by Glen Cook
“Not yet. Not completely. A few of us are trying to fight a rearguard action by doing a good deed here and there.”
He gave me one of his rare sincere smiles and headed for the kitchen. Maya would eat better than Jill and I if she bothered to show.
Dean approved of my efforts. He just wanted to remind me that my most likely reward would be a broken head and a broken heart.
I wasn’t going to get into heaven or hell letting Crask’s present lie there. I broke the kingpin’s wax seal.
Someone had wrapped two pieces of card stock tied together with string. I cut the string. Inside I found a tuft of colorless hair and four coins. The coins were glued to one card. One coin was gold, one was copper, and two were silver. They were of identical size, about half an inch in diameter, and looked alike except for the metal. Three were shiny new. One of the silver pieces was so worn its designs were barely perceptible. All four were temple coinage.
Old style characters, a language not Karentine, a date not Royal, apparent religious symbology, lack of the King’s bust on the obverse, were all giveaways. Crown coinage always shows the King and brags on him. Commercial coinage shouts the wonders of the coiner’s goods or services.
Karentine law lets anyone coin money. Every other kingdom makes minting a state monopoly because seigniorage — the difference between the intrinsic metal value of a coin and its monetary value — is a profit that accrues to the state. The Karentine Crown, though, gets its cuts. It requires private minters to buy their planchets, or blanks, from the Royal Mint, costs payable in fine metal of a weight equal to that of the alloy planchets. There’s more state profit in not having to make dies and pay workmen to do the striking.
The system works most of the time and when it doesn’t, people get roasted alive, even if they’re Princes of the Church or officials of the Mint who are cousins of the King. The foundation of Karentine prosperity is the reliability of Karenta’s coinage. Karenta is corrupt to the bone but will permit no tampering with the instrument of corruption.
I gave the gold piece the most attention. I’d never seen private gold. It was too expensive just to puff an organizational ego.
I picked up the top piece of card stock and read the terse note, “See the man,” followed by a fish symbol, a bear symbol, and a street name that constituted an address. Few people can read so they figure out where they are by reference to commonly understood symbols.
Crask wanted me to see somebody. This provocative little package was supposed to provide useful hints.
If Crask was dishing out hints, that meant Chodo Contague was serving up suggestions. Crask didn’t take a deep breath without Chodo telling him. I decided to check it out. There was no point getting Chodo miffed.
The address would be way up north. Of course. I needed a long hike.
I didn’t have anything going until Jill arrived. And I’d been telling myself I needed exercise.
North End, eh?
I went upstairs and rummaged through my tool locker, selected brass knucks, a couple of knives, and my favorite eighteen-inch, lead-weighted head-knocker. I tucked everything out of sight, then went down and told Dean I’d be out for a few hours.
12
Most of us are in worse physical shape than we like to think, let alone admit. I’m used to that being more the other guy’s problem than mine. But by the time I covered the six miles to the North End, I felt it in my calves and the fronts of my thighs. This was the body that had carried me through weeks of full-pack marches when I was a Marine?
It wasn’t. This body was older and it had been beaten up and banged around more than its share since.
The neighborhood was elfin and elfin-breed, which means it was tidy and orderly in an obsessive fashion. This was a neighborhood where elfish wives whitened stonework with acids and reddened brickwork with dyes once a week. When it rained the gutters ran with color. Here the men tended trees as though they were minor deities and trimmed their tiny patches of lawn with scissors, one blade of grass at a time. You had to wonder if their private lives were as ordered and passionless and sterile.
How had this environment, with its rigid rectitude, produced Snowball and the Vampires?
I turned into Black Cross Lane, a narrow two-blocker in the shadow of Reservoir Hill. I looked for the fish and bear and stray Vampires.
It was quiet. Way too quiet. Elfish women should have been out sweeping the streets or walks or doing something to stave off the entropy devouring the rest of the city. Worse, the silence smelled like an old one, in place because something unimaginably awful had happened and the street remained paralyzed by shock. My advent had not caused it. Even in this neighborhood there would have been folks getting out of the way if I was headed into an ambush.
I have such comforting thoughts.
I found the place, a four-story gray tenement in fine repair. The front door stood open. I went up the stoop. The silence within was deeper than that which haunted the street.
This was the heart of it, the headwater from which the treacle of dread flowed.
What was I supposed to do?
Do what I do, I guessed. Snoop.
I stepped inside figuring I’d work my way to the top floor. I didn’t need to. The first apartment door stood open a crack. I knocked. Nobody answered but I heard a thud inside. I gave the door a push. “Yo! Anybody home?”
Frantic thumping sounded from another room. I proceeded with extreme caution. Others had been there before me. The room had been stripped by locusts.
There was a smell in the air, faint yet, but one you never mistake. I knew what I’d find in the next room. It was worse than I thought it could be. There were five of them, expertly tied into wooden chairs. One had tipped himself over. He was doing the thumping, trying to attract attention. The others would attract nothing but flies ever again.
Someone had placed a loop of copper wire, attached to a stick, around each of their necks, then had twisted the loops tight. The killers had taken their time.
