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You stay away, Garrett. Or they ll find parts of you all over town.
I didn t know you had a woman. Who is she? Fact was, I thought he and his
sidekick Sadler had a thing.
Huh?
I m going to tell you this once, Crask. I don t know the girl. I have seen
her before. Once. She walked into Morley Dotes s place night before last. Two
minutes later a bunch of guys roared in and tried to kidnap her. Me and Morley
and Saucerhead showed them what we think of guys who pick up their girls the
rough way. She disappeared before we finished. Beginning and end of story. Now
it s your go. Who is she? How come you got your balls in an uproar?
You don t need to know. The girl was out of sight now. Crask frowned after
her, as much puzzled as angry. He d bought my story, probably because I d not
lied to him much in the past. What was she doing at Dotes s place?
You got me. Never said a word. Just came in looking scared, sat by herself,
then three guys blew in and dragged her out.
He grunted. I didn t know about that. Thanks, Garrett. I ll give you one
back. Tell Tharpe it ain t going to be healthy hanging around with those guys
trying to mess with the musicians.
I was going to suggest that anyway after I saw you in there. I started
moving, planning to put some distance between us before it occurred to him to
bring up old business.
Garrett.
Damn. What?
You see the girl around again, pass the word. Wed like to know.
Sure. But why? Who is she?
Just do it. He went inside without turning his back.
I hustled away, breathing hard. It had been an encounter I d dreaded more
than necessary. Maybe. Maybe the street in front of Hullars place didn t
strike him as the best stage for my demise.
25
Peace and harmony broke out all over. I had nothing to do but loaf, deliver
the occasional report to Hullar, and keep an eye on Dean s crowd whenever he
had them over for one of his rehab parties. You wouldn t believe how rowdy old
men can get.
There weren t any cats around, and except for his barbs about me not working,
Dean wasn t a nuisance. The Dead Man went to sleep, visions of Glory
Mooncalled dancing in his head. Saucerhead resigned from the musician
organizing racket just before Morley reported that he was no longer obliged to
endure the custom of that human smudge pot Licks. I got out and visited,
bought a few rounds for friends, reforged contacts, even dropped by the
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ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
brewery and spent a few days checking employee theft for Weider. As always, he
wanted me to take the job full time. As always, I couldn t overcome my horror
of holding down a real job. Nobody s life stays on that high and relaxed a
level. Especially not mine. The gods have a special Garrett harassment squad
dedicated solely to my persecution. So I should have known the good times were
over the morning I went out to run and found that the rains had returned. I
was in my office busting my skull trying to fake up numbers that would impress
the tax thugs with the depths of my destitution.
Somebody hammered on the door. I groaned. It was nearly suppertime and Dean
was fixing a standing rib roast that would be bloody rare and would melt in my
mouth, with all the extras. Smelling the odors from the kitchen had me
drooling already.
Dean asked, Shall I ignore it?
No. It s probably Saucerhead. Tharpe had been around a lot lately. His flame
had walked. His luck hadn t been good since. There enough to feed him too?
Barely. Saucerhead does put it away. There won t be anything left over.
I shrugged. I ll get even with him someday.
You just want to get away from what you re doing. He tottered down the hall
to the accompaniment of renewed pounding. Somebody was awfully anxious.
Dean was right. I did want to get away. I hate the whole idea of taxes. What
have I ever gotten from the Crown? A pack and a collection of weapons and a
five year adventure in the war zone. I had to give back the pack and weapons.
They just wanted to rip me off so they could give some other kid a chance to [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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