Cold Copper Tears

I'd gone about eight feet when somebody knocked me ass over appetite. I never saw him, just heard his feet and Maya's squeak as he pushed past her. I fought off a man-eating chair with fourteen arms and legs. "Close the door. Quietly."

She did. "What do we do now?"

"Sit tight and hope they don't break in here. You carrying?"

"My knife."

They always have that. For chukos the knife is who they are. Without it they're just civilians.

"You get a look at that guy?"

"Not really. He was bald. He was carrying some­thing. A corner of it hit me in the tit. I thought I'd scream."

"Don't talk like that."

"What'd I say?"

"You know... Ssh!" They were in the hall. They were trying to be quiet but had invaded unfamiliar ter­ritory in the dark.

Maya whispered, "He had a funny nose, too."

"Funny how?"

"Big and bent. Like it was broken or something."

"Sshh."

We waited. After a while I sent Maya to watch from the window, in case they left without us hearing them. I got into ambush near the door in case they decided to drop in. I wondered what had become of the guy who had run out. If he'd been one of them we'd have had company by now. And if he'd run into them there would have been some kind of uproar.

It was a long wait. The sky had begun to show some color when Maya said, "They're leaving."

I went and watched. The two biggest men each car­ried one of the lighter corpses. The other two carried the heavier corpse. The whole bunch got out of there fast.

I figured the smart thing would be to follow their example. So of course I took my dead lamp across the hall to see if I couldn't get it lit.

I was so long Maya was in a panic when I got back. "They cleaned the place up so it looks like nothing happened."

"Why would they do that?"

"You tell me and we'll both know."

"You going to follow those guys?"

"No."

"But—"

"There are six of them and one of me and they're going to be looking for trouble. They're real nervous right now, I guarantee you. I've been there. If they've got the sense the gods gave a duck they'll get rid of those bodies fast, then scatter. And anyway, I'm so tired I couldn't not walk into something. The best thing we can do is get some sleep."

"You're just going to drop it?" There was a pecu­liar edge to her voice.

"What's it matter to you?"

"How am I going to learn?"

"You don't have an audience here, Maya." That proved how tired I was.

She took it like a slap in the face. She didn't have anything to say after that.

I glanced around a minute later. Maya wasn't with me anymore.

I suffered a twinge of self-disgust. I hadn't needed to stomp all over her. She'd had enough of that from the rest of the world.

20

I slept past noon. When I stumbled into the kitchen I found Jill Craight with Dean, the two of them chatter­ing like old girlfriends who'd been out of touch for years. Jill asked brightly, "What did you find out last night?"

Dean looked expectant. I hadn't told him anything when he'd let me in. I'd growled and snorted and stamped hooves some and gone to bed. Anything he knew he'd gotten from Jill.

"A whole bunch of nothing," I grumbled. I plopped into a chair. It barked back at me. "That damned Pokey put up too damned good a fight. Both guys that got out croaked before they got wherever they were headed."

Dean filled my teacup. "Mr. Garrett is a little rag­ged before he's had breakfast."

I folded my lips back in a snarl.

"Don't work so hard at it, Garrett," Jill said. "I know you're a wolf."

"Ouch."

She laughed. That surprised me. Snow queens can't have a sense of humor. That's in the rule book some­where.

She said, "So they're all dead. That mean it's over?"

"No. They didn't find what they were after. But you deal with that however you want. It's your problem."

Dean brought me a platter piled with rewarmed bis­cuits, a pot of honey, butter, apple juice, and more tea. Just a morning snack for the boss. But the boss's houseguest had eaten better than the king had this morning.

Jill looked at me. "You said Pokey did too well. Who is Pokey?"

I had stepped right in that time. I would have to be more careful not to put that foot in my mouth. "Pokey Pigotta. The skinny dead man in your apartment. He was in the same business as me, more or less. You paid him, he found things out, took care of things for you. He was the best at what he did, but his luck ran out."

"You knew him?"

"There aren't a lot of us in this racket. We know each other."

Dean looked at me weird. He didn't give me away.

She thought a bit. "You couldn't guess who might have sent him, could you?"

I did have a notion and planned to check it out. "No."

"Looks like I'll have to try to hire you again. I can't live like this."

"You ever tried running through the woods in the dark?"

"No. Why?"

"You do, you keep smashing your face against things you can't see. Running in the dark can shorten your life. I don't run in the dark."

She got the message. There was no way I'd work for her if she wouldn't tell me what was going on. "I have a prior commitment, anyway."

"What's that?"