Spell of Catastrophe | Page 8

part of the room, looked back at Gag. "Flogging?"
"Yeah, flogging," Gag said, "I mean like with whips. All these years he's shipping grain, oats, like, and then all of a sudden they say there's always been loot underneath. Treasure, I mean, gold, jewels, real loot. Buried under the oats, all these years. I mean, I've got nothing against oats, I've got to eat too, but oats isn't the same as loot."
"That's an interesting story, Gag," I said. "Now work the Creeping Sword into it."
"You out of your mind?" Gag said. "What's that?"
"That's what I'd like to know. You find it out and it's worth money."
"How's about a, whatta you call it, a retainer?"
"I'll pay," I said, "when I have something to pay for. Don't push your luck. You hear plenty of stuff, Gag, and that's good. Find out who started this talk about Skargool."
Gag scowled and drained the bottle. I had been keeping an eye on the rest of the room, watching for someone else, and now he came in, heading straight for a small table in the back of the place in a corner mostly in shadow. I rose and went over. A steaming casserole was already present on the table, and the guy was digging into it by the time I crossed the room.
I pulled up a chair across from him. "I want to talk to your boss," I said.
He didn't bother to look up; I was sure he'd spotted me on my way over. He didn't miss much, that's why he had the job he had. "Are you on a case," the man said, swallowing a mouthful off his knife, "or you just looking for some action?"
"It's a case."
He grunted, pulled a piece of fish out of the casserole, squinted at it, and threw it over his shoulder where it stuck to the wall. "We may have a job, too. Interested in some honest work for a change?" The guy laughed a coarse harsh laugh.
"Depends on the work," I said.
"Sure it does," he said. "Somebody'll come by your place."
"Right," I said. The table I'd shared with Gag and Slipron was empty, so I headed for the door. I was almost there when it crashed open behind a pair of lances and a rabble of tough-looking men wearing the freshly printed armbands of the Guard.
"All right, you goons," the corporal shouted as he raised a truncheon, "this place is closed! Move out to the street and -"
The place erupted. I ducked as a small table flew over my shoulder directly toward the corporal, plunged my fist into an eye, shook my left leg loose from a set of sharp teeth, and as I shoved a hand with a knife out of my way something crashed into my back and knocked me to the floor next to the wall. Sticking close by the wall, I dodged and crawled forward and climbed through a broken shutter onto the street. A knot of fighting guys spilled through the door to my left, the three Guard mercenaries watching the front of the building turned to deal with them, and I limped away from the bar down the street and around the first corner. My back was throbbing, but I figured that was part of the job; maybe I'd sock Skargool's wife for some extra expense money when I hit her with the final bill. I rinsed my face in a trough and walked away from the wharves into the city.
My office was over a laundry in the Ghoul's Quarter near the wall on the south side, the clapboard sign with its open staring eye creaking gently in the breeze from the river. A man was waiting outside my door at the top of the stairs. "You are examining the disappearance of Mr. Edrik Skargool?" he said.
"What's it to you if I am?" I said, unlocking the door.
He followed me into the office.
"I represent the Oolvaan Mutual Insurance Carriers."
Oh, no, I thought. "Insurance?"
"Yes indeed. Mr. Skargool has a substantial policy, amounting to perhaps 140,000 zalous."
I lowered myself gingerly into my chair. "Bonded insurance?"
"Yes, of course, bonded. Certainly."
Insurance, dammit, insurance. This was real trouble. I'd never worked an insurance case before, and I didn't want to start now. Look at it this way, a lawyer who'd once shared a bottle with me had explained things. When you can ride for an hour and get to a new place where there's a totally new set of laws and jurisdiction, when people disappear without a trace all the time, either because they're dead or just because they want to disappear, when you need to buy a policy in one city and know it'll be recognized someplace else, you've got to have one key thing. You've got to have some widespread authority nobody's going to argue with.
Insurance