Bitter Gold Hearts

______IV_______

Willa Dount spoke up. "There hasn't been anything yet. I expect we won't be contacted for a while." She looked at me, her expression making that a question. "They like to let the anxiety level rise before they come after you. It makes you more eager to cooperate."

"This is Mr. Garrett," she said. "Mr. Garrett is an expert on kidnappers and kidnappings."

"My god, Willa! Are you mad? They said don't tell anybody."

She ignored his outburst. "Mr. Garrett, this is the Stormwarden's consort, the Baronet daPena, the father of the victim."

How he twitched and jerked! Without changing her tone or expression, Domina Dount had hit him with a fat double shot, calling him consort (which labeled him a drone) and mentioning his baronetcy (which wasn't hereditary and purely an honor because he was the fourth son of a cadet of the royal house). She may even have gotten in a sly third shot there, if, as you sometimes heard whispered, Junior wasn't really a seed fallen from the senior.

"How do you do, Lord? He has a good question, Domina." I'd been working up to it when he burst in. "Why bring me in when the kidnappers said don't tell anybody? A man with my reputation, and you sent out what amounted to a platoon of clowns, with the girl dressed flashy enough to catch a blind man's eye. It's not likely the kidnappers won't hear about it."

"That was the point. I want them to."

"Willa!"

"Karl, be quiet. I'm explaining to Mr. Garrett."

He turned white. He was furious. She'd made it clear who stood where, who was in charge, in front of a lowlife from down the Hill. But he contained himself. I pretended blindness. It isn't smart to see things like that.Willa Dount said, "I want them to know I've brought you in, Mr. Garrett."

"Why?"

"For young Karl's sake. To improve his chances of getting through this alive. Would you say they're less likely to harm him if they know about you?"

"If they're professionals. Professionals know me. If they're not, chances are they'll go the other way. You may have moved too soon."

"Time will tell. It seemed the best bet to me."

"Exactly what do you want me to do?"

"Nothing."

She blind-sided me there. "What?"

"You've done what I needed you to do. You've been seen coming here to confer with me. You've lent me your reputation. Hopefully, Karl's chances have been improved."

"That's it?"

"That's it, Mr. Garrett. Do you think a hundred marks adequate recompense for the loan of your reputation?"

It was fine with me, but I ignored the question. "What about the payoff?" Usually they want me to handle that for them.

"I believe I can handle that. It's basically a matter of following instructions, isn't it?"

"Explicitly. The payoff is when they're most nervous. That's when you'll have to be most careful. For your own safety as well as the boy's."

Senior snorted and huffed and stamped, wanting to get his hand into the action. Willa Dount kept him quiet with an occasional touch of her icicle eyes.

I wondered what the Stormwarden had left her in the way of leashes and whips. She sure had the old boy buffaloed. Karl Senior was still a handsome man though he was running away from forty—if he had not already sneaked past fifty. Time had dealt him a few wrinkles but no extra pounds. His hair was all there, curly and slickly black, the kind that might not start graying for another decade. He was a little short, I thought, but that didn't hold him back. He looked like a fancy man, and word was that he did night work best.

Age had apparently not slowed him down. Those looks, a smooth tongue, his toy title, those magical eyebrows, and soulful big blue eyes all conspired to drop into his lap the sort of soft morsels we ordinary mortals have to scheme and fight just to get near.

It was a certainty he was no use in a crisis. He danced and twitched like a desperate kid awaiting his turn at the loo. He would have panicked if Domina Dount would have let him. He was a member of the royal house, those wonderfully firm and decisive folks who had blessed the Karentine people with their war against the Venageti.

Natural son or not, Karl Junior was a seed that had not fallen far from the tree. He was the image of Karl Senior in body and character, and to that menace to feminine virtue, he had added a generous helping of arrogance based on the fact that his mommy was the Stormwarden Raver Styx and he was her precious one and only, whose misdeeds would never be called to account.

Senior didn't like my being there. Maybe he didn't like me. If so, the feeling was mutual. I've been busting my butt since I was eight and I don't have any use for drones of any sort, and those from the Hill least of all. Their idleness got them into the kind of mischief that resulted in sending a whole generation south to fight over the silver mines of the Cantard.

Maybe Glory Mooncalled would turn on his Karentine employers once he polished off the Venageti Warlords. It wouldn't hurt.

I said, "If you've had your way with me, then I'll be running along. Best of luck getting the boy back."

Her expression said she doubted my sincerity. "You can find your way to the street?"

"I learned scouting when I was in the Marines."

"Good day, then, Mr. Garrett."

Karl Senior exploded the second I closed the door. It was a good door. I couldn't decipher his yells even when I put my ear to the wood. But he was having a good time working the panic and frustration out.