Chapter 3

When William Banker didn't come back, Mistress Eva Hero Caretaker Coordinator went looking. Sultry stuck her head out of the office and looked for her gang.

They were standing in the lobby twiddling thumbs, playing mumbley peg (also known as mumblety-peg, mumblepeg, mumble- the-peg, mumbledepeg or mumble-de-peg) with sharp knives and the lobby floor, frightening away legitimate customers, and holding Cassie Hero Caretaker of Cassandra to stop her from fleeing ... mostly that. It was pretty easy to see Cassie didn't want to be on Chaos ... especially dressed like last years poster child for Attila the Hun's recruiting drive.

Cassandrian Banks on Chaos were pretty much the only Chaosian buildings with actual glass in the windows. Chaos hadn't figured out how to make flat glass.

The Bank windows were lined with the filthy faces of raggedy Chaosian children smearing their dirt on the glass and watching the bank guard trying to deal with getting the riffraff out and getting the legitimate customers in. Every once in awhile, one of the children would run off and come back with two or three others and there would be a scuffle for window space. Precedence settled, the winners added their own brand of facial gook to that which was already there.

"Staying out of trouble, I see," Sultry said.

Six looked up and stuck his knife through the back of his hand. "Fuck! We were until you made me do that."

What is it with children and pocketknives?

Six jerked the knife out of the lobby floor and healed his hand.

The guard said, "Is that being a god?"

"That's part of it," said Seven.

"I did that when I was a younker." He displayed a gnarled hand with a scar in the middle. Turning it over he showed Seven a scar just like it on the palm. "Good to know the gods can be stupid, too," the old guard said. It was easy to see he was proud of that scar.

"Stupidity isn't a part of being a god," Seven said, admiring the scar. "The stupid part is being male."

The guard nodded, looked baffled and said, "Hey!"

"How's it going, Sultry?" Seven asked.

"So so ... I had to pay. Eva is here, she went looking for the banker," Sultry replied.

Cassie jumped, "Eva? Eva Hero Caretaker Coordinator? Mistress Eva? Shit. I'm so fired." She moaned, "I liked my job."

"You haven't done anything for the last ten years," Eva Hero Caretaker Coordinator said over Sultry's shoulder. Sultry jumped.

"It's not my fault Jack hasn't come back!" she said hotly. You could tell she was fixing to wind up.

"Sultry," Eva said. "Here's your money back." She handed Sultry a bag with 12 Conches. "William Banker has been arrested on Cassandra for bank fraud here on Chaos. His home was filled with Chaos gold. Now there's an investigation underway to see if the Government can discover how he brought the gold to Cassandra. That's been added to your case."

"My case?"