Locke Lamora and the Bottled Serpent. Part 2

9.

“But where do we go, hmm? And what do we ask for? For good young lads of, ah, negotiable affection? Can you at least be that much of a friend?”

The three men at the counter were sturdy, bearded, red-faced. Merchants of some sort not from Camorr proper, but up or down the coast. Locke knew the type. Their notions of prosperity armored them in smugness. They were after a little thrill in the wrong parts of the big city, having no idea of the scope or shape of Right People operations, and no idea how easy it was for someone to make a red breakfast for sharks and never be missed. It was two nights after Mazoc Szaba’s humiliation.

“To be a friend,” said Locke, “I’d tell you to get smartly out of here, and go west by north, back to where there’s more Yellowjackets on the streets. Back to the sort of inn or tavern you’d want for your own sort of business. Ask around there, keep your voices down. Folk will know how to direct you. Say you’re looking for miners.”

“But we don’t want to dig in the earth,” chuckled the most talkative of the three. “We want to get fobbed. We want the sweet ache sucked out of us, you ken?

“Miners. It’s cant. They’re called miners because they use their tools to find metal, get it? Say you’re after copper miners if your purses are light, silver miners if you can afford it.”

“Well, what about you, boy? If we didn’t want to stroll for our pleasure, how’d you like to do a bit of mining somewhere quiet nearby?”

Locke wasn’t offended or frightened, but he was exasperated. Nobody thought they were bigger than little merchants who did a bit of traveling. Nobody was more certain that all the features and curiosities of the world were set out for their convenience.

“Not my line,” he said, “and you can’t ask that here. There’s ways of doing things and places to do them, lots of places. But this business is closely minded.” He wasn’t going to spend all night explaining the Guilded Lilies or the Passing Fancies to these strangers, or that those gangs didn’t take kindly to freelance fuck-mongering.

“You’re telling us you don’t know a good place to hide around here?”

“The boy’s telling you he’s not interested.” Mazoc Szaba set one hand on the bar. “Get gone, you slack-witted palliards. He told you how to find your fun. Go find it somewhere better-lit and stay in those districts.”

The talkative merchant looked as though he might snap back, but Locke saw the fight go out of him as he assessed Szaba. There was something grim and assured about the old mercenary tonight. His eyes were fierce, there was a fresh cut across one of his cheeks, and the straight lines of a scabbard were obvious beneath his jacket. Perhaps that was why nobody had mocked or otherwise remarked upon him as he’d slipped into the Unbroken Jar.

Hands up, eyes wide, the three merchants backed out the door and into the night.

Locke stared at Szaba, wishing he could conjure such an aura of menace about himself but knowing if he tried he’d look like a clown. A small clown who’d lost control of his face. He settled for not smiling, and some of the iron seemed to go out of Szaba’s spine.

“I have earned that lack of enthusiasm, I suppose,” Szaba muttered. “I did some work.” He ran a finger over the inflamed red edges of his new cut. “None of the Barsavis are looking for me now.”

“Selling a sword?”

“Let us say, renting a knife.” Szaba slid his hand across the bar, and there were coins under his fingers. Four silvers. When Locke didn’t take them, he rolled his eyes. “Go on. They don’t have any blood on them. Even the figurative kind. I was bodyguarding, not body-making. Fuck. I shouldn’t have run those idiots off. Should’ve hired on as their guide.”

Locke nodded and made the coins vanish into his hands. “And the rest?”

“In prospect.” Szaba lowered his voice. “I appreciate you staking me, boy. I won’t let you down.”

Yet he would, not long after sea creatures fell from the sky over half the city.