I recognized everybody — Snowball, Doc, the other two who had tried to whack me. The live one was the kid who had stood lookout. They were efficient that way, Crask and Sadler.
It was a little gift for Garrett from Chodo Contague, an interest installment on his debt. The wig, against the day I called in the nut.
What do you think at a moment like that, surrounded by people snuffed as casually as you would stomp a roach, without anger, malice, or remorse? It’s scary because it’s death without fire behind it, as impersonal as accidental drowning. Squish! Game’s over.
The wire loop is Sadler’s signature.
I could see Slade giving Sadler the message Morley had written. I could see Sadler telling Chodo. I could see Chodo getting so worked up he might adjust the blanket covering his lap. “So take care of it,” Chodo might say, like he’d say, “Throw out that fish that’s starting to smell.” And Sadler would take care of it. And Crask would bring me a few coins and a lock of a dead man’s hair.
That was death in the big city.
Did Doc and Snowball and the others have anyone to mourn them?
I was getting nowhere standing around feeling sorry for guys who’d had it coming. Crask wouldn’t have made a trip across town if he hadn’t thought I’d find something interesting here.
I guessed I’d get it from the one they’d left alive.
I sat him up facing the wall. I hadn’t let him see me yet. I walked around and leaned against the wall, looked him in the eye.
He remembered me.
I said, “Been your lucky day so far, hasn’t it?” He’d survived Crask and Sadler and those opportunists who had taken everything that wasn’t nailed down. I waited until his eyes told me he knew his luck had run out. Then I abandoned him.
I scrounged around until I found a water jug in a second-floor apartment. The locusts hadn’t gone that high, fearing they’d get cut off. I checked the street before going back to my man. It was still quiet out there.
I showed the chuko the jug. “Water. Thought you might be dry.”
He wasted a little moisture on tears.
I cut his gag off, gave him a sip, then backed off to prop up the wall. “I think you have things to tell me. Tell me right, tell me straight, tell me everything, maybe I’ll let you go. They make sure you heard everything during the interviews?” Clever euphemism, Garrett.
He nodded. He was about as terrified as he could get.
“Start at the beginning.”
His idea of the beginning antedated mine. He started with Snowball taking over the building by dumping his human mother in the street. She had inherited it from his father, whose family had owned it since the first elfish migrated to TunFaire. The entire neighborhood had been elfish for generations, which was why it was in such good shape.
“I’m more interested in the part of history where the Vampires got interested in me.”
“Can I have another drink?”
“As soon as you’ve earned it.”
He sighed. “A man came yesterday morning. A priest. Said his name was Brother Jerce. He wanted Snow to do some work. He was a front guy, like, you know? He wouldn’t say who sent him. But he brought enough money so Snow’s eyes bugged and he said the Vampires would do whatever he wanted. Even when Doc tried to talk him out of it. He never went against Doc’s advice before. And look what that got him.”
“Yeah, look.” I knew what it got him. I wanted to know what he did to get it.
The priest wanted the Vampires to keep tabs on me and a priest called Magister Peridont. If Peridont came to see me, the Vampires were supposed to make me disappear. Permanently. For which they would get a fat bonus.
Snowball took it because it made him feel big-time. He didn’t care that much about the money. He wanted to be more than a prince of the streets.
“Doc kept trying to tell him that takes time. That you can’t go making a name without the big organization noticing you. But Snow wouldn’t back down even after word hit the streets that the kingpin was saying lay off a guy named Garrett. He was so crazy he wasn’t scared of nothing. Hell. None of us was scared enough.”
He had that right. They were too young. You have to put a little age on before you really understand when to be afraid. I gave him a small drink. “Better? Good. Tell me about the priest. Brother Jerce. What religion was he?”
“I don’t know. He didn’t say. And you know how priests are. They all dress the same in those brown things.”
He had that right, too. You had to get close and know what to look for to tell Orthodox from Church from Redemptionist from several dozen so-called heretical splinter cults. Not to mention that Brother Jerce’s whole show could have been cover.
I asked myself if any man could have been dumb enough — or confident enough — to have given these punks his right name and have paid them in the private coin of his own temple. Maybe it was just my dim opinion of priests, but I decided it was possible. Especially if Brother Jerce was new to all this. After all, how often does a job get botched up as thoroughly as the Vampires had done? I should have been dead and nobody the wiser.
I asked many more questions. I didn’t get anything useful until I took out the coins Crask brought me. “Was all the payoff money like this?”
“The money I seen was. Temple stuff. Even gold. But Snow didn’t make a show. I bet he lied about how much he got paid.”
No doubt. I hit him with the big question. “Why did this priest want me hit?”
“I don’t know, man.”
“Nobody asked?”
“Nobody cared. What difference did it make?”
Apparently no difference if smoking somebody is just business. “I guess that’s it, then, kid.” I took out a knife.
“No, man! Don’t! I gave it to you straight! Come on!”
He thought I was going to kill him.
Morley would say he had the right idea. Morley would tell me the guy would haunt me if I didn’t, and that damned Morley is right more often than not. But you have to do what you think is right.
