Bitter Gold Hearts

Disposing of Bruno and Slauce was an easy half hour's work with a borrowed buggy. An unconscious Bruno got dumped into an alley where he'd soon waken hungry enough to go into the cannibal business. Courter wasn't all the way out. He was just roaring drunk. I don't know how the Dead Man managed that. He never said. I just walked Slauce into a tavern, sat him down with a pitcher, then look the buggy back where it belonged. Then it was time to go see what could be seen at the scene of Junior's suicide.

______ XXVII ______

The wooden tenements, three and four stories tall, leaned against one another like wounded soldiers after the battle. But the war never ended down here. Time was the enemy never to be conquered and there were no reserves to help stay the tide. It was night and the only light in the street fell from doors and windows open in hopes the day's heat would sneak away. That was a hope only slightly less vain than the hope that poverty would take to its heels. The street was full of serious-faced, gaunt children and the tene­ments were filled with quarreling adults. The corners, though, lacked their prides of narrow-eyed young men looking for a chance under the guise of cool indifference. No dares issued or taken. They were all in the Cantard, burning youth's energy in futility and fear, soldiering. The war had that one positive spin off. When you wanted to talk about your crime, you had to go find senior citizens who remembered the good old days before the war.

I still had to watch my step—for reasons evoking no romance at all. There were as many dogs in the street as kids. And at any moment the sky might open and spit out a cloudburst of refuse. There were sanitary laws, but who paid attention? There was no one to enforce them. The place I sought was one more crippled soldier in the host, three stories that had seen their youth spent before the turn of the century. I planted myself across the way and considered it. Assumption: Junior had run to his friend Donni Pell when he felt the heat. Assump­tion: Donni Pell had been in on and had helped stage Junior's kidnapping. The nature of the place where young Karl had died implied that there was something wrong with one or both assumptions. Having collected possibly the biggest ran­som ever paid in TunFaire, why would she hole up in such a dump?

If he hadn't run to Donni, then who? No other name had come up. Junior didn't have friends.

Not even one, apparently. Death had sniffed out his hiding place in under two hours. All the excitement was over, and had been for many hours. In that part of town even the most grotesque death was a wonder only until the blood dried. I began to be an object of interest myself, standing there doing nothing but look. I moved. There are no locks or bolts on the street doors of those places. Such would only inconvenience the comings and goings of the masses packed inside. I went in, stepped over a sleeping drunk sprawled on the battered floor. The treads of the stair creaked and groaned as I went up. There was no point in sneaking. Sneakery would have been useless anyway. Getting to the right room on the third floor took me past two others that had no doors. Families fell silent, stared as I passed. The death room had a door, but not one that would close tightly. It skidded against the floor as I pushed. It was the sort of place I had pictured—one room, eight-by-twelve, no furnishings, one window with a shut­ter but no glass. A bunch of blankets were thrown against a wall for a bed, and odds and ends were scattered around. One corner had walls and floor spattered with patches and brown spots. It had been messy. But those things always are. There is a lot of juice in the human fruit.

They must have fastened him down somehow. You don't carve on someone without them putting up a fuss. I kicked around the place but found no ropes or straps or anything that might have bound him. I guess even ogre breeds have sense enough to pick up after themselves sometimes.

Or did they?

Mixed in with the tangle of bedding was a familiar item, from Karl's description. It was a doeskin bag with a heavy, long drawstring. Just the thing to pop over a guy's head and choke him unconscious. It was stained with dried vomit. I pictured some fastidi­ous thug hurling it aside in disgust. You might not need to tie a guy if you strangle him before you cut. He could bleed to death before he woke up.

"It's a half-mark silver a week, as is. You want furnish­ings, you bring your own."

I gave the woman in the doorway my innocent look. "What about the mess?"

"You want cleanup, that's a mark right now. You want fix-up, take care of it yourself."

"Come off the rent?"