‘Yeah?’ His eyes narrowed quizzically. ‘You sure?’
‘I’m sure,’ I said, setting them next to his drink.
He looked at the coins for a long moment, then raked them off the table. ‘Sweetness, bring me a bottle of something that bubbles,’ he yelled over his shoulder, before turning back to face me. ‘You sticking ’round to enjoy it?’
‘I’ve got somewhere to be,’ I said, standing. ‘And I imagine our server will be a better companion – help keep you cool.’
His laughter was well bought at twice the price.
14
The Queen’s Palace was not the second, nor fit for the first. A flophouse a few blocks from the docks, ugly even by the standards of an ugly trade. Its clientele consisted mostly of streetwalkers renting love nests by the hour, and addicts one short rung above abject destitution.
I knew it all right. Better than I’d like to admit, well enough that I didn’t need to waste any time dancing with the clerk at the front desk. I plopped down an argent and tapped two fingers beside it, and my silver was replaced with the register. There wasn’t a real name to be found, but one from three days prior was so obviously made up that I felt certain I had my quarry. I took note of the room number and nodded to the receptionist. He placed the faded tome back beneath the counter and went back to not seeing anything. I slipped upstairs.
The lock on her door was nothing of the sort, a bit of tin I could have opened with my fingernail, though for appearance’s sake I slipped a thin spurt of metal out from my satchel and spent a few seconds teasing it open.
The door swung open on a small room, a largish closet really, barely big enough for a small bureau and a lumpy bed. She was sitting on this last, staring out at the alley below, but she turned when the hinges squeaked, pulling a small dagger from beneath the pillow. The hilt was burnished silver with a fire opal in the pommel, and she held it towards me, less a weapon than a talisman to ward away evil.
I closed the door after me. ‘Whatever you’re paying, it’s too much.’
‘What are you doing in my room?’ she hissed, torn between fury and relief that I wasn’t someone worse.
‘This is your room? I thought for sure it was the High Chancellor’s office.’
‘Stay away from me,’ she said, waving her blade about in an unbecoming moment of melodrama. ‘I’ll cut you if you come any closer.’
‘I wouldn’t. You’ll need to pawn that thing in a day or two, and bloodstains will bring down the value.’
Her shoulders dropped six inches, and she set the knife back on her bed. ‘What do you want?’
I took a seat on the edge of it. ‘A hundred thousand ochres and a country estate – but at the moment I’ll settle for you back up in Kor’s Heights where you belong.’
‘What made you think my answer would be any different than it was last night?’
‘I’d hoped another day of futility might slake your thirst.’
She brought her spine into perfect vertical alignment. ‘Then you didn’t understand who you’re dealing with.’
‘Better than you’d think, maybe. I’ve had some experience with the Montgomery stubbornness.’ A black stump of a candle flickered from the windowsill. It would be out soon, and the houseboy would gouge her for the replacement. ‘How are you so sure your brother’s death wasn’t what it looked like? You say Roland was a hero, fine. A hero ain’t a saint. So he sought the occasional release of a woman, and didn’t mind paying for it. There’s not so much sin in that.’
Her face turned the color of her hair, but she managed to keep her voice even. ‘My brother wasn’t some . . . whoremonger.’
‘You’d know that, at ten? Roland the sort of man to divulge bedroom peccadilloes to his little sister?’
‘I knew my brother.’
‘You didn’t, not really – and anyway, you’ve spent the last twelve years turning him into a saint. You’ve dismissed the most likely possibility because you don’t want it to be true, and you run around stirring up trouble because it’s more exciting than going home and living your life.’ The bed was the length of a coffin, and our faces nearly touched.
‘So that’s it then? Turn tail and head back to Daddy? Marry some callow noble, take up crochet and pump out children?’
‘You won’t find having your throat slit any more fulfilling.’
‘I’m getting closer.’
‘To an unmarked grave, maybe.’
She shook her head firmly. ‘I paid a visit to the Veterans’ Association this afternoon.’
