The foreman closed his eyes. He dropped the pipe on the table. Little bits of ash spilled out.
Jona licked his finger and touched the ash. He brought it up to his nose and sniffed. “That’s demon weed, butcher.”
“Is it?” he said.
Jona picked up the pipe and slipped it into a pocket. He took the man by the arm. The foreman came quietly.
The girls at his table waved with big, glassy smiles. The pimps looked at each other sideways, but nobody did anything. They weren’t here to protect customers, after all, just the girls. No point fighting a king’s man who could ring down the bells over a customer.
Jona looked over his shoulder at the innkeeper, sourly.
Jona walked with one hand on the foreman’s shoulder into the night street. He walked beside the man. “You know where the station house is, butcher?”
The foreman took a deep breath. “I do,” he said. Out in the street, he wasn’t a large man. Animal blood had dried in his hair. Little flecks of skin and hair lined the shoulders above where his apron covered his clothes. Beneath where an apron would be, he was sweaty and muddy, like anybody around here. The stink of the Pens was stronger than the sweat-stink of man, though.
“What d’you do in those Pens?” said Jona.
The man scoffed. “I won’t be a thing to a thing, soon.”
“They ain’t big on hiring the birdies to carve the meat are they?”
“No,” said the butcher.
“I wouldn’t have pulled you at all except for the innkeeper being how he was. We’ll sit down and talk a minute about your pipe, and then you’ll go home and get some sleep and be at work in the morning like nothing happened.”
“I don’t want to talk about the pipe,” said the butcher.
“Of course not,” said Jona, “so maybe while we’re walking you tell me what I want to know, and then you make a break for it and I pretend to chase you, but you get away free and clear and nobody thinks for a minute you’re my birdy.”
“Sounds like a trap.”
“It’s your best shot, though, and I’m an honest man, a king’s man.”
“What do you want to know?” said the foreman. “You ask, and I’ll think about it.”
“Where do you get your stuff?”
“Asking for my neck.”
“I could break your fingers now, or we could wait until we get to the station house. Your call. Hard to work in the abattoir with broken fingers, and plenty of men to take up where you leave off. Where do you get your stuff?”
“I get it off the top of some stuff that someone else brings in. It’s just a big crate. It’s full of the stuff, and stinks.”
“Who brings it in?”
“I don’t know.”
“They know you’re skimming?”
“That’s how I get paid. It comes in a crate with these sheep. Sheep come in on a sheep ship, and they all got their ankles cut already, so they can’t run around. My crew goes on board, and slits their throats. Then we carry them from the ship to the floor. In with the sheep there’s a big crate. When it’s quiet, after all the sheep are off the ship, I open it. I take my cut. I move the rest to this porter I know on the other side of the floor. Sometimes the crate’s full, and sometimes it ain’t. It stinks the same either way. The crate goes back on the same ship it came from. Sometimes it ain’t and I do it myself.”
“Who got you started on this stuff?”
“Foreman before me ran it, so I do, too.”
“I’m not after you little fellows,” said Jona, “I want to make that clear to you and yours. I want to know who’s on top. I want the paperwork, not the people. What’s this porter’s name who takes the stuff off you?”
“New Nima.”
“New Nima? How new is he?”
“He been there longer than me, but everyone calls him ‘New Nima’.”
“Who runs the sheep?”
“The only sheep ship every single day on my watch and no one else’s sheep comes here. You run the books, and find it for yourself.”
“Good enough for now, foreman,” said Jona, “but I want you to say hello to me when you see me. And if you don’t give me your real name, I’ll ring down the Pens to find you. Don’t test me on that.”
“I’m Havala Veriki.”
“I’m Corporal Jona Lord Joni. If one of my other boys starts pushing you too hard, you tell them you’re with me, and we won’t forget a good bird. Don’t test me lightly, Veriki. I don’t like my time abused for nothing.”
