“I’m not sure what kind of trouble I could’ve caused you, ma’am,” Three answered. “Just rolled into town yesterday, and haven’t done anything untoward to anyone since I got here.”
The Bonefolder sipped her beverage again, a dainty procedure borne of long years of practice and some kind of homage to traditions long dead. She replaced her cup on the table, adjusted it slightly so the handle was pointing exactly ninety-degrees to her right.
“This may be true. But we fear the offense came before you ‘rolled into town’, as you so eloquently put it.”
Three could feel the tension pouring off jCharles. Without a doubt, he was already running through the scenarios of who to drop first when it all went down.
“Ma’am, I hope you’ll forgive me, but I’ve had a long few weeks. If I’ve done you some wrong, you’re gonna have to come right out and tell me.”
She looked at him with disappointment, clearly affronted by his crass disregard for her preferred manner of speech. The Bonefolder took another sip of her beverage. Three already recognized the routine. Same quantity in every sip. Raise the cup. Sip. Pause. A long blink. Lower the cup. Adjust. Handle ninety-degrees to the right.
“A few days ago, Mr Walker, several of our business associates went looking to procure certain commodities that are at times in demand here within Greenstone. Four associates departed. Only one of those associates returned, Mr Walker, and he was notably less well than he had been when he first departed. His ankle snapped cleanly in two. Jaw dislocated. Only partial memories of the events which led to the unfortunate state in which we found him.”
The image flashed through Three’s mind immediately. The slavers. He’d told Cass he might not have killed all of them. Apparently he was right. Small comfort.
“It seems he spent the night in a culvert, wedged inside a drain pipe, Mr Walker, after having crawled there on his elbows, he says. Apparently, he had the less than desirable experience of observing the Weir as they savaged the corpses of his companions and then dragged them away. We fear he has been somewhat changed.”
“Ma’am, I’m sorry for your loss, but I gave those men the only thing I had to offer ’em. I didn’t know they were yours.”
“Would it have mattered if you had, Mr Walker?”
“No ma’am, I reckon not.”
“As we suspected,” she replied. She pressed her lips together so that they disappeared into a perfectly flat, horizontal line. Cup up. Sip. Pause. Blink. Cup down. Adjust. “Under normal circumstances, we fear we would have no choice but to make an example of you. Greenstone is a challenging place for a woman of any standing, let alone for one of our particular age, you see.”
Close to go time. Three casually surveyed the bartender. He was cleaning a glass, but watching intently. The Big One stood statue-still behind Bonefolder, hands behind his back. The rest arrayed in a half-circle that nearly enclosed Three and jCharles. Four to one. And the Bonefolder. Three didn’t know how she’d earned that name, and he didn’t want to find out.
“So what’s the procedure here? I assume you want some kind of restitution, else I’d be swinging from a post already.”
“Oh, isn’t it a sharp one?” she said. “We understand you desire use of our train that you may travel to Morningside. Is this accurate?”
“It is.”
“It is to your great fortune, then, that we have need of a courier for just that very destination. A messenger.”
“So I hop on your train, deliver your message, and we’re square?”
“We require a message be delivered to the governor of that province. A man by name of Underdown.”
Under the table, jCharles spread his fingers wide, stretching them, then relaxed them into his lap. He bowed his head slightly, let his eyelids droop. Ready. On Three’s move, Twitch would unleash.
“And the message?”
“The message is his death. After we receive confirmation, we will allow your woman and child to join you.”
An icy shock went through Three, and he saw jCharles’ eyelids flutter. How did she know about Cass and Wren?
Three forced himself still. Calm. Cool. Controlled.
“Ma’am, I’m afraid that doesn’t work.”
“Mr Walker, by now we have your woman and child in our custody. Your decisions are reduced only to this: deliver our message to Governor Underdown of Morningside, or die. We do not care, but recompense must be made. Your death plus the woman and the boy are calculated a fair exchange. The sum is equal to the cost of the zeroing of Underdown. This is business. What is your decision?”
The electric feeling didn’t subside as the man approached from the hazy darkness. There was a shift in the crowd, as well. Cass felt the ring tighten ever so subtly.
“Our moneyman,” Tyke continued. “Just taking care of the money, and we should all be on our way, just like that. I hope you’ll tell your brother what good business partners we are, how well we held up our deal, and how eager we are to serve. We’re fans of his, we read all his stuff, me and Jantz.”
The man finally reached the perimeter of the lights, and Cass recognized him instantly. The limping man from before. But more than that, she saw it now, all of it. The man she’d seen in the Samurai McGann. The one with the familiar eyes. She’d seen him even before that, out in the open. He’d been wearing a mask over his mouth then, when Three had broken his leg and knocked him to the ground like a dead man. Not dead after all.
Cass stepped back involuntarily, and felt the fake greenman close behind her. Seven to one. Very bad odds.
Tyke changed his tone immediately, apologetic now.
“We didn’t have nothing to do with it, I swear. You tell Mr McGann we didn’t have nothing to do with it, we wanted the deal just like we said, just like we said, and we didn’t want to have nothing to do with the Bonefolder!”
Hands gripped her upper arms tightly, surprising in their strength. The pressure applying so smoothly, so steadily. The uniform wasn’t the only thing fake about the greenman. Servorganical arms, at least. They gripped with steel certainty.
The Limper approached, got right in her face with a damaged smile, and without a word he slapped her, hard. When she looked back, he spit on her mouth.
“Easy”, the fake greenman said. “Bonefolder doesn’t want her damaged.”
“She said alive. Didn’t say nothin’ about damaged.”
The Limper grabbed her shirt at the top and ripped it wide open. Seven to one was bad odds.
“There is no decision,” Three said, quick to grab Twitch’s arm under the table. “The woman and boy are yours if you want ’em. But I’m not going to handle Underdown. Killing a governor’s not my idea of repayment. So look, you take the woman, you take the boy, what’s that leave between us? A few thousand?”
The Bonefolder hitched, the slightest hint that something had taken her by surprise.
“These terms are unacceptable.”
Three knew jCharles was straining with all he had not to open up on the crowd and see how far he could get before they cut him down. If they were going after Wren, that meant they were going after Mol. And the thought of that seared Three to the core. He could only imagine what Twitch was feeling.
“Then forget it. Keep the woman and the boy, and we don’t bother with the train. We’ll call it even.” Three stood just quickly enough to make everyone flinch. He snatched jCharles’ bittertonic and downed it.
Four to one, plus the Bonefolder. Ranges were all wrong. One shot for the bartender to open, and after that, it was all close work. Had to assume everyone was packing hate of one form or another. Even at his most desperate, Three had never tried something so obviously guaranteed to end with his death. Why had Twitch come? Even if they managed to clean house, there was no way they’d make it out of the building alive. And then what would happen to Mol? And to Wren? Where was Cass? What were they doing to her?