The Five Faces (The Markhat Files) Read online

  We disturbed a surprising number of astonished pigeons and half a dozen sleeping crows, but we found my warped roof without falling headfirst into a Watch wagon. Once above my place, I closed my eyes and braced myself, and Buttercup took that little banshee magic hop that takes her through walls. An instant later, we stood atop my desk, none the worse for wear.

  Buttercup preened and grinned. I patted her head and tousled her hair and let her wear my second-best hat. Then I filled my pockets with the necessities, loaded my revolver, and looked up to find Buttercup and set about making her understand Uncle Markhat needed to leave the same way he came in.

  But Buttercup was gone, with last year’s grey hat.

  “Buttercup, honey,” I whispered, hoping she was playing hide-and-seek. “Come out!”

  Silence.

  I cussed softly. I’d managed to solve the dilemma of the empty pockets by replacing it with the equally knotty problem of being behind a door guarded by a pair of determined Watchmen.

  I sat heavily down in my chair. Paper rustled. I stood, turned, found the note, recognized the handwriting, and cussed some more.

  Maybe I was going soft in the head.

  Boy, read the letter. I reckon you’ll sit down and take notice now, won’t ye? I knowed you’d wind up here, and I knowed you’d come tiptoeing past my door. But you needs to hear what I’ve got to tell, so you just keep reading, or you’ll be the worse for it.

  Gertriss told me all about that there drawing you found on that dead man. She told that all them fancy wand-wavers down to Avalante couldn’t make head nor tail of it. Shows what they know, boy, cause old Mama done heard whispers about the five faces, oh yes I have. Weeks ago, the rumors started. Some crazy man from up Prince way draws them faces and writes your name, and you is as good as dead, and no mistake. That’s what they say. I reckon it might be true.

  Them what knows of it won’t speak the crazy man’s name. But I reckon I’ll hear it spoke anyway, come sundown. I’ll even tell them fancy-pants halfdead up to Avalante, if’n it’s convenient. I reckon they is the lesser of neighboring evils, as they say.

  Don’t you go asking outright for this man’s name, boy. He’s got some kind of foreign mojo, can hear things, can see things. They say he can kill with just a look. I don’t put much stock in that but foreigners can have some outlandish hexes so you heed me, you hear?

  And don’t think I didn’t see you out walking last night, boy. Oh yes, I seen you pass, head near up to the clouds, all high and mighty-like. I seen you, and I seen who you was with, and boy you got to be thrice times three the biggest fool what ever lived if ye trust a word that creature says.

  I’ll send Buttercup to fetch you directly. Them Watchmen wants you bad. I reckon the weather will be nice and sunny today. I wears a size nine boot, and I prefers the leather ones from Bale’s General Store on Cauthon.

  Mama.

  I tore up the note and hid the scraps in case the Watch got inquisitive later. Then I sat back and waited for the sound of banshee feet on the roof and tried not to imagine Mama cackling smugly into her cauldron of stewed bats.

  I didn’t wait long. Buttercup appeared without a sound, wearing a Watchman’s blue hat and a grin far beyond her apparent years.

  I hung the round, blue Watch cap on my hat-rack, took her hand, and braced myself for the banshee hop-step.

  Buttercup only followed me a couple of blocks before waving and vanishing. I stuck to alleys and back streets, ducking in and out of doorways and stables, and slowly made my way back to the Docks.

  My feet were blistered by the time I smelled the first hint of the tanneries. I made a mental note to start walking more and napping less. Time was I could have traipsed around town all day without breaking a sweat, but I was puffing like an Ogre when I spotted the first shallow hull of a barge wallowing down the river toward Bel Loit.

  My plan for the morning was simple. I intended to poke around the Docks and see if I could scare up someone nervous enough to start naming names. If House Lethe wasn’t running the weed trade anymore, whoever was would be taking control.

  I didn’t figure they’d be using subtlety and gentle restraint with weed dealers.

  I also planned to find out who paid Chuckles to run the dog fights and ask them about men with wide-brimmed hats and outlandish accents. I was hoping the confusion created by the weed-trade takeover might have loosened a few tongues.