“Right,” said the foreman, “so I got to keep singing when you want and I got to take my punches, too.”
“But not too many. That’s how this deal works,” said Jona, “You’ll like it. You got a friend. Before, all of us were enemies, right?”
“What you are now is trouble, king’s man,” said the butcher, “So, I make a break for it now?”
“Go on, Havala Veriki. I’ll remember you real good.”
The foreman took a deep breath and took to the street like a galloping mule. He wasn’t fast. Jona reached out to him, but let one of his boots catch on the ground. He stumbled a bit, caught himself, and kicked his boot at the air behind the runaway.
Jona turned, and walked back towards Rachel’s inn. He staked out the place from the outside. He watched her rolling sheets out on the lines from the top floor. He watched her carrying buckets of water.
He wanted to go over to her and ease her burden. He didn’t. He watched her in the dark.
He wanted to help her with her brother. He wanted to be good to him, and help him, so she’d see. It wouldn’t work, though. He was mature enough to know that, at least.
Rachel left halfway between midnight and morning with a large bucket of water in her hand. Jona followed her down the street, to the edge of the Pens.
The fence between the street and this edge of the cattle pens was twice as tall as a man. The wide wooden slats ran sideways for twenty feet to keep the casual rustlers from banging a few nails loose at the bottom and slipping smaller animals between the gaps.
Rachel halted against the fence. She jammed an ear against the tiny slits in the wood. She placed the bucket of water next to a fence. She looked as best as she could between the slats, but with the lamp light behind her and the darkness before her, and the slats so small, she couldn’t see anything but darkness. She whispered her brother’s name through the fence.
Piles of clothes that stank of pink smoke staggered in an alley near the fence. One of them came over to Jona and begged for coins. Jona didn’t look long at the man. Jona punched him in the throat to shut him up and shoved him off.
The man choked, took three steps, and then fell over.
Jona realized he had just punched someone he knew. He bent over and touched the man’s leg. “Hey, Jaime,” he said, “That you? You get yourself tossed that bad?”
Jaime rolled over onto his back. He coughed. He looked up at Jona with big, spinning eyes and sweat that left a pink trail of dots everywhere it touched.
Jona’s eyebrows bunched up. His lips tightened. “I ought to roll you for this,” said Jona, softly, “At least you left your uniform at home. I can pretend I don’t know you.”
“It’s not what you think,” he said, “I’m investigating. I need some money to go back in and talk to this fellow.”
“Yeah?” Jona dropped a single coin on Jaime’s body. “What’s this fellow’s name?”
“Please, Jona,” he said, “please, I’ll need more than that.”
“His name?”
“Please, Jona…”
“Your head’s all cheese. You’re thinking straight, you wouldn’t lie to me. We all got our sins, but we stay out of the sinners’ dens that go for the demon weed. We keep clean of that Calipari and captain and king’s command. Your head’s so gone you trying to toss me for a coin and I see through you so easy I’m embarrassed for you. Let me explain your situation, Jaime. I am not giving you one more coin to cheese your head with, and I
had better see that report you write about your birdy in the morning,” whispered Jona. “You hear me? I better sit with him in the room when you bring in the birdy in the morning. Calipari was looking for you the other day. You’re lucky he didn’t find you here. How you get the coin for this, huh? You can only call in so many favors to the night before they start calling favors from you. You know that, right?”
“What are you doing out here?” said Jaime. He rubbed at his throat, coughed again, “Elishta, but what’d you throat me for?”
“I’m surprised you can feel anything like you are,” whispered Jona. Jona pointed at Rachel.
Rachel hadn’t noticed the king’s men in the shadows. She called out for her brother against the fence.
Jaime managed to find his feet below him like a new foal: all awkward angles and knees. Jaime leaned into the wall. He looked over at the Senta with the bucket of water against a fence.
“I’ve seen her,” said Jaime, “I have seen her.”
