Maya came in. "You take the bed, Garrett. I can sleep in here."

Old n.o.ble said, "No. I"ll be fine here."

"Garrett, you need the comfort more than I do."

Oh boy, here came the old-timer routine. "I don"t play polite games, Maya. Somebody makes me an offer, I only give them one chance to back down, then I take them up on it."

"Don"t get yourself in an uproar. I meant it. You"re a lot more tired than I am. And I"m used to sleeping on floors and sidewalks. This is luxury for me." But there was the ghost of something like a twinkle in her eyes, like she was up to something.

"You asked for it, you got it." I headed for the bedroom. Maybe it was just because I was so d.a.m.ned tired, but I couldn"t fathom what she had in mind.

I found out about six hours later.

I usually sleep in the raw. In deference to the fact that somebody might walk in, I sacked out wearing my underclothes. I lay there tossing and turning, worrying the case, for maybe seven seconds before I pa.s.sed out. Next thing I knew I wasn"t alone. And the someone with me was very warm, very naked, and very female. And very determined. And I sure don"t have much will power.

There are limits to the n.o.bility of even the best of us good guys. When she turned on the heat, Maya didn"t have any trouble getting past mine.

It turned out to be one truly amazing morning.

43.

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 d.a.m.ned 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 n.o.body 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 cla.s.ses. 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, s.e.x 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. n.o.body 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 G.o.ds," 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.

d.a.m.n it, this was a raggedy-a.s.s 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. n.o.body 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."

"Maybe." There was a sort of soft purr in her voice. "You want me to go tell him you want to see him?"

"Sure."

I kept one eye on the place we"d visited last night. One old guy came out. n.o.body went inside. I was surprised there wasn"t more traffic. It seemed the kind of place that would appeal to the crowd that came down during the day. I still thought the guy who came up with the idea was a genius. We all need somebody to talk to. I did myself.

I sort of spread it out among Dean, the Dead Man, Tinnie, and Playmate, maybe opening up more to Playmate than the others because I have no relationship with him other than friendship. And there are things I don"t feel comfortable telling him because I value his good opinion.

Maya sat back down. "He"ll be here in a minute. At first he didn"t believe it was you."

"But you convinced him."

"I can be pretty convincing."

"No lie." I hadn"t stood a chance once she went to work on me seriously. But that"s my weak spot.

The barker settled beside me a few minutes later. He leaned forward to look into my face. "It is you."

"Last I looked. What"s happening is, I"ve disappeared. Maybe run out of town. You aren"t seeing me. You"re seeing some guy who came down here to gawk."

He lifted an eyebrow. d.a.m.n, I hate it when people steal my tricks.

"It"s getting tight. The organization is under pressure. Some of us are turning invisible till we make it ease up."

"What"s going on, anyways? Tied up here, all I hear is crazy rumors."

"You haven"t heard anything as crazy as the truth." I told him some of that, including a few details of the attack on Chodo"s place. He didn"t want to believe me, but the story was so outrageous he accepted it.

"That"s weird," he said. "They must be really sick. I"m ready to help. We all are down here. But I don"t see what I can do."

"Near as we can figure, there are two people who know what we need to put this mess away. One is the woman I was asking about. I can"t give you a name because she uses about a hundred, but I"m pretty sure she"s working that place over there."

He looked at it and sneered. "Doyle"s wimp house. All that gorgeous p.u.s.s.y and half of them don"t put out. You figure it, paying just to look."

"Takes all kinds to make a horserace. If people weren"t strange, you and I wouldn"t be in business."

"You got a point. What do you need to know?"

"Have you seen an outstanding blonde in and out of that place?"

"Several of them. You"re going to have to be more specific."

I couldn"t be. Jill Craight, for all her looks, had had a sort of nebulous quality, like she really was a whole gang of people, each one a little different from the others. "Forget her. I"ll a.s.sume she"s working that place. I"ll get to her if she is. I"ll just sit here till I spot her. How about that guy I came charging out after last night? When you didn"t have time to talk?"

"What guy was that? I was pretty busy."

"Maya, you describe him. You got a better look."

