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“I will wait in the kitchen while you handle the Guard.”
“Thank you.”
The minions of the law would be excessively intrigued by the presence of a senior crime boss.
Be polite.
I was headed for the door. “I’m always polite.”
You are always confrontational.
“They start it.”
I do not deal well with authority. The Civil Guard is self-righteously authoritarian in the extreme.
I will spank you if you are rude.
Wow! He sounded like my mother when I was eight.
THERE WERE TWO TIN WHISTLES ON THE STOOP AND A PLATOON IN THE street. John Stretch’s henchrats had turned invisible.
Dr. Harmer was just dismounting from his pretty little buggy. His driver, his gorgeous half-elf wife, stuck with the rig in case somebody tried to kype it among all the red tops.
“Lieutenant Scithe. How are you? How’s the missus? Have you lost weight?”
“I was living a good, boring life in a tame district. Then you swooped down off the Hill.”
Scithe was a tall, thin man in a big, bad mood and an ill-fitting blue uniform to match. He didn’t talk about his wife. He didn’t ask about my fiancée.
My whole damned life works this way. Anything happens, whatever it is, it gets blamed on Ma Garrett’s oldest boy.
My partner gave me a mental head slap before my mouth started running.
Dr. Harmer shoved through the press, a thin, dark character with merry brown eyes, unnaturally white teeth, and a devilish goatee. “Show me what you’ve got.”
“Dean is in my office. He got smushed under this thing and a guy even bigger who turned into that pile of goop.”
That pile was getting smaller. Some was evaporating. Some was seeping through the floor, where it could lie in the cellar and make the house stink forever.
The doctor snorted. “I’ll look at Dean first.” He eased along the hallway, stepping carefully.
Scithe said, “We should have been here sooner. If we’d known you were back we’d have had somebody watching. And I had to ask the Al-Khar about special instructions.” The Al-Khar being Guard headquarters.
The Dead Man laid a mental hand on my shoulder.
“The Director said we didn’t need the Specials.”
Oh, good. The secret police would let me skate. For now. They’re so nice.
“How thoughtful.”
The Dead Man squeezed, just hard enough.
Scithe asked, “So what’s the story?”
“Same old, same old.”
“Meaning you’ll claim you don’t know a thing.”
