Amberlough(10)

He let his hands uncurl from the warm metal of the microphone stand and took a deep breath.

“Almost makes you wish we weren’t switching up the shows.” Malcolm was next to him suddenly, standing with his weight on one leg, arms crossed. His biceps, strong from hauling ropes and set pieces during strike and rehearsals, were cleanly outlined by the black wool of his tailcoat. He reeked of aftershave and whiskey.

“You don’t think the p-p-punters would get tired of the same show all year round?” Aristide ducked his head and lifted away the towering powdered wig he wore for the last half of the first act. His emcee was a languid fop with a dry, pointed sense of humor and a tendency toward glamour that bordered on carnivalesque. Really, he was playing himself, in gilded heels and face paint.

“I think they wouldn’t,” said Malcolm, “but Lady knows we would.”

Aristide picked an invisible bit of fluff from Malcolm’s lapel. “If you insist,” he said, and floated off to his dressing room on the echoes of applause.

The Bee employed a card boy to circulate during the first act, collecting names in labeled boxes for each star performer. At the interval, cast members made rounds among their admirers. It was a way to collect tips, free drinks, and goodwill. Malcolm harped on them every night to flirt like blush boys, though he was comically jealous and turned an alarming shade of red if he caught Cordelia sitting in anybody’s lap.

Before Aristide could address the formidable stack of cards on his makeup table tonight, he had to get through the woman waiting on his chaise longue.

“Merrilee,” he said. “Back from Liso already?”

“It’s been two years.” Her heart-shaped face was deeply tanned, and the equatorial sun had bleached her salt-and-pepper hair white at the tips. “Or hadn’t you noticed all those pretty profits rolling in?”

Merrilee Cross represented Aristide’s interests in southern Liso, where Gedda had very little influence since the disaster of the Spice War. Twenty-some years ago, in an ill-conceived bid for influence in a resource-wealthy nation crippled by repressive monarchy, Gedda had put an army on the ground in Liso to shore up a nascent revolution. Like quicksand, or a pit of tar, the situation had grown deadlier and more difficult the longer Gedda was involved.

The federal government sank money and soldiers into the mess in alarming quantity. Most of the money came from the national treasury’s tax revenue—all four states poured their income into the enterprise, which put a squeeze on the southwest but positively crippled the northeast—and most of the soldiers were Tatien. They had the training, unlike the rest of the nation. But it was Amberlinian strategist General Margaretta DePaul who wrangled a somewhat … hollow victory for Gedda. Related to Cyril somehow, no doubt, and a divisive public figure to put it mildly.

Her solution to the military crisis left Farbourgh bankrupt and Tatié furious, contributing to the nation’s current troubles with the Ospies. The army pulled out of Liso, leaving a partition in its wake. Northern Liso still traded and politicked with Gedda, but the south was where the poppies grew.

Luckily, smuggling could be a lucrative sideline for a secret agent, as long as Ada Culpepper didn’t pick up on it.

“Is this just a social call?” asked Aristide. He set his wig on its stand and pulled the stocking cap from his pin curls. “I’m sorry to say my evening is already sp-p-poken for.”

Cross picked up the stack of cards. “Impressive. Taormino’s little contribution would outfit a few of her larger divisions. You must have important things to talk about.”

“Merrilee, I’m wounded. You know I am imp-p-possibly incorruptible.” He took the police commissioner’s card from her hand. It was pinned to a thick wad of folded bills.

“What’s this?” She slipped the second card from the pile—this one in heavyweight satin cream. As she turned it, Aristide caught a glimpse of blue-black copperplate, deeply embossed. He knew that card.

Cross tched. “Speaking of incorruptible. How is Culpepper’s golden boy? And what is his card doing in your dressing room?”

Aristide knew his smile looked lecherous, and didn’t care a fig. “Mr. DePaul is … somewhat t-t-tarnished since you last encountered him, shall we say?”

“Wrong precious metal,” she said. “Gold don’t tarnish.”

“I’m a t-t-terribly bad influence.”

She laughed like a dog: wide mouthed and panting, more exhalation than sound. One hand in the air, she said, “I’ll testify in court. Tell me, is he a hard knock? Always thought he was fine, but I couldn’t get him to look twice.”

He took Cyril’s card from her. “Did you need something, Miss Cross?”

She reached into her jacket and pulled out a velvet bag—the kind jewelers used to store diamonds. Aristide took it, and tipped it out into his palm. Three sticky squares of poppy tar tumbled free. Aristide rubbed his thumb across one of them—it left a streak dark and tacky as pitch.

“Uncut,” she said. “Strongest stuff you ever smoked. My man can get it by the brick.”

“And I, sweetest girl, will buy.” He kissed her cheek.

“Better be off,” said Cross, standing from the chaise. “Have fun with Cy, but don’t turn him too rotten. I don’t want him moving in on my market.”