I doubted even the thirstiest vampire would look twice at Three-leg though.
I shuffled back to my chair and resumed my convalescence. The poultice smelled like Mama had stuffed something long dead with something even worse and then boiled the lot in cow piss. But it was taking the swelling down, and the first whiff of it had cured my headache.
The street outside was quiet. Rare, even for Cambrit Street, where the Curfew was more a suggestion than a command, and the Watch didn’t even bother to feign concern for anyone dumb enough to dare the halfdead. Aside from the barking of dogs and the far-off rattle of the first dead wagons, Rannit seemed to fall silent, all at once.
The lamp on the shelf beside me began to flicker. I gave it a one-eyed glare, because my office is too small to be hosting its own evening breezes.
And yet the flame danced to and fro, dancing like a drunkard.
A chill ran mouse-foot down my spine.
I groaned.
“So Granny laid some back-alley hex on my lamp,” I said aloud. “And I’m supposed to watch and get all goose bumped because I’m being visited by the spirits of the dead.”
The flame kept right on flickering.
“Client or not, dead or not, it’s after hours, and I’m sitting here with a lump on my head and blisters on my heels. I’ve got nothing to report. So beat it. And next time knock first.”
I closed my eyes and leaned way back and held the stinking poultice tight against my face. When I opened my eye again, the lamp flame was steady and bright.
“Nice one, Granny,” I mumbled.
I’ve got a bed in the room behind my office. I sought it out soon after, and when I slept, I dreamed I was being chased by hobnailed children all screaming “bugger!” at the tops of their vicious little lungs.
As ten-year celebrations go, it needed lots of work.
Morning came. I wasn’t impressed. But both eyes were open and aside from a split upper lip and a truly nasty purple bruise around my left eye, I was in better shape than I expected.
A trip to the bathhouse down the street and another stop at Eddie’s for his skillet-fried eggs and burned bacon did wonders for my temperament, if not my appearance. I believe I was even whistling when I rounded the corner a block from home and came face to face with the same well-dressed thug who’d given me the black eye on Regency.
Today, we matched. His left eye was even worse than mine in that it was still swollen shut, and from the way his nose looked, I figured it was not just bruised but broken.
He saw me and stopped and raised his empty hands, just as I’d done.
“I ain’t here to cause no trouble,” he said. “Mr. Owenstall sent me. Said he found out something about that woman you might want to know.”
I nodded. I was too full of bacon and eggs to do anything except sit anyway.
“Fine. Why don’t we go on to my office and talk about it? Unless you’d rather kick me in the back again. That we can do right here.”
He shook his head. “Look, Markhat. We was wrong for jumping you like that. Believe me, we know that now.” He fingered his broken nose. “Maybe this can help make up for it.”
I shrugged. “Maybe it will,” I said. I started walking, and he fell into step beside me. “So, what’s your name?”
“Bolton.” He stuck out his hand awkwardly. I didn’t see any reason not to shake it. At least my nose wasn’t broken.
So we shook on it, just in time for Mama Hog to stick her head out her door and grunt and withdraw.
“I ain’t never seen the boss scared of nobody,” said Bolton, after Mama shut her door. “Even during the War. Seen him knock a Troll down and jump on it bare-fisted. But he’s scared of that woman, and that’s a fact.”
“Mama’s meaner than any Troll. So, you served with your boss?”
We were at my door. I unlocked it and motioned Bolton inside.
“Most of us did,” replied Bolton. I assumed he meant his fellow pugilists from yesterday. “We were all in the Fifth, out Hinge way.”
I grunted. That meant they were supply wagon guards and potato peelers.
“I heard you was a dog handler, out West.”
I just nodded. Some guys can’t wait to go on and on about the War. I’d rather forget every miserable minute of it.
“Have a seat. You said your boss found something out about Marris Sellway.”
Bolton sat.
“No Sellways on Regency. Never have been. We asked some of the old folks, the ones who lived on Cawling before it burned. Nobody ever heard of a Sellway, woman or man.”
I waited for more and frowned when I realized nothing else was forthcoming.
“You walked all the way from Regency for that?”
“It ain’t what they said, Mr. Markhat. It’s the way they said it. The old ones, I mean. They went all shifty-eyed and stooped when they heard the name. I know they remembered it. But not a soul would admit it. Now, if this Sellway woman lived on Cawling before the fires, that puts her back a good ten years. That’s a long time to be scared of something.”
I nodded. “Could be they were just scared of you.”
Bolton shook his head. “It ain’t like that, Mr. Markhat. The Boss don’t hold with them ways. We make sure the old ones got firewood in the winter. We make sure somebody talks to ’em every day or so. Hell, we take ’em to doctors if they need it, haul their groceries home. Boss don’t want the people that live on Regency to be scared of us.”
“Just stray finders passing through.”
“We thought you was a scout for another gang, sizing up the take. Happens a lot. People think the Boss is soft cause he don’t beat down the residents.”
I put my fingertips together and assumed my Thoughtful Finder pose while I digested the concept of a civic-minded gang lord.
“What do you know about Cawling Street, back in the day?”
Bolton shrugged. “It was a slum,” he said. “Bad before we left for the War. Worse when we got back. The Boss staked it out, cleaned it up, saw it rebuilt with some of that Reclamation money.”
“Who was running Cawling, before you boys got back?”
Bolton frowned. “Bunch of punks calling themselves the Bloods,” he said, grinning. “I reckon some of ’em are still running.”
I groaned.
“I say something wrong?”
“No. But you did just expand my search to include aging street gang members.”
“You think they might know something?”
“They might offhand remember the names of the people they extorted, yeah,” I said.
Bolton’s brow furrowed. “The head knocker was a punk named Stick. We never got around to a face-to-face. He took off when he saw we were moving in.”
“Any of the others put up a fight?”
He shrugged. “None that lived to tell.”
“So, you think the name Sellway brought back some bad memories among the old folks, who are too scared to talk to this day. And the gang running the neighborhood is either dead or scattered all over the Frontier by now.”
“’Fraid so.” He pushed my chair back and stood. “Wish I had more to tell, but that’s it. Hope it makes up for yesterday. Boss said you could come back and ask questions if you wanted, no problem.”
“If they won’t talk to the men who tuck them in their beds and carry their groceries they aren’t likely to talk to me either.”
“Well, if anybody does decide to tell any tales, we’ll let you know.”
“Thanks.”
Three-leg Cat emerged from the back room after Bolton was gone. He meowed a few times to express his displeasure at being wakened so early and then settled into my lap for a rare session of loud, rough purring.
I had no desire to shake down frightened, grannies for decades-old neighborhood gossip.
“My best bet,” I told Three-leg, “is to find someone who moved away from Cawling Street about the time Owenstall and his lads took over, or find a surviving Blood and hope they feel like talking.”
Three-leg Cat didn’t seem enthused about either prospect.
Neither did I. Either task could take weeks. And that’s assuming any of the former Bloods had survived until the present. You don’t meet many middle-aged youth gang members. They just don’t live that long, even in postwar Rannit.