Free Old Tin Sorrows by Glen Cook Page B

do a job for the old boy.”
    “Don’t you ever work just to be working? I never saw anyone like you.”
    “I know. I’m a dog. You never see a dog do anything when he’s not hungry. If I’m not hungry, why work?”
    “What about the General? I do work when I’m not hungry. And I’ve got plenty of that here.”
    “The old boy is trying to die. My old sergeant thinks somebody is trying to kill him. Slowly, so it looks like a wasting disease.”
    “Is somebody?”
    “I don’t know. He’s been doing it a long time. You know a way to do that?”
    “What’s his color like?”
    “His color?”
    “Sure. There are poisons you could use in cumulative dosages. The color is the giveaway.”
    “He’s kind of a sickly yellow. His hair is falling out in clumps. And his skin has a translucent quality.”
    Morley frowned. “Not blue or gray?”
    “Yellow. Like pale butterscotch.”
    He shook his head. “Can’t tell you based on that.”
    “He has seizures, too.”
    “Crazies?”
    “Like heart tremors, or something.”
    “Doesn’t sound familiar. Maybe if I saw him.”
    “I’d like that. I don’t know if I can arrange it. They’re all paranoid about strangers.” I gave him a rundown on the players.
    “Sounds like a bughouse.”
    “Could be. All of them, except Jennifer and Cook, spent at least thirty years in the Marines, mostly in the Cantard.”
    He grinned. “I’m not going to say it.”
    “Good for you. We all make the world a little holier when we resist temptation. One more thing. The old man thinks he hired me to find out who’s stealing the silver and his old war trophies.” I produced the list. Morley started reading. “I’ll pay legwork fees for somebody to make the rounds and see if any of that is moving through the usual channels.”
    “Saucerhead needs work.” Saucerhead Tharpe is a friend, of sorts, in a line somewhere between Morley’s and mine. He has more scruples than Dotes and more ambition than me, but he’s as big as a house and looks half as smart. People can’t take him serious. He never gets the best jobs.
    “All right. I’ll pay his standard rate. Bonus if he recovers any of the articles. Bonus if he gets a description of the thief.”
    “On the cuff?” That was a hint.
    I gave him advance money. He said, “I thank you and Saucerhead thanks you. I know you’re doing an old buddy a favor but it seems damned tame. Especially if the old guy is just dying.”
    “There’s something going on. Somebody tried to off me.” I told him.
    He laughed. “I wish I could have seen the guy’s face when he swung that ax and you bonged like a bell. You’ve still got the luck.”
    “Maybe.”
    “Why are they after you?”
    “I don’t know. Money? That’s the one angle that makes this interesting. The old boy is worth about five million marks. His son is dead. His wife died twenty years ago. His daughter Jennifer gets half the estate and the other half goes to his Marine cronies. Three years ago he had seventeen heirs. Since then two died supposedly natural deaths, one got killed by a mad bull, and four disappeared. A little basic math shows that nearly doubles the take for the survivors.”
    Morley sat down behind his desk, put his feet up, cleaned his pearly white teeth with a six-inch steel toothpick. I didn’t interrupt his thoughts.
    “There’s potential for foul play in that setup, Garrett.”
    “Human nature being what it is.”
    “If I was a betting man I’d give odds that somebody is fattening his share.”
    “Human nature being what it is.”
    “Nobody walks out on that kind of money. Not you, not me, not a saint. So maybe you have something interesting after all.”
    “Maybe. Thing is, I don’t see any way to tie it up in a package. If I find out who’s stealing—which makes no sense considering the payoff down the road—I’m not likely to find out who’s killing the old man. That doesn’t make sense for whoever is cutting down the number of heirs.