Cook 01 Sweet Silver Blues

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.What is it? A vendetta? Maybe you'd better get inside."Rose cackled like a hen laying a square egg.Uncle Lester laughed too, but it was a laugh of a different breed."Shut up, Rosie.I'm sorry, Mr.Garrett.The weapons are here to feed Rosie's hunger for drama.She believes we don't dare enter this neighborhood unarmed lest the local thugs ravish her."It was not a good dawn for me.Few of them are.Without thinking, I cracked, "The thugs in my neighborhood have some taste.She doesn't have to worry." Blame it on the hangover.Uncle Lester grinned.Rose looked at me like I was dog flop she wanted off her shoe.I tried to gloss over with business."Who did it? What can I do about it?""Nobody did it," Rose told me."He fell off a horse and busted his head, his neck, and about ten other bones.""Hard to believe a skilled horseman could go that way.""It happened in broad daylight on a busy street.There's no doubt that it was an accident.""Then what do you need me for? Especially before the sun is up?""That's for Dad to tell," Rose said.The shrew had a lot of anger in her, anger that was there before I gave her cause."Bringing you in on it was his idea, not mine."I knew Denny's old man modestly.Well enough to use his first name if I was the kind of snotnose who calls his friends' parent by name instead of Mister.He ran a very successful cobbler's business.He, Denny, and two journeyman handled the custom and commercial trade.Uncle Lester and a dozen apprentices made boots under an open-end deal with the army.The war had been good to Denny's dad.They do say it is an ill wind indeed that blows no one any goodWell, I was awake.Hair of the dog and scintillating conversation had reduced the pounding in my head to the tramp of ten thousand legions.Still there was a nagging guilt about not having made time to see Denny before the old gal in black climbed on his back.I decided to find out why the old man needed somebody in my line of work when there wasn't a doubt about how Denny checked out."Let me get myself put together and we'll be on our way."Rose grinned wickedly.I realized I'd fed her a murderous straight line.I didn't stick around to hear her pounce on it.2Willard Tate was no bigger than the rest of his tribe.A gnome.He was bald on top with tasseled gray hair to his shoulders on the sides and longer in the back.He was bent over his workbench, tapping tiny brass nails into the heel of a woman's shoe.Clearly he was at the top of his trade.He wore square TanHageen spectacles and they don't come cheap.He was engrossed in his work.Recalling his state since his wife died, I figured he was working off grief."Mr.Tate?" He knew I was there.I had cooled my heels for twenty minutes while they told him.He drove one more nail with a single perfect tap, looked at me over his cheaters."Mr.Garrett.They tell me you made mock of our size.""I get nasty when somebody drags me out before the sun comes up.""That's Rose.If she has to see you in, she'll see you in the hard way.I made a bad job of her.Keep her in mind as you rear your own children."I said nothing.You tell somebody you look forward to blindness more eagerly than to having kids, you don't win any friends.Those that don't think you're lying think you're crazy."Do you have a problem with short people, Mr.Garrett?"About six flip answers never saw the air.He was dead serious."Not really.Denny wouldn't have been my buddy if I did.Why? Is it important?""In a sideways sort of way.Did you ever wonder why the Tates are so small?"I had never dwelled on it."No.""It's the blood.The taint of elvish.On both sides, several generations before my time.Keep that in mind.It will help you understand later."I wasn't surprised.I'd suspected it before, the way Denny got along with animals.Plenty of people have the taint, yet most cover it up.There is a lot of prejudice against the half elfin.My hangover had improved, but not much.I had no patience."Can we get to the point, Mr.Tate? You want me to do a job, or what?""I want you to find someone." He rose from his bench and shed his leather apron."Come with me."I went.He took me into the Tate secret world, the compound behind the manufactory.Denny never did that."You've been doing all right for yourself," I said.We entered a formal garden, the existence of which I'd never suspected."We manage."I should manage so good."Where are we headed?""Denny's apartment."Buildings stood shoulder to shoulder around the garden.From the street they looked like one continuous featureless warehouse.From the garden I could not imagine how I'd ever thought that.These houses were as fine as anything up the hill.They simply didn't face the street and make temptingly dangerous statements.I wondered if they killed the workmen when the job was done."The whole Tate tribe lives here?""Yes.""Not much privacy.""Too much, I think.We all have our own apartments.Some have street-side doors.Denny's does." Tate's tone said "This is a Significant Fact."My curiosity was definitely growing [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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