She Who Waits (Low Town 3) (26 page)

‘I’m rarely in a place where day-old wyrm fumes are the least offensive odor,’ I said.

‘What?’ she repeated, sort of angrily.

‘I said it’s a lovely spot you have here!’

‘I don’t get you at all, man,’ she said.

‘Genius is never understood in its own time. Where is he?’

‘He’s …’ she waved her hand down the hall. ‘That way.’

I was torn between not wanting to spend a single second further in the woman’s presence, and the fear that if she didn’t clarify Guiscard’s location I might walk in on something unfit for innocent eyes. She solved the difficulty for me, though grudgingly. ‘Last door on the left.’

I considered giving her a gratuity, but decided I didn’t want to touch her hand. I felt similarly about the handle on the last door to the left, though in that case I managed to man up.

Like in the back of the tailor shop, it appeared that Guiscard rented out the room infrequently, and that it was put back to its regular purpose when he wasn’t in attendance. Which is to say that the bed was … well used. It was also the sole piece of furniture in the room, except for a small table and chair that had been pulled up against the back wall. Guiscard sat at it, going through a thick stack of papers with impressive single-mindedness, given the setting. From a room over, a loud squealing could be made out with no great difficulty, indisputably masculine, but of a strangely high pitch.

‘Don’t look now,’ I said, ‘but I think there might be some illegal activities going on around here.’

‘It’s clear you’ve kept your keen investigative sense.’

‘There wasn’t a free room in an abattoir you could rent?’

‘No one would think to look for me here.’

The moaning from the other room increased in volume. ‘I wonder why?’

Guiscard closed the folder he was looking at and gestured for me to sit. ‘I’m afraid there isn’t another chair – you’re welcome to a spot on the bed.’

‘I’ll stand, if it’s all the same.’

‘Suit yourself,’ he said. ‘I hadn’t expected to see you again so soon. Fast progress, then?’

‘In fact, no – the situation with the Steps is more or less at a standstill.’

‘Just fancied a stroll?’

‘I guess I was wondering what the anus of the world looked like.’ I inspected the environs studiously. ‘I thought it would be cleaner.’

‘I’m surprised to find you so squeamish.’

‘Feather pillows and silver plates, that’s how I roll.’ The moaning rose suddenly, and I had to match it to make myself heard. ‘I had an interesting visit from an old friend yesterday,’ I nearly yelled.

‘Did you?’

‘Perhaps “friend” is the wrong way to phrase it. Nemesis would be more accurate, though I think it gives the man too much credit. I’ll settle on a homicidal ape with a Crown’s Eye and a fervor to see me a corpse.’

‘You’re talking about Crowley?’

‘I hope that description doesn’t apply to anyone else you know.’ Though I was fairly certain it did. ‘He seemed quite knowledgeable about the range of activities you’ve engaged me in.’

‘I didn’t tell him anything.’

‘Well someone seems to have, cause he’s pretty well in the loop.’

‘The loop right now consists of you, me, and the Old Man. I haven’t broached the subject, and as far as the chief goes … he’s not exactly the loquacious type.’

Guiscard didn’t have any reason to lie to me that I could think of. I thought harder.

‘What did he say to you?’

‘Suffice to say the effect was unfriendly.’

‘You did cut him up pretty good.’

‘Did I? I’d completely forgotten.’

‘I’d advise you not to underestimate the man – just because he came off second best during your last encounter isn’t a reason to forgo worrying about the next one.’

‘I don’t need to worry about him. You’re going to worry about him for me. It’s bad business to let your people get murdered by your own side.’

Guiscard ran a hand over his scalp. ‘He might be a problem.’

‘I know he’s a problem. You’re the answer, that’s why I’m here yelling at you.’

‘I mean he might be a problem for me. Things at Black House are … loose right now.’

‘What the hell does that mean?’

‘It means that an order from me might not be one that Agent Crowley chooses to obey.’

‘Are you the Old Man’s number two or not?’

‘I am.’

‘Then you should be able to bring his number three to heel.’

‘I’ll talk to him.’

‘That’s not good enough – not near good enough. You’ll put him in line, or you’ll put him in the ground. The second would be wiser – and more certain.’

