Free The Last Witness by K. J. Parker

feeling shattered, sweat running down my face and inside my shirt, as though I’d just run up a steep hill with a hay bale hanging from each hand.
    “He’s telling the truth,” I said. “He never stole from you, and he hasn’t got your money.”
    The old man opened his mouth, then closed it again. The young man called me a liar and various other things; his father sighed and told him to be quiet.
    The clerk’s head had rolled forward onto his chest; he was asleep. “You’d better untie him and dump him in an alley somewhere,” I went on. “I’ve taken away all his memories of what you’ve done to him, he’ll wake up and have no idea how he got in this state, it’ll save you having to kill him.” I smiled. “Now, then,” I said, “I don’t think we discussed my fee. The usual rate?”
    The old man gave me a puzzled look, then wrote out a draft for three hundred angels. I didn’t argue. “Well,” I said, “it’s been a pleasure working for you, but as I told your son, I’m retired now, so we won’t be seeing each other again. Rest assured you can rely on my discretion. Don’t bother giving me a lift, I can walk.”
    I got out of there as quickly as I could, and headed straight for the Sword of Justice, simply because it was nearest and I badly needed a drink. So badly, in fact, that I stuck to black tea with honey and pepper, because some things you need you shouldn’t always get. I was sipping it when a man I used to know came up and told me they’d got a game going out back, if I was interested.
    I looked at him and grinned. “Sorry,” I said, “I’m broke. Look at me,” I added.
    He did so, noting the farm clothes and the worn-out boots. “Screw you, then,” he replied pleasantly, and left me in peace.
    * * *
    How was it, I hear you ask, that I came to develop my unique talent and establish a career as the Empire’s leading consulting memory engineer?
    It’s a classic success story. There I was, an ignorant farm boy on the run from the law, turning up in the big city with nothing but the rags on his back and a dream of a better life. An early but significant demonstration of my powers came about when hunger drove me to the back door of the old Industry and Enterprise in Sheep Street—remember it? It’s gone now, of course, pulled down to make space for the new cattle pens. The door was open, and I could see through into the kitchen, where they were roasting chickens on a spit. There didn’t seem to be anybody about, so I nipped in and helped myself.
    I was cheerfully stuffing my face when the landlord loomed up out of the shadows and kicked me halfway across the room. Then he picked up a cleaver. I swear it was instinct; I stared right through his skull, picked out the sight of me tiptoeing in and grabbing a chicken, and darted back out again. There was the landlord, cleaver in hand, puzzled frown on face. Who the hell are you? he asked me. Got any work? I answered. No, get lost. I nodded (I’d stuck the chicken down the front of my shirt) and headed back into the street as fast as I could go.
    For someone who’d had to work for his living, this episode was a revelation to me; a flawless modus operandi, fully formed and perfected, like suddenly waking up one morning to find that you’d learned the silversmith’s trade overnight, in a dream. I refined it a bit, of course. I know, they say
if it ain’t broke don’t fix it,
but I modified the original pattern to leave out the getting-kicked-across-the-room stage, and in the event it worked just as well without it. Instead, I’d go into teashops when there were no other customers, eat and drink as much as I liked, then cause the owner to forget me completely. Same with dosshouse-keepers and landladies of furnished accommodation; as soon as they asked me for rent, they’d never seen me before in their lives. I got into a few scrapes, it’s true, but that’s all done and forgotten about now. In due course, I refined my business