Whispering Nickel Idols by Glen Cook Read Free Book Online

giving her a hard time. I didn’t go chase them. She wouldn’t like that. She wants to fight her own battles.
    Melondie had none of my problems. She whistled into the gap her tribe uses to get in and out of my walls. A half dozen adolescent bugs zipped out and hummed down the street. They got behind the human kids’ heads and started tormenting them.
    Singe arrived. “John Stretch says he will be thrilled to help the great Garrett with a case. He insists that he bring his own rats instead of relying on those that will be in place already, though.”
    “Fine. I’m sending a note to Playmate to bring a coach.”
    “You changed your mind!”
    “Don’t go getting all excited. You’ll stay inside it. You’ll help John Stretch run his game.”
     
     

11
    Playmate brought a huge mahogany coach. It had to belong to somebody from way up the food chain. “This isn’t going to be missed, is it?”
    “Not unless we don’t let it get back before the end of the week.” Playmate jumped down to help load. “I’m more worried about getting blood all over it. Or leaving a corpse inside.”
    “That wasn’t my fault. You need to take a more positive attitude.”
    “Familiarity with the Garrett experience suggests that guarded pessimism is the safer approach.” Playmate is a huge black man who looms even huger than he is.
    He’s bigger than me, stronger than me, and almost as handsome. His big shortcoming is that he’s a wannabe preacher who isn’t as mean as he looks. Whoreaislnly’t nine feet tall. But seven feet wouldn’t be out of the question.
    “You’re sure?” I could see where a crest had been removed from the coach door. “I don’t want some storm warden stomping me because his coach isn’t there when he decides to go for a ride.”
    “Want me to take it back?”
    “That’s all right. I was just checking. What’s this?” A goat cart stopped behind the coach. No goat was employed in its locomotion, though. A ratman had put himself into the traces. Singe’s brother. With a load of wooden cages filled with large, brown, unhappy rats. “Am here,” John Stretch said. His
    Karentine wasn’t as polished as his sister’s. “Let’s get those critters into the coach, then.”
    “Where is Singe?”
    “Taking her good sweet time getting ready. You sure you can manage this?”
    “Will have Singe to help. And them. Yes?” Pixies swarmed into the coach like Melondie meant to bring all her friends and relations.
    Playmate remarked, “You’re looking pretty good there, Garrett. Did you hire a consultant to dress you up?”
    I spread my arms to the sky. “You see the torments I suffer? Take me home now.”
    Singe came fluttering out of the house, a young woman running late. Though how you get behind when your wardrobe is as limited as hers, I don’t know. But what I know about women, even limiting the sample to my own tribe, would fit in a thimble with room left over for a brigade of dancing angels.
    Singe brought the kittens with her. She piled into the coach.
    “We’re ready,” I told Playmate. I glanced at the goat cart. “John Stretch, you’ll lose your cart if you just leave it there.”
    “No problem. Is not my cart.”
    Great. So now the Watch would find a stolen goat cart in front of my house. Because, with my luck, the damned thing would sit there undisturbed for six months if it took that long to embarrass me.
    I clambered aboard the coach. Total silence reigned inside.
    The pixies warily split their attention between the baby cats and the rat cages. The baby cats peeked out of their bucket, intrigued by the bug people and the rats. The rats glared at everybody.
    What should have become chaos on the hoof declined into inexplicable relaxation. “Well,” I said, relaxed myself, despite what lay ahead. “How about that?”
    The pixies found perches. They gossiped. They didn’t squabble and they didn’t bother the rats. Normally, given half a chance, they would’ve swarmed any rodent.