Hawk (Vlad)

by Steven Brust

  I shrugged, thought about it. “He picks the place, you pick the set-up, he decides on the amount of protection, you pick where they are.”

  He nodded. “Yeah, he might go for that.”

  “If not, we’re up for any reasonable alternative.”

  “Reasonable alternative,” he repeated, as if the words tasted funny. “Where did an Easterner learn to talk so good?”

  “I have a lot of smart friends. They made me read books.”

  “What do I tell him about why you want to meet?”

  “You don’t tell him it’s me; you tell him it’s your principal.”

  “My principal.”

  “Yeah.”

  “And when he asks who that is?”

  “Be mysterious.”

  “And when he asks what it’s about?”

  “Be even more mysterious.”

  “And if he insists on knowing?”

  “Give him an evasive answer. And twenty gold.”

  Deragar whistled.

  “The mystery should intrigue him. And the gold will help. If the gold turns out to be unnecessary you can keep it.”

  “And if it is necessary?”

  “We’ll work something out.”

  “All right. Do you need any lead time?”

  “No. If he wants to meet in an hour, I can do that. But it needs to be in the next day or two. I’m kind of on a deadline.”

  “I’ll do what I can.”

  “Good enough.”

  “Smart friends, huh?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Books.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Got it.”

  He left the room, closing the door softly behind him. I squeezed my eyes shut and leaned my head back, opened them again and exhaled slowly.

  Then I waited.

  I bantered with Loiosh a little, let him and Rocza out for a late-morning fly, let them back in, waited.

  A couple of hours had gone by when Deragar came back. “You know,” he said, “if you didn’t have all that stuff blocking psychic contact, my feet wouldn’t hurt so much.”

  “I’ll calculate that into your bonus.”

  “Good answer.”

  “What did you find out?”

  “He’ll meet with you.”

  “Good answer. When?”

  He paused, presumably to check the time. “An hour and twenty-three minutes.”

  “What are the arrangements?”

  “Three each. One outside, two inside at a table just outside of the private room. Same table for all four, so we can have a good stare-down. We’re doing a little dance to make sure everyone follows the rules.”

  “Outside the room. He must be confident he can handle himself.”

  “Well,” said Deragar. “He can.”

  “I know. Where is it happening?”

  “A place called the Frozen Globe, just north of the docks.”

  “I know the area. All right, good.”

  “Should I find some people?”

  “Yeah.”

  “How many?”

  “You and two others. We’re playing this straight.”

  “Think he will?”

  “No idea.”

  “What if he doesn’t?”

  “We’ll improvise.”

  “Improvise.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Books.”

  “Yeah.”

  “All right.”

  “What about us, Boss?”

  “What about you? You’re why I can risk playing it straight.”

  “No, where do you want us?”

  “Rocza outside, you with me until the meeting starts.”

  “Then?”

  “You wait outside the door.”

  “Boss—all right.”

  Deragar collected a couple of toughs and gave them a meeting place not far from where the secret passage let out. I went through the tunnel, met up with them, and we walked down the street, a little parade of Jhereg, looking all, you know, tough and like that. In that area, we didn’t call much attention to ourselves.

  “Boss?”

  “Yeah.”

  It was about a half-hour walk, so we got there early. It was a nice-looking place—I’d have guessed wheelhouse Orca or higher. Deragar waited with me while his people went in and looked around. They came back out, nodded, and we entered; one of them remaining outside.

  Eventually a couple of Jhereg walked in, looked around, saw us, nodded, walked out again. Apparently, he’d sent his people in early. There’s so little trust in this world.

  I sat down at a table with Deragar and the other guy, whose named turned out to be Nesci. He didn’t say much. Neither did Deragar or I, for that matter. I bought us a bottle of wine, but didn’t drink much more than half a cup of it.

  After a while, I saw Deragar’s eyes narrow a little. He was watching the door. He said, “They’re here,” at the same time Loiosh said it into my mind. I resisted the temptation to turn around. Loiosh said, “He’s talking to the hostess now.”

  “All right.”

  “She’s going down the hall, now she’s unlocking a door. He’s going in.”

  I stood up, turned around, and followed him into the room. There was a table there of dark wood that had been polished until it gleamed. The hostess lit a fire, though it wasn’t all that chilly. The Jhereg glanced at Loiosh, and shook his head.

  “Boss.”

  “Go.”

  He flew out of the room. Then the hostess left, leaving me alone with the Jhereg seated across the table. He looked at me, and his eyes narrowed. There was only about four feet between us—he really did think highly of himself.

  “Lord Chesha?”

  “You’re Taltos, aren’t you?” He pronounced it Tahltoss, and I somehow didn’t think he’d much care that he was saying it wrong. From the sound of his voice, he wasn’t all that pleased to discover I was the one he’d come to meet. I tried not to be hurt.

  “Yeah,” I said. “I want to talk to you about—”

  “Can you come up with any reason I shouldn’t kill you?”

  “Well, at least one. You don’t have a Morganti blade on you, and without that, you won’t get paid.”

  “You sure I don’t have a Morganti blade on me?”

