She slid down to squat on her heels, pushed her cap back and ran a hand through her hair.
Fool. Triple fool. I'm sorry, Angel. I'll be sane tomorrow; but hanged if I'll beg, damn him. Could have said right out Jones, take me to Port Canal, take me to Gallandry. I could have done 'er, easy as spit.
Come up with me, he could have said, come on, Jones, want you to meet these folk.
He could have given me my damn clothes back.
Could have said goodbye proper at the Gallandry landing, he could. 'Bye, Jones. Been nice. Don't'spect I'll see you again, but good luck to ye.
She gnawed a hangnail, spat, cast a look back down the stone wall to the door, invisible from her angle.
Why didn't he have me take him here?
What's he up to?
The pain stopped. There began to be prickling up her back.
What's the fool up to? What's he doing in there?
Is he all right in there?
Damn, no, it ain't all on the table. Skulk over here, dive in a door in this damn gallery, disappear like that—Whoever he's meeting here is somebody he knows, somebody maybe a friend, but he ain't wanting to be seen, ain't wanting me to know—
—Stay out of my business, Jones.
Damnfool. Trust the Gallandrys. Maybe. Maybe about as far as you can trust any of the breed. They'll cut your throat, Mondragon, fool.
Or maybe you're a meaner fellow than they want to take on.
Not if they didn't push you so's you knew it, maybe. Not if you didn't see it coming, and, Lord and Ancestors, you didn't see that coming that near cracked your skull for you, now, did you? And you don't damn well know Merovingen, had to ask me things a man ought to know if he knew Merovingen, didn't you, Mondragon?
She reset her cap on her head, jammed it down and finally got up—walked quietly down the deserted dark gallery and stopped at the door. She took a further chance and set her ear against it.
There were voices. None of them were raised. The words were all a mumble.
She padded back where she had come from. Over the iron rail beside her, the gallery ended in a black watt and a watery bottom, a cut where a big barge could moor safely for loading. Green-black water, beyond all direct touch of sun. She went back into the sunlight on her end, where she could pretend to be about some honest business—but traffic was sparse here. A few passers-by. She sat herself down on the brick balcony with her feet adangle under the iron rail that overlooked wide Port Canal, just sat, elbows on the bottom rail, feet swinging, like any idle canaler waiting on a bit of business in a Gallandry office. And meanwhile she had that door under the tail of her eye and not a way in the world he could get out on this level without her knowing.
On this level. That was what gnawed at her. There were inside stairs in such buildings. There were ways to come and go. He could go in here and come out up above, on some upper level, clear across the building. Bridges laced back and forth to Gallandry on still another level, going back across the Port, over the West Canal to Mars or diNero and places north. Near a dozen bridges, most of them blind from where she sat. It was hopeless, if that was what he did. Unless—
She suddenly realized another fixture of the area, a man sitting the same as she was, over on the balcony of Arden Isle, next level up.
She did not look quick, but after a moment she glanced up again and scanned the area as if she were surveying the bridges.
Watcher on the West Arden bridge, too, on her level, just sitting.
Her heart beat faster. Gallandry folk? They might be. There were a lot of things they might be. She got up slowly, dusted herself off and leaned her elbows on the rail, looking down Port Canal, watching the traffic go, watching a slow barge and a flotilla of skips and poleboats. Shifted her eye back to Arden again. The watcher up there had moved, sat with one leg over the balcony rim; his hands made motions like whittling.
Damn. Damn. Real nervous sorts.
They got him under their eye.
They got me, too.
Fool, Jones, you got no protection.
Hope he walks right out that door with a dozen Gallandrys.
No, damn, I hope he don't. Him and all the Gallandrys'd walk right into it. Lord knows—they could be law watching the place. What if they're the law. What's Mondragon into?
If they're blacklegs, they can sweep me up right with the Gallandrys and all. Sweep me up to talk to even if they can't get him, if they're close enough to see me clear.
They might not be law either.
Oh, Jones, what have you got yourself into?
How'd they pick him up? Waiting ail up and down the Grand? On the Ventani? No, dammit, there're too many, they'd have to get word out—They were watching Gallandry already. Either they're Gallandry or blacklegs or maybe some gang, and what's my chances of walking out of here by any bridge, huh, Jones?
Mondragon goes his way and some damn Gallandry knifes me on a bridge, he does, just precautionary. What's a dead water-rat, come floating down the Port tomorrow morning with the garbage?
She drew in a slow breath, shifted her eye toward the barge-gallery and worked her fingers together.
Law could have been watching Gallandry all this time. Anybody could. Mondragon, you walked into a trap, you're in it up to your ears, Mondragon.
She rose and dusted off her breeches again, shoved her cap back and scratched her head. Put her hands in her hip pockets and strolled a dozen paces down the balcony toward Mars. Then back again. Stop. Take the pose of a canaler tired of waiting. She stood on one foot, brought the other up to her knee and examined the calluses, pretended to pick a splinter. Then she took a stroll down the shadowed gallery again, hands in pockets, the very image of a boatman gone impatient over a wait.
She knocked at the door. Knocked again.
It opened. A man in work-clothes towered in the doorway. "Hey," she said, "is my partner through in here yet?"
The man had a heavy face; big gut. He filled the door way but around the edges of him there was sight of windows on the canalside that let in light; there was the expected lot of desks and clutter; another man, the same sort, standing back alongside a lot of boxes. The heavy-faced man looked disturbed and confused. Then: "Come on in." He moved his bulk aside and Altair stepped up on the sill and got through that little space he left into the room.
Boxes and desk and papers and more boxes. Two windows. A door that made this room only half the space available on this floor. No Mondragon. And Man Two was moving up like a fish on bait, while Man One shoved the door shut at her side and set his bulk ominously in front of it.
"What's this about a partner?" Man Two asked.
Altair swallowed hard. Her heart was trying to come up her windpipe. She hooked a thumb toward Port Canal in general.''What you got out there, ser, is eyes all over this place. I got two watchers in sight meself, and they don't look friendly. I figure they got all the bridges off Gallandry blocked. So if you'd kindly tell my partner, I think I'd like to talk to him."
"What partner?" Man Two asked.
Oh, here it is. Body sinks real good, Jones, with a couple of rocks. Right to the bottom of Gallandry-dock and nobody the wiser.
She set hands on hips. "Him as I delivered to your door."
"Did you now?" Man One hitched up his belt and a good weight of belly. "You got a good imagination, girl."
Jones, that's Jones, damn great fool. Altair bristled and choked it down. Mondragon said forget his name in town; won't be a bigger fool and give them mine. "What I got," she said equably, "is a partner I brought here. You don't want to talk to me you can talk to the law that's all round this place."