Hold The Dark: A Markhat story by Frank Tuttle Read Free Book Online

nearer the Velvet than my place. All confirmed that the comb was solid silver, of good if not excellent workmanship. As a less than artful piece, it bore no maker’s mark, and yes, they’d all seen similar combs before—swans were very popular with the ladies, a few years back—but no, they couldn’t tell me any particular shop or jeweler who specialized in such things.
    Two had offered to buy the comb, on the spot, which led me to believe the workmanship was a bit closer to artful than any of them admitted.
    Finally, none of the jewelers I spoke to had ever sold such a piece. Oh, they were quite certain. Most emphatically no.
    And, at about that time, each discovered an urgent bit of dusting that needed their immediate and full attention.
    “So much for that,” I said, after being shooed out of the last shop with an insistence that bordered on the rude. I wrapped the comb in its handkerchief and set out on the street again.
    I was back on Sellidge, back among the bankers and the hoop skirts and the well-scrubbed smiling faces. I was glad I’d stopped off at the bathhouse at the end of my street, glad my old Army dress jacket was easily mistaken for a spring day coat, glad my black parade dress shoes still took a shine with reasonable success.
    And after half a block north, I was glad I’d walked—because otherwise I might never have spotted the man I immediately dubbed Mister Nervous Hat.
    He’d been there when I crossed the street at Argen. I’d seen him—that’s all, merely seen him—waiting with the mob the traffic master had stopped just after my mob had crossed. He’d been adjusting his hat then, pushing it back with his right hand.
    He’d been behind me again at Vanth, crossing with me this time, holding his hat down as a vagrant breeze blew from the south, a hint of soot in its wake.
    And there he was again, half a block south of me, standing in front of a coat maker’s shop and inspecting his reflection in the glass.
    He reached up, made a minuscule adjustment to his hat and began to saunter toward me, not a care in the world.
    I grinned and turned and set out north.
    I knew a few things about Mister Nervous Hat. First, he hadn’t followed anyone before, or he would know better than to stop when your mark stops, and go when your mark goes. He would know better than to interrupt the flow of foot traffic around him by pausing to stare into storefront mirrors, and he would know better than to repeat the same action—the hat touching, in his case—more than once while the mark is turned your way.
    And I knew he was alone. Another mistake—you want to tail a man in the open and on the move, you need at least three tails. And they should be able to hand off to one another, to pass the mark and turn away from the mark and have the good sense to keep moving while the other guy takes over for a while.
    But not Mister Nervous Hat. He was just a kid, really, ten years my junior, if the quick glance I’d gotten was correct. Well-dressed, clean-shaved, hair the color of cut hay.
    I picked up my pace, eyed the streets ahead, timing it so that I could cross the street before him. I made it, stayed in the middle of the mob, found the place I was looking for and ducked quickly inside, confident that Nervous Hat hadn’t seen me.
    “Good morning, sir,” said the same haberdasher who’d offered to fit me for a jacket the evening before. He smiled and crossed the well-worn plank floor of his shop. “Has sir changed his mind?”
    “I have indeed,” I said, patting my pocket just to set the coins a tinkling. He’d already seen my army jacket, and I wasn’t going to fool him into thinking I was a banker’s assistant even in the shop’s dim light. “Time to update my wardrobe. I think I’ll even have a hat or two.”
    The shopkeeper smiled, eyed me critically and moved toward a rack.
    “Excellent,” he said, a twinkle in his eye. “I have just what sir needs.”
     
    And he did. I walked out with a light