"Hey." Del Suleiman, pole in both hands, tucked both bare feet up on the deck rim and stood up on the deck with his toes curled over—canaler's sense of balance. "Hey, damn lousy hour, Jones."
"Sorry. I got worried."
"Moghi's men. Moghi's men. Come rousting the canalside—"
"Hey, I never set 'em at that."
"Where'd you get to shift Moghi's crew yey and haw, huh? Damn, next you be out collecting."
"Give me that pole. I get you back."
"Ne, ne, not to get aslant, ye. Cm on. You want starb'd?"
Lord. Generosity. Del was going to pole double with her into the bargain. The old man was in a hurry. "Ne. You c'n call it." Altair dropped onto her haunches and pulled the side-tie, waiting-tie. Del would have bow-tied for any longer wait, stern-anchored (if there was one) and never chosen this stone-bottomed shelf in the first place, where the bottom was like to scrape on the ebb if some big barge came by. (If there was one. If there was any likely to move, if they had gotten the hulk and the bridge out of Port—) Not Del's way, this skulking around shallow ties and back doors. The old man was nervous. It was in the way he moved.
I don't blame him none. Mira off to herself and him off with them bullylads. She's got to be wondering, Lord, Lord, Del come with them and her left off in the dark somewheres.
The boat drifted free and bumped bottom. She snatched up the boathook from the rack and crossed over to the left side while Del shoved off. She put the boathook's pole-end down on stony bottom and leaned on it when Del's push ebbed down. "Bow a-port," Del said, and she kept her pole grounded while Del shoved, bringing the bow around to the bridge. "Hup." Signal to lift. She took her time from Del, from starboard-side poler, hit the stroke again as the boat slipped along. "Hin," Del said, which was warning he was grounding on his side and the final turning shove was hers.
She shoved. The bow came round with the skip nosed neatly toward a gap in the bridge pilings. "Hup," she said. Del shoved and lifted.
"Yoss," she said cheerfully, meaning straight on; and "yoss," Del echoed, as the skip slid into shadow.
Poling double with her mother. Her young arms hardly strong enough to handle the pole if it got off its center of balance.
Miss it, I do. Lord, how she flies. Got me a man and he don't know hin from hey on a skip.
He could learn, couldn't he? If he wasn't uptowner.
Sword of God. O Lord and my Ancestors, if he could shake all of that and stay on the canals, if he could learn—
If he wouldn't leave—
If he wouldn't ever leave—
The skip shot out from the shadow of Fishmarket Bridge. Lantern light gleamed brightly out unshuttered windows and open door, onto the porch and a huddle of boats tied up around Moghi's porch. The wan notes of the gitar and the voices of canalers flowed out onto the water and lost themselves in the dark.
"This lander you went off after," Del said. "That deal still going?"
Her heart sped beyond what the poling needed. "Hey, I lost m'skip, I got enough business tracking you, don't I?"
"Where you got the stuff to get Moghi out, huh?"
"I work for 'im. He's doing me a favor, ain't nothing to him to send a few fellows around, is it?" Ventani Pier passed on the right. Hanging Bridge loomed up ahead. Stroke and stroke, and the skip flew along. Damn, think. Man's curious. Man's been brought here on Moghi's money, going to hit me for the why of it surer'n hell. What'd I tell 'im already? What's he heard? O Lord. Mintaka. Altair drew breath and shoved. The depth was increasing, chancy poling with the boathook. "Damn, she's a wash. Let her ride."
"Yoss," Del agreed, and the skip glided in the center of the barge-channel, between the two sets of piers. He turned his gaunt, unshaven face her way in the starlight. " 'Bout Moghi now—"
"Hey, I don't gossip Moghi's business."
"That blond fellow Moghi's?"
"Dammit, Del—"
They were slewing. Del trailed his pole and the drag brought them true again. "Heard a lot of gossip today. Lot of stories. How long I known you, huh? Knowed you since you was a babe in your mama's arms. Damn, you listen to me, girl. Your mama'd knock you to next week, you taking up with some damn landsman."
Heat mounted in her face. She probed for the bottom with the boathook and it was still too deep. "My mama had a word 'bout gossip too. Who said I took up with anybody? I run Moghi's freight."
That shut the old man up a moment. He gave a brief shove at the pole as they slipped under Hanging Bridge shadow. "You better watch that kind, young'un, and I don't mean Moghi. He'll talk real fine, but that ain't how he'll do ye."
"Who said? Who said I been with anybody?" She fended off a piling. "Ware, there, dammit, Del."
"Hin, you got bottom, use the damn piling, hain't your mama taught you?"
"All right, all right, you want to take port, let me call it, I'll give you hurry."
"I'll give you hurry. That I will. Hin, there. Damn nonsense. Damn nonsense you got mixed up in, just like your mama."
Her heart skipped. She missed another stroke. Her blistered feet burned on the boards. "What about my mama?" Her whole life was hint and innuendo. Retribution Jones did this. Retribution did that. "What was she into?"
"Every damn thing in town. Moghi. Hafiz. You come along, and she never slowed down. Mira and I, we told her, we told her, 'Jones,' we said—'You go taking that baby up them dark ways, that's asking for grief. Tried to talk her into giving you over to us, we did, you might've been ours—hell of a surprise we'd of got, you being a girl—Yoss, there. —But hain't no difference t'me or Mira. We'd of taken ye. I offered when your mama died. 'Member? I told ye I'd treat ye fair. I guess you was scared. I guess I know why. You was still a boy then. Still playing your mama's game, doing Moghi's work, running them dark ways, getting in darker and deeper."
Her heart beat for something other than that work. It was the old business. Give a man a word and two and he moved in and tried to run things. Anger rose up in her, blinded her. "Hin," Del said. She shoved and the bow slewed off to the Snake current, headed for the corner, high end of the Snake.
"This end o' town, was you! Damn, Del, I searched up and down this morning. Where was you?"
"Snake tail. Down by Mantovan. Moghi's men found us. By then I was hunting you. Heard you been in and out of Moghi's. Hell, with all's been going on, you got that tank near empty, I ain't spending mine on you, and Moghi's boys hunting your boat and shoving folk around—yoss, there, yoss."
"I'm sorry."
"You say."
"I say; it's the truth. You want to say I been lying?"
"I'm saying you're a kid. I'm saying all your mama's life she was on the edge'tween here and the law; she knew where the holes were, she come over that line one side and t'other, I knowed it, ain't no one don't know she done it; but your mama, she never took her one foot off that safe side. Maybe she's born again off this sorry old world; maybe she's born somewheres better'n us, but she sure weren't through with here yet, neither, leaving a kid and all, and you taught 'bout half she knowed, you going to that Moghi and freighting them barrels in and out of the Tidewater—-"
There were tie-ups alongside the Snake, on this stretch between Bogar and huge Mantovan, skips and poleboats tucked up one after the other, sleepers on their decks and in their wells."Hush," Altair hissed, with a foul look Del's way. "You got a free way with others' business. I asked you watch my boat. That's all."
"I watch it all right. And here come these rumors—I'm towing your skip, young'un, you don't expect talk come with it?"