The Pearl Crucible - A Dardana Fenek Mystery- CARUANO GATTO (Part 2)

(Chapter 14, Part Two)

“Good day, Miss Nosy-panties,” Mist’ Gatto said. He had a dirty blanket folded over his arm, and a pottery cup in his hand. The beggar in the street, of course, I thought. Gatto is well known for his disguises. The disguise had hidden a good blue tunic, red pantalons, and a bevy of tablets and traveling terminals on his belt and shoulder. Gatto liked information, and was always prepared.

“Oh, Miss,” Barsina murmured. “What did I say.”

“Whatever she said,” Gatto agreed, “you should have listened to it.”

“Now, Caruano,” I said, raising my hands, “maybe we can make a deal.”

Barsina and I began backing towards the other room. I had the idea we could go out the window and climb into the building next door.

Barsina has no head for heights, and nor, truth be told, do I, though I’ve done ’em when need be, so that would have been a risky course of action for us. Happily, we were forestalled by the appearance from the back room of two more of Gatto’s men and the fat, pale-gummed Demetri Valeth.

“Mist’ Valeth,” I said. “Pleasant surprise.”

“Is it, now?” he said nastily.

“As you see, I’m earning your ten drachms,” I said.

“You find ten drachms on her,” the alleged pork mercanter said to Gatto, “I’ll be taking it.—You remember how I said how happy it would make the missus to have you investigate?”

“I recall something like that,” I said with a sinking feeling.

“She was mighty pleased,” Valeth—or whatever his name was—said. “Mighty pleased indeed.”

Barsina and I were nearly back to back. “Caruano,” I said, “I begin to think he’s here under false pretenses. I don’t think he’s a pork mercanter at all.”

Gatto shook his head sadly at me. “Nosy-panties,” he said, “this is weak even for you. I’ve got you fair and square, and you’ll have to take your lumps like the rest of us.”

Caruano’s not a very tall man, but he’s bigger than me, a wiry low-class scrapper from the grey edge between the mercanters and the dolemen. He and his brother have built up their business from nothing to one of the best agencies in the city, so you think he wouldn’t mind a bit of competition for the crumbs, but here he was between me and the door.

Bigger than me, and his three men were bigger still. Valeth wasn’t taller, but he was wider, and now he looked the type who would break a girl’s arm for fun. I’ve met that sort before.

“Caruano, I think you don’t understand. I think he’s got me mixed up with someone else, and if you turn me over, I’m going to get strangled on a tree in some aristoi’s garden. You want that to happen to me? We’ve worked together!”

“Some aristoi!” the fat man said. “That’s Miss Testaferrata to you, girl.”

“I’ve always wondered about you, Fenek,” Gatto said, folding his blanket and tossing it on the workbench. “You should’ve come work for me when I told you to, and I would have been more inclined to help.—Take everything out of your girdle and put it on the table.”

It was a pretty direct order, and he used pretty sharp tones, so it was almost enough to persuade me to shut up and get busy, but I pushed on. “Maybe we can still work together. You want in on this Fortunato case?”

“Who’s even paying you on the Fortunato case?” he pointed out. “He’s dead. Girl!” he said to Barsina, “Everything out of your girdle, girdle off, and kneel. Hop to it!”

“Yes, Sir,” she mumbled, taking out my tablet and stylus and her sandals and all of her other little useful odds and ends and laying them out on the rickety table as neatly as any contract-girl ever did.

“I’m working for the daughter,” I lied, “and for Mardonios! I work for you, we split the fee fifty fifty.”

“I let you hang, and take all the fee,” he pointed out.

“We’ve worked together!” I said. “You want that on your conscience? And you can’t just walk up to Mardonios and say, ‘I had Fenek hanged, so let me in on the slice.’” At least, I hoped that was true.

“It is a wonder he hasn’t come to me himself yet,” he agreed. “You’re the pettiest operator in Aulis. I need to go down there and tell him what we can do.”

“Seventy-thirty,” I offered. “And I share out what Fortunato already gave me before he was killed.”