‘I’m sure they were pleased to see you.’
‘You’d think so, wouldn’t you? You’d think that Joachim Pretories would pay every courtesy to the sister of his dead commander, especially with Roland’s picture papering the walls.’
‘Thinking gets me into trouble. I avoid it whenever possible.’
‘He told me I didn’t have any business being there. He told me to go back home, and he told me it in a fashion I found rather aggressive.’
‘Joachim Pretories is a bad man to antagonize.’
‘Then you do think he was involved.’
‘I don’t think anything, I just told you that. But were I to break with habit, I’d tell you that whatever sins may or may not darken the man’s conscience, he can’t very well sit quiet while you knock about the city, all but accusing him of complicity in your brother’s murder.’
‘He’s hiding something; I saw that in his eyes. If I work on him hard enough, it’ll shake loose.’
‘Joachim Pretories has been playing the game since before you started to bleed – ten years threading the narrows, and you think he’ll break at a sharp word from you? Go home, Rhaine. You’ve had your adventure, gotten an eyeful of the slums you can chat up with your intimates. There’s a surplus of warm bodies growing cold in Low Town – we don’t need Kor’s Heights to start exporting them.’
She bared her teeth in a fashion that made me think of a wolf, or at least an unfriendly dog. ‘That’s all you think of me? That my leaving home was . . . a whim?’
‘I sure as hell hope so – if you planned things out this way, you’re more a fool than I’d supposed.’
I was sure that would spark her, but it seemed to do the opposite. She looked down at her lap, then gave a little smile, the first I think I’d seen of it. She reminded me very much of Roland at that moment. ‘Things haven’t gone . . . as I’d anticipated.’ Our legs brushed against each other. ‘I suppose you must not think much of me.’
‘I don’t know what to think of you. You’re a lot of things all at once. I’d like you to have time to figure out which of those to commit to.’
‘What I am is someone who needs justice for her brother. I can see that leaving Father like I did seems the product of impulse. But my coming here was not. I’ve thought about it every day since Roland . . .’
‘Yes.’
She didn’t say anything for a while, which seemed very rare for her. In the quiet I caught a view of the little root of misery that had blossomed into perpetual belligerence. ‘Roland’s death emptied out Father completely. Even as a child I could see the change. He was a great man, once. But after we got the news . . .’ she shrugged. ‘He turned to his histories, and his garden, and he withered away quietly. I began to shout just to be heard. It was . . . difficult.’ She turned hard, as if to pay me back for her unguarded moment. ‘You couldn’t understand.’
‘I had a sister, once. A mother, father – the whole set.’ It was hard not to hate them a little, these thin-skins from Kor’s Heights, for whom a single death was an unimaginable tragedy. ‘Bad things happen to us, Rhaine. The reasons don’t matter. You carry it as best you can.’
‘There wasn’t a reason behind Roland’s murder?’
‘Knowing it won’t make a difference.’
‘When I know the reason, I’ll know who’s to be held responsible.’
‘And?’
‘And I’ll bring him to justice.’
‘Where?’
‘What?’
‘To what court will you bring them?’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Say that everything you think is true. Say that Roland’s murder was the result of some elaborate conspiracy. Let’s even go so far as to pretend that your amateur sleuthing is enough to sniff out the culprit, to find a trail twelve years fallow. Do you suppose the men who killed him are going to let you shout it from the rooftops?’ I shook my head. ‘They’ll stretch you out right along with your brother.’
‘The authorities . . .’
‘Roland was all but an enemy of the state – you think Black House will be in any hurry to chase after his murderer?’
‘My father is a powerful man. He’s got plenty of friends in high places.’
‘Your father sent me to hurry you on home – if you’re relying on him for backing, your thinking is crooked as an alleyway.’
It was easier to get angry than to admit to folly. So she got angry. ‘No one seems much interested in finding justice for my brother.’
‘Meaning?’
‘It means that rather than foil me at every turn, perhaps you should offer some help. Roland was your friend, after all.’
‘I keep hearing that.’
