Den of Smoke

by Christopher Byford

  And instigated by three small, insignificant words, Jackdaw single-handedly changed the fate of the Morning Star and those thereon, for ever.

  ‘Let’s talk business,’ he said.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  The shiny

  It had taken a good couple of days before Jackdaw had recovered enough to walk. Even still, putting weight upon his injured leg was enough to bring about a noticeable limp. His face was sore and peppered with purple-yellow bruises Jackdaw was asked, repeatedly, if he wanted to go through with this. The rest of the Jackrabbits insisted that they accompany him as this was going to be a dangerous meeting, especially if it turned sour. He had already survived spitting death in the face once, Alvina reminded him, and doing it a second time was courting disaster.

  Dismissing their concerns, Jackdaw made it out into the street from Cutter’s, his right arm bound in a sling and a large satchel strung over the left shoulder. Draped over him was a jacket as, in Jack’s words, one can’t forgo looking sharp despite having a face like he had been caught beneath the hooves of an angry horse. He found it amusing. The others didn’t.

  Jackdaw knew where he was going, his legs taking him as if they had a will of their own, leaving him free to consider what was going to happen. The route was preordained, as if destiny guided him. He moved invisibly through human traffic, getting the occasional comment as to his beaten features but he paid no attention to them. Jack would stare too if he saw someone who had been knocked about so much. Probably would have said something too.

  The satchel was heavy.

  Donovan’s tribute almost packed the bag out, causing the strap to bite into already tender muscle. He would have preferred someone else to carry it but this was an undertaking he had to perform alone.

  The sling hurt.

  His arm was bandaged from elbow to hand, a dense roll of bandages that turned the limb into a branch of white. Even his hand was covered with a good layer of protection to the point that a good few inches past the fingers were enclosed. His fingers cramped, stuck in a clenching position, but it was just another pain to ignore. He had become adept at doing so these last few days. Enduring it a little longer wasn’t going to hurt.

  The meeting place was just as private as before.

  The letter that Cole delivered indicated that Jackdaw was finally ready to pay what he owed. Whatever cronies were sent to collect the tribute, Jack insisted they entertained better manners than those above them and were far less ugly than the ones who worked him over.

  And, as expected, Donovan decided to send Ash and Mex, just like before.

  Jackdaw slowly made his way over path and road, crossing out of the market and walking past the small, smoke-belching factories. The district reeked of coke and once he left, he imagined that his sneezes would provide trace of black for a number of days afterward.

  The meeting point was at Kilner-Bubo, a former glass-blowing factory which, due to negligence, had endured a fire that gutted the building. Most made it out, with a number of unfortunate workers being injured by the ensuing stampede and engulfed by flames. While closed down now as negotiations took place as to which prospective bidder would take ownership, it became a perfect meeting place.

  Its interior was sooty black, the smell quite strong even in the foyer. If Jackdaw went further he feared that it might become overpowering, which made it opportune that the meeting was arranged just past the doors.

  And there they were: Donovan’s messengers, all in their cocksure glory.

  Mex tossed his cigarette aside upon the front doors squeaking open, delighted at their new company. He and Ash had both been waiting, not long mind, but long enough to be irritated. Though the moment the doors closed out the sunlight and their eyes adjusted, it was clear why they had to be patient.

  ‘What the fuck happened to you?’ Ash’s gaze lingered, his mouth agape at the fact that Jack was still standing. A mite shakily mind you, but standing all the same.

  ‘Fell off a horse. You know how tricky those things can be,’ Jack replied, attempting to keep himself upright. His leg proved to be slightly less compliant than he liked.

  ‘Was it thirty feet high?’ Mex blurted out. ‘Broke your arm too?’

  Jack looked to his sling. ‘It’s fine. I’m just taking precautions.’ Jack brushed aside any additional attention that his injuries might bring. ‘Let’s not pretend that you’re concerned about my welfare, fellas. We both know that’s the furthest thing in those heads of yours.’

  The messengers’ initial amusement subsided, their attention settling to business. Dangerous business at that.

