I hoofed it back to my office after a conversation with Mr. Bull. I took off my shoes and laid out fresh socks and a shirt. Then I fed Three-leg and enjoyed a two-hour nap. I didn’t waste any time pondering who’d hexed the Sprang’s youngest urchin, or why-the night would hold far more pressing perils, and even those I shoved aside.
So I did manage to doze until Mr. Bull began to pound on my door at the appointed hour.
“I’m up,” I yelled. The pounding ceased, and his shadow fell away from my door.
I rose, gathered up my toiletries and clothes, and headed for the bathhouse. I was breaking Curfew with the rich folks, and it wouldn’t do to appear as anything but well dressed and groomed.
Too, I had another stop to make at Darla’s. I’d be cutting our date short, and she wasn’t going to like that. And I’d be breaking Curfew, and she’d like that less.
But the things I wasn’t going to do or say were going to be regarded as the worst insult of all. I couldn’t help it. There wasn’t going to be time for a long talk, much less time to break the news about my new position in the Corpsemaster’s secret army.
So I bathed in a hurry and bought yellow fireflowers along the way. Then in a fit of desperation I bought a box of fancy chocolates sealed with a red silk ribbon. The cab driver grinned.
“You’ve either done something, or you’re about to do something; which is it?”
“Both,” I replied.
“You should have bought roses.”
I gave him Darla’s address. He took the hint and shut up.
The ride to Darla’s was brief. I spent the time glaring at the fireflowers and thinking the cabbie was right. I was delaying the inevitable, and I knew it, but for the life of me I couldn’t come up with any way around it.
Drafted. It didn’t seem real. But the black carriage was waiting, and one day soon it would come for me again, and I might be brought home or I might find myself counting skulls out of boredom with the lads at the Battery.
Darla deserved better.
Then why have you waited? asked a snide little voice. All that time wasted. Now it might be too late.
I shoved the thought aside and cussed. The cab rolled to a halt, and I gathered my flowers and my box of fancy chocolates and clambered out.
Darla popped out of her door while I was fumbling with coins for the driver. She was wearing a high-necked brown top that had flower-shaped brass buttons and new black pants and shoes so shiny I knew they’d never been worn. She was dressed to go out, but she saw the flowers and the candy and her face fell.
Just a bit, only for an instant, but I saw and she saw me see and we wound up standing there on the sidewalk facing each while trying to decide who would speak first.
“For me?”
“For you,” I replied, offering up flowers and candy. “An apology for ruining your evening.”
“You haven’t ruined anything. These are beautiful. But we’re not going out, are we?”
“Sorry. No. Not tonight. I’ve got this client, see, and she expects results, and the only way I can get them is to meet certain people at a certain place at a certain time.”
She crossed her arms over her chest.
“This certain time is after Curfew.”
“I’m afraid so. No way around it, sweetheart. Some people can’t be negotiated with.”
“Did you try?”
“Darla. Honey. It’s your case I’m working on. I tried seeing old man Lethway during office hours and got tossed into the street. This is the only way.”
She sat on her stoop, her arms still crossed. Her hair tossed about in the evening breeze.
“So there’s no time to talk about your carriage ride either. How convenient.”
I couldn’t decide whether to sit or keep standing.
“I didn’t plan things this way. You know that.”
“Actually, Mr. Markhat, I’m not at all sure I know that at all. I’m beginning to think I don’t know a lot of things about us.”
“Darla, that’s not fair. It’s your case I’m working on. You asked me to do this.”
She brushed her hair back, but didn’t look at me.
“If it wasn’t a meeting after Curfew it would be something else.” She raised her hand when I started to protest. “I need to be a part of things. I need to be the first one you tell things, good or bad. I know you well enough to know something was said in Hisvin’s carriage. You’ve probably told Mama. You’ve probably told Evis. You could tell me right here, right now, probably in a hundred words or less. Why won’t you? Why?”
I didn’t answer right away. Even now, I have no idea what I was going to say; when I finally got my mouth open, but it was too late. Darla rose and darted up her steps and slammed her door behind her, leaving flowers and candy forlorn on her stoop.
I knocked, but my only response was the metallic clank of her sturdy door-bolts being thrown.
The cab that had dropped me off came rattling back down the street, heading in the opposite direction. He saw me standing there, saw the flowers and the candy on the stairs, and he rolled to a stop. Wisely, he didn’t say a damned word.
