by Frank Tuttle
I remembered the original neighborhood as I walked. Cawling had been just a few more sunken roofs and broken windowpanes from being an outright slum. The street had been so thoroughly mined for cobblestones it was more mud than pavement. The ramshackle wood-frame buildings had leaned and huddled like so many drowsy drunks.
I came upon a roofing crew as I walked. While the roofers themselves scrambled around hammering and shouting out of sight far above, a band of ogres was positioned on the scaffolding below. The ogres, rather than hauling the bundles of shingles up ladders, simply hurled them from one to another as easily as you or I could have tossed a bag of feathers.
A mob of kids danced and hooted as the ogres tossed. The ogres were hamming it up, throwing their loads underhanded, overhanded, eyes closed, from behind. The kids rewarded particularly impressive displays by throwing the ogres fat, red apples, and the ogres thanked them by pelting them with the soggy cores.
All in all, I wasn’t sure the fires had been such a bad thing after all.
Four out of every five of the new buildings around me were residential. Some housed bakeries or bathhouses or pubs or smoke shops or eateries. I didn’t figure I’d get any help from those—no, what I was looking for was an elderly woman with a broom, or an old-timer idling on a bench in the poplar-dappled shade.
I was having no luck finding either, until a door opened right at my left elbow and out popped a well-dressed, elderly gent with a child in hand on each side.
“Bugger,” announced the man.
“Bugger,” cried both children, with the inerrant instincts of the very young concerning curse words. “Bugger bugger bugger!”
The man’s face went crimson, and he nodded apologetically to me.
“Me and my mouth,” he said. “Daughter’s gonna choke me for sure.”
I laughed and stopped walking. Both kids danced and continued to employ their new word for my benefit.
“Obviously not the first time they’ve heard it,” I said. “And it certainly won’t be the last. If that’s the worst thing they encounter today, I’d say you’ve done a fine job of babysitting.”
“Isobell sure as…sure as the world won’t see it that way,” said the man.
I shrugged. “Name's Markhat,” I said, before he could get away. “Say, you don’t happen to remember this place when it was called Cawling, do you?”
The man grinned. “I knowed it! I knowed I knew you from somewhere. You’re Emma Bowling’s boy, ain’t you?”
I shook my head. “Sorry, not me,” I said. “Do you remember a Marris Sellway?”
“Sellways?”
“Sellway. Marris. Had a daughter, Doris? Lived upstairs in old Number Six?”
He pondered that, while both kids yelled and jumped and jerked in his hands.
“I don’t recollect no Sellways,” he said, squinting back through the years. “I lived two streets over, near to the old ironworks. On Ester. Febin is my name. Now, there might have been a Sellways up Northend way…”
Behind me, a cab rolled up, and the children started shrieking their prized new word at the top of their lungs. A woman in the cab began to shout back. The old man blanched, and I bade him farewell and beat a hasty retreat.
That’s finding, nine times out of ten. And you never run into the right person first, either. If I was more knowledgeable about Angels and their duties, I might know who to blame that on, but I hadn’t been under the shadow of a Church dome since the War.
So I walked. I ambled. I whistled. I idled. I bantered with bakers, gabbed with garbage men, hobnobbed with haberdashers, gossiped with maids. I learned quite a lot about Regency Avenue, and what a lovely, wonderful, peaceful place it was, but damned near nothing about bad old pre-War Cawling Street.
At lunch, I found a place that made a better ham sandwich than Eddie’s, even if it was twice the price. The barman there, a scowling old grump who’d probably been in a bad mood for longer than most of his patrons had been alive, had lived on Cawling before the fires, but aside from cussing about having his lot stolen by the City, he had nothing else at all to say.
I kept walking, kept talking. By midday I’d covered maybe half of the north side of the street. By the time the shadows were beginning to get long and the buildings on the south side blotted out the sun, I was nearly to the end of the south side, with nothing but sore feet and an afternoon of useless anecdotes to show for my efforts.
