As time passed, even that hope faded. No one could help us, even if they wanted to.
My only hope was that Tony caught Joe, not Roy.
That Tony told his men to kill Joe quickly.
That Joe didn’t suffer.
* * *
I did little but weep; I couldn’t eat or sleep. I didn’t dare open the door. Where would I go? All my money was gone. Roy would burn the Cathedral if I went back to the Spadros Pot. Anywhere else I might go would put my friends in terrible danger.
So I stayed. There was nothing but water to drink, and when I did drink, it came back up. My hands shook in fear, and guilt gnawed at the depths of my stomach. The laughter outside came and went, even when I screamed for her to stop.
I got Joe killed, just as I got Air killed. And Ottilie, Treysa, Poignee, Stephen, Herbert, Anastasia, and Marja. And now, possibly Eleanora, David, and my Ma.
Everyone who came near to me died!
Even when I cried myself into oblivion, every noise sent me into terror. Between Jack Diamond, Frank Pagliacci, Tony, Sawbuck, and Roy, I wasn’t sure how long I had to live.
I wasn’t sure I actually wanted to.
The Cruelty
A sharp rapping on the oak door.
Heart pounding, I crept towards the sound, pistol in hand.
Regina Clubb didn’t so much as glance at my gun. “Wipe your face, Mrs. Spadros,” she said. “You look frightful.”
Stifling my embarrassment, I turned away. She followed, closing the door behind her. I holstered my revolver, gesturing to a chair across the low coffee table with a shaking hand.
I suppose I did look frightful, but I refused to give her the satisfaction of seeing me take her advice.
She displayed a flask. “I suspect you need a drink.”
Yes. I lunged across the table, grabbing the full flask from her. My hands shook so bad I almost dropped it, but once I got it open I only spilled a little. I loved how it tasted, the burning in my chest, the way I felt afterwards. “You don’t know how good this is,” I said with a sigh. “Thank you.”
I thought Mrs. Clubb would continue her mocking laughter, but she gazed at me soberly. “I suspected you’d visit us. But I never thought it would be so soon.”
“What do you mean?”
Mrs. Clubb smiled. “Seeing you at my Women’s Center in January puzzled me. But it wasn’t until Gardena Diamond asked us to smuggle someone from the city that I took interest.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Our meeting today was inevitable. You have no friends of standing but Jonathan and Gardena, yet it seems you’ve had a falling-out. You’ve dismissed your dressmaker, you’re sending messages to the Pot, and you’ve called on no one but the Kerrs. And they — in particular, Master Kerr — are the only ones close to having any standing calling on you. Thank your mother-in-law for keeping that quiet.”
Did Mrs. Clubb know everything?
She handed me my newspaper, a zeppelin price circled. “I didn’t even need this to predict your actions.”
She had spies even in Spadros Manor!
“I don’t know what went on between you and your husband, nor do I wish to. But I believe we can help each other.”
She sat for a long moment, gazing off to the side, and I wondered what she thought I could help her with. I snuck my handkerchief out for a quick wipe when she wasn’t looking, because it seemed undignified to keep sniffling.
She smiled, leaning back. “You alone stand in the way of the most important thing to my Family: the happiness of our son.”
I snorted, suddenly angry. She cared so little for Nina — now this pretense of caring about Lance? “You murderous bitch. Happy. Like what you did to Nina?”
Her face went white.
“As far as I can tell, you twist your children to be your shadows, crush them until they fit your mold. Control them until they become as conniving and power-hungry as you. Nina was good and beautiful, and you hounded her into her grave. Kitty escaped to the Dealers, but now you’re doing it to Lance. The only reason you want Roland and Gardena is because Roland is Tony’s son. Will you turn them into golden-haired puppets, too?”
Regina Clubb sat, face pale, mouth open.
The color returned to her face, and Mrs. Clubb’s tone became bitter, dripping with sarcasm. “Why, yes. It’s not because Lance loves her, or because she’s beautiful, or fertile —” as if I might be jealous of that, “— or because she wanted children so desperately as to risk her life to have one. It must be because we’re trying to steal your husband’s bastard and turn him against you.”
I shook my head. “Do you think I’m stupid? Perhaps I am. My husband saw through this nonsense with the boat, yet I did not. The Ace of Clubbs was never your son! Roland is your Ace in the hole. He’s the Spadros heir! You don’t need me, why, you don’t even need Gardena — all Lance need do is raise the boy to love you and you have three quadrants in thrall. How could anyone oppose you? This so-called courtship is just a way to make Gardena and her son your hostages.”
