The Lies of Locke Lamora - By Lynch, Scott Page 0,20

Salvara picked today to dodge out on his little ritual?”

“Don’t worry,” said Locke, briefly dropping the voice if not the posture of Lukas Fehrwight. “He’s quite devoted to his mother’s memory. A conscience can be as good as a water-clock, when it comes to keeping some appointments.”

“From your lips to the gods’ ears.” Calo worked the pole with cheerful ease. “And no skin off my balls if you’re wrong. You’re the one wearing a ten-pound black felt coat in the middle of Parthis.”

They made headway up the Angevine and came abreast with the western edge of the Temple District on their right, passing beneath a wide glass arch as they did so. Standing atop the middle of this bridge was a lean, dark-haired man with looks and a nose to match Calo’s.

As Calo poled the barge underneath the arch some fifty feet below, Galdo Sanza casually let a half-eaten red apple fall from his hands. The fruit hit the water with a quiet little splash just a yard or two behind his brother.

“Salvara’s at the temple!” Bug said.

“Sublime.” Locke spread his hands and grinned. “Didn’t I tell you he suffered from an impeccable sense of maternal devotion?”

“I’m so pleased that you only choose victims of the highest moral quality,” said Calo. “The wrong sort might set a bad example for Bug.”

At a public dock jutting from the northwestern shore of the Temple District, just under the heights of the city’s vast new House of Iono (Father of Storms, Lord of the Grasping Waters), Jean tied them up in record time and led Impediment—looking every bit the part of a wealthy merchant’s packhorse—up off the barge.

Locke followed with Fehrwight’s nervous dignity on full display; all the banter was now banked down like coals under a cookfire. Bug darted off into the crowds, eager to take up his watch position over the alley junction where Don Salvara’s ambitions would soon be sorely tempted. Calo spotted Galdo just stepping off the glass bridge, and casually moved toward him. Both twins were unconsciously fingering the weapons concealed beneath their baggy shirts.

By the time the Sanza brothers fell into step beside one another and began moving toward the rendezvous at the Temple of Fortunate Waters, Locke and Jean were already a block away, approaching from another direction. The game was afoot.

For the fourth time in as many years, in quiet defiance of the most inviolate law of Camorr’s underworld, the Gentlemen Bastards were drawing a bead on one of the most powerful men in the city. They were headed for a meeting that might eventually divest Don Lorenzo Salvara of nearly half his worldly wealth; now everything depended on the Don being punctual.

5

BUG WAS in a perfect position to spot the foot patrol before anyone else did, which was according to the plan. The foot patrol itself was also in the plan, after a fashion. It meant the plan was blown.

“You’re going to be top-eyes on this game, Bug,” Locke had explained. “We’re deliberately making first touch on Salvara on the most deserted street in the Temple District. A spotter on the ground would be obvious a mile away, but a boy two stories up is another matter.”

“What am I spotting for?”

“Whatever shows up. Duke Nicovante and the Nightglass Company. The king of the Seven Marrows. A little old lady with a dung-wagon. If we get interlopers, you just make the signal. Maybe you can distract common folk. If it’s the watch, well—we can either play innocent or run like hell.”

And here were six men in mustard-yellow tabards and well-oiled fighting harness, with batons and blades clattering ominously against their doubled waistbelts, strolling up from the south just a few dozen paces away from the Temple of Fortunate Waters. Their path would take them right past the mouth of the all-important alley. Even if Bug warned the others in time for them to hide Calo’s rope, Locke and Jean would still be covered in mud and the twins would still be (purposely) dressed like stage-show bandits, complete with neckerchiefs over their faces. No chance to play innocent; if Bug gave the signal, it was run-like-hell time.

Bug thought as fast as he ever had in his life, while his heart beat so rapidly it felt like someone was fluttering the pages of a book against the back of his lungs. He had to force himself to stay cool, stay observant, look for an opening. What was it Locke was always saying? Catalog! He needed to catalog