The Clarity of Cold Steel
Chapter 21

WHEN MORNING REARS its sour mug, I’m back in the Boneyard plying lies with the Swede kid’s folks about their loyal lost dead boy, Lars. And I learn nothing pertinent. Nothing useful. Nothing new. The trifecta. Gortham’s still taken, still gone, and my only link to him is this man in the iron mask.

So I do what I do. Which is pour through all of my usual snitches, bitches, and tell-alls, inquiring on behalf of this masked badman. A fairly sinister-sounding chap, he must be known to someone somewhere for something. Somehow. But my theory’s a sieve. I work my way down the east side of Mortise Locke, running the gamut north to south from Malabar, down through Seaside and Firedamp, then into the Seep and onto Gallow’s Tor. Asking. Asking. Asking. Learning nothing, nothing, nothing. Around midday, I catch a steam-junket across the strait to the isle of Shoreditch, shithole that it is, and around nightfall end up in Stemming.

Head down, marching on, I watch the eyes of the crowd through peripherals. Glancing in storefronts, I look at reflections over my shoulder rather than cheap paraphernalia. Paranoia keeps you honest. Honed. Alive. It’s hell on your guts, though.

No one’s heard of this masked man, at least not in the cesspits I’m plying. Of course, it occurs to me he’s a high-end shitheel and probably ain’t the type to ply these waters himself on a regular basis. A bloke with a crew jacked up with the gear they’re sporting? He ain’t knocking over opium dens, now is he? Which begs the question: why’d he go to the Boneyard for a quick cropper snatch? Why not shop it out? I don’t have any answers to my own questions so I keep asking everybody else. But I try to question in a gentle manner cause if this bloke catches wind I’m snooping about him he might decide to start snooping about me. And I ain’t so keen on that course of action.

And it seems I have grown a tail. All through the claustrophobic alleyways of the Seep and on up through Gallow’s Tor, I’ve had that feeling. Eyes on the prize and the prize is me. I keep my beak to the grindstone and tarry on, but a shadow’s creeping closer, the hairs on the back of my neck prickling in anticipation. Ain’t so grand being stalked so I try and turn tables.

For an hour, gun in hand, I crouch behind a dumpster strewn with garbage and crawling with brown maggots. Waiting for some shadow to appear, to make a move. But nothing happens. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe no one’s following me. But I know they are.

So my abyssal odyssey continues and I start working the snakeheads and other illegal doks plying their trade up and down the coast. Transplanters and grafters and black medic outfits. A rough trade. I start by asking about high-end jobs, but it’s all the same. Wide eyes. Pregnant pauses. Stiff-necked shakes of the head. No leaks on these ships and most of them would just as soon spoon out my geriatric liver as talk. There’s no Hippocratic Oath with these gents, only the clarity of cold steel and the promise of more. So I’m back at square one, and that’s me being optimistic.

But I do know how the biz works.

I know cause I’m alive today. Had a firsthand rollercoaster ride through the wonderland of Mortise Locke’s meat market. After my ‘little accident’ and bout with the slough, my whole system crashed. I spent several months with an implanted dog-kidney filtering my blood, all while attached to a ventricular-assist device and inside an iron lung. Don’t recall much of it. Possibly the sole benefit of a drug-induced coma.

Hands shoved deep into pockets, I can feel eyes on me as I trudge past a derelict factory, all blown out and charred. It was a ship repurposer, taking old timber and making stuff out of it. Had a sawdust explosion about a year past. Or some sort of union uprising, depending on which paper you read. Only numbers that jived? Lotta blokes got killed. Through a slumped doorway, all black with cracked cinder, I duck inside the charnel shell and hoof it through lines of scorched machinery, disappear down a hatchway and melt into the darkness. I double back out a window on another side of the building, wondering if my tail’s savvy enough to maintain. Thing is, even if you succeed, you might never know.

Half an hour later, I’m through the plague wall and sipping a mug full of piss-warm changa in a dive on the coast of the Seep. Overlooks the sad expanse of Boneyard Bay. My eyes are on the door. The room’s dark cause there’s no one here wants to see anyone’s mug or suffer the vice of versa. The Seep ain’t known for slick makeup and done-up hair. Monocles and silk. It’s known for two things: drugs and murder.

Been here two hours now. Waiting. Waiting on whoever’s been tailing me to pop his head through the door, wondering if I gave them the slip or they just hunkered down for a barrage of shots-full of numb.

A shadow ducks in, cases the joint like he’s just perusing, eyeballs quick, here and there and everywhere. Looks familiar.

“Hey kid,” I say as the shadow wraiths by.

Brooklyn freezes, straightens, turns, relaxes, a smile spreading wide across his imp face, playing it cool. The boy has grit and presence of mind, I’ll give him that. “They’ll kill you in this joint, just for being a shade darker than porcelain,” Brooklyn hisses low.

“Imagine what they’ll do to you,” I say.

“What the hell you been doing?”

“I could ask you the same thing.” I take a sip. “In fact, why don’t I do that now?”

“You being followed, my man,” Brooklyn warns.

“Right,” I say, “by you.”

“Naw — well, yeah. But you being followed by someone elses, too.”

“Elses?”

“Few of them. Five of them, to be precise.”

“Five?” I whistle. “Mom’d be proud.”

“Just thought you should know.”

