Copper Piping

         Colmin wasn't pleased with the current situation between him and his new employer, the rowdy and fear-instilling, Mister Mucky. Mister Mucky hadn't been the boss of Kingsboro Junction long, perhaps only a month, and that guess was sole based on the recent carnage that had been usurping. But for a seven foot Minotaur, who had a penchant for spearing people with a baseball bat, Mucky had done all right by himself.
    This was one reason, and a big one, as to why Colmin wasn't pleased with his current situation.
    Colmin was working for Prim Paulie, a down-on-his-luck satyr who managed to make enough enemies to constitute him as the second most unlucky man, or goat-man, as it was for him, in the city.
    Prim, in all his goat-brained genius, tried to ignore his dues owed to the Wharf Boys, a numberless throng of manic dockyard bookies, all of them knife-wielding kobolds with a desire to make money and slit throats, and it didn't matter to them which came first. After Prim was found stuck up like a pincushion and floating face down in the docks, Mucky hoofed it to Prim's stomping grounds and gladly took over, expanding his territory tenfold. It was an ambitious move for Mucky, but Mucky was an ambitious 'mythy,' with a brutal drive to become the boss of Kingsboro Junction.
    Colmin was nothing more than a low-rank grifter and shylock, and now, much to his disdain, he had to do what Mucky told him to, otherwise it was the end of a bat for him. And Colmin doubted that his human innards would appreciate being staked by a blunt wood instrument.
    So began his misery.
    Last night, with the usual anger in his voice, Mucky rang Colmin at his favorite bar, The Rowdy Julip, and informed him that he was to be the new debt collector of Kingsboro Junction, like it or not. Seeing as Minotaurs can't speak human lingo without bastardizing it into obscurity, the message was not only delivered with a bad temper, but, phonetically, like mud through a straw.
    Regardless, the point of the message was clear. An important debt had to be collected, and should the collection of that debt fail, it would prove fatal for Colmin. The trouble, as always, began with the debtor. Mucky's ire was aimed at Prim Paulie's satyr cousin, Jackie Cents, a no-name grifter and sex offender from Roundgum Court. It sounded about right for the breed; they were creatures caught in an eternal downward spiral of debt and lewdness. Granted there were hospitals and therapy for such things, but satyrs argued that it was in their 'jeans,' whatever that meant.
    The odds were in Colmin's favor that Cents wasn't lacking common sense, and was well on his way to a paradise island when word of his cousin's demise spread like wild fire on the streets. Satyrs may be sex junkies, with the financial talent of a dilled pickle soaking at the bottom of the ocean, but they weren't stupid.
    Cents was on the run, and Colmin knew it.
    This is what brought him to Pintspread Street, the headquarter location of Colmin's long-time friend and gangster ally, Reggie Lundap. Reggie was, to all intents and purposes, human, although you'd have a hard time believing it to look at the stocky little fellow. It was rumored that Reggie had a touch of dwarf in him, which accounted for his height, and a pinch of ogre, which accounted for his temper. But Colmin knew those to be wild rumors. Reggie was as human-origined as the spotted liver of a Grainhouse Tavern drunkard.

    Colmin entered a tall red brick building, the only one on Pintspread, and took the main hallway elevator to the eleventh floor.
    When the bronze doors creaked open, he headed down a narrow, green-walled corridor lined on either side with kobold muggers, doppleganger hit men, ogre thugs, faun junkies, elf smugglers, gnome shylocks, troll grifters, and a near-sighted Dalmatian, named Roger.
    They all worked for Reggie, performing various dark jobs, except for the Dalamtian. His only mission was to bring up the morning mail. It took him awhile, though, seeing as his medical condition led him into walls and doors, and his horrible near-sightedness made him bark at his own shadow.
    Colmin replied with a nod to the customary salutes and various other gesture greetings thrown his way by Reggie's minions as he moved swiftly down the corrider.
    Outside Reggie's office door, Colmin was greeted by a stubby dwarf named Stompy who bore an unsettling grin. The barrel-chested gangster wore the usual get-up: a crisp white dress shirt, black pants, black dress shoes, and black suspenders. It wasn't original, but then again, Stompy wasn't an original thinker. He didn't have to be. The dwarf was there to play door watchman, and it was something he took seriously, or as serious as anyone can take guarding a door. He had explicit orders to cripple or kill anyone who tried to enter without permission.