  “Well, most people don’t, you know, just carry them around as a matter of course.”

  “You do.”

  “Yeah, but I’m special.”

  “What did you want, then?”

  “I want you to leave Terion open for me.”

  “That’s not going to happen,” he said.

  “Well,” I said, “let’s talk about it.”

  “There’s nothing to—”

  “Oh, nonsense. There’s always something to talk about.”

  “I don’t talk with—”

  “Don’t say it. You’ll just piss me off. I assume you don’t care about gold, or you’d have listened sooner. I assume you aren’t personally loyal to him, because no one is. That leaves me wondering just what it is.”

  “Maybe you should just walk away, right now.”

  “Or? Do you really want to throw away an opportunity before you even know what it is? Of course, I’m worth a lot of gold, but to collect it, you’d need a Morganti weapon, and we’ve already established that you don’t—”

  He reached into his cloak, and, very slowly, removed a long, slim dagger. I knew it was Morganti before it was in sight.

  “Boss?”

  “I got this.”

  “Of course,” I said aloud, speaking to both of them at once, “I might be wrong.”

  He didn’t lunge, he didn’t even point it at me; he just held it and said, “Get out of here.”

  “Or what?” I said. “Or you’ll use that? Here and now?” With my left hand, hardly moving, I pulled Lady Teldra about an inch from her sheath. “Because if you want to do it now,” I said, “I’m fine with that. Let’s get it over with, this terrible thing you’re going to do to me.”

>   He caught my eye and held it; I waited.

  “Or,” I said after what seemed enough time. “We could talk a little first. After a bit more conversation, if you’d like, you can still do those awful things that you have contemplated, and that I can do nothing to prevent, helpless son-of-a-bitch that I am, oh, woe is me.”

  He held my eye a little longer, then grunted and put the knife away. I pushed Lady Teldra back into her sheath.

  “So,” he said. “It’s true. I’d heard that you had…” His voice trailed off as he gestured with his chin.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Now. What is it that makes it so out of the question for you to leave Terion open?”

  “Because,” he said, “I don’t like you.”

  “Yeah, I get that a lot. What else?”

  “I don’t trust you.”

  “Then you haven’t checked up on me as well as I’ve checked up on Terion. Or you, for that matter.”

  He stared at me as if his eyes were weapons, which they weren’t. I’ve been glared at by experts, and, whatever else he was good at, his glaring powers didn’t come up to scratch.

  “All right,” he said. “I’ll give you one minute. What do you have?”

  “What Terion has.”

  He kept staring.

  “You get his area, his connections, his—”

  “What makes you think I couldn’t have all that if I wanted, just by taking him out myself?”

  “Because then everyone would know you had. You’d be that guy who betrayed his boss to get his territory.”

  “And this way I wouldn’t? How do you figure that?”

  “You leave me an opening. I take it. I don’t take his area. You’re positioned to move in. And it doesn’t trace back to you.”

  “How do I leave you an opening without it tracing back to me?”

  “We need to work that part out,” I said.

  He arched an eyebrow and gave me a look in which skepticism was about equally blended with disdain; and I didn’t care, because I knew I had him.

  “What do you get out of this? You just don’t like him?”

  “That’s part of it. He’s been a hole in my boot for a long time, and I’m tired of it. And he just tried to shine a friend of mine. But more important, I’m working on something, and he’s liable to get in the way.”

  “What are you working on?”

  “I’m trying to set up a store to sell baskets of none-of-your-fucking-business at wholesale prices.”

  His lips twitched. “All right.”

  “So, how does it happen?”

  “Is it true what they say? That you have a pet jhereg?”

  “I wouldn’t call him a pet, exactly. He works with me. What’s your point?”

  “One of the regulars has a terror of the things; just have it show up, and he’ll collapse.”

  “And the guy who works with him?”

  “Can be gotten to.”

  “Money?”

  He shook his head. “I have something on him.”

  “And making sure it doesn’t blow back on you?”

  “I’m going to put it on the guy I have something on.”

  I worked that out. “You were going to shine him anyway, weren’t you?”

  “Sooner or later.”

  “Personal?”

  “Yeah.”

  I nodded. “Then we’re in?”

  “When do you need it.”

  “In the next day.”

  He stared at me. “Look—”

  “Maybe two.”

  He continued staring at me, then frowned and said, “Actually, that works out. Can you do it tonight?”

  “Tonight?”

  “Yeah. This evening.”

  Served me right, I guess. If I was going to rush him, it was only fair. I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Yes,” I said.

  He nodded. “How do I reach you?”

  “Deragar, the guy who set this meet up, will be around. Get him a message and it’ll get to me.”

  “Where?”

  “Do you know the Blue Flame?”

  “The place where they make the pepper sausage?”

  It was almost enough to make me like him. “Yeah,” I said. “He’ll be there.”

  “All right. Anything else?”

  “No. Want me to leave first?”

  He nodded. I stood up and, my shoulder blades only twitching a little, I opened the door and walked out. I made myself walk slowly, both to reassure his people, and because, well, you know, you just don’t let on that your shoulder blades are twitching.