“You were wrong, by the way,” I said as I climbed back inside. “Roses wouldn’t have helped.”
I had the cab take me back by my place so I could pick up Toadsticker. I don’t take it to Darla’s-it’s just a reminder that my business doesn’t always involve pastries and friendly banter.
Darla’s words, and the hurt in her voice, haunted me all the way home. She was right.
And so was I. Which made fixing it difficult.
I didn’t pop back in at Mama’s. I didn’t hear any screaming or glass breaking, and the Hoogas appeared serene, so I just waved and darted in my place and came out with Toadsticker strapped to my waist, hidden under my long coat.
I had a sword on my belt, a knife in my boot and a pair of brass knuckles in my right pocket. The Avalante pin given to me by Evis was on my lapel. I was as ready as I could possibly be to break Curfew with a pair of well-heeled cigar aficionados who might decide during the conversation to reduce my number of functional appendages.
I caught myself glaring at passers-by. Damn it all, anyway. If Darla thought she was unhappy now, wait until she found out the truth.
I had the cab drop me a block from the cigar house. I found a bar and I planted my butt there until Curfew warning-two peals, silence, two more peals sounded, and the barkeep got red-faced and sputtered and finally worked up the nerve to ask me to leave. I plunged out into a street already nearly empty, aside from hurried figures shuttering windows and locking doors and looking furtively about as though they expected to be gobbled up by vampires in the next moment.
I unbuttoned my coat. I didn’t need to. Hell, the halfdead haven’t claimed a victim in the good part of town in years, but I was in a mood and I knew the sight of Toadsticker glittering in the lamplight would keep run-of-the-mill muggers away.
I found a shadowed alley across from the cigar joint and lurked there, waiting. The owners must be well connected, I decided, because they neither shuttered the windows nor turned down the lamps. I could see shapes moving about, but couldn’t discern much else through the curtains.
I waited until Curfew proper rang out, and then I crossed the empty street and marched up to the front doors.
They weren’t locked. I walked through, and a pair of uniformed kids took my coat. I was told I was expected and led down a long hall and into a room the size of a house.
It was paneled in walnut and the floors were covered in rugs and the fireplace at the far end was blazing. The room held a dozen people, sitting and speaking in hushed tones in four little bunches scattered throughout the cavernous room. There were no windows, and it was hot, and from the thick haze of smoke that surrounded Lethway and Pratt I gathered they’d spent the evening sitting too close to that unnecessary fire and puffing away on rich man’s tobacco.
Lethway was older than I’d expected, but trim and shaved and sitting bolt upright on a couch designed for slouching. He wore his white hair in an Army officer’s peel and his boots were officer issue and the walking cane leaning by his right knee was topped with the gold dragon’s head of the Sixth.
“Well, well,” said Lethway. His voice was strong and showed no hint of drink despite the half-empty bottle on the table beside him. “Mr. Markhat at last. We feared you discovered other appointments.”
“You said after Curfew. It’s after Curfew. I’m here.”
I sat across from Lethway. That left me facing both men, which wasn’t the perfect place to be if they decided to jump me, but I didn’t think they’d risk making a ruckus indoors with witnesses around.
Mr. Lethway nodded. A pair of waiters appeared and politely ushered everyone save a trio of well-dressed gentlemen and the three of us out. When the last waiter left, he locked the door behind him.
The three stragglers took up stations behind me. They did not sit. They did not speak.
They didn’t need to.
“So that’s the way it is.” There was a box of cigars at my elbow. I opened it, took one out, used the clippers on the table to snip off the end, and put it in my mouth. “Either of you gentlemen have a light?”
“Pratt. If you please.”
Pratt hefted his bulk from the couch with a grunt and fished in his pocket and produced a fancy sparking lighter. I leaned forward, and he stood close. His lighter rasped and sparked and I inhaled.
It was a good cigar. Not as good as the ones Evis gets, but close.
I blew out blue-grey smoke.
“Thanks,” I said.
“Don’t mention it.” Pratt sat back down.
“Tell me what you know, Mr. Markhat.”
“I know a great many things. Geography, for instance. Did you know the Brown River runs for one thousand, two hundred, and sixteen miles past Rannit before it reaches the Sea?”
His tanned face flushed. Pratt glanced Lethway’s way, waiting for some long-established hint.
