“Are you familiar with the Black Street Barbers?” Adamat asked his companion as they neared their destination.
The docklands of Adopest were a sprawling wasteland of dilapidated buildings, putrid streets, and roving gangs along the western crescent of the teardrop of the Adsea. While vast swaths of Adopest had been rebuilt over the Iron King’s long reign, the docklands remained an ancient armpit in desperate need of modernization. Decent people avoided this section of the city like they might a visit from the dentist.
White said, “I’ve heard the name before. One of the petty gangs that roams this part of the city, correct?”
“Yes,” Adamat said. Petty seemed like an easy word to toss around when you worked for the Adran Royal Cabal. To normal people, the Black Street Barbers were terrifying. “My contact at Willam’s Tavern is a young initiate. Nervous lad, flicks a blade back and forth.”
“Are you warning me to not be frightened?” There was a tinge of amusement in White’s voice, as if to say, That’s adorable.
“No,” Adamat said, “I’m warning you so that you don’t kill him just because he has a nervous twitch.”
White looked down her nose at her long fingernails. “You should know, Adamat, that my nervous twitch is not immediately murdering someone when they flick open a blade.” She lifted her chin, glancing at him sidelong. If he didn’t know any better, he’d have thought he hurt her feelings.
The cab let them out at a tavern a stone’s throw from the waterfront. It was one of those large, sprawling establishments frequented by all manner of the type of lowlifes constantly coming to the city, finding work at the docks, and then moving on.
Adamat let his eyes adjust to the darkness inside before he threaded his way through the tables. At eleven o’clock on a weekday morning most of the clientele consisted of dockmen who’d not gotten the call for a desperately needed job and were waiting until tomorrow to try again. They tended to be either dead sober or dead drunk.
Adamat finally spotted a boy of about fifteen with mangy, matted hair, pale skin and a black jacket that looked like it had been taken off a year-old corpse. The boy lounged in a far corner of the tavern, back on a dirty wooden bench and feet propped on an old crate stamped “canned fish.” He was flicking open the blade of an old shaving razor, closing it, and flipping it open again while trying not to look interested in the game of dice being played by a pair of younger boys.
“Teef,” Adamat said, standing just over his head.
The boy scowled up at him. “Thought you left this part of the city.”
“Need to talk to you, Teef.”
“I’m busy.”
Adamat felt White’s hand on his shoulder. “This brat is your snitch?” she asked in a soft voice.
“We work with what we have. Teef, come on.” Adamat tapped the boy on the chest with his cane. Teef shoved the cane away.
“I told you I’m busy, I … “
Adamat grabbed a handful of Teef’s shirt and dragged him off the bench and across the floor, ignoring his flailing arms and legs. Any other day he may have been more patient, dancing around with Teef to get his attention. Not today. He deposited Teef in a chair off to one side of the great room and threw himself into one across from the boy. Teef immediately made to stand, and Adamat pressed the end of his cane against his chest, pinning him in place.
White remained standing, her gaunt figure looming and eerie in the low light.
“Who the bloody pit is this?” Teef said, looking at White, his voice coming out as a whine.
“My new partner,” Adamat said.
“I don’t know her.” Teef flicked his razor open and closed with greater force, as if he very much wanted to use it. He’d be a damned fool to do so against a police officer but anyone who joined the Black Street Barbers had at least a little brain damage as far as Adamat was concerned, so he kept a close eye on the state of the blade.
“Her name is White. White, meet Teef. There, now you know each other.” Adamat pressed a little harder on his cane until Teef began to squirm.
“Mornin’, ma’am,” Teef finally said petulantly.
“Very good. Now Teef, I’m looking for information on a powder mage. Rumor has it that there was one down in the docklands over the autumn, working for one of the gangs. I want to know who he is, who he worked for, and where I can find him.”
Teef had begun shaking his head even before Adamat finished speaking. “No, no, no. I’m not talkin’ about any powder mage. Nothing in it. Don’t have anything to say.”
