Amberlough(87)

“Need something?” she asked.

“You’re crooked on the left,” he said, tipping his chin.

She swore and peeled the swatch of glitter from her breast. “Ari, I ain’t got time for your sass. Curtain’s up in fifteen minutes.”

“And you’re not on for thirty. I’m the one who should be worried, and do I look it?”

“This is what I mean.” She replaced the pastie, straight this time. “What’s going on?”

“Will you pick something up for me?”

“Where?”

“P-P-Pyck Street. Do you know the Quayside Fish House?”

“Rough,” she said.

“You’re not afraid.”

“No,” she said. “I ain’t.” She hadn’t been afraid of anything he offered her, not since Tory died. She was mad at the Ospies, at the blackboots who’d beat him, and even at Cyril, who’d only offered her a way in to keep her safe. So mad, she’d come to Ari and offered to go him one better than running tar. The letter to the women in the attic, that had been small change. Now it was coded messages, money, guns with the serial numbers filed away.

“There will be a man waiting for you at the bar. Red skullcap and waxed mustaches. He has your description.”

“Got a little ahead of yourself. What if I’d said no?”

He cocked an eyebrow, exaggerated with dark paint.

“All right,” she said. “You’re right. But what, you busy with something else tonight? Please say it’s more important than shuckin’ your oysters with some soft-bellied blush boy. You still seein’ copper top?”

“Off and on,” said Aristide. “But no. I have an appointment with a client. Only time we were both free. Unfortunately, also the only time Zelda’s man could make a drop.”

“Peronides? So it’s hooky I’m moving.”

He paused to consider the question. With his garish makeup, and a stocking cap over his pin curls, he looked like a mannequin wearing a carnival mask. “I suppose it’s stolen, yes.”

“Leave it with Narita? The usual spot?”

“If you please. And ask her to wait with it. I’ll be by, late, to pick it up.” He turned to go, then stopped at the doorway and looked back. “Cordelia…”

“Yeah? What?”

“Thank you.”

She shrugged one shoulder. “If you want.”

He half-smiled and left her alone. As he walked down the hall, she heard him start to sing a scale: up eight, down eight, and then one-three-five-eight-five-three-one. His smoky baritone echoed through the thin backstage walls. Usually, he’d have had two or three other singers jumping in to sing harmony for warm ups. But he didn’t rouse even one.

Cordelia faced the mirror and started in with her lipstick. Cyril was right: She’d have made a clever fox if she’d gone over. But she wasn’t going to. Tory was dead, Malcolm was falling apart, and the blackboots had chucked a bomb into her theatre. Amberlough wasn’t safe for stagefolk at night. The Ospies were picking apart everything she loved and knew and lived for, and she aimed to pick back.

*

The man with the waxed mustache bought her a glass of dark beer. They put on a good show of flirting. Leaning close, he put his arm around her shoulder and spoke into her ear.

“Hang your purse up.”

She giggled and pushed him away. There were thief-proofed clips on the underside of the bar. Snagging the strap of her handbag in the clip nearest his knees, she let it swing over to him. When the bartender had his back turned, and the crowd was mostly facing away, he pulled a package from inside his jacket. He moved so smooth, so fast, she missed the moment it went into her purse.

He bought her another drink. They lingered. Then, he checked his watch and swore. “Wife’s gonna hide me.”

Cordelia pretended offense, and wouldn’t speak to him as he left. She scowled over the last of her beer. The bartender gave her a sympathetic look. She left. The whole play took half an hour, at most, and then Cordelia was out the door with her handbag a damn sight heavier than it had been.

She didn’t look inside. No point—it was wrapped up, and she didn’t want to know what it was, anyhow. Just wanted to get it safe to Narita.

Pyck Street ran north to join up with South Seagate at the end of the trolley line. Cordelia struck out along the fringes of Eel Town, walking quick past cheap hotels, dodgy kebab joints, and brothels that catered to sailors who couldn’t be assed to make the long trip north to the first precinct’s regulated red light district. Most of the houses down here weren’t licensed, and the ones that were did a lot of off-the-books business: kidnapped kids and foreigners. Crooked pimps had always slipped through Taormino’s well-greased fingers.

“Hey you, copper top!” A drunk Niori seaman waved at Cordelia from a piss-stained doorway. “How much?”

She ignored the catcall and pressed on, wishing for a scrounging cabbie stupid enough to brave the dregs of the fourth precinct. Maybe she ought to have taken the shorter route, straight through Eel Town on Cane Street. Seedier, but maybe faster, and she might already be home.

Caught up in worrying, she didn’t see the hound until she’d already run into him.

“Watch it, dolly,” he said. “All that hurry won’t do no good if you fall and break your skull.” His truncheon whistled past her head, but long practice kept her from flinching. The hounds liked to snap at kids from the Mew, and kids from the Mew learned quick not to snap back. But they also learned hounds followed the smell of fear. Cordelia didn’t give him anything to scent.