“Sure, sure.” Custler put a hand over her mouth, scrubbing at her jaw. “I just … ah, swineshit. He’s real young, and pretty. And I thought maybe you two were … yeah?”
Aristide turned his head a fraction of an inch and nailed her with a chilly glance, eyebrow raised. “Like you and Frye?”
“Tits.” She turned white.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “I’m sure you’re not as obvious as we are. Otherwise someone would have clocked you when she turned the company over.”
It took her a moment to recover from that, and when she did, she came on more matter-of-fact. “I know it ain’t my business. I only ask ’cause of this mess with the DePauls.”
Aristide’s complexion would hide a blanch better than hers had. That didn’t mean his blood didn’t drain—he felt it in the coldness of his cheeks.
“Paperfolk said you used to spark a little with the brother. Maybe keep each other up. I only asked about the secretary ’cause I want to know if you’re over that.”
“It was a very long time ago,” he said.
“Good. Good.” Relief gave him an idea of what she was going to say before she said it. “You might hear some nasty things about Emmy from his sister. You two are friends, I think? I just don’t want it to turn our dealings sour.”
“Of course not,” he said. “Business is business. I stand to gain as much from this as you.”
Custler let out a long breath. “Mother and sons, I’m glad to hear you say it.”
As he was to hear her say that. He’d had to allay one set of Frye and Custler’s suspicions already, when they brought up Saeger and the Catwalk. If they thought he was pinned with them over this late-breaking news—and he was, Queen save him—he’d have a brand new round of ruffles to soothe, at greater personal cost than previously. He had no stake in Saeger, except that she had once known Cordelia and he might have liked to ask her … Well. Any number of things. But that wasn’t enough to incite him to espionage on Saeger’s behalf. Not enough to play at threats and blackmail.
Anyone less professional would have let their jaw drop open, stunned by their own stupidity.
He wanted Cyril out of the country as badly as Lillian did. Eight years ago he had simply done the work as necessary, and would have succeeded if not for Cyril himself scratching the whole enterprise. And whatever work Aristide might do for him this time around, if it was tabletop Cyril would turn his nose up at it.
Perhaps he ought to be trussed like a contrary sheep and taken forcibly from Gedda. But Aristide could guess enough about what Cyril had endured to know that this would be unforgivable. The only other option seemed to be changing Gedda to suit Cyril, and it was a little late in the campaign to put his name on the ticket.
But he didn’t need to run for office to effect change. To put a halt to the proposed tribunals, he only needed to scratch the prospects of the person who’d proposed them. Or ensure her success on his own terms.
Custler, bless her, had dropped this neat idea straight into his lap. Now, all he had to do was pick it up and give it a shine.
“Hm,” she said, casing him like a breeder eyeing horseflesh. “You’re real quiet all of the sudden.”
“Headache,” he said, and pushed back from the railing. “They come on suddenly sometimes.”
“Really? You should see a doctor. My brother-in-law had aches like that and took real sick and died. When they cut his head open he had a tumor like this.” She made a fist. “Gave him delusions, too. Real bad.”
He smiled thinly. “I’ll take it under advisement.”
* * *
Daoud was still elbows-deep in paperwork when Aristide returned to the hotel. A smudge of ink colored his cheekbone, just above the carefully barbered edge of his beard.
“Sell all my shares,” said Aristide, flinging his gloves onto the sideboard.
Daoud looked up from his work, eyebrows furrowed. He was going to need spectacles soon, from the pained wrinkles at the corners of his eyes. «Once again?»
“My shares in Cross-Costa. Sell them. Yours, too, if you like.”
Shaking his head like he was trying to clear water from his ears, Daoud asked, “I—all of them?”
Reconsidering, Aristide sank onto the sofa and stretched out. “Oh, all right. Maybe half. Keep our fingers in the pie for verisimilitude.”
“Veri—” Daoud paused. “Aristide, what are you planning, that we need to tell a lie?”
“I didn’t have to plan a thing,” he said. “Custler came up with this one all on her own, and dropped it neatly into my lap.”
