Guilt Edged Ivory

by Doris Egan

  I looked for myself. It was Trey Lesseret, Loden's co-worker from the Mercian agency. "We'll let him in," I said. "But stick around."

  Sim nodded. He approved of paranoia. I hit all the locks and opened the door.

  Trey Lesseret bowed quickly, saying, "Gracious lady. May I speak with you a moment?" He wore the trousers and tunic of his profession, and looked to be either on his way to work or on a break in midassignment. His expression was unhappy, and a little desperate.

  He ignored Sim. As soon as he was inside, he turned to me and said, "Forgive my imposition, but do you know where Loden Broca is?"

  "Why should I know where sir Broca is? Surely he's at work. Why don't you ask your supervisor?"

  "Excuse me, but Loden already told me he was staying here." Well, Pinnacle-of-Discretion Loden. "I have good reason for asking, you see—a Net inquiry was made this morning at the agency—someone wanting to know where he is. Loden's only family is in the provinces, and none of them would use the Net."

  "I see." I hesitated. "Are you aware of Loden's situation?"

  "He told me someone's trying to kill him, if that's what you mean. That's why I figured I'd better find the young idi—why I'd better locate him. It's the first time, ever, that anyone's tried to reach him at work. Anyone who's not a girl, I mean." He paused and ran a hand through his sparse grayish hair. "Now, I only know about this because I overheard the secretary talking. I haven't got details. But I think he's damned lucky he was sent off till his probation's over. Otherwise he'd've been locatable within minutes— we're all supposed to be constantly locatable, it's part of our coverage strategy."

  I considered this. "Did Loden tell you exactly where he was staying?"

  "In your parcel receipt. But there's no answer when I hit the entrance with my knife butt."

  "Wait." I ran and got my overrobe, tied on my belt and pouch, and slipped on a pair of sandals. "Sim, come with me."

  We all filed outside and down the steps to the parcel receipt entrance. While Sim watched to make sure Lesseret was looking elsewhere—as he was, in all politeness—I keyed open the entrance. Metal slid aside and a man-sized opening formed to the right of the locked delivery tube. It struck me suddenly that this was the place, in one of those old puzzle-stories, where the second body would be found.

  A strong smell of bredesmoke assailed us. I started to cough, and Lesseret looked a little embarrassed. I stooped and peered through the drug haze to the interior; empty, but for a pallet of old cloaks and half a nutcake. Getting that close made me cough some more. "You could get high just sitting in there," I said, as I stood up straight and topped the entrance. "Evidently he isn't worried about ventilation."

  "Please help me," said Lesseret.

  I was surprised. "What can I do? You see he's not here."

  "He needs to be warned. But I can't look for him, I have to be back at my assignment in twenty minutes. I'm on probation, too, but they're letting me keep working—I can't afford any black marks."

  "I'm sorry, but I don't see what it is you want me to do."

  "Look, he's not at work and he's not here. He's almost certainly at a tith-parlor."

  I glanced at Sim, who was expressionless. "Are you suggesting I call every tith-parlor in the capital… ?"

  "No, of course not. They'd never tell you the truth about whether a customer was there. You'll have to go personally and look."

  I would, would I? "Sir Lesseret… you seem like a nice person, and it's good that you're concerned about a friend, but this is getting out of hand. I don't even know Loden."

  "He could be killed! He could die today! I don't know who else to go to. Look, I don't have a lot of money, but I could pay you a little a week—"

  I winced, thinking of Kade and Coalis. "No, wait." I said to Sim, "Do you have any idea how many tith-parlors there are in this city?"

  "I'd figure, thirty or forty," he said.

  "It's not that bad," said Lesseret eagerly. "He always goes to the gambling quarter, and there are only about twenty there."

  "The gambling quarter" is a five-block section of town where tith-parlors and cardhalls and things I still don't know about seem to have congregated; there are a lot of pretty colored lights there. At least it was a relatively small distance to cover.

  A small distance for Loden's enemies to cover, too, if they figured out that that's where he was.

  I sighed. "I take it he doesn't have a favorite place."

