Book 11 - Whispering Nickel Idols by Glen Cook Page A

bell
tower. That gave me a view of the developing confusion.
    Morley did have men out, including himself. They laid way back,
observing. Morley eyed the belfry as soon as he knew that I’d
disappeared.
    The Watch had a less relaxed attitude. Their immediate response was
to arrest Spider Webb and Ugly Pants. Spider surrendered meekly. He
knew you don’t mess with
Relway’s Runners.
    When I left the church there were six people dead or crippled. Ugly
Pants had developed a bad case of being the former. I was glad I didn’t
like green. The secret police was about to make green pants a lethal
stylistic faux pas. Meantime, Spider would be back on the street before
dark. He’d helped them drop the moron in the ugly trousers.
    I’d just hove in sight of the Bledsoe when Morley fell into step
beside me. “Any theories?” he asked.
    “Other than that Ymber breeds them strong but stupid?”
    “That was a dirty trick, back there.”
    “I learned from a master.”
    “Conscience not bothering you?”
    I looked inward. “You know, it isn’t.”
    “You sound surprised.”
    “I am.”
    “You’ve turned into one of the boss class since you got involved in
that manufactory business.”
    “What’re you talking about?”
    “Some other time. I have a new venture, too. It’ll be a place where
crackpots can spout whatever nonsense infests their pointy heads.”
    “We have a place for that. The Chancellery steps.”
    “Not anymore. Relway is moving them out. Nobody was making any money
off it, apparently.”
    “Sure, there was. The sausage guys. The rat-on-a-stick guys. The
tempura tarantula guy.”
    “Who bought those?”
    “I don’t know. Somebody. Or he wouldn’t be out there every day.
Yuck!”
    That wasn’t a comment on deep-fried spider. We were close enough to
the Bledsoe to hear and smell the place.
    It’s a hell in brick. Those who deliver themselves to the hospital’s
mercy are, generally, thoroughly desperate. Meaning parts may be
falling off already. The stenches of disease, rotting flesh, and deep
despair lie heavy on the whole area. The neighbors pray for foul
weather to wash
and blow the stink away.
    The sound was the choir of madness singing in the insane wards—lair
of the Bledsoe’s deepest and most abiding horrors.
    Those wards do help finance the hospital. For a few coppers you can
tour them. For an extra copper you can rent a stick to torment the mad
folk. You can even rent the most dramatic loons for home entertainment.
    Money. That’s why.
    Money and the complete indifference of ninety percent of the
population. That’s why.
    The Bledsoe is a charity hospital. Its main support comes from the
family that provided emperors to the Empire before the kings of Karenta
replaced them. The Empire survives in the imaginations of that one
family, so there are still emperors around. But nobody cares. Other
than the directors of the Bledsoe, who depend on the imperial family
for the donations they steal.
    The Bledsoe is the most corrupt institution in TunFaire. We’ll see
truly interesting, entertaining times if Director Relway ever goes
after the parasites there.
    “What the hell is going on?” I asked, stopping to stare once I got a
clear look at the hospital. Its face was covered by scaffolding.
Masons, hod carriers, and other workmen bustled around cleaning and
restoring the facade. Though there weren’t many of them.
    “You know, I don’t know,” Morley said. “This is new to me, too.”
    Repairs were decades overdue. How come the money for this hadn’t
gotten stolen? I had no trouble imagining somebody donating enough to
renovate the place. But I couldn’t believe that its directors would use
the money for its intended purpose. “We need to look into this.”
    “Why?”
    “Uh…” He had a point. This wasn’t a battle that needed Garrett
galloping in in rusty, secondhand armor. Garrett was here to look dark
and dangerous and make sure a client of Belinda’s got the sort of
treatment