I fix him an eye. “You just thought I should know? What bullshit is that? You going all Samaritan on me? Seen the errors of your ways? Hallelujah. Bless me, lord, for I have seen the light, and all that? Or are you pulling the same pony-league bullshit from the Nostromo?”

“No way, my man,” he pats his chest, “took your words to heart.”

“And what’re you doing on dry land?” I press the attack. “You just happen to be in the neighborhood?” I keep a paw on my gun. “You’re no lubber.”

“You know it, my man.”

“I can’t keep warning you.”

“You ain’t.”

“I am.”

“You are, I mean, but you don’t need be. I’m here for you.”

“You’re here on my behalf?” I ruminate. Ponder. He is just a kid, but if he’s pulling another Benedict behind my back, or right in front of my bloody mug, I’m gonna need to address it. Harshly. At some point. “Then beat it. Those five catch up with me, you’ll be wishing you were in Red Chapel.”

“Sure enough, but I have to.”

“More bullshit.” I straighten up. “Why you tailing me?”

“My chief, he says I owe you. Says I owe you bigtime, you see? A matter of face, he says. So I’m sidekicking you for the foreseeable haul.”

“You told him about selling me down the river?” I ask through one skeptical eye.

“Well, sorta…” He looks down. Away.

“Sorta?” I sit back, cross my arms, give him the ole math teacher glare.

Brooklyn nods, embarrassed, shrugs it off. “Man’s possessed of a keen eye and keener insight. A compass that points true north, y’see? Relentlessly. And he barks a question your way, you don’t want to be all sly-tonguing him.” He nods at the seat across from me. “You mind?”

I hold out my hand, aware that I can’t watch both him and the front door simultaneously. I slide my chair, angle it just so. Voilà.

He slides in across from me. My Webley-Colt’s under the table, aimed at his gut. He doesn’t know it, or maybe he does. “Anyways, my chief, you lie to him, you’ll wish you hadn’t, you dig? Well, he sussed something was up. Don’t know how. And asked me the question, the one about me and you and my traitoring, and my bowels went loose and feet froze.” He swallows. “Had to fess up.”

I nod. The Chieftain’s an imposing fella, straight and severe as his war spear, all sinew and corded muscle, near seven-feet tall, and his top hat surely puts him near eight. The man looks like he could run down a flash-wagon barefoot. “Got that feeling myself.”

“Well, what can I do?” Brooklyn asks.

“How do I know you’re not one of these five following me?”

“I ain’t.” He glances at the front door. “It’s all I can say.”

“Bottom line is, I don’t trust you,” I say. “So beat it.”

“Please.” Fingers worrying at the ascot at his throat. “My man. I … I gotta stay. I got to.” His hands are splayed out suddenly, desperately, nails biting into the table, trembling. “Please.” His eyes are wide, pupils constricted. “I show up with pockets empty—” He swallows, lowers his head, rubs it. “I gotta atone, he says. Gotta make it jive. Says the whole tribe’s name’ll suffer. Says if I don’t…”

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“I’m begging you,” he moans, trembling, collapsing in his chair. “He’ll skin me alive!” Tears are streaming free now, and his hands are clutched, fingers interwoven, praying, praying to me, praying for absolution, praying to the avatar of the god of I-don’t-give-a-shit.

I light a cig, offer him one but he’s losing his shit, staring vacant down at his hands, eyes bugging, seeing something no one wants to see. “Well, shit,” I sit back, relenting like the pussycat I am, “you savvy I’m up shit’s creek?”

“I was there, remember?” Brooklyn wipes away a tear. “I seen how you deep-sixed Draegar and his squids. I can handle it.” His hand is up, oath-taking. “I swear.”

“I’ve a feeling he’s a kitten compared to the tiger I’m tailing.” I shake my head. “You don’t want any piece of him. You can hang it up, take a powder, spin your chief some rosy yarn. I won’t blab.”

“So, you mean it?” Brooklyn’s tears are still streaming, but he’s a new man as he glances up. “I’m in? For real?”

“I’m getting you off the hook.”

“Don’t want off. Want a way on.”

“Your chief puts the screws to you, I’ll back you,” I offer, hand to heart, my last valiant attempt.

“Shit yeah!” He slaps the table in glee. “So I’m back in?”

I sip my sour beer and sit back. Consider. I’d had that feeling I was being tailed, and when Brooklyn tipped his hand, I figured on it being him. But if he’s talking square and there are five hounds sniffing around… “You know who the men are tailing me?”

Brooklyn shakes his head. “Naw. They been at it since the afternoon, though. Since you got off the ferry from Shoreditch. Been nosing after you all through Gallow’s Tor. You lost them in that old factory, though. Wiley old cat.” He thumps his chest in pride. “Not me, though.”

“You’ve got no idea?”

“Well,” he fingers his lip, “those boys know what they’re doing. Switching tails every few blocks or so. Regular like. Neatly done. Even had reversible coats. Different hats. Watched them flipping them inside out in an alley. All flash changing to trash. Staying fresh.” He scratches his chin. “Funny, though, it’s easy tailing someone tailing someone else.”

“Who do you think they are?” I fix him the eye, use my big boy voice.

“Seem like coppers to me, but,” he clears his throat, coughs, a twinkle in his mercenary eye, “I been wrong before.”

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