Without looking, he felt the intensity of Daoud’s skepticism on him like a spotlight. “Whatever you are going to do,” he said, and Aristide heard the rustle of papers collected into a pile. “Cross is not going to like it, is she?”
“It will destroy our Geddan business, if not Cross-Costa Imports entirely. Bring me a drink while you’re up?”
Because he had risen from his chair in alarm. Now, taken aback, he hovered with his hands slightly raised.
“A brandy, please. And don’t skimp. I know you’re liable to.”
Daoud’s body moved toward the bar, but he watched Aristide the whole way there. When he had a glass down and the bottle uncorked, he said, “The tar. Something to do with the tar, and the election.” Then, midway through pouring, “And DePaul.”
Aristide held his hand out over the back of the sofa, open and curved for the crystal. Daoud sat it there, then stood with his hands on his hips while Aristide—pleased with himself and apt to be theatrical—sipped his drink to draw out the moment.
“Hmm,” he said, tipping the globe so the brandy caught the light. “Not the best I’ve had.”
“Aristide.”
“Yes, of course.” He set the glass aside. “Frye never truly ceded control of her corporation—she’s knocking Custler, for the Lady’s sake. And now West Cultham is moving tar. Would you want that all to come if you were running for prime minister?”
Aristide knew that Daoud wore a mask with him: a cool, ceramic-smooth aloofness, occasionally smeared with irritation or indulgence. It reminded him, almost, of the sweet servility he had affected for Pulan. If not in form, then certainly in function. It was maddening, and Aristide had tried many tactics to break it.
This time he succeeded without trying at all.
“You cannot do this,” said Daoud. “This is madness.”
“It’s perfectly reasonable,” said Aristide, setting brandy aside in favor of a straight.
“If you expose her and Saeger wins, will there not still be a tribunal? It seems inevitable, at this point.”
“Well then, she has to win, doesn’t she? What percentage of her campaign costs do you think the sale of my shares will cover?”
Daoud didn’t move, though Aristide had breathed a cloud of smoke in his direction. “You are being hasty. You have not thought this through.”
“Of course I have. There are plenty of people and shells between me and that tar. I’ll be perfectly insulated if it comes to light. Don’t tell me how to do my job.”
“It is not your job!” He finally broke from his freeze, throwing his arms up and striding back to the desk. “This—” he grabbed a bunch of papers from the top of the stack, clipped together at one corner and marked with a metallic seal. “This is your job! Cross-Costa is not your … your…” He slapped the papers down. «It’s not your little empire. You aren’t the King of Crime, or whatever stupid nickname they used to call you when you lived here in the golden years. Other people depend on this company for work. For money. For their lives. If you do this, your own employees will be arrested, probably jailed.»
Aristide ashed his cigarette. “You seem to be under the impression that I intend to go straight to the press but, my dear, that defeats the point of blackmail.”
“Bhishna solkatay ahshaleh! Do not be so … itu with me right now! So fey! I am serious.”
“As am I.” He sat up, back a pry bar against th
e temptation of the tufted upholstery. Drawing long on his straight, he exhaled fully before he continued. “If it comes to exposure, the hounds will round up my employees. Fine. When I was the monarch of the demimonde, I let them take my friends.”
Daoud stood for a long moment staring, lips parted: an expression of shock he might have worn after being slapped by someone he trusted, before the flush began to rise.
More fool him. He’d had years to learn where he could place his trust, and should have learned that Aristide struck those closest to him all the harder.
* * *
A woman came up to Damesfort at the weekend—or, Cyril thought it was the weekend; he hadn’t been paying attention to the days. She appeared in time for lunch, crisply dressed in a green plaid suit. Silver liberally streaked her dark hair, which was drawn into a twist so tight he worried her cheekbones might cut through her skin. The angle of her chin was high and crooked, and her epicanthic eyes narrow with unspoken judgment. Where the black edge of her gaze caught, it cut like volcanic glass.
