The prim woman-whose name, Danthres recalled, was Emanuela-looked up at their entrance. “Ah, Lieutenant Trellis, isn’t it?”
“Tresyllione, actually,” Danthres corrected automatically.
“Of course. I’m afraid we haven’t found your cloak yet, but I can assure you that it will turn up. We here at Forak’s guarantee customer satisfaction-it is our watchword, after all.” Emanuela said all that without once changing her inflection.
“Well, I’m afraid that isn’t good enough,” Danthres said, trying to sound like an outraged customer-which wasn’t too difficult an act for her just at the moment. “I want to speak to your supervisor immediately.”
“I’m afraid Mr. Forak isn’t available right now, Lieutenant, but if you wish to make an appointment-”
“I’m afraid that I must see Mr. Forak right now, or I will shut this place down.”
Emanuela opened her tiny mouth into an O, then closed it. She didn’t have a prepared response to that, it seemed, and it took a few moments for her brain to actually function. “Can you do that?”
Torin smiled his most pleasant smile. “We are lieutenants in the Castle Guard, madam. The Lord and Lady have granted us considerable leeway in such matters, and all we would have to do is pronounce this place a menace to the well-being of Cliff’s End and its inhabitants, and it would be shut down. Mr. Forak could, of course, appeal to the magistrate, but that might take days.”
“Weeks, even,” Danthres added. “And you would not be permitted to conduct business until that-”
“Mr. Forak!” Emanuela cried out in a tone very much like a mouse’s squeak, apparently unable to handle any more disruptions to her world. “Some people here to see you!”
A short man with thin hair and a thick mustache came out through the door to the rear. “What? What? Dammit, Emanuela, I told you not to bother me, I’m trying to-Oh!” That last word was spoken upon sighting two people in leather armor and earth-colored cloaks, symbolizing that they were detectives in the Guard. “Dammit, Emanuela, why didn’t you tell me that the good people of the Cliff’s End Castle Guard were here?”
“But-” Emanuela tried to protest, but Forak didn’t give her the chance, bounding forward with a broad smile peeking out from under his mustache.
“You’re Mr. Forak?”
“Yes, Lieutenant, yes, I am most definitely him, yes, I am. Now then, who might you be, and what service can Forak’s Perfect Clean do for you on this lovely day?”
“I’m Lieutenant Tresyllione, this is my partner, Lieutenant ban Wyvald. I’m one of your customers, actually.”
“Ah, yes, well, of course,” Forak said, sounding relieved. “Are you satisfied with our service, Lieutenant Tresilon?”
“Tresyllione, and I mostly am, yes, although an item has gone missing. A cloak-just like the one I’m wearing now. I told your girl about it there-”
“Right, of course, yes, we’re getting right on that. My best people are searching for the cloak even as we speak.”
“Your best people?”
“Of course.”
Danthres nodded. “Fascinating.”
“Mr. Forak, I apologize,” Torin said, “but I’m a bit befuddled. You see, before coming here, we went to the castle and examined your tax records. They say that you only have one employee.” He nodded his head at Emanuela. “I have to wonder-who does the actual cleaning?”
“And who’s looking for my cloak?” Danthres added.
Forak started to shuffle from foot to foot, and twisted the end of his mustache with his right hand. “Yes, well, ahm, you see, I mean, that is to say, uh-”
“Let me save you the trouble of lying, Mr. Forak. You don’t have any employees, do you? You charge one gold per room cleaned, which, when I first came here, you said was to cover cleaning supplies and labor costs. Other cleaning services usually charge two gold, but they also give the option of providing your own supplies-which you don’t do.”
“Erm, yes, you see, I-”
“This is because you don’t actually have a staff, do you, Mr. Forak?” Danthres started moving slowly closer to Forak, who backed up until he bumped into Emanuela’s desk. “Instead, you cast a spell to clean the room and send the dirt to a closet hidden in a house in Unicorn, where no one will ever find it. There are only two problems, Mr. Forak.”
“Oh, ah, yes? What’s, er, what’s that, then?”
“First of all, the closet filled up and exploded. The dirt from all the homes you’ve cleaned has now taken over the house, and soon it will encompass an entire block. Do you know who owns that house, Mr. Forak?”
“Er, well, no, actually, I-”
“Alfrek Jaros. He works for Sir Lio, the transport minister. Do you know what Sir Lio will think about someone doing this to one of his deputies?”
“Uhm-”
“The second problem is that it isn’t just dirt that goes to the Jaros closet. According to our magical examiner, the spell requires sending the items from one closet to another, and some items in the closets of your clients got mixed in with the dirt. They included two pairs of boots, a Protection Cloak, three tunics-and my cloak.”
“Ah, yes, well, you see, I can, er, that is to say, I-”
Torin grabbed Forak’s arms. “I would reserve comment until you’ve seen the magistrate.”
Puffing himself up, Forak said, “Hang on, you can’t arrest me! I’ve done nothing wrong!”
Danthres snarled. “You’ve done quite a bit wrong, Mr. Forak. Fraud, for one thing.”
“I didn’t defraud no one, I didn’t! I said I’d clean your place, and I did!”
Torin glanced at Danthres. “He has a point.”
“True. But there’s also littering. And vandalism to the Jaros house.” She smiled a most unpleasant smile, then. “And, of course, there’s the Brotherhood.”
Forak went white. “Th-the Brotherhood? You mean, that is to say-of Wizards?”
“Yes, that Brotherhood. They don’t take kindly to people using unlicensed magic.”
That deflated him, and he took Torin’s advice and refrained from further comment. They led him out the door and handed him off to one of the four guards from Dragon they had left waiting outside. That guard would take him to the castle for imprisonment until the magistrate-and the Brotherhood-could deal with him. Torin instructed the other three to escort Emanuela to Dragon for questioning and to close up the offices of Forak’s Perfect Clean.
Danthres looked up at the sky, seeing the sun starting to set into the horizon, and she realized that she was in a good mood. Justice had been done, she’d found her cloak, and she didn’t even have to deal directly with the Brotherhood.
Then Torin said, “You realize that when this is all over, he’s going to have to reverse the spell in order to salvage the Jaros house. That means all the dirt will probably have to go back.”
“Actually, I hadn’t realized it.” Danthres snarled, her foul mood back full force.
“Yes,” Torin said with a smile. “You’ve been left with quite a mess.”
Somehow, Danthres managed not to kill him.
OFF THE RACK by Elizabeth A. Vaughan
Sarah yanked the offending strip of paper from the calculator, crumpled it, and threw it at the basket. It bounced off the rim, hit the wall, and fell to the floor.
With a curse, she jerked out of her chair to retrieve it. The chair obeyed the law of physics and thumped back against the wall. Sarah cursed again, this at the black mark it left on the wall.
Pam stuck her head into the tiny closet Sarah called her office. “Problem?”
“No.” Sarah kept her face down as she picked up the crumpled wad and dropped it in the trash. She wasn’t going to tell her only employee about the red ink on that slip of paper. “Just got up too fast.”
Pam accepted that, as she accepted the meager paycheck each week, with a shrug. “Listen, can I leave early? There’s no customers, and I gotta-”