I wondered if surviving this mess would scare the kid off the road to hell. Probably not. The type can’t see danger until it’s gnawing their legs.
I moved toward him. He started crying. I swear, if he’d called for his mother … I cut the cord holding his right arm and walked out. It would be up to him whether he got loose or stayed and died.
I stepped out into another gorgeous evening.
I marveled at my surroundings. Once I got out of Black Cross Lane I saw elfish women sweeping and washing their stoops and walks and the streets in front of their buildings. I saw their men folk manicuring greenery. It was the evening ritual.
The elfish do have their dark underside. They have little tolerance for breed offspring. Poor kids.
13
It was thoroughly dark before I got home. I spotted several shooting stars, supposed by some diviners to be good omens and by others the opposite. One gaudy show-off broke up into lesser streaks.
Dean let me in. “Damn, that smells good,” I said.
“It will be,” he promised. He smiled. “I’ll bring you a beer. Did you learn anything useful?’’
“I don’t know.” What was this? He wasn’t himself. “What are you up to?”
He gave me his kicked-puppy look. I think he practices it. “Nothing.”
“What happened while I was gone?”
“Nothing. Except Maya came. In fact, she just left. When you knocked.”
I grunted. She had obviously been working on Dean. “You’d better count the silver.”
“Mr. Garrett!”
“Right. Any sign of Miss Craight?” Walking home I’d decided she wouldn’t show. What was in it for her? I was pretty sure she was a gal who didn’t take a deep breath without calculating her return on investment. Such a shame; all that beauty wasted.
“Not yet. She did say it would be a late dinner.”
How late was late? “I’m going to freshen up.” I went upstairs. A wash would help clean the body, but it couldn’t do anything for the stains on my soul.
Jill was there when I came back down. She had charmed old Dean again. He was letting her set the table. Unprecedented.
They were gossiping like old friends.
I said, “I hope that’s not me you’re ripping.”
Jill turned.” Hi, Garrett. Nope. You aren’t that lucky.” She smiled. There wasn’t any more heat in it than in a forest fire. “Had a good day?”
“The best. Business was marvelous. And I talked to my friend. He apologized for the trouble he’d caused me. He hadn’t expected it. He’s taken care of it. I won’t be bothered again.”
“That’s nice.” I checked her over. I tried not to be too obvious. She could set dead men panting. Her fear had gone. “I’m glad for you. But poor Saucerhead will be brokenhearted.”
Dean gave me a disappointed scowl. Couldn’t I get my mind off that for five minutes?
Are you kidding? I’m not dead yet. But I took his hint. It wouldn’t be worth the trouble, anyway, just to get turned down. Sour grapes.
She got along with him better than she did with me. For us it was one of those things where nobody could think of anything to say.
Garrett tongue-tied around a gorgeous blonde? That did wonders for my self-esteem. But Dean’s ducks were so good they made up for the lack of crisp repartee.
The main trouble was that Jill Craight wasn’t about to tell me anything about Jill Craight. Not about her now, not about her then. She was slick, changing the subject or just sliding away from it so smoothly I didn’t realize what she was doing until she’d done it several times.
Giving up on her left me only one area of expertise where I could talk extensively: Garrett. And a little bit of Garrett goes a long way.
I guess the high point was the wine she’d brought. It was an import. It was almost good.
To me wine is just so much spoiled fruit juice. It all tastes the same, with rare e
xceptions. This was the rarest. It was as good as the famous TunFaire Gold, which meant I drank most of my gobletful without sneaking off to wash the taste out of my mouth with a slug of beer. The ice maiden was on holiday, but this thing wasn’t going anywhere. I figured as soon as dessert was over we ought to put it out of its misery.
Jill was more a lady than I thought. She got us through the difficulties. We helped Dean clear the dead soldiers, then I walked her home.
We’d gone less than a block when I missed something you can’t miss if he’s in the neighborhood. “What’s happened to Saucerhead?” It wasn’t like him to wander off.
“I let him go. I don’t need him now. My friend straightened things out.”
“I see.” Especially why she was willing to let me walk her home.
I didn’t say much after that. I watched for shooting stars but the gods had closed the show. We said good night outside her apartment building, a refurbished tenement. Jill did not ask me in for a nightcap and I made no attempt to fish an invite. She gave me a sisterly peck on the cheek. “Thanks, Garrett.” She marched inside. She never looked back.
I considered the newly risen moon with misdirected animosity. I muttered, “Sometimes you have nothing at all in common.” Not even a language where the words mean the same things.
I turned toward home and almost fell over Maya.
14
She’d come out of nowhere. I hadn’t heard a sound. She laughed.
“What were you doing with that woman, Garrett?” She sounded like Tinnie asking the same question. What was this?
“We had dinner. You object?”
“I might. You never took me to dinner.”
I grinned. “I didn’t take her, either. She came to the house.” I’d call her bluff. “You want me to take you someplace classy? The Iron Liar? You got it. But get yourself a bath, comb your hair, put on something a little more formal.” I chuckled. I could just picture the Liar if Maya walked in. They’d scatter like roaches in sudden light.
“You’re making fun of me.”