Book 12 - Cruel Zinc Melodies Read Free Page A

no wind. Light melting had begun in direct sunlight. So ice could form in all the low places once the sun went down.
    It’s a couple miles to the Weider brewing complex. Not a tough walk. No hills of consequence. A few historical landmarks I never notice because they’re always there. Furniture of the world.
    There were a lot of people out, enjoying.
    I was in a good mood myself by the time I got where I was going. Nobody stalked me. Nobody bopped me on the noggin. Nobody even gave me a second glance.
    Some days it’s the other way around. Too many days.
    The big brewery stinks even in cold weather, because of the fermentation. The employees and neighbors no longer notice.
    This was the mother brewery, the heart of the Weider empire. There are several dozen lesser operations around TunFaire, onetime competitors who surrendered their independence to the Dark Lord of the Hops. The lesser breweries concentrate on local and specialty products.
    The queen brewery is a Gothic redbrick behemoth. It looks like a folklore hangout for vampires and werewolves. It is festooned with towers and turrets and odd little gables and dormers and lofts that have no connection with producing nature’s holy elixir.
    The towers house swarms of bats. Max thinks bats are cool. He enjoys seeing them swarm out on a summer’s evening.
    The whole strange place is Max’s imagination given form, weird because Max wanted it weird. And he could afford to build it that way.
    A smaller version faces it from across Delor Street. The Weider family shanty.
    Max originally meant that to be his brewery. When it went up it was the biggest beer-making operation in all TunFaire. Two years later it was too small to handle demand. And Max’s wife, Hannah, was pregnant for the third time. So he tossed up the monster across the way.
    Max and Hannah produced five children: Tad, Tom, Ty, Kittyjo, and Alyx. Alyx was the baby by half a decade. Tragedy stalked the family, maybe punishing Max for his worldly success. Tad died fighting in the Cantard. Tom and Ty survived—with Tom gone mad and Ty condemned to a wheelchair. Kittyjo and I were an item once upon a time but she was too loony for me.
    My pal Morley Dotes says the absolute first rule of life is, don’t get involved with a woman crazier than you are. A rule I haven’t always pursued with due diligence. Because of more immediate distractions.
    But like I said, tragedy hounds Max Weider. Tom and Kittyjo were murdered. Hannah died that same night, destroyed by the shock.
    I climbed the steps to the main brewery entrance. An old, old man sat behind a small table in a cubby just inside. He was a retiree putting in a few hours of part-time. He was almost blind. But he was aware of me because I came in with a creak of hinges and a blast of cold air.
    ‘‘Can I help you?’’
    ‘‘It’s Garrett, Gerry. Looking for the boss. He here today?’’
    ‘‘Garrett? You ain’t been around in a while.’’
    ‘‘Cold and snow, Gerry. And nothing happening to worry the boss.’’ My function is to stimulate the consciences of the brew crew. So they don’t surrender to temptation. Not too often, in too big a way. ‘‘What about the boss?’’
    ‘‘If he’s here, he came over underneath. And he don’t do that much no more. Less’en it’s really foul out. So, chances are, he ain’t here. Yet.’’
    Max is a hands-on owner who visits the floor every day.
    By ‘‘underneath’’ Gerry meant through the caverns below the brewery. Those were the reason Weider chose to build where he did. The beer is stored there till it’s shipped.
    ‘‘How’s business? Any cutbacks because of the weather?’’
    ‘‘I hear tell a ten percent drop-off on account of it’s hard to make deliveries. The local brew houses picked up most of the slack. The boss didn’t lay nobody off. He’s got the extra guys harvesting ice. It’s a good year for that.’’
    ‘‘So I hear.’’ They would be cutting the ice from the