Before Steuer can walk away, I whisper, “Why are you helping us?”
Steuer drains the champagne in his flute in one swallow. He says quietly into the empty glass, “If you ever had to defend a client like Max Blanck, you’d know why.” He doesn’t look my way before he folds into the crowd.
I exhale. Shake the grain of rice in the glass vial. It makes a small, rattling sound, but to me, the sound is thunderous. Or perhaps, that’s my pounding heart.
This is the single grain of rice that will tip the scale.
THE SEVEN OF SWORDS
A MINOR ARCANA CARD, 7TH IN THE SUIT OF SWORDS
A man steals five swords. As he runs, grasping those sharp weapons, he looks over his shoulder at two swords he left behind, both jutting upright from where they are lodged in the earth.
Upright: betrayal, deception, confidence, a plan that may fail
Reversed: self-deceit, keeping secrets
While Stella discusses Ethel and rice, Pax discreetly pulls Kiyoko aside, into a gold-wallpapered powder room.
“I need you to be the touch,” he says with a hoarse voice. He smells of desperation.
Kiyoko’s eyes narrow. “I’m sorry?”
“The point person. The contact. I need you to be the one who meets up with the others afterward. I can’t do it.”
“Why.” It’s not a question. “That’s not the plan, Pax.”
Pax huffs. His energy is wild—it’s off. Frenetic. Frantic. “I will likely be unavailable.”
Kiyoko rolls her eyes around the small water closet. Sheconsiders sticking his head in the toilet and pulling the flush cord.
“And the touch can’t wait?” she asks. “Say, a day or two? Until youareavailable?”
Pax’s almost-reply lingers on the tip of his tongue like an acrid pill:I might not be available for a long time. But instead he slowly inhales. “No. The others, the ones you’re meeting—they’re like toddlers with a peppermint stick. We can only expect their self-control for so long.”
Kiyoko understands this. “You trust me?”
Pax pauses. “I think so. No. Does anyone ever really trust anyone else?”
“Yes, Pax. They do.” Her lips purse. “And if I say no?”
“You won’t say no. It all falls apart now if you say no.”
Kiyoko makes fists around her thumbs, cracking them. “Dammit, Pax. It’s almost eight o’clock. You’re leaving me no choice but to agree.”
And then Pax does something he rarely does. He apologizes, and he means it. “I’m sorry.” He doesn’t look her in the eyes.
Kiyoko can see that his apology rings true.
“Really, I am. But if anything happens—”
“Nothing’s going to happen.”
“If anything happens,” he continues, “don’t do anything drastic. Abandon the plan. Okay?”
Kiyoko cocks her scarred eyebrow to punctuate her sarcasm. “Who, me? I would never do anything drastic.”
Pax doesn’t grin.
