From Harvester Temisk’s digs I ambled over to The Palms, an upscale eatery and club operated by the dark elf Morley Dotes. My number one good buddy. I approached warily. There might be trouble with Belinda’s troops if they were setting up already.

“Holy shit! Will ya look at dis? It ain’t even been a week an‘ here it comes agin!”

It’s remotely possible that not all of Morley’s associates welcome me all the time. “I was passing by. Thought I’d drop in and see how you’re all doing. How’re you doing, Sarge?”

Sarge is fat and balding and tattooed and nastier than a bushel of scorpions when he’s in a good mood. He didn’t seem particularly cheerful today.

Another one enough like Sarge to be his ugly big brother, with extra scorpions, shuffled out of the kitchen. “Hey, Puddle. How’s it going, man?”

Puddle brandished a commercial-weight rolling pin.

This didn’t look encouraging.

Morley emerged behind Puddle. Amazing. Dotes seldom has much to do with the daily grind of his place. “What do you want, Garrett?”

“Damn, Morley. Get a sense of humor. I know a guy on the Landing…”

“What do you want, Garrett?”

“Right now I’d like to know why it’s hilarious when you stick me with a foul-beaked fowl like the Goddamn Parrot, but it’s haul out the meat cleavers when I get you back with a nympho nymph.“

Two more staffers materialized. Lugging industrial-grade butcher’s equipment. In a vegetarian establishment. “Them new-generation eggplants must be fierce.” Everybody seemed intensely interested in managing a wily envelopment of their good buddy Garrett.

Not promising at all.

Dotes made a slight gesture. “One more chance, Garrett.”

“I wanted to check on how things are coming, setting up for tonight. And to say hi.”

“And why are you interested?”

“Because I have to be here, cabbage breath boy. I can’t weasel out. And I don’t feel good about the setup.”

Morley glared at me. Slim and dark, handsome and always impeccably bedecked in the latest fashion, he radiates a sensuality that sets them swooning even when he strolls through a nun shop.

“You got smudge under your nose.” He’d begun sporting a thin little mustache.

Morley didn’t grin. “Sit down, Garrett.”

I picked a chair. The one closest to the door.

Morley sat across from me. He stared. Eventually, he said, “Word’s out that you’re on Belinda’s payroll now.”

“That’s a crock. Who said that?”

“Belinda. Last time she was here messing the arrangements around.”

“It ain’t true. You know me better. I wouldn’t work for her even if I needed work. And I don’t. I’ve got me a nice little piece of the hottest manufactory in TunFaire. You’re just trolling for an excuse to get your bile up.”

“She was convincing.” Dotes studied me some more. Something big was bothering him and all his boys. Nobody wanted Mama Garrett’s favorite boy for a friend.

“Spit it out, Morley. What’s going on?”

“This party is bound to go bad. And here you come, supposedly Belinda’s full-time top stud, ambling in ten minutes after your honey sends word the party won’t happen here after all. The Palms will just cater. The party will happen in Whitefield Hall. Because my place isn’t big enough. Too many people in the life want to pay their respects to the kingpin.”

“I don’t know anything about any Whitefield Hall. Is that the Veterans’ Memorial hall that commemorates the War of Coady Byrne’s Broken Tooth?”

Karenta had a lot of little wars over a lot of little provocations in Imperial times. Then we changed up, became a kingdom, and jumped into one big war that lasted over a hundred years. The one I was in. Along with every human male I know, including my brother and father and grandfather, and Grandpa’s father and grandfather and all their brothers and cousins and bastard kids.

The killing is over now. So far, the peace has been worse than the war.

“I don’t know anything about your wars,” Dotes replied. Being half dark elf, he enjoys treaty exemption from some human laws. Like the one establishing conscription. And he doesn’t give a feather about history. He doesn’t care about last week-unless last week might sneak up and whack him on the back of the head. “But it is some kind of soldiers’ memorial.”

Morley is shallow. Morley is pretty. Morley is the nightmare that wakes fathers screaming in the night. He’s the daydream their daughters take to bed, fantasizing. He’s the bad boy the girls all want, thinking they can tame him, before they settle for some dullard who’ll just work for a living and treat them like they’re people.

I’m so jealous.

“I can’t picture it. What’s special about it? Why would she move there?”

“I told you. Because she can get more people in. Because it isn’t operated by people she doesn’t trust.”

“Belinda doesn’t trust you?”

“Are you that naive? Of course she doesn’t. Not to be what she wants me to be.”

“What would that be?”

“Her tool, fool.”

“Don’t start with the vegetarian poetry. It don’t make sense on a day when the sun is shining.”

Dotes shook his pretty head. He didn’t want to play. “Belinda wouldn’t trust me if I swore ten thousand ironbound oaths. That’s part of her insanity. She can’t trust anybody. Except you. Probably for the same sick reason Chodo trusted you. From where I sit, that would be because you’re too damned dim to be anything but honest.”

Morley’s morals and ethics are situation dependent. Which doesn’t stop him being a nice guy. Most of the time. When it’s convenient.

“Your expression of confidence warms the cockles of my heart, Mr. Dotes.”

“What does that mean? I’ve always wondered. What are cockles?”

“Seafood? I don’t know. But it sounds good.”

“I’m tempted to change my mind again.”

Even so, looking sour, Sarge, Puddle, and the rest went back to work.

“This will be the event of the decade for the Outfit.”

“Isn’t that special?”

“You know Harvester Temisk?”

“Chodo’s legal beagle? I’d recognize him if I tripped over him. That’s it.”

“He’s still Chodo’s mouthpiece. Know anything about him?”

“He played straight. For a lawyer. He was Chodo’s friend since they were kids. Why?”

Sometimes the best way to handle Morley is to tell the truth. Or something approximating truth, truth being so precious you don’t just give it away. Something close enough to get him to do what you want, that’s the thing. “He came at me when we were putting the three-wheel company together.”

“Where they give you extra profit points to stay away. I’ve heard about what a pain in the ass you are with your moralizing and ethics jabber.”

I refused the bait. “I’ve got a case.”

Morley loves to argue. It makes him the center of attention.

“Come tell me all about it when you’re done, Garrett.”

“You got any idea what she plans to pull tonight?”

“No. But I’ll be very careful. Very alert. Very stay in the kitchen. You might do the same. If you really must attend.”

“Oh, I must. I must. Maybe I’ll wear my iron underwear. You ever hear of Chodo doing anything with sorcery?”

“No. He didn’t like it. Though he’d hire a hedge wizard sometimes. That’s all. He resented wizards for having more direct power than he did.”

“I mean himself. Personally.”

“His gifts ran to murder, mayhem, and management. As a wizard he had all the talent of a tombstone.”

“That’s what I thought.” Admitting what I was thinking. Twice. Being right up-front with my pal.

“What have you got going?”

“Temisk says strange things keep happening since Chodo’s accident. I want to get a handle.”

“That your case?”

“That’s not what it’s about. It’s just something I need to understand.”

“Is Temisk working you by claiming you owe Chodo?”

“Some. I need to work that out, too.”