Amberlough(92)

Cast and crew buffeted him from one side of the corridor to the other until he started throwing elbows. They didn’t have nearly what he did to lose. There’d be hounds at the stage door and the front of the house. That left one option. He took the stairs to the costume loft three at a time, hauling himself up by the bannister. It was dark up here, and stuffy. The ceiling sloped to a row of long, grimy windows below the eaves. They were open onto the alley to catch the sea breeze.

Aristide had cased the Bee long ago for good escape routes—his sideline had never been a safe one, even at the best of times—and these windows were his insurance against capture.

He was halfway out and hanging onto the gutter when the hounds burst into the backstage corridor. He couldn’t see it, but he heard it. As the whistles shrieked and the stagefolk screamed, Aristide bellied onto the scorching tiles of the roof.

*

He came down to the street near the Heyn, jumping the last few yards from the bottom of a fire escape off Waxworks Road. Across the river, he stopped in a rickety teahouse to wash his face and make a few telephone calls.

The proprietress, an Asunan woman with a seamy face, knew Aristide by sight, but it was her nephew with whom he’d made his arrangements. Said nephew was absent, and it took several minutes of frustrated mime to make her understand that he needed the telephone.

After he hung up on his final factotum, he found a steaming cup of honeyed white tea at his elbow. Redolent with ginger, it cleared his head and sinuses.

When the telephone rang with a return call, he snatched it with the speed of a striking viper. “Yes?”

“They’re on the up-and-up,” said the man on the other end. He was a mid-level bureaucrat with connections to the ACPD. “Really looking for ballast; word is the Ospies tried to buy Sailer out but he wouldn’t take the money. So they got him another way.”

“Damnation.”

“They’re not onto you yet,” his contact continued. “Not as far as I know.”

Relief poured down his neck and back, uncoiling knotted muscles. Cordelia was still holding out. “Thank you. Excellent. Good work.”

“Don’t mention it. But listen, if the blackboots have Lehane and she breaks, they might act without me hearing.”

“I understand.” But it wasn’t enough to tense him up, not yet.

Waiting for his second call, Aristide had a leisurely game of mahjong with the old auntie. They used his bobby pins as betting sticks. She trounced him, and he ended the game with his hair springing wildly around his head. They split a second pot of tea. The telephone rang. This time, Aristide’s pace was less frenetic. He levered himself up from the brass-topped table and went behind the beaded kitchen curtain to answer. “Did you get him?”

“Sure did.” The woman sounded pleased with herself. “But his bail was pretty dear.”

“You’ll be reimbursed. Did you take him to mine?”

“Yeah. The maid didn’t seem too pleased.”

“I’m sure she isn’t. Thank you, darling. You’ve been a treasure.” This time, he hung up first. Before he left, his hostess served him jellied plums. He thanked her—it was the only Asunan he knew, outside “hello,” “goodbye,” and a few choice curses. They bowed to each other in the doorway and he left her as the moon rose above the Heyn, turning its currents to chrome.

*

Hunched in Aristide’s wingback chair, Malcolm Sailer clashed with the decor. He had a split lip and a bruise blooming high on one cheek. A tuft of black thread showed where one of his buttons had been torn away.

“So these are your digs,” he said. “I was startin’ to wonder who’d bailed me out.”

Aristide swept across the parlor to the bar. “B-B-Brandy?”

“Yeah.” Malcolm held out his hand for the snifter.

Aristide obliged him. “Drink that down. I’m just going to go and ch-ch-change.” He ditched the jersey in his bedroom. It was grimy from his cross-town adventures, and would need a wash. Or would have, if he ever planned to wear it again. When he returned to the parlor, it was in belled silk culottes and a smoking jacket.

“Fancy.” Malcolm’s efforts had lowered the level of his drink considerably. “Fit right in with your surroundings now. Like one of them bugs that look like sticks.”

“I think I’ll choose to interpret that as a c-c-compliment.”

Malcolm set his brandy on the coffee table and put his head in his hands. “I’m scratched, Ari.”

“So they found the ballast?”

“You don’t even know the worst of it yet.”

“They tried to b-b-buy you out,” said Aristide. “I heard.” He sat on the sofa and tucked his feet up. “You should have taken the money. Shall I ring for some supper? To be honest, I’m absolutely famished.”

Malcolm’s face went pale, but he swallowed his shock. “I don’t remember the last time I ate.” He picked his brandy up again—considered it. “Not a real meal, anyhow. I think Delia put a couple eggs in me … yesterday? Say, you ain’t seen her, have you? She was running late to the show tonight, and then the raid … You don’t think she got drug in, do you?”

Aristide fanned his nails across the upholstery and examined his manicure. “Malcolm…”