“You have my sympathy, boys.” Vitale shifted his pole from hand to hand, using precise shoves to warp the gondola around a chunk of debris too large to ignore. “Canal work ain’t easy, but at least nobody wants me dead for more’n the usual reasons. Did you want me to leave you at the Grave or at the quay?”
“We need to see Harza,” said Locke.
“Oh, he’s sure to be in a rare mood today.” Vitale began poling hard for the northern edge of the Waste, where a few stone docks jutted out before a row of shops and rooming houses. “The quay it is, then.”
4
THE PAWNSHOP of No-Hope Harza was one of the major landmarks of the reign of Capa Barsavi. While there were many shops that paid slightly more and a great many with less surly proprietors, there were no others located a bare stone’s throw from the very seat of the capa’s power. Right People cashing in their creatively acquired loot with Harza could be sure that their presence would be reported to Barsavi. It never hurt to reinforce the impression that one was an active, responsible thief.
“Oh, of course,” said the old Vadran as Jean held the barred and armored door open for the other four Gentlemen Bastards. “Figures only the least important garristas would dare show their faces on a day like this. Come in, my ill-looking sons of Camorri bitches. Rub your oily Therin fingers on my lovely merchandise. Drip water on my beautiful floors.”
Harza’s shop was always closed up like a coffin, rain or shine. Dusty canvas sheets were drawn over the narrow, barred windows; and the place smelled of silver polish, mildew, stale incense, and old sweat. Harza himself was a snow-skinned old man with wide, watery eyes; every seam and wrinkle on his face seemed to be steadily sliding toward the ground, as though he’d been shaped by a slightly drunk god who’d pressed the mortal clay just a little too far down. No-Hope had earned his moniker with his firm policy against extending credit or loaning coin; Calo had once remarked that if he ever took an arrow in the skull he’d sit around and wait for it to fall out on its own before he’d pay a physiker for so much as a gauze scrap.
In the right-hand corner of the shop a burly, bored-looking young man with cheap brass on all of his fingers and greasy ringlets hanging in his eyes shifted his position on the tall wooden stool he occupied. An iron-studded club swung from a loop at his belt, and he nodded slowly at the visitors, unsmiling, as though they were too stupid to comprehend his function.
“Locke Lamora,” said Harza. “Perfume bottles and ladies’ smallclothes. Tableware and drinking goblets. Scraped and dented metal I can’t sell to anyone with any class ever again. You breakers and second-story boys think you’re so clever. You’d steal shit from a dog’s asshole if you had the right sort of bag to bring it home with you.”
“Funny you should say that, Harza, because this bag here”-Locke plucked the burlap sack from Bug’s hands and held it up-“happens to contain-”
“Something other than dogshit; I can hear it jingling. Give over and let’s see if you accidentally brought in anything worth buying.”
Harza’s nostrils flared as he opened the sack and slid it along a leather pad atop his shop counter, gently spilling the contents. The appraisal of stolen goods seemed to be the only form of sensual gratification left to the old man, and he dove into the task with enthusiasm, long crooked fingers wiggling.
“Crap.” He lifted the three lockets secured by Calo and Galdo. “Fucking alchemical paste and river agates. Not fit for goat feed. Two coppers apiece.”
“Harsh,” said Locke.
“Fair,” said Harza. “Yes or no?”
“Seven coppers for all three.”
“Two times three is six,” said Harza. “Say yes or go twist a shark’s balls, for all I care.”
“I suppose I’ll say yes, then.”
“Hmmm.” Harza perused the silver goblets Jean had selected from the Bullshit Box. “Dented, of course. You idiots never see a pretty silver thing you don’t want to stuff inside a scratchy fucking bag. I suppose I can polish them and send them upriver. One solon three coppers apiece.”
“One solon four per,” said Locke.
“Three solons one copper total.”
“Fine.”
“And this.” Harza picked up the bottle of opium milk, unscrewed the cap, sniffed, grunted to himself, and sealed the vial once again. “Worth more than your life, but I can’t hardly do much with it. Fussy bitches like to make their own or get an alchemist to do it for them; they never buy premixed from strangers. Maybe I can pass it off on some poor fucker that needs a vacation from grapes or Gaze. Three solons three barons.”
“Four solons two.”
“The gods wouldn’t get four and two from me. Morgante himself with a flaming sword and ten naked virgins yanking at my breeches might get four solons one. You get three and four and that’s final.”
“Fine. And only because we’re in a hurry.”
Harza was keeping a running total with a goose quill and a scrap of parchment; he ran his fingers over the small pile of cheap rings from Calo and Galdo and laughed. “You can’t be serious. This crap is as welcome as a pile of severed dog cocks.”
“Oh come on…”
“I could sell the dog cocks to the knackers, at least.” Harza flung the brass and copper rings at the Gentlemen Bastards one by one. “I’m serious. Don’t bring that crap around; I’ve got boxes on boxes of the fucking things I won’t sell this side of death.”
He came to the threaded gold and platinum ring with the diamond and obsidian chips. “Mmmm. This one signifies, at least. Five solons flat. Gold’s real, but the platinum’s cheap Verrari shit, genuine as a glass eye. And I crap bigger diamonds five or six times weekly.”
“Seven and three,” said Locke. “I went to pains to get that particular piece.”
“I have to pay extra because your ass and your brains switched places at birth? I think not; if that were the case I’d have heard about it before. Take your five and consider yourself lucky.”
“I can assure you, Harza, that nobody who comes to this shop considers himself particularly…”
And so it went-the apparently summary judgment, the two-way flow of abuse, the grudging assent from Locke, and the gnashing of the old man’s remaining teeth when he took each item and set it down behind the counter. In short order Harza was sweeping the last few things he had no interest in back into the burlap sack. “Well, sweetmeats, looks as though we’re quits at sixteen solons five. I suppose it beats driving a shit-wagon, doesn’t it?”
“Or running a pawnshop, yes,” said Locke.
“Very amusing!” cried the old man as he counted out sixteen tarnished silver coins and five smaller copper discs. “I give you the legendary lost treasure of Camorr. Grab your things and fuck off until next week. Assuming the Gray King doesn’t get you first.”
5
THE RAIN had faded back to a drizzle when they emerged from Harza’s shop, giggling to themselves. “Chains used to claim that there’s no freedom quite like the freedom of being constantly underestimated,” said Locke.
“Gods, yes.” Calo rolled his eyes and stuck out his tongue. “If we were any freer we’d float away into the sky and fly like the birds.”
From the northern edge of the Wooden Waste, a long, high wooden bridge, wide enough for two people, ran straight out to the capa’s water-bound fortress. There were four men on guard at the shore, standing around in the open with weapons clearly visible under their lightweight oilcloaks. Locke surmised there would be at least as many concealed nearby, within easy crossbow shot. He made the month’s proper hand signs as he approached with his gang behind him; everyone here knew each other, but the formalities were nonnegotiable, especially at a time like this.