‘You were at his birthday party,’ she said, almost an accusation.
A pause. ‘I didn’t think you remembered.’
‘I remember everything about that night,’ she said. ‘It was the last time I saw him alive. He moved out of the house the next morning.’
I guess that argument with his father had been worse than I’d realized. ‘Roland didn’t have friends,’ I said. ‘He had followers. And if I was the latter, I’d sap you unconscious and drag you back home.’
‘You’ll need to, if you want to get me out of Low Town. I’ll learn the truth or die looking for it. There’s such a thing as justice.’ But I wasn’t sure if it was an assertion or a question.
‘Truth is what the man holding the whip says it is, and justice what the strong do to the weak. You think otherwise because you’ve lived your life in a bubble made of money – and you ought to get back there as soon as you can, before the world disabuses you of your innocence in brutal fashion.’
She looked away from me for a while. When she looked back it was clear nothing I’d said had made a difference. ‘Tell Father I’m going forward, with or without him, with or without you. My brother deserved better.’
‘Most of us do,’ I admitted. ‘And few of us get it.’
But she wasn’t listening – she’d gone back to staring out the window at the sordid landscape beneath us. I stood from the lumpy bed and moved to the exit, not exactly a trek. ‘It cost me five argents to find you,’ offering it as a parting shot. ‘It wouldn’t cost double to make sure no one ever finds you again.’
I took a last look at her as the door closed – I shouldn’t have, but I did.
15
There’s nothing half so foul as a body that’s spent some time in the water, and I’ve seen enough of the world’s unpleasantness to be something of an authority on the subject. The flesh takes on this viscous, wormy color between curdled cream and bone, and the eyes swell and bloat. After a day of immersion the skin starts to slough, peels right off the leg like a stocking, toenails and all. Plus the canal isn’t exactly fresh water, so you can garnish that description with the stench common to anything that’s been marinating in the main thoroughfare for the city’s waste, ripe feces and acrid urine. Vile as it was, our man hadn’t been swimming long, and it was easy enough to make out his identity. I nodded at Crispin, and he nodded at the guard, and he tossed the sheet over the corpse.
It was four or five months after Roland’s birthday party. I hadn’t seen him since, but then I’d been busy. He’d been busy as well, as the rancid meat in front of me evidenced.
I lit a cigarette to drown out the smell. Crispin did the same. ‘Did you know him?’ my partner asked.
‘Timory Half-hand,’ I said, pointing to the appendage left dangling out from beneath the thin cloth with which he’d been inexpertly covered. It was malformed, three stubby sticks of flesh, a defect of birth rather than the product of accident or violence, nature being crueler than either. ‘He moved dreamvine and the occasional clipped argent. Don’t know why anyone would go to the trouble of killing him.’
‘Yes, you do,’ Crispin responded.
I nodded and we walked off.
‘They’re getting bolder,’ Crispin said, threading his way around a beggar calling for alms against the alley wall. ‘That’s the third one this month.’
‘Small fish, though. Unaffiliated with the syndicates, unprotected by any of the major powers.’
‘They’re flexing their muscles. Not even bothering to hide it. You see that broadsheet they posted last week? That the Hand of the Firstborn would wipe the poison dealers from the streets, make Rigus a paradise for the working man?’
‘I had someone read it to me.’
We paused for a moment at an intersection, the crowd breaking around us like a swift-moving river. In a ditch next to us a street dog was happily consuming a fresh turd, deposited there by some member of the citizenry fussy enough to avoid doing their business in the street.
‘And yet despite the death of young Timory,’ Crispin began, ‘we wait in vain for Low Town’s promised rebirth.’
Barefoot in the sludge a boy stalked towards the mutt, a long wooden pole poised overhead. Once in range he struck the mongrel’s back full force. It reared and snapped back at him, then ran off. The child laughed uproariously, eyes fixed on mine as if daring a reprimand.
‘Looks pretty heavenly to me.’
I flicked my smoke into the gutter, and the urchin sprinted off.
