Dead to Rites Read Free

gratitude” part of the visit.
    I hate that part.
    “…thank you enough, Mr. Oberon! My grandfather had to leave all his glassworking tools behind when he came to this country. This figurine was the first thing he made once he could finally afford a new set.”
    Of course it was. And I assume he left it to you on his deathbed?
    “It was the last thing he gave to me before the tuberculosis took…”
    We were all damn lucky in that moment that I basically can’t vomit.
    “You’re welcome,” I said. Or interrupted? I dunno; I’d stopped listening, mostly in self-defense. “If I could just get the rest of my fee, I’ll be outta your hair.”
    It was Mr. Marsters who answered this time. “Of course, of course! Barry, if you’d be so good as to fetch my checkbook? And a bottle of the Avize Grand Cru, while you’re at it.”
    “Of course, Mr. Marsters.” I’m not even sure how, but I’d swear the butler reached the door without actually turning around first. The magic of the domestic servant, I guess.
    “Kind of you, Mr. Marsters,” I told him, “but really not—”
    “It’s quite legal, I assure you. Everything in our wine cellar was purchased prior to Prohibition.”
    “I’m sure it was, but it ain’t necessary. I—”
    “Nonsense!” You ever hear a guy actually
harumph
? Marsters
harumphed.
I think it actually requires a certain amount of wealth before you’re legally permitted to do it. “I insist!”
    So how exactly was I gonna tell the man that if it wasn’t milk or cream, I not only wasn’t interested but actively revolted.
    “Look—”
    “I insist!” he again, uh, insisted.
    He’d also gotten himself good’n riled up in his determination, so that he tried to lean forward and thump a fist on the table in emphasis, all at once. The lunge outta his chair drove his hip into the furniture with a hollow
thump
, an impact that managed to lift the two nearest legs off the carpet and set the whole contraption to rocking.
    Not a lot. Just enough.
    If he’d hit the table just a few inches to one side or the other, it wouldn’t have jolted up that way. If the cushions on the sofa had been a little less deep, or the couch itself a couple feet closer, or I’d been a touch less preoccupied, I mighta reacted fast enough to save it. If the thing itself had been a bit farther from the edge, or landed base-down on the thick carpeting instead of at an angle…
    If, if, if. “If” and a dollar are worth about 90 cents.
    There was a muted
crack
and then silence as we all stared at the scattering of chunks and slivers and powder that had just been a crystal wren and now made the carpet glitter like a starry night.
    Not that it was a
long
silence. Mrs. Marsters began to wail like a deflating zeppelin, her husband gawped and gasped like an asthmatic grouper, and I cursed and mumbled under my breath as it occurred to me that, through no fault of my own, I probably wasn’t gonna see the remainder of my fee.

CHAPTER TWO
    Goddamn it, there it was again!
    Wasn’t too long a walk from my clients’—uh, former clients’—place to the L, but I was in no hurry to get much of anywhere, so I’d been takin’ it slow, eyeballing the homes of the well-to-do and mentally cataloging all the wonders I’d seen that were much more impressive than
they
could ever hope to be.
    Whaddaya want from me? I was feelin’ petty.
    The city was just startin’ to get dim as we slid on into the evening. Flivvers grumbled by in the street; radios crackled out Ethel Waters (no, thanks) or Handel’s Organ Concerto in D Minor (
that’s
music, thanks very much) or, mostly in the houses with kids, a new episode of some serial about the twenty-fifth century. All of it was quick enough, or far enough back, that the technology only gave me a mild itch insteada screaming, spike-through-the-conk pain.
    It
was
distracting, though, which is partly why it took me a few blocks to realize I mighta picked up a tail. Again.
    Wasn’t