I shrugged. My client was, if Granny Knot was to be believed, as dead as the Regent’s sense of philanthropy. I didn’t figure another day or two would make much difference to a dead man.
A stray wind set the skinny poplar trees to swaying, and in the shade a chill rode up my spine. I saw a patch of lingering sun across the street and made for it, just as the doors to one of the three fancy coffeehouses I’d found opened and a small crowd of a half-dozen men piled out.
You stay in my business long, you develop a sense for trouble. And even if you don’t, when six stalwart strangers pull up their sleeves and crack their manly knuckles in near unison while the tallest and widest of them fixes you in a glare and says, “Hey, you,” you know you’ve just landed in the proverbial wrong place at the unfortunate wrong time.
I stopped and raised my hands.
“Whoa there, gentlemen,” I said. “My name is Markhat. I’m a finder. Licensed.”
They weren’t having any. They rushed me, covering the dozen steps between us at a run.
There are a couple of things you can do when you find yourself unarmed and outnumbered six to one. You can stand your ground and put up your fists and laugh in their bullying faces, or you can follow me in a spirited retreat and hope your pursuers just enjoyed a very heavy meal and are wearing high-heel shoes three sizes too small.
They hadn’t, and they weren’t, and I was never much of a sprinter.
I went down, tackled and flailing, right in front of a dressmaker’s shop window. I caught a brief glimpse of a lady’s upraised hand and look of horror, and then numerous beefy fists fell hard about me and the last thing I recall is hoping I didn’t spoil her day out shopping.
“Boy.”
I tried to cover my ears and roll over.
“Boy.”
Someone dashed water in face, and I came to, sputtering and mopping my face.
It did open my eyes though. At least my right eye. My left one was swollen nearly shut, and that taste in my mouth was blood.
“See what you done to him? I ought to hex the lot of you!”
I groaned and tried to remember things. That was Mama’s voice, but how had she gotten mixed up in this?
My right eye cleared enough to let me see.
I was seated in an office. Mama stood beside me, shaking a tiny stuffed owl at a burly, red-faced man seated behind a massive, oak desk. The man looked worried. The two men flanking him, who stood at perfect Army attention, looked worried as well.
Mama snarled and gave them all one last good shake of her owl before turning back to me.
“You hear me, boy? You back at your senses yet?”
I tried to nod an affirmative, but that just made the room spin.
“All they done was rough him up some, Missus Hog,” said the big man behind the desk. He wrung his hands while he spoke, and his knuckles were white. “They didn’t break no bones.”
Big man he might be, but his tone and demeanor toward Mama was anything but tough.
“Yeah, they were gentle as lambs,” I managed. I looked the big man straight in the eye and spat old blood on his fancy Kempish rug. “I just hope nobody got bruised when they ganged up on me.”
I swear the big man blanched.
“Mister Markhat,” he said. He rose and came around the desk and put his hands behind his back. “They thought you was nosing around, maybe looking for a place to rob. They didn’t know who you were.”
“Hell they didn’t.” I spit again, out of pure spite. “I told them who I was. Told them that I was a finder. Right before they dived in
swinging.”
Mama puffed up, and I thought the man—who was a good head taller than even I am—was going to break out in tears.
“Mama,” I said as I worked my jaw and probed the top of my head for fractures, “tell me what’s going on.”
Mama snarled. I swear she snarled, and her general lack of teeth did nothing to reduce the ferocity of it.
“This here big pile of stupid set his bully-boys on ye.” Mama’s Hog eyes were cold and merciless. “Once they’d done beat you half to death, one of ’em found that finder’s card you carries. They brung it to Mister Smart Britches here, and he knowed of a finder named Markhat what was a friend o’ mine, so he fetched me here to see if’n you was you.”
My hand went to my back right hip pocket. It was empty.
“Now, we got all your possessions right here, Mr. Markhat,” said Big Pile of Stupid. “Nothing missing. Money, city-issued finder’s card, pad and pen. All safe and sound.”