    "Mornin' Stumpy," joked Colmin. "Anyone come through lookin' for a slap? About this height?" he added, holding his hand waist high.
    "Stumpy?" grumbled the dwarf. "Yah feckin' smahrt moth. Yah shawd take a toe in thah nots fer thawt. Nuther feckin' hoight jawk. Feck yah!"
    That was one of the things Colmin appreciated about Stompy: the dwarf's sharp personality and charming wit. Better still, no one could really understand him. He didn't talk gutter, or slang, or really anything else you could put a name on. It was a culmination of every accent and loose bit of jargon you could find in the city, all waded into one mouthful and delivered with spit.
    "Is he in, then?" said Colmin, nodding at the door.
    Stumpy crossed his arms. "'Eh moight beh. You 'ave un appahnment?"
    Colmin smiled, reached into his pants pocket and took out a silver farthing.
    "Tell you what, Precious," he said, "you let me in and I'll give this shiny coin?"
    Stompy's eyes glowed, and he looked ready and willing to kick Colmin in the groin. "You wunt ah breckon leg, yeh shurp-shottered feck, yah!"
    Colmin wasn't sure what Stompy said, but he had an idea. The dwarf may be difficult to understand in terms of words, but you definitely understood the meaning.
    "All right, all right," Colmin said, stuffing the coin back in his pocket. "Keep yourself simmered, then. Straight now, is Reggie in?"
    "'Eh's in. Yah 'aven ahn appahntment?"
    "No, but I don't figure ole Reggie'll be hard to see me. We're driven friends, you know that."
    Stompy stuck his fat nose in the air, and said, "Aye dun nay nuthin that ain't sahd tah meh."
    "You wot?" said Colmin, frowning.
    "Feck yeh," grumbled Stompy.
    The damn dwarf was becoming a nuisance, thought Colmin, but it was way smarter to keep a level head, as Stompy could still put the hurt on, even at his diminutive height.
    Just as Colmin was about to say something, Reggie's voice boomed from inside his office. Stompy, who never seemed shaken by anything, jumped, and quickly opened the door. He stuck his head in. The dwarf nodded and looked back at Colmin.
    "Yeh cahn get in nahw," he mumbled.
    Colmin nodded, and gingerly stepped past Stompy, who still had a fiery look in his eye that belied his calm exterior. You can never trust a dwarf, or his temper, thought Colmin, as he entered the office.
    A loud wet thwack sounded in the corner of the office as Colmin stepped inside. When he closed the door behind him, he saw Reggie standing over the bloodied body of a russet-skinned imp, the creature's wings and face horribly mangled beyond recognition. Reggie had a copper pipe in his right hand; it was the hand he said gave him the best swing. The pipe, and the rolled-up sleeves of his bold blue dress shirt, were mottled with globs of rich black goo.
    Colmin eyed the near-dead imp for a moment.
    "Day holdin' well for you, then?" he said.
    Reggie looked up and gave Colmin a sideways glance, but his cold exterior warmed greatly when he realized who it was.
    "There's my son," he shouted. "How are yah?"
    "Better than your friend, I'd place it," said Colmin, nodding at the gurgling heap on the floor.
    "Nah," Reggie grumbled, giving the imp one more wet crack over the head. He walked over to his desk where he laid down his pipe, and grabbed a bottle of elvish whiskey from a desk drawer.
    "Tell me now," said Reggie, as he set out two glasses. He filled each glass halfway then slamed the bottle down. "Work like this gives a man a thirst." He downed his drink and happily poured himself another. "Well now, I've 'eard it through the weeds that you've got yourself a new lead. That wroight?"
    Colmin nodded somberly.
    "Unfortunately you've heard right," he replied, taking one of the glasses of whiskey. He held it under his nose. "Doesn't smell like the paste Double's sells down in the Vat."
    "Yeah, well," Reggie grumbled, plopping himself down in his cushy leather chair behind his desk. "That splitter deserves a pipe over 'is 'ead for selling that facking rubbish." He gestured for Colmin to sit.
    Colmin stretched himself out in a plush black chair across from Reggie, and took a sip. "Not half bad, either."