Jona punched Jaime’s arm. “Hush up,” he whispered.
Rachel walked around the fence, with her bucket, calling out to her brother. Her voice had reached panic pitch. A couple stragglers dressed like gangers with the same dirty red shirts—just drunk street fighters, not too dangerous—ambling down the street stopped to laugh. They mimicked her cries for her brother in high-pitched voices.
Rachel turned and snapped her fingers. A line of fire shot up to the two men’s faces. They ran off, cackling like drunken crows.
Rachel turned back to the fence. She pounded one of the slats with her palm. She threw the bucket over the top.
The bucket splashed water all over the other side of the fence. The bucket itself landed on something soft.
A human voice moaned.
Rachel leaned against the fence. “Djoss, is that you?” she said.
A man’s voice called out to her by name.
“Djoss, I brought the bucket so you could get over the fence,” she said. She gestured with her hands as if he could see her. “Just put the bucket upside-down and get on top. Then, stand on it and climb over.”
Djoss’ voice reached over the fence. “Rachel, how in Elishta’d you find me here?”
“I saw the shape of things, just now. Djoss, I saw you here, like it’s where you might never leave. Someone came and told me you. How in Elishta’d you end up in there, anyhow?”
“I jumped over.”
“Why?”
“You don’t want to know,” he said, laughter in his voice. “Thanks for finding me.”
Rachel frowned at him, but he couldn’t see it. He was still on the other side of the fence. “Why are you laughing?” She crossed her arms. “You’re sleeping in cow shit and you’re laughing about it?”
His fingers appeared at the top of the high fence. His grip slipped, and he fell back into the pen.
He laughed again. He tried to speak to her, and explain himself. She didn’t listen. She told him to go home. She said it like she was angry and sad and begging and commanding all at once. “Go home,” she said. Her arms stayed crossed while she walked away, alone. Djoss still hadn’t made it over the fence.
Jona saw Djoss’ hand on the top of the fence again, pulling hard.
Two night shift king’s men strolled around a corner, and saw the hands and heard the grunts of the man pulling himself over the top.
Jona stepped out of the alley. He waved the two king’s men over to him. With his hands, he urged them to ignore Djoss.Jona pulled the king’s men into a dark alley, beside the hidden hookahhouse.
The night shift king’s men asked Jona if he knew what the fellow throwing himself over the wall was about. Jona said the fellow got thrown there by a bouncer, and he was nothing to nobody, and just trying to get back to the hookah.
The night shift king’s men asked what Jona was doing there. Jona pointed at the house. He told them that Corporal Jaime of Calipari’s crew was inside, in plain clothes, and cheese-for-brains at a hookah after his wife and child had died. “Somebody should do something about it, yeah?” Jona had said. “He’s gone to the other side forever if he’s at the hookahs. The king will never get him back from this.”
The three king’s men nodded all around. Their faces were grim like blood monkeys. This unanimous decision came to them all at the same time.
People sucking on hookahs never came back. Every king’s man knew that. Eaters could come back. Pipers might make it if they were forced to it and strong. The people at the hookahs were walking dead, paying every coin for the privilege.
The three king’s men braced the back and side doors closed with crates and trash jammed into doorknobs and hinges. Jona and one of the night shifters took a corner in the back so they could watch for men jumping out alley windows.
One of the night shift king’s men tugged his bell out of the lapel pocket in his jacket. His partner stepped into the front door, pulling at the pocket with the bell. Jona tugged his bell out, too. They waited until they were all ready and holding a bat in their hands, or a long, sharp tooth. Their man was inside, and everyone inside was rolling tonight to get him off the street.
Jona swung his bell first. It clanged like a cow’s, but with a harder edge to the sound, like the bell might crack a skull in a pinch. Then, the other king’s men rang their bells.
The king’s men all over the district and beyond it heard and rang bells, all running to the center of the clanging sound.
