Dread Brass Shadows by Glen Cook Page A

baddies who mix, before the zone became an accepted idea. Morley is becoming a minor power. I’ve heard he’s turned into a sort of judge who arbitrates interracial disputes. Useful, but he’d better not get too ambitious. Chodo might feel threatened.
    Chodo only tolerates Morley now because he owes him. Morley spiffed his predecessor and created a job opening at the top. But Chodo remains wary, maybe even nervous. What Morley did once he might do again, and there’s no more sure an assassin than Morley Dotes.
    Killing people is Morley’s real line. The Joy House started out as cover. He never expected the place to become a success and probably didn’t want it to.
    Thus do the fates conspire to shape our lives.
    It was getting on dusky, with the first morCartha out reconnoitering, as I approached Morley’s place. “Well,” I muttered unhappily as I turned into the street that runs past the Joy House. And “Yeah, hello,” as a couple of overdeveloped bruisers fell into step beside me. “How’s the world treating you guys?”
    Both frowned as though trying to work through a problem too difficult for either. Then Sadler materialized out of shadow and relieved them of the frightful and unaccustomed task of thinking. Sadler said, “Good timing, Garrett. Chodo wants to see you.”
    They must have seen me coming. “Yeah. I suspected.” A big black coach stood in front of Morley’s. I knew it better than I liked. I’d ridden in it. It belonged to that well-known philanthropist, Chodo Contague. “He’s here? Chodo?” He never leaves his mansion.
    Crask appeared, completed the set. I had me bookends who would strangle their own mothers not only without a qualm but who wouldn’t recall it a day later with any more remorse than recalling stomping a roach. Bad, bad people, Crask and Sadler. I wish I didn’t, but whenever I run into them I waste half my little brain worrying about how bad they are.
    I’m glad they don’t make a lot like them.
    Crask said, “Chodo wants to talk, Garrett.”
    “I got that impression.” I kept my tongue in check. No need to mention that Sadler had told me already.
    “He’s in the coach.”
    They couldn’t have been sitting there waiting for me. That wasn’t their style. They must have had business with Morley and I was just a target of opportunity.
    I walked to the coach, opened its door, hauled my carcass inside, settled facing the kingpin.
    You take your first look at Chodo, you wonder why all the fuss. Everybody’s scared of this old geek? Why, he’s in such lousy shape he spends his whole life in a wheelchair. He can barely hold his head up, and that not for long unless he’s mad. Sometimes he can’t speak clearly enough to make himself understood. His skin has no color and it seems you can see right through it. He looks like he’s been dead five years already.
    Then he works up the strength to meet your eye and you see the beast looking out at you. I’ve been there several times and still that first instant of eye contact is a shocker. The guy inside that ruined meat makes Crask and Sadler look like streetcorner do-gooders.
    You get in Chodo’s way, you get hurt. He don’t need to be a ballerina. He has Crask and Sadler. Those two are more loyal to him than ever any son was to a father. That kind of loyalty is remarkable in the underworld. I wonder what hold he has on them.
    He has them and a platoon of lieutenants and those have their soldiers on the street. Those have their allies and informants and tenants. Chodo flinches or frowns, somebody can die a gruesome death real sudden.
    “Mr. Garrett.” He had the strength to incline his head. He was having a good day. Wiry wisps of white hair floated around.
    “Mr. Contague.” I call him Mr. Contague. “I was considering coming to see you.” But not very seriously. His place is too far out. It’s a disgustingly tasteless mausoleum (sour grapes, Garrett?) that dwarfs the homes of most of our overlords. Crime