  "Not really. He usually goes to Red Tah Street, there are five or six places there… but sometimes he goes somewhere else."

  "Terrific." I suppose I'd accepted responsibility for him when I'd stuck him in our mailbox. I should have let him find his own way out to the provinces in the beginning. Appropos of nothing, I pointed to the half-eaten nutcake on the floor. "You know, I asked him not to bring food in there."

  "The boy doesn't listen," said Lesseret worriedly, echoing my own thoughts.

  "No," I sighed, "he doesn't." I looked at Sim. If you can't trust your husband's taste in bodyguards, what's the point of being married? "Are you game for this? We're not under obligation."

  "It's not for me to say," he replied primly. "If you go, I go with you."

  "Cousin Sim, this is the time for you to raise objections. We can go back inside and have lunch, if you want. If there's any danger in this, you'll probably get hit first, and I won't take you into something you'd just as soon avoid."

  "It's up to you," he said stubbornly. The Cormallon sense of duty. I gave it up.

  "Go back to your job," I said to Trey Lesseret. "We'll see if we can find Loden."

  "My thanks," he said happily, going so far as to take my hand and bow over it.

  "Never mind. We probably won't run across him anyway."

  But he was too thrilled with having dumped his problem in someone else's lap to let me dampen his spirits. He hurried off down the street before anyone could change their mind.

  Red Tah Street has closer to a dozen parlors on it, counting the cardhalls and smoke dens on both sides of the road. I'd never stopped in this little part of town before; it had no attraction. Aside from an occasional card game to pass the time, gambling has always been a closed book to me. The more random chance rules a situation, the more I tend to avoid it—probably because I lose. It's amazing, in fact, how consistently I lose. Back on Pyrene, when I was a kid, there was a little arcade off the recreation hall where we could bet study-tokens on a wheel with six numbers. I was the only child in the creche who never won even once in all the years I was there. Winners got to pick from the bakery products left over from that day's kitchen detail. It was understood that our creche-guardian would have to bring hard currency and purchase one for little Theodora, since she was incapable of winning any.

  It was a good inoculation against gambling fever; all I associate it with is disappointment.

  Red Tah Street was packed, even in the afternoon, so obviously others don't have the benefit of my bad luck. We were standing on the edge of the neighborhood, beside the first hall, under a painted wooden sign that showed a giant wheel with kings, princes, and beggars falling off into the mud as it turned. Clearly not an establishment that made great promises. "We could split up," I said to Sim. "Take different sides of the street."

  He shook his head.

  "I won't tell Ran. It's not as if these people were looking for us. It's Loden they're after."

  He shook his head.

  "Fine. Let's try the Wheel of Illusion first. I look forward to seeing a gambling parlor with a na' telleth name. You think maybe they don't play for money?"

  He held the door patiently for me, not responding. Sim has standards when he's on duty. Inside, the place was cramped, dark, and not very well cleaned; it took about ten seconds to ascertain that Loden wasn't around. There was a numbers wheel in back and a set of card tables and benches in front, with fanatical looking men and women of all ages. A twenty-ish woman in a gold-threaded robe sat opposite a man in his sixties with a ra
gged tunic and no teeth. Their attention was solely on the game. I began to realize that gambling creates an equality of citizenship societies have toppled trying to achieve.

  "He's not here," I said, intelligently. Sim grunted. I considered the arithmetic of our hitting each parlor on the street; it would be a shame if Loden ambled from one to the next, just missing us. I nudged Sun. "Let's see if we can find the manager."

  "It's not really a tith-parlor," said Sim. "Just cards and wheel."

  "No harm in asking," I said.

  The manager was a middle-aged woman of great polite-

  ness and no expression. She wore a green robe and carried a pipe. "Young men come in here all the time," she said, when I asked. "Old men, too. Everyone comes here."

  "He might be wearing a security guard's outfit. Trousers and tunic. And his name is Loden Broca."

  She paused, then tapped her pipe against the wall. Soft gray ash fell onto the floor, where it vanished in the dirt and shadows., "Loden Broca. Yes, I know the name. I know the name of everyone on the debit side of our ledger, gracious lady. I seriously doubt if Broca will come here today. He owes us quite a sum of money."

