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into
Block’s cell, no knock, like a shadow that didn’t want
to be noticed.
    Relway is another unique, a completely improbable mixture. His
interior landscape is a strange, strange land, too. He has a chip
on his shoulder big enough to provide lumber for four houses.
He’s so far into law and order that he considers himself
above any law that might restrain his efforts to crush crime. Now
his auxiliaries and spies and midnight avengers are everywhere. It
shouldn’t be long till his name becomes one of the most
feared in TunFaire.
    Relway the man (using “man” generically, to indicate
a sentient creature that walks on its hind legs) is almost unknown.
I know him only because chance put me in the right place back
when.
    He nodded. “Garrett. You been keeping well?” His
voice was hoarse, cracking, only half there.
    “I’m fine. You pick up a cold?”
    “The weather’s been strange. I hear you might know
something about that.”
    “Me? I was out there freezing my butt off with everybody
else.” Why relive my misadventures amongst mobs of low-grade,
feuding gods?
    He gave me that look all lawmen develop. It says not one word
dripping from your filthy mouth is true now, nor ever has been. The
power had gone to his head, though there was no denying the good
being done. He had the bad guys rattled.
    “What’s that on your shoulder, Garrett?”
    Block had done me the courtesy of ignoring that owl in a clown
suit. “My lunch. I’ll share. Stoke up the
fire.”
    The Goddamn Parrot—or the Dead Man speaking through the
buzzard’s beak—had to have his word. “Awk! Jerk
alert!”
    “How do you do that without moving your lips?”
Relway asked.
    “It’s a trick they teach Marines.”
    Relway asked, “We got something, Wes?”
    They were getting cuddly now?
    “Maybe. You’ve been working the rights
gangs?”
    “Where I can. They’re hard to infiltrate. Mostly
they form from groups who knew each other in the
Cantard.”
    I still hang out with guys I knew down there. We don’t
spend good beer-drinking time trying to figure out how to hurt
people, though.
    Relway continued, “Big mobs like The Call are more
vulnerable. Everybody doesn’t know everybody. The Call proper
is organized like the army. And Marengo North English is building a
real private army. Freecorps Theverly, they’re calling
it.”
    “Is Colonel Theverly with them?” I was surprised,
though I hadn’t known Lieutenant Colonel Moches Theverly well
enough to make sound assessments of his feelings toward nonhumans.
He treated everybody the same in the zone. He was one of few
officers who didn’t go around with his head firmly inserted
in a dark, stinky place.
    “A man of conviction, the colonel.” Shadows stirred
behind Relway’s eyes. “You know him?”
    “I worked for him in the islands. Briefly. He got hurt and
they pulled him out just before the Venageti overran us. The wound
cost him a leg if I remember right. He was a good
officer.”
    “That’s not why you’re here?”
    “No. I didn’t know about that.”
    Block asked, “Is The Call moving into the rackets, Deal?
As a fund-raising activity?”
    Relway frowned. “You have a run-in, Garrett?”
    “I have a client. Max Weider. The brewery
Weider.”
    Relway nodded. My relationship with Weider was no secret.
    “His daughter Alyx says somebody claiming to be from The
Call took a run at her brother Ty. They wanted a piece of the
gross. That didn’t sound like The Call. But if they need
money to conjure up their own army, they might try more creative
ways of getting it.”
    “They might,” Relway agreed. “I haven’t
heard of it being discussed seriously. Yet. On the other hand, they
have discussed other areas traditionally associated with the
Outfit—where those exploit nonhumans.”
    “Two birds, one stone?”
    “Exactly. The Call’s Inner Council put it, ‘We
deem it fitting that the disease provide the means of sustaining
the cure.’ ”
    Interesting. Sounded