Sweet Silver Blues by Glen Cook Read Free Book Online Page A

forty-eight different kinds of fruits, vegetables, greens, and tubers that people eat. Hogs will only eat two hundred forty-six of those. They won’t touch green peppers and they won’t touch cattail hearts. Which goes to show you that hogs have more sense than people.”
    “No point trying to salvage you, is there? You’re determined to suicide the slow way. Are the boys hired?”
    “They’re hired.” I hoped I would not be sorry.
    “How soon can we leave?”
    “You in a hurry, Morley? You need to get out of town fast? That why you’re being so agreeable about going into the Cantard?”
    Dotes shrugged.
    A shrug was answer enough.
    Considering Morley’s talents and reputation, it would take somebody heavy to have enough clout to scare him. In my mind somebodies that heavy narrowed down to a crowd of one. The big guy himself. The kingpin. “Since when is Kolchak into bug racing, Morley?”
    He popped down out of the window. His voice lingered behind him. “You’re too damned smart for your own good, Garrett. It’s going to catch up with you someday. I’ll be in touch. Come on, you lummoxes. Dojango! Put that back. Doris!” He sounded like a muleteer trying to get a wagon started.
    I went back to bed thinking I’d better use some of Tate’s money to get a new window put in. Maybe a flashy piece with my name leaded in colors.
     
     

11
     
    This old universe hasn’t got one notion of the meaning of the word mercy where I’m concerned. I just got to snoozing when the door began shivering like a drumhead again.
    “Going to have to do something about this,” I muttered as I hit the floor. “Like maybe move and not tell anybody.”
    I opened up and found uncle Lester and the boys outside. “You guys decide to forget the whole thing, I hope?” I noticed that two of the kids had gotten into something rough. They showed plenty of bruises and bandages and one had an arm in a sling. “What happened?”
    “Unfriendly visitors. Willard wants to talk to you about it.”
    “All right. I’m on my way.” I took just long enough to make myself presentable, gulp some water, and pick up the lead-weighted head-thumper.
    Willard Tate was in a state. He waited, wringing his hands. All my life I have heard that expression. Except for a maiden aunt whose every breath was an act of high drama, I’d never seen it before.
    “What happened?” Uncle Lester was a clam. Maybe he was afraid if I knew too much I’d turn around.
    Tate pumped my hand with both of his. “Thank you for coming. Thank you. I didn’t know what else to do.”
    “What happened?” I asked again as he clung to my hand with one of his and dragged me like a stubborn child. Uncle Lester and the boys tagged along. I spotted a pale-faced Rose watching as we crossed the garden, headed for Denny’s apartment.
    Tate did not tell me. He showed me.
    The place was a wreck. The apprentices were still cleaning up. Several of them wore bandages and bruises. Some wise soul had barred entry from the street by nailing boards across the doorframe.
    Tate pointed.
    The body lay in the middle of the room, belly down, one hand stretched toward the door.
    “What happened?” I asked again.
    Third time was a charm.
    “It happened around midnight. I had the boys in watching, just in case, because you made me nervous the way you talked. Five men broke through the street door. The boys were smart. Odie came and woke everybody up. The others hid and let the burglars go downstairs. So we ambushed them when they tried to leave.
    “We just wanted to capture them. But they panicked and started a fight, and they weren’t shy about trying to hurt us. And now we’re stuck with that. ”
    I knelt to look at the dead man’s face. He had started to puff up already. But I could still see the cuts and scrapes he had picked up flying through the window at my place.
    “Did they get away with anything?”
    “I did a count,” Uncle Lester said. “The gold and silver is all