Glen Cook - Red Iron Nights

Block cooled down before he risked speaking. "Garrett, do you recall the knives from the Hamilton place?"

"The ritual tools? What about them?"

"They've disappeared. We got them back when we went after Spender." Spender having been the accursed bum in the abandoned brewery.

"Huh?"

"They was locked up in the barracks armory. I got space there for keeping evidence. I saw them there day before yesterday. Last night they was gone."

"So?"

"Tomorrow night is the next time the killer would strike."

"Wow. That's right." I laid on my most sarcastic tone, like I was amazed a Watchman could work that out.

"A Corporal Elvis Winchell, who was part of the raid force the other night, disappeared yesterday sometime. He had access to the armory. Apparently he and a Private Price Ripley were isolated with the killer's corpse for about seven minutes during its trip to the oven."

"And you're afraid Winchell will—"

"Yes. I need your help again, Garrett."

"It's wonderful to be appreciated. It really is. But you're talking to the wrong guy. You need to see my accountant."

"Huh?"

I'd lost him. "The Dead Man. But he's put out with you too. With me, it's money, with him, it's information."

"Oh. Back to that."

"Back to that. It's the bottom line. I have a feeling that if you talk him into anything, he'll insist on payment up front."

Block didn't argue. He didn't dare. We were about to discover how desperate he really was. I passed him on to the Dead Man.

I slipped out while their backs were turned. It was going to be a long, dull argument. Block hadn't yet panicked.

Negotiations are fun for the Dead Man. My tastes are more earthy, more basic. Maybe not as simple as a hotfoot, but not cerebral. It always helps if there's a lady along. Especially if she's no lady.

Barking Dog got the better of his crackpot religious squatter by showing up earliest. The nut was there when I arrived. He was sullen. He growled a lot. Amato tended his placards and ignored him. Barking Dog looked confident. He was ready.

His return had been noted. His normal audience consisted of functionaries who worked in the area. They kept an eye on him, wondering when he'd start raving. Speculation was rife. His absence had left him looking primed with fresh madness. His reappearance was a happening resented by a single soul.

The holy crackpot finally left in a huff.

Barking Dog's venue is the Chancery steps. Seems appropriate, in a sense. In the old days the Chancery was a court of equity, but time changes everything. Today it's mostly a place to store official records, civil type, for the duchy, plus some royal records. Half the main floor has been occupied by the functionaries who manage military conscription in this end of Karenta. They migrated from the military Chancery years ago, after having been crowded out by procurement offices that grow faster and faster as the war winds down.

The Chancery structure is a relic of the empire, built late, evidently with an eye to impress. To reach the huge brass doors of the main entrance, you have to climb eighty dark granite steps that span the entire front of the building. Each twenty steps there is a level stretch ten feet wide. Vendors and people like Barking Dog take advantage of those. If it can be sold from a tray hung from the neck, you'll find it for sale outside the Chancery.

Amato's spot was at the left end of the first landing. Most of the traffic in and out of the building naturally passed that way, plus Barking Dog was just high enough to be seen and heard easily from the street.

I planted myself on the stone rail alongside the next landing up, nodded to Barking Dog. He acknowledged my presence with a smile. He adjusted his placards. He had four, all on sticks with bases meant to hold them upright.

Whether entering the Chancery or just passing in the street, people slowed, paused, hoping the merriment would break out soon. Several clerk types accumulated, looking uncomfortable. Their superiors had sent them to keep track and to call when the nonsense began.

Barking Dog was as crazy as a herd of drunk possums, but he had his fans.

Judging from his placards, his text for the day would be a traditional crowd pleaser, the international conspiracy which denied Barking Dog Amato his rights and properties.

He let word spread before he spoke. He waited past the commencement of the business day. Then he started, soft and slow, without the brass megaphone, while word spread that he was starting.

I noticed something that had escaped me during more casual viewings. Barking Dog had him a kettle out, marked to encourage donations. Passersby surprised me with their generosity.

Maybe Amato was less the fool than I thought. Maybe this was how he paid for supplies. Maybe this was the whole point... No. That couldn't be true. He'd live better than he did.

He started gentle and slow and sane, almost conversationally. His chats with the Dead Man had paid dividends. His soft voice arrested passersby, made them strain to hear. I couldn't hear from behind him.

"Signs and portents," he said when he did raise his voice slightly. "Yea! Signs and portents! The hour is coming! It is at hand! The wicked shall be revealed in all their ugliness. They shall be found out and rooted out, and we who have endured, who have borne their weight upon our shoulders till we have become hunchbacks, we shall see our agony repaid."

I glanced around. Was there anybody here who might know me? That sounded suspiciously like he was going to take a plunge into sedition. That seemed an unwise career move to me. Sedition was the sort of talk that could get you thrown into a real prison—if you were dumb enough to talk it on the Chancery steps instead of at the bar in your neighborhood tavern. Outside, in broad daylight, it might sound serious instead of just bitching.

Ha! Fooled you, Garrett!

Everyone listening heard hunchbacks and jumped to the same conclusion. The crowd grew quieter, waited for Barking Dog to step into it up to his knees, then shove his foot in his mouth.

How come people get such a kick out of watching a disaster in progress?

Barking Dog veered off ninety degrees. "They have stolen my houses. They have stolen my lands. They have stolen my family titles. Now they strive to steal my good name so they can silence me when I denounce their wickedness. They had me incarcerated in the Al-Khar in their efforts to stifle me. They have tried to silence me through fear. But by stealing everything from me they have left me entirely without fear. They have left me nothing to lose. By stealing everything they have also taken those signs which remind them of who I am. They forget whom they consigned to vile durance.

"Kropotkin F. Amato will not yield. Kropotkin F. Amato will fight on so long as a single breath remains in his abused flesh."

That was all old stuff, excepting the prison references. He began to lose his audience. But then he did something he'd not done before. He named names. And he started moving, stalking back and forth, flinging his hands around, shrieking in rage. Again I thought he was digging himself a grave, but then realized he'd named only names on the public record. And he hadn't said anything objectionable about them, he'd just surrounded their names with racket that might nail them through guilt by association. The man was damned clever.

"The man's damned clever."

I bounced high enough to bruise my skull on low-flying clouds.

"I mean, using the truth to tell lies that way." Crask had appeared out of nowhere, behind me.

I barked, "Why the hell you got to do that?"

He grinned. "Because it's fun watching you jump." He meant it. He would keep trying to make me jump till the day he really did greet me with a knife.