  "I thought he'd paid off all his debts," I said, remembering the loan he'd taken from Kade for that purpose.

  "He paid some. Not all." She pursed her hard little lips. "Should you locate him, I hope you'll bear in mind we pay a ten-percent finder's fee for notifying us where we can find recalcitrants."

  "Well, I'll certainly consider that." I started backing away. "Come on, Sim."

  No one from the Wheel of Illusion made any move to follow us, and I was glad when we reached sunlight again. "What a jolly street this is. I can see why it's so popular. Let's try the Green and Gold."

  The Green and Gold was better-lit than its predecessor, but not more helpful. At least Loden didn't have a tab there. We went through six more halls in the next two hours; fortunately Sim and I were well-dressed enough to receive courteous treatment from the managers.

  At the Rainbow Enchantment Palace, a particularly small and no-frills place, I sat down for a moment by one of the machines. My feet hurt. Sim stood beside us, surveying the customers. A chubby girl about five years old ran up to me at once, wearing a pink ribbon; she bowed and offered me a cup of tah on a round silver tray. I was thirsty, so I thanked her and took it.

  She ran off again before I could pay her. "Now you'll have to light up the machine," said Sim. "Drinks are only for players."

  "You seem to know a lot about these places," I said. I stuffed a few kembits into the slot and watched the board take form, then read the instructions idly as I drained my cup. "Say, I think I know this. It's a variation on Solitaire."

  Sim greeted this remark with his usual interest, so I tested my theory by using the button to move a few tiles around on the screen. My score started to climb. It wasn't quite like Solitaire, but it was similar; the strategic element had a little more influence, otherwise I probably would have experienced my usual losing streak. Instead I won two games out of three.

  I was going for four when Sim tapped my shoulder. "Isn't this fellow in danger of his life, or something?"

  "Oh. Yes." I swiveled the seat around and stepped off, feeling my face get hot. "I was only resting my feet for a few minutes."

  "It was a quarter of an hour."

  "You're joking."

  I should know better than to accuse Sim of joking. He pointed out, in all seriousness, the information on his own timepiece, the clock over the machine rack, and (when we got outside) the sun in the sky. By the time we reached the doors to the Inner Courts of Heaven I was sorry I'd said anything.

  Heaven was jumping. It was a big place, noisy and scrupulously clean, with the kind of lighting that tells you more about people than you wanted to know. Specifically, it was Tithball Heaven; there were a dozen ranges built against three of the walls. The fourth wall had racks of smaller machines with brightly lit tiles, like the addictive one I'd just left behind at the Rainbow. The center of the building was filled with tables and benches where people who were waiting for a range to open up could pay for food and drink. The Courts of Heaven provided everything; a customer could spend days here and never have to set foot outdoors.

  There were well over a hundred people present already, and their busy time probably wasn't till evening. Sim and I made our way past the ranges, aiming for the back, where a raised platform would provide a better view of the room. Three brawny-looking gentlemen, their sleeves tied back, were too intent on their game to see they were blocking our progress. I watched as one with a jeweled bracelet clamped around his wrist threw his arm back and let the ball fly down the range. It hit the floor near the far end, bounced, and tapped the wall marked "east."

  The player laughed. A bronze phoenix head over the range opened its mouth ponderously, displaying a score of 450. The tithball bounced three more times on the floor, hitting a tilted slope in back. Jeweled Bracelet stared; his triumphant look changing to that of a child whose bottle is being unfairly taken away. The ball rolled down the slope and disappeared. The score in the phoenix's mouth rippled and changed to 10.

  His companions laughed. "You're right," said one of them. "Your playing has really improved."

  Jeweled Bracelet glared. He clapped his hands, muttered, and pointed to the crack where the ball had vanished.

  It popped up again and rolled down the range to his open hands.

  The score in the phoenix's mouth changed back to 450.

  "Hey, that's not fair," said one of the other men.

