Bitter Gold Hearts

She looked at me like I was crazy. "You pay up front, every week. You show me you're reliable, after a few months I might understand if you're one or two days late. Three days and out you go. Got that?"

She was a charmer in every respect. Had she not possessed the winning personality of a lizard, a guy might have been tempted to have her hair and clothes washed. She couldn't have been much past thirty, only the inside had gone completely to seed. But the rest wouldn't be far behind.

"You're staring like you think the place comes with entertainment." She tried a cautious smile from which a few teeth were missing. "That costs you extra, too."

I had a thought. An inspiration, perhaps. What do hookers do when they get too old or too slovenly to compete? Not all can become Lettie Farens. Maybe this was someone Donni had known before she had become a landlady.

"I'm not so much interested in the room as I am in the tenant." I palmed a gold piece, let her see a flash. Her eyes popped. Then her face closed down, became all suspicious frowns framed by wild, filthy hair.

"The tenant?"

"The tenant. The person who lived in the room. Also the person who paid for it, if they weren't the same."

Still the suspicious eyes. "Who wants to know?"

I looked at the coin. "Dister Greteke." Old Dister was a dead king, of which we in TunFaire are blessed with a lot. We could use a live one—if he'd do something worthwhile.

"A double?"

"Looks like one to me."

"It was a kid named Donny Pell. I don't know where he went. He paid his own rent." She reached.

"You're kidding. Donny Pell, eh? Did you meet him while you were still in the trade?" I put the coin on the windowsill, drifted away. She licked her lips, took one step. She wasn't stupid. She saw the trap taking shape. But she couldn't shake the greed, and maybe she thought she could bluff me. She took another step. In moments she was at the window and I was at the door. "You going to tell me?"

"What do you need to know?"

"Donni Pell. But female. From Lettie Faren's place. Came here to hide out maybe a week ago. Right?"

She nodded. She had a little shame left.

"You knew her before?"

"I was there when she first came to the place. She was different than the other girls. Ambitious. But kind of decent then. If you know what I mean. Maybe she got too ambitious." The knuckles of her right hand whitened as she squeezed the coin. She'd been out of the trade awhile. It had been awhile since she'd seen that kind of money. Doubtless when it had been easy come she hadn't thought to put any aside. Her gaze strayed to the blood­stains. "She developed weird tastes in friends."

"Ogre breeds?"

That surprised her. "Yeah. How did you—"

"I know some things. Some things I don't. You know some things and you don't know what I don't know." I borrowed a trick from Morley Dotes by getting my knife out and going to work on my nails. "So why don't you just tell me everything you do know about her and the people who visited her here."

Her bluff was a feeble bolt and she knew it. But she tried. "I yell and the whole place will be in here in half a minute."

"I'll bet the fellow in the corner thought the same thing."

She looked at the bloodstain again. "Fair is fair. I was just seeing if you'd pay a little more. All right? What do you want to know?"

"I told you. Everything. Especially who else was here this morning and where she is now." To forestall the next round of delays I added, "I don't mean her any harm.

I'm looking for some of her playmates. She's gotten herself caught in the middle of a big and deadly game."

Maybe very deadly for her. If there was to be a next victim in this mess, I'd put all my money on Donni Pell. If I had any chance, I wanted to find her before the villains eliminated the next link in their chain of vulnerability.

"I don't know where she went. I didn't know she was gone till somebody found the mess. That's the gods' honest truth, mister."

She sounded like she was telling the truth. I must have had a ferocious look in my eye. She was getting ner­vous. But with a hooker you never know. Their whole lives are lies and some of the falsehoods run so deep they don't know the difference.

"Look, mister ..."

"Just keep talking, sweetheart. I'll let you know when I've gotten my money's worth."

"Only three people ever visited her here that I know about. The one who killed himself here this morning." If she wanted to keep up the pretense on that, it was all right by me. "That was the only time he ever came that I know of. Another one came twice. Both times he was all covered up in one of them hooded cloaks rich guys wear when they go out at night. I never saw his face. I never heard his name."

Inconvenient for me, that, but she was doing all right, considering. "How tall?"

"Shorter than you. I think. I never was very good judging how tall people are."

"How old?"

"I told you, he wore one of them cloaks."

"What about his voice?"

"I never heard him talk."

"When did he come here?" I was determined to get something.