He made an attempt to cover his grimace with an unconvincing smile. “Nothing-why would you ask that?”
“Fifteen years and you still operate under the misconception that you can lie to me?”
For a moment his smile was real, if slight. Then it went away. “Another child is missing,” he said. Adeline stopped sweeping.
Another one, Sakra. I hadn’t expected it to stop, but I had hoped for more time between this one and the last. I tried not to think about how this would affect the Old Man’s deadline, or if the neighborhood toughs would take the opportunity to make trouble in Ling Chi’s territory. “Who is it?”
For an unhappy second I was afraid he would start to blubber outright. “It’s Meskie’s son, Avraham.”
A bad day got worse. Meskie was our washing woman, a sweet-natured Islander who raised a brood of children with methods equal parts loving and severe. I didn’t know Avraham particularly, except as one of the mass of amiable youths that surrounded their matriarch.
Adeline ventured a question. “Do you think he might still be…” She trailed off, not wanting to form the thought in its entirety.
“There’s always a chance,” I said.
There was no chance. Black House wasn’t going to find him-it was me or no one. And I couldn’t move on the Blade, not with what I had. Hell, he might not have even done it. Maybe something would break open soon, maybe I’d get lucky, but these were hopes, not expectations, and I’m not an optimist. The child was as good as dead. It was ten thirty and already I needed a hit of breath.
Adeline nodded, her round face looking very old. “I’ll bring you breakfast,” she said.
Adolphus and I sat there for a while, neither bothering to fill the air with conversation. “Where’s Wren?” I asked eventually.
“He’s off at the market-Adeline needed some things for supper.” He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a slip of paper. “This came for you before you woke.”
I opened it. Five words scrawled in black ink, the letters sharply drawn against the parchment: Herm Bridge, six thirty. Crispin
He was quicker than I had expected, although it didn’t figure him wanting to set a meeting when he could have just sent over the list. Maybe he wanted to apologize for our earlier exchange, though I thought it more likely he expected me to grovel a bit before he coughed up his information. I lit a match off the bar and held it to the paper, letting the ashes drop to the ground.
“Adeline will have to clean that,” Adolphus said.
“We’re all cleaning up somebody’s shit.”
Halfway through breakfast, Wren returned with a sack of goods. Adolphus’s face perked up a bit. “How much did you save me?”
“Two argents and six coppers,” he said, spilling the change on the counter.
Adolphus slapped his leg. “He don’t say much, but you’re looking at the best damn haggler in Low Town! You sure there ain’t no Islander blood in you, boy?”
“Dunno. Maybe.”
“Doesn’t miss a trick, this one! Sees everything, everything there is to see.”
“You hear about Meskie’s son?” I asked, interrupting Adolphus’s praise.
Wren looked down at his feet.
“Head over and make sure the ice are finished with whatever perfunctory investigation they managed to pull together.”
“What does ‘perfunctory’ mean?”
I drained my cup of coffee. “Not serious.”
I went upstairs to grab my armaments and snatch a hit of pixie’s breath. A boy this time. What was the connection? Three children, different sexes, different races-all from Low Town, but that didn’t tell me anything except that it’s a lot easier to grab a street urchin than a noble. I thought back on my interview last night with Beaconfield. Had that sick son of a bitch finished our meeting, then turned around and snatched up a kid? Was Avraham hidden in some corner of the Blade’s mansion, tied to a chair weeping, waiting for the torment that was to come?
I took another snort and tried to clear my head. I didn’t have anything on the duke yet, and if I tipped my hand and was wrong, I didn’t imagine the Old Man would have much sympathy. Better to follow the trail than ruin the scent by trying to jump ahead.
I took one last bump and put the rest of the vial into the bag. I had always liked Meskie, to the limited extent we had interacted. I wasn’t wild about the idea of intruding on her grief, even for the purpose of making sure she was the last weeping mother.
The breath shook me out of my morning torpor. My mind felt clean again-it was time to get it dirty. I grabbed my coat and headed downstairs.
Wren waited at the foot of the steps, tense as a muscle. “She’s alone. The law came and went.” I nodded and he followed me out.
Low Town in winter is pretty miserable. Not quite as bad as summer, when the air is stale with soot and whatever doesn’t rot bakes in the hot sun, but pretty miserable just the same. Most days the smog from the factories congeals into a miasma that hovers at about throat level, and between that and the cold your lungs have to work double just to keep up.
But once in a while a strong southern wind comes off the hills and sweeps the city clear of the haze enshrouding it. The sun radiates that particularly perfect blend of light it offers sometimes in place of heat, and it seems like you can see all the way down to the docks, and it even seems like you might want to. I’d been a child on days like that, and every wall had stood to be climbed, and every vacant structure demanded exploration.
“Did you know him?” Wren asked.
That was right, we weren’t out on a morning stroll, were we? “Not really. Meskie has a clutch of children,” I said by way of explanation.
“I guess there are a lot of kids in Low Town, huh?”
“I guess.”
“Why him?”
“Why indeed?”
I had been to Meskie’s house once or twice, dropping things off for Adeline. She’d always invited me in for a cup of coffee, insisted really. Her home was small but well kept, and her children were unflaggingly polite. I tried to conjure up an image of Avraham in my mind, but nothing would come. I might have passed him the day before and not known it, one more offering to She Who Waits Behind All Things from her most devout congregation.
If Avraham had been dead, his home would be packed with mourners, weeping women and mounds of fresh-cooked food. As he was only missing, the neighborhood didn’t know how to respond, the usual gestures of sympathy premature. The only people outside Meskie’s were her five daughters standing clumped together. They looked up at me in dumb silence.
“Hi, girls. Is your mother inside?”
The eldest nodded, her jet-black hair bobbing up and down.
“She’s in the kitchen.”
“Boy, wait out here with Mrs. Mayana’s girls. I’ll be back in a moment.”
Wren looked uncomfortable. Domesticated children were a separate species to him, their trivial games unfathomable. He’d never be able to fake their easy camaraderie. The trials of his childhood had marked him as other, and the status quo has no more rigorous champion than the adolescent.
But he’d have to endure it for a few minutes. This business was subtle enough without a teen at my side.
I knocked lightly but didn’t get a response, so I let myself in. It was dark, the wall sconces unlit and the front shades drawn. A short hallway led into the kitchen, and I saw Meskie leaning over her wide kitchen table, dark flesh spread like an ink spot over the sanded wood. I cleared my throat loudly, but she either didn’t hear or chose not to respond.
“Hi, Meskie.”