by Frank Tuttle
Which meant, perhaps, it was a gift. And, if so, then it wasn’t the gift that Martha despised. No, it must be the gift giver. Why else would she hide such a thing away?
I trundled on. There wasn’t any traffic on Cambrit, though I could hear drunken shouts and the sound of hammering nearby. I passed Momma Hog’s, but no light showed in her window or under her door, so I trudged on. I doubted that her cards could tell me anything I didn’t already know, or the Hoobins wouldn’t have needed me at all.
I reached my door, fumbled with the key, managed to get inside before being taken by halfdead or fined by the Watch. Three-leg Cat sat atop my desk, preening his wicked right foreleg and generally making it plain he hadn’t been waiting for me, no not at all, but as long as I was taking up space I might as well fix him a snack before he went out carousing.
I lit a lamp, went past my office and lit another lamp in my room. I keep a tin of jerky back there. I hate the stuff-it reminds me of the Army-but Cat likes it well enough.
“Here you go,” I said, tossing him a piece. “Now beat it, you Curfew-breaking scofflaw.”
He scooted. I pulled off my shoes, undressed and called it a night.
I didn’t sleep immediately, though. Something Ethel said bothered me. “She lives at the sufferance of those who know neither mercy nor shame.”
Neither mercy nor shame. Hell, that’s half of Rannit. On a good day. And maybe Ethel was merely putting too much stock in a talent he admitted only Hoobin women could truly use.
But maybe not, whispered the night. You can’t lie in the dark and be rational. No, late in the night, the goblins come out. “What if,” they chant. “What if Ethel did get a glimpse of something, out there in the shadows?”
Neither mercy nor shame, came the words.
I thought about all Martha’s things, lined up like little soldiers, waiting for her return. I thought about a tattered stuffed bear, a pillow put carefully under its sad little head. I wondered where Martha was, who kept her there, why they knew neither mercy nor shame.
Some nights sleep is a long time coming.
Morning came, all rattling wagon-wheels and yelling drovers and sunlight and bustle. I grumbled and stumbled and cut myself shaving.
I’d barely shambled out to the office when Mama Hog’s short shadow fell over my door. She knocked, once, and then tried the latch.
“You in there, boy?” she shouted.
I made it to the door, unlocked it, stepped aside when Mama came trundling past.
“Where was you last night? I waited for an hour after Curfew.”
Mama carried a basket. I smelled biscuits and ham and hot coffee, and came to my senses before I made any smart remarks about the Regent’s three daughters and a room at the Velvet.
“I was working,” I said, motioning Mama to my client’s chair. “Your friends, the Hoobins, found me.”
Mama sat, plopped her basket down, began to unload it.
“Figured you was.” She paused long enough to look up at me and grin. “Ain’t them Hoobins a humorous lot?”
“That Ethel keeps me in stitches,” I said, grabbing a biscuit. “Now why don’t you tell me what you know.”
There was a biscuit halfway to Mama’s gap-toothed mouth. She looked at me, shook her head and put her biscuit down.
“I don’t know nothing,” she said, and she sounded ashamed. “Can’t tell you a thing. Don’t know what done happened to that poor little girl.”
I nearly choked. “What?” I spat. “Not a single cryptic hint? No veiled allusions to fate or destiny?” I wiped my chin. “Mama, do you need a doctor or a new deck of cards?”
Mama shook her head, sank a little lower in my chair.
“Hey. I was joking.”
“I know you was.” She peered back up at me, her tiny black eyes pinpricks behind that mane of wild grey hair. “But the truth is, boy, that I can’t see nothing. Don’t know nothing. I don’t even know if Martha Hoobin is alive or dead. I ain’t never been so blind about anything, boy. Not ever in my whole long life.”
“You’re serious.”
“Aye,” she replied. She took in a breath, made herself sit up, brushed her hair back away from her face. “Damned if I ain’t.”
“If you can’t see Martha what makes you think I can?”
“Maybe I ain’t lookin’ with the right pair of eyes. Maybe you and your findin’ can go where me and my Sight can’t.”
