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

you’re watching.
    Nobody was interested in me. I didn’t appear threatening,
nor weak enough to be an easy victim.
    I felt good. I had an accommodation with the law—which
would work for me because Max Weider is a municipal treasure.
    It was a gorgeous day, a tad warm but with a nice breeze, a few
scurrying clouds dancing on a sky so blue it defined the color for
all time. It was the kind of day that makes us daytime people feel
good. The kind of day when people laugh, visit friends not seen for
a while, conceive children. The kind of day when bloodlettings are
few and even the scroats take time off to appreciate what a
wonderful world it can be. It was the kind of day when
Relway’s crew might get into mischief because they had too
much time on their hands.
    I headed east and north. It was time I visited an old friend of
my own.
    The streets were crowded but the activists were having trouble
working up much indignation. If the weather held, the coffinmakers
and crematoria would catch up and have to cut pieces.
    A centaur clip-clopped past. He wore an old army blanket. I
couldn’t make out the regimental mark. He couldn’t be
real bright. If that blanket was loot and not a Crown issue to an
auxiliary formation, possession could get him killed.
    Some days it could anyway.
    He was drunk. He didn’t care.
    The air above swarmed with pixies and fairies and whatnot, the
young ones tormenting the pigeons. That wouldn’t earn them
any enemies who weren’t pigeons themselves.
    Birds were out courting, too. I noted a few hawks and peregrines
way up high. The little people better stay
alert . . . A dimwit peregrine dived at a pixie
girl. It drew a flurry of poisoned darts. The wee folk were using
the nice day to educate a new generation of predators.
    It’s a pity people are stupider than falcons. Otherwise,
we could teach them not to prey on their own kind.
    On days like this, when everyone comes out to soak up the warm,
it seems impossible that so many beings live in this city. But
TunFaire is really several cities occupying the same site. There
are evening peoples and night peoples and morning peoples who never
see one another. It is both an accommodation and a way of life. It
used to work.
    The tip of a wing whipped across the back of my hair. The
Goddamn Parrot was showing off for his plain-feathered cousins.
“I know a Yessiley place where they put pigeon in everything
they cook. And they don’t care if the pigeon is really a
pigeon.”
    “Awk! I want to soar with eagles and am
forced—”
    “You want me to call one of those hawks down?
They’ll soar with you.”
    “Help!”
    “Hey, Mister. Does your bird really talk?”
    “Hush, Bertie. The man’s a ventriloquist.”
Bertie’s mom gave me a look that said I ought to be ashamed,
trying to scam people with an innocent bird.
    “You’re probably right, ma’am. Why don’t
you take the poor creature and give him a decent home?”
    The air crackled around woman and child so swift was their
departure.
    Nobody wanted poor old lovable Mr. Big.
     
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11
    The place has pretensions toward being a class eatery. It
doesn’t compete for the Yessiley trade. Its fashionable
dishes never include anything harder to catch than squash or
eggplant. Its name varies with the mood of its owner, Morley Dotes.
The Palms is the moniker he’s hung on it lately. His target
clientele has gone from being blackhearted second-string
underworlders foregathering to plot, negotiate, or arrange an
expedient truce to upscale subjects foregathering to plot,
negotiate, or arrange an expedient truce.
    The staff, however, is a constant.
    It was an off-peak hour when I invited myself into
Morley’s place. Diners of any station were conspicuous by
their absence. Staff were making preparations for the hour when the
crowd would show. Morley’s new gimmick was a money cow. The
place reeked prosperity.
    “Shee-it! I done thunk we was shut of dis
perambulatin’ sack a horse