Dean scurried away. Yet more proof. He didn’t want to be questioned.

I started reading.

Harvester Temisk reminded me that I’d promised to visit him once I wrapped the case I was working last time we met. I never got back to him. “Dean!”

“I’m cooking as fast as I can.”

“I can’t find my notes about Chodo’s birthday party: When did I say it was supposed to be?”

“It’s tonight. At The Palms. Miss Contague reserved the whole club. How could you forget?”

“Maybe I didn’t want to remember.” You don’t want to socialize with the Contagues. Well… Belinda… when she isn’t totally psychotic…

Belinda Contague is the perfect beautiful woman without mercy. The grim, unforgiving world of organized crime quickly grew deadlier after her advent. Only a few people know she’s the true brains of the Outfit. The fact that her father is comatose is a closely held secret. Maybe five people know. One of those is Chodo.

I worry about being one of the other four. I have no trouble seeing the logic of reducing four to a more manageable three. Or even two.

The Outfit may collapse into civil war when the underbosses find out that their orders come from a woman. Though Belinda has worked hard to restructure the organization, advancing people she finds more congenial.

I didn’t want to attend Chodo’s party. Too many people connect me with the Contagues already. My being there would only convince the secret police that I’m more significant than I am.

Beyond the accusatory note, the packet contained documents signed by Chodo. Before the incident that resulted in his coma, presumably. Maybe Chodo saw it coming.

Harvester Temisk held the opinion that his employer conspired against the future as a matter of course. He had given Temisk a power of attorney, picked some fool named Garrett to handle his mouthpiece’s legwork.

All through his dark career Chodo had guessed right. He’d been in the right place at the right time. The exception-perhaps-having been that one time when it had become possible for his daughter to live a nightmare, keeping the man she hated most where she could torment him daily.

The Contagues aren’t your ideal, warm and loving, fuzzy family. They never were. Chodo murdered Belinda’s mother when he found out she was cheating on him. Belinda is still working on forgiving him. She hasn’t had much luck.

Dean arrived with breakfast.

Temisk didn’t say what he wanted me to do. Mostly, he was worried about whether or not I would keep my word.

I thought and ate and couldn’t conjure one workable way to weasel out of the obligation.

I owed Chodo. Multiple ways. He’d helped me frequently, without being asked. He’d known me well enough to understand that I’d trudge through life oppressed by the imbalance.

As well as always being in the right place at the right time, Chodo understood what made people work. Except Belinda. The mad daughter was his blind spot. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be in a wheelchair drooling on himself.

Dean brought more tea. “Do we have a new case?”

He was up to something for sure.

“No. I’m about to pay the vig on an old debt.”

He grunted, underwhelmed.

Pular Singe wandered in later. She didn’t fit well, on account of her tail. She lugged a big, steaming bowl of stewed apples. “Want some?” She was addicted to stewed apples, a food you don’t usually associate with rats.

“No, thank you.”

TunFaire is infested with rats, including two species of the regular vermin and several kinds of ratpeople. Ratpeople are intelligent, smaller than human critters, with ancestors who came to life in the laboratories of mad sorcerers early last century. As ratpeople go, Singe is a genius. The smartest I’ve ever met, the bravest, and the best tracker ever.

“What’ll you do after you’ve gobbled this year’s whole apple crop?”

She eyed me speculatively, sorting potential meanings. Ratpeople have no natural sense of humor. Singe does have one, but it’s learned and can take a bizarre turn.

She knows that when I ask a question with no obvious connection to daily reality, I’m usually teasing. She even manages the occasional comeback.

This wasn’t one of those times. “Is there a new case?” She hissed, dealing with her sibilants. Those old-time sorcerers hadn’t done much to make it easy for rats to talk.

“Nothing I’m going to get paid for.” I told her about Chodo Contague and my old days.

Singe got hold of her tail, wrapped it around her, and hunkered into a squat. We have only one chair that suits the way she’s built. That’s in the Dead Man’s room. Her usual dress is drab, durable work clothing tailored to her odd dimensions.

Though they walk on their hind legs like people, ratfolk have short legs and long bodies. Not to mention funny arms. And tails that drag.

“So you blame yourself for what happened to that man.”

Clever rodent.

“Even though it was unavoidable.”

Time to change the subject. “Got any idea what Dean is up to?”

Singe still isn’t used to how human thought zigs and zags. Her genius is relative. She’s a phenom for a rat. As a human she’d be on the slow side of average-though that fades as she gets a better handle on how things work.

“I did not notice anything unusual. Except the bucket of kittens under the stove.” Her nose wrinkled. Her whiskers wiggled. No cat smaller than a saber-tooth was likely to trouble her, but she had the instincts of her ancestors.

“I knew it. Kittens, eh? He hasn’t tried that for awhile.”

“Don’t be angry. His heart is in the right place.”

“His heart may be. But he does this stuff at my expense.”

“You can afford it.”

“I could if I didn’t waste wages on a do-nothing housekeeper.”

“Do not yell at him.”

That would take half the fun out of having Dean around. “I won’t yell. I’ll just get him a pail of water. Or maybe a gunnysack with a brick in it.”

“You are awful.” Then she observed, “You have a lot to do if you are going to be ready for the birthday party.”

True. Besides the business of getting cleaned up and dressed up, I needed to visit Harvester Temisk.

“I just had a great idea. I can take those baby cats along tonight and give them away as party favors.”

“You are so bad. Go see them before you decide their fates.”

“Cute don’t work on me.”

“Unless it comes in girl form.”

“You got me there.”

“Come see the kittens. Before Dean finds a better place to hide them.” She rose, collected her empty bowl and my tray. We were getting domestic.

“How do you hide a bucket of kittens? They’d be everywhere.”

“These are well-behaved kittens.”

That sounded like an oxymoron. “I’ll just look in on the old bone bag, then be right with you.”

One weak candle burned in the Dead Man’s room. As always. It’s not there to provide illumination. It gives off smoke that most bugs find repugnant.

Old Bones has been dead a long time. But his species, the Loghyr, get in no hurry to leave their flesh. When they’re awake they do a fair job of discouraging vermin. But my partner has a tendency toward sloth, as well as championship procrastination. He’s getting raggedy.

The candles work pretty good on people, too. They don’t smell much sweeter than the northernmost extremity of a southbound polecat.

I try to keep the Dead Man’s door closed. But kids keep wandering in. They never leave anything the way they find it.

I entered the kitchen saying, “His Nibs is really asleep. I dumped my trick bag. Nothing worked.”

Dean looked worried. Singe sort of collapsed in on herself.

“It ain’t a big deal. He’s taking a nap. We always get through his off-seasons.” Dean didn’t want to be reminded, though. I never do things the way he wants them done.