Book 13 - Gilded Latten Bones Read Free Page B

she used to paint her lips.
    But today her hair was unkempt, stringy, in need of washing. Her complexion had gained a sickly yellow-green cast—though maybe that was the light. She did not wear any of her usual makeup, crafted to create a vampire look. And she had given little attention to her clothing.
    I guessed she hadn’t changed in days. She had that air.
    Being an accomplished observer, I sensed that she was deeply upset. “Talk to me.”
    “Somebody took a run at Morley Dotes.”
    “You said.”
    Morley had been my best friend for so long that I couldn’t recall when he hadn’t been. Well, not before the war. But almost forever. I hadn’t seen much of him lately. Tinnie didn’t approve. Her disapproval was not ethnic, or social, but intellectual. Morley Dotes had the capacity to distract her special guy from what she wanted him focused on: Tinnie Tate.
    I appreciated the courtesy of being informed but wondered why Belinda would involve herself in Morley’s affairs. Maybe because she was the silent money behind his very successful restaurant enterprises.
    “I’ll tell you what I know. Three nights ago he staggered into one of our knock shops on the edge of Elf Town. He was full of holes but not so full of blood. The backstairs crew was turning out his pockets when somebody recognized him and decided to keep him alive till they tracked me down. I went there the night before last. He was six inches short of dying. I waited around but he never came to.”
    “What was he doing up there?” And why had she gone running to a cathouse when she heard? “Rhetorical question. Thinking out loud. I have no idea what he was up to these days. We don’t get together much anymore.”
    “I understand. Red hair.”
    I doubted that she did. She had no one special in her life. She couldn’t possibly know . . . “My god!” Could it be? It couldn’t be.
    Morley’s First Law is, never get involved with a woman crazier than you are. But . . . There it was, between the lines. Something was going on between the Queen of Darkness and my best pal.
    “What do you need from me?”
    “Stay with him. Make sure nobody helps him spring any more leaks. When he comes around, find out what we need to know.”
    Which meant, find out who to hurt.
    “All right.” She was saying plenty without stating it direct. There were ears up top and she wasn’t in a trusting mood. She counted on our shared experiences to convey what she wanted me to know. For example, that she couldn’t count on her own people to protect a boyfriend they didn’t approve. “But I have my own problem.” I told her about my visit from Butch and his brother.
    “Tit for tat. I’ll look out for Tinnie. Any way I could get my hands on those two?”
    “What for?”
    “To ask if there’s a connection.”
    Stranger connections have turned up in my life. “They’re inside the Al-Khar. You could ask General Block but I don’t think he’d cooperate. Go after Jimmy Two Steps.”
    “Two Steps?”
    “That’s the name they gave up. You know it?”
    “I don’t. But there are too many of them to keep track. TunFaire is like a dead dog and they’re like flies.”
    “There was mention of Raisin’s Bookshop.”
    Belinda frowned. In that light, doing that, she looked much older. “A bookstore?”
    Carefully, I said, “Think back to when we met. That was one of the places.”
    She had been hard at work committing slow suicide in the worst dives TunFaire boasts. The Bookshop was one where I interfered with her self-destruction.
    “I must’ve been all the way to the bottom. I don’t remember it at all.”
    “It’s bad news on wheels.”
    “Not part of the family enterprise?”
    “It wasn’t, then. I doubt there’s been any reason for that to change.”
    “It’s a place to start.” She thumped the wood behind her head. “Marcus!”
    A panel slid aside. A guard showed his face. “Ma’am?”
    “How much longer?”
    “A minute. Two,