I froze, one leg in my pants, the other in mid-air. My balls socketed themselves and I dropped my belt and quietly crept to my jacket and the gun. I got it out just as the door was opening.
It was Pedr, one of Valentine’s runners. He was a short man, and thin, with a head that was a little too big and cheekbones that were so thin and sharp they looked artificial, like he had a trick skull that was coiled to spring through his pale skin. He saw me and dropped his lock pick.
“Oh. Oh, fuck,” he said.
“Oh fuck indeed.” I stood there glowering at him, not bothering to cover my nakedness or the pistol in my hand. He averted his eyes and tried to shuffle out. I pulled him into the room and shut the door. “What’s happening, Pedr?”
“I just, I thought.” He sat on the bed and clammed up. He twined his fingers in his lap, twisting the ends of his dirty cuffs over and over. I set the revolver on my tiny desk and resumed getting dressed.
“You thought.” I finished with my pants and pulled out the most nondescript shirt I had. I watched him while I buttoned up. “What did you think, Pedr?”
“Nothing. Just that you’d be up at the Manor, still. Rain and all.”
“Thought you’d roll my pad while I was on the boss’s business?”
He winced, looked at me sidewise. Nodded.
“Okay. So, really,” I sat next to him on the bed while I fixed my socks and pulled on my boots. your “That’s story? Honestly? You were going to rob your boss’s weapon of choice.”
He looked down at his feet, twisted his cuffs. He might have nodded. “Sure.”
“You’re a little shit, Pedr, but you’re not stupid.” I stood up, took the gun and leaned casually against the hearth. “Who was it?”
He sat and squirmed and looked like he wasn’t going to answer. I leaned forward and popped him across the jaw, just enough to knock him off the bed. Big head like his, it didn’t take much force to put him off balance. He whimpered then scooted back up.
“Someone told you to break into my room, Pedr. If I search you, if I can hold my breath long enough, I’m going to find some money. A clean, shiny roll of crown that you haven’t had a chance to filth up yet. Right? If that happens, if you don’t talk and I have to search you, and I find that money, well. I’m going to get loud. I’m going to wake the neighbors up, breaking things over your god damn head, until you do talk. Right?”
“That’s not what I want, man.”
“That’s not what any of us want. My neighbors included. So let’s sit here, and let’s talk.”
He snorted, rubbed his face and neck, then dug into his coat and threw a roll of coins onto the bed. A lot of coins.
“Keep it,” he said. “I didn’t know the guy.”
I smiled and pushed the coins around on my bed with the barrel of the pistol. “Sure you didn’t. But you saw him. That’s where we’re going to start.”
Pedr shrugged. “Big guy. He was… he looked like something official.” He glanced up at me. “Looked like money.”
“Your money guy, was he in some kind of uniform?”
“No. No, but he looked like he could have filled a suit, you know. Like he’d be comfortable in uniform.” His eyes found mine. “Kinda like you.”
“Like me. And did he…” I stopped. There were footsteps on the stairs. They stopped outside my door. I whispered. “You expecting backup?”
Pedr’s eyes were wide. He shook his head and squirmed up over the bed, standing up with his back against the far wall.
“Stay quiet.” I stood by the door, behind it. Whoever was in the hall had stopped moving. I could hear him breathing. He had heard us talking, no question. He turned and started down the stairs, fast. When he was gone I turned back to Pedr.
“I’m about to throw you out there, man. With whoever that was. Sure there’s nothing else you want to tell me?”
He blanched, but shook his head.
“Okay, well. Go get the hell out. And if you ever take money from someone who isn’t the boss, to break into my place or follow me or anything. Well.” I walked over and patted him on the shoulder. “I’m not going to do a damn thing. But I’m going to tell Valentine that he’s got rats in the walls, and we’ll just see what he does.”
“Sure,” he said. “Sure thing, Jake.”
“Sure thing. Now go.”
He left fast, scooping up the money from my bed as he went. I listened to him clatter down the stairs. I hadn’t gotten all the answers I wanted, but there was only so much he’d know. People like Pedr make a living out of not knowing, not seeing; just take the money, do the job, forget about it. I understood. I finished dressing, tucked the Glory revolver into my shoulder harness and went out.
They found me on the Pauper’s Bridge, two of them. There was a third, up ahead, who tagged me when I tried to run. They were Valentine’s boys, people I knew. They didn’t act too familiar.
Coming out of my building, I looked up at a clear morning sky. The storm had finally passed, and the zepdocks were busy. Had one of the ships gliding above me carried word from the Heights, or was it still storming at the higher elevations? Couldn’t tell from here. I was still thinking about that when I made my tail, shortly after I joined the traffic on the Pauper’s. Big guy in an old suit, too formal for morning traffic, but the suit was too ratty to mark him as money. An affectation. I hated strong boys who played dress up. I made the second guy five steps later, loitering not ten feet behind the first. Playing too close. Wanted to be seen, maybe. He was in the same get up, black vest suit that was going gray at the cuffs, too many watch chains and monocle clasps.
The Orrey boys. Following me, acting like they didn’t see me ten feet away, when I had dinner with them the day before my little trip downfalls. Imagine that.
Thing is, the boys had chosen their spot well. Pauper’s is just a big bridge, despite all the shops and cartstands along the way. No alleys to duck down, no sideroads to loop through. One way in, one way out, and a fifty foot drop into the Ebd river below. The whole place groaned underfoot; a tangle of chains and wooden arches kept the place up. It wasn’t safe, but it wasn’t going to fall down today. There were crowds, but the boys weren’t trying to stay hidden at all, so there was no way I was going to get enough people between us to lose them.
I took the only out I had. I ran. I put my elbows into the crowd and crawled my way through. The boys stayed on me, not hurrying up. They spread out, in case I tried to double back, but they didn’t try to keep up. Still didn’t look at me, either. It was like they didn’t care if they lost me once I got to the end of the bridge.
I looked forward, forgetting the boys. If they didn’t care what happened once I got off the bridge, it could only mean that I wasn’t getting off the bridge. I saw the trap, a guy in front, waiting. Not someone I knew. He wasn’t as big, but his coat fell unnaturally over his shoulders. I drifted right and he drifted with me, like he was a kite on a string. He was going a little slower than me, getting closer with each step. I slowed down hard, nearly stopping. The guy behind me stumbled into my back, fell on his ass. Whatever the guy had been carrying, a bag or basket of fruit, scattered and rolled in oblong patterns down the cobbles. He was swearing as he stood, but the tail to my front was having similar problems. An old lady had dropped a jar of coffee and was yelling at the tough’s unturned back. I shot forward and to the side, my fingers brushing the pistol in my coat as I passed him. I risked a look over. Under his coat there was a lot of metal and the tiny whirling dance of gears and flywheels. He looked up at me, unconcerned, his eyes dead stone pits. I pushed hard on the crowd and broke into a lull in the traffic, an open courtyard between rivers of pedestrians. I dashed across, squeezed between a sausage vendor and a closed stall and got off the bridge.
Fourth guy. He put a hand on my chest, the palm wide, his other arm hidden behind him. He looked me right in the eye and smiled.
“Burn. Where you headed?” He said. It was Cacher. Friend of Emily. Good friend.
“I don’t know, Cacher.” I looked back to see the Orrey boys and the metal guy amble up. “Where am I headed?”
It wasn’t one of the quayside warehouses, so that was okay. Whatever was going on, it wasn’t that bad. The third guy kept really close, his eyes dead. Other than Valentine, this guy was the most metal I’d ever seen. His face
