Douglas Hulick - Among Thieves

“Believe me,” I said. “I never forget my place.”

“Don’t give me lip, Drothe. Not right now.”

I held up my hands. “I get it-no squabbles in front of the help.” Or at all, at the moment. Even my tired brain could read that one. Right now, I needed to play along. “So what do you want me to do in Ten Ways?”

“I want you to find out what the hell’s going on.”

I frowned. I had expected to be told to shadow Rambles’s efforts and report back. “Isn’t that Rambles’s job? He’s in charge down there now.”

“Rambles can kick ass and take names with the best of them, but he’ll miss things. You won’t-that’s why I want you Nosing down there. And I don’t want you sharing what you find with anyone but me.”

“You don’t trust him?”

“Trust has nothing to do with it: I want to compare what you say to what he says.”

Ah. He didn’t trust either of us. Wonderful.

I scratched at my beard. It was still damp with blood. “Rambles won’t like my nosing around down there if he’s not in the loop.” Actually, he wouldn’t like my nosing around there even if he was in the loop, but that was beside the point.

“Tough shit for him,” said Nicco. He got up and walked back over to the window. “He doesn’t need to know everything to do his part of the job.”

I looked up at that. “He doesn’t know everything now, does he?” I said. “You have something else.”

Nicco didn’t look at me. Instead, he ran his finger along the window frame, holding it up to study the dust it had collected. “The Arm who made it out of Ten Ways lived long enough to give us two names. One of them was ‘Fedim.’ ”

I shook my head. “Don’t know it.”

“He’s the Dealer who’s been complaining about protection.” Nicco blew the dust off his fingertip. “Things are bad enough in Ten Ways without some cut-rate fence mouthing off. It makes me look bad. Talk to him, find out what he knows. Then dust him.”

I grimaced but didn’t argue.

“And the other name?” I said.

Nicco stared at his finger so long, I thought he wasn’t going to tell me. Then he rubbed it with his thumb and smiled. It wasn’t a pleasant smile.

“Kells,” he said.

If I hadn’t had a chair beneath me, I would have been on the floor. As it was, I nearly grabbed the sides for support, anyhow.

“Kells?” I said. Well, shit.

I stepped out onto the street in a daze. Kells? In Ten Ways?

Hell. This was all I needed. Having Kells’s name turn up where Nicco was concerned was like trying to put out a fire with naphtha.

I started walking.

Back in the day, before the feud, before the countless border fights, before they had both become Upright Men, Nicco and Kells had been tight. They had run under the same boss, worked the same cordon, shared in the same dodges-right up to the point where they threw down their old boss, Rigga, and carved up her territory. Turns out that was the worst thing they could have done to each other.

Each side had a story about how it went bad, of course. Nicco’s centered around respect and dishonesty: He claimed Kells had conned him out of the richest portions of Rigga’s turf, even though Nicco had ended up with the bigger share of territory. Worse, he said, Kells had used the money to lure his best people away after the split. Nicco being Nicco, he’d gone for the throat.

As for Kells, the argument went that he hadn’t bought Nicco’s people-he’d just offered them a better deal. Instead of relying on fear and fists to keep his organization running, Kells used careful planning and cunning to make sure things ran smoothly. That was why his smaller territory had done better, and why people had left Nicco after Rigga’s organization broke up. When Nicco had gone after Kells, it looked like spite.

Both arguments made sense for the men involved, and I expect each tale had a degree of truth to it. If there’s one thing I’ve learned as a Nose, it’s that every story changes with the person telling it, no matter how close the person thinks he’s holding to the truth. And even though I tended to lean toward the version of the story that favored Kells, the fact of the matter was that Nicco looked to be the wronged party this time around. If Kells was in Ten Ways, and he could be linked to what had happened to Nicco’s people…

I shook my head. It didn’t make sense. Dusting six of Nicco’s people out of the blue, in Nicco’s own territory, wasn’t Kells’s style. If it had been the other way around, I could see it, but not like this. Kells was too subtle for this kind of a play. At least, he always had been up until now.

But if there was a link, or even the hint of one, Nicco would be on it. He’d go after Kells hard. And that would put me in the middle of it, in Ten Ways, in the fighting.

I groaned. Maybe it was best that Nicco was sending me in there to figure it out after all. Maybe I could even avert the looming disaster. But that didn’t mean I had to like it.

I shambled the rest of the way home in the early-afternoon light and collapsed into a dreamless sleep. I awoke sometime after midnight, chewed a seed, and dragged myself out into the streets long enough to scare up a late meal. I returned and slept some more.

Late-morning sunlight was pushing its way in past the edges of my room’s shutters when I woke again. Someone was knocking on my door.

I lay in bed for a moment, hoping the caller would think I was out.

He kept knocking.

Hell, might as well get up. I had to piss, anyhow.

“Bide a moment!” I yelled as I got out of bed and padded across the room.

Downstairs, beneath the sound of the knocking, I could hear the squeals and shouts of two little girls at play-Renna and Sophia. I smiled at the noise as I slipped on yesterday’s shirt and picked up my sword belt, the rapier still in its scabbard.

I put my eye to the peephole and looked into the hall. A clean-shaven face, framed by perfumed blond curls, sat atop a carefully embroidered jacket and half cloak. I recognized the livery badge on his chest and groaned.

“My Lord Drothe?” asked the messenger to the peephole. He sounded unsure of the question, and I found myself wanting to lie. But there would only be another flunky like him at my door tomorrow if I did.

I disarmed the spring trap, undid the double lock, and cracked the door open a finger’s width.

“Yes to the Drothe part,” I said, “no to the ‘lord.’ I’m not noble, and I didn’t marry into the blood like your mistress.” He looked startled at that last part, no doubt surprised by my audacity. Well, let him be. His mistress might be the Baroness Christiana Sephada, Lady of Lythos, but she was also my sister. The fact that only a handful of people besides her and me knew about our relationship didn’t change how I dealt with “her ladyship.”

I glanced past the messenger to the man who loomed behind him. His name was Ruggero, and he worked for me. He gave a brief nod, indicating he’d searched the messenger. I nodded back, and Ruggero retreated silently down the stairs. I looked back to the messenger.

“You’re new, aren’t you?” I said. “She’s never sent you before.”

“Yes, uh, no… I mean, I’ve never had the honor before, sir, no.”

“It’s no honor, believe me,” I said. I opened the door and waved the young man in. “What’s your name?”

“Tamas, my lord.” He remained in the hallway. I could tell by the look on his face he was unsure what to do next. I was probably violating every nicety of court protocol imaginable. While the poor kid had been trained to handle everything from sycophants to haughty nobles, it was clear no one had instructed him on the finer points of dealing with a thief who has just answered the door wearing nothing more than a shirt that barely reached his knees and a sword.