Cold Copper Tears

I had Maya slicked down and spiffed up in some clothes I'd swiped from Jill's apartment. I swear, the girl grew more beautiful by the minute—the woman, I should say. There was no doubt about that now. What she lacked in experience she made up for in enthusiasm.

I helped her with her hair and with a touch of make­up. She was going to need grooming lessons. When she got a hold on that she'd be deadly.

"I hate to do it, but I'm going to have to destroy the whole effect," I told her after I showed her herself in a mirror. "I can't take you outside looking like that."

"Why not?" She liked what she saw, too.

"Because you'd attract too damned much attention. Come here." When I finished she didn't look like Maya at all. "Pity we can't do as much for me."

"Do we really need to disguise ourselves?"

"Probably not. But there are people out there who want to kill us. It can't hurt. And we can't be hurt if nobody can find us." I didn't have the means to change my own appearance much. I thought about Pokey Pigotta and some of the tricks he'd used, like putting a rock in his shoe, walking stoop-shouldered, carrying a couple different hats and changing them randomly, and so forth. The hat trick I could do. There were several in the walk-in here. And everybody who knew me knew I'd wear a hat only when I had to to keep from freezing my ears off.

I picked the most absurd topper, one people who knew me knew I wouldn't wear at sword point. "How do I look?"

"Like a buzzard nested on your head."

It did look a bit like a three-cornered haystack. I'm glad sartorial display is a vice confined to the better classes. I'd hate to try to keep up with fashion.

There were a few odds and ends of clothing, too, but all for a man so much shorter there was no using them for anything. So I had Maya use touches of lamp­black to give my cheeks and eyes a hollow look, prac­ticed a stoop and slight limp, asked, "You ready?"

"Whenever you are." She gave it a double meaning. The child seemed happier than ever I'd seen before.

You devil, Garrett. How do you get into these things?

You give in to yourself and you undertake a contract no matter how casual the collision. This was more than casual because this was somebody I cared about, in­dependent of the body that had moved with mine ….

Dammit, sex always complicates things.

We hit the street looking like poor folks. Like al­most everybody else out there. I did my limp and stoop to perfection, I thought, and invented a history to ex­plain it if anybody asked. I had been wounded at Yel­low Dog Mesa. Nobody asked what you did in the war. The fact that you'd gotten out alive was com­mentary enough.

I wondered what Glory Mooncalled was doing. There had been no talk for days. That meant nothing, of course. That's the way war works. Long periods of in­action sandwich brief, intense periods of combat. But I had a feeling something interesting would happen soon.

I wondered how the Dead Man was dealing with the bureaucratic siege. If he was as impatient with them as he was with me, they were going to regret bothering him.

We stopped at a third-rate place and ate, then am­bled down to the Tenderloin. It was noon when we got there. The noon hour is one of the district's secondary peaks. Those who can't get away in the evening es­cape work for an hour to appease their hungers. Maya and I planted ourselves on the same bench we'd used before to watch the players parade. The day people were more furtive than those at night. Quite a few made some effort to disguise themselves. Once again I spent some time pondering the curiosities of human nature. What a species.

"I think we're some kind of practical joke on the part of the gods," I told Maya.

She laughed. She understood without me having to explain. I liked that. In fact, I was beginning to like a lot of things about her, in ways I hadn't when she'd been a charitable project.

She sensed that, too. She touched my hand and gave me a big "I told you so" smile.

Whoa! This wasn't going my way at all. I didn't even understand it. Garrett doesn't get involved. He makes friends and leaves them smiling. But he doesn't get caught up inside any commitment.

Damn it, mis was a raggedy-ass kid I'd saved from abuse and exploitation. This was a project ….

I smiled at myself. You have to do that when you're wriggling on a hook of your own device.

I watched the barker across the way. "I think we have a small problem."

"What?"

"I need to talk to that guy. I can't without letting him know it's me. And that cancels out my disappearance."

"You must be getting senile, Garrett. You just tell him Chodo says forget he ever talked to you. He'll forget."

She was right. The man would chomp down on what he knew until somebody twisted him good. Nobody ought to have a reason. "You're right. I am getting senile."

"Or maybe you're just worn out. You did real good for an old guy."

I spat into the gutter. It's a wonder I didn't hit my mind. "You just aren't used to a real man."