  ‘Right. Well, we all know why we’re here right? You have a little matter of an outstanding debt to Donovan and we are here to collect.’ Ash gestured to the leather sack that Jack had held on to so tightly. ‘I assume that’s it?’

  ‘That it is. All present and accounted for.’

  ‘Pity, I was hoping you would be empty-handed and we got to knock you around some. Give you more of the same as before. Colour me disappointed,’ Mex scoffed.

  In response, the sack was limply tossed forward and Jack took a step away, unimpressed.

  ‘You don’t have to leave it in the dirt like that. That’s just rude,’ Ash added, stepping towards the bag and retrieving it. The zip shimmied open, revealing the stacks of paper, all neatly bound. A few were skimmed, checking to see if the top few notes of each wad were genuine and the rest, fakes. Luckily for Jack, every single note was legitimate currency.

  ‘All accounted for, boys. I’m not trying to trick anyone. Ain’t in my nature,’ Jack stated, unexpectedly caught by an inhalation of smoke that brought about a cough.

  ‘Well now, so it is. How did you come by it?’ Ash asked.

  ‘A job.’

  ‘What job?’ he enquired with scepticism.

  ‘Just a job,’ Jackdaw deflected. The fewer people who knew, the better. If it was discovered where the money had come from, questions would be asked. Trouble would no doubt be caused. It was better to keep things ambiguous.

  ‘Nothing to do with that nasty business out in Dead Corridor was it? Some crashed sand ship? Big misfortune, many dead?’ Mex added, curious as to how Jack could conjure up so much money in so little time, short of robbing a good few banks. The mere suggestion made Jackdaw less composed, encouraging Mex to push onward.

  ‘I seem to recall that salvagers found quite the tragedy on board. More peculiarly some unclaimed cargo was missing. Safe was blown wide open on all accounts.’ Mex tuned his cruel gaze upon Jackdaw in accusation. ‘Red diamonds I believe it was – true?’

  ‘True that is,’ Ash affirmed, placing the satchel with the money on the floor between them.

  The game had changed. Jack narrowed his eyes in scrutiny, watching for any sign of a move that was not to his liking. There was no point feigning ignorance being that it was clearly known exactly how Jack had acquired the insurmountable pay to save his backside.

  ‘Donovan knew they were being moved?’

  It was a question that Jack knew the answer to immediately though felt the urge to ask anyway. Everything about this was preordained. Enduring this charade was just a formality to the eventual outcome. It had been this way before Jack had sent the telegram.

  ‘Nothing is shifted around the region without him knowing. Especially cargo like those diamonds that you flogged,’ Mex stated.

  ‘What of it?’

  ‘So, he knows,’ Ash emphasized this slowly, wide-eyed. ‘He knows of the dealing and the brokering, being that he had involvement in it all. Who do you think hired the Sanders Brothers to steal the boat in the first place? They were going to drive it out into the Sand Sea and make it lost. The deal was for the Sanders Boys to sell the ship to him whole, the entire time they were totally unawares as to what it was carrying. Then, you know, they went and died.’

  ‘Though that’s what you get hiring a rabble like that. Should have sent people much more professional.’ Mex gave a gravelly laugh.<
br />
  Jackdaw found nothing amusing. Maybe the Sanders Boys were a mess from top to toe but plenty of them had lost their lives on the ship due to a conflict of interests. He saw nothing humorous about it, though was alone in that notion.

  ‘I’m the go-to for this town. I always have been. If anything happened here, it was put through me first. I was the contact, I was the one overseeing things and I was the one paying him tribute.’ Jack voiced his concerns coldly, letting the pair know that he found their attitudes disgusting.

  ‘Looks like Donovan wished to outsource someone different,’ Ash added.

  ‘But the Sanders Boys wouldn’t be anybody’s first choice unless they were unable to afford better,’ Jackdaw blurted, his well-checked temper beginning to wear thin. Why did Donovan hire them if even those close to him openly objected? There was the naive aspect sure, but the Sanders would have cost a lot less than anybody else in the region. Was it money? Did Donovan’s operation need money so badly he resorted to two-bit gaggles of crooks like the Sanders Boys?

