Because It Is My Blood (Birthright #2)(88)

Though it was June, I was not thinking of any of this. My most immediate concern was helping Natty pack for her second summer at genius camp. I was in the middle of rolling a T-shirt when the phone rang.

“Did you hear the news?” He didn’t bother to introduce himself but I was more practiced at recognizing Jacks’s voice than I had once been.

“Phone calls are expensive, Jacks. You shouldn’t waste your weeklies on someone who doesn’t want to hear from you.”

Jacks ignored me. “Word on the street is that Balanchine Chocolate isn’t going to supply chocolate in the summer anymore. Fats thinks it’s too costly. He’s saying that he thinks chocolate should be a seasonal business. The dealers are about ready to kill him.”

I told him that Daddy had often said the same thing, and that seasonal or not, it wasn’t my business.

“You can’t be serious. Fats is running the business into the ground, and you don’t think it’s your business. Let me tell you, you backed the wrong guy with Fats. The only thing that guy cares about is his speak—”

“I’m finally out, Jacks. What do you want me to say?”

“You know I got no one else to call, right? Now that Mickey’s unreachable and Yuri’s dead, no one else will even take my call. And I’d like to have a job to go back to when I’m out of here.”

“Maybe you should consider a different line of work?”

“You finding it real easy to move on, Annie? It’d be about a million times harder for me, you know.”

“You’re not my problem,” I said, and then I hung up the phone.

I went back into Natty’s room, where she was folding up a raincoat. She wanted to know who had been on the phone. “No one,” I said.

“No one?” she repeated.

“Jacks. He’s worried that Fats is…” I let my voice trail off. If Fats was running Balanchine Chocolate into the ground, it wasn’t necessarily my problem, but it could definitely be my opportunity. “Excuse me, Natty. I have to go make a call.”

I went back out to the kitchen. If I were to make a go at this, I’d need a lawyer. I thought about calling Mr. Kipling, but we hadn’t been on the best of terms since Simon Green’s return. I thought about calling Simon Green, but I didn’t trust him. The greater problem with Mr. Kipling and Simon Green was that both men had spent their whole careers defending people from the wrong side of the law and what I needed right now was someone who played for the angels.

I thought about calling Charles Delacroix. In terms of drawbacks, he had thrown me in a reformatory twice, and also, Win would hate it.

It really did make the most sense to call Mr. Kipling. Maybe we’d had some hard times, but he was a good man and he was always on my side. At the very least, Mr. Kipling would be able to point me in the direction of the kind of lawyer I thought I needed.

I picked up the phone. I was about to dial Mr. Kipling when I found myself pressing the numbers for Win’s apartment instead. Win answered the phone. “Hello,” he said.

I didn’t reply.

“Hello,” Win repeated. “Is anyone there?”

I could have abandoned the idea right then. I could have just asked Win if he wanted to come over. I could have at the very least told him what I was thinking. But I didn’t do any of these things.

This might sound low to you, but I decided to disguise my voice. I made it deep and husky and a bit New York. “I’m calling for Charles Delacroix,” I purred. I was no vocal chameleon and part of me expected Win to burst out laughing and say, Annie, what are you playing at?

“Dad!” I heard Win yell. “Telephone!”

“I’ll take it in the office!” Charles Delacroix called back.

A second later, Charles Delacroix picked up the phone, and I heard Win hang up. “Yes?”

“It’s Anya Balanchine,” I said.

“Well, this is a surprise,” Charles Delacroix replied.

“I’m going to do it,” I said. “I’m going to open the medicinal cacao dispensary.”

“Good for you, Anya. That’s terribly industrious,” he said. “What changed your mind?”

“I saw a window—an opportunity that was too good to pass up,” I said. “I’m thinking that you should be my business lawyer.”

Charles Delacroix cleared his throat. “Why would I ever do that?”

“Because you have the expertise in city government and because you have nothing else to do and because I know you think it’s a good idea.”

“Let’s meet,” Charles Delacroix said finally. “I don’t have an office other than at home, and it would appear that you’re keeping this information from your boyfriend, my son, so…”

We agreed to meet at my apartment. Although I’d met with Charles Delacroix many times and under far more trying circumstances, I was still nervous. I took a while deciding what to wear. I didn’t want to look like a schoolgirl, but I also didn’t want to look like a little girl playing dress-up. I finally picked a pair of gray pants that might have been Daddy’s though I couldn’t say for certain and a black tank top that Scarlet had left at some point. The pants were too big so I belted them below the waistband. I looked at myself in the mirror behind the door and concluded that the outfit was silly. The doorbell rang—too late to change.