  "An act of the gods," said Jeweled Bracelet. "If a server had bumped into me while I threw, we would have counted that."

  "This is different."

  "I don't see why."

  "Look, sorcery is not allowed!"

  "The rules don't say anything about sorcery one way or the other."

  Sim finally managed to push a route through them, and they were far too busy arguing to take issue with it. We hadn't quite reached the platform when Sim stopped short and pointed.

  Loden was sitting at one of the tables in the center. He was wearing provincial trousers, but with a stained silk robe over his shirt. Two empty winebowls were in front of him, stacked one atop the other, and a small plate of something that had had reddish sauce. A light-haired girl of about eighteen was in his lap.

  "The prodigal," I murmured. Sim started his dignified progress through the crowd once again, and I sailed in his wake. When we reached Loden's table, he looked up and smiled happily.

  "Theodora!" he cried. "Have a seat, gwacious—gracious lady. Let me introduce you. This is Pearl," he said, slapping his lapful's fanny gently.

  She giggled. "Ruby," she corrected.

  "She's a jewel, anyway. And this is Rickert." He waved an arm toward the third person at the table, a young man with his sleeves still tied back from the game. Rickert nodded sourly.

  I said, "Loden, we need to talk."

  "Sure, that's what I'm saying. Have a seat. Move over on the bench, Ricki, and let Theodora sit down." He grabbed the robe of a passing server, and the woman stopped. "Two more bowls here, all right? Thanks, sweet one." He winked at her.

  The server's gaze met mine briefly. She rolled her eyes.

  I said, "Loden, we need to talk. Privately. Right now."

  Rickert stood up. "We have to go anyway. Come on, Ruby."

  Ruby didn't look at him. "We've got hours yet, sweetheart. I'm fine where I am."

  "No, you're not," said Rickert, in a tone that got even Ruby's attention.

  She turned to him slowly and blinked. "It's still early—"

  "Now."

  She got up from Loden's lap, taking her time, a pout forming on her face. I noticed that Loden still had a hand under her robe. I couldn't tell if Rickert could see that from his angle. She moved away slowly, her robe trailing.

  Rickert took her hand and pulled her in the direction of the door.

  "I don't know what you're so excited about all of a
sudden," I heard her complain as the crowd swallowed them up.

  I looked at Loden, who returned my gaze with happy obliviousness. Sim sat down next to me.

  "It's good to get out, isn't it?" asked Loden. "I have to say, that parcel receipt can get on your nerves. Not that I'm not glad to have it to go home to."

  With Loden, it was hard to tell how much was drunke-ness and how much was his normal lack of discernment. I hoped he wasn't too far gone to pay attention.

  "Listen," I said, "your friend Trey came to see me today."

  "Trey! A great guy. Was he looking for me?" Loden's two new winebowls appeared on the table, and he reached for one. Sim, bless him, pulled it out of reach.

  "Loden. Trey says that someone's been asking for you at work. You know what that means?"

  He looked blank. "Who would ask for me at work?"

  "I don't know, Loden, this is the point. But considering people are trying to kill you, Trey thought you ought to stay under cover."

  The idea was still making its way through the outer courts of his brain. I saw it hit center.

  "Ohh," he said, in simultaneous comprehension and pain.

  Thank the gods for that. Now maybe we could get him out of here quietly.

  Sim stood up, clearly expecting we would leave now. I don't know what it was—the effects of the crowds, the constant sense of money and danger, the impersonal desperation all around me—but suddenly I didn't believe at all that Loden didn't know who was after him.

  I said, "You're involved in something, aren't you?"

  He managed to look both crafty and ashamed at the same time.

  "Oh, Loden." I sighed. "How can you manage to make such a mess of your life?"

  I spoke at that moment from pure sadness at the waste, and he put his hand across the table over mine. "Theodora—" he began.

  "Here he is," said a voice.

  It was Jeweled Bracelet and his two friends. "I thought you were going to give us a rematch," said one.

  "Oh, sure," said Loden, "you wait till I'm eight winebowls down—"

  "You haven't had time to drink more than three. And I thought you said you could beat us playing with your feet?"