Steven Brust - Yendi

He said, “Is it dangerous?”

I said, “Damn right it’s dangerous.”

He said, “No thanks, Vlad.”

I said, “You start at fifty gold a week. If we’re still around after two weeks, you get seventy-five plus ten percent of what I make.”

He said, “One hundred after two weeks, plus fifteen percent of the gross.”

“Seventy-five. Fifteen percent of the net.”

“Ninety. Fifteen percent of the net before you split with upstairs.”

“Seventy-five. Ten percent before I split.”

“Done.”

The next morning Tagichatn’s secretary came in and found Kragar and me set up in the offices. I said, “You can work for me if you want. Say yes, and you get a ten percent raise. Say no, and you walk out of here alive. Say yes and try to cross me, and I’ll feed you to the orcas.”

He said no. I said, “See you.”

Then I went to an enforcer named Melestav who also hated our ex-boss and who I’d worked with a couple of times. I’d heard he did “work,” and I knew he was careful. I said, “The boss wants you to be his personal secretary and bodyguard.”

“The boss is nuts.”

“I’m the boss.”

“I’m in.”

I got a map of the city and drew a box around where the dead man’s territory had been. Then I drew another box inside the first one. For some reason, in this area of Adrilankha bosses tended to mark the areas by half-streets. That is, instead of saying, “I have Dayland and you have Nebbit,” they’d say, “I have up to the west side of Dayland, you have from the east side of Dayland.” So the box I drew went from halfway down Pier Street, where Laris’s territory ended, to Dayland, Dayland to Glendon, Glendon to Undauntra; Undauntra to Solom; Solom to Lower Kieron Road; and Lower Kieron Road to Pier Street.

I had Melestav get in touch with the other lieutenant and the two button-men who’d worked directly for Tagichatn, and had them meet me a block from Toronnan’s offices. When they did, I told them to follow me. I didn’t explain anything, I just took them to the office. When we got there, I had them wait just outside and I asked to see the boss.

They let me in while the others waited outside. Toronnan had light hair, cut short and neat. He wore doublet and hose, which isn’t usual for a working Jhereg, and every stitch of his gray-and-black outfit was in perfect condition. Also, he was short for a Dragaeran, maybe 6’9”, and of a small build. All in all, he looked like a Lyorn recordsmith. He’d made his reputation with a battle-axe.

I said, “My lord, I am Vladimir Taltos.” I took out the map and pointed to the first box. “With your permission, I am now in charge of this area.” I pointed to the smaller box within it. “I think I can handle this much. There are gentlemen waiting outside who, I’m sure, would be happy to divide up the rest any way you see fit. I haven’t discussed the matter with them.” I bowed.

He looked at me, looked at the map, looked at Loiosh (who had been sitting on my shoulder the entire time), and said, “If you can do it, Whiskers, it’s yours.”

I thanked him and got out, leaving him to explain matters to the rest of them.

I went back to the office, looked over the books, and discovered that we were almost broke. I had about five hundred personally, which can keep a family eating and living comfortably for maybe a year. What I now controlled were four brothels; two gambling halls; two moneylending operations; and one cleaner, or fence, or dealer-in-stolen-merchandise. There were no button-men. (A funny term, that: sometimes it means full-time enforcer on the payroll, and sometimes it means sublieutenant. I usually mean the latter.) I did, however, have six enforcers working full time. I also knew several enforcers who worked free-lance.

I visited each of my businesses and made them the same offer: I put a purse with fifty gold in it on the table and said, “I’m your new boss. This is a bonus, or a good-bye gift. Take your pick. If you take it as a bonus and try to mess with me, make a list of your mourn-singers, because you’ll need them.”

Now doing this left me with damn little cash. They all stayed, and I held my breath. When Endweek showed up, no one except Nielar, who was now in my territory, came by. I think they were waiting to see what I did. At this point, I didn’t have enough money to pay for independent muscle, and I was afraid to use an enforcer (what if he wouldn’t do it?), so I walked down to the operation nearest my office, a brothel, and found the manager. Before he could say anything, I pinned the right side of his cloak to the wall with a throwing knife, about knee level. I did the same with his left side. I put a shuriken into the wall next to each ear, close enough to cut. Then Loiosh went after him and raked his claws down the guy’s face. I went up and hit him just below his sternum, then kneed him in the face when he doubled over. He began to understand that I wasn’t happy.

I said, “You’ve got one minute, by the Imperial Clock, to put my money in my hand. When you’ve done that, Kragar is going over your books; then he’s going to talk to every tag here and find out how much action you’ve had. If I am one copper short, you are a dead man.”

He left his cloak in the wall and got the money. While he did this, I reached Kragar psionically and had him come down. When I had the purse, we waited for Kragar.

The guy said, “Look, boss, I was on my way over—”

“Shut your face or I’ll tear out your windpipe and make you eat it.”

He shut. When Kragar arrived I went back to my office. Kragar returned about two hours later, and we found out that the books balanced. He had ten tags working, four men and six women, usually taking five clients a day, at three Imperials per. The tags earned four gold a day. Meals came to about nine silver orbs, or call it half a gold a day. He had an enforcer there full time who was paid eight Imperials a day. Miscellaneous expenses were allotted another Imperial.

Each tag took one day a week off, so the place should be taking in 135 gold a day, on the average. The expenses were 51 a day, so the daily profit should average in the mid-80s. Five days to the week (in the East a week is seven days; I’m not sure why) should give about 425 gold a week, of which the manager keeps 25 percent—a little over a hundred. That meant that I should see 320-some gold every week. I had 328, some silver, and some copper. I was satisfied.

I was even more satisfied when, over the next hour, the rest of them showed up with their various takes for the week. They all said something like, “Sorry, boss, I got delayed.”

I responded with something like, “Don’t get delayed any more.”

By the end of the day, I had collected more than 2,500 Imperials. Of course, I had to pay Kragar, my secretary, and the enforcers with that; but it still left me with more than 2,000, half of which I sent on to Toronnan, half of which I could keep.

I was not at all displeased by this. For an Easterner kid who used to work his ass off running a restaurant that earned eight gold in a good week, a thousand plus wasn’t bad. I wondered why I hadn’t gotten into this end sooner.

The only other major thing I did for the next few months was buy a small narcotics and psychedelics business to give me a cover for my life-style. I hired a bookkeeper to make everything look good. I also hired a few more enforcers because I wanted to be ready for any possible trouble from my managers or from punks trying to muscle in.

Mostly what I had them do was what I call “hang-around duty.” This involves just what it says—hanging around the neighborhood. The reason for doing this was that this neighborhood was very popular with young toughs, mostly of the House of the Orca, who’d wander through and harass people. Most of these kids were broke most of the time, when they weren’t mugging the Teckla who made up the majority of the citizenry. They came here because it was close to the docks and because Teckla lived here. “Hang-around” duty meant finding these jerks and booting them the Phoenix out of there.