“I hear.”
Shadith’s stomach knotted at the concentrated venom in those two words and found herself happy that Krink the snake was too afraid of Boss to go for him. She watched Gantz warily as the door shut.
He saw that. “Don’t worry, woman. Grinder would have my guts for fishpoison if I laid a finger on you. You better remember that and do what he wants without smart talk or slacking. He isn’t called Grinder for sweetness of temper and gentility of manner.” He brought the blowgun from a pocket in his robe, worked over it for a few minutes. “You’ll be feeling limp as overcooked noodles right now, what I’m going to give you will perk you right up, blow the fog out of your head.”
“No. ’m all ri’. Don’ do poppers.”
“You don’t really have a choice, love. Him, he wants you alert and ready to listen. And that’s what he’s going to get.”
“Lylunda Elang belongs to me,” Grinder said.
Shadith forced herself to sit still; though she’d done the catchment trick again with the popper, the residue had her so wired she felt as if her eyes were ready to explode out of her head and every sound was a scrape along her nerves.
“Maybe she doesn’t know it yet, but she’s mine.”
She’d seen eyes like his before-after a moment it came to her where. Lute’s eyes. Ginny Seyirshi’s pet killer. That time she got snatched into one of the Deathmaker’s scenarios. She swallowed several times and didn’t have to pretend to be frightened.
“She’s gone missing. Six days ago. Maybe on her own. Maybe Digby’s agent got her. Yeh. I know about Digby. Who doesn’t. Maybe the Kliu bought her father and got her that way. I can handle things this side of the Wall, you’re going to sift Star Street for me.”
Four days! Would you believe, the target disappears four miserable days after I get here. What stinking luck. She folded her-hands in her lap and looked nervous. It wasn’t hard. “Uh I don’t mean to be… urn negative about this and I’ll do my best, sure I will, but I’m just a singer.”
He contemplated her a moment. “Don’t play the ditty fool with me. You’re not good enough at it to be entertaining. Why you? I’ll tell you straight, I can keep it quiet over here and out in backcountry, but Star Street’s different. I don’t want the word spreading I’ve been took over by a femme. Too many hopeful yappers biting at my heels. You’ve got a reason for asking, so I’m going to use it. Let me warn you, singer. I’ve got ears over there. You ran into one of ’em. If I hear you’re talking too much, I’ll send Krink over with his calf strap. He’ll enjoy that. Yes, I see you know what I mean. Don’t try conning your way onto a trader’s ship. You’ll be dead before you reach the ladder. You understand?”
“I’m going to have to ask questions.”
“Word will be spread by morning. What you told us. That Lylunda’s your friend and you’ve got a message for her. That it’s good for you to be asking and better for them to give you the answers you want. I’m sure you can see the difference.”
“Yes. Clever. I will be discreet and diligent. You’ve convinced me my health depends on that.”
“Good.”
“And my diligence starts now. I need to know the circumstances of her disappearance. And I’d like a copy of that phot.”
“Why? Not the phot, I’ll see you get that. The other.”
“As you said, I’m not stupid, merely reluctant. The fewer questions I have to ask, the less I give away. The more I know to start with, the fewer questions I have to ask.”
“I see. Lylunda was working for me. You don’t need to know about that, so don’t ask. She left the job, went home to her rooming house. She was picked up there by one of Hizurri-jaz Gautaxo’s couriers. He’s the head of the Duk’s Secret Police and he also happens to be Lylunda’s father. She’s the bastard he got when her mother was his hot little Izar piece, so there’s no telling just what he wanted with her. She stayed there for a little over two hours. Courier brought her back through the Izar gate, walked her to the front door of her rooming house, left her while she was using her keys to open the vestibule door. She was seen by at least five different people who knew her well enough to be sure it was her. That was the last time anyone saw her.”
“Late. After dark?”
“Yes and an overcast night. I thought about that. They recognized the clothes. More than that, they recognized the way she moved.”
“Still… a good actress the right size and shape…”
“Yes. I thought about that. I don’t know.”
“Did she have a credit chip? She hired you to watch her back, didn’t she. To warn her if the Kliu got too close. Like me, I was supposed to warn her about Digby.”
“Yes. Everything she brought with her was cleaned out of her room.”
“What I’ve heard about the Behilarr jazzies, they’ve all got fiefdoms out in the backcountry. Maybe he sent her out there.”
“No. I’ve had that looked into.”
“You told me you’d know if I tried to hop a ship. I expect you’d know it if she did.”
“I would if she tried it after I found out she was gone. Before then, there’s a seven-hour window when she might have made it.”
“That’s what you want me to check, isn’t it.”
“Part of it.”
“Can you get me a printout of all shuttle and ship departures in those seven hours?”
“Yes.”
“Hm. If you can get it, you might add to that a list of departures from the transfer station. I know enough abotit who’s traveling around out there that it might tell me something it wouldn’t tell you.”
“I’ll get it.”
She sighed, rubbed at her eyes. “With all the stuff your bootlicker pumped into me, I’m about wiped. Can I go home now, get some sleep?”
“You understand what I want?”
“Yes, you made it quite cleat”
“And I want results. Fast.”
“Yes.”
“Then you go like you came.”
6
Shadith came out of stunner, shock with a throbbing head and body that felt as if she’d been beaten with a rubber hose. The curtains to her single window had been drawn and the morning sun was streaming in. She looked down at herself and breathed a sigh of relief when she saw she was still wearing the damp dirty clothes from last night. She remembered her harp and sat up too fast, yelping with pain as her head threatened to explode, her stomach to erupt, and all she could see was a rainy silver aura with black spots in it that wobbled and darted like tadpoles.
When she pried her eyes open again, to her considerable relief, she saw the harpcase leaning against the wall beside the door.
She eased her legs over the edge of the bed and contemplated getting up. The thought of food revolted her, but she needed the energy. Lot of work to get through this day and the next.
Tank looked at Shadith, sighed, and shook his head. “I have to live here,” he said. “I warned you, didn’t I?”
“Yeah, that you did.” She finished clearing off the table in the dressing room, snapped her bag shut. “You know what he’s got me doing. I’ll be too busy to sing as well as disinclined. See you.” She swept past him, still angry at him. Reporting her activities she could accept as part of the game; setting her up for a snatch was something else.
When she unlocked the door to the room she’d rented and stepped inside, she caught a whiff of jorrat and went very still; a quick probe with her reach, though, told her the place was empty.
A cardboard folder lay in the middle of the rumpled bedspread.
No one here now, but there had been, someone with a jorrat pipe who’d left the stink of his habit behind. Makes you feel really secure the way that lot waltzes in without breaking a sweat. And I suppose those are the printouts. Grinder works fast. Or he already had them.
“And now I get to wear out my eyes on ship data. Tsah!”
She went out, leaned over the railing. “Orrialdy,” she yelled. “You around?”
Her landlady came into the hall on the floor below, a big woman with an abundance of hair, wisps escaping the knot she kept it in to wave around her plush pink face. “Shadow, so?”