hard.”
He gulped and nodded.
“Where is Marris Sellway, right now?”
He licked his lips. He took a deep breath. He struggled to put the right words together in the right order.
And then his pupils flared, his muscles went slack, and he passed out face-first into the liquid remains of his last pitiful meal.
Skillet kicked him and spat out a stream of cursing that would have made my old sergeant proud.
Stick was beyond feeling, though. I cussed a bit myself.
“Look, mister, I brung him. You heard what he said. He’s the real thing.”
“You’ll get paid.” I sighed. “Help me haul his stupid butt inside. Be my luck the halfdead will get him if I leave him on the sidewalk.”
We both picked out bits of Stick that were the least encrusted in filth and wrestled his limp form inside my door. I rolled him onto his side so he wouldn’t choke and put a handful of copper into Skillet’s outstretched hand.
The kid’s grin was the only thing about him that still looked young.
“You can stay here too,” I said. “It’s not safe out there.”
The coins vanished. A kitchen knife, honed down to a wicked edge, replaced them. “I got a little sister to watch,” he said.
I just nodded. “Come back around tomorrow. You’ll get the rest then.”
He nodded and was gone. I never once heard a footstep.
Stick moaned and twitched. His attendant stench wasted no time in pervading my office. I lit every candle I had, pulled my favorite lead-weighted head-knocker out of its hiding place under my desk, and settled in for a long and malodorous night.
Chapter Three
The bathhouse attendant, a blind old man named Waters, gathered up Stick’s clothes with the end of his cane and without a word hurled them into the furnace.
“That there man stinks,” offered Waters. “Use all that soap. I’ll go fetch more.”
And off he went grimacing and muttering.
I gave Stick a couple of good hard slaps, which roused him to mutter but not open his eyes.
So I hauled him up by the scruff of his neck and simply tossed his ugly, naked butt into the big, hot, copper bathtub.
Three-leg Cat couldn’t have put on a better show of flailing and howling and sputtering. I put my right hand on his head and pushed him back under briefly.
“Good morning, Mr. Stick.” I had him by the hair, and though he punched and struggled all he did was splash. “It’s bath day. If you behave yourself, it’ll also be breakfast day. If you keep making a ruckus, well…”
I put him under again. The water, I noted, was turning muddy.
At least it was cutting down the smell. Waters arrived as I let Stick back up for air and dumped a bowl of something fragrant into the tub.
“Gonna need more of that,” he opined before shuffling off again.
Stick was furious, but beginning to wake up. He quit trying to punch me, and a ghost of recognition flashed across his face.
“You.”
“Me,” I agreed. “The finder? The one with the coin? The one who wants to know all about Cawling Street and a woman named Marris Sellway? Ring any bells, Stick?”
“You said you pay.”
“I did. And I will. But first you’re going to get yourself clean. And then you’re going to eat. And then you and I are going to sit and talk about the Bloods and Cawling and Marris. Got it?”
Stick closed his eyes and brought up his hands to run water over his face.
“Got it.”
I let go of his head and tossed him a bar of soap. “Waters here did your clothes a favor and burned them. I’m going to go back to my place and get you some of mine. If you want the coin you’ll be here when I get back. You do want the coin, don’t you, Stick?”
The weed-lust in his eyes was the only reply I needed.
“Don’t make trouble for Waters, you hear?”
“I hear.”
I told Waters what I was doing on my way out. My place is just a short walk away, and I swear I could smell Stick in the still, early morning air all the way back to my door.
I found an old shirt and an old pair of brown trousers and a pair of socks with holes in the toes under my bed. They bore the faint aroma of Three-leg, who had apparently been using them as a bed. Even so they were a vast improvement on anything Stick was likely to ever own again.
A pair of old black shoes, soles worn paper thin, completed Stick’s new ensemble. I gathered them all and headed back, more worried about Waters and the possible application of his cane to Stick’s head than I was about anything Stick might decide to do.
Mama popped out of her door as I neared.
“No time now, Mama,” I said. “Bath emergency.”
Mama eyed my bundle, and wrinkled her nose at me. “Something stinks. Come back around when ye finish your doings. Got some things to say.”
Don’t you always, I thought. I just nodded and kept that to myself.
Stick was still in the bathtub when I got back. Waters had near-empty bottles of bath salts lined up by the tub, and he was emptying the dregs from each one onto Stick.
He had at least managed to knock the smell down.
“Gonna have to charge you double, Markhat. Can’t use this water for nothin’ but fertilizing flowers.”
“Not a problem.” I put the clothes down where Stick could see them. I think he muttered a toothless thank you.
Beneath the grime and the filth, Stick looked thin and pale and weary. And no amount of bath salts was going to wash that yellow skin away, or heal those open sores.
I paid Waters and got Stick dried off and dressed. The man had to have help getting shoes on. He simply couldn’t operate more than two fingers at a time.
We left the bathhouse to the sound of Waters draining the tub and burning the towels.
“You’re bathed. You’re fed. Now let’s talk about Cawling Street and Marris Sellway.”
Stick swallowed the last bite of biscuit and washed it down with water. I’d never seen a toothless man eat a slice of baked ham before. I hoped I never did again.
“She lived in old Number Six. Up top. Nice lady. Baked us bread when she had extra.”
I nodded. Number Six hadn’t been on the waybill either.
“What did she do for a living, Stick?
He looked confused by the very concept.
“Did she have a job? Did she take in laundry or sewing?”
“She sewed some,” said Stick. “I remember. She sewed some.”
“That’s good, Stick. That’s very good.” I shoved another biscuit his way. “Now tell me about her husband. Did you know him too?”
Stick had half a dry biscuit in his mouth, and he nearly choked trying to reply.
“No husband,” he finally choked out. “Dead. Dead and gone.”
I frowned. But maybe that’s what she told people, when he didn’t come home.
“Died in the War?”
Stick shook his head no. Biscuit crumbs went flying.
