Tomorrow, the Killing Read Free Page A

and then, wanting to say something to steady him, ‘It was good seeing you again, General. I have . . . fond memories of you, and your son.’ We were back to lies. I did have happy memories of Roland – but they were mixed evenly with some very terrible ones.
    He didn’t seem to hear me, which was just as well. The leather seat stuck to my ass as I stood. ‘I’ll take my leave of you, then.’
    He nodded a farewell, lost in thoughts far from happy.
    The palm of my hand was settled against the brass door handle when the image of a man flashed through my mind. A man who looked something like the general, but with the same shock of auburn hair as the woman in the locket I’d left lying on the table. His eyes were bright as a torch, the kind of eyes you’d follow anywhere – wild eyes, dangerous eyes, eyes that promised you things you shouldn’t believe in.
    ‘I could keep my ears open,’ said the idiot in the badly tailored suit. ‘I’m not promising anything, but . . .’
    Montgomery shot up from the table, nearly sprinting towards me, forgetting his age in the excitement. ‘Damn decent of you, damn decent of you!’ He pressed the locket into my hand, and his grip was firm. ‘I’ll pay you anything you need, you don’t worry about that. Just send me a bill and I’ll cover it, double it – anything you need.’
    At that moment I needed to get the hell out of his house, and I was about to do so when something occurred to me. ‘One more thing, General,’ I said. ‘What was the fight about?’
    The happy set of his face flushed away. ‘It was about her brother,’ he answered. ‘And the circumstances of his murder.’
    I left without saying anything further, through the parlor and past Botha’s scowl, out the long hallway that led to the front room, through the gilded door and into the street. The sun shone down on a man who wished he’d had the last five minutes to do over again. Wished he’d had more than that, really, but who’d have settled for the last five minutes.
2
    I t was hotter back in the old neighborhood than it had been at the general’s, hot enough to dry up what little legitimate commerce existed and throw a pretty good dent in the illegitimate businesses as well. I managed to make it all the way back from Kor’s Heights with nothing more than a half-hearted catcall from a fabulously decrepit whore. I gave her an argent and told her to get out of the sun.
    I felt a brief moment of relief as I slipped into the confines of the Staggering Earl. There wasn’t much to be said about the establishment of which I was half-owner. It was an unexceptional neighborhood bar in an unexceptional section of Low Town – ugly, threadbare, and catering to a class of customer straddling that narrow line between rough and outright criminal. But it was cool, and that was something. Actually, with the weather hot enough to bake bread, it was a lot.
    It might have been enough if Adolphus, my partner and the nominal head of our enterprise, had been around to pour me a draft of ale. But he wasn’t. Nor was Adeline, his wife and the person actually responsible for the bar’s solvency. The common room was empty, rows of rough-hewn tables leading to a long counter and the private area behind. After a moment I heard voices wafting in from the back, and, curious, followed them to their source.
    When I’d first met him, back during the half-decade we’d spent murdering people in the service of our country, Adolphus had been as impressive a physical specimen as one could have put eyes on. Well enough over six feet that there was no point in measuring him, with a pair of arms the size of a thick man’s legs and a back broad enough to run a cart over. Admittedly, his face was acne-scarred and homely, but the head it was attached to was set so far in the air that you barely noticed. He’d mustered out looking much the same, though now absent an eye courtesy of a Dren crossbow. Thirteen years of soft living and