by Glen Cook
She didn't look scared. I said, "Might be a good idea to be scared. See, I knew you were coming."
"What?" She was troubled for sure now. She didn't like that at all.
"Just before you showed up, a friend who's in my racket stopped by to warn me you'd be coming." Saying Winger and I are in the same business is stretching a point, maybe. Winger is into anything likely to put money in Winger's purse, preferably fast and easy. "He thought you were coming to buy a hit. That's why he warned me." Catch that clever misdirection. Not even a dead Loghyr often mistakes Winger for male.
"A hit? Me?" She knew the argot. She was off balance but coming back fast.
"He was sure of it." But I wondered. Winger took shortcuts. Big, slow, lovable, goofy, crafty, bigoted, and lazy Winger. She was confident that anybody she couldn't sweeten with reason she could bring around with a good old-fashioned ass-kicking. She was just a big old simple country girl with simple country ways—if you accepted her the way she wanted to be taken.
I was going to have words with Winger about Maggie Jenn. If I could find her. I didn't think that would be tough. The big goof was bound to turn up on her own, soon. Probably before I was ready.
I said, "Then somebody followed me here."
"What? Who? Why?"
"Got me. I only mention it to show you that somebody out there is interested."
Maggie shook her head. It was a fine head. I was starting to lose my focus again. I concentrated on describing the villain who'd followed me.
Maggie smiled wickedly. "Garrett! Don't you ever think about anything else?"
"Lots of times." I thought about starting a little contest in which we would see who could run the fastest.
"Garrett!"
"You started it."
Unlike many women, she did not deny her complicity. "Yeah, but... "
"Put yourself in my place. You're a red-blooded young man who's suddenly alone here with you."
"Flattery will get you everywhere." She chuckled. Ouch! This was getting painful. "You do dish up a ration of shit, don't you?"
I chuckled right back and put myself into my own place, assuming she meant to put herself into her own place and things would proceed to proceed. But after a painful pilgrimage to her side of the table all proceedings proceeded to grind to a halt. Reluctantly—it seemed—she slipped away from me. I muttered, "We can't keep on like this if you want to sell me on looking for your daughter."
"You're right. This is a business arrangement. We can't let nature get in the way."
I was willing to let nature play havoc, but I said, "Durn tootin'. I don't sell that way, anyway. I sell on logic and facts. That's me. Just-the-facts-ma'am Garrett. How about you start giving me some of those instead of using all your energy on those come-hither eyes?"
"Don't be cruel, Garrett. This is as difficult for me as it is for you."
10
So, eventually, we reached the suite belonging to Maggie's daughter Emerald. "Emerald?" I asked. "What happened to Justina?" Emerald. Wouldn't you know? Where are all the lovely Patricias and Bettys?
"I named her Justina. Emerald is what she uses. She picked it, so don't give me that look."
"What look?"
"The one that says you're shitting me. She picked it. She was fourteen. Everyone else went along, so I use Emerald sometimes myself."
"Right. Emerald. She insisted." Of course. That's what became of Patricia and Betty. They started calling themselves Amber and Brandi and Fawn. "But she might be going by Justina. When life gets serious, they fall back on their roots. Anything I need to know about the suite before I start digging?"
"What do you mean?"
"Am I going to find something you think needs excusing ahead of time?"
Wonder of wonders, she understood. "You might. Only I never go in there, so I don't know what it might be. Yet." She gave me a strange look. "Are you looking for a fight?"
"No." Though maybe, unconsciously, I didn't want her hanging over my shoulder. "Back to that name. Might as well go after this by the numbers, find out everything you can tell me before I start looking for things you don't know."
She gave me that look again. I was a bit testy. Had I developed that strong a dislike for work? Or was it because I knew she would lie and distort and whatever else it took to shape reality to her own vision? They all do, even when there's no hope they won't get found out. People. They do make you wonder.
"Justina was after my grandmother."