“Really?” Adamat pressed on his cane.
Teef didn’t respond to the pressure. “Yeah, really.”
Adamat put his cane to the side and produced his pocketbook, peeling several bank notes out of it and stuffing them in breast pocket of Teef’s grimy coat.
“I’m not saying anything,” Teef said. “There’s nothing to say. Don’t know anything about a powder mage.”
Adamat produced another couple of bank notes and added them to Teef’s pocket.
“Really,” Teef said. “There’s nothing. And even if there was, I wouldn’t say a word. Powder mage is bad luck.” He glanced at White, as if seeking some kind of agreement. “Talk about them, and the royal cabal comes sniffing around.”
Adamat leaned back. Teef had not attempted to give the bank notes back. He obviously knew something, even if it was a small tidbit, but perhaps his greed was overcome by fear. Adamat ran his hands through his hair and wondered absently if it was feeling thinner. His father had gone bald early. Was he going down the same road?
“Never the less,” Adamat said. “We must know.”
Teef shook his head.
“Constable White,” Adamat said, “if you please.”
White seemed to slither forward. It was a graceful movement from one so thin and awkward. She slid to Teef’s side, then around behind him, and to his other side. Teef sank into his chair, turning his head to follow White.
White lowered herself to her haunches just behind and to Teef’s side. She threw her right arm over his shoulder, as if they were old friends, and brought her mouth to his ear. Adamat could barely hear her voice come out in a whisper.
“You must be a tough lad,” she said, “joining up with a crew like the Black Street Barbers.” Her left hand snaked into his lap, grasping the wrist that held his razor. Teef tried to shake her off with no success. “But you’re not even old enough to know the surrender that comes with sitting down in a chair, one of these,” she squeezed his hand around the razor, “pressing gently against your throat. You don’t have the fine respect that every man gains from having to bare their throat to a stranger.”
Teef licked his lips. “Adamat, what is … “
White pressed the bony index finger of her right hand against Teef’s lips, then drew it down his chin, tracing a line to his Adam’s apple. She drew her fingernail across his throat lengthwise. “Slitting a throat is such a quick, delicate motion that hides such savagery. I’m sure that’s why the Black Street Barbers use it as their trademark. But did you know that if you slit the throat shallow enough, and then grasp the skin just here,” she pressed with her fingernail, “that you can carve upwards with the blade and, if you’re careful enough, remove a man’s entire face while he still lives and breathes?”
A droplet of sweat rolled down Teef’s forehead.
White let go of his wrist and squeezed his shoulders with both hands—an almost motherly affection—and said, “You can even do it while they’re awake, if you bind the body and head tightly enough. But I wouldn’t recommend it. Too much chance for error when they twitch and scream. What do you do with a man’s face, you ask?” she shrugged. “Whatever you like. Hang it on a mannequin. Wear it to a party. So many uses.”
Teef tried to flick open his razor and fumbled it, sending it clattering to the ground. He groped blindly for a moment before giving up. “The powder mage,” he said, his voice ragged. “He came around looking for work about six months ago.
Nobody knew what he was at first, just a confident musket for hire. Was given a few jobs by the Brickmen on South Street. Then word got around he was a mage and nobody, I mean nobody, wants the cabal poking around down here. He was, what’s the word … ?”
“Blacklisted?” Adamat suggested, finding there was croak to his own voice. He’d seen officers threaten witnesses before. Pit, he’d played the menacing interrogator from time to time himself but he’d never seen anything like this. Part of him wanted to be impressed. The other part felt slightly queasy.
“Yes, blacklisted,” Teef said eagerly. “Nobody would touch him. Word has it he moved on.”
The Brickmen was one of the larger gangs in Adopest, mostly consisting of disenfranchised dockworkers that had finally given up on finding consistent work and now terrorized the companies they used to work for. “How did he get work in the first place?” Adamat asked. “Strangers like that don’t just walk in and get jobs around here.”
