The Gardeners - Chapter 3

[pacobird]

This one will be the last I'm posting. Don't want to spoil too much!

Borgan Avenue was one of the myriad sidestreets off the Argentine Way comprising the market district of Hescolm City, but its broad thoroughfare coupled with its position on the perimeter of the district made it ideal for trade in livestock. If nothing else, the amount of interpersonal space required for the smooth trafficking of half-ton adult cattle alone would make it a poor theater for pickpockets, but this was the first burst of Spring, the volume of both buyers and sellers was a bit more frantic than midsummer, and everyone being a shade more distracted could conceivably provide a skilled cutpurse all the handicap they’d need. This window of opportunity won’t last, though, and it’s actually the reason why Troy chose this job today: if the culprit isn’t caught soon, they’ll just move on for good once Borgan gets a little less hectic.

Troy glances at the posting to remind himself of the client: one Tam Detleff, who manages a stall right…over…there. Troy glances and meets the eye of a thin man with leathery skin behind a few hillocks of produce who’s clearly scanning the crowd for somebody other than a buyer. Troy walks over to the man, giving him a nod and a surreptitious gesture to the Guild contract in his hand. “Good morning, sir! Are you Mr. Detleff?” “Er, yeah, s’right,” the man responds, somewhat taken aback by the sunny, almost bubbly disposition of this fellow whom he was to expect had come here to overpower and subdue a criminal. “Are you…from the Guild?” “Yes, sir. Holtz. I understand you have an issue with a pickpocket?”

Holtz. Tam had been, well, not warned so much as informed by colleagues and other locals that such a low-stakes public request was likely to either be picked up by someone of that name, a local teenager or drunk, or not at all. In any one of those scenarios, he was encouraged to not get his hopes up too high.

“That’s right, Mr. Holtz. We don’t know exactly what’s been going on but a couple of our - mine and my mates here on Borgan, I mean - a couple of our regular customers have been getting nicked this week and after talking it over we put in the job. Sorry I don’t got more for you, but we wanted to jump on this before it got out of control….” Troy sets his jaw and nods reassuringly. He likes Tam’s instincts: if this goes on unchecked and the Department of Public Safety has to get involved, well...it’s technically true the pickpocketing will stop.

“Alright, I understand, Mr. Detleff. Don’t worry, you made the right decision contacting the Guild. I’ll take care of this, but I’m going to need your help, if you don’t mind.”

Detleff eases a bit. Win or lose, at least something’s going to get done. “Sure thing, lad. What’s the plan?”

“Well, since we don’t have any info on this guy, all I can really do is walk around and get pickpocketed. I need you to keep eyes on me at all times, call out the culprit, and I’ll take it from there.” Troy grins. “Now hand me one of those apples.”

Tam’s jaw drops a bit. About two weeks ago, his friend Roland was caught by his wife with one of the working girls over on Trallast, and he immediately told her he was just helping this nice young lady prepare for her entrance exams to the College of Seers. He’s not sure that was a worse plan than this one.

Not able to think of a better way to handle this moment, Detleff hands Troy an apple from his stall. “What’s this for? Trying to make it look to the bobber like you’re just a regular customer or something?”

“No, I just haven’t eaten anything yet today. But hey, that’s good!” Troy saunters off.

A fact which caused Troy a great deal of embarrassment and uncertainty around the third of his eight-and-a-half years as an Adventurer is that a record has never suggested his steadfastly non-violent approach to Guild work is especially effective, and by extension that he's any good at his job. One of the noblest lies good parents tell their children is that violence doesn’t solve anything; in reality, it is not often the best solution but there’s definitely something to be said for general applicability. If you can’t figure out a better plan, you can always bash somebody’s head in and it’ll usually work out provided you pick the right head. Troy’s parents were most assuredly not good ones, but his mother did read him stories of the great detective Nemorino, who used a frumpy appearance and feigned incompetence to get the better of arrogant villains and overcome them through guile rather than force. Unfortunately, Nemorino’s investigations were always perfectly calibrated to put him on top before children start nodding off to sleep and in the real world, everybody looks a little frumpy.

What got Troy through that miserable third year was a sense of what he was good at: the ability to plan, and the wit to stick to that plan right up until the moment it wasn’t working anymore. No one is completely without skills; you just have to have a good sense of what they are and if you can’t figure out the right ones for the situation, well, that’s just a question of creating a situation where you can. In this case, Troy would lean on two of his favorites: his skill as a runner, and leveraging his unassuming appearance to attract the wrong kind of attention. It’s important to not completely give up on your childhood heroes, after all.

All that said, he’s not as unprepared as Tam thinks. Pickpockets are a natural occurrence in Troy’s professional comfort zone, and even if he’d never be so bold as to think he knows every trick in the book, he’s certainly had enough experience with them to assume their general best practices. Never armed with more than a common leather sap anyway, Troy’s belt was usually completely unadorned, but today he has not too conspicuously attached a coin purse as bait, filled with exactly twenty-three coppers. Too few coins and you’re not worth pinching, too many and your jink’s probably worthless. Twenty-three, though - somebody might show up at a market to make a brobdingnagian purchase with a few gold coins and change. Troy’s learned through experience and happenstance that you can’t use dummy coins, either: the weight and shape are all wrong and the second a skilled cutpurse touches them they’ll assume it’s a trap and keep walking. When you have dozens of potential targets an arm’s length away, there’s no reason to take a chance on any particular one.