Although Roy wouldn’t care, Tony must be in terror of how Gardena and Roland might be used. Why did Julius Diamond agree to it? What hold could they possibly have on him to make him sacrifice his own daughter?
I had a sudden thought: I had just traded one cage for another. “You may have me here, but I’ll do everything I can to stop this farce, even if it means my death.”
Regina Clubb surveyed me, her eyes narrowing. “Which may come sooner than you think. The District Attorney placed a warrant for your arrest, claiming your flight proof of guilt.”
I stared at her in shock. “You really believe I set a bomb in the zeppelin carrying my dearest friend?”
“They’ll believe whatever I tell them.”
I felt trapped. “What is it you want?”
“I want you to stop this opposition to Lance’s courtship of Gardena Diamond.”
“Why? So you can have the wedding, after which time Gardena has an ‘unfortunate accident’? Whatever Gardena may have done before she knew me, I will not see her used this way.”
Mrs. Clubb’s eyes and nose reddened. “You truly believe we would murder a girl our son loves just to claim her child? You must think we’re as monstrous as Roy Spadros!”
I snorted in disgust. “All you ever said was ‘Nina, stand straight,’ or ‘Nina, be quiet.’ ‘How will I find her a suitor?’ was all you cared about. You hated everything about her, did everything you could to keep her from happiness. And now she’s dead!”
She rested her face in her hands, and when she raised her head again, her eyes were full of tears. “Do you remember the high tea you and Molly Spadros came to? You were a young girl.”
I was fourteen. Eight months had passed since that glorious summer afternoon, and I hadn’t seen Nina since. Molly led me to a woman wearing the latest fashion who looked at least ten years my elder, perhaps twenty. “I’m sure you remember Nina Clubb.”
Too thin, her lackluster hair crimped and bleached, her skin sallow. Dark circles lay under her eyes.
I stared at her in horror. Oh, Nina, what have they done to you?
“We left the next day for Azimoff.”
"I don't understand."
“Her kidneys failed.”
I stared at her in shock. Nina was sick, and I never knew?
“Azimoff has the best doctors in Merca,” she said, as if I didn't already know. “The only hope was for her to be placed into a mechanism for eighteen hours a day to cleanse her blood.” Mrs. Clubb shook her head. “Needles in her arms, legs ... poor girl, she had a horror of needles from the time she was a small child.
“At first, Nina screamed in terror every day, but gradually, she seemed to accept her lot. She grew stronger. But we couldn’t stay there, and she couldn’t return to Bridges. We tried everything. The Cultural Correctness Committee has overlooked Alex’s arm, but they couldn’t accept this ... machine-life. They said it was unnatural, threatened to exp
ose us to the whole city.” She put her face in her hands. “We wrote every day, visited the very next weekend. We thought she was improving. But one day Nina rose from the machine when her duty was done, told her nurse she was taking a walk, went to the roof, and flung herself from it.”
I gasped.
Mrs. Clubb nodded, her face pensive. “We should have told you what happened. You were just a child — I didn’t know you cared so much about her.”
I did. I loved her more than anything.
I stared at my hands. “I’m sorry.”
When she spoke again, her voice had softened. “I see now why Gardena Diamond no longer trusts us.” She twisted her wedding ring, gazing at it. “I promise we mean Gardena no harm.” She looked up at me. “What possible benefit could we get by throwing away an alliance with the Diamonds? They’d go to war if anything happened to her. We have much more to fear from this match than Gardena does.”
I hadn’t considered this aspect of the matter.
“Gardena will no longer see Lance, nor will she speak with us. Please, we must have your support. In return, the Clubb Family will support you during your trial.” She smiled, amused. “After all, you did risk your life to warn us.”
I wanted Tony to meet his son, have a happy life with Gardena. The last thing I wanted was for Gardena and her son to get mixed up with the Clubbs. “Why can’t you just let me leave?”
Mrs. Clubb sighed. “We don’t just let anyone leave, Mrs. Spadros. Everyone pays, one way or the other. Are you offering something in return?”
“Are you asking me to betray my Family?”
“I’m not asking you to do anything. I’m merely reminding you that the Clubb Family doesn’t run a poorhouse. How will you pay for the privilege of getting on a zeppelin? What could you offer us to make it worth implicating ourselves? The District Attorney knows you’re here. He believes you guilty for the murder of hundreds. He wants you hanged.”
