Book 13 - Gilded Latten Bones by Glen Cook Page B

left, asked, “You heeled, Slick?”
    “Lightly.” I showed him my head knocker. “The character with the ratty ginger hair put my heavy equipment in with the client.”
    The man chuckled. He was an old, long drink of water who looked like this might be his true calling. “Client. I like that. Nice stick, too. Good enough for tonight. Won’t no resurrection men mess with this mob.”
    Two mounted men led, followed by Belinda’s coach with thugs all over it. Then came another armed rider, the hearse with the mighty Garrett in the post and an armed thug on a running board to either side. One of those was my new pal, Joel. Behind the hearse were two more horsemen.
    “What might resurrection men be?”
    “Body snatchers. It’s a problem lately. Somebody is buying youngish corpses that’re in good shape. Where you been, Ace? Out of town?”
    “So to speak. Stealing corpses, eh?” This was the first I’d heard about that. But there had been no reason for the subject to come up while I was babysitting. And less so before that. Nobody had a reason to keep me posted. My business was to protect Amalgamated from the larceny of its workers and the predations of intellectual pirates. Ditto for the Weider breweries.
    The hearse jerked. I slammed against the back of my seat. The driver said, “You got to pay attention, Stretch. You’re supposed to be looking out for me and him inside. Him being dead and all, he probably won’t come back on you if you nod off and the boogie boys get him. But your old pal Cap’n Roger, here, he’s gonna come back hard. Especially if’n he gets kilt.”
    “I have problems paying attention.” Problems I had not had in ante-Tinnie times. “You notice me getting glassy-eyed, give me an elbow in the ribs. I’m hell on wheels when I am paying attention.”
    “I sincerely hope I don’t get to see you in action, Bud.”
    I guessed Roger to be about sixty. That meant he had done a turn in the Cantard and had made it home. Which meant he remembered guys who couldn’t focus. All of us who made it back remember guys who couldn’t focus. Their bones decorate the desert down there.
    The convoy headed south, swung onto Grand, then took that down to my home neighborhood. The streets weren’t busy. We didn’t attract an unusual amount of attention. I strove valiantly to stay alert, for the sake of my best pal and my new friend Cap’n Roger. It took about half an hour for Roger to decide I was ready for an elbow.
    I could not turn off my mind. Calm just would not come.
    Cap’n Roger’s elbow wakened me as the parade neared my place in Macunado Street. I settled into reality with the suspicion that I’d had an epiphany that I could not now recall because I was too dumb to pay attention at the moment of revelation.
    Since I mostly worried about how Tinnie and I were getting along, I guessed that I must have lost a surefire means of dealing.
    The hearse stopped even with the steps to my stoop. As I dismounted I noted the neighbors coming out. The door opened. Singe and Dean came outside. Then I felt the reassuring presence of the Dead Man, awake and deeply interested.
    Thank you Singe, you wonder child.
    In moments I felt more at home and more relaxed than I had for a long time.

26
    I would like to say that the depth of Belinda Contague’s commitment to Morley was reflected in her willingness to walk into a place where her thoughts could not be kept secret, but . . .
    Her willingness is tempered by a cautious application of technology.
    “What?”
    Once upon a time a band of junior sorcerers, amongst other sins, created a mesh able to keep me from seeing their thoughts.
    I remembered. I considered Belinda more closely. “She isn’t wearing a wig.”
    I was in the hallway, adding to the congestion. People were everywhere, getting in each other’s way. Morley was supposed to go into what had been my office, back in antiquity. Singe had cleared it out, then had installed a bed, chairs, and a