in. I didn"t answer the door. I just used the peephole whenever some sociopath compulsively exercised his knuckles. I argued with the G.o.dd.a.m.n Parrot. That squawking squab was slower than normal but nailed me with the occasional zinger.
Suspiciouser and suspiciouser.
Ever bold in the face of despair, I sent a letter up the Hill. Never got so much as a "Drop dead!" back.
And I"d just about decided Chaz was the lady for me. Oh, well. Live and learn.
I asked Eleanor, "Don"t know what she"s missing, does she?" That killed the ache, boy.
I swear Eleanor sneered. I could about hear her whisper, "Maybe she does."
I got the distinct feeling Eleanor thought it was time I stopped being stubborn about not apologizing to Tinnie Tate for whatever it was I didn"t know I did, or maybe never did.
"Or I could look Maya up. She looked good the other night. And she"s got her head on straight." Eleanor"s smile threatened to become a grin.
I broke training once, allowed one special visitor inside. You couldn"t refuse the kingpin of crime. Belinda Contague spent an enigmatic half hour at my kitchen table. I didn"t disabuse her of her notion that, with the invaluable a.s.sistance of my acquaintance Morley Dotes, I"d engineered the fall of Grange Cleaver just for her. I guess for old time"s sake.
She"s one spooky black widow of a gal, bones of ice. Probably a real good idea she decided we should stay "just friends." Anything else could turn fatal.
Belinda expressed herself the one way she knew well, learned at daddy Chodo"s knee. She gave me a little sack of gold. I pa.s.sed it quickly into the Dead Man"s care.
The Rainmaker business had been profitable, anyway.
Days slipped away. I sneaked out on several little errands, each time discovering that I still had one watcher on me. Becky Frierka was determined to collect her dinner. I saw no evidence her mother discouraged her from dating older men.
Mostly I kept it up with the bird and Eleanor, then went to reading with a frown that threatened permanent headache. I began to think Dean wasn"t coming home and Winger might actually have the sense to stay away from me. Or maybe her luck had run out.
"It"s gotten awful d.a.m.ned quiet," I told Eleanor. "Kind of like in those stories where some dope says, "It"s too too quiet..."" quiet...""
Someone knocked.
Starved for real conversation, I scurried toward the door. h.e.l.l, a night out with Becky didn"t sound that bad anymore.
I peeked. "Well!" Things were looking up. I yanked the door open. "Linda Lee Luther. You lovely thing. I was just thinking about you."
She smiled uncertainly.
I grinned. "I"ve got something for you."
"I"ll bet you do."
"You"re way too young and beautiful to be so cynical."
"Whose fault is that?"
"Can"t possibly be mine. Come on in here. Got a story to tell you."
Linda Lee came in but made sure that I saw she still had her cynical face on. And that after she"d come all the way down to see me.
The G.o.dd.a.m.n Parrot let out a whoop. "Hey, mama! Shake it up!"
"Stifle it, catfood." I closed the door to the small front room. "You interested in a new pet?" So happened I knew she had a cat.
"If I wanted one that talks, I"d pick up a sailor."
"Marines are way more interesting." I set us up in the kitchen, which was clean. Life had been that slow. I poured Linda Lee a brandy. She nursed that while I talked about the Rainmaker business.
One of Linda Lee"s less blatant charms is her ability to listen. She doesn"t interrupt and she does pay attention. She didn"t comment until I paused to freshen my beer and pour her a dribble more brandy. Then she cut right to it. "What did you find when you went back?"
"Wreckage. The Guard tore the Tops up. Sending a message to the Call. Most of the Venageti were still there. They didn"t know where to run. Guys like them could turn out to be another big headache. Come on to my office."
She gave me a kind of puzzled look, like my office was the last place she expected to be lured. She stretched like a cat as she left her chair. Woo!
I got my breathing under control. "Plop it into that chair." I squeezed around and into mine, dropped a hand down under my desk, dragged out one of those masterpieces that had been giving me wrinkles. "Look at this."
"Oh, Garrett!" She squealed. She bounced up and down. She squealed some more, jiggling deliriously all the while. "You found it!" She dashed around the desk and hopped into my lap. "You great big wonderful hero."
Who am I to complain? I had an idiot bird in the next room covering that. He went to carrying on like he was being murdered. I smirked and surrendered to Linda Lee"s excitement.