I sighed, took a bite, chewed.
“That isn’t much of a chance,” I said, after a while.
“I reckon it’s the only one that Hoobin girl has got.” She joined me at breakfast. “You find anything yet?”
“Just this,” I said, between bites. I pulled the silver comb out of my desk and set it down between us. “Found it in a junk jar on Martha’s dresser. The brothers never saw it before. I think somebody gave it to her, and I think she had reason to dislike him.”
Mama wiped her lips on her hands and then wiped her hands on a napkin. She reached out and picked up the comb.
“That’s what you think.”
I nodded. “Makes sense. It’s an expensive gift. But what’s the old saying? Gold from a pig’s ass will still smell of manure?”
Mama didn’t laugh. She took the comb in both hands, closed her eyes tight and started shaking and mumbling, right there at my desk.
“Mama, look, don’t you need a cauldron and a virgin bat for that?”
“Shut up, boy,” she said, and I did, since her words seemed to come out a fraction of a second before her lips moved.
My office got cold. I watched frost spread across the glass in my door and then Mama yelped and threw the comb away.
I caught it. It was cold, like a chunk of ice, but the feeling quickly passed.
“Mama, what is it?”
Mama opened her eyes.
“Damn.”
I groaned. “All that for nothing?”
Mama snorted. “That ain’t right. Even if it just sat in a shop window. Even if you’re the only person who ever took hold of it. Even if it was fresh out of the silversmith’s forge-boy, I ought to have seen something.”
I set it down.
Mama eyed the comb like it was a snake, coiled up in her biscuits and eyeing her back. “Take it away.”
“But why-”
“Take it away!”
I scooped it up, dropped it in a drawer, closed the drawer.
“It’s gone. Now tell me-why the hysterics?”
“I done told you. I ought to have seen something. Felt the touch of someone’s hand. Felt the touch of your fool hand, boy, but I didn’t see nothing.”
She was rattled. I’d never seen Mama rattled. I sat back and pondered for a moment.
“All right. Tell me this, Mama, what could make an object feel like it was brand new? What could take away any history of contact with the people who’ve owned it?”
Mama shook her head. “I couldn’t. Don’t know nobody what could.” She lowered her voice. “That’s black magic, boy. Dire hex. Them what messes with the way things be-well, I don’t even know no names.”
I leaned forward, made Mama look me in the eye. “We’ve been friends for a long time, Mama. I like you. I respect you, and even if I don’t always show it I believe you when you tell me things, sometimes.” I took in a breath. “But isn’t it possible that maybe, just this once, you just can’t see what might be there?”
Mama puffed up, but only for a second. Then she deflated. “I reckon that might be so. Maybe I’m gettin’ old and blind.”
“Never. But even the sharpest eyes can’t see every blade of grass.”
“That a Troll sayin’?”
“It is,” I lied. Mama held Trolls in high regard, and their rustic proverbs even higher. “Trolls also say that a single misstep does not doom a march.”
Mama stood. “You’re a liar, boy. But I reckon you’ve earned them biscuits, all the same.” She cocked her shaggy head, caught up her basket. “What you rec
kon on doin’ next?”
I shrugged. “More of the same. Go back uptown. Talk to a watchman named Rupert. Ask strangers on the street.” I nodded toward the drawer that held the comb. “Might drop in on a few silversmiths along the way, see if anybody can tell me anything about that.”
Mama grunted. “I know some New People, other than Hoobins. I’ll be seein’ ’em, too. I’ll be askin’.” She hesitated. “You reckon that poor girl is still alive?”
I swallowed, sighed, stood. Eighth day gone, I thought. Eighth day. “Sure she is.”
Mama left, shaking her head.
Chapter Five
I scooped up a handful of Hoobin coin and set out. The air was cool and my feet felt better. I decided to walk again, telling myself that the walk would give me more time to think, but knowing all the time that I was just delaying the inevitable failure of finding anyone who’d seen Martha that last day she left the Velvet.
