"Oh, yes. We've eliminated some legwork, like making the rounds of every Orthodox parish in Full Harbor. We've added a visit to the army office at the military city hall to see if they will help us locate Major Kayeth Kronk."
I did not look forward to that. They'd probably assume we were Venageti spies.
"What now?"
"We can try that. We can try the civil city hall, too, though I don't think we'd get much there. Or we could go back to the inn and I could lay around staring at the ceiling and wondering what a sensible young woman can do to get herself excommunicated."
"That doesn't sound productive. And butting heads with the army, even to get them to tell us to get out and leave them alone, is likely to be an all-day job."
"The civil city hall it is, then."
We were headed up the steps when a voice roared, "Hey! You two."
We stopped, turned. Near the rig stood a city employee, the type who carries weapons and is supposed to protect citizens from their neighbors' villainies, but who spends most of his time force-feeding his purse and sparing the reputations of the wealthy and powerful. "This yours?"
"Yes."
"You can't leave it here. We don't want no horse apples tracked all over the hall."
Despite his friendly way of putting it, his position had merit. I marched down the steps. "Have you a suggestion what I can do with it?"
He did not know who we were. We had come in a fancy rig. We were well dressed. Morley looked a bit like a bodyguard. I wore a look of cherubic innocence. A suspicion slithered through his slow wit. I had handed him that straight line so he would stick his foot in his mouth. Then I would choke him on it.
"We usually ask visitors to leave their conveyances in the courtyard behind the hall, sir. I could move it back there for you, if you like."
"That's very thoughtful of you. I'd appreciate that very much." I dug out a tip about one and a half times the going rate for such a task. Enough to impress, not enough to arouse resentment or suspicion.
"Thank you, sir."
We watched him drive into a narrow passageway between one end of the hall and the city jail.
"Slick, Garrett."
"What?"
"You should have been a con man. You sold him using nothing but intonation, bearing, and gesture. Slick."
"It was an experiment. If he'd had two ounces of brain to rub together, it wouldn't have worked."
"If he had two ounces of brain he'd be making an honest living."
I think Morley's attitude toward so-called civil servants is as cynical as mine.
The next public employee we encountered—on a more than which-way-do-we-go? basis—had two ounces of brains. Just barely.
I was digging through what passed for vital statistics in Full Harbor and finding that four of the Kronk children were not listed at all. Morley, in pursuit of an inspiration of his own, dug through the property plats and brought one over. He sat on the floor reading it.
Two-Ounces appeared out of nowhere and bellowed, "What the hell do you think you're doing?"
"Research," I replied in my reasonable voice.
"Get the hell out of here!"
"Why?" Reasonable again, of course.
That got him for a moment. Both ounces went stumbling after something with more authority than a bottom-rung city flunky's "because I said so."
Morley dealt himself a hand. "These are public records legally open to public inspection."
That left Two-Ounces armed only with bluster because he didn't know for sure. "I'm going to call some guards and have you wise guys thrown out on your asses."
"That won't be necessary." Morley closed the plat book. "No need for a scene. The matter can wait till after you've explained to the judge tomorrow morning."
"Judge? What judge?"
"The judge who's going to ask you why a couple of honest investigators like ourselves, sent down from TunFaire, can't look at documents any vagrant off the streets of Full Harbor has a right to see." He went off to return his plat book.
Two-Ounces stared at me while I neatened up after myself. I think he saw nothing but potential disaster. There is no man so insecure as a bottom-level functionary in a sinecure he has held for a long time. He's done nothing for so long that nothing is all he can do. The prospect of unemployment is a mortal terror.
"Ready?" Morley asked, returning.
"When you are."
"Let's go. See you in the morning, friend."
The man turned slowly to watch us go, his face still drained. But the poison had begun to creep into his eyes. It was the hatred and power greed that make vicious liars out of people who tell you they're public servants.
25
"How'd I do?" Morley asked as we pushed out the front door. He was grinning
"Not bad. Maybe one slice too much ham."
He wanted to debate but I cut him short. "You learn anything?"
"Not unless you care that the house was sold by Madame Kronk, a decent interval after the date on that memorial obelisk, to a character with the unlikely name of Zeck Zack, for what seems like a reasonable market price. You ever heard of him?"
"No."
"You find out anything?"
"Only that the civil city administration keeps pretty loose track of who's dying and being born."
"Oh. So with those Kronks being prominent, imagine what they've got on ordinary, real folks."
I shrugged. "You leave no stone unturned till you find a trail. Where's that clown who took the carriage?"
"Probably at the nearest swill pit guzzling your tip."
"Then we'll just get it ourselves. We're big boys. We can handle it." We turned into the alley between the hall and the jail. It was clean for a city alley—probably because of where it was—but gloomy because of the hour.
Morley said,"We could probably find a judge we could bribe to back us with that guy."
"I don't think old man Tate would buy it when it showed up on my expense sheet."
A large somebody stepped out of the wall a dozen feet ahead. His appearance was vague in that light. Morley said, "Behind you," let out a screech, and flung himself through the air.
I whirled, ducking. Just in time. A club whipped the air where my head had been. I gave the guy a kick in the root of his fantasies, then clipped him on the cheek as he bent to pray. Behind him was a guy who was more surprised than me. I jumped and grabbed his arm, tried giving him a knee. He tried to pull a knife while he stared over my shoulder, a big wad of fear in his eyes.
I figured Morley was about finished behind me.
My man tried to knee me and I tried to knee him again and sometime during our dance he decided he really ought to get the hell out of there. He twisted away and started hiking.
I was satisfied. I turned to check behind me.
Morley's man was out. Morley himself was bent double, holding up a wall, puking his guts out. His man must have gotten in a good one.
My first was down, thrashing and twitching and making disgusting handsaw noises. The light was too poor to be sure, but I thought his color looked bad.
"What did you do to him?" Morley croaked.
"Kicked him."
"Maybe he swallowed his tongue." Morley went down on one knee. He moved gingerly.
The guy finished up with one wild convulsion, then he was done. Literally.
Morley trailed fingertips over the corpse's cheek. One of my rings had cut him. The cut had a nasty color.
I looked at my hand.
So did Morley.
The poison chamber on one of the rings had been torn open by the force of the blow.
"We'll have to get rid of him," Morley said.
"Fast. Before somebody stumbles in here."
"I'll get the rig. You drag them to the side so they don't get run over." He ran away as fast as he could.
I wondered if I would see him again. It might be in his interest to find a back way out and just keep on going.