Everything downstairs was dark, but we could see the room well enough to size it up. Much like the outside—shabby, everything threadbare, but well kept. Little woman's touches here and there. Homey like, I mean to say. Definitely not your usual rich young bachelor's love nest.
"Must be her poor old mother's place," I whispered. "Probably she's trysting here with some guy who's so noble he can't soil his palace with the likes of some money-grubbing trollop. Gold runs through his veins, I bet." Greyboar motioned me to silence. He pointed up the stairs to the floor above. Listening closely, I could hear voices. Couldn't make out any words, though.
But by the time we got to the top of the stairs, moving like cats, I could make out the words all right. Such as they were, yes sirree. Mostly just meaningless noises, don't you know? Well, not exactly meaningless—it was impossible to miss the emotional content, so to speak. You know: passion, ecstasy, etc., etc.
We crept up to the bedroom door. The noises beyond the door seemed to be reaching that stage which genteel society likes to call a "climax." Silly word, really, like you were struggling up a mountain, huffing and puffing and gasping for breath, instead of whooping like a kid while you slide down—well, let's keep it couth.
Greyboar reached for the doorframe, his huge shoulder muscles starting to move like a tidal bore. His normal approach to opening doors, don't you know? But before he got halfway into it he dropped his arms and stared down at the doorknob. I looked around him and saw what he was staring at. The door wasn't even closed, much less locked!
For a moment, Greyboar and I looked at each other, almost as if we were helpless. I mean, what a ridiculous situation! The greatest strangler in the world—he was, too, don't ever doubt it—and he'd been hired to do a job a ten-year-old could have handled, at least so far.
I made a face and a couple of gestures, which more or less expressed the idea: what the hell, maybe the guy inside is built like a bull. He must be, judging from the noise coming through the door.
Greyboar took a deep breath, shook his head, and charged through the door into the bedroom, his hands ahead of him ready to deal death and doom and destruction.
* * *
Well, the next few minutes were touch and go. I do believe the wings of the Angel of Death brushed me more than once. I do, I do, I do.
Never did a mouse staring up an eagle's beak talk faster than I did. Trying to convince the big bird to forego lunch.
Funny thing was, it was probably the girls who saved my weasand from undergoing the Really Big Squeeze. I talked just fast enough and long enough that they stopped screaming and started listening to what I was saying and eventually they started talking too and what they said backed up my story. Not a moment too soon, either. First time I'd ever seen Greyboar's eyes red with rage, actually. Not a sight I recommend for tourists.
Eventually, the red started fading into a kind of pink-orange, and I knew I'd make it to another sunrise. Still had to keep talking, of course. It's nice to live, but not all that nice when you've managed to get yourself into Greyboar's Black Book, page one, line one. I grant you, it was a small black book, Greyboar's—he wasn't the type to nurse grudges, don't you know? But, oh, it was a very very very very black little book.
"He told me 'his rival,' " I said, for maybe the tenth time in the last few minutes. "I told him 'no girls' and he nodded," I said, for maybe the twentieth time in the last few minutes. "How was I supposed to know?" I said, for maybe the thirtieth time in the last few minutes. "It's not my fault!" I said, for maybe the hundredth time in the last few minutes.
The girls were still scared to death, clutching each other, trembling, pale as ghosts down to the soles of their feet. Oh yeah, you could see the soles of their feet, all right. Not surprising, they were both naked as the day they were born. Under other circumstances, it would have been distracting, as young and good-looking as they were. But at the moment, my thoughts were entirely focused on the survival of me rather than the species.
Plucky girls, though, I'll say it now. As terrified as they were, they managed to think quick and talk almost as quick as me.
Greyboar and I, as it turned out, had definitely accomplished the first part of the job—tracking down the Baron's ex-girlfriend and "the rival." Caught them, in fact, in the very act of "alienating his affections." Marooning his affections on the moon, more like. What the upper crust calls in flagrante delicto, don't you know? What we crude plebes call humping like rabbits. Having a grand good time of it, too, like teenagers usually do.