“Mr. DePaul,” she said, nodding a greeting as she sat down. And that was all she said to him until the meal was over. He gathered from the conversation that she was some kind of school friend Lillian knew from Sackett, but the cool-friendly way they spoke made it seem she wasn’t here for a social call.
That, and the thick briefcase none of the staff had taken from her.
He was ready for it, then, when they had all made an effort on the cold cuts, cheese, and pickles. Ready for her to set aside her napkin, exchange a glance with his sister, and then say, “Mr. DePaul, I wonder if I might speak with you privately?”
“If I say no, will you go back to Amberlough?” he asked. “Or stay here until I break?”
Her smile had the same edge as her eyes, though her teeth were white as bicarbonate of soda. “Lillian’s hospitality is tempting, and we have lots to catch up on, I’m sure.”
“You’re a lawyer,” he said, for her answer had not answered anything, even as it implied intent.
“Yes,” she said. “I’m yours.”
And so after lunch he found himself sitting on the sofa in the library, staring into the fire rather than look at Rinko Higata as she spoke to him.
“I understand you have undergone something of an ordeal,” she said, removing a thick folder from her briefcase. Paper hissed on paper, faintly reminiscent of a knife against a whetstone.
“Only compared to some,” he said.
“Noble,” she said. “I would not have expected it, knowing what I did about you, through Lillian, before … this.”
“Told tales on me, did she?” He took a straight from the basket on the end table and a match from the tin beside it.
“You certainly didn’t make your family’s life very easy. And it seems you continued the trend well into adulthood, affecting rather more people.”
He was glad of the straight; midway through lighting it, he could feign intense focus on the flame. If it had already been burning, he might have ripped it from his mouth to tear her up and down. As it was, he only inhaled sharply, making the tip of his cigarette flare.
“If you’re here to school me about my flaws,” he said, once the ember had caught, “let me assure you: I already have them memorized.”
“Good,” she said, and shuffled a clipped sheaf of papers to the bottom of her stack. “Less coaching.”
“Ms. Higata,” he said. “I’m not sure you understand—”
“That you’d rather hang? I think I’ve caught on by now. Lillian said you refused her offer to send you abroad. You could easily have gone. You could still easily go, though time is running out.”
“Frye hasn’t even been elected yet.”
“And you think Saeger will let this kitty sit on the table? There will be a reckoning no matter who takes the Cliff House. And here you sit on your sad, self-pitying rear, waiting to walk up the gallows stairs.”
He said nothing. Just drew on the straight.
“Dying will not fix what you did,” she told him.
Guilt crawled through him like black mold. “That isn’t the point.”
“What is?”
He looked at her, finally: a long, hard stare.
“Would you be satisfied,” she asked, “with life in prison?”
“What?”
“I said, would you be—”
“I heard you the first time.”
She put the folder on her knee, and placed her hands on it in a deliberate stack. “I told your sister I think I can keep your neck out of the noose.”
“You’re assuming I won’t plead guilty.”
“I’m not entirely sure they’ll let you. This is going to be a show trial; no plea bargains, no going quietly.”
“I wasn’t aiming for a plea bargain,” said Cyril. “I shot an innocent man in the back of the head.”
“And poisoned two others before that, yes. The Telegraph has the stories on microfiche. Anyway, those are criminal charges. You’ll have to deal with them sometime, but I doubt they’ll come up in this particular court. The point is you were hemmed into a corner. The last of many.”
“That doesn’t make it right.” Sacred arches, this woman was getting under his skin like splinters.
“I agree,” she said, giving him another case of whiplash. “Everything you did, you did under threat. Fine. You still did it. We’ve all seen what it meant for Gedda.”
“And you’re supposed to be my lawyer?” he asked. “Tits, why not take me out in the yard and hang me now? There’s a nice tree in the orchard. Branch the right height. Not that I’ve been looking.”
Higata’s expression remained placid as he ranted, faintly aloof, shaming him finally into sullen silence. When he had retreated to his cigarette and returned his gaze to the hearth she went on as if he’d never spoken.
