Frank Tuttle - The Cadaver Client

She glared at me and yanked the curtains shut before tapping on the roof of the cab.

“We might as well go, Summers,” she said. “Make the block one more time.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“You looking for Markhat, the finder?” I asked.

“None of your damned business,” said Summers. He even swatted the air a foot in front of my face with his whip.

I shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

And the cab pulled away.

I waved and waited until it was out of sight before unlocking my door.

Three-leg Cat was on my desk, complaining about his feeding arrangements. I poured him out some dry food in my room in the back, found places for my Army knife and short head knocker, and settled back, waiting for the cab to make the block.

It didn’t take long. I heard it pull back to the curb outside, heard the door open, heard dainty boots scrape the sidewalk.

And then came the knock.

I rose and opened the door. The woman frowned at me.

“Please, come in,” I said, to her. “Summers, you’ll wait there.”

She stood there for a moment.

“I’m Markhat. The finder. Won’t you come in?”

“You are a very rude man, Mr. Markhat.”

I nodded. “My mother weeps herself to sleep some nights. I have a chair. Please sit in it.”

She came in. Summers glared at me over his shoulder, so I gave him a cheery wave as I shut the door.

“Let me guess,” I said. “Your name is Eva Mays. These days, anyway. Not so many years ago it was Marris Sellway. Your daughter Natalie is getting married next week. Natalie is a prettier name than Doris. And that paper in your hand is one of my waybills. Any of that right?”

She paled. I realized I was being an ass.

“Calm down, Mrs. Mays. I’m occasionally rude, but I’m not a villain. I have no intention of revealing your past to anyone. I especially won’t be mentioning Cawling Street to a thug named Connors.”

She gulped air. Whatever story she’d concocted on her way over here was falling apart before her eyes.

“I was hired to find a Miss Marris Sellway under the pretense of handing her a large sum in pre-War coins. But I’ll tell you plain, Mrs. Mays, that I don’t plan on fulfilling my charge. If this Connors character is trying to find out where you are and who you are, he won’t be doing it through me. I quit.”

She gave up trying to come up with a workable lie.

“Connors is dead,” she said, after a moment. Her voice still shook. “He died six months ago.”

I shook my head. “Maybe that’s what he wants people to think. But if that’s true, then I was hired by his ghost. And I’m not a big believer in ghosts with bags of crowns.”

She looked for words but failed to find them. I gave her a moment.

Mrs. Mays, aka Marris Sellway, was pretty enough, in a slightly overfed way. Her daughter had her eyes and nose. I assumed the chin and the widow’s peak were her father’s.

Mrs. Mays wore more rings than a pirate and that necklace alone would send a mere three hundred crowns back into its bag in abject shame.

I laid it all out for her, from Granny Knot to Owenstall. I did fail to mention her daughter’s attempt to have me beaten, or our talk downtown. No need to drag any family secrets out into the sun.

“So, here you are. I’ve found you. And if I have, he can too.”

She shook her head. “He’s dead. I’m sure of it.”

I nodded, made sure my voice was soft. “Unless you killed him yourself, Mrs. Mays, I don’t think you can be absolutely sure of anything.”

She shook. She had to bite her lip for a moment.

“I saw the body. I watched them put it in the ground.”

“This is important, Mrs. Mays. Where did the burial take place?”

“One of the poverty cemeteries. Elfend? Elways? Elfway. Yes. I remember.”

“And the name on the wardstone?”

“Gorvis.” She spat the word, as though it reeked of something foul. “Bastard.”

A literal shiver went down my spine.

In my tiny room behind my office, Three-leg Cat began to spit and hiss and then make that throaty feline growl he only made when feral dogs were outside.

I didn’t hear any dogs.

The air got cold. Mrs. Mays’s eyes got wide. Her breath steamed as though we were standing outside at Yule.

I didn’t see anything. There was Mrs. Mays, in my chair. There was my desk, a slew of crumbs from my breakfast thrown into sudden high relief by the slanting afternoon sun. There was me, my door, the door behind me. But the woman seated across from me was going pale. Her eyes were wide, and she was seeing something behind me that I know just wasn’t there.

Mrs. Mays leaped to her feet. I did the same.

And then her hands flew to her throat, and I could see and hear her choking.

I rushed around the desk and took her by her shoulders. Her mouth was open and working, but she couldn’t make a sound. I took her hands in mine and pried them away from her neck, but she continued to shake and stare and wordlessly beg for help.

My right hand darted into my pocket. I felt Mama’s hex bag, and I took it out and I yanked the yellow yarn from around the neck of it, and I shook the contents of the bag right out on her fruit-encrusted hat.

She screamed. She screamed and backed herself hard into a corner, and she kept screaming.

The glass pane set in my door shattered, sending slivers of glass tinkling out onto the street.

Three-leg Cat went berserk. Summers yelled something incomprehensible, and I heard him land heavily on the street and then charge my door. Mama Hog yelled from her door, and I heard it slam just as Summers barged in to my office, a shortsword in one hand and his pony whip in the other.

He took one look at Mrs. Mays and took a slice at me with his blade. If he’d served in the Army, it hadn’t been with the infantry, because he dived in with a clumsy overhanded swing aimed more or less at the top of my favorite head. I grabbed my chair and let him have the legs of it hard in his gut. His blade clattered off the high chair back, and I shoved and swept his legs out from under him and sat down hard on his fool back.

Mama charged in and kicked the sword away and then kicked Summers in the face for good measure.

Mrs. Mays finally stopped screaming.

“Boy,” said Mama, “what in Hell’s name is goin’ on in here?”

“I hope you can tell me,” I said. “See to the lady. I’ll handle Summers here.” I grabbed an ear and yanked. “Listen, you. I never laid a hand on her. So if you take another whack at me I’m going to put you down, and put you down hard. Tell him, Mrs. Mays. Tell him I wasn’t the one hurting you.”

Mrs. Mays managed a nod. Her fingers were probing her neck, which was beginning to show red marks as if she’d just been choked.

“He-he was trying to help, Summers,” she said.

Summers cussed and wiggled, and I damn near pulled his ear off.

“You better listen to the lady,” I growled. “I’m not in a good mood.”

“Summers. He’s telling the truth. He didn’t touch me. Quite the opposite. Behave.”

At least he quit struggling.

Mama glared at me, opened her mouth, then clamped it shut. Out came her dried owl. She shook it twice at Mrs. Mays, who was covered in the powder from the bag.

“You opened the hex bag.”

“I did.”

Mama frowned, waved her owl. “Why’d you pour it out?”

“What the Hell was I supposed to do with it? Make tea?”

Mama stomped around Mrs. Mays, who regarded her warily before giving me a questioning glance.

“Mrs. Mays, meet Mama Hog,” I said. “Mama, Mrs. Mays.” I sat up. “You all know my good friend Summers here.”

Summers rolled over and rose to his feet, but wisely found a corner and folded his arms across his chest and settled on glaring at the floor as an outlet for his wounded pride.