Anyway, before you knew it the strangler and assassin trade in New Sfinctr was booming. I had to turn down all the offers, of course—professional ethics—and leave the business to others. But I wasn’t chagrined in the least.
Why? Simple. I really had gotten a big bundle from Avare. Enough to keep Greyboar and me in the pink for quite a while. Long enough, I was certain, for someone else to do away with Marcel. At which point, of course, our obligation to the old Merchant Prince would have been satisfied and we could pick up on all the aftermarket trade. We’d be rich!
Oh, I was such a shrewd fellow. Heh heh.
And, at first, everything seemed to be going according to plan. Even with the second-raters that the disgruntled heirs had to settle for, it didn’t take much more than a week before the new Merchant Prince of New Sfinctr was a chokee. Throttled, apparently, by someone hired by Marcel’s brother Antoine.
The next day, we were approached by Antoine’s cousin Pierre. I rubbed my hands, foreseeing well-nigh-endless work. The Avare extended family was huge.
Heh heh. Shrewd!
Except—
I couldn’t believe it! Greyboar went mad!
“I can’t see it, Ignace,” he insisted. “My interpretation of our obligation to old Avare is that we can’t burke any of his heirs. No dice.”
The moron! But, since he was clearly prepared to be stubborn, I raced down to the Ethics Committee and got an official ruling. The Ethics Committee, being made up of sane and sensible men, naturally ruled that our obligation extended to Marcel alone.
Didn’t matter! Greyboar still refused to budge. He babbled some gobbledygook about the downhill nature of Time’s Arrow and the intestines of entropy and God knows what other silly nonsense—all of which led him to the firm opinion that the Ethics Committee was shaving the thing way too close and that since he wasn’t bound to actually take on the job by their ruling, he wasn’t going to do it.
Ethics, he said. And he wouldn’t budge an inch.
It broke my heart. Antoine was gone in four days. Pierre and his five brothers—one after the other, like tenpins—lasted ten days, thanks to the commissions someone got from his sister Amelie. Big commissions, according to rumor.
* * *
I spent those two weeks sulking, brooding over ale pots in The Trough. I didn’t even pay much attention when that artist Benvenuti showed up one night and spent hours at another table with Greyboar, chatting over this and that. The crazy sister/lover, I imagine. Didn’t care!
Which, of course, was sheer stupidity on my part. Because Greyboar then disappeared for a few days and I was too disgruntled to wonder about it.
Stupid.
Stupid! I should have known better than to let the numbskull roam loose on his own. By the time I finally thought to track him down, the damage had been done. The further damage, I should say.
I found him at Benny’s studio, posing for a portrait. He must have been at it for days, because the portrait was almost finished. When I saw it, I almost had a heart attack.
Not the cost of the thing, so much—although that was horrendous enough. (And can you believe the nerve of that artist, claiming he was only charging us “family” rates? What family? The nematodes?)
No, no. It was the portrait itself. Havoc on canvas! Ruin in oil!
* * *
Even a lowlife like me could spot it. Benvenuti hadn’t given it a title. Didn’t need to. Take your pick:
The Brooding Strangler, Pondering the Futility of His Wicked Life.
Chokester, Gazing Into Eternity, Soulful.
The Gleam of Reason Within the Beast.
Ogre, in Repose, Regretting His Fangs and Talons.
* * *
Yeah, that kind of portrait. And I couldn’t, no matter how hard I tried, get Greyboar to relinquish the monstrosity. At first, he tucked it away into a closet. But then, the first time the Cat drifted by for a visit, he hauled it out for her opinion.
“You aren’t that cute,” she promptly announced. “Be nice if you were, though.”
Thereafter, Greyboar left it prominently displayed in his little cubbyhole of a room. Used to spend hours there, just staring at it. Practicing his “ethical entropy,” he said.