True to his word, Botherwash had an answer for me as to the origin of the bracelet. I headed over there as the Golden Pearl was turning to that shade of anemone red, bathing the whole reef in a rubescent wash.
I don't frequent Taniel's Rock, but I'm no stranger either. In my younger, more foolish days I had dropped more than a few clams there.
Lack of clams and a sorry outlook on life puts a dampener on life's pleasures, so I had not been there in quite a while. The bouncer, who I didn't recognise, also didn't recognise me. That's a good thing, mind. The fewer people who know where I am, the better.
He gave me the introductory spiel.
“The price is the price, no haggling, no discounts. You pay your clams, you get your pick. If you got a problem, you take it up with Taniel. If she's got a problem, I take it up with you. No getting fresh with the ladies, chum. Have a nice time.”
I said, “Where can I find Taniel?”
“Taniel's out back.”
“Thanks, Biff,”
“The name's Illis, pal.”
“My mistake. So long.”
He grunted and let me in. I call all heavies 'Biff' if I don't know them. Funny thing is you've got even money on getting it right.
The previous bouncer, an actual Biff, was a cool guy, unusually astute for a Collosi. We used to have chats about the weather and the fishing after I had finished visiting and he had surprisingly deep insights into the way the world worked.
I guess that's what happens when your job is to stand around looking tough all day. Gives you time to think. Kind of like sifting sand. He would have appreciated that connection. I caught myself wondering what had happened to him as I slipped through the entrance-way, a long, narrow crevice that kept out prying eyes.
It was dark, naturally, and there was a faint smell of blackwater mixed with kelp-mash in the air. Grunts and moans echoed from further on in, barely distinguishable from the crashing waves above.
It pays to have a joint like this closer to the breakers. Makes the patrons feel more at ease.
In the foyer, reclining over a rock, her tentacles caressing her head, lay my target.
“Taniel,” I said.
“Tedrick? Tedrick, it is you, you shy cucumber! Why, I haven't seen you since forever!”
She pushed herself off the rock and wrapped a limb around mine.
“Been a while, Taniel, I know it.”
“You couldn't have visited? Not even once?”
I shrugged, “It's not like I didn't want to.”
“What brings you here, you silly cucumber?”
“Why, you of course,” I said.
She released my limb and pushed me back.
“You know I can't abide liars, Tedrick,” she said. “I know I'm not all I used to be.”
“I'm sure you're every bit what you used to be,” I said.
She flushed, covering her siphon and looking at me from under a half-lid.
“Tedrick, please.”
“Call me Ted, Taniel.”
“Ted, I know your type. You show up out of the blue and, rather than going for a beautiful girl like a sensible blue-blooded male, you've come to me. You're here for information, aren't you?”
“Way to kill the mood, sister.”
She glared. You don't argue with that glare.
“Alright, I am after information.”
“What about?”
“Well, this isn't really the place to discuss it...”
“Out with it, or out with you!”
“Alright,” I whispered. “It's about a high-sporting spud.”
“Does he have a name?”
“Ah. Yeah, he does.”
Buff. Taniel grew up knowing that you don't give something unless you get something in return. That's how she operates.
“Medici. Belvedere Medici.”
She barely blinked. Funny, I thought.
She said, “Now you're pulling my arm.”
“I'm not. He's gone missing.”
“Missing you say?”
Still no reaction. That, in itself, is a reaction. She was too busy thinking to worry about the conversation.
“I don't know if he's dead, to answer your next question, but I've got it on authority that he left his mark here every couple of tides.”
“I'm afraid you're out of luck. Discretion,” she stressed, “is our most sought after service.”
“I don't need to know whether he frequented here, I've got that already. What I need to know is when and with whom.”
“No, can't tell you anything. Don't ask.”
“I don't want to cause trouble. And I can pay...”
“Quit asking.”
“I can't quit. I'm on this case and I'm committed, at least to find out what happened to him.”
“Well he's not here, I can tell you that much. Now if you don't mind...”
“When was the last time –”
“No. No, no, no. Quit it.”
I tried to pour on the old Gritswell charm, levelling my gaze and lowering my voice.
“Taniel. I understand where you're coming from, I do. Few people know the true meaning of discretion. I'm not after names, I'm not after faces. I just need a place to start. I'm at a loss, here.”
She flipped my mitt off hers and moved away, making a clicking noise with her beak.
“I'm a very busy soul. Stop pestering me. Now if we can skip the banter and get down to what you really want.”
“What I really want?”
A homely gal with a broad bulb and short tentacles ambled in. Taniel pushed her toward me.
“Bethany, are you busy, cucumber? This is Bethany.”
“Oh no, ma'am, that, ah, won't be necessary.”
“Nonsense! Bethany, take good care of this one.”