I understood from her tone. Never was a kid who did not resent hearing how he or she was named after some old fart they never met and couldn't care less about. My mom played that game with me and my brother. I never figured out why it meant anything to her. "Any special reason?"
"The name's been in the family forever. And Granny would have been hurt if... "
The usual. Never made sense to me. You sentence a kid to a lifetime of misery on account of somebody might get his feelings hurt if you don't. Three rousing oriental cheers, say I: foo-ee, foo-ee, foo-ee. Who is going to be upset the longest?
You entered Emerald's suite through a small sitting room. There you found a small writing desk with its chair, in blond wood. There was an oil lamp on the desk. There was one more chair, a storage chest with a cushion on top, and a small set of shelves. The room was squeaky clean and more spartan than it sounds. It did not look promising.
I hate it when they clean for company. "Your daughter ever take a powder before?"
Maggie hesitated. "No."
"Why did you hesitate?"
"Trying to decide. Her father kidnapped her when she was four. Some friends convinced him that a child is better off with her mother."
"Would he try something like that today?"
"Probably not. He's been dead eight years."
"Chances are he wouldn't." As a rule, the dead don't get involved in custody disputes.
"She got a boyfriend?"
"A girl from the Hill?"
"Especially a girl from the Hill. How many does she have?"
"What?"
"Look, believe it or not, it's easier for Hill girls to slip around than it is for downtown girls." I offered examples from my own cases, one of which had featured a bevy of Hill girls working the Tenderloin just for the thrills.
That stunned my Maggie Jenn. She had a blind area, an inability to believe her baby could be anything less than the absolute image of what she desired. It hadn't occurred to her that Emerald was going to break her heart. Plainly, she didn't understand that people sometimes did the wicked stuff for other than survival reasons. Whoring as an amusement was a concept too alien to encompass.
Only the classes in between don't believe in whoring.
"You didn't grow up on the Hill."
"I admit that, Garrett."
I had the suspicion that my pretty Maggie had maybe had to make ends meet to make ends meet during the hiatus between husband and crown prince. I didn't need to know about that, though. Not yet, anyway. Maybe later, if it began to look like the past had some bearing. "Plant yourself on a chair. Talk to me about Emerald while I work."
I prowled.
11
Maggie said, "To my knowledge she has no boyfriends. Our circumstances don't let us meet many people. We aren't socially acceptable. We form a class unto ourselves."
A very classy class it was, though Maggie Jenn and her kid weren't its only members. The sisterhood of mistresses is quite large. At these rarified heights, a man is expected to have a mistress. It demonstrates his manhood. Two is better than one.
"Any friends at all?"
"Not many. Girls she grew up with, maybe. Maybe somebody she studied with. At her time of life, kids are real status conscious. I doubt anybody would let her make any strong connections."
"What's she look like?"
"Me, twenty years less shopworn. And wipe that silly grin off your mug."
"I was thinking how looking for you twenty years younger would have me hunting somebody barely o
ut of diapers."
"And don't forget that. I want my baby found, not—"
"Right. Right. Right. Any special stress between you before she disappeared?"
"What?"
"Did you have a fight? Did she stomp out yelling about how she was never coming back in ten thousand years?"
"No." Maggie chuckled. "I had a few of those with my mother. Probably why she didn't squawk when my father sold me. No. Not Emerald. This kid is different, Garrett. She never cared about anything enough to fight. Really, honestly, swear to whatever god, I wasn't a pushy mother. She was happy just to go along. Far as she was concerned, life is a river and she was driftwood."
"I maybe lost something in all the excitement. Or maybe I've started remembering things that never happened. I could have sworn you were going on about her having fallen in with bad companions."
Maggie chuckled. She snorted. She looked uncomfortable. She did it all fetchingly. I tried to imagine her as she might have been in Teodoric's day. I was awed by the possibilities.
