Tomorrow, the Killing lt-2

by Daniel Polansky

  Back at the Earl I changed clothes and undid the latch on the hidden shelf in my bureau, swapping a few vials from the professional stash into my personal. I noted sourly that it had been a lot more crowded a few days earlier.

  A letter waited on my night table, a block ‘M’ sealed in wax on the back. I opened it and watched a leaf of paper flutter to the ground. The text was neat, ink pressed into muslin.

  Lieutenant,

  No doubt you’ve heard of my recent misfortune. Its arrival is to be laid at my feet, and mine alone – you owe me nothing. Indeed, it is I and my family who are in your debt, and while your refusal to accept payment does you credit, your services merit reward. Please take the enclosed as just recompense, and as a mark of esteem from an old man.

  General Edwin Montgomery, (Ret.)

  Recent misfortune. The general was a hard man, but then he’d have to be, having lost one already. And what could you expect? Tear stains in the margins, like a virgin’s love letter? I picked up the fallen slip of paper. It was a promissory note to be drawn at one of the city’s oldest banking establishments, the sort with ivy growing up stone walls, a sign too small to notice and a million ochres in the basement. It felt light in my palm. It had enough zeroes on it to weigh down a corpse. I tore it into slivers, then dropped the slivers into the trash.

  The ball was already rolling; I’d be wise not to step in front of it. And besides, the general didn’t know what I owed him – if he did, he wouldn’t have been so quick to offer coin, or his esteem. I undid the cap on a vial of breath and let the pink vapor filter through a nostril. Rhaine Montgomery would get her due.

  I folded the letter back up, then stopped and reopened it. The wax sigil had been reheated, ably, subtly, but noticeably, if you knew what to look for. I hadn’t been the first person to read the general’s missive, though I had a pretty good idea who was.

  At some point while I was upstairs Wren had taken a spot at a front table. He was gouging out pieces of the wood with the tip of his dagger, and he didn’t react when I took the seat next to him.

  ‘I know the furnishings aren’t exactly in prime condition, but that’s not a reason to deteriorate them further.’

  He didn’t answer, and he didn’t stop.

  ‘How’d your lesson go?’

  He grunted.

  ‘I don’t speak surly adolescent. You’ll need to translate.’

  ‘It was fine,’ he said, sharp as the tip of his blade.

  I put my hand on the hilt and settled it against the table. Then I put my face next to his, close enough to smell his breath. ‘You don’t feel like chatting, that’s fine, I’m in no mood for a confessional. But I’m going to see Mazzie later on today to start paying for the rest of your education, and I’d like to make sure I’m not getting cheated.’

  I held him firmly in place for a long moment, then let go and reclined back into my seat. ‘She’s all right,’ he said after a while. ‘So far at least. We didn’t do much. She made tea, and we talked some. She told me I need to learn to make my mind hollow. It didn’t make much sense to me.’

  That sounded about right. I didn’t suppose he’d be initiated into the higher mysteries on his first day. I picked up a splinter from Wren’s whittling and picked at my teeth. ‘It don’t need to make sense to you. She’s your teacher, it just needs to make sense to her. But like I said, you keep your head swiveling. Anything happens that don’t feel right to you, you let me know.’

  He wasn’t in the mood to agree with me about anything, so in place of a nod he went back to picking out bits of the table. I left him to it long enough to get comfortable, then dropped the weight.

  ‘You aiming to take a spot with the ice?’

  ‘No,’ he said, confused.

  ‘Then why you been reading my mail?’

  He left the knife sticking upright in the wood and opened his mouth to lie.

  ‘You drip a false syllable and I’m gonna beat you blue,’ I said, but my heart wasn’t in it, and it didn’t draw more from him than a shrug.

  ‘It seemed interesting.’

  ‘This what you learned beneath my roof? To gnaw at the hand that feeds you?’

  A childhood spent picking pockets and running scams had mostly inured Wren to the effects of guilt. No doubt he’d earned a more physical manifestation of my displeasure, but it was awful hot to be getting hot.

