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call "hang-around duty." This involves just what it says--hanging around the neighborhood. The reason for doing this was that this neighborhood was very popular with young toughs, mostly of the House of the Orca, who'd wander through and harass people. Most of these kids were broke most of the time, when they weren't mugging the Teckla who made up the majority of the citizenry. They came here because it was close to the docks and because Teckla lived here.
    "Hang-around" duty meant finding these jerks and booting them the Phoenix out of there.
    When I was growing up, and collecting lumps from guys who'd go out "whisker-cutting," most of them were Orcas. Because of this, I gave my enforcers very explicit instructions about what to do to anyone they caught a second time. And, because these instructions were carried out, in less than three weeks my area was one of the safest in Adrilankha after dark. We started spreading rumors, too--you know, the virgin with the bag of gold at midnight--and it got so I almost believed them myself.
    By my figuring, the increase in business paid for the extra enforcers in four months. During that period, I "worked" a few times to increase my cash supply and to show the world that I could still do it. But, as I said, nothing much happened that concerns us now.
    And then my good neighbor, Laris, showed me why I hadn't gotten into this end sooner. The day after I'd tried to break up the game and ended by throwing up on the street, I sent Kragar to find people who worked with or knew Laris. I killed time around the office, throwing knives and swapping jokes with my secretary. ("How many Easterners does it take to sharpen a sword? Four: one to hold the sword and three to move the grindstone.")
    Kragar came back just before noon.
    "What did you find out?"
    He opened a little notebook and scanned through it.
    "Laris," he said, "started out as a collector for a moneylender in Dragaera City. He spent thirty or forty years at it, then made some connections and began his own business. While he was collecting he also 'worked' once or twice, as part of the job."
    "He stayed a moneylender and made a good living at it for about sixty years, until Adron's Disaster and the Interregnum. He dropped out of sight then, like everyone else, and showed up in Adrilankha about a hundred and fifty years ago selling Jhereg titles to Easterners."
    I interrupted, "Could he have been the one--"
    "I don't know, Vlad. It occurred to me, too--about your father--but I couldn't find out."
    "It doesn't matter. Go on."
    "Okay. About fifty years ago he went to work for Welok as an enforcer. It looks like he
    'worked' a few more times, then started running a small area directly under Welok, twenty years ago, when Welok took over from K'tang the Hook. When the Blade took the trip--"
    "From there I know it."
    "Okay. So now what?"
    I thought this over. "He hasn't had any real setbacks, has he?"
    "No."
    "He's also never been in charge of a war."
    "That isn't quite true, Vlad. I was told that he pretty much ran the fight against the Hook by himself, which was why Welok turned the area over to him."
    "But if he was only an enforcer then--"
    "I don't know," said Kragar. "I get the feeling that there was more to it than that, but I'm not sure just what it is."
    "Hmmmm. Could he have been running another area during that time? Behind the scenes, or something?"
    "Maybe. Or he might have had some kind of club over Welok's head."
    "That," I said, "I find hard to believe. The Blade was one tough son-of-a-bitch." Kragar shrugged. "One story I heard is that Laris offered him the Hook's area, if he could run it. I tried to verify that, but no one else had heard of it."
    "Where did you hear it?"
    "A free-lance enforcer who worked for Laris during the war. A guy named Ishtvan."
    " Ishtvan? An Easterner?"
    "No, just a guy with an Eastern name. Like Mario."
    "If he's like Mario, I want him!"
    "You know what I mean."
    "Yeah. Okay, send a messenger to Laris.