Free A Drink Before We Die: A Low Town Short by Daniel Polansky Page A

didn't help much with the smell.
    “A man needs a place to hang his hat.”
    “Bartender seems friendly enough.”
    “Adolphus? He can pour a glass of beer I suppose, so long as it’s only one at a time.” This was a lie, though a believable one. People looked at Adolphus, saw he was ugly and oversized and thought him stupid as well. I was ugly too, but the clever, mean type of ugly, not the amiable, sweet-natured sort.
    “Good man to have behind you if things get rough.”
    “Less than you'd think. The bolt that took the one eye left him mostly blind in the other, and all that muscle he's got he don't know what to do with. I just keep him around to intimidate the drunks.”  This was also a lie—even running towards fat and without any depth perception Adolphus was just about as dangerous an individual as you'd ever not want to meet. But it was important to make clear to my new best friend that my old one wasn't a part of my organization. Of course, if it came down to it Adolphus would back my play without thinking twice—but I'd never ask him. It was Adolphus's job to run the bar. It was my job to run Low Town.
    “I suppose you're wondering why I'm stopping by,” Armadal said, sipping at his whiskey and trying not to grimace. It seemed the brand of liquor we swilled was not to his rarefied tastes.
    “I'd assumed you were just passing through, thought you'd grab a quick drink before heading back north.”
    “I'm afraid this isn't primarily a social call.” Armidal was the sort of person who never stopped smiling, and he didn't stop smiling then. “The Ballafleur Consortium has recently acquired some interests running in Talabous, just on the other side of the river.”
    When I was a child Talabous had been the country, and lesser nobles too impoverished to enjoy their own preserve would hunt for deer beneath its knotted oaks. Thirty years down the line and the city had swallowed it whole, the only hunters left were the sort that make a living off the bounty on sewer rats—two coppers a head, if you're interested, but they're big suckers and they like to bite. Anyway, crime-wise it was nothing but small-timers and savages, just the sort of spot that would attract an ambitious group of up-and-comers like the Consortium.
    “I didn't realize you were looking to expand.”
    “A falling plum,” Armadal said. “Veiss the Twice-Hung wanted out of the game, and we found his operations coming to us at an attractive price.”
    And where did he get off to, I wondered? Miradin? The Free Cities? A shallow grave? “I hope Veiss enjoys his retirement.”
    “I'm sure he will,” Armadal said, Veiss's fate of no very great importance to either of us. “The main thing we want to make clear is that we've got no designs on Low Town.”
    To get to Low Town you shuffle out of the gates of the palace and head south, over the Andel, down through Brennock and it's iron foundries and stink, stopping just before you reach the docks. If you come, though, you might want to make sure you aren't dressed too well, or wearing any jewelry, or have much money on you. And you might want to carry a knife, or a sword, or walk along in the company of a handful of men so equipped, or maybe more than a handful. Because the locals are unfriendly, unfriendly by the standards of an unfriendly city in an unfriendly world, and the local guard know better than to waste their time trying to police the place, like a doctor knows better than to bandage a corpse.
    One more thing about Low Town—the most important thing, really, though you'd be shocked at how many of these argent-a-head thugs forget—it's mine. The broken cobblestones and the graffitied walls and the shit-swollen canals, the silk-shirted pimps and the half-hard razor boys and the wyrm dealers and the crooked guards and even those few poor souls mad or foolish enough to try and eke out an honest living.
    “Of course not,” I said.
    “We're not here to try and cheat you out of what's