Ace of Shades (The Shadow Game #1)(6)

“I’ve been busy,” Levi answered. “How’s business?”

“Just hired another new dealer and had some rotten luck. He barely makes ten percent profit. Ten percent.”

Levi whistled with feigned concern.

“It was better when you were dealing for me. No, don’t bother apologizing. St. Morse must shell out three times what I paid you. At least.”

Try ten times, Levi thought. But that doesn’t come without strings attached.

“I could get you an Iron,” Levi offered, always the businessman. He made a show of adjusting his sleeves to brandish his tattoos: the ace on one arm, the spade on the other. They marked him as the Iron Lord. “I found this new kid who deals pretty well—”

“I would, but I can’t. The whiteboots keep paying me visits lately, and I don’t want any trouble.” Before Levi could point out that technically speaking, the Irons were the only gang that didn’t break the law, Grady continued, “They think I’m smuggling.”

“Aren’t you?”

“Of course.” He laughed again. “I’ll get you a drink, on the house. Anything for my best dealer—and youngest, I might add. A Snake Eyes—that still your favorite?”

“Sure is,” Levi said politely, though he’d never had a taste for the drink. It was also barely ten in the morning. “Thanks.”

“You should stop by more often. Teach the new fellow how it’s done.”

“Maybe I will,” Levi lied. He had no intention of revealing his tricks to anyone, especially a no-name dealer who wasn’t an Iron.

When Grady walked away, Levi approached the whiteboot captain. The captain wasn’t dressed in his usual uniform, but Levi never forgot a face—and the captain had an interesting one. His nose had been broken so many times that it was bent decidedly to the left, and an ugly scar traced across his jawline to the place where his right ear had once been.

“Not every day I have a drink with the Iron Lord,” the captain said. He had a grandfatherly voice—all condescension, but with an added hint of malice. He looked Levi over more closely. “But you must be barely old enough to drink. Isn’t that right?”

Levi tilted his head to the side and cracked his neck, a nervous habit of his. He hated the way people talked to him in this city—like he was nothing. No, like he was worse than nothing. Like he was a joke.

Levi reached into his pocket and pulled out a silk pouch filled with seven orbs. He set it on the table in front of the captain.

The man raised his eyebrows and opened it. He pulled out the first orb. It was a clear glass sphere, about the size of a billiard ball. White sparks, called volts, sizzled within the glass.

The captain held it up to the lamplight and examined it. “This is good quality.”

“Only the best for my clients,” Levi said smoothly.

“You make it?”

“No. I’m not in the orb-making business.” Not anymore.

“Yes, we’re all aware what kind of business you’re in,” the captain said drily. He pulled out a mechanical volt reader, flipped open the orb’s metal cap and slipped the antenna inside. The meter read 180 volts. He did this with the other six orbs, even though it was widely known that Levi would never cheat a client. They were all there. Every volt he owed him.

Dealing in orbs was a very official way of doing business—it made Levi look more legitimate. As a currency, volts could be traded in two ways. Glass orbs, like the ones Levi had given the captain, were the traditional method. Alternatively, you could carry volts in your skin. This was the hardest to track, the most difficult to steal and the favorite method of the city’s gangsters.

The captain slipped the last orb into the pouch. “It’s a pity. The Glaisyer orb-making talent is the best of them all.” He shook his head. “I don’t want to know how you got these.”

Levi’s eyebrows furrowed. “The investment was a success. You’re lucky you paid in when you did. The venture—”

“Was a scam, boy. Don’t lie to me.”

Levi’s sense of alarm never crossed his expression—he had too skilled a poker face for that. But what exactly was the old man suggesting? He couldn’t know. That wasn’t possible.

“I’ve no idea what you’re talking about,” he answered coolly.

The captain leaned forward. “I’ve got it all worked out. You promise an investment with outrageous returns. One man invests, then another, then another. Then when their deadlines roll around, you pay them back with the volts from the newest investor and pocket a bit yourself. Not a bad scam. It just keeps going and going, all until you run out of investors and have no ways of paying people back.”

No. No. No. Levi had covered every trace, tied up every loose end. After two years of running the scheme, he was nearly done with it. He had only two people left to pay back, and the captain was one of them. He was so close. He wasn’t about to go down now.

He fingered the pistol at his side, even as he tried to think of a clever way out. He always did. Levi the card dealer. Levi the con man. There was no player he couldn’t outplay. But he’d rarely been so easily backed into a corner.

Damn it, Vianca, he thought. I could hang for this. And it would be your fault.

As if his employer gave a muck about what happened to him.