We Leave Together, стр. 8
“It’s a lie.”
“It’s a way to let the people of the city live without knowing how bad it is, or feeling it in their skin and hands. Because if they knew…? If anyone really knew?”
“You going to stop me?”
“No,” he said. “Get yourself killed. I won’t stop you.”
“I want someone to follow this guy. I know he’s running a show.”
“How do you know that?”
“He bribed me, Nic. I’ve done jobs for him, too.”
Nicola took a sip of piss gin. He darted his eyes around. The other boys were deep in the cups, not listening. Nicola was almost completely sober just from the fear.
“You can’t trust Pup,” he said, softly. “I know that for sure, so keep him out of it, far away. Jaime’s rotten to the core. You can trust Geek as long as you can buy him off or trade a favor. I’d have assumed you were crooked as sin, what I heard about you. You’re awful rowdy in the dark. Lots of bad things happen when you’re around. When do you sleep?”
“My hands aren’t clean. Are yours? I know your heart is right. Who’s got clean enough hands, here? Who has the heart for it? I’m done with that, now, and I mean it. There’s you and me. Maybe there’s Geek? That’s why you want him as sergeant, right?”
“Geek would keep his boys alive, is all, fighting battles they can win,” said Nicola. “He plays a lot of cards. He’s got a lot of girls he sees for free. I don’t know if he’s in too deep otherwise, but he doesn’t seem as bad as other options. The last thing we need is someone coming in here trying to be everything good in this world. He’ll get killed and take a lot of good boys with him. Better Geek than someone doesn’t know the Pens.”
Jona nodded.
“Can you get my guy tailed?”
“Maybe, yeah,” said Nicola.
“There’s a carpenter. He’s got a front a few blocks from here. He’s high up. I followed him back a few times, and you know where he went in the night? Where you don’t go if you aren’t high up. The Island.”
Nicola nodded. “You took his money, so he’ll see you a mile away, right? He could have been leading you anywhere.”
“I don’t think he cared that I was following him, and I’ve spent my time on the Island and know what it means. I’ve crashed parties there. I was dirt under his fingernails, and he wanted me to know it. They all did.”
“Never turn down the money, and pass along anything you find out. Let them think you’re still their boy, and let me know what you do. See if you don’t come to your senses in the morning, too, and stop telling me a thing.”
“I’ll show his shop to you. Where does his stuff come from and where does it go? Tail him and let me know. I’ll go poke around where he ends up, and I’ll find something we can really use. If we do it fast enough…”
Calipari nodded.
“I’ve got another thing I got to go run down on this. I know the two are connected, but I can’t say how.”
Nicola lifted his glass to Jona, and toasted him. Jona looked down at his. The glass was filthy. There was mud floating in it. It left grit in his teeth to drink it. He handed the glass to Nicola, and stepped out into the night.
Boys with crowns running in the dark, and evil men walking the streets, and children of demons stalking prey. It was hard for Jona to see three women walking together, smiling and singing. There were working men walking home from the canal boats. There were working men that had nothing to do with anything but their own life drinking in the streetlamp glow and candlelight, calling out to the girls selling hot food in carts walking past.
Jona wanted to run, but he couldn’t run. Not here. Dogsland was awake in the night, singing and laughing, and it wasn’t anything like all he was afraid of.
The city did not share Jona’s fear.
The messages came from time to time, from all the places these messages come. Jona’s hand reached into a pocket and discovered a scrap of paper signed with a stamped code. A man stepped from an alley with a feather in his hand. He handed the red feather to Jona, and the man said the message and ran away. A woman in a tavern leaned over Jona from behind and whispered her sultry words into his ears.
A hot-apple girl stopped and saw Jona. She laughed because she thought it was some kind of love letter or something. She had been paid to hand this message to Jona, and she thought it was the funniest thing. She held out her hand. She was smiling, and had said his name, and he had said “What?”
“I was paid to give you this,” she said. “Your girl is an ugly one, king’s man. I wouldn’t marry her if I were you.”
“Thanks,” said Jona.
It was a note, from the night itself. Leave Salvatore alone. Be a good boy until we call again.
He crumpled it up and threw it away into the mud.
***
Geek tapped Jona’s arm and pointed. The two king’s men quickly ducked back against a wall. One of the street rats that called himself Mudskipper was hard at work.
This dropper pretended like he had found this box with someone’s address on it.
The kid wouldn’t give up the box without a reward, and the victim would be thinking about a reward, too. Usually the boxes had dead rats or rocks in them. The addresses were only occasionally real.
This mudskipper had a normal left arm, but a right arm twisted up and small, like