But it still didn’t tell me what to do. If I allowed that one game to operate, it might give me time to prepare. If I shut it down, I would be showing my own people that I couldn’t be played with—that I intended to hold what was mine. Which of those was more important?
“I would think,” I said slowly, “that I can stand—more wine? Allow me. That I can stand to have your friend in my area. Say ten percent? Of the total income?”
His eyes widened a bit; then he smiled. “Ten percent, eh? I hadn’t thought of that solution.” His smile broadened and he slapped the table with his free hand. “All right, Vlad. Done!”
I nodded and raised my glass in salute, then sipped from it. “Excellent. If this works out well, there isn’t any reason that we couldn’t broaden the experiment, eh?”
“Absolutely!”
“Good. I’ll expect the money at my office every Endweek in the first two hours after noon. You do know where my office is, don’t you?”
He nodded.
“Good. Naturally, I’ll trust your bookkeeping.”
“Thank you,” he said.
I raised my glass. “To a long and mutually profitable partnership.”
He raised his. The edges touched, and there was the ringing sound which denotes fine crystal. I wondered which one of us would be dead in a year. I sipped the dry, full wine, savoring it.
I got behind my desk and collapsed into the chair.
“Kragar, get your ass in here.”
“Coming, boss.”
“Temek.”
“Yeah, boss?”
“Find Narvane, Glowbug, and Wyrn and Miraf’n. Get them here five minutes ago.”
“I’m gone.” He teleported out, just to be flashy.
“Varg, I want two of them as bodyguards. Which?”
“Wyrn and Miraf’n.”
“Good. Now where is—oh. Kragar, go talk to the Bitch Patrol. I want a teleport block around this whole building. A good one.”
“Both ways?”
“No. Just to keep people out.”
“Okay. What’s going on?”
“What the hell do you think is going on?”
“Oh. When?”
“We might have until Endweek.”
“Two days?”
“Maybe.”
“Vlad, what do you do these things for?”
“Go.”
He shuffled out.
It wasn’t long before Temek returned with Glowbug. I don’t know what Glowbug’s real name was, but he had bright, shining blue eyes and a love of the long-handled mace. He was really a pleasant, almost jovial guy, but when he started to come at a customer with that mace, his eyes would light up like some Iorich fanatic’s and the customer would decide that, yeah, he could probably find the money somewhere.
It occurs to me that I may be giving you the idea that if you borrow money from me and are thirty seconds late in making a payment, you’ll have sixty-five toughs climbing into your windows. No. If we worked like that, it would cost more in free-lance or staff muscle than we’d make, especially with all the potential customers who’d be driven away.
Let me give you an example. About a month and a half before this—eight weeks, I think it was—one of my lenders came in and explained that a guy was into him for fifty gold and wouldn’t be able to make his payment. The lender wanted to let it slide, but was that okay with me?
“What’s he paying?”
“Five and one,” he said, meaning five gold a week principal, plus one gold a week until it was paid off.
“First payment?”
“No. He’s made four full, and just the interest for three weeks.”
“What happened to him?”
“He runs a tailor shop and hab on Solom. He wanted to try a new line, and it took a quick fifty to get an exclusive. The line—”
“I know, hasn’t taken off yet. What’s his business worth?”
“Maybe three or four big.”
“Okay,” I told the guy. “Give him six weeks free. Tell him if he can’t start doing at least the interest after that, he’s got a new partner until we’re paid off.”
So you see, we aren’t all that bad. If somebody is really having trouble and trying to pay, we’ll work with him. We want his business again, and we don’t make a copper by hurting people. But there are always jokers who think it can’t happen to them, or bigmouths who want to show how tough they are, or back-alley lawsmiths who talk about going to the Empire. These people kept me in eating money—and then some—for more than three years.
Narvane, who arrived just a few minutes after Temek and Glowbug, was a specialist. He was one of very few sorcerers who worked for our end of the Jhereg, most Jhereg sorcerers being women and staying with the Left Hand. He was quiet, indrawn, and had vaguely Dragon facial features: thin face and high cheekbones, a long, straight nose and very dark eyes and hair. He was called in when a job required dismantling personal protection spells on someone, or clairvoyance, at which I’d match him up against any Dzur wizard I’d met, and even most Athyras.
Three of them leaned against the wall. Temek had his arms folded while he whistled “Hearing About You” off key and stared at the ceiling; Narvane was staring at the floor with his hands clasped in front of him; Glowbug was looking around, as if checking out how defensible the place was. Varg stood away from the wall, not moving, looking like something midway between a statue and a set bomb.
Kragar showed up as the silence was becoming uncomfortable. He said, “The first hour after noon, tomorrow.”
“Okay.”
Wyrn and Miraf’n came in together. They were already a team when Welok hired them and had remained a team when they started for me. As far as I knew, neither of them had ever done “work,” but they had a very good reputation. Wyrn resembled an Athyra—he had pale blue-gray eyes and always looked like he was on something mind-altering. When he stood, he swayed a bit from side to side like an old tree, his arms hanging limp like drooping branches. His hair was light and shaggy, and he had a way of looking at you, with his head cocked to the side and a dreamy half-smile at the comers of his mouth, that would send chills up and down your spine.
Miraf’n was huge. He was more than eight feet tall, making even Morrolan look short. Unlike most Dragaerans, he had muscles one could actually see. On occasion, he would play stupid and get a big, silly grin on his face, pick up someone he wanted to intimidate, and tell Wyrn, “Betcha I can throw this one farther than I threw the last one. Wanna bet?”
And Wyrn would go, “Put him down, big fella. He was only kidding about testifying against our friend. Weren’t you?”
And the guy would agree that yes, it was only a joke, and in poor taste at that, and he was very sorry that he’d bothered the two gentlemen . . .
“Melestav! Come in here a minute, and close the door behind you.”
He did, and did. I put my feet up on the desk and scanned the bunch of them.
“Gendemen,” I said, “we’re about to get hit. If we’re lucky, we have two days to prepare. Starting right now, none of you goes out alone. You’re all targets, so get used to it. You’ll each be getting orders from me about exactly what you’ll be doing, but for now, I just want to let you know that things are starting. You know how it goes—travel in pairs, stay at home as much as you can: the whole deal. And if any of you gets any offers from the other side, I want to hear about it. That isn’t just for me, but if you turn them down, you become even more of a target, and I’ll want to take that into account. And, by the way, if you don’t turn them down, you become much, much more of a target. Remember that—you do not want to fuck with me, gentlemen; I’ll destroy you.
“Any questions?”
There was silence for the moment; then Temek said, “What does he have?”
“That’s a good question,” I said. “Why don’t you and Narvane go find out for me?”