The Thief Who Pulled on Trouble's Braids
and there. Cautious heads popped out, saw blood, disappeared again as if by magic. I felt a numbness take hold. I turned back to the old man.
    “You see a body in the street, and all you can think to do is beat the dog that disturbed your sleep?” I squeezed the stick so hard the tendons in my hand began to creak in protest. He gabbled something unintelligible and began to scramble away from me on his backside, looking like something between a lizard and a crab. His yellowed eyes were wide. Like all bullies, he was a coward at heart. I was surprised he’d worked up the nerve to beat Bone. The mutt was eighty pounds of brindle-covered muscle, with a face that was fashioned for malign animal intent.
    I let him scuttle away into his ramshackle house across the street, and I let Bone keep howling. There was nothing to be done about either. As for Corbin, I didn’t cry for him. Bone was doing enough of that for the both of us. I squatted down next to him, realized I was still holding the old man’s courage stick. I threw it at his front door.
    I figured I had at least a few minutes, and probably much longer, before what passed for the law in Lucernis made an appearance. I wanted to move on before they showed up.

 
     
    Chapter Four
     
     
    It didn’t work out that way.
    Somebody gets cut up at night in Lucernis, maybe the corpse disappears before dawn, before awkward questions start getting asked. Nobody sees anything. Nobody wants to get involved. Not in a neighborhood like Corbin’s. Not usually, anyway.
    I took a good look at what they’d done to him. Maybe I had an idea I would like to reproduce it in reasonably accurate detail. Maybe I just wanted to know what I was up against. I don’t know. But when I moved to look over the damage, Bone stood between me and Corbin.
    “Too late now. Where were you when it happened?” I realized that was actually a good question. I put my hand out to him, murmured soothing nonsense. He sniffed. I suppose he recognized me, because a little of that murderous look went out of his eyes. But he wasn’t letting me manhandle what was left of his master. I settled for gently rolling Corbin over on his back. Which earned me a rumbling growl.
    The damage was extensive. Somebody had worked him over with a knife. It looked as if maybe some of it was controlled, precise. Like his missing fingers. The rest just looked like Corbin had tangled with somebody in a vicious barroom brawl. Slashes on his arms, his face. Rents in his shirt suggested he’d been stabbed maybe half a dozen times, two or three of which, depending on how deep they went, could have been immediate life-enders. I’d know more if I could undress him, but I didn’t really need to know any more, and it wasn’t worth struggling with the damn dog over. Maybe he was the wiser. It was done, and maybe all that was left was to mourn.
    I stepped back from the body and looked around. The sky was perceptibly lightening. No crowd yet. They’d show up after the law did. I walked over to Corbin’s house.
    The flimsy door gaped. It had been busted open from the inside; that much I could tell. The lock was engaged; the frame had given way first. I supposed an eighty pound dog could eventually have battered his way through, given sufficient motive. I glanced inside. Heavy furniture, a little dust. I hesitated. Whatever had happened, it hadn’t happened in there. With the neighbors peering out behind curtains, I decided to leave it for the constables.
    I ended up wishing I hadn’t.
    They came around the corner as I was walking back to Bone. They knew where they were going, and they knew what to expect. Somebody had probably sent their kid down to the local watch station.
    It was a pair. A fat, balding one and a young one so tall he looked stretched. Neither wore the entire uniform; Baldy had forgot or forgone his tabard, and Too-tall had substituted his deep blue woolen trousers for a paler, cooler, more wrinkled pair of

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