Low Town lt-1

by Daniel Polansky

  “Why are you showing this to me?”

  “There’s a man on that list I’d very much like to speak to, a man who might be able to shed some light on Crispin’s end. I can’t find him, but you could. And if you did, and if I were to hear it… that would be of use to me. Provided, of course, I wasn’t in the gaol for violating a crime scene.”

  We eyeballed each other, custom dictating one last round of challenge, then he nodded sharply. “You won’t be.”

  “It’s the Mirad, third from the bottom.”

  He got up from the stool. “I’ll let you know what I find out.”

  “Agent. You forgot something.”

  “What’s that?” he asked, with what might have been honest confusion.

  “You’ve still got my form.”

  “Right, sorry,” he said, pulling it from his coat and handing it back to me before dropping out the exit.

  Maybe Guiscard wasn’t as slow as I’d put him down for. I sipped at my coffee and plotted out the rest of the day.

  Adolphus returned from the room. “The blue blood gone?”

  “He ain’t hiding under the tables.”

  Snorting, Adolphus reached into his pocket and handed me a thin sheet of off-white parchment, sealed with a wax sigil. “This came before you woke.”

  I held it up to the light, taking notice of the seal, a lion quartered with a trio of matched diamonds. “In the future, you can just inform me of anything I’ve missed when you first see me. You don’t need to drip it out like an old man pissing.”

  “I’m not a mail carrier.”

  “You aren’t a cook, you aren’t a mail carrier-what the hell do you do here?”

  Adolphus rolled his eyes and started cleaning the back tables. The afternoon drunks would be in soon, inclement weather or no. I tore through the wax seal with my thumbnail and read the missive. I find the supplies you tendered the night we first met have proved insufficient for my needs. Perhaps you could find your way to Seton Gardens tomorrow before nine with an equal amount, and we might speak after I complete some unrelated business. Your trusted friend, His Grace, the Duke of Beaconfield

  In general my Trusted Friends did not send demands couched as requests, but allowances had to be made for the habits of the upper crust. I folded the note and put it into my bag.

  “You open?” the slurred voice of a patron queried from behind me.

  That seemed as good a cue as any, and it was about time to see what light the most expensive hooker in Rigus could shed on my situation. I grabbed my coat from upstairs, and headed out into the storm.

  I was standing in front of the entrance to a red brick row house north of downtown, near Kor’s Heights and the palatial estates of the nobility. Modest and unassuming, there was little besides Yancey’s word to confirm it as one of the most expensive brothels in the city. Low Town whores ply their trade honestly, uncovered bosoms peaking through red curtains, propositions tossed from open windows. Here it was different. Next to the ash-colored door there was a bronze plate with THE VELVET HUTCH engraved on it.

  I knocked firmly, and after a short pause it opened to reveal a fair-skinned woman in a comely but modest blue dress. She had dark hair and bright blue eyes, and offered a fetching smile, well-practiced this side of mercenary. “Can I help you?” she asked, her voice sweet and clear.

  “I’m here to see Mairi,” I said.

  Her lips curved down in disappointment. I was impressed with her ability to convey warmth and condescension in equal measure. “I’m afraid Mairi doesn’t see many people, and those she does, she’s seen for a long time. In fact, no one in the house is interested in meeting new friends right now.”

  I cut in before she could close the door in my face. “Could you tell the mistress that Yancey’s friend is outside? She should be expecting me.”

  Her smile seemed a bit more natural after I mentioned the Rhymer. “I’ll see if she’s available.”

  I thought about rolling up a cigarette but decided it might show a lack of class. Instead I rubbed my hands together in a futile effort to keep warm. When the door swung back open a few minutes later the dark-haired girl had swapped genial disregard for sultry welcome.

  “Mairi has a few moments. Please, come in.”

  I stepped into an elegant hallway, tiled marble floors leading to a staircase draped in red velvet and flanked by ebony banisters. A very large, very dim-looking man in a well-tailored suit sized me up discreetly from beside the entrance, unarmed save for fists the size of ham hocks. I had no doubt they’d do in a pinch.

