' 'What guy was that? I was pretty busy.''
"Maya, you describe him. You got a better look."
"Not that good. He was short, kind of chunky, had a big nose that looked like it got broken once. His skin was kind of dark. He was bald but you couldn't tell that if he was wearing a hat. He was dressed in real dark clothes both times. Kind of sloppy, even though the clothes were good ones. Like he wasn't used to wearing them." And so on. And so on. I wished I had an eye as quick and sharp.
The barker said, "Come to think of it, I did see a guy like that before you came roaring up. Only reason I noticed was he was headed out like a demon was chewing his ass."
"So?"
"So that's all I can tell you. He lit out."
That was what I'd expected to hear. "Did you recognize him?"
"You mean, do I know who he is? No. But I've seen him around. Hits the Tenderloin every four, five days. Used to come in for the shows. He's mostly dropped that and the joyhouses since Doyle come up with his silly talk house."
"Don't seem so silly when you think about it."
"No. Guess not. The old fart is cleaning up. I tell you, I'll never understand the freaks that come down here."
I thought he understood them all too well, but I didn't say so. If guys like him didn't understand, they wouldn't be successful catering to people who needed the comforts of a Tenderloin.
I shrugged. "I guess that's that. I don't know what else I could ask."
The barker got up. "Always glad to help the kingpin. Hey. For what it's worth, the little bald gink with the big honker, I think he's some kind of high-powered priest."
Maybe I jumped. Maybe something below conscious level was excited. "You sure?"
"No. It's just the way he snuck around and at the same time acted like people ought to bend the knee. I seen other priests act that way. Don't want to be seen. But the bigger they are, the worse habit they have of expecting special treatment. Get what I mean?"
"Yeah. Thanks. I'll mention how you helped. Maybe a bonus will come tumbling down."
"I could use it."
"Couldn't we all?" I watched him cross to his post. "A priest," I muttered. "Another big-time priest, maybe. With a place in the same building where Jill was shacking up with Magister Peridont. That sound any alarms?"
Maya said, "It doesn't sound like a coincidence. You think it's important?"
I hadn't told her everything about Peridont. I decided to trust her now. I laid it out from the beginning.
She didn't speak for a while. When she did, she said, "I know what you're thinking. It's too outrageous."
"You're probably right. But... things tend to tie together. Even when they're outrageous. And the first time Peridont visited me, he wanted me to find Warden Agire and the Terrell Relics."
"Pure speculation, Garrett. Gossamer. Almost whimsy."
"Maybe. We could sink it quick with a description of the Warden that doesn't match that guy."
She nodded.
"Let me run with it. Tell me where the holes are."
"All right."
"Jill Craight works over there, listening to sad tales of woe. She's a little greedy so sometimes she meets her clients outside, when she's off duty. Maybe she's not completely honest and tries to find out who they are. Maybe it just comes to her by accident. But she finds out she has both the Grand Inquisitor and the Warden among her regulars. Maybe she gets an idea she can make a big hit. Maybe she gets idealistic.
"Whatever, she gets some kind of underground dialogue going. Maybe they're actually working something out. Then the Sons of Hammom hit town. They're after the Relics for some reason. Agire goes on the lam. He slips the Relics to Jill to take care of while he leads the baddies somewhere else. Peridont doesn't know what's going on, he only knows that Agire and the Relics have disappeared.
"Meantime, Peridont makes a connection with Jill and finds out what's up with Agire and the Relics. So he doesn't bother bringing that up anymore. Now he wants to find out more about the Sons, only he doesn't tell me that. Being a typical client, he knows what he gives me to work with will give away something about him, so he wants to send me out blind and let me thrash around till I kick up something he can use.
"After that, because he wants to cover his ass and because he's got Church politics to deal with things go from bad to worse. When he finally decides he's in so deep he's got to come clean (so I can dig him out), he gets ambushed as he's coming to see me. I'm not convinced the man who killed him was one of the Sons of Hammon."
It was about the longest continuous speech I've ever made, just sort of blurting out and not stopping. When I did turn myself off, Maya didn't say anything. Maybe she needed a little coaxing.
"Well? What do you think?"
"I think you're trying it out on the wrong person. I can't knock a hole in it. You should lay it out for the Dead Man. He'd tell you why it couldn't be that way."
"You don't think it was?"
"I don't want it to be. And don't ask me why. It's just an emotional thing. Actually, I'm scared you're right."
Why should that scare her? Because it might come out and give the scandal hunters a boost?
Intellectually I saw danger. The Sons of Hammon going public with an ascetic lifestyle and a god who really talked at a time when the two major Hanite denominations could be shown to be conniving and powerless and riddled with corruption...
No. The people of TunFaire wouldn't go for something as crazy as the Hammon cult right now.
They hadn't chosen their time well. They should have waited for the war's end. Come into the city with any kind of a crazy promise then and I'd bet money, marbles, or chalk dust you could win battalions of converts.
I thought about that for a long time. I conjured me a grim future, decided me and the Dead Man would have to have a serious discussion about how to make things easier on ourselves. Maybe I'd have to take up Weider's offer of a job as chief head-thumper at the brewery. The brewery business prospers in hard times.
Maya just snuggled up and purred. For all I could tell there was nothing going on inside her head. Time drifted away.
I had a thought, which happens occasionally. "Think Jill would recognize you if she passed you in the street?"
"No."
"I think we ought to spread out, then. I can't fool her. She sees me, she's going to hightail it."
"You really think so?"
"I think she'll panic. I think she's gotten so far into this changing names that she thinks all she has to do to disappear is call herself something else. If somebody turns up that knows her some other way, she'll lose her confidence and overreact. It won't matter who she spots."
Maya frowned and gave me a searching look. "I don't know. But you're more an expert on people than I am."
I snorted. Me an expert? I can't even figure me out, let alone the rest of the world.
44
Part of my job is to remain patient. I probably do more waiting than anybody but a soldier. It ought to be second nature after five years in the Marines and all those since in this investigation racket. But I never was very good at sitting still, especially in the cold.
I needed to get up and prowl. That would make me easier to spot but my aching butt and stiffening muscles wouldn't listen to common sense.
I told Maya, "I'm going to stroll around the block and see how many ways there are to get out of that building."
"What if she decides to come out when you're gone?"
"There isn't much chance of that. Won't take me three minutes."
"You're the expert."
The way she kept saying that made it sound like she had some doubts.