She looked me over with a smile.
“Be happy to,” she said.
I protested, “Ma'am, I thank you all the same, but I'm really here to talk to you.”
Taniel scowled, “You can talk all you want, Tedrick, but this isn't a bar. If you're not paying for services, I can bring it up with Illis.”
“I'm sorry, I didn't mean no offence,” I said and dropped some clams on the bench.
Her scowl disappeared, “None taken, my love, none taken, just clearing up the misunderstanding. I don't like misunderstandings. They do so give me a frightful headache.”
“Indeed.”
“This place has a reputation to maintain. It wouldn't do to have you zip off as soon as you entered. You know, you'd attract a lot more attention if you waltzed out just as soon as you waltzed in.” She stroked my face. For an older dame, she was still a looker. “Anyone would think you weren't satisfied. We wouldn't want that now, would we? You just take Bethany and make her happy, that will make me happy, and then we can have a little chat after. What do you say?”
At that instant I was distracted by a passing Rubescen, a real hot number, gliding along up on her long legs.
“Say, I don't mean any disrespect, but is she available?”
After all, if I was forced to lay down some clams, I should at least be able to choose, right?
Taniel looked over and frowned, “Ah, I don't think so. She is reserved for another customer. Later on, you see.”
The girl looked over, “Oh, no. He cancelled, Taniel. I told you...”
“Be quiet, Wyra,” she hissed.
Now that was funny. It could have been a hunch or that I wanted to have one over Taniel. Either way I stood my ground.
“The guy out front said I could take my pick,” I said. “I paid my clams. I choose her.”
Bethany shrugged and went off in a huff. Offended, no doubt. Taniel clicked her beak a few times but no one else appeared.
“Alright. Very well,” she said. “Wyra, hurry up with him.”
I looked at Wyra looking at me looking at her. Seemed like a good deal to me. Perhaps the investigation wasn't without its perks.
That, alone, should have rung bells.
Still, I followed her slight frame, like a chump, up a dark corridor and into the room. She draped some kelp and rolled a rock, a token of privacy.
I've said it before and I'll say it again, I'm a sucker for women. I tried – half-heartedly I'll admit – to dissuade her so that I could get on with my work, but I'm only an octopus and my will-power is only as much as the Great Spud gave me.
“Now, Missy.”
“Wyra, honey.”
“Wyra, you listen to me,” I started. “I'm only here as a favour to Taniel.”
“Uh-huh,” she said, moving behind and massaging me.
“We don't have to do anything you don't want to. Er, not that I don't want to, you see, only that I actually came here on the purposes of official businessdom. Er, businesshood.”
I'm not always such a shmuck with the ladies, but, you see, it had been a long while. She moved her tentacles down my side, touching me lightly with her suckers.
“What I mean to say, er, Miss...”
“Wyra.”
“Wyra, is that my mind is preoccupied with the, er, very important matters for which I came in the place first, I mean, the first place.”
“Shh.”
“Once I find out where to start –”
“I'll show you where we can start.”
“Wow. OK. You see, I'm on the case of a missing spud. You've heard of the Medici?”
Her eyes went wide, “Belvedere?”
“Yeah, uh, him. You don't happen to know anything about him, I mean, er, that's not already in the news...”
I was blubbering about this and that, I don't know. I wasn't there for that. Really. OK, maybe I was. I don't know. My mind wasn't thinking with all of the goo that the good Great Spud shoved inside there. It was thinking with something else.
She grabbed my third limb and toyed with it. Before I knew it, she had my full, undivided, exclusive attention.
No details for you. I'm not like that and you wouldn't be interested. Besides, it doesn't add a grain of sand to the story. It doesn't matter. Wyra was a professional and I'll pay her the respect she deserves by being discrete.
What does matter is that while we were engaged, me wrapped up in her tentacles and she wrapped in mine, the rock to the room was moved aside, quiet like. I mentioned before that the waves masked a lot of the sounds that came from that joint.
I didn't hear them come in and I didn't even know they were there until I got a strong whiff of kelp-mash.
I wrestled out of her grasp and tried to escape but it was too late. A scowling Unome, a striped orange and yellow spud, blocked my path. There were two others that squeezed out from behind him and pinned me down.
Nowhere to go. I was caught, good and proper. I didn’t have to fake my outrage.
“What's the meaning of this?” I demanded, looking at my audience. “You guys perverts or what?”
“You been asking questions,” said the bulging flesh on my left.
“Leave the talk to me,” said the brains of the trio. “Now, you've been asking questions.”
I was scared. Of course I was. Any sucker-dragger with half a nonce would be. Still, it doesn't do any good to show it. I ain't one for tough talk, but keeping mum isn't an option.
“I ask a lot of questions. It's what I do.”
