Book 09 - Faded Steel Heat by Glen Cook Page B

guest was female and under forty. Dean has a
way with women young enough to be his daughters. They like to hang
out in his kitchen. Partly that’s because he’s safe,
partly because he indulges them like they were favorite daughters,
partly because he’s a nice old guy.
    “Is Tinnie here again?”
    No. Tell me what happened out there.
    “The Goddamn Parrot was on top of me the whole damned
time.”
    The beast is more limited than you believe. The bird is keen
of ear but only in a narrow range. And his visual acuity and sense
of smell leave much to be desired.
    “You ought to find yourself a human tool.” But not
me.
    Perfect idea. Unfortunately, no human has a mind sensitive
enough for remote access. No intelligent creature, whatever the
species, fits my particulars exactly. There would appear to be a
relationship. I must examine that someday.
    “Yeah,” I muttered, completely confident that I was
a failed experiment.
    The door swung open. Dean, platter in hand, held it for
someone.
    Someone stepped inside.
    “You?” I was surprised.
    “Me,” said Belinda Contague. “Your lack of
enthusiasm is breaking my heart.”
    The woman doesn’t have one. But I didn’t remind
her.
    She likes black. She positively
loves
black. She wore a
black evening cloak over a masculine-cut black suit of very supple
leather. She wore black boots with raised heels. A pair of long
black-silk gloves were folded over her black-leather belt. When she
arrived, I was sure, Dean had taken her black hat and veil and put
them in the small front room. She’d painted her nails black
and had put something on her lips to darken and gloss them. Then
she’d used a face powder to make her skin appear more
pallid.
    I have seen vampires with more color.
    Despite all that, or perhaps because of it, she was incredibly
beautiful. More, she exuded something that made it difficult to
cling to common sense and the urge to self-preservation. That
bizarre look was very erotic.
    “You sent a message. I was in town. I had no other demands
on my time. I came here. You were out but Dean was kind. As he ever
is.”
    I glared at the Dead Man, thought hard: You should have warned
me.
    He didn’t respond.
    Damn, the woman was bold. She knew what the Dead Man was. Nobody
with a conscience as black as hers ought to be anywhere near
him.
    Back in those remote times when the Outfit was in transition,
passing into Belinda’s regency, we had a brief fling. I might
consider myself lucky because I got out alive. Belinda is very
strange. And when it comes to hardness she makes her daddy look
like a pet bunny.
    I gobbled, “I’m sorry. You took me off guard.
You’re the last person I expected.”
    Belinda Contague stands five feet six inches. She looks
twenty-five, says she’s twenty. She lived a rough life before
she took over. Lived like she was trying to kill herself. She was
in good shape now, as her apparel proclaimed eloquently. Nature
blessed her with a shape that would have them kicking the lids off
their coffins if she strolled through a mortuary. Her dark eyes
fell smack into the center of that semi-mythical “windows of
the soul” class. You will discover more warmth and compassion
in the stare of a cobra.
    I can’t imagine what she ever saw in me.
    I always knew she would come back to haunt me, though.
    “I’m not as bad as you think, Garrett.”
    Her daddy used to say the same thing. “Huh?”
    “My father turned out to be a good friend, didn’t
he?” She sounded wistful.
    I grunted. My relationship with Chodo Contague had been strange,
too. I did him a big favor once, accidentally, and forever
afterward he felt he owed me. He did me good turns even when I
didn’t ask. He covered my ass. He tried hard to entangle me
in the Outfit’s webs so I’d become one of his soldiers.
I repaid him by helping take him down.
    “Crask and Sadler are back in town.” That would take
the play out of Belinda.
    “You saw them?” She actually became more