There are some weird things about this culture, huh?
By the time I could assemble enough time for even a squad of Guardians, there was no point to it. Jefsin-Fankin had wriggled away from his usual haunts, and none of our informants or rumormongers had any idea where he had gone.
Jak was eager to go looking for him anyway. The rioting had left him choleric and awake, used to staving in skulls to keep the peace — and restless, now that peace had come. “We should kick down some doors, anyway,” he muttered over his beer one night. “A good shaking, and a Kee will tell you everything you want. A knife at their brat’s throat, and they’ll do anything you want, too.” He glared at me. “Or would that make things less quiet for your liking, Ward?”
“It would,” I agreed, with a scowl for his tone. “We just had a flood wash over the city, Jak, and now a lot of old fights and grudges are wriggling out of the muck. Some of them, we do not want flopping over our own boots. And the Kee were hardly meek and mild in the riots, were they?”
Jak flushed; he, too, had seen what had happened to one notorious gang when they had tried to make the Kee pay for protection from the riots. How could he not? Every gallows in town had borne new fruit. “Even scum will fight when it’s at their doorstep,” he muttered; I forbore from pointing out that he had just contradicted himself.
“By the time I could assemble enough time ” – not sure what exactly you wanted here, but I suspect this wasn’t it.
“Or would that make things less quiet for your liking, Ward?” – similar.
Good catches. You never know when something’s going to elude the first draft revisions. 🙂