Malkin’s face fell. "Where’s the fun in that?"
Before Wiz could answer there was a sharp knock at the door. Tugging it open, he found himself face-to-face with an overdressed, balding little man who looked vaguely familiar.
"I need to talk to you, Wizard," the man snapped. He glared at Malkin. "Alone."
Malkin, who apparently knew him, glared back. "I’ll get the stuff," she said to Wiz over the top of the visitor’s head. "You and Shorty here have a nice chat." With that she swept out the still-open door, leaving the little man purpling in her wake.
"Jailbird bitch should have gone to The Rock long ago," the man said as Wiz thrust the door closed on its still-protesting hinges. "But who you choose to associate with is your business. We’ve got other matters to discuss."
"What can I do for you Mr…?"
"Councilor," the man corrected. "I’m Councilor Dieter Hanwassel and I’m someone to be reckoned with around here."
Wiz looked more closely and saw the man was indeed wearing the heavy gold chain of a city councilman over his elaborately brocaded black-and-silver robe. Where he wasn’t going bald Dieter had dark curly hair that fluffed out from his head. Since he was bald from his forehead to the back of his cranium, he looked like he had just had a nasty accident with a lawn mower. The whole effect was comic-until you saw the jut of the jaw, the lips pressed into a tight line and the glitter in his dark eyes. He reminded Wiz of an excited terrier in a too-fancy collar. A terrier who was aching to take a bite out of someone.
"Ah yes, Councilor, I believe we met this morning."
Dieter jerked a nod. "We did. And now that the rest of those ninnies aren’t around we can talk seriously."
Wiz put on his blandest expression and nodded. One thing consultants never had to search for was the political factions in an organization. Sooner or later they came searching for you. Usually sooner.
"I’m sorry I can’t offer you a seat," Wiz said, "but you see-"
Dieter cut him off. "What you can offer me is your support, since just now you seem to have the council’s favor." He eyed Wiz. "I’m a plain man, Wizard, and plain-spoken. We can do a lot together, you and I. And I can do a lot for you."
"You mean you can help me with dragons?"
"Dragons," the councilor snorted. "What do I care about dragons? I’m a practical man and we both know there’s nothing you can do about them, eh? No, what I’m interested in is revenues. Do you realize this city hasn’t had a revenue increase in near a generation? There’s all sort of projects, wonderful projects, just stalled because there’s no revenue. Why, there’s streets, and fountains, and bridges. All just crying out to be built. And they’ve gone crying for years because of lack of revenues."
"What do you expect me to do about that? I’m an expert on dragons."
Dieter waved that away. "Tell them you need more money to fight the dragons, that’s what. They already agreed to pay you a tenth of the city’s revenues. Tell them you need more, and now."
"They’ll only pay me if-when-I succeed."
"And you know what they’ll do to you if you don’t succeed, eh?" The Councilman leaned close and glared up at Wiz. "Well, let me tell you, you won’t succeed without my help. I have weight on the council and me and my followers, we want those revenues increased."
Wiz wondered how much of those revenues would wind up in the pockets of the councilor and his cronies. Considering what the guy was like he decided a better question would be how much of the money would make it past those pockets.
"Now, I’m not a greedy man, Wizard," Dieter continued in what was obviously supposed to be a placating tone. "When the money flows there’ll be help for those as helped us. Sort of finder’s fees, you might say."
"It certainly sounds like a worthwhile program. What seems to be the obstacle?"
"The mayor’s the obstacle, him and that Rolf who’s behind him. All they ever do is cry about ’tax burdens’ and ’fiscal responsibility.’ " The little man snorted. " ’Fiscal responsibility.’ What about our responsibility to them as support us I’d like to know?"
Wiz nodded. "It sounds as if you have a very strong case. I can assure you I’ll give the matter serious consideration."
"You’ll give the matter more than that if you want to stay off The Rock," Dieter said. "I’ll be watching you, Wizard. And I’m a man who remembers his enemies as well as his friends."
After his visitor left Wiz spent the next several minutes working the front door back and forth to free up the rusted hinges. The hinges squeaked and groaned in protest and that suited his mood perfectly.
"The runt leave?" Malkin asked when she breezed back in a bit later, her arms loaded with cleaning supplies.
"He’s gone. Did you pay for all this stuff?"
"Charged it to the council," she said, dropping everything in the middle of the hall. "Someone will be around later with bedding and stuff. What did the little rat want anyway?"
"My help in raising taxes."
"Figures. Of the whole money-gouging lot Dieter’s about the worst." She paused and considered. "Well, anyways the most obnoxious."
"That’s a problem for another day," Wiz said as he stooped to pick up a broom. As he stood back up he saw the flash of gold in Malkin’s hand. "What’s that?"
"Oh, something I picked up in the market," she said breezily, holding up an ornate gold ring with a big green stone. "Do you like it?"
"I thought I told you not to steal anything."
"You told me to pay for the cleaning stuff. And I did-leastways I charged it all legal-like. But this," she said, popping the ring down her bodice, "isn’t cleaning stuff."
Tomorrow, Wiz told himself. I’ll worry about this tomorrow. "Come on, let’s try to make this place habitable."
Malkin turned out to be a surprisingly hard worker. She obviously didn’t know much more about house cleaning than Wiz did, but she went at it with a will and before long dust was flying in all directions. In a little less than two hours they had the front hall and two of the upstairs bedrooms more or less clean.
"Woof! You don’t have any spell to clean this place, do you?" Malkin said as she plopped down on the stair beside Wiz to take a break.
"Not really. Well, I do know one, but it takes everything out of the room." And sends it off in all directions with roughly the velocity of machine gun bullets. He remembered the time in the ruined City of Night when he and the others had hacked the spell together to move rubble and how they’d ended up cowering in the dirt from the resulting barrage of missiles. That reminded him of Jerry, Danny and most of all Moira, and sent a pang through him.