The ex-girlfriend's name was Angela. She was the one on the left. Cute as a button, which wasn't surprising given that she was all of seventeen years old. She was a short girl, with one of those lush figures that looks so striking on a small woman. Her complexion was dark. Not as dark as Greyboar or Gwendolyn, who look like desert nomads, but at least as dark as an Ozarine. "Olive-skinned," they call it. Her eyes were big, colored one of those rich dark brown hues. Almost the same color as her hair, which was on the short side but so curly that it framed her head like a halo.
The "rival" was the one on the right. Jenny, her name was. Eighteen years old—the predatory older woman of song and legend! Other than being almost as young, Jenny's appearance was very different from Angela's. She was taller and slimmer, with long blondish hair and green eyes. Where Angela was drop-dead gorgeous, Jenny was what you might call "country-girl pretty." But even in the tension of the moment, I was struck by her eyes. In their own way, they were just as lustrous and sparkling as Angela's.
The story was simple enough. The Baron had bought Angela from her father the year before. The Baron's "affections," as Angela described them, did not make him a candidate for the World's Greatest Lover. His most attractive characteristic was cold indifference. His other qualities went very rapidly downhill from there.
Jenny had been hired on some months back as Angela's seamstress. After the terrible epidemic in the Year of the Jackal, she'd been orphaned. She managed to stay out of prostitution because she'd learned to be a seamstress from her mother. Starvation wages, of course, but Jenny hadn't been able to accept the alternative. She was a stubborn girl, that much was obvious.
Over time, close proximity led to this and that, and eventually they'd planned and carried out Angela's escape. Since then they'd lived here, in the little house Jenny had inherited from her parents. Jenny was teaching Angela how to sew, and the two of them had plans to open a little shop in the room below.
* * *
"Of course he'd call me his 'rival,' " snapped Jenny. "Think the mighty Baron'd admit his girl got stole by a girl?" I swear, the two of them even giggled at that point. Plucky, like I said.
"But why'd he do it?" I demanded. Well, screeched. I fear my voice was shrill. "We'd have found out sooner or later, and I told him a dozen times if I told him once—I swear it!—'Greyboar won't choke girls.' "
Greyboar had calmed down by now. Actually, he was almost as pale as the girls were. In fact, not to put too fine a point on it, he was looking positively ragged. He looked around for a place to sit. Angela and Jenny moved over, still clutching each other, giving him room to sit on the bed. When he sat down, the bed creaked alarmingly. He must have weighed twice what the two of them did together.
"He knows my reputation," growled Greyboar. "That's what the rotten bastard's counting on. All professional chokesters have to keep their reputations clean as a whistle. Not a very trust-filled business, strangling. If you don't take your professional ethics seriously, you're soon out of business; it doesn't matter how good your fingerwork is. And my reputation is as good as gold. Never violated professional ethics. Never. Not once." His nostrils flared, it's a sight to freeze a man's blood, believe me. "I even strangled my own guru!"
I cleared my throat. Couldn't believe what I was about to say—me, his agent, of all people! But, well, I'm a hard-boiled cuss, sure I am, but—well, the truth is, they—the girls—they—
Couldn't do it. Just couldn't.
"
Maybe this once, big guy. I mean, what the hell, we'll tell the Baron if he complains we'll tell the world the truth about his rival. We'll shout it from the rooftops! He'll be the laughingstock of New Sfinctr! Of all Grotum!"
Greyboar shook his head. "Won't work. Two reasons." He held up two fingers like cucumbers and counted off.
"One. If the Baron's like most Groutch noblemen I've known, he values his reputation for ruthlessness a lot more than his reputation for lovemaking. Rich as he is, he can always buy another bedmate, and what does he care what she really thinks? But if he loses his reputation for being a snake—well, you know what these highborn scum are like. We both do, it's what puts the food on our table. Word gets out he's been made a patsy and he's not long for the world. Not in New Sfinctr!"
"He's right," said Angela, in a voice like a mouse. Jenny nodded her head about a hundred times. Her long blonde hair rippled like a curtain in the breeze.
