Don't Bother None
-
_Slow morning.
Haroun sat on his stool in the Hotel Everett's lobby and wished he was back in Calimshan. It was hotter, true, but you could get a decent cup of coffee. And dates. And a respectable woman. And you didn't have the constant wind off the lake.
The pale sunlight filtered in through the windows, a thick layer of grime adding its own coloration. Haroun, feet propped on the desk, lit another cigarillo. These mornings, it was like the city was dead. Even the weird ones stayed in bed and didn't come down to ask him for a few more days to make the rent.
And there had been some really, really weird ones lately.
Haroun winced, thinking of the shouting and yelling a few nights back. He'd been ready to call the guards, but whatever they were up to, they'd quieted down. Just as well. A lot of his renters wouldn't be very happy with guards hanging around poking into things.
He swatted a fly out of the air. THAT was like Calimport.
Some of his renters were overdue on the payment. He hoped they weren't going to make him shake it out of them. Haroun was not a violent man, and it cost good money to employ those who were.
Maybe the two in Room 7 would shake down the others in exchange for forgiveness of their rent? It was something to think on.
Swat. Lots of flies today.
What in the name of seven ambiguous devils was that stench?
With a grunt, Haroun levered himself up and wandered through the lobby, sniffing. His frown grew deeper as the smell led him to the stairs. If someone had damaged a room there would be hells to pay. He remembered last year, when someone had, for reasons known only to themselves, managed to smuggle a goat up to their room and feed it an alchemical purge. He never had gotten all the stains out of the carpet and he swore sometimes you could still catch the odor on hot days.
If it was food going bad, that probably wouldn't make too much of a mess but might attract rats, and then he'd have to put up with the gods-cursed insane Rat-Master General. In Calimport you put lunatics in the pits or out of their misery or let them beg on the streets, you didn't give them public office.
Expression increasingly dark, he walked up the stairs and down the hall, noting the flies and the increasing smell. He stopped in front of Room 9. Of course. He should have known.
Snarling, Haroun fished out a key, adjusted his cigarrilo to do some serious shouting, and opened the door.
There was a moment of horrible silence. The cigarillo fell to the ground, where the lit end began to slowly blacken some of the pool of congealed blood. Flies buzzed.
Two minutes later, Haroun burst out of the front of the Hotel Everett screaming at the top of his lungs for the guard, eyes as big as saucers.
From the mouth of a side street, two figures watched the gathering crowd and hysterical, gesturing man.
"On second thought, let's find new lodgings."
"Good plan."
"What is it with this city and inns?"
They turned and left._
