Bitter Gold Hearts

"Mr. Chodo has gotten what he wants from you. He doesn't have any outstanding grievance. Mine isn't with you at all. So there's no reason you shouldn't be let out of here if you give me what I need."

I didn't bother checking to see how Chodo took me putting words into his mouth. It didn't matter. He would do what he wanted no matter what I said or promised. Skredli glanced up. He didn't believe me, but he wanted to.

"The whole scheme is in the dump, Skredli. And you're down at the bottom. No way to go but up or out. The choice is yours." I had asked Chodo only one question coming to the cell: did Skredli know Gorgeous was out of it? He did. "Your boss is gone. No reason to stay loyal to him or be afraid of him. Your fate is in your own hands."

Morley shifted his weight against the wall, gave me a look that said he thought I was laying it on too thick.

Skredli grunted. I had no way of telling what that meant. I took it as a go-ahead.

"I'm Garrett. We had a run-in once before."

One bob of the head. I had him. For a moment, though, I feared it had been too easy. Then I reflected that it was the ogrish way. When you've got nothing you've got nothing to lose.

"You recall the circumstances?"

Grunt again.

"Who put you up to that?"

"Gorgeous." That in a dry-throated croak.

"Why? What for? I'd never had anything to do with either of you."

"Business. We had a thing going on in the daPena warehouse and they thought you were going to horn in and spoil it."

"Who is they?"

"Gorgeous."

"You said they. Gorgeous and who?"

He'd reached his next point of decision. He decided to tell a warped truth. "A guy named Donny something who set up the deal."

"You mean a hooker named Donni Pell who worked for Lettie Faren and had a thing for ogres. Don't do that again, Skredli."

His shoulders sagged.

I took a moment to reflect. There was a question of timing that deserved it. Skredli had been in town, leading that pack, after Junior was snatched. But then he'd been at that farm the afternoon before Junior walked away, and the next morning he'd led the crew that did in Amiranda. I tabled that for the moment. "I'm interested in that warehouse scheme. All the petty little details."

I'd caught him on Donni Pell, so now he was deter­mined to spin me a good tale. "That was one of Donni's ideas. She was always bringing us things she'd dreamed up from stuff her Johns told her. Some of them we went with, and she got a cut. This one was real sweet. Raver Styx had left town and Donni had a foreman that would let us siphon off ten percent of everything that went through. We took it on a fifty-fifty split with Donni, on account of she was the one keeping the daPena side in line, but the foreman's cut and expenses had to come out of her half. We moved a lot of stuff. As much as we were doing from the rest of the waterfront, practically. But then Donni warned us that people were getting suspi­cious. Raver Styx's woman Dount sent the kid to nose around. Then there was you, starting to snoop just when we had decided to close the thing out by cleaning out the warehouse in one hit. So they had me try to discourage you."

Interesting. Not worried about me and my reputation for getting into kidnap cases? "When we hit the place in Ogre Town, we saw a guy leaving. A Bruno off the Hill. Who was he?"

"I never heard his name. A guy Donni knew. He worked for the guy who was taking the stuff from the warehouse. The guy was worried. He hired some other guy to keep track of you and you grabbed him, he thought. He wanted us to do something about you. There was a big panic about covering tracks because Raver Styx had been seen in Leifmold and could turn up anytime."

I turned to Morley. "Pokey?"

"Probably."

"What became of him?"

"I turned him loose. He went home and sat tight. He knew I was watching."

"Uhm. Skredli. Who did the Bruno work for?"

"I don't know. I don't even think Gorgeous knew. Donni or the Bruno delivered all the messages."

"A cautious man. And wisely so, considering who he was stealing from. But the goods had to be transferred somehow."

"We had our own warehouse, partly legit. The Bruno hired teamsters to pick up the stuff there."

There was an opportunity for some legwork if I de­cided I really wanted to know where the Stormwarden's goods had gone. I wondered if I ought to ask what goods a Stormwarden dealt in that were so attractive to thieves, but decided ignorance might prove beneficial at a later date. I needed who's and whys but not many what's.

"Let's talk about the younger Karl daPena. One night as he was going out the back door of Lettie Faren's place, somebody popped a bag over his head, choked him, and threw him into a carriage. And after that the story gets confusing."

Skredli had come around to where I wanted him. He was able to volunteer information without upsetting what­ever minuscule conscience resides in an ogrish heart.