  Finding weeders was no problem. The gutters were filled with any number of them. Most wobbled or batted at the air before their faces or screamed incoherently at things only they could see.

  But I needed an ambulatory specimen, one with coppers to spend and a need to satisfy, so I turned my aching feet toward the wharfs and idled in the shade for a bit.

  A barge loaded with last year’s cotton bales rode low in the shallows while an army of sweating haulers transferred her cargo from deck to waiting wagons. I loitered until I spied a skinny, pockmarked laborer snatch a handful of coins from a blustering cargo master. Then I fell into step behind Skinny as he scurried off toward what I hoped was his first purchase of weed for the day.

  Skinny made a beeline for an alley by a fishmonger’s stinking, open-air stall. I watched from the street as he exchanged a few words with a pair of nervous figures who stuck to the shadows. As soon as Skinny darted out of the alley, I slipped my hands into my coat pockets and sauntered into the dark.

  They met me halfway. One was tall and burly and wearing a cast-off Ogre’s beaver-fur greatcoat. His associate was short and fat and aiming a cheap, post-War crossbow at my gut.

  “Turn your ass around and walk,” he said. “Ain’t nothing for you here.”

  I pulled both my pistols.

  “You know what these are?”

  The crossbow hit the filthy cobblestones. Short-and-Fat put his hands in the air. His tall friend bolted, sending trash flying, banging into both walls in his haste to secure employment elsewhere.

  “I see you know a gun when you see one. Good. I’d rather not shoot you. The noise gives me headaches.”

  “Dammit, mister, we already paid our cut to the new bunch,” he said. “Two crowns, just this morning. This is our alley now. They said we wouldn’t have no trouble.”

  I nodded amiably, but kept my guns trained on his chest. “You pay Dickey, or Mr. Snout?”

  “We paid Feather. Said his name was Feather. Look, mister, I don’t know any Dickey, or any Snout, but Feather gave me a receipt…”

  He reached for his pocket. I’d not stopped walking, so I was able to remind him about alley etiquette with a poke of revolver muzzle between his beady little weed-dealer eyes.

  “Easy there,” I said. “Why don’t you move a little slower and live a little longer? Now drop the receipt. That’s right. Good man.”

  I put my foot on a corner of the paper when a vagrant breeze tried to blow it away.

  “Now pick it up and unfold it.”

  He did, sweating and shaking.

  “Now read it.”

  “Mister, I can’t read.”

  “Unfold it and look at it then.” If the paper was covered with hex signs it wouldn’t matter that he couldn’t read.

  He unfolded it and held it up in front of his face.

  His ears didn’t steam and he didn’t start screaming, so I took the paper and read it myself.

  It was a receipt. To Stales and Calwup, for the use of the alley by the fishmonger Hatton for a week’s time, signed by a Mr. Feather.

  I lowered my guns.

  “Well, that’s all right, then.”

  He let out his breath in a great, noxious exhalation. “Damn, did you need to scare us like that? Calwup is probably still running, and he’s got the damned bag hid in that coat.”

  I shrugged. “Not my problem. We’re just making sure rules are obeyed. Might make an example of anybody playing fast and loose.”

  He paled. “Look, we just sell a bag or two, now and then,” he said. “We don’t want no trouble.�
� His eyes narrowed just a tad. “Who the hell are you, anyway?”

  “Feather’s boss. They call me Feather’s boss. You can call me sir for short. Speaking of trouble—you know a man with an accent who wears a wide-brimmed hat, hangs around the dog fights?”

  “Feather’s boss, huh?”

  I sidestepped about the time the brick came whizzing past my left ear. Short-and-Fat wasn’t as fast and took it right below his nose.

  I put my back to the filthy wall and kept one pistol on each of my new friends.

  “Calwup, isn’t it?” I asked of the tall man who had just returned with a zeal for flinging bricks.

  He glared but froze. The knife in his hand was no match for my fancy revolving guns and he damned well knew it.

  “One more time. I’m looking for a man with a fondness for wide-brimmed hats and dog fights. He speaks with an accent. Feather wants to know his name. Spill it and I’ll forget about bricks and knives and charging you two boneheads another two crowns just for being stupid.”

