"They won't kill us. They'll sell us right up the river, won't they? Rahman, I got some things to ask our friend here. You want to top off that tank? I got a full can down in the well."
"I'll help," Tommy said, a whisper too close to voice.
"Keep it down," Altair said. "You got to learn to keep that voice down—" Retribution had said it to her in these same tidewater canals, taught her to pitch down, snapped her on the ear when she forgot—
—Taught me the dark ways, mama. I thought ever'one knew 'em.
"Now, Ali," she said in her softest, lowest voice. Wind sighed down the canal, stirred her hair at the front of her cap. "I killed folk before this, Ali. That's truth. It don't scare me. Just in case you think of shouting out." Quiet movement in the well to their left, where Rahman found the fuel can. He set it on the deck and came up after it, cat-footed, big as he was. "Ali," she said. "You hear me? You hear me good?"
"I hear you," Ali said. He leaned his forehead on the deck, one arm tucked across his gut. "Jones, Wharf gate, I swear on my mother it's Wharf Gate, I ain't lying, we can't go into that place, they got doors and bars—"
"You been in there, huh?"
The whites of Ali's eyes shone as he looked up. "I never."
"Lie, Ali. You wasn't going to lie to me. Your mama's gathering a lot of karma, ain't she?"
"Once, Once, I was inside."
"Deeper and deeper, ain't ye? Selling bridge-folk—"
"In the winter, in the winter—Jones, they lie there freezing, Megarys give 'em food, they got a warm bed—"
"Just like my partner."
"That was different!"
"I tell you, Ali, you remember that little scene back to Moghi's porch. Now, it takes a lot to get the Trade stirred up, but they're stirred. And there you stood up in public with me when I said it, about the Megarys. You know what that makes you?"
"A dead man."
"About three different ways. Me or Moghi or them Megarys. Or 'bout any canaler in town. Lot of folks ain't too fond of you right now."
"I ain't never lied to you!"
"You got a way to buy out with me. Maybe I could put it right with Moghi. You understand me? You know what those Megarys'd give ye? Ye know that, Ali?"
"I know." His breath came through chattering teeth. "But I don't know the rest. I swear I don't know, I never done that end."
"You know what I want you to do for me, Ali?"
"O God, Jones. I can't. I won't."
"You c'n lie real good, Ali. I know ye can." Fuel-smell wafted to her. She heard Rahman and Tommy quiet at their work, liquid gurgling and thumping its way into the tank. "Rahman. Save some of that back. I got this bottle down in the number-five. You want to fill that thing for me? Stick an old rag in it."
"You got matches?" Rahman asked, matter of fact.
"Plenty."
"Jones," Ali said, half a whisper. "What'ye think you're doing?"
"Just something my mama taught me."
"What's she mean?" Tommy asked. "What's she mean?" But no one answered him. Rahman went down on one knee, got the bottle and the rag.
More fuel-smell, carried away on the fickle wind.
"Got two bottles," Rahman said.
"That ain't too many." She sat there and chewed thoughtfully at a callus-shred.
You sure he's in there, Jones? No, you ain't. You ain't dealing with the Megarys, you know it. Sword of God—
Sword is rich folk.
City's Revenantist. And what else could get foreigners in and out of the city as well as them Megary boats?
Lord, they got the law bought, they trade corpses to the doctors up at the College, nobody ever questions 'em, ain't no way them boats get searched.
Lord, questions, Boregy said. They want to ask him questions. What are they doing to him?
"Where do they keep 'em?" she asked Ali. "Top floor or bottom?"
"Bottom. I think it's bottom."
Damn, all barred. Ain't no way to break in there; they'll have took real good care so's no one could break out.
Lord and Glory. So no one could break out. Who else in town don't ever have to worry about burglars breaking in?
"How's that bottom floor? How's it set?"
"They got—" Ali traced a design on the deck at the side of her foot, trembling finger moving on worn paint. "Got the hall I seen. South door. You go in. You got these hallways left and right and these stairs—"
"Where do they go?"
"I don't know, up—up. They got some kind of warehouse, I think they got this big place over here they put the regular stuff, the legal stuff; that's here. All above, I dunno, Megarys live up there. Maybe they got other things, I don't know. They just got two stories."
"You going to do me that favor?"
"Jones—" Ali's teeth fairly chattered. "I hurt, dammit. I can't—"
"Hey, you're still alive, ain't ye? You ain't at harbor-bottom. It don't hurt a bit down in Old Det's gut. You want I tell Moghi you went back on me?"
"No." They did chatter. "No."
"You going to do it for me?"
"I—All right, all right—-"
"Rahman. Let's move 'er up a bit, you ready?"
"Yey," he agreed. The fuel was capped up. Loose stuff was stowed. Rahman squatted resting on the deck and Tommy had gotten down to the well. Rahman got to his feet as she slipped the tie and stood up with the pole.
She pushed gently off the ledge. Rahman pushed from his side and the skip moved along smoothly under way, off Ulger's comer and back to Factory's narrow center.
Calder and Ulger's length inched past, dimly starlit. Bridges were rarer in the Tidewater. Most of the isles were two-storey now, their old first-floors filled and mostly sunken. Calder had no ledge at all, just a balcony round the upstairs, and the last bridge off Ulger showed as a decrepit low span that hardly admitted a skip with the poler standing.
Rahman grunted, having seen it too.
"Little port there," she said to Rahman as they headed under. "Hin. Hin cinte."
"Yey." He nudged the boat to the high center of the bridge and dodged a hanging board with small headroom to spare. No pilings. It was a jury-bridge between two second-storey doorways, abandoned as flood and rot took Calder's canalside.
"Damn, city ought to take that thing." Her head was clear, quite clear. She smelled fuel-stink, very faint over the canal-smell. "Where you got them bottles?"
"Number five."
"Port, ya-hin."
Factory jogged, bent toward broad West; the boat edged northerly with the push off West Canal. A solitary, rag-canopied skip occupied the jog. A waft of bad air came down the wind as they passed.
Muggin. O Lord, it's Old Man Muggin—Lord, Angel, keep him sleeping.
What does he do to keep that damn skip running?
Megarys? He couldn't. Old fool don't have the wit left. Couldn't catch them bridgefolk.
"Muggin, ne," Rahman breathed.
"Yey," she whispered. "Starb'd, hin."
The bow swung gently. Wind hit them as they entered West Canal and she cast a look up, blinked in dismay at the shadow in the black, a third of the way up the sky, No stars, just that gold-through-smoke flicker of lightnings. She shortened her glance down to Megary Isle, to a barren, scant-windowed face of aged brick and board. They were exposed now, under those grim barred windows. But they were just a skip on its business. A skip with no more aboard than might be family, ordinary traffic passing in this night—they might well be the only ordinary-looking thing on the canal, boats being scarce in the Tidewater tonight.
Trouble's got this sure stink about it. The homeless don't hang round here, honest boats don't stop, and nobody else is hereabouts. Usually six or seven ratty skips and nothing.
They smell it, smell it all over Tidewater.
Lord, are they watching out the windows?
No waterside ledge on Megary either. And above, it showed nothing but barred windows, closed shutters, top story to canal side. She could not, in the way of things looked at and looked past all her life, recall the look of mat building's upper storey on the other sides.