serving. Just my luck he was having a sudden resurgence of patriotism.
“I know more than you think about a lot of things, Colonel. But that’s not really important, because knowing the why doesn’t help me get your son back. It’s the who I’m after.”
He said nothing.
“This is what we’re going to do, Colonel. You’re going to answer the next letter you get. You’re going to promise them they’ll get everything they want-in a direct exchange for Carris. No ifs, ands or buts.”
“I will do no such thing.”
I tapped my finger on the letter.
“Yes. Yes you will. You’ll agree to whatever time and place they dictate. You’ll agree to bring with you whatever records they want. And you’ll do it just as I say, or I’ll hand you over to the Corpsemaster and you can drive his black carriage around until the skin falls off your damned old bones. You know what they’ll say, Colonel? They’ll say ‘there goes old dead Lethway, thief and traitor. Got what he deserved.’ Is that how you want to be remembered?”
He had no answer. I didn’t press for one.
“You’ll send word to me when you’ve made the arrangements with the kidnappers. You’ll remember what I said about crates and letters if I have a tragic fall in the bath anytime soon. You’ll do this and get your son back and make me go away. Or else. That common enough for you?”
“Bastard.”
I speared a chunk of butter-covered broccoli and chewed and swallowed. “Oh, one last thing. Don’t go getting any ideas about going after Tamar Fields again. What was that about, anyway? You worried fat little Fields might decide to cause some trouble for you, in the middle of this mess?”
“I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about.”
I reached in my pocket and withdrew the head of the walking stick his man had taken away and plopped it on the letter.
He quickly moved his gaze away.
“Have a nice evening, Colonel Lethway. Sorry about your date. I don’t think she’s coming back.”
“I’ll do as you say,” he said in a whisper. “But one day, Markhat, I’m going to watch you die.”
“There ought to be quite a crowd. You should probably bring your own chair.” I rose and dropped a pair of coppers down on the table. “My part of the tip. Be seeing you.”
Mills was suddenly at my side. Lethway’s brutes looked to their boss, but he motioned them to stay put, and they did.
We walked out of the Banner, Mills and I, our bellies full of beer and the heady taste of short-lived triumph.
My carriage was still at the curb. I had a sudden urge to travel and no particular destination in mind.
We climbed inside and rolled into the empty street.
I let out my breath in a great long sigh.
“I thought that old man was going to pop a vein right there,” said Mills. “Is it healthy, pissing off rich folks like that, in public?”
“Keeps me young and sharp. The name Japeth Stricken mean anything to you?”
“Stricken. Hmmm. Seems familiar. Is it important?”
“It might be. Word is he’s dead. I wonder if that’s true.”
“I know some people who’d know.”
I grinned. “They stay up past Curfew?”
“They ain’t afraid of vampires. Hell, they probably skin ’em and eat ’em.”
“And you claim vexing the elderly is dangerous to my heath. Can you tell the driver where these worthies might be found, at this unholy hour?”
Mills banged on the ceiling and barked out directions to the driver.
Curfew keeps honest folks off the streets. But if my night out with Mills was any indication, the Curfew was also creating a wee-hours culture based in equal parts on crime, gambling and the frantic cultivation of garlic.
I never mentioned that Evis and his friends are no more repulsed by garlic than you or I. We might wrinkle our noses if someone shoves a handful of cloves in our face, but try that with a halfdead and you’ll only succeed in getting your arm ripped off, and worse.
Mills and I tramped from stinking bar to underground bawdyhouse to gambling hall to weed den. We asked the same question of every shifty-eyed card shark or nervous barkeep we encountered, and after forty-six askings got us the same indifferent shrugs and variations on “How the Hell should I know?” I was beginning to think we were wasting time.
But on the forty-seventh asking, in a weed-den dug below the warped floorboards of an abandoned rooming house on Sidge, we found what I was looking for.
The man’s real name wasn’t Glee, and if it was, it ought not have been. He didn’t smoke weed himself, but years of handling it and inhaling the fumes left him with the same afflictions all weedheads share. He twitched. He fidgeted. His lips were bloody and raw from being licked and picked at. His rheumy eyes made Evis’s look clear and healthy by comparison.
But he still had a mind in there.
He perked up before Mills finished pronouncing Japeth Stricken’s name.
“He’s back,” said Glee. He said it before he thought about setting a price. I was sure he wasn’t lying. The weed had dulled him that much.
“Is he now?” I asked. I let a few bright coins dance in my palm. “Back from where?”
Glee licked his lips. They bled afresh. His blood was black in the dim candlelight.
“Back from the dead, what I hear,” he said. I rewarded him with a pair of coins.
“He got stabbed about five years ago. Almost died. Crawled under a porch. Got away. That’s what he claims. Back now, settling old scores. Killed a man or two already, I hear.”
He shut up. I passed another coin his way. Somewhere in the dark, a weedhead started crying, until someone else kicked him in the gut.
“Say where he’s been, these past five years?”
Glee’s eyes darted. He shut his mouth and fidgeted.
Mills pushed him against the dirt wall.
“The man asked you a question,” he said.
I held up another coin.
“Prince,” said Glee, in a whisper. “Said he’s been in Prince. Claim’s he’s a big deal there, now.”
I flipped the coin his way. He caught it. Most weedheads wouldn’t realize a coin was in the air until they dreamed about it next week.
“Where could we find this big deal from Prince?”
“Hell, mister, I don’t know.” Mills pushed harder. I heard something pop. “Honest. It ain’t like we’re drinkin’ buddies.”
“You know all that, you don’t know where to find the man? I don’t believe that, weedhead.” Mills smiled and twisted Glee’s right arm. “Maybe you just need help remembering.”
Glee screamed. A couple of weedheads screamed back. If Glee kept a couple of thugs around to keep the peace, they were wisely finding less perilous chores to attend.
“A house. A house somewhere up in Torrent. I ain’t even sure that’s the truth, mister. It ain’t like I talked to the man myself.”
“Let him go.” Mills relaxed, and Glee sagged and wound up on his knees cradling his right arm.
“Wasn’t no need for all that,” he said. Blood ran in thick trails down his chin. “Wasn’t no need.”
I flipped a final coin at his feet.
“You have a good night. You’ll have a better one if you forget you ever talked to us. Isn’t that right, Mr. Mills?”
“That is the truth, Mr. Markhat. That is the Angel’s own truth.”
Glee just snatched up the coin. If he had any reply he spoke it too low to be heard.
Mills snorted and kicked him onto his side. I got him out of there before any of Glee’s employee’s realized