Greyboar went on. "Two. It's all beside the point anyway. Professional ethics is professional ethics. Period. It's the way it's got to be. You don't understand that, Ignace. You never have and you never will. Nothing personal, it's just—sure, you arrange the job and you always go along, and I wouldn't even look at another agent—but." He took a breath. "But I'm still the one that does the squeeze." He looked down at his hands. "More times than I can remember, now."
He was silent for a moment, then continued.
"It's a stinking, rotten trade, Ignace. My sister was right about that, I always knew she was." I started to say something but he held up his hand.
"Don't say it! 'Pay's good. Work's steady. What else do you ever get in this world?' I've heard you say it once, I've heard you say it a million times. Don't disagree, either. Fine for Gwendolyn, she's got her fairy-tale dreams of revolution and justice and rights to keep her going. But me—" He stopped and took a deep breath, looked at his hands again. "Me, I've got my professional ethics."
As the wise man says, "It's all nuts, anyway." Sure and I crossed the line, then. I motioned to the girls. They slipped off the bed and came over to me. I waved them behind me. Cleared my throat.
"I'm afraid I'll have to take a slight exception here, big guy." I even managed a feeble grin. "Just can't do it. Just can't."
I could feel the girls huddled behind me, up close. Angela was about my height, and was clutching my right arm, pressed into me. Even in the peril of the moment, the feel of her nude form against my back was incredibly distracting. For that matter, having Jenny's blonde hair floating over my left shoulder and her arm wrapped around my belly was just as unsettling. She was shivering with fear even more than Angela, and while her figure was on the lean side there wasn't any doubt at all that it was purely female.
I almost burst into hysterical laughter. At least I'd undergo the Final Squeeze with a light head! It seemed like all the blood in my body had rushed somewhere else. Dizzy, I was.
Greyboar stared at me. I think that was the only time, in all the years we'd known each other—since we were kids scraping in the gutter together—that I'd ever really impressed the damn monster.
He smiled a crooked smile. No comfort to me at all, that smile. Reminded me of a crocodile.
"Ignace! After all these years, don't tell me you've discovered philosophy?"
Well, you can imagine! That did it! I hit the roof! I was hopping around in a fury! I mean, the insufferable nerve of the guy!
"You and your damned philosophy!" I roared. Well, sort of what you might call a high octave roar. Your operatic baritone types don't actually lose a lot of sleep worrying about my competition for their jobs.
"The sleep I've lost because of your philosophy madness! The money! The peace of mind! Dragged me all over Grotum! Got me mixed up with high politics! Heresy! And now this!"
I shoved my face into his great granite block of a so-called visage.
"All right, big guy! Put up or shut up! You're the great philosopher! You're the student of heavy thoughts! I'm just the mental pip-squeak here, right? You're the one learned from the guru! You're the one spent the Old Geister knows how many hours on the way back here from Prygg discussing the whichness of what with the great wizard Zulkeh! Wish he was here! He's the world's biggest windbag, Zulkeh is, but he'd figure a way out of this in his sleep! That's why he's a great wizard and you're a great lump of gristle with delusions of grandeur! You're in a—what would you call it, you genius, you—you philosopher? A dilemma, that's it! The great philosopher Greyboar, what just happens also to throttle necks on the side—just to pay the rent and keep his pea-brain agent in ale, you understand?—why, he's faced with an ethical dilemma, he is!"
I actually started pounding the top of his head with my fist. Regretted it later, of course—like pounding a rock—no, a lump of solid iron.
"Well, philosophize your way out of this one! Sure, why not? I bet your guru could've philosophized a nice greasy little escape clause in a minute! And Zulkeh? He could conjugate dilemmas like a grammarian teaching schoolkids—find any conditional subjunctive ethical hatch he needed! So why don't you?"
I finally fell silent, panting for breath, glaring at him like a, well, to be honest, like a maniacal mouse. Then, slowly, Greyboar's eyes got that dreamy look I hated so much. He began stroking his chin.
"Well," he said, "let me think a minute." And so he did. For more than a minute.
