I’ll give the little rat this much, he put up a good struggle. No matter how scared they are—of their surroundings and of the very idea of hiring a strangler in the first place—I never saw one of these greedy heirs apparent who’d cough up the fee without squabbling. But it didn’t bother me. The kid wasn’t a shadow of his great-grandfather when it came to haggling. And Greyboar could say what he wanted—personally, I was looking forward to getting rid of that ancient horse trader. Wouldn’t ever have to listen to him again, the venerable Monsoor Etienne Avare.
Yep, the Merchant Prince himself—our newly contracted chokee-to-be. The richest man in New Sfinctr, some said. That wasn’t actually true. There were several dukes and archbishops—not to mention the Queen—who had fortunes to make Avare’s look like a child’s piggy bank. But he was certainly the wealthiest member of the parvenu classes. And, in any event, after a while the whole point becomes moot. Even somebody as greedy and tight fisted as me thought hoards that big were ridiculous. I mean, what’s the fun of having so much money that you can’t even count it?
Quite a guy, actually, Monsieur Etienne Avare. He’d amassed a fortune as a young entrepreneur, and then kept it growing all through his later years. Even when his years got later and later and later. Over a hundred years old, he was. He’d outlived all his sons and daughters, all his grandsons and granddaughters, and was halfway through the next generation.
Not without some help, of course. Greyboar was right about that—Avare had been a steady customer over the years. Every few months we’d get invited to his mansion, have a nice gentlemanly chat over brandy, and then get a commission to burke whichever one of his descendants had succeeded in convincing Avare they were worthless bums not worthy of inheriting his money. Very high standards he had, the Merchant Prince. Two generations had failed to meet them already.
Greyboar always liked the work. It was not only steady, but it was completely free of petty nuisances. The porkers who examined the deceased would invariably report them as suicides or accidents. One of the benefits, you’ll understand, of having a merchant prince as a client. But, of course, he’d never had to deal with Avare’s haggling. As soon as the brandy was finished, and the deal agreed to, Greyboar would make his grand exit while I had to stay and do the dirty work. The brandy snifters would disappear in a flash, replaced by a tumbler of salted water. After the first such session, I never made the mistake of drinking from it again. Hard to negotiate when you’re dying of thirst, don’t you know?
But it was all in the past now! We had a new client, one of Avare’s half-dozen surviving great-grandsons. Marcel Avare, his name was. He’d gotten tired of waiting for the old man to croak, and since he was one of the few Avare scions who’d managed to make some money on his own, he’d been able to save up enough to hire Greyboar to bring him his inheritance. Much dumber than the old man, of course—he’d even let slip how much of a nest egg he’d saved up. I cleaned him out of every penny of it. But, then again, his loss would only be momentary. He’d soon enough be the richest merchant in New Sfinctr himself.
The deal made, our client scurried out of The Trough like a rodent fleeing a lion’s den. I would have liked to have stayed myself, celebrating. But Greyboar always liked to do a job quick, and I’d need a clear head to figure out a plan of action. The truth was, it was going to be a tricky job. The old miser’s mansion was built like a fortress, and he had bodyguards and watchdogs like you wouldn’t believe.
So I left and went back to our apartment. Well, it’d be more accurate to say our garret. Three small rooms we had, on the top floor of one of the Flankn’s tenement buildings. We could have afforded a nicer place, easily, but I never saw any reason to waste money on inessentials. Greyboar’d make noises now and then about “the dump,” but he really didn’t care that much himself.