  ‘What did you do for General Montgomery?’ Wren asked after it became clear there wouldn’t be immediate consequences for his misbehavior.

  ‘Very little of value, as it turned out.’

  ‘It have anything to do with that woman who came in here last week?’

  By the Firstborn, he was smart. You had to sprint to keep ahead of him. ‘Yeah.’

  ‘How’d it turn out?’

  ‘Not particularly well.’

  ‘This General Montgomery,’ he began again, after a pause. ‘He Roland’s father?’

  ‘Not anymore.’

  ‘Adolphus says Roland was a legend. Says he gave his life trying to better his men’s.’

  ‘Death makes a fellow popular.’ My headache wasn’t going anywhere. I thought about rolling a spliff, but it was gonna be a long day, and I’d do better if I kept my edge.

  ‘You knew him?’

  ‘Yeah, I knew him.’

  ‘What was he like?’

  A man like any other. A Daeva, straight from Chinvat. A mad dog in the street, best put down, and fast. ‘Depends on where you sat.’

  ‘And where did you sit?’

  ‘He was my superior, for a while, back during the war. After . . .’ I flicked my toothpick onto the ground. ‘We were at cross-purposes.’

  ‘But you were a soldier, like Adolphus – Roland was fighting for you.’

  My hopes of reaching mid-morning without losing my temper were starting to seem increasingly vain. Wren had perfected the ability to make me want to hurt him. ‘Let me explain to you how it is, boy – I wouldn’t think I’d need to, you growing up how you did. But you’re young, and still stupid, so I’ll tell you. There are men who walk in front, and men who stand behind them. The man behind, he’s always got a reason why he has to be where he is. Roland was better than most of them – at least he believed his line – but at the end of the day, it’s still the men up front catching the arrows.’

  ‘The veterans seem to think he was more than that.’

  ‘He had a good patter, like I said.’

  ‘That’s all there is?’

  ‘The Dren you hate so much – what do you think they marched for? You think their commanders told them they were the horde, make ready to swoop down on civilization and burn it to its embers? They got the same speech we did – glory, honor, justice. It comes down to where you’re sitting, like I said.’

  ‘None of it means anything?’

  ‘Not enough to die over.’

  ‘Then why are you doing this?’

  ‘Doing what?’

  His eyes were hard and cold, harder and colder than a fourteen-year-old’s had any right to be. ‘You’ve got wheels spinning,’ he said. ‘You been spinning them all week.’

  ‘I spin wheels for a living.’

  ‘So you’ll see yellow out of what you got going with the veterans?’

  Nothing like having the tables turned on you by a boy still holding his cherry. ‘It’s not all about coin.’

  ‘What’s it about then?’

  I didn’t answer.

  ‘Glory? Honor?’ He smiled savagely. ‘Justice?’

  I was saved by a knock from outside, a solid banging that seemed nearly an attempt to break the door down.

  Wren went back to playing with his blade. ‘For a man who doesn’t stick his neck out for anything, you stick your neck out a lot.’

  The thumping continued. ‘Warden, you in there?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I answered, but my eyes didn’t leave the boy.

  ‘It’s Hroudland. Commander needs to see you.’

  ‘One fucking se
cond!’ I shouted back, then leaned my face against Wren’s. ‘Next time you touch my property you can expect the conversation to be a good deal less pleasant,’ I said, then rose and opened the door.

  Hroudland and a couple of veterans stood outside, and they didn’t seem cheery. ‘Hello, boys – you miss me?’

  36

  Pretories was in a small cafe across from the burned-out wreckage of a building. He sat at a booth by the window, sipping from a mug too small for his hands. Three of his boys kept him wedged in respectfully, five if you counted by width. Each was engaged in impressive displays of fury, cracking knuckles, eyeballing passers-by, making quiet threats at no one in particular. By contrast Joachim seemed but faintly ruffled, blowing softly over his coffee.

  This one would be a tight play, no room for error. The vial of breath swung heavy in my pocket, and I let it stay there. These Association types weren’t so liberated as my usual crowd.