I grunted. My head was spinning again. But I was glad they hadn’t thrown that finder’s license in the gutter—damned thing costs me half a crown a year, and like everything else issued by the City they don’t hand out free replacements.
“So why the special greeting?” I asked. There was a knot on my head the size of an egg. “What did I do to rate all this?”
Mama gruffed and started to say something, but the big man dove in instead.
“My name is Owenstall,” he said. He almost extended a hand for me to shake, thought better of it and stomped back behind his desk and sat. “Regency is my neighborhood. My men and I keep it safe and orderly.”
“Depends on who you ask.”
I took a deep breath and tried to clear my head. Some things were starting to make sense. A lot of neighborhoods had taken to patrolling themselves during the war, and had continued the practice after and until the present. Given the general effectiveness of the Watch, I couldn’t blame them.
“So, you keep the streets clear of thugs and ruffians by giving them badges and having them pound on passing finders.”
“They were never told to beat down—to act with violence toward anyone,” said Owenstall. “That’s against policy. I assure you, Mr. Markhat, the man responsible for instigating this will be fired.”
“Gonna be worse than fired, I learn his name,” muttered Mama.
“You know this upright defender of law and order, Mama?” I asked.
Mama snorted. “Knowed him since he was knee-high. Knowed him when he was stealin’ apples off’n barges. Knowed him when he was gettin’ beat half to death onced a week by the Leaf Street gang. Knowed him when he had him that there problem with the ladies—”
All six and a half feet of Owenstall shot to his feet and turned the color of fresh-cut beef.
I managed to start talking first. “I get the picture. Look. I’m here asking questions on behalf of a client. That’s it. If I’d known you boys were so picky about who soils your sidewalks, I’d have asked permission first.”
Owenstall nodded the whole time I spoke. I wondered briefly just what else Mama knew about him, and resolved to ask later in case the dent in my skull proved permanent.
“The boys got out of line. But Mr. Markhat, see, we try to keep this a nice neighborhood. We’ve kept out the gangs and the whammy-men and the lay-abouts. People can walk the streets, kids can play on their stoops, nobody has to worry about nothing as long as we keep the wrong people out.”
I raised an eyebrow. Since it was the one over my swollen eye I hoped it made my point.
Owenstall raised his hands in surrender.
“Didn’t mean you. Meant people actin’ suspicious-like. That’s what they thought, and I’m telling you to your face they were wrong and I am sorry.”
He’d turned and looked right at Mama when he said the words “I am sorry.” I just grunted. It was obvious who he was really apologizing to.
“Looks like I’ll live.” I leaned forward and scooped my belongings off the desk and put them back in my pockets. “Now, since we are all best friends, I’m going to ask you the same questions I asked everybody else.”
Mama snuffled and crossed her stubby arms over her chest, but she turned down the furious glare a few notches and Owenstall visibly relaxed.
I laid out my standard spiel—I was looking for Marris Sellway who had a daughter named Doris Sellway who had lived in Number Six on Cawling before the fires. I hinted that an inheritance was involved.
And once again I got blank stares and mumbled “Nos” in response. No to knowing the name Sellway, to knowing a Marris with a Doris, no, no and no.
I made my address known and resolved to stand. I did it, without wobbling too much, and I decided it was time to head home.
Owenstall rose with me, and this time he stuck out his hand.
“I truly am sorry, Mr. Markhat.”
For the first time, he sounded sincere. I forced a grin and shook his hand.
Mama gave everyone a last shake of her dried owl and stomped out the door ahead of me.
The street was engulfed in shade. People gave Mama and I wide berth. Between Mama’s furious scowl and the blood on my good, white shirt, I guess we were very much out of place on scenic, peaceful Regency Avenue.
I didn’t make it far before I had to plop down on a bench and rest. Mama joined me, her dried owl clutched in her hand in case, I suppose, anyone passing by needed to be warned off.
“You can get into the biggest messes, boy.”
I rubbed my temple. My jaw was too sore to point out who’d dropped this mess square in my lap.
