It seemed colder outside. Because it’s always hot inside the brewery. From the fires used to boil water and warm the fermenting vats.

The steps up to the Weider mansion door had received only a half-hearted cleaning since the last snow. I understood. We’d all had enough of that.

I knocked.

The man who answered was new. And a disaster on the hoof. If there was a race that could mix with the human, his ancestors had mixed it up. There had to be a half dozen kinds of human in the blend, too.

He would be five feet tall on his tippy-toes on his best day. His head was huge for his height and almost perfectly round. With a couple saucers smashed onto the sides where his ears belonged. The only hair on him was a huge, drooping black mustache. Its twisted ends hung four inches below his nonexistent chin. His eyes were slits stuffed with chips of coal. His mouth was a lipless gash under a nose fit for an elfin princess. He didn’t look worried about her showing up to claim it.

His body was another globe. His stubby arms sort of stuck out at his sides. How the hell did he dress himself?

He didn’t speak, just stared at me. Filling the doorway. Immovably.

‘‘Name’s Garrett. The boss wants to see me.’’

One bald eyebrow twitched.

‘‘Alyx came by my place. Said the Old Man wanted me to come by.’’

The other naked eyebrow shivered.

‘‘Be that way. I didn’t feel like working today, anyhow.’’

I could go down to the river, see what it looked like frozen over. It wasn’t far past the brewery. I could watch the ice sledges bring the harvest home.

The living art form of ugly did nothing to help me out. He just stood there.

I turned away.

‘‘Hang on, Garrett.’’ Manvil Gilbey, Max’s sidekick, materialized behind the short and wide. ‘‘Come on in. Don’t mind Hector. It’s his job to keep the riffraff out.’’