  The pretty greeter stood at the foot of the steps, hands clasped behind her back. “If you’ll follow me please, the mistress is just this way.”

  I tried without success to avoid staring at her bottom as she climbed the stairs ahead of me. I wondered how old she was, and how she came about her employment. I supposed there were worse ways to make money-it beat working the line at a mill ten hours a day or serving tables at some Low Town dive. Still, lying on your back is lying on your back, even if the sheets beneath you are made of silk.

  We took a right at the top and followed a narrow hallway past a row of bedrooms, ending in front of an oak door, gilded slightly to distinguish it from the others. The girl knocked lightly. A throaty voice from inside beckoned us onward, and my guide opened the door ahead of me.

  The room centered, perhaps not shockingly, on a sumptuous four-poster bed draped in white lace. Everything about the interior spoke of old money and refined taste, more the bedchamber of a duchess than a whore’s boudoir. Seated at a dressing table in the corner was the woman I assumed to be Mairi the Dark-eyed.

  Given the mental image engendered by Yancey’s introduction, I have to say I found myself underwhelmed. She was a raven-haired Tarasaihgn, south of middle age but not by much. Quite handsome, even with the few added pounds she carried about her midsection-but not beautiful, certainly not exceptionally so. Between the two of them I would have preferred the greeter, younger and firmer as she was.

  But then Mairi turned toward me and I saw her eyes, dark pools of sable that held my attention longer than etiquette strictly allowed, and suddenly I couldn’t understand what had ever possessed me to compare the woman before me to the girl who had led me to her. My mouth was dry. I tried not to lick my lips.

  In one smooth motion Mairi rose from her throne and narrowed the distance between us, offering her hand with a casual air. “Thank you, Rajel, that’ll be all,” Mairi said in unaccented Nestriann. Rajel curtsied and left, closing the door behind her. Mairi stood silently, letting me inspect the wares before beginning her pitch.

  “Do you speak Nestriann?” she began.

  “Never had an ear for it.”

  “Really?” She stared into my eyes, then broke out into a full-throated laugh, like the song of a bullfrog. “I think you’re lying.”

  She was right-I spoke Nestriann, not like a native but well enough to avoid getting mugged on the way to the Cathedrale Daeva Maletus. The first year and a half of the war my sector of the trenches had run into Nestriann lines. They were a decent bunch of fellows, for mud-rutting serfs. Their captain had broken down and wept when he found out his generals had signed a separate armistice-but then, odium and incompetence on the part of the higher-ups were pretty universal during our unfortunate conflict.

  She fluttered her lashes and smiled. “You realize you’ve told me more by lying than you would by answering truthfully.”

  “And what did I tell you?”

  “That deceit comes more naturally to you than honesty.”

  “Maybe I’m just trying to fit in with my surroundings-or was every moan that ever echoed off these walls authentic?”

  “Every. Single. One.” She held each word for a long beat. A bar sat in the corner, and from a decanter on top of it she poured smoky liquid into two glasses, then handed one to me. “What shall we drink to?” she asked in a tone just short of lewd.

  “To the health of the Queen and the prosperi
ty of her subjects.”

  The old blessing was an awkward transition, but she was enough of a professional to roll with it. “To the health of the Queen and the fertility of her land.” I took a taste. It was good, very good.

  Mairi perched herself on a red leather couch and motioned me toward the divan across from it. I followed her direction and we sat facing each other, our legs nearly touching. “How do you know Yancey?” she asked.

  “How does anyone know anyone? You meet people, in my business.”

  “And what business is that exactly?”

  “I solicit funds for war widows and orphans. On off days I nurse abandoned puppies.”

  “What an astonishing coincidence! That’s the very same line of work we pursue.”

  “I suppose your kennels are in the basement.”

  “Where do you keep your orphans?”

  I chuckled and sipped at my drink.

  Her mouth curled upward and she caressed me with soot-black eyes. “I know who you are, of course. I made inquiries after I heard from the Rhymer.”