“You're a buff shoveller. I know who you are. I seen you down at the sand-plains.”
“OK, so I sift sand and ask questions. There's no law against that. Though I reckon there's a law against busting in on a guy with a gal when he's paid the proper clams.”
“We ain't the Law, pal.”
“That so? Who you with?”
The lump on my right grunted, “Sassam.”
The Unome slapped him upside the head, “Shaddup! I'm doing the talking, 'member?”
“Sorry, boss.”
Sassam. Right. That meant two things: I had found a place to start, and I was going to be deader than a sea-star's castings before I could get there.
Ah, you probably want some context. Where to start? His rise to power wasn't as spectacular as Tommy's. And his rise wasn't that impressive either. He pretty much got to be king of his buff-heap because he cheated everyone above him.
He wasn't the kind of fella to play fair.
“You're with Sassam, eh? How's he doing these days? Let me guess, he lost weight – and you're trying to find it?”
“You wanna be a wise guy?”
“No, I wanna stay here with Wyra and I want you guys to leave me in peace.”
He shoved me to the door.
“Come quiet now, no ruckus. There's a business going on, don't you know. You wouldn't want to disturb the others now, would you?”
I tried wriggling a bit but with the gropers on the right and the left of me, holding firm to my limbs, I wasn't going anywhere they didn't want me to go. I went with them down to the back, down past all the crevices and crannies, past all the transactions in progress.
“Keep your eyes forward, pal.”
“Hey, I'm cooperating,” I said. “No need to shove.”
Further in was a private room, and it was into this they gave me one final push. With a Collosi outside, one inside and the Unome glaring at me with his black little eyes, I was under no illusions as to what was going to happen next.
Figures. That's the what you get for trying to break out. That's what you get for listening to the advice of a Cuttlefish over your own gut. It was stupid. The whole thing was stupid.
No. I was stupid.
I had been lucky to get out of the game, to get a second chance. Heck, I had a job, a hole. For all I knew, thanks to anonymity and attrition, my enemies had dwindled in number.
Instead of riding it out like a trooper, I let my greed and impatience squirt ink over the whole thing. So there I was, hardly a tide into the investigation, cornered, scared and about to get the buff smacked out of me and I didn't even know why.
The least I could do was try and get some satisfaction. Who knows, maybe these guys could tell me a thing or two.
I said, “So what now?”
The heavy rubbed his mitts together, “Ah, I don't know. Boss?”
He waited while the Unome – I never did get to know his name – prepared for the interrogation.
“Alright. Spill it,” he said.
“You talking to me or him?” I asked, flicking at his goon.
The goon blinked dumbly.
“Er, good question. Eh, Boss? Were you talking to me or him?”
Unome slapped him, then me.
I laughed, “I guess he wasn't talking to you, pal.”
“Enough of the buff, Tedrick. Yeah, I know who you are. One word from me and he'll tear you to pieces.”
I looked behind him at his goon. As if to back up his boss's claims, he swelled up to fill the room. I swallowed. There was no muscling my way out of there. If I was going to survive, I needed to use my brains.
“Now spill it.”
“Spill what?”
Beefcake threw me against the wall. It was a light push, just enough to rattle my organs a bit and let me know who was boss. The next few wouldn't be so easy going. I really had to get my brain going.
“Let's start from the beginning, smart-guy. Who were you asking about?”
“No harm in telling you, I suppose, since you already know so much. I'm looking for a missing spud, one Belvedere Medici. You know anything?”
“I'm asking the questions!”
At his signal, Bruiser introduced me to the other wall.
Unome stroked his face thoughtfully, “Belvedere Medici. He's an important spud.”
“That's right. Very important. I don't suppose you've seen him recently?”
“Me? What make you think I've seen him?”
Now that was a strange reaction. He suddenly got defensive. You don't suddenly get defensive about something you don't care about. Maybe he was looking for him too, or maybe he knew where he was.
“I never said, I was only asking if you knew anything,” I said. “That's why I'm here. I came here to try and find him.”
“He ain't here. Do you see him here? No. So stop asking about him.”
I asked, “Why? If he's not here then why am I getting the treatment?”
“All you need to know is that he's out of favour. If you see him, you keep right on swimming, got it?”
“Persona non grata, eh?”
“Pers...” he blinked at me. “Er, yeah. Something like that. My next question is why you're after him.”
“That wasn't really a question. Oof!”
That next beating was getting on the serious side. Guess he'd had his warm up. I can't remember how long it lasted, but I do remember the pain and how I didn't know which way was up when he finished.
“Had enough?”
I coughed, “Sure. Can I go now?”
“Hardly. You haven't answered my question, pal. Why do you want him?”
“Does it matter? I mean, if he's dead, then he's dead, that's all. I just have to know.”