  ‘I’m sorry, Commander,’ I said.

  He swallowed my courtesy with a nod. ‘We had four boys in there, when they hit it.’

  ‘Like I said, I’m sorry.’

  There was an uncanny stillness to Joachim that made you jittery by reflection, made your beard itch and your brow sweat. ‘Let’s hear it,’ he said finally.

  ‘Not sure I follow.’

  ‘You warned me, told me what was coming. I gave you the brush-off. You’re entitled to crow.’

  I took the seat across from him. ‘I take no pleasure in the death of your men.’ Though I wouldn’t lose any sleep over it either – petty thugs with ten years of Joachim’s dirty work beneath their belts.

  That was the last thing anyone said for a while. I watched tufts of white smoke leak out from the hole in the other side of the street. The boys watched me. Pretories didn’t seem to watch anything.

  Without warning he brought his fist down against the table. The crockery rattled, and so did the personnel. He waited till both settled before continuing. ‘I don’t need this shit right now.’

  ‘I don’t imagine.’

  ‘Tomorrow is the biggest day in the history of our organiz-ation. Fifty thousand men marching in step, the largest contingent of veterans since the end of the war, taking our demands straight to the palace.’

  ‘Heavy.’

  ‘And now some . . . fading crime lord wants to go a round with us, bring up dirt that’s been buried for a decade.’

  ‘I admit – the timing is suspicious.’

  His eyes rolled up to meet mine. ‘What does that mean?’

  I took a deliberate look around the table. ‘Perhaps we’d best continue this in private.’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re used to, Lieutenant, but these men are my brothers. There are no secrets between us.’

  The goons sat up straighter.

  ‘Word is the Giroies get their backing from a man on the top floor of Black House.’

  ‘Boys, secure the perimeter.’

  The goons trickled out the booth, hurt and petulant.

  Joachim waited until they were gone before continuing. ‘That’s impossible,’ he said, and perhaps he wasn’t quite straight as a quarterstaff.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Black House has no reason to come after us – we’re a legitimate organization.’

  ‘Stirring up trouble with the council and the Crown. You think the Old Man is above taking sides on a political matter, you need to take another walk around the block. And besides, the Association might have put their revolutionary activities behind them, but Black House has a long memory. They’re not adverse to stepping on you for past misdeeds.’

  ‘I’m well aware of our history with Black House.’ He curled his lip up like he’d smelt something sour, and if he wasn’t quite fidgeting, it was close enough to see I’d gotten to him. ‘But we’ve reached an . . . equilibrium, at least, since Roland’s death. They’ve no reason to declare war on us.’

  ‘They didn’t – you did, when you decided on your march. Whatever unspoken accord you think you have with the Old Man, I can assure you, it lasts only until he thinks you’re making trouble for him – or till he sees an open shot at your throat.’

  ‘So he spurs up trouble with the Giroies to . . .’

  ‘Turn your flanks. They figure they’ll distract you with an old enmity.’

  He seemed to realize the balance between us had shifted, and came on strong, trying to reassert his authority. ‘This is all very interesting, Lieutenant. I’m wondering why you didn’t think to mention it before?’

  ‘All I had were rumors, underworld gossip.’

  ‘And now?’

  ‘I did some digging since yesterday. There are still a few men in Black House willing to chat, so long as I’m buying the drinks, and the drinks cost ten ochre a pop.’

  ‘Whispers from underworld contacts and ex-colleagues – this is a far way from hard evidence.’

  ‘Fits though, doesn’t it?’

  His silence was confirmation enough. There was another long pause, but this one I didn’t think was planned. Even for a man as unflappable as the commander, things were moving pretty quickly. He slunk down over his drink. ‘Years pulling ourselves out of Roland’s hole, years spent sitting on anything that touched on our old activities. Building our rolls, making contacts at court. Winning a place at the table for the men who’d fought for and earned it. This morning I wake up to the news that our station was bombed, four of our brothers murdered, and we’re back where we fucking started.’

