"Cook, Glen - From the Files of Garrett, P.I. 01 - Sweet Silver Blues 2.0a" - читать интересную книгу автора (Cook Glen)

"Dead!" barked sweet sister Rose.

Denny Tate and I were heroes of the Cantard Wars. That means we did our five years and got out alive. A lot of guys don't.
We went in about the same time, were barracked less than twenty miles a p art, but never met till later, here in TunFaire, eight hundred miles from the fighting. He was light cavalry out of Fort Must. I was Fleet Marines, mostly aboard the Imperial Kirnrnswick out of Full Harbor. I fought in the islands. Denny rode




over most of the Cantard, chasing or running away from the Venageti. We both made sergeant before we got out.
It was a nasty war. It still is. I like it better now that it's much farther away.
Denny saw more of the worst than I did. The fighting at sea and in the islands was sideshow stuff. Neither we nor the Venageti wasted wizards on it. All the flash and fury of sorcery got saved for the struggle on the mainland.
Anyway, we'd beth survived our five, and had done part of them in the same general area, and that had given us something in common when we met. It was good enough till we got to know one another.

"So that's why you're a walking arsenal. What is it? A vendetta? Maybe you'd better get inside."
Rose cackled like a hen laying a square egg.
Uncle Lester laughed too, but it was a laugh of a different breed. "Shut up, Rosie. I'm sorry, Mr. Garrett. The weapons are here to feed Rosie's hunger for drama. She believes we don't dare enter this neighborhood unarmed lest the local thugs ravish her."
It was not a good dawn for me. Few of them are. Without thinking, I cracked, "The thugs in my neighborhood have some taste. She doesn't have to worry." Blame it on the hangover.
Uncle Lester grinned. Rose looked at me like I was dog flop she wanted off her shoe.
I tried to gloss over with business. "Who did it? What can I do about it?"
"Nobody did it," Rose told me. "He fell off a horse and busted his head, his neck, and about ten other bones."
"Hard to believe a skilled horseman could go that way."
"It happened in broad daylight on a busy street. There's no doubt that it was an accident."
"Then what do you need me for? Especially before the sun is up?"
"That's for Dad to tell," Rose said. The shrew had




a lot of anger in her, anger that was there before I gave her cause. "Bringing you in on it was his idea, not mine.
I knew Denny's old man modestly. Well enough to use his first name if I was the kind of snotnose who calls his friends' parent by name instead of Mister. He ran a very successful cobbler's business. He, Denny, and two journeyman handled the custom and commercial trade. Uncle Lester and a dozen apprentices made boots under an open-end deal with the army. The war had been good to Denny's dad.
They do say it is an ill wind indeed that blows no one any good
Well, I was awake. Hair of the dog and scintillating conversation had reduced the pounding in my head to the tramp of ten thousand legions. Still there was a nagging guilt about not having made time to see Denny before the old gal in black climbed on his back. I decided to find out why the old man needed somebody in my line of work when there wasn't a doubt about how Denny checked out.
"Let me get myself put together and we'll be on our way."
Rose grinned wickedly. I realized I'd fed her a murderous straight line.
I didn't stick around to hear her pounce on it.



2
Willard Tate was no bigger than the rest of his tribe. A gnome. He was bald on top with tasseled gray hair to his shoulders on the sides and longer in the back. He was bent over his workbench, tapping tiny brass nails into the heel of a woman's shoe. nearly he was at the top of his trade. He wore square TanHageen spectacles and they don't come cheap.
He was engrossed in his work. Recalling his state since his wife died, I figured he was working off grief.
"Mr. Tate?" He knew I was there. I had cooled my heels for twenty minutes while they told him.
He drove one more nail with a single perfect tap, looked at me over his cheaters. "Mr. Garrett. They tell me you made mock of our size."
"I get nasty when somebody drags me out before the sun comes up."
"That's Rose. If she has to see you in, she'll see you in the hard way. I made a bad job of her. Keep her in mind as you rear your own children."
I said nothing. You tell somebody you look forward to blindness more eagerly than to having kids, you don't win any friends. Those that don't think you're lying think you're crazy.
"Do you have a problem with short people, Mr. Garrett?"
About six ffip answers never saw the air. He was dead serious. "Not really. Denny wouldn't have been my buddy if I did. Why? Is it important?"
"In a sideways sort of way. Did you ever wonder why the Tates are so small?"
I had never dwelled on it. "No."