Normally Troy wouldn’t bother asking the client to keep watch for him, but he figures the wider-open spaces on Borgan Avenue might actually allow Tam to see something, and besides, the poor man seemed flustered so Troy decided to let him feel like he was involved. Troy knows this street well enough to monitor its three points of potential egress, and anyway the actual thief isn’t who he’s after just yet. A high-risk, high-reward venue like the livestock market in March isn’t a one-man job. This thief probably - no, definitely - has a spotter.

He’s thought this through. He wanders around the center of the market, chatting up the various merchants plying their livestock. If this attracts the notice of the thief himself, all the better, but for now his purpose is the panoramic view of the street to try to find the expected accomplice.
While inquiring about a cow from a herdsman who can tell by looking at him he has no way to actually afford, Troy sees his break at the tributary corner of the Argentine Way. She’s short, with unadorned brown hair, and wearing a blue robe so nondescript he’s not immediately sure she’s actually a woman. More importantly, she’s empty-handed in the middle of a midday market square and has chosen to linger in the last place of that market anyone’s nose would want them to. It’s too suspicious.

Troy continues moving through the crowd. He knows exactly how he’ll play this: wait until the two of them make eye contact and then sidle over and make conversation. She’ll look through him; a good spotter can handle this kind of distraction but Troy’s dealt with good spotters before, and maybe he’ll even get lucky and find out this poor girl’s in the wrong line of work.

Troy locks eyes and seizes the chance; the plan is still in motion. He saunters up to the woman. Yes, it’s a woman, but that robe is something even Orfea would pass on as unflattering. A split-second later, she realizes this fellow with sleepy eyes and unkempt blonde hair is coming over to talk to her, and she snaps to attention, a flash of panic crossing her face that settles just as quickly. Right on the money, Holtz.
“Not seeing anything you like?”

The woman smirks, appraising him. “I can’t say I’m quite sure yet.”

“Well, don’t let me make you feel rushed. More people should be willing to take their time with these things.”

She cocks her head and looks at Troy incredulously. He’s got to be seven or eight inches taller than her but she doesn’t seem intimidated by this rough looking stranger in the least. Troy decided long ago to take this sort of reaction as a compliment.
“Was that supposed to be some kind of pass?”

“Did it work?” His grin’s all teeth and triumph, and she sighs. She really did walk right into that one.

The woman has already figured out this strange man had not come to Borgan Avenue to buy a chicken, but if his goals are amorous he might have gotten a haircut first. “Are you sure you have the time to be bothering unaccompanied women at the market, sir? Someone else seems to have his eye on your cow.” She nods back towards the herdsman, who seems to have forgotten all about him. Here’s the test to see what kind of man you are. Are you going to play along or are you going to show me this is all an act?

Oh, she’s good, Troy thinks to himself. If I look away, she can signal her op. If I keep looking at her, she’s got me made. Alright, honey, two can play at that game.

The two would never at any point in the future actually realize this as internal monologues are made to be kept that way and quickly forgotten, but they did, in fact, think the word “play” at the exact same time.

Troy splits the difference by wheeling around on his back foot to stand next to her, and crosses his arms. “Ah, well, I wasn’t all that interested. After all, you know what they say about cows.”

Watching as the herdsman’s demeanor turned buoyant over an impending closed deal, she says, “No, I’m afraid I don’t.” She turns to Troy, eyes wide with mock wonder. “What do they say about cows?”

Troy, with his arms still crossed, casts her a grim look. “Well,” he leans close, and speaks gravely. “They’re very large.”

The woman looks up at him and snorts, not wanting to reward such incredibly stupid jokes with a laugh. Troy grins again, and sees in her brown eyes the look of someone opening their fourth or fifth gift on an unexpectedly happy birthday. He hangs on her eyes a split second before the look turns to one of surprise and genuine anger.

“Hey, what do you think you’re doing?!?” She shouts at an unseen audience just past Troy. Troy whips around in surprise just fast enough to see a child, no more than thirteen, sprinting away across Borgan Avenue with his coinpurse. “SHIT.” I guess the plan worked, Troy thinks as he takes off after the child, weaving in and out the confused animals and their handlers.

He’s gaining on the boy, but the block is ending, and both of them know that if the chase proceeds to the main street along the river and its constant artery of people, it’s over. Dodging around the morning’s remaining puddles, the child looked as though he was home free until a particularly large puddle let out a huge splash, covering him in brackish, fetid stormwater. Neither Troy nor the pickpocket know what’s happened, but the virtue of age is experience and Troy seizes on the moment it takes the child to regain his composure. He dives long to try to tackle the child around his midsection in a way that shouldn’t hurt him too much, steering them both into a pile of what he hopes is mud.

A crowd gathers around the two bodies heaving for breath in the muck. A robed figure rushes through the circle.

“Melendi.”

“Wha…” Troy, winded and dazed, looks around until he meets brown eyes, once again amused, and sees her extended hand.

“My name’s Melendi. Melendi Constance. What’s yours?”

[Friday]

[Friday]

also NICE COLUMBO REF BRO

I'll get to talking about why Columbo is probably my all time favorite fictional hero in my tv shows thread eventually

(it's close, there's another one I'll also talk about when I get there too)