  12

  MAKING THREATS OR MAKING CONNECTIONS

  Loiosh flew onto my shoulder, and Deragar, Nesci and the other guy, whose name I never learned, flanked me.

  “Rocza says we’re clear, Boss.”

  We stepped out the door, and turned back toward Kragar’s office. The return was scarier than getting there, I suppose because I had less to think about. We took the secret way in, in spite of my discomfort at letting others in on it; I just didn’t feel like walking back into the front of the office was a good career move at that moment.

  As soon as we were back, I told Deragar he needed to head to the Blue Flame and wait until he got a message.

  “It’s a good place,” he said.

  I nodded. “Yeah, and order something good. On me.”

  “I’ll be in touch,” he said.

  “Don’t get killed,” I told him.

  He nodded and left. Not even a smart remark; where was Kragar finding these people? Speaking of Kragar, once Deragar was gone I asked about him. I was told he was doing all right. I asked if he was out of danger, and was told, “probably.” I loved that.

  “So, what do you think, Loiosh?”

  “About?”

  “Will he go through with it, or is he setting me up?”

  “Fifty-fifty, Boss.”

  “I think we’re a little ahead of that. Not much, maybe. But he wants the area, and this is his chance to get it.”

  “If he can trust you enough.”

  “Yeah.”

  I retreated to my corner and sharpened my knives, just to be doing something. I suggested we eat something, and Loiosh, shockingly, agreed. That “shockingly” part was a joke. One of Kragar’s people went down the street and came back with goose soup. I mean, it was called soup, but there wasn’t much broth in it—mostly goose and vegetables and some really sharp spices and noodles that stayed crisp in spite of the liquid. Loiosh expressed strong approval, although he let me know that Rocza was a bit uncertain about the spicing. I said she was just weak, but I don’t think Loiosh passed that on.

  I finished the soup and fought off the desire to take a nap. It became easier when Deragar came back.

  “All right,” he said. “It’s set.”

  I nodded. “What do I need to know?”

  “Do you know the corner of Undauntra and Paved Road?”

  “Yes.”

  “There’s a place there, on Paved, second door in from Undauntra. It’s a brickstone building with a cherrywood facade. Two flats. In the lower one, on Farmdays, there’s a low-stakes Shereba game he likes.”

  “I remember. Isn’t there a big range on when he shows up?”

  “After the seventh hour, before the tenth.”

  “That’s a pretty wide window.”

  “I know.”

  “And he doesn’t always go.”

  “He’ll be there tonight.”

  “All right. I know the area. It could be better, but I think it’ll do. It won’t be crowded, anyway.”

  “I checked over the place. Alley next to it, alley across the street, the building to the north is tall and there’s a big cistern in front of it. Big enough to hide behind. The alley is eight paces from the door, the alley across the street is twenty, the cistern is twelve.”

  “Your paces or mine?”

  “Yours.”

  I mentally increased the amount I was going to pay him.

&n
bsp; “What color is the cistern?”

  “Sort of a dull silver.”

  “Good,” I said.

  “Lord Taltos, do you want me to do this?”

  I hesitated, considered. Then I shook my head. “No,” I said. “I’ve got it.”

  I hoped I had it. I’d put a lot of shines on a lot of sons-of-bitches over the years, but this one was going to be different.

  I stretched my legs out, tried to relax, and thought about it, considering this, that, and the other. In a few hours, I was going to—finally—get that asshole Terion out of my life, either by killing him, or by, well, no longer having a life. The good news was that, unless he was carrying a Morganti weapon, losing my life would also be cheating the Jhereg.

  Although there had been an appalling number of Morganti weapons around of late. The Empire should really do something about that. I considered writing a letter to the Empress and filling it with threats and obscenity. Maybe next week I’d see how that worked out for me.

  We went out the secret exit and took a slightly circuitous route, so it was around the fifth hour when Loiosh, Rocza, and I got there—I’d declined Deragar’s offer of company, because some things I just feel are personal. I looked around. Deragar’s description had been good, except that he hadn’t mentioned how exposed the closer alley was—it was more like a narrow street than an alley, and there was nothing in it. The building was made of that horrid stuff where they carve rocks to look like bricks, and someone had stuck some wood in front to make it look better. There was nothing there to hide behind, though. But the cistern was there—taller than me, wider than me, pump and spigot on the street side. I stood behind it and eyeballed the distance I’d have to cross. Loiosh and Rocza flew in gradually widening circles overhead.

  There was some street traffic, but not a great deal, and I can blend in pretty well. The grayish color wasn’t necessary, but it didn’t make things harder.

  Usually, I liked to have days or even weeks to put things together; to pick an exact time and place, decide on the weapon, and have the approach and escape down precisely. This time, it would need to be half improvised, and I didn’t care for it.

  But I’ll tell you something. One reason you go to all the extra trouble, pay so much attention to detail, and plan everything so carefully is that, every once in a while, there’s a situation where you’ll have to just do the best you can, and all the extra work you did the other times makes it a little easier and more natural to make the right move. It’s like a catchback player who uses perfect form on the easy balls: He’s the one more likely to make those sensational unlikely catches that make bookies scream and tear their hair out.