“Now you have to tell them what the consequences meant for you. Nobody likes it when a traitor gains by their actions. But I have done my research. I have read the file the Ospies kept on you; after the CIS was dissolved they declassified many documents. You gained nothing, and lost much more than most of us. So mortify yourself. Show us how you’ve been hurt by what you did. You have suffered horrors, as your sister says, and you will continue to suffer every day you breathe. It is not worth their while to kill you; your life is your punishment.”
“And that’s supposed to convince me?” he said. “To work with you?”
“I didn’t say it was true. If we are lucky, this will play well with the judge and you will get a tough sentence, but not death. We can always appeal. What you put yourself through, in your own heart? That is up to you.”
Cyril flicked ashes into the tray on the side table. “So you want me to get up there and read a litany of every torture I’ve endured since the Ospies caught me running?”
“Oh, no,” she said. “You are thinking far too small. I want you to take the stand and recount how life has utterly crushed you at every turning.”
“No deal,” he said, and ground out the butt of his straight.
* * *
Of course, Stephen eavesdropped on the whole thing. Cyril had shown him which upstairs hearths had the best acoustics to overhear conversations carried on below. So after Higata went back to Amberlough—a pressing appointment early the next morning, so sorry she couldn’t stay for dinner, no matter what threat she had almost leveled earlier in the day—Stephen found Cyril smoking at the back gate, staring over the barren fields down toward the hidden village. The sun had mostly gone, and every so often the wind parted the trees in perfect alignment so that the winking lights of the shops and houses shone through.
“Is it true?” asked Stephen, folding his arms on the top rail of the fence.
“Which part?”
“Even if Frye doesn’t win, you’ll go up. And if they charge you, you’re looking at the gallows.”
He shrugged and lifted his hand to take another drag. Dry skin across his knuckles split, a fine thread of pain
so delicate it merely itched. In the silence, a train whistle soared through the purpling sky. Evening robins called from the fencerows and the fields.
“You know I got a black eye over you,” said Stephen. “People call you all kinds of names. Mariah Peavey and her gang tried to duck me when we first came over from Asu.”
“You didn’t let them, did you?”
Stephen sent a piercing sideways glare in his direction. “How do you think I got the black eye?”
“Good. Let them duck you once, you stay wet the rest of your life. Mother’s tits.” Overcome by the truth of it, he pitched the butt of his straight into the field. Sparks danced in its trajectory. “None of it should matter. Not like it does.”
“What, ducking and all?”
“Ducking, Cantrell, university, any of it. You’re thirteen. A bunch of other kids throwing you in a fountain shouldn’t mean more than wet shorts.”
“It does, though,” Stephen said. His tone had taken a turn from teenage pique to disturbing gravity.
Cyril sighed. “And don’t I know.” He could feel his nephew staring, wanting to ask but hardly daring.
His secrets weren’t for the judge or the jury. They weren’t for his lawyer or his sister or the press. He’d had enough hauled out of him in his life to know the value of keeping what he could close to. But he’d decided to teach his nephew how to better live through what had nearly killed him. Perhaps Stephen deserved those pieces, even if it cost Cyril his pride, and dredged up old injuries.
“University,” said Cyril. “I made it that far, anyway. I was a miserable student at Cantrell, and all the teachers hated me, but I got along all right with my class and I was never ducked. I only slipped in the midden once I got to Ellerslee.”
“What happened?”
“I had a good professor. The only one I ever had. Most classes I couldn’t keep my head in the lecture; none of it seemed important. But he … well. It happened slowly. A few of us found ourselves in a study group. We met at his house in the evenings. It wasn’t really studying, though. Just talk. But when you got in the room with him it was like someone had flipped the switch on a current and even the air was humming. He had that much presence. Which was why, I’ll wager, the Tatien government had him recruiting fresh-faced troublemakers. He had a knack for finding the students who chafed in school—the ones too clever for their own good, all ready to chuck what they’d been told they should want and take up something new.
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