  “Feather sent you?” The knife vanished. “Hell, I didn’t know…”

  Short-and-Fat spat blood and cussed. “You want to know anything about dog fighting, you ask at the Bloody Troll,” he said. “I don’t have any use for that bunch.”

  “Good for you.” I slipped one gun, my left, back into its pocket, but kept the other handy in case anyone was feeling heroic. “That coat stinks.”

  “I likes it,” muttered the tall man. Confusion played across his face, and I realized he was a frequent sampler of his own product. “Feather sent you?”

  “Explain it to your friend,” I said to Short-and-Fat. “Keep up the good work, gentlemen. We’re always looking for management material down in the ranks.”

  Short-and-Fat cussed. His partner, bless his weed-dulled heart, graced me with a gap-toothed smile.

  “Feather sent you?”

  I laughed, doffed my hat, and got the hell out of there not quite at a jog.

  Feather’s name loosened tongues and opened doors all morning. I learned more than I really wanted to know about the weed trade down on the docks.

  The new bunch was organized, give them that. The Docks appeared to have been split up into five-block squares. Feather ran the section from Lank Street to the wharf. Tickle had the next section, which began at the sewer canal by Bane and ended at the burned-out husk of a tannery. Goat held sway to the north, and I didn’t go any farther than that.

  Feather and crew issued paper receipts. They made it clear anything that cost their bosses money would cost someone on the street their life.

  Try as I might, though, I couldn’t get the names of anyone who outranked Feather or his pals. As far as the street dealers were concerned, the bosses were Feather and Tickle and the like. Who they answered to wasn’t even a matter of speculation, even when prompted with coin.

  Still, I had a few names for Evis. I owed him that much. And maybe the organization’s structure was one Avalante could identify.

  By noon, I decided I’d pushed my luck pretending to be part of the new management. Even amid the confusion left in the wake of House Lethe’s sudden retreat, tongues had had time to wag, and running into one of the men I’d pretended to know was more likely every minute.

  So I traded the stinking, dark alleys for the stinking, bright streets and asked around for a place called the Bloody Troll instead.

  Finding the place was the work of an hour. The Bloody Troll moved a lot. The first two places I found were empty. The third was a now a net-maker’s shop. The fourth was still smoking here and there from the fire that left nothing behind but a single charred barstool.

  My fifth stop was my last. The Troll was squeezed between a pair of none-too-sturdy warehouses. Behind them all ran the River, so close I could hear the occasional hard smack of its sluggish face upon the underside of the wharves.

  The Troll sported a single door and a lone window. The door was closed, and the window was shuttered despite the midday heat. From the warehouses came the sounds of workmen shoving crates and cussing, but the Troll was deadly silent.

  I tried the door. It opened, its rusted hinges creaking like the gates of Hell.

  “Need some oil around here,” I said, stamping inside.

  I hadn’t seen that many crossbows since the War ended. Big, old, two-handed Mausers. Sleek but deadly Carnate Specials. Big, plain back-country Skinner Widowmakers. There was even a restored Old Kingdom Granny Brackett in the bunch, aimed at my head and fully capable of pinning my skull to the wall if that nervous-looking finger were to twitch.

  I smiled my biggest smile.

  “I’ve always thought it would be a damned shame to die thirsty,” I said. “I don’t suppose I could get a beer before the festivities begin?”

  I kept my hands in plain sight. Five arms and a gun for each wouldn’t be enough to save me if they started loosing bolts.

  “I don’t know you,” said a voice. I couldn’t see the speaker’s face for the ring of archers. I didn’t know any of their faces either, but I could see fear etched on every one.

  “He’s one of them,” said one of the bowmen. “Dammit, boss, he’s got to be one of them.”

  “I’m just me,” I said before anyone else could chime in with agreement. “Markhat’s the name. I’m a finder, got an office on Cambrit. Chuckles hired me two days ago. Said I should meet him here. He didn’t mention getting shot as part of the deal.”

  “Chuckles is dead,” said my hidden friend. “Along with his crew.”