Teef glanced sidelong at White and licked his lips. “He was cousins or something with one of the ranking Brickmen. Both northerners. A pitrunner, I think. Look, I don’t know anything else. I would tell you if I could.”
“Not where he went?” White said softly in Teef’s ear.
“No! No idea. Maybe someone does, but it’s not me.”
“Who would?” Adamat asked.
“One of the big bosses, maybe. I dunno.”
Adamat removed another two bills from his pocketbook and gave them to Teef. “Thank you, Teef. That will be all.”
Teef snatched up his razor and left the tavern at a run, trailing the smell of sweat and urine. Adamat watched him go, then turned to White. He found that he couldn’t quite look her in the eye. “What did you make of that?” he asked.
If White was aware that her little display had had a profound effect on Adamat as well as Teef, she didn’t show it. She stood up, springing on the balls of her feet like a woman thirty years her junior. “We’ll have to talk with one of the big bosses.”
“That would be both immensely difficult and, I think, unnecessary.”
“Oh?” White asked.
“We have a clue,” Adamat said. “Teef said the man was a pitrunner.”
“I’m not familiar with the term.”
“It’s a derogatory slang for a barrowman. Someone who works in the mines up in the northern mountains, rolling wheelbarrows out of the deepest coal pits. It’s one of the worst, hardest jobs in Adro.”
“You think he’s a convict? Someone from the Mountainwatch?”
“No,” Adamat said. He half-closed his eyes, running through the information stored in his mind. “If I recall correctly, which I usually do, pitrunner is geographically specific. Refers to barrowmen in the Kemptin Region, in mines owned by the Kemptin family.” He finally forced himself to look White in the eye. “Employment records should be available at the Public Archives. Are you any good at research?”
“Quite.”
“We need information on all the barrowmen who worked there over the last two years.”
“That sounds … tedious.”
“Paperwork is a fantastic way of tracking people down because they rarely bother to cover their trail even when they should. If you can take care of that, I’ll do a little sniffing and see if I can find out who the powder mage’s cousin is among the Brickmen.”
“I thought you said that wouldn’t be necessary.”
“I don’t think it will. But it doesn’t hurt to have two leads. I won’t try to approach him without you.”
White’s nostrils flared and she watched Adamat for a moment before giving a curt nod.
Adamat walked with her out to the street, where she took their cab and headed north toward the Public Archives. He waited until the cab had disappeared before going looking for his own. It would have been easier to just share a cab. Their destinations were quite close indeed. But Adamat didn’t want her to know that.
He found the closest cab and paid the driver before getting inside.
“Where to, sir?”
“Sablethorn Prison,” Adamat said. It was time to talk to Ricard Tumblar.
Across the city square from the precinct building sat Sablethorn Prison. It was a black, basalt obelisk of a building, a nail jutting from the city center high into the sky in testament to the Iron King’s merciless imprisonment of those who opposed him. It was as much, if not more, a statement to the public than the guillotine permanently fashioned in the center of the square.
The sheer size of the building meant it served as incarceration for political prisoners and dissidents, as well as the city jail. Its proximity to the First Precinct building only made it all the more convenient.
Adamat showed his credentials to the jailer just inside the big main doors and was directed up three flights of stairs where another jailer took him down a long hall and thumped twice on a thick wooden door before unlocking and opening it for Adamat.
“Just give a yell if you need anything,” the jailer said.
It was a small room with a single barred window that faced away from the main square. There was a cot, a chair, and a table with writing implements. The only light came from the glow of coal stove in one corner, next to which squatted Ricard Tumblar.
He still wore the same jacket he had on yesterday morning. His hair was frayed, his clothes rumpled, the collar of his shirt stained with wine and sweat. He glared up at Adamat in hurt confusion.
As if I had anything to do with you being in here. “How much did you have to bribe a guard to get a noble’s cell?” Adamat asked.
