Free Old Tin Sorrows by Glen Cook

could there be?”
    “I don’t know. Yesterday you said there were eighteen people here. I’ve seen ten, plus this Snake that’s shy and a blonde that only I can see. Comes up short of eighteen.”
    “Ain’t eighteen.”
    “You said eighteen.”
    “Boy, I’m four hundred years old. ’Less I concentrate, I don’t remember where I am in time. I just cook and set table and wash and don’t pay no attention to nothing else. Just sort of drift. Don’t see nothing, don’t say nothing. Last time I looked up they was eighteen, counting me. Must’ve been a while. Hell. Maybe that’s why there’s so many leftovers. Been cooking too much.”
    “I didn’t notice too many places set at the table.”
    She paused. “You’re right. Part of me must keep track.”
    “Been with the Stantnors a long time?”
    “Came to them with my momma when I was a kit. Long time back, when the humans hereabouts still had emperors. ’Fore they ever moved out here and built the first house. This one’s only maybe two hundred. Was a sight when she was new, she was.”
    “You must’ve seen some sights in your time.”
    “Seen some,” she agreed. “Served every king and stormwarden and firelord right there in that dining room.” She headed that way. That ended our conversation.
    I stuck my head in. Nobody showed any special disappointment. Nobody turned handsprings, either. They were a depressing bunch.
    These guys had spent their whole lives together. You’d think they could make conversation—unless they’d said everything there was to say. I feel that way with some people, sometimes before anything gets said at all.
    Tyler and Wayne were cut from Marine lifer cloth. Whatever the physical differences between men, they gain a certain uniformity in service. Tyler was a lean, narrow-faced character with hard brown eyes, salt-and-pepper hair, and a thin, speckled beard trimmed within a half-inch of his skin. Wayne was my size, maybe twenty pounds heavier, not fat. He looked like he could throw cows around if the passion took him. He was six inches taller than Tyler and blond, with icy blue eyes, yet you felt the sameness in them. You even felt the identity with Chain, who had gone to seed.
    I’d spent five years in the company of men like them. Any one of them would be capable of murder if he took a mind. Human life wasn’t anything special to them. They’d seen too much death.
    Which did present one puzzle.
    Marines are straightforward kinds of guys. If one wanted the General dead, chances were he’d just do it. Unless there was some overpowering motive to make it a lingering death.
    Like, say, hanging onto a share of the old man’s estate?
    Worrying about it was pointless. You can’t force these things. They have to unfold.
    I helped Cook clear away, then put on my traveling shoes.
     
     

11
     
    I hadn’t been to Morley’s place in months. It wasn’t that we’d had a falling out or anything; I just hadn’t had a need, nor any urge to graze on the cattle food that comes out of his kitchen. I arrived about nine. He’s closed to business then. He’s open from eleven to six in the morning, catering to every sentient species there is, all so warped they try to subsist on vegetables.
    It takes all kinds. Some of my best friends eat there. I’ve done so myself. Without enthusiasm.
    So. Nine o’clock. The place was locked up. I went to the backdoor and gave the secret knock, which means I hammered and howled till Morley’s man Wedge brought a four-foot piece of lead pipe and offered to move my face to my belly button region.
    “This’s business, Wedge.”
    “I didn’t figure you was in heat for some bean curd. You don’t come around unless you want something.”
    “I pay for what I get.”
    He snorted. He didn’t think it was right, me using Morley just because Morley had taken advantage of me, at deadly risk and without my consent, to get out of some heavy gambling debts.
    “Cash money, Wedge. And he don’t have