Mayer Alan Brenner - Spell of Intrigue

“Fine,” I said, “thank you, I appreciate the compliment. “ I cantered ahead to the fenced-off corral at the rear, swung off the horse, took a numbered chit of wood from the stable attendant, and walked back across the yard toward the city hall building’s side entrance. Over in the street, a group of prettied-up workers were gathered around a small bazaar of street vendors, wrapped in clouds of steam from fat-fryers and the aromas of heaped fish: I guessed it was already lunchtime, at that. A gaggle of supplicants, mendicants, transients, and other loiterers were loafing around the scene or working the passersby in one way or another, and a line of bored-looking folks stretched out of another side entrance and off down the street.

“What makes you think we’ll be able to get in to see this Groot person without revealing something important?” Jill asked, having caught up with me where I’d paused to survey the crowd.

“Part of the art,” I said. “Keep your voice down.” Actually, her volume hadn’t been that loud, but it had been loud enough to attract the attention of a man who had been crossing the courtyard going in roughly the same direction as us, toward the jail. At the mention of Groot, he had paused in his tracks and looked straight at us. More for his ears than hers, I said, “You realize, before we can convince Groot to talk to us we may have to promise to help get him out.”

“What do you mean by that?”

The man had taken an uncertain step in our direction. He was dressed in a black banker’s robe and wore a sandy-colored mustache, that much I could see out of the corner of my eye. Since Jill hadn’t noticed him at all and I was apparently still looking at the stall of a fruit vendor, he had no idea he was being observed. I turned abruptly toward him, locked eyes, and crooked an index finger in the standard come-here gesture. He gave a momentary start, followed by the typical reflexive glance over his shoulder to make sure he was really the one I was aiming at, then firmed his shoulders and looked back at me again. I nodded at him, yes, and he came to his decision.

“Wait a -” Jill said, as she followed the direction of my gaze and saw the fellow strolling toward us. “What’s going on here?”

“This is something else detectives do,” I told her. “Watch, you might learn something.”

The name of Groot wasn’t a new one to me, of course; I’d known that somebody called Groot who was a big-time trader in Oolsmouth was connected with Max and the gang. I’d never met Groot and I didn’t think he’d know who I was, unless Max or Karlini had put something into one of their communications; the basic plan I’d settled for on the trip down, though, was to try to sneak away from Zhardann and Jill once we’d arrived in Oolsmouth long enough to make my own contact. Having the mention of Groot dropped into my lap by the guard had changed that idea quickly enough.

I figured that anything that affected Groot badly enough to land him in jail was important enough to know about sooner rather than later, and not only because of the game I was running with Zhardann and Jill, either. I knew the boat with the Karlinis and Shaa was on its way down the river to Oolsmouth and was due to be showing up reasonably soon. It stood to reason that any unexpected attack on Groot could easily extend itself to enwrap them, too. At the moment, events might actually have placed Jill and Zhardann on the same side as Groot, Shaa, and the rest, and me too for that matter. The juxtaposition of causes that had created this situation probably wouldn’t last long, however, and I wanted to make as much hay as I could out of it while it existed.

“Good day,” I said to the man.

“And to you, sir, good day,” he responded, with a small bow in the direction of Jill for added measure.

“You are a resident of Oolsmouth, I take it?”

“Yes, I am,” he said cautiously.

“Ah,” I said. “That will explain it, then.”

“I beg your pardon?” said the man.

“Have you eaten?” I asked him.

“I am in something of a rush,” he said, glancing across the yard at the jail door. “If you will -”

“We are also not merely standing around for the sake of our health. Yet perhaps we have matters worth discussing together.”

“And what matters might those be?”

I raised my eyebrow at him. “To start with, the matter of a particular incarcerant in the municipal jail over there, a particular incarcerant by the name of Groot.”

He fixed me in return with a cool, appraising gaze. What he saw, of course, were clothes that were somewhat the worse for recent travel, a clean-shaven face, somewhat thin in the cheeks, and a shock of brown hair streaked with blond. “What is your business with Groot? “ he said.

“That may depend on you.”

I could see wheels turning behind his eyes. His face was pale from underexposure to the sun, and against the light skin tones the smudged rings around his eyes from lack of sleep were quite apparent. A slight squint and the tension lines in his forehead filled out the appearance of considerable stress. “Who are you?”

“I will give you the opportunity not to have asked that question.”

“Nevertheless,” he said, after a momentary pause, “I have asked it, and I will ask again, who are you?”

“The potential exists for us to be a variety of things,” I remarked. “Potentially we are friends. Potentially we could also be the messengers of trouble: all these potentials are there. Potentially we are the answer to your prayers.”

“You mean that in a metaphorical fashion.” he said, “of course.”

“I do?” I said. “Are you sure you don’t want lunch?”

“What is your name?”

I sighed. “Why this insistence on identities? Any name I told you, whether true or not, you would be very unlikely to recognize; and if you did know it you would probably be much happier if you hadn’t heard it spoken. You’re obviously an intelligent fellow. I would think that at this stage you would at least be open-minded where the possibility of help is concerned.”

Jill had backed off a bit and edged over to the side where she could watch my expression and that of the man simultaneously without being in the guy’s direct line of sight herself. Her expression was one of patient confusion. Nevertheless, she was giving me room to make my play. It would be a bad moment for my credibility if my intuition walked out on me now. “Help?” said the man. “What help?”

“Why, for you and your employer, of course.”

“I believe we have never met before,” he stated. “You are not from Oolsmouth. What do you know about me and my affairs?”

“You are the principal clerk for the businessman Groot,” I told him. “As he is now confined in that dungeon over there, you are his main link with the outside world, and so you are attempting to manage his affairs in the face of the current reverses.”

“Perhaps a bit of smoked cod would sit well at that,” said the clerk.

I indicated the location of the fishmonger’s stand with an outstretched arm and he started toward it. As I turned to follow, Jill grabbed my arm. “How did you know all that?” she whispered. “Who he is, and what’s his connection with Groot?”

“Omnipotence?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Jill snorted. “You know better than I do that there’s nothing to that old fable.”

“Very well then,” I said. “The clerk part was easy enough - you did notice the ink-stained index finger and the writing case under his arm? He’s well-dressed, his clothes are fairly new, and if that sable collar is any indication they’re expensive, too, so it’s reasonable to presume he’s not just some interchangeable bookkeeper but high-ranking in his own right: hence, a chief clerk or principal manager or something on that order. He initially stopped and paid attention to us before when you mentioned Groot, but if you remember what that guard said back at the bank, your basic person on the street isn’t eager to be connected with either the bank or Groot right at the moment. That made it likely that a significant connection to Groot was present. Either this guy was one of Groot’s accusers, jailers, creditors, or employees.