Bodies banged into doors, but they were all braced shut from the outside. Some men tried for windows, but Jona and the other king’s man knocked them back with bats or the blunt edge of swords before anyone got out.
Every king’s man in earshot came in minutes swinging bats and swords and bells that called every other king’s man in a wider ear shot and every man, woman, and child in that building got surrounded and then the king’s men went inside and pulled every soul to the station houses.
And Jaime was in there, laughing when they pulled him out, unable to speak.
***
The night sergeant clomped Jona on the back. “You must be stamped, Corporal—rolling hard since daylight and now morning’s back again.”
Jona pretended to yawn. He shrugged. “Send me to Elishta, Sergeant. All the same to me. Work is work.”
The sergeant scribbled a note to Calipari about all that had transpired. “Take the morning off. Get some sleep, and come in for lunch shift. I’ll make two of my scriveners work the morning to cover for you and Jaime a while. We’re too short right now to give you all day, and we got too much paperwork after that little thing we did tonight to send too many scriveners walking about.”
Jona saluted. “I never needed much sleep, sir,” he said, “I’ll make it in early so your boy is back tomorrow night.”
“I bet Calipari’ll want to know exactly what happened, from your mouth,” said the sergeant.
“What happened is what happened.”
“Wish it hadn’t on my watch,” said the night sergeant. “I knew they were looking for Jaime the other day out in the tombs below the temple, with his kids resting and he can’t afford a decent funeral for them out on the bay. He crossed over, took money for something he shouldn’t have and spent bad coin on bad. He should’ve spent it sending his kids to the water. Maybe could’ve looked away from him on that one a little while if his reasons were right.”
“We didn’t know they were looking for Jaime,” said Jona, “We knew they were looking for somebody, but we didn’t know it was Jaime.”
The night sergeant nodded. “Right,” he said, “and you find him at a hookah in the middle of the night even though you didn’t know we were looking for him, and you rang down the bells clear in the head and not a drop of drink in you?”
“Something like that,” said Jona.
“You want to be sergeant when Calipari’s through, or you still after that lieutenant’s fleur?”
“I hadn’t been thinking about any of that stuff in a while. Just been doing the
job, walking about and staying on the king’s business.”
“You think about it, Corporal. I know you want the fleur, but no reason not to be a sergeant a while first. Geek’s not sneaky like you are. We hear things about you always turning up. We hear rumblings in the room that the worst people in the city are scared of you turning up to rumble, and we all hear about it. You know your way around, day or night. It’s useful is what that is.”
“I think Calipari wants Geek, and I think Calipari’s right. Geek’s better with the privates.” Jona pointed at the scriveners. “Geek’s a good boy. He’s cleaner. My hands get dirty, Sergeant.”
“Geek is no cleaner than any of us,” said the night sergeant. “Calipari’s been at this longer than I have. Longer than anybody I know. If anyone has good judgment it’s him. I’m just saying about how us on the night crew like our boys sneaky, and clean never kept order on the street. Day shift is probably different. We like to know the trouble only comes to folks like Jaime that go looking for it, and the good people who don’t want trouble get none. Sneaky’s good for that.”
Jona said nothing to that. He stood there until he thought he was probably dismissed. The night sergeant had already fallen back into the paperwork in the candlelight. Night shift scriveners always had bad eyes. Night shift desk sergeants had bad eyes, too. Jona didn’t want to ruin his eyes like that.
***
I worry when you don’t make it home.
Ma, I’m fine. Worry when you hear something bad.
What were you doing?
I was working, Ma. Sometimes I have to work to the long hours.
You should’ve sent a note, at least. You should’ve sent a boy with a note.
Ma, I’m fine.
You come home like you’ve been rolling in the mud without a coin in your pocket and bruises on your neck and you want to tell me that?
If I’m on a fellow hard like I was, I’m not stopping to write a note. I might as well stop to shout my name and what I’m doing to the whole wide…
We Leave Together Page 8