  ‘Unlucky for them.’

  Ash kicked his shoes in the sand, dwelling on a concerning thought. The cigarette from earlier finally shed its last ember, dead.

  ‘I won’t bore you with further words seeing that it’s hot out and my patience suffers in the sun.’ Ash’s tone cut through the air. ‘Donovan knows that it would have been quite a substantial profit from the deal so he wants to renegotiate the terms of the outstanding debt. He quite fairly believes that another forty per cent would be an appropriate contribution, given the circumstances.’

  ‘Those are sky-high numbers, boys.’

  ‘We don’t set the numbers, Jack. Only enforce them.’

  Jack paused in thought. What choice did he have? Stuck here, there was no way he could survive another beating like before, not in his condition. There was plenty more money from the heist – the bag only held a fraction of it. It could be easily paid.

  Jackdaw had paid plenty to bring this affair to an end.

  ‘I see. Could you please pass on a message to Donovan for me?’

  ‘Of course,’ Ash stated.

  Thunder roared from beneath Jackdaw’s coat. His jacket was pulled away and the arm beneath resting in the sling slipped from its confines, gripping on to the still-smoking pistol. The sling was unfastened, the bandages ripped away, littering the floor. Jackdaw moved his arm around in a circular fashion to remove any onset of cramp, the limb very much unbroken.

  ‘Thanks, fellas.’

  Everything about this was preordained. Jack had just been going through the motions, a formality to the eventual outcome: the outcome that favoured him. The other two just didn’t know it. As Jack tucked the revolver down his waistband, he reclaimed the satchel and the money therein, knowing full well what was going to transpire at this meeting. There would have been no negotiation, no offers of recompense to correct matters. All that mattered was who was going to pull the trigger first.

  And as the old saying goes: you never steal the shiny from a jackdaw.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  The offer of decency

  Bounty Rose had a clear schedule that evening. Or as clear as one could get in her line of business.

  Tonight was more escorting than anything else; that is, she was paid to hang from the arm of someone at an event or function. Nothing else was required, bar a small amount of flirting, but she was a social chameleon – all Roses were, mistresses of their craft, experts at conversation, making their company extremely valuable. A good three hours batting her eyes and playfully touching arms when listening to tiresome jokes and the rest of the night could be claimed as hers. Sadly, being a Rose meant that the concept of a day off was impossible. Bills always needed to be paid.

  As she sat at her dressing table, Bounty worked at setting her hair into place, feeding in pin after pin until the curls stabilized. Next, she removed a lipstick of a red-orange hue and relieved it of its cap.

  A sudden banging rattled the door to room 13. Unannounced and certainly without permission, the handle turned and the door was cracked ajar.

  Bounty yelped in surprise, quite alarmed at the visitor’s impatience. The lipstick slipped from between her fingers, clattering on the table. For anyone else she would have delivered a scathing series of insults and would have no doubt reported the indignity to the house, ensuring that they got blacklisted from the establishment.

  But as the door opened wider, revealing the bruised face of Jackdaw with a strained cocksure smile, Bounty instead charged forward and tossed her hands around his neck. Her face buried into his jacket, his bead bristles tickling her skin, not that a little irritation like that mattered.

  Playfully she struck him on the chest, at which he winced, making her hurriedly apologize. She led him to the bed to sit, guessing that prolonged standing was still, unfortunately, an effort.

  ‘You idiot. Do you plan on visiting me in the near future when you’re not hurt?’ she said, looking over the mess of his face.

  Jack nodded silently.

  ‘You also surprised me. Shame on you – I could have been indecent.’

  ‘When are you ever decent?’ he mocked.

  ‘Fair point, but what other working girl would put up with your smell? Or, may I remind you, the considerable trouble you put me through?’

  Jack raised a palm, forcing the conversation elsewhere, as if this was terribly tiring to endure, even though it was good-natured.

  ‘None of that. I tire of this dance we do. Today isn’t the day for banter.’