    "Better be like facking gold honey," Reggie stated firmly. "I paid enough for it. Now tell me, wot's all this talkin' 'bout you workin' for someone else? I always thought one day you'd come work with me, when you got done playin' the fairy for that saytor pimp. So who is it?"
    "You wouldn't believe me if I told you."
    "Come on, let's 'ave it."
    Colmin hesitated for a moment while swirling his drink.
    "It's a mythy," he said finally.
    "Go on!" Reggie bellowed with a wide-eyed look of disbelief.
    "True as ever," said Colmin, nodding as he took another sip.
    "Fack me," Reggie muttered to himself. "So who is it, then? What kind of mythy?"
    "You're lucky you're sitting for this one. Mucky the Minotaur."
    "Fack off!"
    Colmin held his hands up. "I wouldn't play the harp on that, swear on my gems."
    "Mucky?"
    "Yep."
    "Mucky the facking Minotore?"
    "The one and only."
    Reggie rocked back and forth in his chair. "I can't believe it. A mythy gangster in Kingsboro Junction. It don't seem wroight."
    "Right or not, he's got the whole set under his thumb."
    Reggie shook his head. He couldn't imagine how a mythy, especially a Minotaur, could hold claim on any territory in the city. It was just another reminder of how far down the city had sunk, he told himself.
    "Still, you can't go round tellin' every sod yah meet that yah workin' fer a facking mythy." Reggie shifted uneasily in his chair. "Not a chance of it sittin' wroight with the streets."
    Colmin agreed. He knew the score, and how low his reputation would fall now that he was under the rule of a mythy. Granted the world once belonged to the creatures of mythology and folklore, but that was during the times of knights and horse shite. It was back when kings told the populace how horrible their lives would be run, whereas today, there was a government to do that, and they did it well. A stately kingdom turned into an interconnected metropolis, and the castles and towers morphed into glass and steel skyscrapers. There was industry and pollution now, the finer things of a modern world. Owning land was nothing compared to owning an oil reserve, or a munitions factory. The ancient world was left with the choice to either keep up and maintain, or be quashed by the steam-rolling engine of industrial might.
    Apparently the old world decided to get squished.
    "So wot brings you round 'ere?" Reggie said, before downing his second glass.
    Colmin stared down at this drink. "I need a favor."
    "Come on, no favors between friends, eh. Let's 'ave it. Wot's the settle?"
    "Jackie Cents, you know him?"
    Reggie eyed the ceiling and thought for a moment. The name sounded familiar. "Wot's 'e do?"
    "He's cousin to Prim Paulie, that arseface, gambling degenerate. Prim went and got himself stuck-in with the Wharf Boys."
    Reggie frowned and shivered, as if something gross and unwanted crossed his mind. "I fackin' 'ate kobolds. Little dog-faced midgets."
    "They ain't the problem. Problem is, I got to find Cents."
    "Wot for?"
    Colmin downed the last of his whiskey. "He owes Mucky a part of Prim's old debt. Cent's don't pay, Mucky'll get his paper another way. Namely, through me."
    Reggie leaned far back in his chair and twiddled his thumbs.
    "This don't sound loike it 'as a pretty ending. Wot you figure the mark is for a mythy on the scraps?"
    Colmin shrugged. "I couldn't figure. I wouldn't even know what cove to crack to find the little shite-mole."
    "'Old on a minute." Reggie waved a finger as the glint in his eye revealed the surfacing of an old, and hopefully useful, memory. "You said Jackie Cents, wroight?"
    "Yeah, you know something?"
    Reggie frowned and stared up at the ceiling again. It seemed to help jog memories.
    "Actually, I do," Reggie said. He pressed his lips and frowned, the look on his face told Colmin that the answer wasn't what he wanted to hear. "I 'ope you 'ave a strong stomach for this, cause it's not going to sound sweet-like."
    Colmin raised an eyebrow and braced himself for something bad. "Let's have it."
    "Jackie Cents is dead," said Reggie flatly.
    Yep, thought Colmin, it was bad. With Prim dead, albeit by someone other than Mucky, Colmin was on his own, with no sponser, but with Cents dead, this was like throwing napalm on a barbeque.
   
***To be Cotinued***