“Hmmph. Well, could we open, say, one game, in a week?”
“They might let us get away with it. But once you open up a game, what happens the first time a customer runs short of cash? We need to have someone to lend him money. And then maybe he gets behind on his payments, so he starts stealing. We need a cleaner. Or—”
“We don’t have a cleaner in any case.”
“I’m working on that.”
“Oh. All right. But yes, I see your point. It’s all tied in.”
“And there’s another thing: whoever opens up is going to be pretty nervous. That means that you should really make personal visits—and that’s dangerous.”
“Yeah.”
“One thing we could do is find a new office. I can still smell the smoke in here.”
“We could, but . . . do you know where Laris’s office is?”
“I know, but he doesn’t go there anymore. We don’t know where he is.”
“But we know where his office is. Fine. That’s where my next office will be.”
He looked startled, then shook his head. “Nothing like confidence,” he said.
Narvane was in touch with me pretty constantly that week, and was slowly getting a feel for the work. After what had happened to Temek, he was being careful, but we were accumulating a list of places and a few names.
I tried doing a small witchcraft spell on Laris, just to see if there was any point in attacking him that way, but I got nothing. That meant that he was protected against witchcraft—and indicated that he really did know me, since most Dragaerans don’t think of the art as anything to bother with.
I had enforcers following those people we knew, trying to get their movements down so we could use this information later. We approached a couple of them with large sums, hoping to find out where Laris was hiding, but we didn’t get any takers.
The project to make friends with Laris’s people went better, although just as slowly. We got nothing useful, but there were indications that we might in the future. I had some people speak to the Phoenix Guards. We learned from them that they weren’t happy about the duty, didn’t expect it to last long, and that they were as impatient to start earning their gambling money again as we were to start needing to pay them. I considered the matter.
Six days after Zerika put her foot down, I met with Kragar and Smiley Gilizar. Smiley had been protecting Nielar, and was pretty much recovered from being revivified. He got his name because he smiled almost as much as Varg—that is, not at all.
Varg, however, rarely had any expression. Smiley had a permanent sneer. When he looked like he wanted to bite you in the leg, he was happy. When he got angry, his face became contorted. He had picked up an Eastern weapon called a lepip, which was a heavy metal bar with leather wrapped around it to prevent cuts. When he wasn’t doing protection, he did muscle work. He’d started on the docks, collecting for a short-tempered lender called Cerill. When Cerill was fed up with being reasonable, he’d send Smiley, and then send someone else the next day to reason with whatever was left.
So Smiley sat there, scowling at Kragar and me, and I said, “Smiley, our friend H’noc is going to open up his brothel tomorrow evening. He’s being protected by Abror and Nephital. I want you to go over to help them out.”
He sneered even more, as if it were beneath him.
I knew him well enough to ignore this, however. I continued: “Stay out of the way of our customers, so you don’t scare them. And if the guards try to shut the place down, just let them. Can you handle that?”
He snorted, which I took for a yes.
“Okay, be there at the eighth hour. That’s all.”
He left without a word. Kragar shook his head. “I’m amazed that you can get rid of him that easy, Vlad. You’d think you’d have to do a demon banishment or something.”
I shrugged. “He’s never ‘worked,’ as far as I know.”
Kragar grunted. “Anyway, we ought to know something by tomorrow. Any word from Narvane?”
“Not much. He’s been going slow.”
“I suppose. But he should at least be checking to see if Laris is opening something.”
I agreed. I got hold of Narvane and gave the necessary orders. Then I sighed. “I hate being in the dark like this. We have a good groundwork for the future, but we still know hardly anything about him.”
Kragar nodded, then brightened. “Vlad!”
“Yes?”
“Morrolan!”
“Huh?”
“Aren’t you his security consultant? Doesn’t he have a spy network?”
“Sure, Kragar. And if you want to find out how many sorcerers Lord Whointheheck of the House of the Dragon has, I could tell you in three minutes, along with their specialties, ages, and tastes in wine. But that doesn’t help us.”
He got a vacant look, and said, “There ought to be a way to use that . . . ”
“If you think of one, let me know.”
“I will.”
H’noc reached me late in the evening of the next day.
“Yes?”
“Just wanted to tell you that we haven’t been bothered by any guards yet.”
“Good. Customers?”
“Maybe two.”
“Okay. It’s a start. Have you seen anyone who looks like he might be working for Laris?”
“How would I know?”
“All right. Stay in touch.”
I looked up at Kragar, who was spending more time in my office than in his own these days. “I just talked to H’noc. No problems; no customers.”
He nodded. “If we make it through the night, maybe we should open up a cleaner tomorrow.”
“Sure,” I said. “Who?”
“I know a few thieves who’ve been talking about getting into that end.”
“In the middle of a war?”
“Maybe.”
“All right. Check into it.”
“Will do.”
Kragar found a cleaner, and we opened up a couple of nights later. At the same time, Narvane found out that Laris wasn’t doing much of anything. We began to breathe easier. Soon, we decided, the Phoenix Guards would just disappear, and things would be back to normal.
Normal? Exactly what was “normal” at this point?
“Kragar, what happens when the Phoenix Guards disappear?”
“Things go back to . . . oh. I see what you mean. Well, in the first place, we’re back on the defensive. He starts moving in on us, we start trying to find out all we can about him—and by the way, we should have more than just Narvane working on that.”
“I know. We will, but—it seems to me that this is our big chance to get ahead.”
“Uh . . . what is?”
“This. Now. When neither of us can attack the other, but we can get our businesses going again. We should push it as far as we can. Get as much going as possible, to build up some cash, and make as many friends among Laris’s people as we can, get Narvane and whoever else we can digging into him—the whole bit.”
Kragar thought that over, then nodded. “You’re right. We’ve got the cleaner working, that means we can open up a lender. Three days? Two?”
“Two. We’re going to be paying extra bribes, but that shouldn’t go on too long.”
“Right. And once that’s going, we could start one of the small shareba clubs. A week from today, say? If everything goes well?”
“That sounds right.”
“Good. And we won’t need too much protection at first. Let’s put Wyrn and Miraf’n helping Narvane. And maybe Chimov and Glowbug, too. But keep them all on the rotation for bodyguards.”
“Not Chimov. I don’t want any free-lancer knowing too much about what I know. Make it N’aal. He isn’t good at it, but he can learn.”
“Okay. I’ll talk to them, and let Narvane in on it.”
“Good. Are we leaving anything out?”
“Probably, but nothing I can think of.”