My mouth falls open. Was he two men at once? I remember his hand in mine, yet the night runs ragged in my memory, blurred by the green fairy.
He pressed the glass on me.
He wanted me blind.
The bastard.
I march up to him, paper clutched tight. Before I can speak, he holds up a hand to stop me.
“Not here,” he says, catching my wrist. He steers me off the street into a narrow court—flagstones damp, an ornate fountain ticking at the basin, shutters drawn above. He faces me, smooths the corner of his mustache once, then holds himself still, boots planted.
“Look,” he says, voice stripped of polish. “I told you it was for your own good not to get in deeper.”
“I am already in it,” I answer. “I have nowhere to go, no one I may trust. You have made me a party whether I will it or not. So tell me.”
A long breath. He rubs the back of his neck, then drops his hand. “Walked in same as any gentleman with a ticket. Waitedmy moment. Pulled a kerchief over my face. Cleared my path of interruptions and worked the strongbox before goin’ back to my seat. Simple as that.” He says it as if it were as benign as visiting the postmaster to buy stamps.
“The paper said unknown parties.”
“Well it was me who beat the starch out of all three of ’em, one by one. No one else. Told you, I work alone.”
I draw back, hand to my chest. “You truly struck them?”
“They’re breathin’, ain’t they?” A dry hitch of a laugh, without warmth. “Hell, Alice, I could’ve killed the lot of ’em. Would you rather that?”
I can only stare.
He tilts his head, the faintest curl at his mouth. “See? Mercy. That’s me bein’ kind.”
I steady the paper under my arm. “And what business keeps you here?”
“A fence,” he says. “Buys what don’t belong to me, makes it pass for clean.”
“And you plan to meet with this fence?”
He nods wearily, then holds out his hand to resume our walk.
I clasp my hands neat at my waist. “I will come with you.”
Something in him goes very still. When he speaks again, the weariness is gone, replaced with a hard, cold edge.
“No,” he says. “You will not. And don’t fool yourself—layin’ with me don’t give you a say over my business. I take care of what’s mine how I see fit. You walk in there lookin’ like a Sunday school teacher, they’ll see you comin’ a mile away.”
The words cut. My chin lifts. “Do not speak to me as if I were a child. I will not be sent off while you disappear into shadows.”
His jaw knots, a vein pulsing at his temple. The mask is gone, and I see the brute the papers warn about. He crowds the space between us, driving me back a step until my spine meets thewall. He leans down close enough that his breath scorches my cheek.
“Yes. You. Will,” he says, final. “You’ll do exactly as I tell you—or you can pack your shit and crawl back to Ohio. Your boredom ain’t my business, Alice. I done my job of lookin’ after you, and you got everything you need. If that don’t suit you, walk away and see how long you last.”
The cruelty in it slices deep. He has never stood over me like this, never let me feel the weight of his temper turned full upon me. A cold dread spreads through me.
Pride alone keeps my spine stiff. I smooth my gloves, set my hat just so, and incline my head as though we were polite strangers. My voice is flat, chilled. “Very well, then.”
I turn and walk out into Jackson Square, where the crowd swallows me, iron balconies shadowing my path, a brass horn wailing from somewhere down the street. Chin high, steps measured, I carry on to the Hotel de Chartres.
Only when I reach the hotel steps, the noise dimming behind me, do my knees weaken. I climb quickly, clutching the banister, my vision blurred. By the time the door closes on our room, the tears I held at bay come hard and fast, spilling hot down my cheeks.
Chapter 19