“I came here to talk, Mr. Lethway. And I’ll be glad to tell you what little I know about your son’s disappearance. But bullying me isn’t a good way to start. I’ve been bullied by bigger and better, and frankly, you’ve lost your touch.”
He went full-on purple.
“You are insolent.”
“That I am. And you’re stubborn. Your only son has been kidnapped, and instead of trying to help the man who’s looking to bring him home you lock him in a room and make scary noises at him. That’s no way to be. Let’s start over, shall we? My name is Markhat. I have reason to believe your son Carris has been kidnapped. I’d like to find these people before they hurt Carris. This is a good cigar.”
His knuckles were white and his jaw worked silently but in the end, Lethway swallowed the urge to have me decapitated on the spot.
“I don’t want your help, Mr. Markhat. I don’t want anything to do with you. Carris is away on family business. He realized marrying that…commoner was a mistake. She is deluded, or greedy, or both.”
I shook my head. “She’s neither. And Carris is no more away on business than I am king of the ogres. But I’ll tell you something you don’t know, in a gesture of good faith. I think the kidnappers came to see Mr. Fields as well.”
He sputtered and lifted his empty glass and tried to drink from it. I shook my head.
“So you didn’t know that. Good. I’ve told you something you didn’t know. Why not do the same for me? He’s your son, Mr. Lethway. Trusting the kidnappers to keep their word may seem like the best plan, but I’m here to tell you they don’t often keep it. It’s too easy to just silence the only witness and head East with the money. Don’t let that happen.”
“Damn you. Stay out of this. What is it going to take? Money? I have money-more than you can imagine. Name your price. Name it, damn you, and go.”
“No. That isn’t going to happen, Mr. Lethway. Like it or not, I’m going to find your son. You can help. It won’t cost you a cent.”
He glared at me. “I don’t tolerate insolence. You had a chance to walk out of here a wealthy man. You turned that down. So be it. Pratt.”
Pratt stood. His expression was somber, almost apologetic.
“No blades. These are good rugs.”
Pratt nodded and cracked his knuckles.
“You’re going to murder me, right here?” I took a long puff of my cigar. “You never even offered me a drink. And here you are, making snide remarks about commoners. The cheek of you, man.”
Pratt moved.
So did I. I leaped to my feet and feinted left and darted right and managed two good steps before arms closed around my waist. Toadsticker’s scabbard has an open end, just for occasions such as that. I pulled him half-out and backed up and jammed the blade backwards, hard. Someone yelped and I shook him off and hit another man with my shoulder and charged toward the door.
Pratt was there, fists lashing out toward my midsection. I whirled and leaped and got tangled in someone’s feet and went down and got kicked. Toadsticker lashed out again, giving me time to get back up, and a sprint took me toward the door.
It was locked. I knew that. I put my back to it and held Toadsticker at the ready, low and level. Pratt and his three companions closed slowly in on me while Lethway kept his distance.
“You can’t take us all,” said Pratt. “Good try. But you ain’t leaving here. Why not make it easy on yourself?”
I started banging on the door and yelling.
“No one will answer, Mr. Markhat,” said Lethway. “You see, I own this establishment. No one else is here.”
He smiled a grim little smile.
And at that very moment, someone banged on the door from the other side, and replied to my shouts with shouts of their own.
“City Watch,” came a voice. “We have a warrant. Open this door or we break it down.”
“It’s locked,” I yelled back. “Break it down. Murder! Mayhem! Quickly, man, I’m a member of the Regency.”
And while Lethway goggled and sputtered, the Watch brought that door down, right at my back. I dropped Toadsticker as the door fell, and hoped like Hell I’d get him back.
A half-dozen Watchmen poured in, swords and crossbows at the ready, giving everyone a good Watch glare.
“How dare you,” began Lethway.
“Shut it, Pops,” barked a Watchman. “”We’ve got a warrant for a finder named Markhat.”
“That’s me,” I said, raising my arms. “I’m Markhat. Guilty as charged. Ready to pay my debt to society, officer.”
Pratt stifled a grin. A trickle of blood ran down the forehead of one of the men I’d tangled with. A second was clutching his stomach, where behind his hand a red stain grew. The Watch sergeant saw and spat on Mr. Lethway’s good rug in disgust.
“Take him. The rest of you lot. What the Hell was going on in here?”
“They were just showing me the error of my ways, Officer.”
“I am the owner of this establishment, Sergeant. My name is Lethway.”