‘He seems to really hate you.’

‘We go back a ways.’

‘I mean that he might hate you more than he fears the Old Man.’

That was a disturbing thought. ‘Then it’s up to you to remind him of what a frightening character he works for.’

‘I’ll have the Old Man speak to him. It might do some good.’

‘If overwhelming concern for my well-being isn’t enough motivation, bear in mind I can’t very well keep tabs on the Sons of
Ś
akra with the ice dogging my every step.’ I rolled and lit a cigarette, hoping the tobacco might do something to block out the odor. It didn’t. I’d have been better off using my match on the bedding. ‘This is a shitty safe house.’

‘Thank you.’

‘All the resources you’ve got, we couldn’t meet in the back of a nice coffee shop?’

‘I’ll try and arrange more comfortable surroundings next time.’

‘Or I could just swing by Black House. I’m all for secrecy, but at the rate we’re going I’m worried our next meeting will be in the side corner of a cesspool.’

‘I told you – so long as you’re bait for the Sons, we’re not going to risk them knowing we’re running you.’

‘The fanatics don’t have a plant on me. Besides, I learned to drop a tail when you were still sniffing your sister’s panties.’

‘What does it matter where we have our conversation?’

‘It matters if all the secrecy is because you can’t trust your own people.’ It was a shot in the dark, I was as shocked by his reaction as he was at my guess. ‘
Ś
akra’s cock, that’s it – the Sons have people in Black House.’

‘The Sons have people everywhere,’ he said quietly.

It was a sign of how much that shook me that the bed briefly seemed a comfortable spot to regain my equilibrium. ‘You shouldn’t have told me that.’

‘You figured it out yourself.’

‘I didn’t need it confirmed. How the hell did the Old Man let that happen?’

‘We think they inserted some of their people into the Academy, years back. They’ve been playing the long game, and playing it for a while now. The slots are mostly filled by nominations at this point, favors for people’s kids. The Steps count a lot of nobles in their ranks.’

‘Nepotism bears bitter fruit. What are you going to do about it?’

‘We’re running background checks on everybody,’ he gestured at the stack of papers on the desk and grimaced. ‘Everybody. It’s slow going – we don’t know who to trust to figure out who we can’t trust.’

‘How many rats you got in the house?’

‘We’re not sure – Egmont has two men that he knows we know about, and one we think he doesn’t. What’s your take on the Director of Security?’

‘Ten minutes ago I would have told you he’s out of his depth, but you guys don’t seem to be swimming so well yourselves.’ I was shocked to find there was some part of me that still associated with Black House enough to be horrified at the thought of it falling into such a state. ‘When I worked the shop, we tried to keep a pretty firm monopoly on the gathering of internal intelligence.’

‘They had outside help – funding, training.’

‘From?’

‘The Nestrians. They’re pretty pissed about our dialing down tensions with the Dren, and they know the Sons are strongly opposed to anything that smacks of rapprochement. A regime change would be in everyone’s interest.’

‘Probably not everyone.’ I didn’t want to go any further in this direction. Guiscard, predictably, was happy to drag me.

‘In fact, our source says they’ve gone ahead and sent along an adviser. The top of her craft. Something of a legend, I’m told, on their side of the pond. It’s a bit rich, you griping over our failures, when yours was the most celebrated leak in the history of the office.’

‘No point in being second best at anything.’

‘Don’t worry, we still keep the extent of the disaster under close wraps. There aren’t five men in all of Black House that know the truth of the matter. Even the Old Man was surprisingly coy about it. In fact, if I didn’t know him any better, I’d be inclined to think he found the whole situation regretful.’

‘The wolf regrets your death while gnawing on your shinbone.’

‘That was why I qualified it.’ Guiscard was pretty openly smirking now. In his smile I could see the man he’d been a half decade before, the man I’d disliked to the point of violence. ‘She must have been something extraordinary, to have played you with such facility. I mean that quite sincerely – I have the utmost regard for your talent.’

‘How kind.’

‘They say she was very beautiful.’

I ground my cigarette into the floor. The Firstborn knew it wouldn’t make the place any worse. ‘It would be very much a mistake, Guiscard, if you were to imagine that our business association offers you any personal liberties. It might be the sort of mistake that ends with you getting your throat cut, bleeding out in a copper-an-hour whorehouse with cum on the carpet.’