“Just a hundred krana,” Ricard said. “I guess they were told to put me with the rabble, but I did a favor for the head jailor’s cousin a few months back. Adamat, why am I here? I’ve been demanding to see you since they brought me in here yesterday and no one will listen to me. You said I wasn’t a suspect.”
Adamat looked for someplace to hang his hat. He gave up and kept it in hand. “I was taken off the case.”
“What? Why?”
“Someone wants you to take the fall for this, Ricard,” Adamat said. “Someone who can make it happen.”
“Of course they do! That’s why they tried to frame me. But I didn’t do it, and … “ Ricard trailed off. “You mean someone in the police?”
“Or someone who can exert a great deal of influence on them. The commissioner himself took me off the case and handed it to his incompetent nephew.” Adamat thought of telling Ricard what the commissioner had said about seeing him to the guillotine, but that would have been cruel. Ricard didn’t need to hear that now.
“So I’m strapped to the millwheel, am I?”
“It appears so.”
“Shit.”
“Indeed. Who would do this?” Adamat asked.
“Who wants me dead, you mean?”
“Dead? They don’t just want you dead. They want you discredited and imprisoned. I want to know who wants you out of the way so much that they’re willing to kill innocent people—people like Melany—to do it.”
A slow realization began to spread across Ricard’s face. Adamat waited for the candle to light behind his eyes. Ricard had always had the habit of being willfully naive. Everyone was a friend to him, a possible business partner or lover. It had gotten him into trouble on many occasions—but the attitude had also made him a wealthy man.
“What have you been up to, Ricard?” Adamat asked. “We haven’t spoken since … for a while. Last I read in the papers your latest attempt at unionizing the dock workers had been shut down by the police.”
Ricard waved dismissively. “That was months ago.”
“And you’re doing something new?” Adamat urged.
“Yes. I’ve decided to go straight to the top. I’ve managed to get a bill sponsored in the House of Nobles that calls for limited legalization of labor unions. It’s a small thing, really, but vital to the future of unionization. They’ll be voting on it in the House of Nobles next week.”
“Is t
hat why you rented a room so close to the House?”
“It is,” Ricard said. “I’ve been in the city all week trying to gather enough support for the nobility to vote it through.”
“Why haven’t I read about this in the newspapers?”
Ricard snorted. “Because the Wian family owns most every newspaper in Adopest, and they’re vehemently against unionization. Everything comes down to a vote by the nobility, but if it has no popular support no one will agree to it.”
Adamat scratched his chin, looking at the embers of the coal stove, and shook his head. “I don’t see how this is important enough to kill over.”
“The biggest businessmen in Adro are against unionization. It’ll force them to pay higher wages for both skilled and unskilled labor. It’ll cut millions out of their profits. Some of these blood suckers would kill over a thousand krana, let alone what unionization will cost them.”
“I can see that,” Adamat agreed. “Can you give me a list of names?”
“What names?” Ricard asked, looking up.
“These businessmen. The ones who are the most vocally against you.”
“I thought they took you off the case?”
“They did. But something new has come up and I may have the opportunity to poke at your case.” Adamat forced a smile. “For old times’ sake.”
The look on Ricard’s face was almost worth the shit Adamat would get in if the commissioner found out Adamat was going anywhere near Ricard.
“Bless you,” Ricard said. “Yes, hold on. I’ll write them down.”
Adamat waited while Ricard had listed a half dozen family names as well as nineteen particular individuals. He memorized the list over Ricard’s shoulder, but folded it and put it in his pocket in case he needed it for evidence later. “I’m curious,” he said, “You’re a businessman yourself. Why are you for unionization? You’ll have to pay your own workers more.”
“I already pay my workers more,” Ricard said proudly, “and I have hard evidence that better pay and reduced hours actually increase productivity. I’m convinced that unionization will someday turn Adro into the industrial powerhouse of the Nine.”