“Testaferrata’s paid me fifty to find you and a fifty bonus once she has you.”

“A hundred drachms?” I yelped. “You could buy a pretty skivvy for a hundred. What’s she paying that kind of money for a woman she wants to kill—plus hiring this ŝinko and his daily expenses?”

“Missus really doesn’t like you,” the ŝinko said, grinning. Barsina had undone and folded her girdle, and one of Caruano’s men was tying her hands behind her back and kneeling her by the window.

“All right, all right, all that I’ve made on this case,” I said, “plus I work free this job, and I’ll pay Narvi to snoop for you out of my own pocket.”

He scratched his chin. “Well,” he said thoughtfully. “You think there’s much more to be made here?”

“Oi!” the fat man said, “you had a deal with Miss Testaferrata. And you back out, she’ll just denounce the girl and have her seized and you fined for breaking your compact. She don’t want to waste the militia’s time, but if you start protecting her slag, whatcha think she’ll have to do, eh?”

“I suppose you’re right,” Caruano said. “She’s a good inspector, though,” he said a little regretfully. “For a woman.”

“Thanks, Caruano.”

“Won’t be inspecting much at the end of a noose. Girl!” the fat man yelled, “Empty your girdle! Girdle off! Kneel!”

That was too much to resist with two citizens giving me orders now, and men at that, and my hands fumbled at my tobacco tin and my rolling papers and my matches and my wallet, which the fat man snatched away from me.

“Where’s my tenner?” he demanded after dumping out my small change and finding no paper, silver, or gold.

“Your tenner’s in the lowest hell. Why don’t you join it?” I suggested, forcing the words past the In my office, Sir, that wanted to pop out quicker and firster.

“Esto, there’s a mattress back there,” one of Caruano’s men said, jerking his thumb at the inner chamber. “Mind if we take her bint back and make her give us a lie-down? Zenithar only buys good stock.”

“And what about Fenek, too, eh?” said another. “Been looking at her bum wiggling a couple years.”

“Oi, that!”

“Well,” said Gatto reluctantly, looking at me.

Barsina made an unhappy noise, and that snapped the mesmery over me. “Oi, that’s my girl,” I said, stepping towards her as they pulled her to her feet. “This has gone far enough! Caruano, this man’s got no proof I’m who this Testaferrata says I am. You and me, we’ve got a professional relationship, and this is not how things are done.”

“If you aren’t a citizen,” Gatto pointed out, with, I grant, full logic, “then this is Mama Solene’s girl because you can’t own her contract, and I’m pretty sure Mama Solene’ll pay a finder’s fee to get her back to work, and not mind the lie-down.—Same goes for you since you’ve no rights.”

Barsina made another unhappy noise halfway to the back room, pulled by the Gatto man. Another Gatto man was shaking out black hoods to pull over our heads to blind us.

“Gatto!” I yelled, sidestepping the hood-man. “How are you going to live with yourself? Remember the case of the crippled groom? Who pulled your eggs out of the fire that time, yah? Me! What did you say? You said, ‘Fenek, you’re a wonder-worker.’ Well, I am. What about that case—”

The fat man stepped forward to grab my arm, a length of kanibilon rope in his thick fingers from his sash. “Enough arguing,” he said, saggy face no longer smiling. “Shut your mouth, bint, or you’ll get something in it quicker than it woulda happened.”

I kicked the broken-back chair at him, dodging past his fat, reaching hands. I had a vague notion of seizing the oil lamp and clouting him across the head with it. I mean, if I was to be hanged as a runaway, I’d not hang any higher for breaking his crown.

However, as the fat man cursed and snatched at my trailing chiton, and as Caruano leaned back and forth trying to decide how to intervene, and as Barsina began to struggle and even kick, and as the third Gatto man got his hands in my braids and pulled back hard, and as I got my teeth in the hood man’s arm as he groped me, a calm voice said, “What in the name of Temes is going on here?”

( … This way to Chapter Fourteen part 1 … ) ( … This way to Chapter Fourteen part 3 … )

… ( … This way to Chapter One part 1 … ) …