  I set one finger on the rim of the milk pot, then pushed it over. A puddle settled onto the table, seeping into the cloth and trickling slowly to the floor.

  Pretories watched it drip, then looked up at me.

  ‘You gonna cry over it?’

  He didn’t answer, but his eyes were angrier than I’d ever seen them.

  ‘Let this go unanswered and what do you think you’ll get for an encore? The Giroies need a rap on the nose, or they’ll keep coming,’ I pointed out.

  ‘And if Black House is pulling their strings?’

  ‘All to the good. They learn their lesson, but it don’t look like you taught it to them.’

  ‘The Old Man can’t lose a pawn and not retaliate.’

  ‘You think he’ll send flowers to the funeral?’

  ‘He’s not a man to cross lightly.’

  ‘If you wanted to keep to the status quo, you shouldn’t be marching on the palace. As it is, you got two options – let yourself look like you can’t back your play . . .’

  ‘Or?’

  ‘Show them you ain’t the one to fuck with. Push back hard enough and the Old Man will eat the loss – he’s got no interest in starting a full-scale war.’

  ‘What’s to stop him from coming at us another way?’

  ‘Tomorrow’s problems can be dealt with tomorrow. Today’s problem is that the Giroies are making mince out of our people, and unless you want that to continue, you need to make a move.’

  Salvation, a line for a drowning man – who wouldn’t grab it? Just make sure he doesn’t learn you’re the one who tipped him overboard. Joachim wasn’t the sort to go off half-cocked. He didn’t say anything for a while, a long while, his eyes blank as a catatonic’s. ‘What do you recommend?’

  ‘Something loud. It needs to carry.’

  A minute more passed. Then the weave of his mouth curled upwards. ‘Thank you for the information, Lieutenant. We’ll speak again soon.’

  I knew a dismissal when I heard it. Joachim remained where he was, finishing off his coffee. A serving boy ran over and blotted up the spilled milk. There’d be blood to join it, soon enough.

  37

  Guiscard’s hounds came in a scant twenty minutes after Joachim’s had deposited me back at the Earl, and this time weren’t neither of them playing nice. I’d figured they might stop by, so in the interim I’d divested myself of any legally questionable arms or substances, but they took a good long time making sure. They stopped before my pants were around my ank
les, a fact for which I was grateful.

  ‘I keep a shiv in my asshole.’

  The friendly one hit me in the stomach hard enough to make me a ball on the floor. The unfriendly one kicked me in the head. That was why he was the unfriendly one.

  They pulled me to my feet. I fell back down. They pulled me up again, and held me steady. I blinked the light away, wished I could do the same with the blood.

  ‘That was my best shirt,’ I said, the red bloom adding contrast to the sweat stains.

  The friendly one looked ready to give me another, but the unfriendly one waved him off, cuffed me and led me out the door. I was thinking maybe I needed to switch their tags. The ride over was pretty similar to its predecessor, except that this time no one smiled, and every bump in the road splintered through my skull.

  Black House seemed much the way it had last time, though I was brought through it at a rapid clip so there wasn’t much opportunity for inspection. A few minutes and I was back in Guiscard’s windowed office, with a forced seat in an uncomfortable chair.

  He’d worn since I’d seen him last, which was a good sign that my work hadn’t been entirely in vain. My eyes had mostly swelled shut, and it hurt when I breathed, so I did my best not to.

  ‘You’ve dropped the ball, Warden. You were supposed to keep me apprised of the situation. I wake up today to find out there’s a smoking crater where an Association bureau used to be, and three bodies smoldering in the rubble.’

  ‘Four bodies,’ I said. ‘Don’t short the count.’

  A floorboard creaked behind me, and then my jaw struck against my chest. The unfriendly one, I figured. Six inches down he’d have snapped my neck, but he knew what he was doing. The correct method by which to hit a seated man was something you learnt coming up through the Black House ranks.

  ‘I’d have figured, after some of the things I’ve done for you lately, the least you’d do is keep me abreast of current events.’