It got brisk. For a while, despite their edge in the odds, I thought the patrol guys would lose out. They lacked motivation. They hadn"t hired on to get killed protecting property.
I never doubted that people were dying.
The guys on the stairs launched an angry counterattack.
After that the battle lasted only minutes. Soon it left the house for the street. The patrol bunch hollered in angry pursuit of those they had routed.
Came a scratch on the sheet concealing me. I gripped my headknocker, ready for a mighty two-handed swing. Morley whispered, "Let"s go. Before they come back to look around."
He was right, of course. They would be back. But at the moment we were invisible-a.s.suming the patrol thought the people downstairs were the guys that maid had seen.
The silence didn"t last. I picked out a groan followed by something I hadn"t heard for years-the rasp of a man with a punctured lung trying desperately to breathe.
Morley and I descended in spurts, always ready to flee. We encountered casualties, all of whom had rolled to the bottom of the stair ending on the second floor. None of the four would brawl again.
I knew that smell-now it was fresh and strong.
Blood.
Three of the fallen wore crude patrol uniforms. The fourth had fought them.
"Know this guy?" I asked Morley, sure he knew pro thugs better than I did. And I had recognized Hammerhand Nicks, middleweight enforcer type for the Outfit.
"Yes." Dotes seemed to grow still more alert.
I told him, "I"m going down." Not that I wanted to.
I made my feet move. I did want to know.
The smell of death grew dense.
Three more patrol types lay dead in the ground floor hall where the stair ended. Blooded steel lay everywhere. I found another syndicate character there, just less than dead. I beckoned Morley. "Gericht Lungsmark?"
He nodded. "Over there. Wenden Tobar."
More Outfit hitters. Lungsmark groaned. I moved away. Didn"t want him seeing me if he opened his eyes. "She figured it out before I did."
"Maybe." Dotes eased toward the next room, whence came the sounds of the man with respiratory difficulties. "Or maybe she had help."
"Oh?"
"Lot of ears in my place." He started to say my name, recalled that this was not the best place. "If somebody told somebody and that somebody moved fast..."
Maybe, but I shook my head. Likely the Outfit did have the pull to get the patrols to do a favor, but..."They-"
Morley made a silencing gesture.
No. The patrols wouldn"t get into it with the Outfit without they didn"t know they were up against syndicate guys.
Come to think of it, the hoods probably did the logical thing and s.n.a.t.c.hed themselves a pirate off the street outside my place.
Morley gestured again, slipped through the doorway. I went to the other side, crouching.
We found the fellow with the breathing problem, one Barclay Blue, journeyman bonebreaker. "Going to be some advancement opportunities, looks like," I said.
Morley scowled. His situation was way less comfortable than mine. Further, there was the question of why Contague a.s.sociates had gotten into a deadly battle high on the Hill. Not politic, that.
Next room boasted the remains of the main encounter. The Outfit guys had come from farther back and met the invaders there. At least one patrol bruno had carried a crossbow. I counted eight corpses. Four were Outfit. Some fine antiques had been rendered kindling. Blood covered everything.
I didn"t like the implications. Things had gotten way out of hand.
We entered the dining room I"d shared with Maggie Jenn. I understood why the Outfit guys hadn"t been willing to surrender.
The stench of death was heavy. Most of the chairs at the table had dead or probably soon to be dead people tied into them. I recognized the old guys from the warehouse, Zeke, the woman who had served Maggie and me, and others I"d seen on the street. n.o.body"s breathing was real robust.
I said, "They were were hiding here." hiding here."
"There were two battles. Belinda Contague won the first one."
Fourteen people were tied into the chairs. Zeke and Mugwump were among the breathing. Excepting several guys who obviously got themselves killed when the thugs moved in, everyone had been tortured. None of the survivors were conscious.
Morley asked. "You see any Rainmaker? I don"t. No Maggie Jenn, either."
"He"s famous for not being there when the s.h.i.t comes down." I double-checked Mugwump. He was the healthiest of the survivors.
"Yes. He is. What are you doing?"
"Cutting the guy loose. Sometimes I do stuff just because it feels right."
"Think you"ll find anything useful here?"
"Probably not." I noted that we were no longer a we. "Probably be a good idea to go." We"d have the victorious patrolmen back soon and the Guard right behind them.
A b.l.o.o.d.y knife lay on the floor, probably a torture instrument. I placed it in front of Mugwump. "So let"s scat."
58.
"Freeze, slimeblog!"
Huh?
I was always a rebel. I didn"t freeze. I didn"t even check to see if I was outnumbered.
Neither did Morley. And he was where the speaker couldn"t see him.
I dove, rolled, came to my feet out of view, charged. Morley attacked from the other side of the doorway, low, shrieking.
One lone heavyweight had thought he could bluff me. He didn"t pull it off.
Morley smacked and kicked him about nineteen times. I whacked away with a headknocker rendered magically unbreakable. Down the man went, his expression saying it just wasn"t fair. Poor baby. I knew what he meant. Just when you think you"ve got it knocked, along comes some clown with a bigger stick.