  I did a marvelous job of pretending to hide the shock I didn’t feel.

  “Dead? You sure?”

  I watched crossbows begin to waver and dip.

  “Somebody tore him open and showed him his guts.”

  I cussed some, just to show the fellas I was just an earthy working stiff like them.

  “Keep him covered,” said my friend, who I surmised to be the boss. “For all we know he gutted Chuckles himself.”

  “I didn’t. First, I’m a finder, not a killer. Second, I never gut people before they pay me. Third, I need that beer now more than ever. Any chance I’ll live long enough to drink it?”

  The man stepped out of the shadows.

  He was my age, maybe a few years older. He was muscular and he wore his shirts a size too small so everyone could appreciate his physique.

  I disliked him instantly, but I kept my smile.

  “What’s your first name, Markhat?”

  “Markhat. First, last, and middle. Saves me a bundle on stationary.”

  “I’ve heard of a finder named Markhat,” said a worthy by the bar.

  “I’ve heard he’s a real smart-ass,” added another.

  “They say he’s friends with that witch-woman Mama Hog,” said a third.

  That did the trick. The boss man glared, but his was the only crossbow still aimed at anything vital.

  “So Chuckles hired you,” he said to me. “Hired you for what?”

  I shrugged, sensing where the conversation was heading and realizing there was no turning back. “He wanted a name.”

  “Now I want it,” he said. His voice was as flat and as empty as his eyes.

  “I get paid for what I do,” I said. “Tell you what. Assuming we’re talking about the same name, I’ll charge you what I came here to collect. Deal?”

  “You do see this crossbow?”

  I pulled out a pistol. I didn’t aim it at him, didn’t raise it, but I let him see me put my finger on the trigger.

  “I see it. Bet I can get off two shots, maybe three, before I bleed out. I won’t miss. You won’t live. My fee for names tonight is an even hundred gold crowns, payable in full, right this damned minute. Or we can spill some blood. Your call. Piss or get off the pot.”

  Silence. One of the bowmen broke wind, and another guffawed, and boss man rolled his eyes and pointed his crossbow at the warped plank floor.

  “Go get a hundred crowns,” he growled. Feet shuffled.

  “And
a beer,” I added. I slipped my pistol back in my pocket. “Why don’t we sit down and have a drink like gentlemen?”

  Chapter Nine

  Evis, ever the gracious if deceased host, poured me another beer.

  “So you gave this brute a name? What name?”

  “Hell yes, I gave him a name. What choice did I have? They were sure Chuckles hired me to find out who drew the five faces under his name. A shrug and an ‘aww, shucks, I don’t know nuffin’ wasn’t going to get me out of there alive.”

  I took a long draught of Evis’s fancy, imported beer. It was a summer wheat beer, a little light for my taste, but still much better than the bitter swill they’d been pouring at the Bloody Troll.

  “The name?”

  I wiped my lips. “I told him the man behind the drawings calls himself Jerle Mistorm Cooper.”

  “Who the hell is that?”

  “Why, Mr. Prestley, I thought you knew your history. Jerle Mistorm Cooper, born 1878, invented the cotton gin before dying of sheer satisfaction in 1952. Where would we be without his genius? Pantless, that’s where.”

  “So when these heavily armed dog-fighting enthusiasts realize you handed them the first name you could remember, what’s to stop them from looking you up and registering their complaint with your services?”

  “Lucky me. The Watch has set up shop right at my door. A band of thugs with crossbows won’t even be first in line if they decide to come after me.”

  Evis keeps his eyes covered with dark spectacles, even in candlelight, but I knew he was giving me a ‘what the hell’ look behind them even though I couldn’t see past the smoked glass.

  “Not a smart move,” he said after a while.

  I shrugged it off. I couldn’t tell Evis I’d also told the men I knew the name was a false one, because then I’d have to tell him I knew the man’s base of operations was in a dilapidated, old wall watchtower on the north side of town. And if I told Evis that, I’d have to explain how I knew such a thing, and that would lead to my night walk with Stiches, and her true identity, and if the alternative to all that was enduring one of Evis’s incredulous stares, so be it.