Book 1 - Sweet Silver Blues by Glen Cook Page A

And you’re Garrett. And the last
time you saw me I was just a spindle-legged kid.” She looked
me right in the eye and grinned. Her teeth looked sharp and white.
I wanted to stick out a hand and let her take a bite.
    “Could still be on spindles for all a guy can tell from
that skirt.” It fell to her ankles.
    Her grin got sassy. “You could get lucky and get a look
sometime. You never know.”
    My kind of luck came down the stairs right then. “Tinnie!
You’ve done your job. Get out.”
    We ignored Rose. I asked, “You’re not Denny’s
sister, are you? He never mentioned you.”
    “Cousin. They don’t talk about me. I’m the one
who causes trouble.”
    “Oh? I thought Rose took care of that.”
    “Rose is just obnoxious. That doesn’t bother them. I
do things that embarrass them. Rose just makes people mad or
disgusted. I make the neighbors whisper behind their
hands.”
    Rose simmered and reddened. Tinnie winked at me. “See you
later, Garrett.”
    Yeah. I wish. That little bit was enough woman to make a man sit
up and howl at the moon. She had a sway as she sashayed past Rose
and started up the stairs.
    When you got down to it and ignored the personality of a black
widow spider, Rose was not something the dogs barked at either. She
was another small package with its contents all in the right
places, and only prime materials had been used.
    Rose could move with a sway that promised fireworks—if she
wanted. But her fireworks were the kind that blow up in a
man’s face.
    We eyed each other like a couple of tomcats about to square off.
We both decided what she had in mind wouldn’t work any better
this time. She got flustered because she didn’t know what
else to do.
    “Ought to have a backup plan when you jump in on
something,” I told her. “Like Saucerhead
Tharpe.”
    “You’re right, Garrett. Damn you, anyhow. How did
you get so old being as stubborn as you are?”
    “By guessing right most of the time. You wouldn’t be
a bad kid if there was room for anyone else in your
world.”
    For a few seconds, there, I got the feeling she wished there
was
someone else in her world. Then she said, “Too
bad we couldn’t have met under other
circumstances.”
    “Yeah,” I said, not feeling it. She would be trouble
no matter what the circumstances. That was how she was made.
    “We don’t have any common ground at all, do
we?”
    “Not very much. Not unless you had some feeling for your
brother. I was fond of Denny. How about you?’
    I had touched something. At last.
    “It isn’t fair. Him dying like that. He was about
the nicest guy I ever knew. Even if he was my brother. That Cantard
bitch—”
    “Easy!” I snapped it, which gave me away enough to
make her gawk and wonder.
    “What’s in this for you, Garrett? Besides a chance
to line your pockets? Nobody goes to the Cantard without more
reason than money.”
    I thought about Morley Dotes when she said that. I thought about
me. I wondered about me. Garrett, tough guy. Can’t reach him.
No emotional handles. But I was on the brink of doing something no
moron in his right mind would do.
    Like old man Tate, I wanted to see this woman who could put a
halter on Denny.
    Rose and I traded stares. She decided I wasn’t going to
give her a thing. “Be careful, Garrett. Don’t get
yourself hurt. Look me up when this is over.”
    “It wouldn’t work, Rose.”
    “It could be fun giving it a look.”
    She sashayed up the stairs.
    She did look good from that perspective.
Maybe . . . 
    Seconds after the door slammed, while common sense was fighting
for its life, a copper-wreathed face peeped at me from the head of
the stairs. “Don’t even think about it, Garrett. I
wouldn’t love you anymore.”
    Then Tinnie vanished, too.
    I gulped some air and said “Duh!” a few times, then
got my dogs under me and went galumphing off on the trail.
    She was gone when I got upstairs. I was alone with the dead guy.
Denny’s friend. There was no sign of