Traffic was brisk. I’d waited until the dead wagons were packed and gone, waited until the plumes of smoke from the crematoriums that lined the river soared fat and black and rolling. People didn’t look at the smoke, I noticed. And when they did look up, they pretend they didn’t see it.
I set a leisurely pace. Watchman Rupert probably wouldn’t take his shift until after noon, so I killed time by harassing jewelers about Martha’s comb. There are four jewelers between Cambrit and the Velvet, all much nearer the Velvet than my place. All confirmed that the comb was solid silver, of good if not excellent workmanship. As a less than artful piece, it bore no maker’s mark, and yes, they’d all seen similar combs before-swans were very popular with the ladies, a few years back-but no, they couldn’t tell me any particular shop or jeweler who specialized in such things.
Two had offered to buy the comb, on the spot, which led me to believe the workmanship was a bit closer to artful than any of them admitted.
Finally, none of the jewelers I spoke to had ever sold such a piece. Oh, they were quite certain. Most emphatically no.
And, at about that time, each discovered an urgent bit of dusting that needed their immediate and full attention.
“So much for that,” I said, after being shooed out of the last shop with an insistence that bordered on the rude. I wrapped the comb in its handkerchief and set out on the street again.
I was back on Sellidge, back among the bankers and the hoop skirts and the well-scrubbed smiling faces. I was glad I’d stopped off at the bathhouse at the end of my street, glad my old Army dress jacket was easily mistaken for a spring day coat, glad my black parade dress shoes still took a shine with reasonable success.
And after half a block north, I was glad I’d walked-because otherwise I might never have spotted the man I immediately dubbed Mister Nervous Hat.
He’d been there when I crossed the street at Argen. I’d seen him-that’s all, merely seen him-waiting with the mob the traffic master had stopped just after my mob had crossed. He’d been adjusting his hat then, pushing it back with his right hand.
He’d been behind me again at Vanth, crossing with me this time, holding his hat down as a vagrant breeze blew from the south, a hint of soot in its wake.
And there he was again, half a block south of me, standing in front of a coat maker’s shop and inspecting his reflection in the glass.
He reached up, made a minuscule adjustment to his hat and began to saunter toward me, not a care in the world.
I grinned and turned and set out north.
I knew a few things about Mister Nervous Hat. First, he hadn’t followed anyone before, or he would know better than to stop when your mark stops, and go when your mark goes. He would know better than to interrupt the flow of foot traffic around him by pausing to stare into storefront mirrors, and he would know better than to repeat the same action-the hat touching, in his case-more than once while the mark is turned your way.
And I knew he was alone. Another mistake-you want to tail a man in the open and on the move, you need at least three tails. And they should be able to hand off to one another, to pass the mark and turn away from the mark and have the good sense to keep moving while the other guy takes over for a while.
But not Mister Nervous Hat. He was just a kid, really, ten years my junior, if the quick glance I’d gotten was correct. Well-dressed, clean-shaved, hair the color of cut hay.
I picked up my pace, eyed the streets ahead, timing it so that I could cross the street before him. I made it, stayed in the middle of the mob, found the place I was looking for and ducked quickly inside, confident that Nervous Hat hadn’t seen me.
“Good morning, sir,” said the same haberdasher who’d offered to fit me for a jacket the evening before. He smiled and crossed the well-worn plank floor of his shop. “Has sir changed his mind?”
“I have indeed,” I said, patting my pocket just to set the coins a tinkling. He’d already seen my army jacket, and I wasn’t going to fool him into thinking I was a banker’s assistant even in the shop’s dim light. “Time to update my wardrobe. I think I’ll even have a hat or two.”
The shopkeeper smiled, eyed me critically and moved toward a rack.
“Excellent,” he said, a twinkle in his eye. “I have just what sir needs.”
And he did. I walked out with a light grey spring jacket, one of the new ones that reach a hand’s width below the knees and turn rain like a duck. A new black narrow-brimmed crease-brow hat adorned sir’s well-combed head, a new white shirt showed the lean, toned lines of sir’s muscular torso, and sir’s threadbare trousers rested at the bottom of a plain brown shopping bag happily provided by Rogers of Rogers and Rogers, Gentlemen Clothiers.
