The Thief Who Pulled on Trouble's Braids by Michael McClung Page A

booming voice assaulted my sensitive ears.
    “Oy! Out with you. No beggars in ‘ere!” He was absurdly tall, and thin as a stick, and his waxed, bald head reflected the morning light. He was making shooing gestures. Probably because he could smell me from across the room. I was his only customer besides an old man dozing on a bench.
    I leaned against the doorframe and lifted my left foot. I pulled and twisted the heel of my boot until it swung out, revealing the little cavity I’d paid extra for. I pulled out three gold marks and flipped one to the barber.
    “My name is Dorn,” he said. “Welcome to my shop, mister...?”
    “Since I barely look human, I won’t take offense to that.”
    He colored. “Don’t do women.”
    I flipped him the other marks. I’d just given him what he’d make in a month. More than a month. “For that much you will.”
    “Always thought I’d been missing out on half my custom, sticking to men. What would you like today, miss?”
    “If I don’t get clean very, very soon, I’m going to kill someone. I’m going to need a bath. No, two baths. With hot water. Not cold, not tepid. Boiling hot. I’ll need new clothes and food. No gruel, no water, and no Kerf-damned rye bread. Wine, lots of it. And I have got to get rid of these lice. Do you have anything for that?”
    “That really works, you mean?”
    “Yes.”
    He smiled, and brought out his straight razor. “It’s not just the lice. It’s the nits. And they make their home down at the roots of yer hair.”
    “Shit.”
     
    ~ ~ ~
     
    I stepped out of Dorn’s shop four hours later, in new clothes, fed, bald, and vaguely human. The only things that hadn’t gone into the fire were my boots and Bosch’s single strand of hair. I still itched, but was fairly certain I had been thoroughly deloused and de-nitted. My new look drew stares. One passing matron looked at me with something akin to horror in her eyes. I was going to have to get a hat.
    “Should have seen me before,” I told her. She hurried off. And I did the same.
     
    ~ ~ ~
     
    When I reached out to unlock my door, a wispy face materialized in the wood grain, opened its eyes and said “Amra.” I shrieked and reached for where a knife should have been.
    “Holgren is coming. Stay here.” Then it disappeared. Damned magic.
    I unlocked the normal-once-more door and slipped inside.
    My place was thoroughly, unutterably destroyed. Someone with a lot of time and patience had taken everything apart. Every pillow was ripped open, every stick of furniture was in splinters. My clothing was charred rags in the grate. Floorboards were pried up and paintings slashed. Delicate glasswork was halfway back to the sand it had been made from. If someone had given me two pennies for the whole lot, they would have overpaid.
    I checked my hidey-hole. They had found that, too. Empty. That was a good chunk of my money gone.
    They’d missed two good knives and one bottle of terrible wine. That was it. That was all I had left, besides a little money on deposit with a moneylender who didn’t care about the provenance of his customers’ coin. That, and my very, very well protected retirement money, which I had promised myself I’d never touch until I got too old to do what I do.
    Oh, well. After Havelock, I was much less upset than I might otherwise have been. Prison, I found, was wonderful for clarifying your priorities. I cleared some of the debris from a corner and sat down with my bottle to wait for Holgren.
    He walked through the door less than an hour later. Holgren didn’t bother with knocking. Or locks, for that matter. He took a look around, one eyebrow raised.
    “Did you upset the housekeeper?”
    “Ha ha. Somebody turned the place while I was in prison.”
    “You were in prison?”
    “Don’t remind me. Wine?” I held out the bottle.
    “Is it any good?”
    “The very best I have.”
    He took a sip. Swallowed, reluctantly. “That’s ghastly.”
    “True.” I took