"Not that good. He was short, kind of chunky, had a big nose that looked like it got broken once. His skin was kind of dark. He was bald but you couldn"t tell that if he was wearing a hat. He was dressed in real dark clothes both times. Kind of sloppy, even though the clothes were good ones. Like he wasn"t used to wearing them." And so on. And so on. I wished I had an eye as quick and sharp.

The barker said, "Come to think of it, I did see a guy like that before you came roaring up. Only reason I noticed was he was headed out like a demon was chewing his a.s.s."

"So?"

"So that"s all I can tell you. He lit out."

That was what I"d expected to hear. "Did you recognize him?"

"You mean, do I know who he is? No. But I"ve seen him around. Hits the Tenderloin every four, five days. Used to come in for the shows. He"s mostly dropped that and the joyhouses since Doyle come up with his silly talk house."

"Don"t seem so silly when you think about it."

"No. Guess not. The old fart is cleaning up. I tell you, I"ll never understand the freaks that come down here."

I thought he understood them all too well, but I didn"t say so. If guys like him didn"t understand, they wouldn"t be successful catering to people who needed the comforts of a Tenderloin.

I shrugged. "I guess that"s that. I don"t know what else I could ask."

The barker got up. "Always glad to help the kingpin. Hey. For what it"s worth, the little bald gink with the big honker, I think he"s some kind of high-powered priest."

Maybe I jumped. Maybe something below conscious level was excited. "You sure?"

"No. It"s just the way he snuck around and at the same time acted like people ought to bend the knee. I seen other priests act that way. Don"t want to be seen. But the bigger they are, the worse habit they have of expecting special treatment. Get what I mean?"

"Yeah. Thanks. I"ll mention how you helped. Maybe a bonus will come tumbling down."

"I could use it."

"Couldn"t we all?" I watched him cross to his post. "A priest," I muttered. "Another big-time priest, maybe. With a place in the same building where Jill was shacking up with Magister Peridont. That sound any alarms?"

Maya said, "It doesn"t sound like a coincidence. You think it"s important?"

I hadn"t told her everything about Peridont. I decided to trust her now. I laid it out from the beginning.

She didn"t speak for a while. When she did, she said, "I know what you"re thinking. It"s too outrageous."

"You"re probably right. But...things tend to tie together. Even when they"re outrageous. And the first time Peridont visited me, he wanted me to find Warden Agire and the Terrell Relics."

"Pure speculation, Garrett. Gossamer. Almost whimsy."

"Maybe. We could sink it quick with a description of the Warden that doesn"t match that guy."

She nodded.

"Let me run with it. Tell me where the holes are."

"All right."

"Jill Craight works over there, listening to sad tales of woe. She"s a little greedy so sometimes she meets her clients outside, when she"s off duty. Maybe she"s not completely honest and tries to find out who they are. Maybe it just comes to her by accident. But she finds out she has both the Grand Inquisitor and the Warden among her regulars. Maybe she gets an idea she can make a big hit. Maybe she gets idealistic.

"Whatever, she gets some kind of underground dialogue going. Maybe they"re actually working something out. Then the Sons of Hammom hit town. They"re after the Relics for some reason. Agire goes on the lam. He slips the Relics to Jill to take care of while he leads the baddies somewhere else. Peridont doesn"t know what"s going on, he only knows that Agire and the Relics have disappeared.

"Meantime, Peridont makes a connection with Jill and finds out what"s up with Agire and the Relics. So he doesn"t bother bringing that up anymore. Now he wants to find out more about the Sons, only he doesn"t tell me that. Being a typical client, he knows what he gives me to work with will give away something about him, so he wants to send me out blind and let me thrash around till I kick up something he can use.

"After that, because he wants to cover his a.s.s and because he"s got Church politics to deal with things go from bad to worse. When he finally decides he"s in so deep he"s got to come clean (so I can dig him out), he gets ambushed as he"s coming to see me. I"m not convinced the man who killed him was one of the Sons of Hammon."

It was about the longest continuous speech I"ve ever made, just sort of blurting out and not stopping. When I did turn myself off, Maya didn"t say anything. Maybe she needed a little coaxing.