“I reckon you’re of a mind that Granny Knot is a put-on, ain’t you, boy?”
“No, Mama, I figure anybody named Granny Knot can naturally talk to spooks. Why do you ask?”
Mama guffawed. “Most of them what claims they can talk to ghosts is crazy. Granny Knot ain’t crazy. You hearin’ me, boy?”
“I’m hearing you, Mama. Not saying I believe you, but I’m hearing you.”
“Good. Now, boy, I don’t hold with talking to dead ’uns myself. They had their time, had their chances. They ought not to pester the living, in my way of thinking.”
A cab rattled past, and I lifted my hand to hail it, but the cabby gave us a hard eye and snapped his reins and urged his ponies on to less bloody fares. Mama shook her owl at him and whispered a long string of words I couldn’t understand.
“I reckon Granny knows more about such things than me. Still, boy, I wants you to be extra careful with this.”
I laughed out loud, which hurt, so I finished with a groan and my face in my hands.
“Granny may know them dead folks, but I knows the livin’ ones,” said Mama. “And I knows trouble when I sees it too. This here is trouble, and a lot worse trouble than that knot on your fool head.”
“But you brought her to my door anyway. Thanks, Mama.”
Mama shrugged. “She just said she needed her a finder what she could trust with money. I knowed she could trust you. Also knowed you needed some money—or have you and that mangy tom-cat got rich without me knowin’ it?”
“Not rich. Just bruised.” I took a deep breath and stood, since it was becoming obvious cabbies in this part of town were picky about their fares.
Mama rose as well.
I started walking. “You sure put the fear in big and ugly back there, Mama.”
Mama guffawed. “That young ’un’s been scairt of me for years. I likes it that way.” She huffed and puffed as we crossed the street. “He ain’t a bad man, deep down. I reckon them goons of his are going to have some fast talkin’ to do. So, what’s next, boy? You gonna just go door to door askin’ about that woman?”
“If that’s what it takes.”
Mama grunted. “Well, you got the mouth for it.” Mama eyed me critically, then waved her owl at an approaching cabby.
He didn’t even slow until Mama stepped out in the street, directly in his path, and screeched something at his ponies.
The
y came to dead halt, whinnying nervously, and Mama cut the cabbie’s curses off with a glare.
“Get in, boy,” said Mama. “We’s ridin’ home on Granny Knot’s coin. Reckon she owes you that much expense.”
I wasn’t going to argue. I flipped the scowling cabby a coin and clambered aboard the cab, after holding the door for Mama.
The Cadaver Client: The Markhat Files, Book 4
Chapter Two
I was back at my desk holding one of Mama’s infamous herb poultices over my swollen eye when the Big Bell rang out Curfew.
Three-leg Cat waited until the last peal died away before he sauntered to my door and demanded to be let out. I watched him dart into the deserted street, heedless of the Curfew or the threat of the thirsty halfdead that were free to roam the streets once the Bell sounded.
I doubted even the thirstiest vampire would look twice at Three-leg though.
I shuffled back to my chair and resumed my convalescence. The poultice smelled like Mama had stuffed something long dead with something even worse and then boiled the lot in cow piss. But it was taking the swelling down, and the first whiff of it had cured my headache.
The street outside was quiet. Rare, even for Cambrit Street, where the Curfew was more a suggestion than a command, and the Watch didn’t even bother to feign concern for anyone dumb enough to dare the halfdead. Aside from the barking of dogs and the far-off rattle of the first dead wagons, Rannit seemed to fall silent, all at once.
The lamp on the shelf beside me began to flicker. I gave it a one-eyed glare, because my office is too small to be hosting its own evening breezes.
And yet the flame danced to and fro, dancing like a drunkard.
A chill ran mouse-foot down my spine.
I groaned.
“So Granny laid some back-alley hex on my lamp,” I said aloud. “And I’m supposed to watch and get all goose bumped because I’m being visited by the spirits of the dead.”
The flame kept right on flickering.
