“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.
