“Why do you need information about Morten?” Stansill said, steel ringing in his tone.
“I’ve been hearing good things about him,” Jonah said calmly. “Taking care of a sensitive problem is one thing, but taking care of a sensitive problem without causing a fuss—that’s a special ability.”
“Exactly. That’s all I’m saying,” said Stansill, temporarily mollified. “I’d heard you’d been asking around about him, and word is you’ve been appointed to look into Paladin Steiner-Davion’s death. I’d hate to think somehow Henrik was coming under suspicion just because he’s an excellent troubleshooter.”
Jonah laughed, knowing it was too late to deny what he was working on. “I wish my investigation had progressed far enough that I could put anyone under suspicion. No, I’m still in the earliest stages—I’m looking for good help. A troubleshooter. But I need to make sure anyone I hire is capable.”
“So this is all just …vetting?”
“Exactly.”
Stansill visibly relaxed. “All right. Good. That, I can help with.”
“Great. So you obviously know Henrik Morten.”
“Yes, yes. I could tell you a few stories, in fact.”
Jonah smiled congenially. “Go ahead!”
Stansill leaned back, resting his hands behind his head. “I’ve only met him once, myself, at a reception here in town. I can’t even remember who introduced us; those evenings become a blur, you know? We only talked briefly, but he didn’t seem too enthusiastic about being there. I got the impression he’d rather be doing something else.”
“What else?” Jonah asked.
“Anything else. A reception isn’t about doing, and Morten is a guy who gets things done. He was out of place there, so we didn’t say much to each other.”
“So he’s a doer—but what does he get done?”
“Oh, I’ve heard a lot of things. But there’s one, there was this one time, out on Ryde, during the rebuilding. Do you remember when that meteor hit?”
“Remember? I was there after it hit. Six months on-planet.”
“Really? Okay, so you know what it was like. Well, this was after the worst part of the chaos had been quelled, when the long, slow work of reconstruction was under way. There was a dispute that should have been nothing, but, with the tensions of the lengthy assignment, it grew way out of proportion.”
“What kind of dispute?”
Stansill shrugged. “It was about a woman. What else? A couple of Knights got into a feud when one ran off with the other one’s wife. Only he couldn’t exactly run off, because he was assigned to the reconstruction. So he was there, working side by side with the guy whose wife he’d taken.
“Now ordinarily the two would have had to settle it themselves somehow. Fight a duel, or just punch each other out, or something, and it would be over. But the feud just got bigger and bigger as time went by, and everyone assigned to the reconstruction started taking sides. Suddenly, you had two reconstruction teams, each taking every opportunity to find fault with the other, even undermine the other’s efforts. The whole process was breaking down.”
“I never heard about any of this.”
“That’s exactly the point I’m getting to. Another Knight who was on planet called in Morten, I guess because he knew his reputation. Morten spent a day with one of the guys in the feud, then a day with the other. Next thing you know, they’re best friends. They’re in public everywhere together, saying nice things about each other, showing everyone that their feud is over and done with. As quickly as they’d been divided, the workers came back together. The reconstruction was saved.”
“And the wife?”
“Stayed with the guy she ran off with. How Morten made that all work, I’ll never know. But he did.”
Jonah made a few notes, but, impressive as the story was to Stansill, there was little to help him out. Except for one small thing that was nagging in his mind.
“The Knight who brought Morten into the dispute—do you remember who it was? I’d like to hear the story from him.”
“Of course I remember! He was just elevated to the conclave!”
Jonah’s heart dropped a little as Stansill said the name. “It was Gareth Sinclair.”
28
Cloverleaf Bar, Santa Fe
Terra, Prefecture X
6 December 3134
It was another dry, chilly Santa Fe night. The distant stars were points of cold blue-white, like chips of diamond against the black sky. Burton Horn was where he always thought he should be at this time of night—in a bar. Unfortunately, he was there on business.
The days just past had been strenuous, by anybody’s reckoning, but things had worked out well enough in the end. Elena Ruiz had been soothed, supported and sent away to recover in the home of her widowed mother in Albuquerque. The police, for their part, had been satisfied with her story of a home invasion interrupted by the good luck of Horn’s timely arrival.
Whatever their suspicions (since Horn doubted they’d missed the fact that Ruiz’s alleged assailant had been dealt with professionally), they weren’t likely to push further. The Santa Fe law enforcement community already knew that Burton Horn was a Paladin’s operative. Furthermore, Horn was willing to bet that the late Delgado was already in their files as a known troublemaker, hoodlum and general bad egg. People who took money from strangers to intimidate young women living alone were seldom upstanding citizens.
The Cloverleaf Bar, when Horn entered it shortly before midnight, was exactly the sort of place that might have attracted someone like Delgado, full of loud music and people who never looked you directly in the eye. The smell of beer and bourbon hung in the air along with tobacco smoke.
Horn had dressed for the occasion. He’d made no effort to look local; he wasn’t familiar with the Santa Fe outlaw style, and knew it would be pointless to try. But he knew the interstellar spaceport version of that same style quite well. It wasn’t his usual look—give him nondescript invisibility any day—but in black trousers, a muscle-hugging black knit shirt, and a loose black coat obviously cut to conceal weapons, he would be recognized at once as a serious player from out of town.
Horn let the inner door of the Cloverleaf slide shut behind him and moved through the crowd to the bar. He took a seat on a stool near one end, out of the bright lights, and waited for the bartender to finish filling a quartet of frosted beer mugs and putting them onto a tray. The waitress sashayed off to a table on the far side of the room with the beers, and Horn took the opportunity to catch the bartender’s eye.
The bartender came over to him. “What’s your poison?”
Horn laid a fifty-stone note on the bar. “Bourbon, straight.”
“Bourbon it is.” The bartender poured a shot of bourbon and set the glass on the bar in front of Horn. He picked up the fifty-stone note and looked at it. “Planning on running a tab?”
Horn didn’t touch the shot glass. “No.”
“I might have trouble making change for this.”
“Not necessarily.”
“Uh-huh.” There was a long pause. The bartender gave Horn a summing-up glance. “With that sort of cash, are you looking for one of our …special services?”
Horn smiled smugly and played dumb. “Special services?”
“Look, I’m not playing games. You know what you want. Ask, and I’ll help you if I can.”
Horn acted like he was pondering the offer. “What if I want something stronger than bourbon?”