  ‘Then what is it for?’

  Jack lifted his belongings, tugging at the buckle. He tossed it onto the bed, the well-bound stack of crisp notes flooding onto the satin. Bounty’s eyes grew wider at the amount of currency on display, an absolutely disgusting amount which, if anyone else had presented, she would declare as forgeries.

  ‘Keeping promises,’ Jack exclaimed, smiling once more.

  Bounty stared aghast for what felt like an eternity. Eventually she summoned the courage to approach the bed, her bed, and the foreign contents spilt upon it. The sheer amount of money, wrapped in tight collections of paper, were something resembling a fantasy. Eventually she grasped one, slowly counting the wedge, note by note.

  ‘A decent woman, right? That’s what we agreed?’ Jack enquired.

  Finally she completed the mental arithmetic, a task concluding with her mouth falling open in shock.

  ‘What?’ Jack asked.

  ‘I didn’t think you were serious! Where did you get all this money? Wait … was this from the Messiah? Did you manage to pull it off? You actually did it?!’

  Bounty’s face changed into complete elation. Shock was very much still in effect but her excitement was impossible to contain.

  Jack nodded, standing. He brushed a fallen curl of hair back into place, a cocky move from the man but a playful gesture and nothing more. Bounty let him, still struggling to come to terms with what he had accomplished.

  ‘That pretty much proves that we did. Plus there’s more. Now this here currency brings about a conundrum. I can’t stay here as people will come looking for me. Bad people probably. I hazard they would put two and two together and come after you and press you for information as to my whereabouts, which I promise you will not know. Or I can do good on my word.’

  Bounty stepped away, afraid that this spectacle was going to fall apart. Bounty was content in her life as a Rose. To the perception of some it may have seemed a dirty venture, but to her it was a life that she lived on her own terms, without sacrifice or compromise. To do anything different than that was obscure to comprehend. What exactly was he proposing? That he could just come in and buy her from her customers so she would never have to work again? Was she so low to him that he pitied her?

  ‘You’re out of your mind.’ Bounty hurried about the room, reaching for a glass of water upon the nightstand. A few desperate gulps bought her time to compose her next words yet they still emerged frantic. �
�Y-you walk on in here with that and speak of keeping a stupid little promise made in passion! Saying … spouting lunacy!’

  Jack rose, meeting her eye line. ‘I’m plenty of things. A liar isn’t one.’

  ‘You can’t fall for me. It’s not the done thing. A Rose has thorns, remember? Isn’t what they all say? It’s the worst thing you can do!’

  ‘Fall, nothing.’ Jackdaw remained resolute. ‘You kiss me like I kiss you.’

  ‘I kiss you because it’s … it’s my job!’ Bounty met this with a heaving of breath, almost distraught now that their feelings were being dragged out into the open. Feelings that a Rose shouldn’t have for a client. Feelings that a crook shouldn’t have for paid company.

  Jackdaw raised a hand, pinching a note between his fingers. ‘Do you truly believe that?’

  Bounty slapped the hand aside, letting the money drift to the floor. Then, in the same second, gripped him tightly and kissed the man so passionately out of fear that she would burst from restraint. They fed from one another, a driven, almost angry act in defiance of common sense and when Bounty withdrew, her palm travelled down his cheek and slowly she relinquished his bottom lip from her teeth.

  ‘I’m not the kind for a husband, Jack …’ Bounty rasped. ‘And may I remind you that neither are you the kind for a wife.’

  * * *

  Jack cupped her hands in compassion. Whatever this turmoil was between them, it didn’t need defining with clumsy words. Were they in love with one another? Surely not, for it was easy to confuse what they shared, but there was a glimmer of something, given the woman’s reaction. An ember of something decent.

  And that was enough.

  ‘True, but that’s not what I’m suggesting.’ Jack explained, ‘I’m not trying to, I don’t know, tame you or something absurd. I would be a fool to. All I’m saying is that we could always just … try things out. See where it leads. With that money, we’ll have a hell of a time finding out. What do you say? Fancy going somewhere with a crook like me?’