Free Yendi by Steven Brust

last more than a month."
    "Will it stop all at once, or gradually disappear?"
    "Could be either way, Vlad."
    "Hmmph. Well, could we open, say, one game, in a week?"
    "They might let us get away with it. But once you open up a game, what happens the first time a customer runs short of cash? We need to have someone to lend him money. And then maybe he gets behind on his payments, so he starts stealing. We need a cleaner. Or--"
    "We don't have a cleaner in any case."
    "I'm working on that."
    "Oh. All right. But yes, I see your point. It's all tied in."
    "And there's another thing: whoever opens up is going to be pretty nervous. That means that you should really make personal visits--and that's dangerous."
    "Yeah."
    "One thing we could do is find a new office. I can still smell the smoke in here."
    "We could, but... do you know where Laris's office is?"
    "I know, but he doesn't go there anymore. We don't know where he is."
    "But we know where his office is. Fine. That's where my next office will be." He looked startled, then shook his head. "Nothing like confidence," he said. Narvane was in touch with me pretty constantly that week, and was slowly getting a feel for the work. After what had happened to Temek, he was being careful, but we were accumulating a list of places and a few names.
    I tried doing a small witchcraft spell on Laris, just to see if there was any point in attacking him that way, but I got nothing. That meant that he was protected against witchcraft--and indicated that he really did know me, since most Dragaerans don't think of the art as anything to bother with.
    I had enforcers following those people we knew, trying to get their movements down so we could use this information later. We approached a couple of them with large sums, hoping to find out where Laris was hiding, but we didn't get any takers. The project to make friends with Laris's people went better, although just as slowly. We got nothing useful, but there were indications that we might in the future. I had some people speak to the Phoenix Guards. We learned from them that they weren't happy about the duty, didn't expect it to last long, and that they were as impatient to start earning their gambling money again as we were to start needing to pay them. I considered the matter.
    Six days after Zerika put her foot down, I met with Kragar and Smiley Gilizar. Smiley had been protecting Nielar, and was pretty much recovered from being revivified. He got his name because he smiled almost as much as Varg--that is, not at all. Varg, however, rarely had any expression. Smiley had a permanent sneer. When he looked like he wanted to bite you in the leg, he was happy. When he got angry, his face became contorted. He had picked up an Eastern weapon called a lepip, which was a heavy metal bar with leather wrapped around it to prevent cuts. When he wasn't doing protection, he did muscle work. He'd started on the docks, collecting for a short-tempered lender called Cerill. When Cerill was fed up with being reasonable, he'd send Smiley, and then send someone else the next day to reason with whatever was left.
    So Smiley sat there, scowling at Kragar and me, and I said, "Smiley, our friend H'noc is going to open up his brothel tomorrow evening. He's being protected by Abror and Nephital. I want you to go over to help them out."
    He sneered even more, as if it were beneath him.
    I knew him well enough to ignore this, however. I continued: "Stay out of the way of our customers, so you don't scare them. And if the guards try to shut the place down, just let them. Can you handle that?"
    He snorted, which I took for a yes.
    "Okay, be there at the eighth hour. That's all."
    He left without a word. Kragar shook his head. "I'm amazed that you can get rid of him that easy, Vlad. You'd think you'd have to do a demon banishment or something." I shrugged. "He's never 'worked,' as far as I know."
    Kragar grunted. "Anyway, we ought to know something by tomorrow. Any word from