Book 08 - Petty Pewter Gods by Glen Cook Page B

answered his question. “I don’t have a clue.
That’s why I came home. Are you going to pay your
rent?” Though
he
insists he is a full partner, the
most work he does is aimed at getting out of doing anything
constructive.
    “Right now I don’t see any choice but to play
along.”
    Indeed. Wriggling out of this will require intense
self-discipline and long hours of work by all concerned.
    “Don’t whine. I hate it when you whine. You were way
overdue to kick in around here anyway. You could’ve saved me
a ton of grief with Maggie Jenn if you would’ve just woke
up.” He had unraveled the mystery at the heart of my most
recent case before I had finished telling the first half of the
tale. It was a case he had slept through stubbornly.
----

13
    It was great to be in the righteous right so solid I could bury
my spurs in the Dead Man.
    “Will you hold still?” Dean snapped. “Looks
like a little pus here. Let me clean it out so we won’t have
to cauterize later.”
    I had a vision of my handsome face set off by a strip of scar
tissue skewed across my scalp. I held still, but it hurt.
    Dean said, “Miss Tate was here while you were away, Mr.
Garrett. She . . . ”
    “She must have been watching the place.” To know he
was home so soon after he arrived. Tinnie probably shouldn’t
be the ex-girlfriend. She was waiting for me to make the first move
toward reconciliation. I liked to think.
    “News travels fast, Mr. Garrett.”
    “Did it have some help?”
    “It’s possible.” Dean is as stubborn as I am.
He is determined to get me hooked up with Tinnie Tate or Maya
Stubbs, both of them beautiful, squared-away sweethearts who
deserve Prince Charmings who are the real thing.
    The Dead Man sent,
Miss Tate was as charming, witty, and
beautiful as ever and her companion, Miss Weider, cannot be
encompassed by normal superlatives. Nevertheless, their petition
will have to wait.
    “Alyx Weider?” Those two must have buttered him up
big. He has no use whatsoever for the female of my species—or
any other species, as far as I have seen. I’m sure that is
why he tries to sabotage most of my romances. He doesn’t
think most women deserve me.
    Them pigs were flying formation today.
    Dean tends toward the opposing opinion.
    He said, “I believe Miss Tate did introduce her as
Alyx.” He did something to my head that sent a ribbon of pain
streaking from my scalp to my toenails.
    “You’re on my list, Dean. Someday I’ll get my
chance to patch you up.”
    I am on retainer as chief of security at Weider’s brewery.
My role is to drop in unexpectedly and check employee honesty. I
saved Weider from being robbed blind a long time back. The job was
my reward. Old man Weider has been trying to get me on full time
ever since. There are times when a regular job looks real good,
even if I would have to call somebody else boss.
    Alyx was the old man’s baby, much younger than the rest of
his sprats. I had not seen her for some time. She had been a lovely
but shy girl at sixteen. I was surprised to hear that she had come
to the house. Her dad wasn’t the sort to let his baby girl
out, especially in today’s TunFaire.
    Miss Tate brought her. There is something happening within
the Weider family, possibly having to do with The Call and other
radical fringe human rights groups. We owe them an interest but
this mess must take precedent. Gods! Garrett! Garrett! At best you
are an agnostic. But still you become entangled with a clutch of
redundant deities.
    “Like I went looking for them? I’m not agnostic,
though. I’m indifferent. My philosophy is, you leave the gods
alone and usually they’ll leave you alone.”
    “Another one bites the dust,” Dean said.
    “Huh?” He find a nit?
    “Another of your adolescent fantasies.”
    Dean is a religious man. I never pressed him, but I do not
understand his blind devotion to his peculiar monotheistic
mythology when we are plagued by a thousand other deities and,
obviously,