“No one's said anything 'bout him being dead. That's a funny thing to say. What makes you think he's dead?”
“He's been missing for a while. The longer a guy goes missing, the higher the chance he's shark bait,” I said. “Facts are facts.”
“Facts is facts, yes, indeed. But you're avoiding my question and I'm getting tired of asking. Why are you after him?”
“He's an important man, he means a lot to a lot of people.”
“Which people... or person in particular?”
“Take your pick – Aw!”
That one left me seeing starfish.
“You got one chance left, bucko, then I'm gonna start cutting off your mitts. Who are you working for?”
I only had two cards left. Either the truth, which would get me absolutely nowhere and put my client in peril, or a big, whopping lie. I had one brewing, I just needed to clear my head a little to let it form.
“You, er, you,” I said, trying to focus on him. “You don't want to know.”
“Yeah. Yeah, I wanna know. Sure I wanna know. Hey, Biff, you wanna know?”
Biff – fancy that eh? – nodded energetically, “Yeah, yeah. I wanna know. What's that, boss?”
I fought furiously with myself. There had to be an answer. If I didn't blab, the Abyss was my home, if I did, same deal.
“I can't tell you.”
“The heck you can't!”
I tried not to concentrate on the pain and instead on my lie. It had to be big. It had to be convincing. It had to be enough to get me out of there, no matter the repercussions.
What was the biggest thing around? Of course!
“Alright, I'm sick of this. Either you spill or we take you down to Allaga Gulch and feed you to the Hammers, piece by piece.”
That was a lie. The Hammers wouldn't be so patient.
My idea was only half formed, but it was all I had. Biff gave me a crushing squeeze to reinforce the message.
“Alright!” I cried. “Alright, you win!”
“I knew you'd see it my way.”
“I can't take any more. I'll tell you.”
I wasn't lying. They had me beat. If I got smacked around any more I wouldn't be able to talk, and that would severely hamper my ability to lie my way out.
“I'm listening.”
“It's... it's...”
“Yeah? Go on. It's?”
“Tommy.”
“What?”
“I'm working for Tommy Two-Tone!” I whimpered.
“Tommy?”
“If you got a problem, I suggest you take it up with him, not me!”
“You idiot. Why didn't you say?” he asked suspiciously.
Time to turn on the tough, “I don't rat on who's paying the clams, see, and that goes double when I'm working for the biggest guy around.”
The effect was the desired one. Unome backed right off.
“He ain't that big,” he said. “If he's using a minnow like you. What's he want with Belvedere, anyways?”
“No business of mine. He's missing. I was just sent to find him, that's all there is to it. I don't ask why, I just get paid for doing my job, and if he finds out that I've spilled the beans, I'm leaving town.”
He said, “You could've saved yourself a lot of bruises.”
“You could've saved them by just letting me know where he is.”
“Ha!” Unome raised his tentacles. “I got not idea where he is, pal. Ah, you ain't worth the trouble. Get out of here. Now! Get out of here before I change my mind.”
It wasn't going to change. The thought of Tommy's wrath was too much for his mind to bear. Still, I wasn't going to push it any further, I had already made enough space to squeeze through.
“I'm gone, trust me,” I said. “No point sticking round this dump.”
I slipped out past the two, receiving a parting blow from the heavy outside. It wasn't personal, I know that, he missed out on the action and needed a release.
After the starfish cleared I moved as best I could, ignoring the pain, back down the hall, holding myself steady with all my limbs.
“And don't go asking no more questions about personages that don't concern you,” he called after me.
I passed Taniel, lying in her suggestive manner on the rock in the foyer.
“Oh, you poor little cucumber,” she said. “Are you hurt?”
“Leave me alone, sweethearts,” I said. “You've caused enough pain to last me an eighth.”
“What, was Wyra too rough? She has the gentlest suckers of all my girls.”
I stopped myself from swearing, “The massage was fine, thank you very much.”
“Then you found her unsatisfactory?”
“You know exactly what I'm getting at. It's the after-service I'd like to complain about.”
“I did warn you,” she said, lowering her eyelids. “You kept asking questions.”
“It's my job.”
“What good is a job if you're not around to enjoy the pay?”
I stole a look behind me. Unome and his goons were heading back up the hall.
“I'll see you round, Taniel. Thanks for putting me up with Wyra. She's quite a gal.”
She cooed, “Aren't you going to stay for that chat, cucumber?”
“I'm not one to refuse a lady, Ma'am, but I gotta make myself scarce before someone does that for me.”
She smiled and pushed me to the door, “Take care of yourself now.”
I left that rock, jetted out and away from the surface, putting as much distance between that whorehouse and myself as my tube would allow. I was expecting to receive a bit of a serve. Investigations like this one always came with that risk.
I just didn't expect it so early on.