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yelled in your face. When I first met him, at a time when
the law was honored more in the taking of bribes than actual
enforcement, he’d had a mouth as filthy as the Goddamn
Parrot’s and all the manners of a starving snake.
    I wasn’t sure I liked the new, improved, mannered and
unantagonistic,
dedicated
Block better than the angry old
one.
    I told him, “In the old days you never seemed like the
dedicated type. You only did what you had to to get by.”
    A shadow brushed his features. “I got religion,
Garrett.”
    “Huh?”
    “I let Relway talk me into putting him on full-time. Big
mistake. His conviction infects everybody around him.”
    “It does.” Given his head Relway will exterminate
the concept of crime by the end of the year. He’s a man with
a holy mission. He’s scary.
    “So what’s up? Going to collect favors
owed?”
    “Not entirely. I want to ask about The Call. And I want to
talk about Max Weider. Somebody’s trying to squeeze
him.” I betrayed tradition and fed him all the details.
    He was suspicious. “Why tell me?”
    I would have been suspicious, too. In the past I’d kept
him in the dark on principle.
    “My partner insisted. And I owe Weider. It would be handy
if somebody official was watching if something happened.”
    “What could happen?”
    “With these rightsists? Anything.”
    “No shit. You heard about those people burning up on the
north side?”
    “I heard. I didn’t pay attention. I’ve been
busy.”
    “They’re people with no connection to each other,
drunks and no-accounts who couldn’t make an enemy on a bet.
But they’ve been burning up.”
    “You’re pulling my leg.”
    “No. It’s happened six times. It’s got to be
sorcery. Relway wants it to connect with the rights business but I
don’t see it. I can’t see some teetotaling sorceress
setting drunks on fire, either, though.”
    “You think it would be a woman?”
    “If it was a teetotaller. You know any men dead set
against spirits?”
    “Only one.” And I have to live with him. “So
what about it? Is The Call moving into the rackets?”
    “I haven’t heard that. Jirek!”
    The door opened. A creature limped in. He wasn’t human.
Not much, anyway. There was a little of everything in him but the
three main ingredients appeared to be ogre, troll, and ugly. The
whole was complicated by birth defects and wounds. Jirek moved sort
of sideways, stiffly and bent, like his back hurt all the time.
    “Jirek was injured in the ambush at Council
Wells.”
    A veteran, then. Yet not human. Another one of those
inconvenient complications I’d pointed out to Carter and
Trace. Some of our biggest heroes aren’t even human.
    “Council Wells. One of our great victories,” I
observed.
    “Do I detect the odor of sarcasm?”
    Council Wells was supposed to have been a preliminary peace
conference. The Karentine army concealed commando forces in the
surrounding desert. Those patriots murdered the Venageti delegates
in their sleep.
    Another of those little triumphs that, when totalled, helped
Karenta win the war.
    “Me sarcastic? The gods forfend.”
    Jirek’s great knobbly green mess of a face twisted and
wriggled into a grotesque smile. Then he guffawed. His breath could
gag a maggot. But he had a sense of humor.
    Block told him, “Relway should be in his cell. Tell him I
need him.”
    Jirek told me, “Good joke,” then left.
    “What was that?” I asked.
    “Jirek. A unique.” Which was slang for a breed who
had extremely complicated antecedents. “He saved my ass a
couple times in the Cantard. He was a perfect soldier. Too dumb to
question authority. Just did what he was told. And was one bad boy
in a fight.”
    “I just might change my mind about you.”
    “Don’t brag about it. People might wonder why it
took so long to rid yourself of the old, clogged one.”
    “And I thought I was developing a new relationship with
the minions of the law.”
    Relway arrived. A little guy, he sort of oozed