He nodded. “I’ve not been asked by anyone else, but one of the Night Watch guys says he was. He didn’t get the guy’s name, or why he was asking,” he added. “He figured it was a boyfriend, and he didn’t like the looks of him so he told him to shove off.”
I frowned. “What was it about his looks your friend didn’t like?”
Rupert snorted. “Looked rich,” he said. He eyed my jacket. “Sort of like you do, today.”
I laughed. Then an idea struck me.
“Thanks. You’ve been a big help. But I wonder-could you help me one more time?”
He shrugged, suddenly suspicious.
“Relax. It’s nothing. I was just wondering if you’d walk half a block with me, and look at a man at the Sidewalk Cafe, and tell me if you’ve seen him hanging around the Velvet before.”
“That’s all?”
“That’s all.”
“Sure. It’s on my beat. Go now?”
I smiled. “Now is good.” Rupert turned and we strolled toward the Velvet.
People melted out of his way, even the ones that smiled or nodded in greeting. The traffic master at Maylot stopped traffic and waved us through. Even ogres slowed their manure-carts at the sight of a blunt-topped blue Watchman’s cap.
We rounded the last corner.
“There,” I said, pointing with my chin. “The last table, by the flower pot.”
Rupert squinted. “Him?” he said, incredulous. “Ronnie Sacks?”
I nearly fell over. I’d just been hoping Rupert had seen him on the street before. “You know him?”
“We grew up on the same street. He dated my cousin Rebecca. Fell off her roof trying to sneak in one night. We called him Ronnie the Donney.”
Donney is an epithet, named after a war-time general who mixed his flag-signals and opened the gates of Imprege to a Troll infantry assault.
My heart began to sing.
“You know what Ronnie does for pay, these days?”
Rupert’s brow furrowed. “He went to work for House Avalante last year. Something about guarding payroll transfers.”
I had a name and a House. I must have been beaming. I nearly patted Rupert on his blue-capped head.
“He got something to do with this Miss Hoobin’s going missing? He’s an idiot, but I never figured him for much else.”
I shrugged. “I don’t know a thing about him. But he’s taken a recent strong interest in me.”
Rupert sighed. “I can have him picked up, if you think he’s hurting women. Just say the word.”
I was tempted. But as far as I knew, he’d done nothing but bungle a morning of following finders.
“Not today.” Another inspiration struck, and I rummaged in my new jacket pocket for the comb.
“Ever see something like this?”
He shook his head no. “Sorry.”
I wrapped it again, put it away. “No matter.” Across the street from us, young Ronnie was being told he was taking up one table too many and it was time to move on and let paying lunch customers enjoy their view of the Velvet.
He left in a huff, took up a post half a block away, never even walked around to see if the Velvet had a back way.
Rupert got restless. I thanked him and walked with him a bit, letting him talk about this and that just in case he revealed anything else about Cousin Ronnie or silver combs.
He didn’t. But I was smiling all the same. I’d found Nervous Hat, and he had a name, and I knew it, and now, just maybe, I’d have something to show for spending Ethel’s hard-earned cash on hats and jackets.
The day wore on. I watched Darla leave, pulled down my hat when she looked my way. Hooga dipped his hat to her, and she darted smiling out into the street in a swirl of long purple skirts.
Ronnie Sacks paid her no attention whatsoever. I revised my estimate of his taste and intelligence down a few notches. Then I turned in triumph, hailed a cab and gave the driver directions. He took in the cut of my jacket and the turn of my hat and didn’t blink an eye when I mentioned House Avalante.
I had the cabbie leave me a block from the House itself. I stepped down onto the sidewalk, tipped him and watched him go.
Then I was alone. All alone on the Hill and the sun was falling fast. The tall old oaks that shaded the lawns at noon were now engulfing the whole neighborhood in shadow. I’d spotted a marble bench on a corner, across from the tall iron gates that marked the entrance to House Avalante, and I made my way toward it.
The lawns smelled of fireflowers and fresh-cut grass. Here and there gardeners worked, clipping and trimming and mowing. They kept their gazes on the ground and if they saw me they never let me know it.
I consoled myself with reminders that not all the rich houses about me were peopled with halfdead. And even those that were, I knew, were not about to venture forth, daylight or dark, and pursue the neighbors or the help with fork and knife in hand. Vampires might lay snoozing mere feet away, I knew, but these were rich snob vampires, and such behavior is considered gauche.
No, places like Cambrit-where the rich and the powerful are likely to break their fast-curfew breakers are plenty, and under the terms of the law, fair game.
I found the bench, sat, admired the lazy way the grass tossed and blew in the wind. Two lawns away, a trio of children laughed and screeched and ran, tossing a ball back and forth while a white poodle wearing a long red ribbon darted yapping among them.
The coward sun sank. A maid appeared, herded the children inside. The gardeners stopped now and then to squint up at the sky.
About the time they began to gather their tools, a cab-a clean black glass-windowed cab, from the good part of town-rattled up to the curb, and my own Mister Nervous Hat climbed out, coins in his hand for the driver.
He saw me. I grinned, stood and yelled for the cabbie to hold for another fare.
Nervous Hat gulped and dropped a pair of jerks.
I stepped over, bent, scooped them up.
“Here you are, Ronnie,” I said, handing them to him. “How are things with all the Sacks, these days?”
The driver, who by now knew something was up, snatched the coins away and scowled.
“I ain’t got time for this,” he growled, producing a wrought-iron truncheon from beneath his seat and banging it down hard beside him. “I’m leavin’. You want a ride, get in.”
I doffed my hat to Ronnie in a grand gesture of farewell. “Do tell your masters I said hello,” I said, as I opened the cab’s door. “They’ll be pleased to know you kept me company today.”
Ronnie Sacks stepped back, face going crimson, gobbling back a useless denial.
I replaced my hat and closed the door.
As the cab pulled away, I saw movement in the windows of House Avalante. A door opened, and a tall figure clad in black emerged to stand in the deep shadows of the wide front porch.
Ronnie watched me go. He knew they’d seen, knew they’d watched me waiting on the bench all afternoon. He didn’t look happy. I guessed he’d have some explaining to do, to those who perhaps lacked both mercy and shame.
I grinned and hummed and admired my face in the glass all the way home.
Chapter Six
The weeds and cracked bricks of Cambrit were quite a letdown after the quiet lanes and stately manors of the Hill. I arrived home well before Curfew, impressed my driver with a tip, and heard Darla’s laughter from behind Mama’s door before I reached my own.
I paused, smiled and adjusted my hat before knocking.
“Who’s there?” shouted Mama.
“The Regent sends his greetings, Madam Hog,” I intoned, in my best Lord of the Realm baritone. “Would you perhaps grant us an audience?”
Mama opened her door.
Darla stood beside Mama. Her eyes went wide. I doffed my new hat, made a bow that made my back pop.
“My lady.”
Darla stepped outside, extended her hand. I took it. Her eyes twinkled in the dying sun.
“Damn, boy,” said Mama, trundling out beside Darla. “What happened? You rob a haberdasher?”