The Last Smile in Sunder City (The Fetch Phillips Archives #1) - Luke Arnold Page 0,26
there were plenty of open seats at the bar. I tipped back the stool to pour off the puddle of stout and sat beside a fat Northern fellow with a bald head, white shirt and suspenders. How did you even get fat these days? Most blue-collar workers were lucky to buy the basics. Before the Coda, he must have been a monstrosity.
Often, there was an art to my job. When I wanted to, I could turn on the charm or the attitude; play the informer or the ally. I could lead a mark down the garden path and turn a few words into a tripwire. I knew how to use a little tact when the occasion called for it, but the devil on my shoulder told me it wasn’t the time.
“I’m looking for a Nail Gang,” I grunted.
The hairless blob beside me stopped picking splinters out of the bar and made the muscles behind his neck flare up like a pair of angry whoopee cushions.
“Wha’ you say?”
A million smart-ass retorts danced on my tongue but I did my best to swallow them.
“Looking for a Nail Gang,” I repeated as I pulled up my sleeve. I kept one hand over the Opus tattoo, only showing him the others. The barcode closest to my elbow was similar to his own. “I hear there’s one in town. Just wondering if they need another hammer.”
He frowned. Inside that soggy coconut, his brain was struggling to suss me out. You might as well try to crank up a cinder-block and ride it cross-country.
“Wha’ prison’s that from?”
“Sheertop.”
That confused him. It didn’t seem to take much.
“Sheertop was where Magum kept their own criminals. It’s not for Humans.”
I leaned in, like I was telling him a secret.
“They make an exception when you really piss them off.”
He snorted into his pint.
“Come on then.”
He upended his glass into his fat face and shifted his weight off the stool. We pushed through the crowded room to a rowdy group of boys and a few girls posing beside the fireplace. They were younger than most of the clientele, the boys with faces full of shabby sprouts that wanted to believe they were beards. Try-hard tattoos and little blades were on show for all to see. Sure, I was cheap, but at least I had the decency to know it. These guys were garbage with self-esteem.
Old Baldy whispered into the ear of one of the kids. A tall, speckle-faced redhead in a black leather jacket, white T-shirt, and pale jeans. The holes in his jacket had been skewered with Mum’s scissors, just so he could stitch it up with gaudy yellow wire. A sad attempt to rough himself up in the eyes of his friends. He must have been a scout or recon man for the gang: a kid who hoped that bringing in recruits would let him climb up the ranks. He looked me over like I was a john in a whorehouse.
“What’s your beef with the Magum, tough guy?”
Tough guy? This place had less wit than it did women.
“Enough to fill a slaughterhouse,” I said, ready to stir a little truth into the lie so it would go down easy. “The so-called sacred have locked me up or thrown me out of town more times than I can remember. I spent my life being treated as a sub-class and when I fought back, I was given a rip in my ticker to make me remember where I stand. The magic is gone, I know that, and I know it ain’t ever coming back. But this world has made its miracles before, so I don’t want to take any chances. I want to be damn sure that if it does happen, there aren’t enough of them around to put themselves back on top.”
They swallowed it like syrup and the pockmarked teenager gave me an approving nod.
“Gilded Cemetery, midnight tonight. Bring something big and blunt.”
I couldn’t have got out of Swestum fast enough. Once I’d left that stinking part of the city behind, I let my knuckles relax and realized that it was raining again. Just a sprinkle, but enough to give me an excuse. That’s all a drinking man needs to drive him back to the bar: a reason to get out of the rain.
I found a hole in the wall called The Roost with one long bench beneath an awning and a list of drinks you could count on your fingers. The stiff shot of strong southern whiskey came real quick.