‘Oversubtle, for a thug.’
‘Should I break it down for you further? Pretories’ interests aren’t your interests. They were for a while, now they ain’t.’
He grated one line of perfect teeth against the other. ‘There’s nothing for him here. He knows what happens if he goes against the Crown.’
‘Your problem is that you’re a reasonable man, and you think everyone else is likewise.’
‘People tend to act to their own benefit.’
‘You’d be shocked at how little that’s true.’
He opened up a few inches of his collar. ‘I hold no illusions about Pretories – if he’d betray his own people, he’d fold on us. But doing so wouldn’t get him anything. He’s been marching to our beat too long to go back to calling his own tunes.’
‘Yesterday, yesterday – yesterday y’all baked apple dumplings and played rat-in-a-hole. Today he’s murdering drug dealers in the streets, and tomorrow he marches on the palace with fifty thousand men. Wait around a week, he’ll be gang-raping your daughter and shitting in your kitchen.’ I huffed smoke and dropped my trump. ‘Maybe it’s time we brought in the Old Man.’
No one likes being reminded they’re mid-list in the pecking order. ‘That won’t be necessary.’
‘It’s a lovely office, but we both know where the strings get pulled. A change in policy needs to be signed off on from upstairs.’
‘I am upstairs.’
‘We gonna argue semantics?’
‘I told you once before – I run this show.’
‘Then you’d best go ahead and fucking run it,’ I answered.
That was that. He made with the contemplation, but I knew he’d bend in the breeze. It was a dull minute. My cigarette was mostly ash before he thought to pass over a tray.
‘You want a handkerchief?’
I shook my head, regretting it immediately. ‘I’d rather bleed on your desk.’
He snorted and started to twist himself a smoke.
‘So you’ve taken care of my little problem?’ I asked.
‘As of this morning there are a half-dozen Islanders rotting in cells in jail – and three taking up slabs in the morgue. I’m told Adisu is one of the latter.’
‘You’re a prince amongst men.’
Guiscard didn’t answer, just sat there puffing away at the cigarette he’d rolled. I could have told him you never really quit, you just take a break while things are going easy. ‘You ever think about Crispin?’ he asked suddenly.
‘I try not to.’
‘I guess he could have sat here, if he’d wanted to.’
‘Yup.’
‘I guess he didn’t want to.’
‘Don’t let yourself get too down,’ I said, standing. ‘It ended well for me.’
By the time I was outside my punch-drunk had worn off, and the orchestra in my head had gone from background noise to overture. Bile climbed up my throat, and it was only through sheer will that I forced it tumbling back. I must have been quite a sight – passers-by watched in horror, though none offered help.
38
Back at the Earl I sipped through a few ounces of liquor and passed out. When I woke the pain was worse, but the swelling had faded and I could see enough out of my right eye to be blinded by the afternoon light. It was late, and my day wasn’t over. A half-vial of breath reminded me of my duties. I palmed another into my satchel in case I got forgetful. Then I put a blade into my boot and slipped downstairs. The Earl was empty. Adolphus was off preparing for the evening rally, and Wren was probably with him. I had no idea where Adeline had disappeared to, but I was happy she’d done so – the longer I could put off explaining why my face looked like a mass of uncooked meat the happier I’d be.
Walking through the Isthmus I was conscious of the fading hour, and that my injuries were an appeal to the worst instincts of the native element. But the heat hadn’t abated with the sun, and the air was thick as a smoker’s cough, and the cock-a-walks were largely absent, drinking in darkened juke-joints or trying to sleep through to night. I found my way to Mazzie’s without any trouble, and this time even managed to reach the entryway without faltering my step.
She sat in the same position, down to the length of ash on her cigar. Even the oven working in the corner remained as it had been, the same pots bubbling rank on top of it. She waved at the open chair, but waited a while before starting.
‘What happened to your jaw?’
‘A brick wall hit me.’
‘And your eye?’
‘I couldn’t let the jaw go unanswered.’ I crinkled a trail of dreamvine in the hollow of a wrapper, then added a twist of tobacco for cover. ‘So. You set your eyes on him.’
She bobbed the ebony sphere of her skull. ‘Did at that.’
‘What’s the verdict?’
‘He’s got talent. Should have long started his learning, but he’s got talent all the same.’
‘Then you’ll take him on?’
She motioned with her shoulders in a fashion that indicated nothing one way or the other. ‘I figured, after your introduction, he must be kin to you.’
‘Ain’t got no kin.’
‘How’d you meet him?’
‘Let me think now – ah yes, the Duke of Courland introduced us over high tea. We needed a fifth for whist, and our Wren’s a deft hand at cards.’
‘He says he was a street child, and he begged you for a job.’
I lit my spliff off one of the colored candles dripping wax onto the table. ‘That might have been it, now that you remind me.’
‘So it was his idea, coming in under your roof?’
‘Damn sure wasn’t mine.’
There was something intoxicating about Mazzie that held your attention and wouldn’t let go. Every feature seemed amplified, overstated – her smile a slant that cut across the width of her face, nose broad as a bullock’s, eyes strong as rubbing alcohol. ‘Awful kind of you, putting up an orphan.’
‘I got a twenty-four karat heart. Market keeps going up on gold, I’m gonna cut it out and sell it.’
‘That’s what they say about the Warden. That he’s sweet as cane sugar and soft as sunshine.’
‘You gonna circle all night, or you gonna throw?’
‘What you want with the boy?’ she asked, all in the back of her throat, syllables hard against each other.
I didn’t answer for a moment, holding in a chestful of violet smoke. ‘Questioning my motives, Mazzie?’
‘Just curious. Do you take in every stray child you meet, or just the ones of use?’
‘I’ve drowned puppies done more for me than that child.’
‘A homeless boy with the art – that’s pure flake. Course he’s smart, but you needn’t have known that at the time. They’re not all smart – one of the crews back in Miradin, they had a boy with a fair-strength spark, and a face beat in by his mother when he wasn’t but three. Couldn’t talk nothing, couldn’t barely think more than that, but he could light a fire without a match, anywhere you pointed, any size.’ She took a long draw off her cheroot, then pulled the exhaust in through her nostrils, each wide as a copper piece. ‘Kept him on a collar, made him eat off the floor.’
‘You’ve got the nicest friends.’
‘Your boy’s got too much steel for that, of course. And he’s got power too, waiting to be kindled but there