  “Did you now?”

  “I had no idea, when Yancey spoke of you, that I’d be given the opportunity to meet such a famed underworld figure.”

  I let that one hang in the air between us. She missed the hint and pressed onward, confident I was enjoying her buildup.

  “I always wondered what had happened to Mad Edward and the rest of his people. Imagine my surprise to discover that the man who ended syndicate presence in Low Town was coming to pay me an afternoon visit.”

  Mairi’s sources were good. There were only a half-dozen people who’d ever known the truth of what had happened to Mad Edward’s mob, and two of them were dead. I’d have to figure out which of the remaining four were running off at the mouth.

  The tip of her tongue scanned the lower half of her lip. “Imagine my excitement.”

  It is one of the relatively few advantages of being quite physically misshapen that you can generally dismiss honest arousal as a reason for a woman’s advances. In Mairi’s case, I’m not sure there was even a purpose-at bottom I suspect she just didn’t remember how to turn it off. The whole thing felt sour, my witty banter and her clockwork response to it.

  “Riveting.” I took another swallow of whiskey, trying to get the taste of being played out of my mouth. “But I didn’t come here for my history. I’m quite familiar with it-comprehensively so, you might say.” She took the slight with less than absolute equanimity, the flushed heat of her face fading to match the weather. From a silver case on the table next to her she took a thin black cigarette and sank it between her blood-red lips, lighting it with one quick pass of a match. “Then what are you here for, exactly?”

  “Yancey didn’t mention it?” I asked.

  A quick stream of tobacco smoke escaped from her nostrils. “I want you to ask me.”

  I’d suffered more galling indignities. “Yancey says you’ve got a sharp ear and a long memory. I’d like to hear what they offer on the Duke of Beaconfield.”

  “The Blade?” She did something with her face that conveyed the intent of eye rolling without actually being so uncouth as to roll her eyes. “Apart from the talent that earned his nickname he’s your typical bored aristocrat, cold-blooded, amoral, and cruel.”

  “Those are more observations than secrets,” I said.

  “And he’s broke,” she finished.

  “So the mansion, the parties, the money he paid me…”

  “The first is in hock to pay for the second two. The duke was blessed with an old name, a deadly arm, and not much else. And, like most nobles, his pecuniary abilities don’t go beyond spending. He sunk tens of thousands of ochres in the Ostarrichi national loan, and lost everything when they defaulted last fall. Word is, the creditors are baying at the door, and his personal tailor won’t accept his commissions. I’d be surprised if he makes it through the season without declaring bankruptcy.”

  “So those diamonds on his crest?”

  “Let’s just say the lion is the more pertinent half.”

  The threat of poverty could drive a man toward terrible acts-I’d seen plenty of that. But did the thought of losing that gorgeous house of his really push the Smiling Blade to child murder and black magic? “What about his connections to the Prince?”

  “Exaggerated. They were chums at Aton, one of those dreary boarding schools choked with tradition and staffed by pedophiles. But dear Henry…” She fluttered her eyes, and I wondered if this offhand reference to the Crown Prince indicated a grain of truth behind the rumors of their liaison, or if she just wanted me to think it did. “Is a bit too button-down for the Blade’s wild ways.”

  “Interesting,” I said, as if it wasn’t. “How about his hangers-on-you know anything there? He’s got a cut-rate practitioner running errands for him, goes by the name of Brightfellow?”

  She crinkled her nose like I’d dropped a fresh turd on the floor. “I know the man-though I hadn’t heard he’d hooked up with your duke. Brightfellow’s one of that unpleasant breed of artist who flits about the peripheries of court, pimping his talent to whatever nobles are bored or stupid enough to pay for his parlor tricks. I hadn’t thought much of Beaconfield, but I thought enough of him not to expect he’d get mixed up with trash like that. He must really be desperate.”

  “What would Brightfellow be doing for the Blade?”

  “I really wouldn’t know-but having met the two, I’d guess it doesn’t involve philanthropy.”

  I figured she was probably right.