‘Thoughts?’ Crispin asked.
‘I could get breakfast.’
‘It must be quite a burden, such depth of perception.’
‘I muddle through,’ I said, heading towards a nearby restaurant. We took a seat at a table. Crispin ordered steak and eggs and I did the same.
‘After we finish up here,’ he said, ‘I think I’ll pay a visit to the Veterans’ Association, see if I can’t shake anything loose.’
‘Yes, Montgomery always struck me as a man likely to bend in the face of the wind.’
‘A man was murdered. We find murderers.’
‘Do we? When was the last time we were in Low Town, looking over the corpse of a petty criminal?’
‘I imagine our boy had people. I imagine they’d be interested in bringing his killer to justice.’
‘His mother disowned him when he popped out a cripple, and if he’s got siblings they’re too smart to admit it.’ The server brought over two cups of coffee, black and lukewarm. ‘Three Timorys a day find themselves dead in Low Town.’
‘They aren’t killed by armed rebels, advocating overthrow of the state.’
‘Neither was this one, best as we know.’
‘Best as we can prove.’
‘As you like.’ But I wasn’t happy about it either, and couldn’t stay silent. ‘What do you care if the Association wants to cut up a few drug dealers? It saves us the trouble.’
‘He’ll move on to the syndicates soon enough. Word is, Roland’s been making threats toward the Giroies.’
‘You on their payroll?’ That was a joke, of course, if not a particularly good one. Crispin was honest to a degree that I found quite tiring. Also, he was fabulously rich.
‘I’d prefer if Rigus didn’t descend into open warfare. Besides, you know as well as I do that Roland Montgomery doesn’t give a damn about the mobs. Taking them on just serves to sharpen his blade. Once he’s consolidated his position in Low Town, he’ll start eyeing up the rest of the Empire.’
‘Which makes this above our pay grade, you know that. Montgomery wants to take his shot, there are people out there who’ll return it.’
‘So we stand aside while Special Ops handles it? A knife in the dark or a few drops o
f Spite’s Bloom in his liquor?’
‘Them or one of the syndicates. I don’t imagine they’ll be pleased to watch Montgomery go after their livelihood indefinitely.’
‘Just let the trash take care of their own?’
‘There are some decent people in Special Ops.’
‘No,’ he said, ‘there aren’t.’
There were a lot of meanings in that last sentence, and I took a slow minute to work through them.
‘You still thinking about trading up?’ Crispin asked.
‘I think about a lot of things.’
‘You can’t trust the Old Man,’ he said. ‘Whatever he’s offering, it’s not worth it.’
‘Not to you.’
At the center there was something that we both knew but never voiced. Crispin was rich, and cultured, and powerful, and I was none of those things. Crispin could walk off the job and spend the rest of his life coursing hare or drinking tea or whatever the hell it is the rich do when they aren’t bleeding the rest of us. He didn’t need to put himself on the block to climb the ladder – he’d slipped out the womb and landed on the highest rung.
Crispin and I were a lot alike, but that was one thing we’d never share. He needed nothing, and I wanted everything.
The meal came and we ate it. Looking at the stringy gray meat we’d have been better off throwing it into the mud. But we didn’t throw it into the mud, we ate it.
Crispin paid the bill. ‘I’m going to visit Montgomery, see if he hasn’t got anything to say. Feel like coming?’
‘I’ve got better ways to waste time.’
‘I’ll see you later, then.’
We parted at the next intersection.
Black House looked the same then as it did now, but I saw it differently. The guard manning the front gave me a quick salute when I walked in, even though he was the same rank. I was a smart man to salute. Things were going my way – I was rising like a cork.
But still I wasn’t there yet, and I hadn’t had much cause to spend time on the second floor. So I went slow, making sure I remembered each turn, that I didn’t get fumbled up by the fact that every hallway and office looked the same. I could have asked directions of course, but getting lost inside headquarters didn’t exactly fit with the image I was trying to present.
Tomorrow, the Killing (Low Town 2) Page 9
