Teckla

"How do you know?"

"I know Herth."

"Oh."

"Are there prostitutes?"

"Yes."

"Brothels?"

"Yes."

"Pimps?"

She suddenly looked, perhaps, the least bit smug. "Not any more," she said.

"Ah ha."

"What?"

"What happened to them?"

"We drove them off. They're the most vicious—"

"I know pimps. How did you drive them off?"

"Most of the pimps around here were really young kids."

"Yes. The older ones run brothels."

"They were part of the gangs."

"Gangs?"

"Yes. Around here there isn't much of anything for kids to do, so—"

"How old kids?"

"Oh, you know, eleven to sixteen."

"Okay."

"So they formed gangs, just to have something to do. And they'd wander around and make trouble, break up stores, that kind of thing. Your Phoenix Guards couldn't care less about what they do, as long as they stay in our area."

"They aren't my Phoenix Guards."

"Whatever. There have been gangs around here for longer than I've been alive. A lot of them get involved in pimping because it's about the only way to make money when you don't have any money to start with. They also terrorize a lot of the small shopkeepers into paying them, and steal a little, but there just isn't that much to steal and no one to sell it to."

I suddenly thought about Noish-pa, but no, they wouldn't mess around with a witch. I said, "Okay, so some of them got into pimping."

"Yes."

"How did you get rid of them?"

"Kelly says that most of the kids in the gangs are in because they don't have any hope of things being better for them. He says that their only real hope is revolution, so—"

"Fine," I said. "How did you get rid of them?"

"We broke up most of the gangs."

"How?"

"We taught them to read, for one thing. Once you can read it's harder to remain ignorant. And when they saw we were serious about destroying the despots, many of them joined us."

"Just like that?"

For the first time she glared at me. "It's taken us ten years of work to get this far, and we still have a long way to go. Ten years. It wasn't 'just like that.' And not all of them stayed in the movement, either. But, so far, most of the gangs are gone and haven't come back."

"And when the gangs broke up, the pimps left?"

"They needed the gangs to back them up."

"This all fits."

She asked, "Why?"

I said, "The pimps worked for Herth."

"How do you know that?"

"I know Herth."

"Oh."

"Have you been involved for ten years?"

She nodded.

"How did you—"

She shook her head. We sipped our klava for a while. Then she sighed and said, "I got involved when I was looking for something to do after my pimp was run out of the neighborhood."

I said, "Oh."

"Couldn't you tell I used to be a whore?" She was looking hard at me, and trying to make her voice sound tough and streetwise.

I shook my head and answered the thought behind the words. "It's different among Dragaerans. Prostitution isn't thought of as something to be ashamed of."

She stared at me, but I couldn't tell if she was showing disbelief or contempt. I realized that if I kept this up, I'd start to question the Dragaeran attitude too, and I didn't need any more things to question.

I cleared my throat. "When did the pimps leave?"

"We've been chasing them out gradually over the last few years. We haven't seen any around this neighborhood for months."

"Ah ha."

"You said that already."

"Things are starting to make sense."

"You think that was why Franz was murdered?"

"All the pimps gave some portion of their income to Herth. That's how these things work."

"I see."

"Was Franz involved in breaking up the gangs?"

"He was involved in everything."

"Was he especially involved in that?"

"He was involved in everything."

"I see."

I drank some more klava. Now I could hold the glass, but the klava was cold. Stupid Easterners. The waiter came over, replaced the glass, filled it.

I said, "Herth is going to try to put the pimps back in business."

"You think so?"

"Yes. He'll think that he's warned you now, so you should know better."

"We'll drive them out again. They are agents of repression."

"Agents of repression?"

"Yes."

"Okay. If you drive them out again, he'll get even nastier."

I saw something flicker behind her eyes, but her voice didn't change. "We'll fight him," she said. I guess she saw some look on my face at that, because she started looking angry again. "Do you think we don't know how to fight? What do you think was involved in breaking up the gangs in the first place? Polite conversation? Do you think they just let us? Those at the top had power and lived well. They didn't just take it, you know. We can fight. We win when we fight. As Kelly says, that's because all the real fighters are on our side."

That sounded like Kelly. I was quiet for a while, then, "I don't suppose you people would consider leaving the pimps alone."

"What do you think?"

"Yeah. What happened to the tags?"

"The what?"

"The girls who worked for the pimps."

"I don't know. I joined the movement, but that was a long time ago when things were just starting. I don't know about the rest of them."

"Don't they have a right to live, too?"

"We all have a right to live. We have a right to live without having to sell our bodies."

I looked at her. When I'd spoken to Paresh, I had somehow gotten past his rote answers to the person underneath. With Sheryl, I couldn't. It was frustrating.

I said, "Okay. I've found out what I wanted to, and you have some information to take back to Kelly."

She nodded. "Thanks for the klava," she said.

I paid for it and we walked back out to the corner. Paresh was there, arguing loudly with a short male Easterner about something incomprehensible. Loiosh flew back to my shoulder.

"Learn anything, boss?"

"Yeah. You?"

"Nothing I wanted to know."

Paresh nodded to me. I nodded back. Sheryl smiled at me then took up a stance on the corner. I could almost see her planting her feet.

Just to be flashy, I teleported back to my office. What's a little nausea compared to flash? Hen. Vlad the Sorcerer.

I wandered around outside of the office until my stomach settled down, then went in. As I went down the hall toward the stairs, I heard Sticks talking in one of the sitting rooms. I stuck my head in. He was seated on a couch next to Chimov, a rather young guy who I'd recruited during a Jhereg war some time before. Chimov was holding one of Sticks's clubs. It was about two feet long and had a uniform diameter of maybe an inch. Sticks was holding another one, saying, "These are hickory. Oak is fine, too. It's just what you're used to, really."

"Okay," said Chimov, "but I don't see how it's any different from a lepip."

"If you hold that way, it isn't. Look. See? Hold it here, about a third of the way from the back. It's different with different clubs, depending on length and weight, but you want to get the balance right. Here. Your thumb and forefinger act like a hinge, and if you catch the guy in the stomach, or somewhere soft, you use the heel of your hand to bounce it off. This way." He demonstrated, bouncing the club off thin air, as far as I could tell.

Chimov shook his head. "Bounce? Why are you bouncing it, anyway? Can't you get more power into it holding it all the way back?"

"Sure. And if I'm trying to break a guy's knees, or his head, that's what I do. But most of the time I'm just trying to get a message across. So I bounce this off his head ten or twelve times, then mess up his face a little and tap his ribs once or twice, and he understands things that, maybe, he didn't understand before. The idea isn't to prove how tough you are, the idea is to convince him that he wants to do what you're being paid to make him do."