  After another moment she cleared her throat, a short sound that made me think of sugar and smoke, and our interview was over. “And that’s it, then-that’s all the information I can provide you as to the secret dealings of the Smiling Blade.” She uncrossed her legs, then crossed them again. “Unless there’s anything else you wanted.”

  I stood up abruptly, setting my glass on the table next to my chair. “No, nothing else. You’ve been a help-you’ve got a chit to cash in with me if you need it.”

  She stood as well. “I’m tempted to cash it in right now,” she said, her eyes tilting toward the bed.

  “No you aren’t. Not even a little.”

  Her wanton leer faded, to be replaced with something more closely resembling a genuine smile. “You’re an interesting man. Come back again sometime. I’d like to see you.” She moved close enough for me to smell her perfume, intoxicating, like everything else about her.

  “And that I do mean.”

  I wasn’t sure I believed that either. Rajel was nowhere to be seen on the way out, but the bouncer gave me a sullen nod as I approached the exit.

  “Fun place to work?” I asked as I grabbed my coat from the rack.

  He shrugged his shoulders. “Three weeks of the month.”

  I nodded sympathetically and left.

  I was heading south when I saw him, a bony runt shadowing me from the opposite side of the street, a half block back in my wake. He could have picked me up anytime after I left Mairi’s-it would have been easy to slip out from a back alley in the thick fog.

  I stopped at a corner stall run by an aged Kiren and inspected his wares. “Duoshao qian?” I asked, angling a chipped bracelet up to the dull winter light as a pretext for scanning behind me. The vendor quoted me a price ten or twelve times what the junk was worth, and I feigned disappointment and dropped the bauble into a bin. He snatched it up quickly and shoved it back into my face, streaming forth a broken monologue as to the exceptional merits of his goods. By this point my tail had drawn close enough to make out some detail. I couldn’t see the Blade hiring the brand of cheap thug this hooligan epitomized, and he obviously wasn’t a heretic, so Ling Chi was out. Of course, there were plenty of other people scattered about the city who wouldn’t mind seeing me fall on something sharp, some dealer I’d wronged or slumlord who thought I threatened his business. We’d find out soon enough.

  I hadn’t tooled up before going to visit Mairi, seemed like a bad way to
make an impression, but I wouldn’t need a weapon to get the jump on this skinny little bastard. The only thing better than ambushing a motherfucker is ambushing the motherfucker who thinks he’s ambushing you. I slipped past the merchant, heading down a side alley, cutting around the corner, accelerating slightly as I made the turn-

  Then I was on the ground, the strange sensation of light and heat that accompanies a strong blow to the head distorting my vision, so much so that the figure standing above me was, for a moment, unrecognizable.

  But only for a moment.

  “Hey, Crowley.”

  “Hey, faggot.”

  I made a play for his ankles, but my movements were slow and clumsy, and Crowley shut down any hopes of escape with a booted toe to my ribs.

  I slumped back against the wall, hoping that last shot hadn’t broken a bone, the agony in my side suggesting such optimism was unfounded. My lungs worked to fill themselves properly, a pause during which Crowley was kind enough to resist beating on me, making do with an excessively unfriendly grin. I managed to cough out a few sentences. “Having trouble with your arithmetic? I’ve got five days, Crowley. Five days. If big numbers confuse you, take your shoes off and count on your toes.”

  “Didn’t I tell you how funny he was?” Crowley said to someone behind him, and now I realized that Crowley hadn’t come alone. He was backed by three men, not agents I didn’t think, but hard folk, syndicate muscle maybe-regardless, unfriendly in the extreme. They stared at me with expressions that ran the gamut from outright boredom to sadistic glee.

  I had been played like a rank amateur. The first one had let himself be seen, drawing my attention while Crowley and his crew lay in wait. By the Scarred One, how had I been so stupid?

  “You see a uniform on me, punk?” Crowley asked. “This ain’t got nothing to do with the Crown or the Old Man.” He accentuated this last point with a kick to my shoulder. I winced and bit my tongue. “Today’s my day off.”