‘I can’t imagine you’d do something so contrary to your own interests.’

‘It would be an even worse mistake to overrate my sense of self-preservation.’

Guiscard bore the threat stoically. The moaning had stopped, replaced with the steady pounding of what I assumed was the next-door bed against our adjoining wall. The house was typical slum construction, the barrier between us and the happy couple about the width of a fingernail. It didn’t seem out of the realm of possibility that our overactive neighbor’s exertions might bring the whole place tumbling down. I decided the time had come to end our conversation, rather than face such a humiliating obituary. ‘Figure out your leak and plug it. I’d thought the Sons little more than amateurs, but at the moment they seem to be very much ahead of both of us.’

Guiscard didn’t say anything on the way out. The proprietress had collapsed on a couch in the main room, staring at the wall as if somewhere in the warped wood was the secret of existence. I considered joining her, but decided against it. A man can only stand so much unvarnished truth, and I less than most.

‘S
o you see, my young friend, she’s played you.’

We were in the Old Man’s office, me, Crowley and the chief. The Old Man’s office is small even by the standards of Black House, famously so. That was part of the mystique, that he made the world run from a space the size of a noble’s shoe closet. It was cramped with the three of us – the Old Man and I at opposite ends of the desk, Crowley’s squat bulk wedged behind me. He didn’t need to be there, had little enough to add – it was an object lesson in humiliation, knocking me down a peg. All the way to the bottom, in fact.

In front of me sat a folder containing the confessions of a handful of low- and mid-level Nestrian spies, stringers and feeders. I hadn’t had time to read it through in detail, but scanning them seemed to suggest that what the Old Man had said was true. As astonishing as it was to admit it, Crowley had been right. The Nestrians did have a man on the inside, a deep plant scanning the innermost secrets of Black House. Her name was Albertine, and we’d been fucking for nine months.

I’m not usually one at a loss for words, but try as I might, nothing came. I pulled out the makings of a cigarette and got to making them. You weren’t allowed to smoke in the Old Man’s office, but I figured a little tobacco wouldn’t get me in any deeper than I already was. The Old Man didn’t call me on it, which was out of character verging on shocking. If nothing else, he was a stickler for the rules.

‘Pretty quiet now, ain’t you? Not so clever, all of a sudden?’ Crowley was enjoying this inordinately, seeing me in agony.

The Old Man was a distinct contrast to his subordinate. He was not a sadist
per se
– the pain of others was a byproduct of his drive to maintain power, not a goal in and of itself. He watched both Crowley’s glee and my own sudden misery with that sense of detachment which was his defining quality. Both emotions were a bit too potent for his refined tastes. He cleared his throat and continued.

‘Initially we were quite concerned that perhaps the fair Ms Arden had co-opted your loyalty, that you were an active participant in her plot. That will, incidentally, explain the condition of your apartment, which I’m afraid suffered some … damage, during the search.’

‘I might have taken a shit in your bath,’ Crowley said, the height of wit as always.

Crassness was something the boss could not abide, and Crowley’s love of it was one of the many things that would keep him from ever rising above enforcer, albeit of the first rank. ‘Agent,’ the Old Man said stiffly, ‘your good work is much appreciated, and would best be continued in your own office.’

Crowley was so caught up in riding me that it took him a moment to recognize this as a dismissal. His face fell, and he shot the chief a pleading look, like a child hungry for more dessert. A wasted effort – the Old Man was not one to be swayed by sentiment. Crowley moved to the exit, pausing to blow me an air kiss before closing the door behind him.

‘An occasionally unpleasant individual,’ the Old Man said, ‘though he has his uses. As I was saying – initially there was some concern about your loyalty to the Throne, but our investigation revealed no evidence to that effect. Moreover, I put some … mild stock into my ability to read people – it’s clear from your reaction today that your involvement was … unintentional. I believe the correct word would be, dupe?’

Dupe. Mark. Fool. There were different ways to put it.

‘Clearly this … Albertine is a cagey operator. In particular, our work with Coronet seems to be of common knowledge to our competitors across the bay.’