Cook 03 Cold Copper Tears

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.I don't want to know.Now he's disappeared.And since I've had that casket there have been three attempts to break into my apartment." Bam.Like a candle snuffed, she stopped.She had said something she shouldn't have.She had to think before she went on.I smelted a herd of rats."Got any idea what you want?""Someone is watching me.I want it stopped.I don't have to put up with that kind of thing anymore.'' There was some passion there, some heat, but all for some other guy."Then you think it could happen again.You think somebody's after that casket? Or could they be after you?"What she thought was that she shouldn't have mentioned the casket.She ran it around inside her head before she said, "Either one.""And you want me to stop it?"She gave me a regal nod.The snow queen was back in charge."Do you know what it's like to come home and find out that someone's been tearing through your stuff?"A minute ago they were just trying to get in."A little like you've been raped, only it doesn't hurt as much when you sit down," I replied."Give me a retainer.Tell me where you live.I'll see what I can do."She handed me a small coin purse while she told me how to find her place.It was only six blocks away.I looked in the purse.I don't think my eyes bugged, but she had that little smile on again when I looked up.She'd decided she could run me around like a trained mutt.She got up."Thank you." She headed for the front door.I got up and stumbled over myself trying to get there to see her out, but Dean had been lying in ambush to make sure he got the honors.I left him to them.2Dean shut the door.He faced it for a moment before he turned to face me, wearing a foolish look.I asked, "You fall in love? At your age?" He knew I wasn't looking for clients.He was supposed to discourage them at the door.And this sweet ice with the tall tales and long legs and nonsense problem and sack of gold that was ten times what a retainer ought to be looked like a client I especially didn't want."That one is trouble on the hoof.""I'm sorry, Mr.Garrett." He gave me feeble excuses that only proved a man is never too old."Dean, go to Mr.Pigotta's.Tell him he's invited to supper.You'll be fixing his favorites if he gets balky." Pokey Pigotta never turned down a free meal in his life.I gave Dean my best glower, which struck him like rain off a turtle.You just can't get good help.I retired to my desk to think.Life was good.I'd had a couple of rough ones recently and I'd not only gotten out alive, but also managed to turn a fat profit.I didn't owe anybody.I didn't need to work.I've always thought it sensible not to work if you're not hungry.You don't see wild animals working when they're not hungry, so why not just fiddle around and put away a few beers and worry about getting ready for winter when winter comes?My trouble was that word was out that Garrett could handle the tough ones.Lately every fool with an imaginary twitch has been knocking on my door.And when they look like Jill Craight and know how to turn on the heat, they have no trouble getting past my first line of defense.My second line is more feeble than my first.That's me.And I'm a born sucker.I've been poor and I've been poorer, and the practical side of me has learned one truth: money runs out.No matter how well I did yesterday, the money will run out tomorrow.What do you do when you don't want to work and you don't want to go hungry? When you were born you didn't have the sense to pick rich parents.Some guys become priests.Me, I'm trying to get into subcontracting, the wave of the future.When they get past Dean and they fish me with their tales of woe, I figure I ought to be able to give the work to somebody else and scrape twenty percent off the top.That should keep the wolf away for a while, save me exercise, and put some money in the hands of my friends.For tail and trace jobs I could call on Pokey Pigotta.He's good at that.For bodyguard stuff there was Saucerhead Tharpe, half the size of a mammoth and twice as stubborn.If something hairy turned up I could yell for Morley Dotes.Morley is a bone breaker and life-taker.This Craight thing smelled.Damn it, it reeked! Why give me that business about being a neighbor when she was a kid? Why drop it at the first sign I doubted her? Why back off so fast on the high heat and shift to the ice maiden?There was one answer I didn't like at all.She might be a psycho.People who get into a fix where they think I'm their only out are unpredictable.Add weird.But when you've been at the game awhile you think you get a feel for types.Jill Craight didn't fit.For a second I wondered if that wasn't because she was an actress who had done her homework and had decided to grab my curiosities with both hands.I can be had that way sometimes.The clever, cutesy ones are the worst.I could go two ways here: lie back and forget Jill Craight until I gave her to Pokey, or walk across the hall and consult my live-in charity case.That woman had given me the jimjams.I was restless.The Dead Man it was, then.After all, he's a self-proclaimed genius.They call him the Dead Man.He's dead, but he's not a man.He's a Loghyr, and somebody stuck him with a knife about four hundred years ago.He weighs almost five hundred pounds, and his four-century fast hasn't helped him lose an ounce.Loghyr flesh dies as easily as yours or mine, but the Loghyr spirit is more reluctant.It can hang around for a thousand years, hoping for a cure, getting more ill-tempered by the minute.If Loghyr flesh corrupts it may do so faster than granite, but not much.My dead Loghyr's hobby is sleeping.He's so dedicated he'll do nothing else for months.He's supposed to earn his keep by applying his genius to my cases.He does, sometimes, but he has a deeper philosophical aversion to gainful employment than I do.He'll bust his butt to shirk the smallest chore.Sometimes I wonder why I bother.He was asleep when I dropped in—much to my chagrin, but little to my surprise.He'd been at it for three weeks, taking up the biggest room in the house."Hey, Old Bones! Wake up! I need the benefit of your lightning intelligence." The best way to get anything out of him is to appeal to his vanity.But the first task is waking him, and the second is getting him to pay attention.He wasn't having any today."That's all right," I told the mountain of cheesy flesh."I love you despite yourself."The place was a mess [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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