Orca by Steven Brust Read Free Book Online

you, Dor.”
    “What, you don’t have anything for me?”
    “Nope. I just want to see the upstairs man.”
    “For a minute there—”
    “Next time.”
    He shrugged. “You know the way.”
    Poor Dor. Usually when I come into his place it’s because I have something that’s too hot to unload in Adri-lankha, which means he’s going to get something good for a great price. But not today. I walked past him into the rear of the shop, up the stairs, and into a nice, plain room where a couple of toughs waited. One, a very dark fellow with a pointy head, like someone had tried to fit him through a funnel, was sitting in front of the room’s other door; the other one had arms that hung out like a mockman and he looked about as intelligent, although looks can be deceiving; he was leaning against a wall. They didn’t seem to recognize me.
    I said, “Is Stony in?”
    “Who wants to know?” said Funnel-head.
    I smiled brightly. “Why, I do.”
    He scowled.
    I said, “Tell him it’s Kiera.”
    Their eyes grew just a little bit wider. That always happens. It is very satisfying. The one stood up, moved his chair, opened the door, and stuck his head into the other room. I heard him speaking softly, then I heard Stony say, “Really? Well, send her in.” There was a little more conversation, followed by, “I said send her in.”
    The tough turned back to me and stood aside. I dipped him a curtsy as I stepped in past him—a curtsy looks silly when you’re wearing trousers, but I couldn’t resist. He stayed well back from me, as if he were afraid I’d steal his purse as I walked by. Why are people who will walk into potentially lethal situations without breaking a sweat so often frightened around someone who just steals things? Is it the humiliation? Is it just that they don’t know how I do it? I’ve never figured that out. Many people have that reaction. It makes me want to steal their purses. Stony’s office was deceptively small. I say deceptive because he was a lot bigger in the Organization than most people thought—even his own employees didn’t know; he felt safer that way. I’d only found out by accident and guesswork, starting when someone had hired me to lighten one of Stony’s button men and I’d come across pieces of his security system. Stony himself was pretty deceptive, too. He looked, and acted, like the sort of big, mean, stupid, and brutal thug that the Left Hand thinks we all are. In fact, I’d never known him to do anything that wasn’t calculated—even his famous rages always seemed to result in just the right people disappearing, and no more. Over the years, I’d tried to puzzle him out, and my opinion at the moment was that he wasn’t in this for the power, or for the pleasure of putting things over on the Guard, or anything else—he wanted to acquire a great deal of money, and a great deal of security, and then he planned to retire. I couldn’t prove it, I reflected, but I wouldn’t be at all surprised if someday he just packed up and vanished, and spent the rest of his life collecting seashells or something on some tiny island he owned.
    Over the years, I had gradually let him know that I knew where he stood in the Organization, and he had gradually stopped pretending otherwise when we were alone. It was possible that he liked having someone with whom he could drop the game a little, but I doubt it. All of this flashed through my mind as I sat in the only other chair in the room—the room just big enough to contain my chair, his chair, and the desk. He said, “Must be something big, for you to come here.” His voice was rough and harsh, and fitted the personality he pretended to; I assumed it was contrived, but I’ve never heard him break out of it.
    “Yes and no,” I said.
    “There a problem?”
    “In a way.”
    “You need help?”
    “Something like that.”
    He shook his head. “That’s what I like about you, Kiera. Your way of explaining everything so