* * *
There were times afterward—hundreds of them—when I thought I should have kept my mouth shut and gone down like an honorable mouse. Sure, I'd have been dead, and the girls with me. But it'd have been quick and clean—Greyboar could've snapped all three of our necks at once with two fingers, tops—and then? Oblivion, that's what—peaceful, restful, untroubled oblivion. Not so bad, really, when you think about it. I mean, it's not as if this world is such a great joy, is it?
Instead—an endless future of aggravation I created.
Because, naturally, Greyboar philosophized a way out. Was he proud of it? Does a peacock preen? Does a rooster strut? Did he talk about it afterward, a million times? Does a dog howl at the moon? Does a cock crow at dawn?
Did he tell me—oh, maybe twelve times a day from then on until forever—how essential philosophy is to daily life? To hourly life? To figuring out which fingernail to trim first? Did he? Did he? Does a—oh, never mind. It's too aggravating to talk about.
So we left. But before we got more than halfway down the stairs, with me leading the way, Greyboar stopped.
"Wait a minute, Ignace," he said. He thought for a moment, then: "It occurs to me that there's a little matter of professional ethics still to be taken care of." He turned and called back up the stairs.
"Jenny! Angela! Are you decent? Need to discuss one last little thing."
Their heads peeked around the door. "We're dressed now," they said.
Greyboar turned back to me. "Your job, this, Ignace. You're the agent."
It didn't take me any time to figure it out. I went back up into the bedroom, grinning from ear to ear.
Chapter 3.
Sans Tout But the Beast
The following night we presented ourselves at the Baron's
"modest townhouse." Of course, we had to go through the usual routine. First the guards searched us for weapons. We didn't have any, naturally. Why would anybody in their right mind carry around weapons when Greyboar's got his thumbs?
Then the dogs sniffed us. They looked up at Greyboar. He gazed down at them. The great mastiffs whimpered and slunk into the corner.
Then the butler lifted his nose higher than the mountain peaks and announced we'd have to wait "for His Lordship's pleasure." Then we waited for His Lordship's pleasure.
Eventually, it pleased His Lordship to allow us into his august presence. We were ushered into his "study," as he called it. Quite a place, that "study." Maybe six books in the whole room. The rest of it—every wall and most of the floor space—was covered with pelts, mounted heads of more animals than I even knew existed, great stuffed bears
and lions and tigers roaring their eternal fury at the bold big game hunter who'd bagged 'em—not without the assistance of maybe five hundred beaters and bearers and guides, I don't imagine.
And there he stood before us, the big game hunter himself, just as I remembered him. Nobility incarnate, from the top of his well-coiffured hair to the tips of his feet. His Lordship, the Baron de Butin. He stood by the mantel, dressed in a smoking jacket made of some kind of material would probably cause me brainstroke if I tried to guess at the price. A great fire roared in the fireplace.
"You may leave us, Jeffrey," he instructed the butler. "I have private business with these gentlemen."
His Lordship was in a man-of-the-people type mood. Right away, the Baron was chatting away like we were three gentlemen discussing the weather over brandy. Eventually, he came around to the point. When he heard what we had to tell him, the man-of-the-people mood went like last year's snow. Most displeased, he was, His Lordship.
After a while, his denunciations and recriminations wound themselves up and he closed his mouth. He bestowed upon us a look of contemptuous dismissal—head back, eyes sighting in down the long aquiline nose like a hunter drawing a bead.
"You may go," he announced.
Greyboar made a motion. I hauled out the leather sack containing the Baron's advance on the job. Broke my heart, this, but Greyboar had insisted and I wasn't going to press the point. Got testy about his professional ethics, Greyboar did.
"We're returning your advance, Your Lordship," explained Greyboar. "Only proper, given that we didn't finish the job."
The Baron's nose lifted higher. "If you think this'll set things straight, you're quite mistaken, my man," he declared. "The issue here is ethics, not money. You are a scoundrel, sirrah, and you may be sure I shall see to it that your despicable behavior in this entire affair is known to the world."