The Mister Trophy Read Free

out on his brow.
    “Relax,” I said. “I’m joking. My name is Markhat. I run a Finder’s outfit down on Cambrit. I’m here to inquire about the Troll’s head, that’s all.”
    He licked his lips. His eyes darted right and left. I could see he had things to tell, and reasons not to tell them, and he was weighing the “what ifs” against the “if thens”.
    “I’m not here to start any trouble,” I said, softly. I put on the same kind of smile I’d flash at a fussy baby and hoped I had better luck than I usually did. “I’ve been hired to find out if a Troll’s head is here. That’s all. Yes or no.”
    I widened my smile. “My clients will of course be happy to pay for information,” I said. “I believe they’d be most generous.”
    He was about to speak. He knew better, but something that looked like an uneven combination of guilt and greed had tipped the scales, just like I’d hoped it would.
    The doors on the far side of the foyer suddenly banged open and a small, well-dressed army of cooks, gardeners and coachmen marched inside, a tall cadaverous butler at the fore. “Get out,” he said, addressing me with the boldness that comes with knowing you’ve got the other guy hopelessly outnumbered. “Leave this House at once.”
    The doorman with things to tell joined his comrades, his eyes downcast, his jaw set and grim. Whatever he’d wanted to say was gone, and I doubted I’d ever tempt it forth again.
    But I didn’t need specifics to know I’d found at least part of what I’d come for.
    I fixed the skinny butler in a steely glare. “Your shoes could use a shine, Reeves,” I told him. “I won’t have you besmirching the House with your sloth again.”
    Then I hung my nose in the air and beat it out of there. I was sure they’d throw me out anyway—I just wasn’t sure they’d open the door first.
    I put the tall dark houses and the big green lawns to my back and set a brisk pace. The wind in my face was off the Brown River; it stank of dead fish and cattle-barges and, always, something burning, but I sucked down lungfuls of it anyway. House Haverlock had smelled of undertaker’s flowers, and mortuary perfumes, but even the combination of both couldn’t quite erase the odor of death that rode the air in every ornate hall or well-appointed room.
    But I’d stomped on a memory in the old doorman, and that caused me to remember something as well—stories about a big dust-up in the Heights about ten years back. Half-dead in-fighting is hardly unusual—they kill each other much more often than they kill us day folk—but this clash had been unusual in that most of a five-House common hall was demolished and half-dead were actually spotted fleeing the scene, cloaks flapping, shiny shoes a blur.
    What if Mister Smith wasn’t the first Troll to come calling in the Heights?
    Somebody bumped into me and cussed because I’d stopped dead in my tracks. I muttered an apology and took off.
    Even Trolls, it seems, like to edit their truths.

 
    Chapter Two
     
    I sat in my office and watched the sun sink. Nine bells rang and curfew fell across Rannit like the ragged cloak it is, which meant that the brave, the foolish and the felonious were still very much out and about. The Watch would stop a few curfew-breakers, send a few home and make “Well, what do you expect?” faces at missing persons reports tomorrow.
    I stowed the Trolls out of sight but in easy reach. Mister Smith was in my room behind the office. Mister Jones was in Mama Hog’s, next door. Mister Chin was squeezed in the alley two Troll-strides down the street.
    There’s a street-lamp right across from my door, and every shadow it cast at my office was that of a half-dead, slinking my way with murder on its lips and mayhem on its mind. I got out my old Army field knife and laid into the long steel blade with a whetstone, pausing to admire its edge only when a shadow bobbed toward my door.
    Two hours after Curfew, he came.
    I never