“I don’t give a rat’s ass what your name is, Pops, unless it’s on my warrant. Shut it. You.” He whirled me around while another man lowered my arms and fitted shackles on my wrists. “You are under arrest for the murder of a…” he looked down at his paper, “a Mr. Harry Tibbles, late of Barclay Street. You have the right to remain silent. I have the right to kick your ass all the way from here to the jailhouse if you give me trouble. Shut up and walk.”
I winked at Pratt as the Watch led me off to jail.
And so it was that the famous finder Markhat spent his first night in a modern Rannite jail.
The facilities, I must report, were less than amenable. The toilet consisted of a hole in the floor. The smell that issued from said void was persistent, indescribable and utterly inescapable.
My Avalante pin, my sword and my obvious genteel bearing did at least rate me a cell of my own. My neighbors on either side were crammed into their similar accommodation ten to a cell, and my special treatment was the source of the evening’s commentary. I have never been so glad to be bordered on two sides with sturdy iron bars. I was careful to avoid coming within grabbing distance of my new neighbors, which left me confined to a narrow strip of filthy stone floor that was three paces long and less than a pace wide.
The Sprangs were in the Old Ruth. I was enjoying the hospitality of a much newer jail with the less colorful moniker of Number 19 Municipal Holding. The guards were taciturn but efficient, going so far as to toss a filthy pillow between the bars when it was noted that my cell lacked either cot or stool.
I did not sleep. The noise was one factor and my neighbors another. The few times I did doze I was showered with whatever debris they could collect.
I had not considered the consequences of going to jail dressed as I was. So I sat upright and alert and pondered the injustices of Rannit’s unwritten class conflicts while I waited for morning and Gertriss.
I expected to be released before lunch. The Regency’s case against me hinged on the murder of a small, furry man who resided in a hatbox, and even the kind of lawyers I can afford can easily handle that.
Guards came, new prisoners shuffling before them. Doors screeched and then clanged shut. Men shouted and hooted and laughed. Guards left, bleary-eyed and yawning.
That is the rhythm of life in a jail. Endlessly repetitive, unbearably boring. I wondered how many men died trying to escape not to freedom but away from the awful unchanging sameness of the jails.
After an eternity, light began to creep in from the narrow windows set well out of jumping reach along the wide hallways. A sparrow flew inside and was greeted with a brief, reverent silence. Then the light grew bolder, and the breakfast carts came bumping down the hall, and before I’d even had a chance to sample what appeared to be scrambled eggs and hard biscuits a pair of guards approached my door and set me free.
In the end, I got Toadsticker, my shoes, my coat, and all the contents of my pockets-even the loose coins-back. I signed a receipt and was told the charges against me had been dropped and if I ever pulled a damn fool stunt like that again the warden would personally shove my ass down the nearest shithole, head-first.
My belongings were shoved in my hands and I was hustled through a tall armored door and then I was blinking in Rannit’s morning sun, a free man at last.
Free but in his sock feet. I was struggling to get my shoes on when Gertriss came darting around the corner, breathless and grinning.
“Boss.” She hugged me, nearly knocking me over since I was standing on one foot. “Boss, are you all right? I thought they’d changed their minds. I’ve been waiting out front for half an hour.”
I looked around. They’d put me out the back door, like a common criminal.
“Their way of saying ‘and don’t come back,’ I suppose. Thanks, Miss. I’m fine.”
She wrinkled her nose. “No offense, boss, but you don’t smell so good.”
“I smell like jail. Which is perfectly acceptable, since that’s where we’re going next. Would you rather stick with me and face the Sprangs, or head back to Mama’s?”
“I’ll take the Old Ruth, Boss. I’ve got a cab waiting.” A Hooga popped around the corner, dipped his eyes at me, and then withdrew. “He insisted on coming, at least until you were out.”
“I knew he would.” I got my shoes tied, refilled my pockets, got Toadsticker strapped to my waist. It was too warm for the coat so I threw it over my shoulder.
And then I put my back to Number 19 Municipal Holding and told the cab driver to make for the Old Ruth.
He raised his eyebrows and grinned.
“Touring a lot of jails, are we, sir?”
“Trying to pick a favorite.” I flipped him a couple of coins. “I can’t recommend this one. The bed linens weren’t ironed.”
He laughed, and I climbed aboard with Gertriss and we rattled away.