Among Thieves Read Online Free PDF Page A

ready for you.” The merchant lumbered to the back of his stall and made a production of rooting around. I amused myself by tossing figs to a couple of bazaar urchins. Degan ate and watched the crowd.
    “Hunh, business is bad,” said Mendross when he came back. He slipped a small pouch behind the bushel. I took it, making sure anyone who knew their business would catch the handoff.
    “Tough all over,” I said. “But it’s nothing personal. . . .”
    Mendross resurrected his frown. “Yeah, I know. It’s just business.” He spit off to one side.
    The pouch was filled not with coins, but seed pits and gravel. It was a false payoff, a bogus protection dodge for the benefit of any curious Kin, as was our chatter. Mendross was an Ear—he worked for me.
    I smiled at his display and sampled some nearby dates. I had noticed no one hanging around the surrounding stalls any longer than they should, so I gave Mendross a tiny nod, as if in appreciation of the fruit. He leaned forward and began rearranging a pile of oranges. It brought his face near mine.
    “Niccodemus wants you,” said the Ear, his lips barely moving.
    “Why?”
    Mendross shook his head as he set a bad orange aside. “Don’t know. I only heard the call.”
    “Is it urgent?”
    He gave a minuscule shrug.
    I considered. Nicco could want me for anything, from running down a rumor to handing me a new job. And all of them would involve my going well out of my way, rather than home to bed, which was where I desperately wanted to be.
    I sighed and picked up an orange. I needed sleep. I didn’t want to go running down any more rumors or Kin this morning.
    “Nothing about its being important?” I asked.
    “Nothing.”
    “All right,” I said, piercing the skin of the orange with my thumbnail. The sharp, sweet smell made my nose tingle. “Get word back: I need to—No, I have to follow up on something this morning. I’ll see him tonight, after I’ve run things down.” It wasn’t the best answer and wouldn’t win me any points, but it would cover my ass until I finally knocked on Nicco’s door.
    Mendross made a show of looking resigned, nodding as if at the inevitable loss of the orange. Translation: Word would get back. I suppressed a grin: Mendross had missed a calling to the stage.
    “Anything else?” I said.
    “There’re rumblings in Ten Ways.”
    I snorted. “There are always ‘rumblings’ in Ten Ways.” Ten Ways was a hole of a cordon that no one truly controlled. Nicco had minor interests there, but so did several other bosses. “Let me guess: A couple of gangs crossed steel over their border and one of Nicco’s clients got clipped in the process. Now the client’s complaining about not getting the protection he paid for.”
    Mendross stopped rearranging his produce and stared at me. “There wasn’t a gang fight involved, but yes, that’s basically it. Why do I bother telling you these things if you already know them?”
    I smiled slyly. I’d come out of Ten Ways years back—I knew how the place worked.
    I separated out a section of orange. Juice trickled down into my palm. “Next?” I said.
    Mendross went back to work on a pile of dates. “There’re whispers,” he said, his voice dropping. “Someone’s snilching Nicco.”
    I stopped, the orange midway to my mouth, which had suddenly gone dry. “Snilching?” I said. That wasn’t good. No one liked spies, but Nicco was pathological about them. Even the hint of another crime lord’s man inside his organization would send Nicco into a rage. And when that happened, he’d tear the place apart until he found one, even if he had to manufacture the proof out of rumors and suspicion.
    In that kind of environment, suspicion could fall on anyone—even on the people, like me, who were supposed to track rumors and informants.
    “How loud are these whispers?” I said.
    “Soft, for now.”
    “Any idea where they started?”
    Mendross shrugged. “Someone said someone else said his