He rolled his large lower lip downward. “Please, Mr. Grey. I’ve had worse cold sores.”
I tried not to think about that. “What happened?”
Belgor’s eyes shifted within their folds of fat. He looked at Dylan first, then the other Guild agents. “I had an unruly customer. Nothing more.” At the same time, he did a sending. I must have a guarantee of discretion.
Though I’d never told him, Belgor knew I couldn’t do sendings anymore. How he knew, like so much else he knew, I wouldn’t venture to guess. “I’ll do what I can to help you, but I need more than that.”
He pumped his lips before speaking. “A woman came in and asked to purchase lottery tickets”… It was an appointment… “She seemed agitated”… I was facilitating a transaction… “I gave her what she asked for and she attacked me”… I have something that the Guild may misconstrue.
Now I saw his problem. Belgor dealt in stolen goods. It was what made him an excellent information source on occasion. He had years of practice and kept his crimes petty enough not to attract attention. But every once in a while, he moved something bigger. Back when I was an agent, I’d caught him a couple of times but didn’t turn him in. Instead, I turned him. In exchange for information, I’d let the stolen-goods transactions slide as long as he moved the items back to their rightful owners. I wasn’t with the Guild anymore, so I couldn’t make him any promises. On the other hand, I owed him a little at this point, and if I could swing it, it would put him back in my debt.
“Have you ever seen her before?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Not that I recall, Mr. Grey”… Perhaps a long time ago. There was something familiar about her.
I peered over Belgor’s shoulder into the shop. The setting sun illuminated shelves that hadn’t seen real light in decades. I half expected plant life to spring from the thick dust. “Can I see where she attacked you?”
“I have asked these gentlemen to leave as I do not wish to file a complaint, but they refuse”… Just you, Mr. Grey… “I know my rights and wish to forget the incident.”
I nodded. “I understand. But you know I’m not with the Guild anymore. I’m only a concerned friend.”
Belgor checked the dubious smile that had begun to form on his lips. “In that case, I will allow you to pass, but no others.”
I glanced at Dylan. He didn’t say anything, trusting me. Belgor followed me over the threshold into the store. He waved a finger across the open doorway, then pointed it across the gaping holes of the windows. A thin streak of essence followed the hand. Dylan would recognize it as a trip-wire alarm if anyone tried to pass inside.
“At the counter,” Belgor said.
He was too large to pass me, so I walked ahead of him down the main aisle. The faint hint of an ozonelike odor filled my nose. Essence-fire left it behind. As I came around the end of the aisle near the back, Belgor didn’t need to tell me where the action had been. The next aisle had a long scorch mark across the floor to the front of the store and the missing windows. The shelves to either side still smoldered from the heat of the elf-shot.
“She attacked you with no warning?”
Now that he had room, Belgor moved behind the counter, where he rested his thick hands. Except for the trashed aisle, that arrangement was how we usually dealt with each other. “She said, ‘Die, betrayer,’ then lunged at me with an essence-charged knife. I returned the courtesy with elf-shot that sent her through the window.”
“ ‘Betrayer’? That’s an odd word, don’t you think? Do any betraying lately, Belgor?”
The sides of his mouth pulled downward. “I am in the business of trust, Mr. Grey. I would not knowingly betray a confidence.”
I had my doubts about that but let it slide. “Let’s cut to the chase. What do you have that you don’t want the boys outside to see?”
Belgor didn’t move, still considering how much to trust me. “Follow me.”
He pulled aside a curtain behind the counter and entered the back room. I had been in there before. The ten-foot-square room was packed with junk and saturated with the charred-cinnamon stench of Belgor’s body odor. It also hummed with essence. This was where he hid his more esoteric goods for a select clientele. A stained, sagging love seat sat to the left, facing a huge wide-screen television showing C-SPAN. DVDs of a different kind of sport littered the top of the TV. Belgor worked a strong market for porn that barely skirted below what even the fey would consider obscene. I remained at the door.
He lifted a shirt box from the side of the love seat. Looking at me briefly, he tilted the lid of the box open. A gold neck-ring known as a torc nestled in a pile of tissue. Torcs are neck jewelry favored by the fey, C-shaped and worn by sliding the open gap around the neck. The age and gold content of this one made it worth a pretty penny. The essence wafting off it-pure Faerie-made it more rare and doubled its value. Any kind of original material from Faerie demanded high prices. Fey abilities worked better with it.
“Why didn’t she wait until you handed it over before she tried to kill you?”
Belgor closed the box. “She wasn’t here for the torc. She came for some jewelry. The torc was my… processing payment, shall we say?”
It didn’t make sense to me. The torc was worth a fortune. “How much jewelry are we talking about?”
“Three fibulae, pre-Convergence, very nice quality, made of gold and silver, and a lovely ring, from Saxony, I would say, by its craftsmanship.”
It was a decent list. Fibulae were old brooches used to clip clothing together. Old, as in the previous millennium. Still, the torc looked priceless. It had to outvalue the sum of the other items. “How did the deal came about, Belgor?”
His eyes shifted for several moments as he decided what to tell me. His risk. If he didn’t tell me enough and got screwed by the Guild, his fault. If he told me too much and I could hold it over him, my gain. “A courier I occasionally work with told me he had an opportunity. His client did not want to conclude the transaction with him directly for personal reasons, but asked that I hold the material until she arrived. In exchange, I could retain the torc.”
“You were directly asked for?”
“Apparently.”
“And the torc was specifically offered as payment?”
He sighed. “Yes.”
I shook my head. “You were baited, Belgor. You let your greed overwhelm your usual caution.”
Nodding, he frowned. “So it would seem, Mr. Grey. I have not erred like this in many years. The question now is what we do about it.”
I chuckled. “ ‘We’? I’m not seeing a ‘we’ here, Belgor.”
Annoyance flickered in his eyes. “I believe I know the source of this material. It would be of particular interest to the Guild. I will pledge to you that I will find the name of the purchaser in exchange for helping my role in this unfortunate affair be overlooked.”
Given Dylan’s stakeout, I knew what particular Guild interest he might be talking about. “You know I’m not Guild anymore.”
He smiled. “Yes, but you are not held in high esteem at the moment. Providing this information would go far to ingratiate you with your former masters.”
I let slide the crack about former masters. “That would benefit me with the Guild. Why should I do this for you?”
The shrewd look from years of dealing came over Belgor. “I am sure we will both know that moment when it arrives, Mr. Grey.”
We stared at each other in the gathering gloom of the store. The sun had gone down, leaving the sallow, dirty bulbs as the only source of light. The scene could have been any one of several Belgor and I had acted our way through over the years. This part of our interaction infuriated Murdock. While he understood the game of looking the other way to further the greater goal, Murdock thought Belgor crossed the line too often without consequence.