Halfway through the second bottle of wine, the meal arrived. She never bothered to reach for her fork. Lethway grunted and emptied his glass and grudgingly began to carve his steak.
I rose. Mills watched, but remained seated, according to plan. I put on my best smile and ambled between tables.
If Lethway saw me, he didn’t recognize me, right up until the moment I hauled a chair to his table and seated myself upon it.
The whore’s eyes came up and no sooner than my ass hit the chair than hers was up and standing.
“I need to go powder my nose,” she said, her voice ghostly soft.
“Take your time,” I said. She hurried away. Her steak smelled of heaven. “Mind if I join you?”
Lethway went ashen pale.
I picked up his woman’s fork and stabbed a bit of beef.
“Now, now. No need calling for your associates. This is a nice place, and I’m just an old friend dropping by to chew the fat.” I put the steak in my mouth, chewed, swallowed.
He’d been about to call for his goons when Mills joined them, just as I had. Mills was just sitting there smiling. Maybe they knew his face. Maybe they didn’t. But something his smile of his conveyed all kinds of things, none of them warm and friendly.
“In fact, I have lots of friends here. But that’s hardly worth mentioning. You going to eat that potato?”
“You’re a dead man, Markhat. Dead. You won’t live to see the sun rise.”
“Whoa. Keep your potato. I guess asking for your toast is out of the question?”
His thin old face twitched, and his jaw muscles worked like he was chewing.
“I’ll see you dead, you common street trash.”
I shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe not. But there’s no reason we can’t be civil and have a conversation. About fires, for instance. I’m sure you heard the Barracks burned.”
He didn’t reply, but something like a grin did creep across his lips.
“Burned to the ground, they did. A total loss. All those Army records, ashes and cinders. A pity.”
“Indeed.”
“What you might not know is that not everything was destroyed, Colonel. And can you believe that some of the surviving documents have your name on them? What are the odds?”
“You lie.”
I reached inside my coat and found the brown envelope. I dropped it on the table in front of him, unopened.
“You offend me, sir. I do not lie. There is proof. You can keep it, if you want. I have more such documents. A whole crate full, as a matter of fact. They’re really very interesting, if one has an eye for history.” I leaned forward, dropped my voice to a whisper. “History and larceny.”
He didn’t want to open it. He wanted very much to shout and bluster and threaten and demand. That’s what he’d done, his whole long life, and for the first time he was realizing none of that was likely to work.
I let the moment linger.
He snatched up the envelope, tore it open, pulled out the paper inside and read it.
I let that moment linger too.
“This is a damned fine steak.”
“You think this is going to save you?” He threw the paper that bore his name down, where it landed in a gravy bowl. I fished it out while he fumed. “It means nothing.”
“Oh, Colonel. You know that isn’t true. It means ruin. It means you’re about to lose every damned copper you ever had. It means all your fancy friends will trip over each other in a mad dash to distance themselves from you. And then it means the gallows, Colonel. You stole from the Regency. For years.” I grinned. “You stole a fortune. You and your partners. You’ll all hang. All I have to do to make that happen is whisper in a few ears.”
“You think I don’t have friends? You think I’m going to let some commoner threaten my good name?”
“That’s Captain Commoner to you, Colonel. And here’s a question you might ask yourself. Ask yourself if any of your friends outrank Encorla Hisvin. Because one of my friends, Colonel, is the Corpsemaster himself. And if anything happens to me, a letter will reach Hisvin’s desk. A letter and a crate. I’m sure you can picture the rest without my help. And in light of Hisvin’s somewhat inventive methods of dispatching the enemies of the Regency, you’d best hope for a death as quick and easy as the gallows.”
“You lie.”
He said it, but he didn’t mean it. If he’d checked on me at all, he’d heard rumors I had ties to the Corpsemaster.
“I do not. I can snuff you out on a whim, Colonel. What was it you said about sunrises? It applies to you as well.”
He glared. His color was so bad I grew fearful he might suffer a stroke right there.
“But it doesn’t have to be that way. We can both take in a lifetime of sunrises, and all I need is a bit of cooperation.”
He made a growling noise deep in his throat.
“How much do you want?”
I sighed. “Not a copper. I told you before. I’m not out to rob you. I just want to bring your son home, safe and sound.”
“You need to stay out of this. I’m handling that.”
“How? By destroying the evidence? By stalling? For all you or I know, Carris is dead already. You don’t seem to give a damn. Why is that? “
“You didn’t see hundreds of people die in the war? Thousands?”
“Damn right I did. That doesn’t justify the death of even one more. Especially not your own son.”
“You don’t know what you’re getting into. I’m telling you to leave it alone.” He puffed up a bit. “That is an order.”
“You’re retired. Shove your orders. Who has Carris, Colonel? I think you either know or suspect, and I think their initials might be S.J.”
“The Lieutenant is dead. Just as you will soon be.”
“A Colonel ought to know that repeating empty threats is a poor tactical maneuver. Let’s talk about this dead Lieutenant. Since you claim he’s dead, what’s the harm in giving me his name?”
“His name was Japeth Stricken. He died begging. So will you.”
“Japeth Stricken.” The name was not one I knew. “You seem to know a lot about how he died.”
He smiled a thin wicked smile.
“I was there. He came to me, making demands. Just as you have.”
I nodded. “His share of the take ran out, so he put the squeeze on you for more, is that it?”
“You commoners are all the same.”
“You thieves share certain traits as well. Still. You’re sure he’s dead?”
“He’s dead. Just like you.”
“So what is it the kidnappers want, Colonel? And why won’t you give it to them?”
He clamped his jaw shut.
“You’re going to tell me. I’ll give you a minute to think it through. There’s no way out, Colonel. I’ve got more than enough to hang you, or worse. I can’t be bought or scared off. Your only option is to tell me what I need to know and hope to kill me some fine day long after this is over, and you know it.” I picked up his woman’s wineglass and tasted the vintage. Maybe rich folks like things sour and warm, but I decided I’d take cold beer any day.
“They never asked for money.” He spoke in a low growl. “They want information. Shipments of ore. How much slag we sell. How many wagons of ingots sold last quarter. Things you wouldn’t understand.”
“A competitor, out to beat you in the markets?”
“What else?”
I shook my head.
“Colonel. Commoner I may be, imbecile I am not. We both know there’s more to all this than a rival mining company trying to wring another half-percent profit out of this year’s take.”
“I told you to leave it alone.”
Damn. The man was actually trying to protect what he thought was a state secret. He’d stolen freely while