She stopped wriggling. "I fibbed a little. I heard about you having a relationship with the Sisters of Doom and figured you were a sucker for a kid in trouble." The Sisters of Doom is an all-girl street gang. The girls were all abused before they fled to the street.
"It was a relationship with one Sister. Who left the street."
"I'm sorry. I overstepped."
"What?"
"It's obvious I just stomped on some tender feelings."
"Oh. Yeah. Maya was a pretty special kid. I messed up a good thing because I didn't take her serious enough. I lost a friend because I didn't listen."
"Sorry. I was just trying to find a sure hook."
"Did Emerald see anybody regularly?" Business would take me away from memories. Maya was not one of my great loves, but she was pretty special. And both Dean and the Dead Man had approved of her. There had been no separation, she just didn't come around anymore and mutual friends all hinted that she wouldn't unless I grew up a little.
That don't punch your ego up, considering it traced back to a girl just eighteen.
Emerald's writing desk had numerous cubbies and tiny drawers. I searched them as we talked. I didn't find much. Most spaces were empty.
"She does have friends but making friends doesn't come easy."
That wasn't the story as it was told a few minutes ago. I suspected Emerald had troubles that had nothing to do with social status. Chances were she was lost in her mother's shadow. "Friends are where I'll find her trail. I'll need names. I'll need to know where I can find the people who go with them."
She nodded. "Of course." I slammed a drawer, turned away from her. I had to keep my mind on business. The woman was a witch. Then I sneaked a peek. Did I really want to leave all that, to go hunting somebody who probably didn't want to be found?
Ha! Here was something. A silver pendant. "What's this?" Purely rhetorical. I knew what I had. It was an amulet consisting of a silver pentagram on a dark background with a goat's head inside the star. The real question was, what was it doing where I had found it?
Maggie took it, studied it while I watched for a reaction. I didn't see one. She said, "I wonder where that came from?"
"Emerald into the occult?"
"Not that I know of. But you can't know everything about your children."
I grunted, resumed my search. Maggie chattered like the fabled magpie, mostly about her daughter, more in the way of reminiscences than useful facts. I listened with half an ear.
I found nothing else in the desk. I moved to the shelves. The presence of several books brought home how much wealth Maggie stood to lose. Because a book takes forever to copy, it is about the most expensive toy you can give a child.
I grunted as I picked up the third book. It was a small, leather-bound, time-worn thing with a goat's head tooled into its cover. The leather was badly foxed. The pages were barely readable. It was one old book.
My first clue was that it was not written in modern Karentine.
Those damned things never are, are they? Nobody would take them seriously if any schnook could pick one up and decipher the secrets of the ages.
"Check this out." I tossed the book to Maggie. I kept one eye on her as I resumed my search.
"Curiouser and curiouser, Garrett. My baby is full of surprises."
"Yeah." Maybe. That whole visit was full of surprises. Including those tree-sized fingers pointing at witchcraft of the demonic sort.
The bedroom and its attached bath yielded more occult treasures.
Much later I asked, "Is Emerald especially neat?" Neat would not describe any teen I knew.
"Only as much as she has to be. Why?"
I didn't tell her. I had gone into full investigator mode. We crack first-line investigators never answer questions about our questions, especially if those are posed by our employers, lawmen, or anybody else who might help keep us out of the deep stink. Fact was, though, that Emerald's apartment was way too neat. Compulsively so. Or nobody lived there. My impression was of a stage set. I was wondering if it might not be exactly that, carefully primed with clues.
All right, I told me. Get busy deducting. Clues are clues to something even when they're artificial or false.
I was not that sure. What I had was some inconsistent indications of witchcraft—which did little to amaze, dismay, alarm, or otherwise excite my new employer.
Maybe I was going at this from the wrong end.
Tap on the shoulder. "Anybody in there?"
"Huh?"
"You just froze up and went away."
"Happens when I try to think and do something at the same time."
