everyone scatters, they all must know that their share of the take is as safe as houses. Otherwise your plans will fall apart in your hands. You see?”
“I… guess so. What about changing the bills?”
“Watch and learn.” Darger picked up the stack of bills and placed them in his billfold. “Now the game you just played, the Pigeon Drop, is a reliable money-maker in skilled hands, which works well with a necklace, a painting, or any similar prop. It can also be used with a lost wallet. Simply fan out the money like this, with the thousand-ruble note on top, and it will look like a fortune. Indeed, the other notes can be cut from newspaper, if you like. Though that requires that you wrap up the wallet like a package with your handkerchief and string before handing it over, to prevent the mark from examining the bills himself. Luckily, by that point he will be so blinded by avarice that he will not be thinking clearly. You can tell him it’s to keep him from stealing the money, and he won’t argue.” He extracted the money again and rolled it up into a wad. “For other games, it’s best you keep the money in a roll. It looks eye- popping”-he put it into a pocket and then pulled it out, giving Kyril only a brief glimpse before hiding it away again-“and, like a well-proportioned woman giving a mark the merest flash of forbidden flesh, wrests control of his thoughts away from the rational parts of his mind.”
From an inner pocket of his jacket, Darger extracted a small sewing kit. He measured out a length of black thread, bit it off, and tied it around the wad. Sternly, he said, “You must not spend this. It is a tool which, properly employed, will bring you in much more money. And that you may then spend.”
Kyril stared at the wad hungrily. “What’s with the thread?”
“Keep your spending money in one pocket and this little horse-choker in another. Then when you’re in a tight fix in a public space… maybe the police are coming after you, maybe a con has gone hot and the mark is out for blood… you haul it out, slip your thumb between the thread and the bills like this…” He demonstrated. “And with a flick of your wrist, you break the thread and throw the money into the air, while shouting ‘Money!’ at the top of your lungs. What do you think happens then?”
“Everybody starts leapin’ up in the air, snatching at the bills.”
“Everybody. Including the police. While they’re doing that, you make your escape.” Darger handed over the money. “Now I know boys, and so I know you’re going to rush out right now and, against all my good advice, buy pocket knives and sweets and leather jackets and such. Try not to spend it all. It’s easier to make money when you have it.”
Kyril clutched the wad with both hands. Then, suspiciously, he slipped it out of the thread and opened it up to determine that all the bills were still present.
Darger laughed. “I admire your caution. But you must never do that before your business associates. They must believe that you trust them implicitly. You may need them to get you out of a tight situation some day.”
“I can rely on my boys,” Kyril said. “We’re a circle of brothers, is what we are.”
“Perhaps. Yet I have my doubts about one or two of them. However, let us not throw them away without testing them first. A true friend is a rare thing. You may go now.”
In a flash, Kyril was halfway out the hole. He hesitated there, though, and asked over his shoulder, “Ain’t you going out too? To spend the money you got for the necklace?”
“No,” Darger said.“I shall stay here and sort through the library’s many wonders. I have already found a copy of Hesiod’s Catalogue of Women and what I suspect may be Aristotle’s Dialogues. It is possible even that some of Homer’s lost epics lurk herein, to be discovered by my eager hand.”
“Well… I guess if it makes you happy.”
“Oh, it does, my young friend. In fact, if I may confide in you, it is possible I am happier now than I have ever been in my life.” Darger returned to his book. “It’s a shame it cannot last.”
Zoesophia slept late and awoke to find the day unseasonably mild. A cool, light breeze raised goose-bumps on her flesh and gently stirred the reddish-gold down on her mound of pleasure. She could have stayed like this for hours, luxuriating in the air, as if in a bath. Nevertheless, she arose and, in a brisk, businesslike fashion, dressed. On the cushions below her, Surplus stirred, stretched, and opened his eyes. When he saw that she was fully clad, his expression mingled regret and relief in proportions she found both perfectly appropriate and eminently satisfying.
“Put your clothes on,” she said.“Our story is that we stayed up all night negotiating. You, of course, gave in on every point. Don’t bother saying a word. I’ll take care of it all. Just keep silent and look hangdog. That shouldn’t be hard for you.”
Surplus obeyed without demur. This was, in Zoesophia’s abundant experience, how men inevitably reacted to being thoroughly bested in the sexual arena-with a quietly sulky submissiveness born of humiliation and the hope that it might happen again soon. It was such a primitive, animal response as to make her wonder if the old legend wasn’t true, that men-even dog-men-were descended from apes, while women were descended from the Moon.
Still, there was an amused glint in the corner of the ambassador’s eye that Zoesophia could not account for.
“Before we go down, let me see to your clothing.” With a few deft tugs, Zoesophia made Surplus look subtly bedraggled. “That’s better.”
“Shall I unlatch the trap door now?”
“What an extraordinary question.” Zoesophia widened her eyes in astonished hauteur. “I’m certainly not about to do it for myself.”
When Surplus and Zoesophia came down the spiral stairs-Zoesophia like a goddess floating downward to Earth and Surplus like a man cast out of Heaven-they found the Pearls waiting for them all in a row. Six hard stares of accusation and angry speculation formed a wall of resentful pique. Behind them, the Neanderthals shuffled in embarrassment.
“Well?” Russalka demanded. The word might have been carved from ice.
“Ambassador de Plus Precieux was a firm and energetic negotiator,” Zoesophia said solemnly, “and he held out far longer than I had expected him to. But in the end, I wore him down. His determination wilted while I was still prepared to go on for as long as it took. The results, I am pleased to report, were everything that might be desired.”
Russalka crossed her arms in a manner which would have thoroughly befuddled a male. “Yes, but what are they?”
“In brief, the ambassador and I are going to the Terem Palace together this very next Tuesday morning. We will meet in private with the Duke of Muscovy, at which time I will present him with whatever proofs it takes…” She paused for emphasis. “Whatever proofs it takes to convince him that he would be completely mad not to bring us all to his bedchamber before moonrise that night.”
The squeals of delight that arose from the Pearls were so shrill and prolonged that even the Neanderthals winced.
There were five underlords in all.
Though the bodies they inhabited were human, it was not difficult to detect the machines within, for they so despised the flesh they wore that they would not condescend to wear it well. Their metal parts were not proportioned properly for the bodies they had gutted for disguise, but they refused to alter those mechanisms, simple though that would be for them to do. Gleaming steel stuck through here a shoulder and there a cheek, and an alert eye could occasionally glimpse tiny sparks of electricity through an open mouth or an empty eye-socket. They hunched when they stood, glided with an unnatural smoothness when they walked, and folded their arms tidily up and together before them, like unused tools, when they were still.
Anya Pepsicolova knew immediately that something had gone seriously wrong when she showed up at the underlords’ conference room to discover all five of her inhuman masters gathered together to confront her. One was enough to conduct any business they might have. They showed up in force only when human suffering was in the offing.
There had only been one when she’d looked down from the Whisper Gallery not half an hour ago. She’d been kept waiting after she made her roundabout route to the underlords’ stronghold. Obviously, they had assembled for her.
She lit a new cigarette from the stub of the old one and flicked away the butt without bothering to put it out. The smoke helped, a little, to cover the stench of their decaying bodies. “You sent for me. You must have something to say.”
