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“He was all right, and I worked with him ten years.”
“Then you would not object if I covered his face?”
“Nah. Go ahead.”
She did, standing and smoothing the black skirt of her habit, taking short steps to the. side of the corpse, kneeling, and spreading a dirty handkerchief she took from her sleeve over its face. “May Great Pas pardon your spirit.”
“No more — ah — the vision.” Remora was addressing no one. “An, er, administrative post, eh? Finance. Most, er, plausibly. Finance. No.”
“Muzzle it,” Spider told him. “See, sib, there’s this place where they was diggin’ one of these tu
Maytera Mint nodded.
“Martyr, hey? No martyrs since, ah—”
“They went fifty, sixty steps in and quit. I don’t know why. Quit in dirt. We’re under the city, and it’s mostly dirt up here.”
“Are we? I thought you were taking us to the lake.”
“Maybe we will, but we’re takin’ you here for now. We meet down here sometimes. Meet with Councillor Potto, and when we get somebody, we generally leave him where you two were. It’s a old storeroom, I guess, but I don’t—” They heard the thunderous boom of a slug gun, attenuated by distance but unmistakable.
“Guan must of shot somethin’,” Spider told Maytera Mint.
“Or he was shot himself.”
“He’s a rough boy. He can take care of himself. What was I talkin’ about?”
“How you bury the other rough boys.” She sighed. “It was interesting. I’d like to hear more about it.”
“Sure.” Spider sat down facing her, his needler still in his fight hand. Settled in his place, he held it up. “I could put this away. You aren’t goin’ to jump me, either of you.”
“I — ah — intend it,” Remora muttered.
“Huh! I don’t think so.” Spider thrust the needler into his coat. “Like I said, sib, there’s a big door, and I got the word for it. Councillor Potto told it to me a long time back. So you go in and where it ends there’s dirt. Down towards the lake, where they run deeper, it’s all rock or shiprock, but up this high there’s a lot of dirt.”
“I understand.”
He touched the shiprock wall. “Behind here’s dirt. I can tell from how it’s made. What we do, when somebody’s chilled up in the city and there’s nobody for them, we bring them down. Or if somebody dies down here. That happened one time.”
Seated again, Maytera Mint nodded toward the corpse.
“Lily. Twice, now. But before, one of my knot got hurt up there and we brought him down, but he died. We dig straight in, like, into the dirt till the hole’s long enough. We got rolls of poly. We lay some poly in the hole and wrap them up in some more, and slide them right in.” He looked at her quizzically, and she nodded.
“Then we put some dirt back to fill the hole, right? And everybody’s got a shiv.” He took a big stag-handled clasp knife from his pocket. “We write the name and some stuff about him on a piece of paper, and we stick it up with his shiv so we don’t dig there again for anybody else.”
“As a memorial, too,” Maytera Mint suggested, “though I doubt that you would admit it.”
“That’s lily, sib, I wouldn’t. It’s just somethin’ for the older bucks like me. When we go in there again we look at them, and then maybe we tell the new culls. Like we used to have cull name of Titi that would put on a gown and pay his face like they do. Not you, sib. You know what I mean, powder and rouge, and all that. Perfume.”
She nodded. “Indeed I do, and I’m not offended in the least. Go on.”
“Give Titi a half-hour, and he’s the best lookin’ mort in the city. He kept his hair kind of long, and he could fix it just a little different and it was a mort’s hair cut short. Not as short as yours, but short, and soon as you saw it you knew it was a mort’s hair. If Titi hadn’t paid his dial, that shaggy hair’d make you abram. You’d be talkin’ to yourself.”
“A person like that must have been of great value to you.”
“Lily, he was. He was a bob cull, too. There was this time when we were workin’ on a knot from Urbs. We knew who they was and what they was after, and was peery a while to see what they done and who they talked to. We do it in our trade all the time. We’d see they found out things Councillor Potto wanted Urbs to know, and we’d foyst in queer, too, fixed so they’d like it. One came fly. Know what I mean, sib?”
“I believe so.”
“We could’ve done for him. Chilled him, you know. But we don’t unless we got to.”
Remora looked up. “Urn — inevocable. No — ah — going back after, eh?”
“Slap on, Patera. That’s her in a egg cup. You know this one, see? He’s a hog grubber, won’t spend. Or he’s one of them that lushes till shadeup and don’t forget a thing. Whatever. Soon as he’s cold, it’s all down the chute, and Urbs’ll send a new cull.
“So what I laid to was to get him nabbed. I got Titi to hook him and go ’round to two, three places so’s to get some to say they seen them. Then Titi went to Hoppy and capped I been ramped. The Urber done it. They got him to go along to finger.
“I knew the ken, so’d Titi, and I was keepin’ him there. I’d planted books goin’, to keep him on top. Not lumb, but lowre enough, you know, to have him sure he’d draw my deck.”
“I — ah — dishonest game? You, er, cheated?” Spider. Did you?”
“Sure thing. But not ski
“In they prance, and Titi fingered the Urber and blubbed like two morts, and the hoppies grabbled him and what’s your name, you’re for iron.”
“Rape is a very serious charge,” Maytera Mint protested. “He could have been sent to the pits.”
“Sure thing, but Titi wasn’t goin’ to dock. I wanted him shy of his knot to Pasday, that’s all. Well, he broke and run at Titi. Petal, what’re you doin’ to me, and the rest, and he’s nabbed a flicker and bashes it on the cat ladder.”
“A wine bottle as a weapon, you mean?” This was a foreign whorl to Maytera Mint.
“A glass tumbler, sib, but it’s the same notion.” Spider chuckled. “Titi fans him so hard he’s back across and on my knee if I hadn’t hopped. Knocked over my perch and both down together.
“Now right here’s where my jabber pays. Titi run to him bawlin’ like a calf with the cow in the kitchen, and Hoppy? Never twigged. I was on velvet. Showed me the door. Titi had to stay and cap, which he did, and Hoppy never twigged. I’d like to turn up another, but I’ve never seen any half so fine, not even on boards.”
“Yet he’s dead,” Maytera Mint said pensively. “He’s dead and buried in that place you told us about, because there was no one else who cared enough to bury him. Otherwise we would not be talking about him. How did he die?”
“I was hopin’ you wouldn’t quiz me, sib.”
She smiled. “I’ll withdraw the question if you’ll call me Maytera. Will you do that for me?”
“Sure thing.” Spider’s hand massaged his stubbled jowls. “I’m goin’ to tell you anyhow. Thing is, some culls nicker. All right, it’s abram. But, well…”
“But he was your friend.”
“Nah. I miss him, though. I brought him in. I found him, and I got him in, helped him out of a queer lay he was standin’ and all that, and pretty quick he’s a dimber hand. Everybody knew, all my knot. They stood him wide. You wouldn’t think, and they didn’t to start, but after a while. I told about how he said the Urber ramped him.”
“Yes, you did.”
“A buck tried it, see, Maytera? He got down to shag and twigged Titi’s yard, and did for him on account. Squeezed his pipe for him.”
“That’s sad. I understand perfectly why you dislike it when people laugh. May I ask about him, too?” She gestured toward the corpse. “What was his name?”