Book 09 - Faded Steel Heat by Glen Cook Read Free Book Online

like he attended Call council meetings
himself. “They’re pushing Chodo and they’re still
healthy?” I wouldn’t have thought even the most fanatic
member of The Call would dare jostle Chodo Contague. Chodo was the
king of organized crime. Nobody poached in Chodo’s territory.
Nobody, that is, who wasn’t ready to fight a major war.
It’s impossible to imagine a deadlier enemy than Chodo
Contague.
    I knew the real head of the combine more intimately than Relway
suspected. Chodo’s daughter Belinda is young but so hard she
can cut steel.
    Relway smiled his nastiest. “That’ll be temporary.
You know the Contagues. And what they can do.”
    “O evil day,” I said.
    “Cute. The short answer is, The Call have shown no
interest in extortion. But this could be a test case. If Weider
knuckles under and they get the brewery in their pocket,
Weider’s peers will fall in line.”
    “I know Max. He won’t give in even if it costs ten
times as much to fight. Most of the commercial class would
agree—even where their political sympathies belong to The
Call. They won’t want the precedent set. They didn’t
get rich by being easily intimidated.”
    Tinnie and Nicks running with Alyx might be as much business as
friendship. The Tates were big in shoes. The family Nicholas, in
its several branches, were involved in winemaking, coal mining, and
inland shipping.
    In each case, possibly even including that of the beer baron, I
would have been reluctant to listen to a standard appeal. But send
a beautiful girl and you can get Garrett’s attention every
time.
    I’m too damned predictable. But they keep on making pretty
girls.
    The shadows still swirled behind Relway’s eyes. And those
focused on me while the darkness pranced. “We have a basis
for a deal, Garrett,” he mused.
    “Uh . . . ”
    “Apparently you don’t approve of my methods. You
don’t need to and I don’t care if you do. You’re
a textbook case of inflexible goodguyitis.” He chuckled at
his own neologism. Scary, a Relway with a sense of humor. Maybe
this one was a changeling. “But that don’t mean we
can’t help each other.”
    That’s why I came back to see Block. “I’m
listening.”
    “Overwhelm me with enthusiasm.”
    “I’m a regular ball of fire. Everybody says
so.”
    “You’d fit with the rightsists without any effort.
You’re the kind of guy they want.”
    Must be. Else yahoos like Stockwell and Wendover wouldn’t
come pounding on my door. “I’d only have to shuck about
half my beliefs.”
    Relway’s grin revealed teeth definitely not human.
“You served with those people. You know how they think.
You’ve heard all their knee-jerk crap. How hard could it be
to parrot it?” His grin got bigger. He stared at Mr. Big.
“Put some words in your own mouth.”
    I grunted, hoped Relway and Block didn’t think too much
about the bird. I didn’t need them figuring out the fact that
the Dead Man was riding my shoulder by proxy. “I could. But
why should I?” This was starting to sound like work.
    “I can’t get my people inside. These crackpots are
abidingly paranoid. If a man has even a tenth part nonhuman blood,
he’s a breed and part of the problem. Never mind he might
have been a war hero. The spiders spinning the web of hatred are
sure humankind can be redeemed only through the extinction of the
rest of the races. Even to the extreme of hunting down and
expunging every drop of nonhuman blood. Otherwise us uniques might
breed back to original stock.”
    I guess my mouth was open. Luckily no flies were working the
cell. “That’s so damned ridiculous—”
    “What does ridiculous have to do with belief? Those people
are out there, Garrett.”
    I wanted to argue but my last case had involved several
religions, each more unlikely than the last.
    People will believe anything when they need to believe
something. A lot
have
to believe in something bigger than
themselves, whether that is a cause or a