Morley and I got no time to congratulate ourselves. More patrol types materialized. After the intellectual form of their subspecies, one demanded, "What"s going on here?"
Bippetty-bappetty-bopp!
I was not unaware that real heroes flail around with singing swords while I rated only an enchanted hunk of oak.
Morley whooped and hollered and popped guys all over the place. He was having a great time. He could hustle when he was motivated.
We broke through. We headed upstairs, disdaining the front way because every thug on the Hill had gathered to attend the business of counting bodies, cussing villains, and abusing captives.
My normally abysmal luck failed to a.s.sert itself completely, mostly because the patrol guys were making so much racket. They couldn"t hear me and Morley getting away.
"Let"s try the balcony first," Morley suggested. "And quickly."
I didn"t expect an easy getaway. Anybody with half a brain would have posted guards at every potential exit.
You never know, though, when you"re dealing with TunFaire"s bonebreakers. Most can"t think past the next arm they mean to twist. They"re efficient and technically polished within their specialty but feeble when it comes to planning and making decisions.
There had been a major engagement on the second floor, back toward the balcony door. There was a lot of blood but no bodies. Blood trails indicated that several bodies had been dragged out of what had been a lumber room last time I looked. My impression was that here was where the Outfit"s invasion first met serious resistance. I wondered why. That room was no place to make a stand.
I took time out to look it over.
What the h.e.l.l?
Seconds later, Morley called from the balcony exit, "What"re you doing? Come on! There"s n.o.body out there right now."
I finished scanning the vellum sheet, one of several pages come loose from a book evidently damaged during the fighting. The rest of the book was gone. The loose pages might have gotten lost during a hasty getaway.
"I"m going to leave you here," Morley threatened.
I folded the vellum, slipped it into my shirt. Best to get going and not pique Morley"s suspicion. I"d read the story before, anyway. The whole book, not just one page.
I reached the balcony, saw that Morley had given up on me and dropped into the alleyway. I glanced right and left, spied no trouble moving in. I landed beside Dotes. "We probably ought to split up now."
He eyed me closely. He"s sure that any time I know what I want, I"m up to something that won"t be to his advantage. I can"t fathom why he would think that way. I said, "Do me a big one. Couple hours from now I"m going to lead that clumsy guy down to your neighborhood. Help me grab him."
"Why?"
"I want to talk to Winger. He"ll know where to find her."
He gave me another glimpse of his suspicious side, then told me, "Be careful. Right now, they"re touchy around here. They"ll jump anything that moves."
I nodded, less concerned about me than about him.
59.
I wasn"t in a real good mood. I didn"t turn cartwheels when Colonel Block waved his clowns off and told me, "Cheer up, Garrett. It"s all straightened out."
"How can you put these clowns on the street if they can"t recognize a pa.s.s put out by their own beloved captain?" What, me worry about getting off the Hill? I had pa.s.ses and paper from a troop of heavyweights.
"The fellow who reads and writes doesn"t normally opt for a career in law enforcement. And you"ll have to admit that you refused to provide any good reason for being where you were found."
"Where I was found? I was-"
"Detained, then."
"And with way too much enthusiasm. I did try to cooperate. They wouldn"t let me talk."
"I will."
"Huh?"
"I"ll let you explain. To your heart"s content."
A wise guy. I admonished myself to be careful. Quietly. "I was just trying to do what the Firelord hired me to do. I"d heard a rumor the Rainmaker was hiding out on the Hill."
Block offered me a try again try again look. I wasn"t snowing him. His agents would have relayed any such rumors. "What happened in that house, Garrett?" look. I wasn"t snowing him. His agents would have relayed any such rumors. "What happened in that house, Garrett?"
"You have me at a disadvantage, Captain."
"It"s Colonel, Garrett. As you know. And that"s true. I do have you. If I wanted, I could send you over to the Al-Khar to be held for questioning. It"s entirely possible for somebody to fall between the cracks there, same as in the Bledsoe."
The Al-Khar is TunFaire"s city jail. "Why you want to be like that?"
"Mainly because I don"t like to be jerked around. I have an eyewitness who saw two men climb a drain-spout. One of them was dressed exactly like you."
"Without so many rips and tears, I"ll bet. Doubtless a daring youth out pretending to swash a few buckles. An amazing coincidence."
"Witness summoned the local patrol. Patrol went looking around and found a house showing multiple signs of forced entries. Inside they found lots of corpses and plenty of people willing to fight. I wouldn"t accuse you of stretching any rules, Garrett. Not you. You"re not that kind of guy. But I"d bet that if I wanted to spring for a cut-rate diviner, I could place you inside that house. Hm?"
I admitted nothing.
"Give me a hint, Garrett. Who were those people?"
I could discern no obvious profit in keeping my yap shut and sliding farther out of official favor. "Some were the Rainmaker"s people."