Because It Is My Blood (Birthright #2)(89)

I invited Mr. Delacroix into our living room. He still hadn’t shaved, but it looked like his beard might have been trimmed.

“Tell me about your plan.” Charles Delacroix sat down on the couch and crossed his legs.

“You, um, already know the basic idea. I’ve done a little research since then.” I turned on my slate. I had made notes there, but as I scanned them, they looked less thorough than I had thought they would. “So, you’ll obviously know that the Rimbaud Act of 2055 banned cacao and specifically choc—”

“I can remember when it happened, Anya. I was a little younger than you and Win are now.”

“Right. But, well, the law was designed to stop the food companies from producing chocolate. Most cities, including this one, still allow the sale of pure cacao in small quantities as long as it’s for medicinal purposes. I guess this includes beauty products but it can also include anything health-related. So, what I thought is, I could start with a small store, less than five hundred square feet, maybe somewhere uptown, so that I wouldn’t compete with Fats. I’d hire a doctor, and a waitress, and I’d sell medicinal health drinks, made from cacao and chocolate. But where it would be different from Fats is that everything would be in the open. I wouldn’t have to be underground.”

“Hmm,” he replied. “It’s clever, as I already told you, but you’re thinking too small.”

I asked him what he meant.

“I’ve worked in government a very long time. Do you know the way to get the city to leave you alone? Be the biggest business out there. Be an elephant right smack in the middle of Midtown. Be popular. Give the people a product they want, and the whole city will be on your side. They’ll be grateful to you for making legal what they thought should never have been illegal in the first place.” He paused. “Also, medicinal cacao dispensary has no ring to it. People won’t even know what you’re talking about. Hire your doctors and your nutritionists, but you need to make the whole enterprise sound sexy.”

I considered his words. “What you’re describing could cost a lot of money.” I had Natty and Leo to think of.

“True, though it could also make you a lot of money. And as for the space, that’ll be cheap as the city has more mammoth abandoned spaces than it knows what to do with. How do you think those criminals who run Little Egypt manage it? You should have dancing, too, by the way.”

“Dancing? Are you saying I should open a nightclub?”

“Well, that makes it sound tawdry. How about a lounge? Or just a club. I’m thinking out loud here. If it were a club, all the members would need to have prescriptions before they could join. It would be a requirement of membership. Yes, then you wouldn’t even need the doctors on-site.”

“Those are, um, interesting ideas. You’ve certainly given me a lot to consider.”

Charles Delacroix didn’t say anything for a while. “I’ve been thinking about this ever since you called me and I want to help you do this. Because I respect you, I’m going to be completely candid about why I want to help. It isn’t because I like chocolate or you, although I do. The fact of the matter is, I’m a failure right now. However, if I give chocolate back to the people, I’ll be a hero. What better platform for me to run for DA or even some other, higher office?”

I nodded.

“So, why do you want me to help you?” Charles Delacroix asked.

“Don’t you already know? You always know everything.”

“Humor me.”

“Because you have a reputation for being ethical and always on the side of the good, and if you say this is legal, people will believe you. What I learned during those months I was away is how much I don’t want to spend my whole life in hiding, Mr. Delacroix.”

“Fine,” he said. “That makes sense.” He offered me his hand to shake and then he pulled it back. “Before we agree on this venture, I need you to know something. I don’t think anyone knows what I’m about to say, but if it came out later, I don’t want you to be shocked—I poisoned you last fall.” He said this as if he’d been asking me to pass the sugar.

“Excuse me?”

“I poisoned you last fall but I don’t see this as any reason we shouldn’t work together. I assure you I had perfectly good intentions, and you were never in any real danger. Perhaps it was wrongheaded of me but I wanted to get you out of the girls’ dormitory at Liberty and into the infirmary, a venue that I believed you would find more accommodating to escape.”

“How?” I sputtered.

“The water I gave you when we had our discussion in the Cellar was spiked with a substance that can emulate a heart attack.”

Though I was surprised, I was less shocked than you might have thought. I looked at him. “You’re ruthless.”

“Only a bit. I’ll be the same way for you.”

Had there been an official villain for my last two years on earth, it would have been Charles Delacroix. What had Daddy once said? “Games change, Anya, and so do players.” I offered this man my hand, and he shook it. We began to make a list of all the things we needed to do.

*   *   *

In the morning, I put Natty on a train bound for genius camp, and in the afternoon, Charles Delacroix called me. He said that although it might have been too early to be making such decisions and although this may have fallen outside of his purview, he’d become aware of a potential venue in Midtown. “Fortieth and Fifth,” he said.