She did her eyebrow trick. I distracted her by flashing her back. I told her, "I've got enough to start. You give me that list of names. As soon as we settle the finances."
We had no problems there till I insisted on half my fee up front. "It's an inflexible rule, Maggie. On account of human fallibility. Too many people get tempted to stiff me once they've gotten what they want." But that was not the only reason I pressed.
The less a client argues the deeper his desperation.
My pretty Maggie Jenn argued way too long. Finally, she huffed, "I'll have Mugwump bring you that list as soon as I can."
I was thrilled. I really wanted to see Mugwump again. Maybe I could tip him a talking parrot.
12
I stood in the shadows down the street from Maggie's, just staying out of sight while I thought.
Like most folks, I don't get any kick out of being played for a patsy. But people do try. It's an occupational hazard. I'm used to it. I expect it. But I don't like it.
Something was going on. I was being used. None too subtly, either. Unless Maggie my sweet was a lot less worldly than I suspected, I didn't see how she could think I would buy everything.
I'd sure enjoyed the job interview, though. As far as it had gone.
The thing to do now was what she had said she didn't want me to do: investigate Maggie Jenn. For my own safety. In my line, what you don't know can get you killed as fast as what you do know. Once I could guess where I really stood, maybe I'd do something about Emerald.
I glanced at the sky. It was dark but still early. I could touch some contacts, take a few steps along the path to enlightenment. Right after I dropped Maggie's retainer off at home. Only a fool carries a load like that longer than he must. TunFaire teems with villains who can count the change in your pocket at a hundred yards.
I could imagine no explanation of recent events more convincing than what Maggie purported. Nevertheless, there was Winger. I shook my head. The cobwebs did not go away. They never do. All part of the service. All part of my naive charm.
I looked for my tail. No sign. Maybe he got tired and went home. Maybe the Hill's security thugs whispered sweet nothings in his ear, like, "Get lost pronto or you'll crawl home with two broken legs." Or maybe his job had been done once he'd found out where I was going.
I shoved off. All that thi
nking was giving me shin splints of the brain.
Good thing I exercise. I had oomph enough to vacate the area steps ahead of an unpleasant interview with the goon squad, who did not seem to care if I had legitimate business on the Hill. They had been summoned by Ichabod, no doubt, in a vain hope that my attitude could be improved.
I zigged and zagged and backtracked and used all my tricks. I didn't spot a tail so I went home, got rid of Maggie's retainer, drew myself a long draught, then sat down for a cold beer and a chat with Eleanor, who seemed concerned about the state of my soul.
"Yeah," I confessed, "I'm getting more flexible when it comes to taking money." I spoke in a whisper. I did not want to waken the Goddamn Parrot. I'd even tiptoed in and filled his seed tray.
If I remembered to feed him more often, he might have a higher opinion of me. Maybe.
"So what? If they're villains, they deserve to be done out of their money." She had taught me that money has no provenance. "If they aren't villains, I'll see that they get their money's worth."
More or less. Sometimes I don't exactly deliver what the client has in mind. One such case resulted in Eleanor coming to live with me.
It had taken me a while to outgrow the notion that taking a man's money meant having to go for the results he wanted. I must be getting old and judgmental. These days, I try to give people what they deserve instead.
Which yields mixed results for sure. Even so, I get more offers than I want. But a lot of fat jobs go elsewhere because some folks have decided to avoid me. Most especially the kind who rob people with paper instead of a blade. Lawyers and slicks. I have embarrassed my share of those.
Actually, I mostly avoid working. I don't think anybody ought to work more than it takes to get by. Sure, I wish I could afford my own harem and fifty-room palace, but if I worked hard enough to get the money, I'd have to work as hard to keep it. I wouldn't get a chance to enjoy it.
After a few beers, I developed a whole new attitude. I told Eleanor, "Think I'll go down to the Joy House, hang out with the guys."
She smirked.