My army jacket lay folded atop the pants. Atop it was a second new hat-grey, this one, in last year’s style, but still quite dashing nonetheless.
I stepped, blinking, back out into the street and set out. I was too busy looking for Nervous Hat to worry about how I would explain to Ethel Hoobin that I’d needed to buy a new hat and coat to find his sister. I’d decided I wouldn’t try at all at about the time I spotted my Nervous Hat a stone’s throw ahead of me, standing on tiptoe and doing little hops so he could see over the crowd stopped at an intersection.
He was looking north. I grinned and pulled my hat down and sauntered toward him. The traffic master waved him across, and I had to trot to keep up, but I made it.
I stayed a steady forty feet back from him for four blocks. He darted and hopped and gave every indication of being in frantic pursuit. Even passers-by lifted their eyebrows and occasionally turned to watch his antics.
Nervous Hat looked right at me a half-dozen times. But he wasn’t looking for me, which was another mistake. He was looking for my old army jacket and my old tan pants and the hatless shape of my head from a distance. So when he saw my new jacket and the rakish angle of my fine new hat he looked right through me and went back to his hopping darting frantic act.
I pondered this. If he was in some way associated with my interest in Martha Hoobin, who might his employers be? Or, if he was acting alone, who was he?
He was young, about Martha’s age. Well if not elegantly dressed. Possessed of an aura of bungling good-natured innocence.
I wondered if he’d ever given Martha a swan-shaped silver comb, of good if not artful workmanship.
We entered the shade of the towering blood-oaks a block from the Velvet. Nervous Hat actually peeked around from behind one of the trees while he rested, and a little boy who’d been watching him from the other side jumped up at him and said, “boo”.
I nearly laughed out loud. Nervous Hat brushed the kid aside and stamped off toward the Velvet, like he knew that’s where I had been headed. That bothered me. If I’d doubted Nervous Hat and Martha Hoobin were connected somehow, I didn’t doubt it anymore.
We left the shade, and he eyed the Velvet stoop and finally settled down at a vacant table at a sidewalk cafe named, cleverly enough, The Sidewalk Cafe. I switched hats, waited a bit, got a table myself, had a snack while he drank
coffee and stared at the Velvet.
I toyed with the idea of sending over a sandwich or sauntering over and joining him, just to see how he’d handle it. Finally, I decided that he wasn’t moving for at least an hour, at which time his waiter would toss him back onto the sidewalk when the lunch crowd arrived.
So I paid, left a nice tip and folded my bag into a parcel under my arm and went off in search of Rupert. I passed a few feet from Nervous Hat, barely restrained myself from wishing him a good morning, got a good look at his hands. But he wasn’t wearing a signet ring, didn’t have his house or initials embroidered on the lapel of his jacket, wasn’t doodling his dastardly plans down on his napkin, so I passed by wordlessly and crossed the street well away from the Velvet.
Rupert wasn’t on duty yet, when I reached the intersection at Mayben and Oldloop. I spied another jeweler, wasted a good ten minutes convincing the man I wasn’t a tax assessor for the Regent, learned nothing. I repeated this process twice more before the Big Bell clanged out noon from the Square, and Rupert appeared on his corner.
I hurried over, and he actually smiled when he saw me.
“Good afternoon, finder.”
“To you too,” I replied. He stepped a bit to the side, out of foot traffic, and I did the same. “Did you have a chance to ask around about Martha Hoobin?”
“I did.” His grin fell. “Sorry. Some of the men might have seen her, from time to time. No one knew her. No one saw anything suspicious.” He paused to let a cooing nanny and a bawling pram roll past. “But I don’t think you’re the only one who’s asked about her.”
I pricked up my ears. “Really.”
He nodded. “I’ve not been asked by anyone else, but one of the Night Watch guys says he was. He didn’t get the guy’s name, or why he was asking,” he added. “He figured it was a boyfriend, and he didn’t like the looks of him so he told him to shove off.”