Even so, soon every fourth word out of Kip's mouth sounded vaguely familiar. They may even have been real words—completely out of context.

"No. Never. He doesn't have that kind of imagination. But this's exactly the way he got when those elves came looking for him."

"Elves? What elves? Are we suddenly starting to get somewhere?"

"No. I just feel more comfortable calling them elves. Say they were elf-sized but they weren't like any elves that we know. They were female. You ever see a female elf who didn't look like the devil's disciple?"

Not my choice of descriptives but I knew what he meant. Even the ugly elf girls are pretty enough and wicked enough to melt your spine with a wink and a smile and a wiggle if the fancy takes them. "No. Never have."

"These girls... weren't. They were almost asexual."

"How did you know?"

Garrett! I do not enjoy such an oversufficiency of mind-space that I can waste any following your digressions. Save that for later. The creature is in the alley. It is confused. It can be captured. Will you please see to that and cease this passing the time of day with Mr. Playmate?

"Play, my sedentary sidekick tells me one of your elves is skulking around in the alley out back. Why don't we go invite him to the party? We can smack him around a little to break his concentration. Old Bones can ransack his mind while he's distracted. Which means I'll be able to find out what this's all about and you'll find out if there's any real reason for you to worry."

Damn! That wasn't the best word to use. Playmate worries. All the time. And his worry-to-success equation is an inverse proportion. He only gives up worrying and fussing when things get truly awful.

Garrett!

"All right!" He's so damned lazy he can't be bothered to die but he expects me to scurry like bees getting ready for winter. And sees no inconsistency. "All right. Here's the official plan, Play."

Playmate's job was to come into the alley from its Wizard's Reach end. Being younger and more athletic I took the longer way around so I could close in from the other direction. I trotted west on Macunado, then ducked into a narrow, fetid breezeway, where I kicked up a covey of pixies who were living under an overturned basket. Poor, new immigrants, obviously. I knew before I saw their ragged country costumes. "You folks better find yourselves someplace where you won't have to fight off the cats and dogs and rats." Though TunFaire's dogs and cats do, mostly, know better than to bother little people. But rats, while cunning, aren't always real bright. And as for the others, hunger has a way of overwhelming even the most pointed of past lessons.

These little folk thanked me for my concern by swarming around me, cursing in tiny voices while threatening to stick me with teensy poisoned rapiers.

When I entered the breezeway the Goddamned Parrot was a passenger on my shoulder. He was behaving. But once I started leaping and swatting at those damned mosquitoes he flapped toward a perch high above, whence he spouted gratuitous advice. To the pixies: "Stay to his left! He doesn't see as well on that side... Awk!"

The racket had attracted the interest of one of those leather-winged flying lizards that sometimes nap up on the rooftops between pigeon snacks. They aren't common anymore, mostly because they have trouble outthinking large rocks. They make rats and pigeons look like shining intellectuals. They are very slow learners.

This one looked particularly shopworn. The trailing edges of its wings were tattered. It had patches of mold on its chest.

When it looked at the Goddamn Parrot it saw the answer to all its prayers.

It was the scruffiest flying lizard I'd ever seen but it still looked like the answer to a prayer or two of my own. Life would be so much simpler if I got rid of the chicken in the clown suit—as long as I could manage it in some way that wouldn't aggravate the Dead Man or Morley Dotes. Morley had gifted me with the jabbering vulture, accompanied by a strong suggestion that no harm should come to the monster, at my hand or through my negligence.

The pixies lost interest in me the moment the lizard started trying to get into the breezeway. They knew a real threat when they smelled one. A chorus of squeals preceded a general surge of the flock toward the scrofulous flyer.

The Goddamn Parrot dropped back down to my shoulder. He was shaking. For once in his sorry existence he was fresh out of smart-ass remarks.

As I got out of there the pixies proved that they'd been playing with me all along. As I left the breezeway a matron zipped over to ask which cuts interested me. "They's good eatin' on them things, Big'un. The giblets is real tasty when they's grilled."

"You people keep the whole thing. I brought my lunch." I jerked a thumb at my shoulder ornament.

"Ooh... Pretty," one small voiced piped.

Another wanted to know, "Kin we have some of the feathers?"

I sensed a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

Something came over me. My jaw locked up. I couldn't mouth the offer I make almost every day, as many as a dozen times. I wanted to shriek.

I couldn't turn loose of the dodo in the clown suit!

The air seemed to tinkle and sparkle with invisible chuckles.

So! Old Bones wasn't quite as preoccupied elsewhere as he wanted me to think. I should've gotten suspicious when the painted jungle buzzard demonstrated such exceptional manners.

Interesting. The Dead Man hadn't ever before touched me directly this far from the house. Maybe he was distracted. Maybe distracted so much that he couldn't be as careful keeping the full range of his abilities concealed. Or maybe he just liked the Goddamn Parrot too much to let him go.

Wish I had time to experiment.

After our initial divergence of viewpoint the pixies and I went our ways on friendly terms. Meaning they were too busy harvesting everything but the flyer's squeak to waste time tormenting a Big'un. Though a couple of youngsters did follow me, mainly to get out of doing chores.

I headed east, down the alley, afraid my delays might have allowed my quarry to give me the slip. Though if I'd thought I would've realized that my foul-beaked companion would've been barking like the wolf at the end of the world if the Dead Man had suffered a moment's disappointment.

Something buzzed behind my ear. Not the family bird-brain, who was on patrol now, or, more likely, hitting on some nitwitted pigeon. I started to swat the sound, held up just in time. A pixie girl, definitely a little inexperienced, unwittingly drifted forward far enough to be seen from the corner of my eye.

One key to success in my racket is making friends. Lots of friends. In as broad a range of stations, races, and professions as is possible. A pixie ally would be a huge resource.

I started sweet-talking.

No telling what I might have accomplished if Fate hadn't decided to roll my bones.

The pixies let out startled shrieks at the same moment that the Goddamn Parrot barked my name.