Why? How could Mr. Freezout dare to threaten the wife of the Spadros heir? Someone must be paying him an enormous amount to make the danger worthwhile.
My plan only worked if I disappeared, so Tony could make a show of searching for me. By now the entire city knew I was here.
Roy might choose to overlook this, if only to torture Tony more. But neither of them could be seen helping me. Sawbuck ... Tony’s men ... the staff ... they would never forgive what I did. I publicly betrayed the Family; they would demand my death.
If Tony or Roy helped me now, their men would cut them down, the same as their father before them.
Other than Jon and Gardena, the Diamonds had little love for me. Except perhaps for their mother, Rachel — although in her condition, she could do little more than she had already. The Diamonds would hardly risk war with Spadros by supporting me.
And I suspected that going to the Harts would bring a new assortment of problems. Since Joe was under Hart protection, Tony, if not Roy, had cause to demand reparations for Joe’s “insult” from Hart quadrant — or even attack.
Mrs. Clubb's voice startled me. “Mrs. Spadros, I want to help you. We mean you no harm. We wish Gardena and Roland only the best. I’ll even give a token of goodwill: the name of your Pot rag’s murderer.”
I sat up, focused on her. Perhaps I shouldn’t have drunk the entire flask. “You know who killed Marja?”
“Indeed. We’ve found many names for this woman. Most call her Black Maria —”
Black Maria was another name for The Queen of Spades. So this woman claimed control of the quadrant? I wondered what Molly would think of that.
“Others call her The Little Bird, but it’s by no means an endearment. Everyone fears her. She’s taken over a gang in Spadros called The High-Low Split —”
A shock went through me. The children’s street gang I belonged to when I lived in the Pot.
“— and killed many of those who opposed her. She consorts with a notorious rake calling himself Frank Pagliacci. But it’s an alias; there’s no one registered with that name. We think she’s involved with a group he runs called the Red Dogs. This woman pulled the trigger on your friend; we have a witness to it.”
I nodded, feeling melancholy. “Perhaps my age, with pale skin and black hair. I suspected as much.”
Regina shrugged. “Ah, well.”
My vision blurred. Marja.
And now, Joe.
Joe was dead. He had to be. Nothing would have kept him from my side once he learned I was here But he hadn’t even sent a message. “Let this DA kill me, then. Why should I care whether I live or die? I have no Family. I have no home. I have no future.”
“Oh, my dear girl,” she said. “You’re mistaken. You’re talented, beautiful, and brave. You’re a formidable enemy, but I’d prefer to be friends.”
They don’t as much as breathe without it being part of some intrigue, Tony had said at the Grand Ball.
Did I dare trust Regina Clubb?
I had bet everything ... and lost. If I wanted to avoid being torn by angry mobs or sent to the gallows, I needed them. “I only ask that my husband be allowed to see his son.”
Startled, she gave me a long look, as if re-evaluating the situation, then strode to the door. “It’s settled then.” She faced me with a smile, but her smile made me uneasy. “It’ll be a pleasure working together.”
Settled? Working together? I rose. Even half drunk, I could tell something wasn’t right. “Wait. What’s to become of me?”
Still smiling, she crossed her arms, leaning against the door frame, regarded me with fondness. “The Floorman has truly blessed us. You’re exactly what we need.”
“I don’t understand.”
She uncrossed her arms, moving a step towards me. Her motions were graceful, serene. But a hint of sharp resentment lay under her words. “The Clubbs have always been seen as the dumb farmers, the quadrant of outsiders, the dirty greedy spies. Now you’re here: Mrs. Jacqueline Spadros. The Spadros Family couldn’t protect you — but we can! People will flock to Clubb quadrant, will open their doors to our influence, will even fight for our side, once they see how strong, how kind, how generous and merciful we are, even going so far as to defend a Pot rag —”
I flinched.
“— who the city believes destroyed our livelihood.” She smiled gleefully, but it was unpleasant. “And not one of the Families will lift a finger against us!”
Me, the Clubb Family’s winning card?
And I had just handed myself over to them.
I began to feel afraid. “Where are you taking me?”
“Not far: to Clubb Manor.” She relaxed, her manner inviting. “You’ll love it. You’ll have your choice of rooms as our most beloved guest. You room next to our Inventor if you prefer. Lori’s eager to know you better.” She spoke as if our meeting had gone exactly the way she wanted it to. “You’ll make a valuable addition to our intelligence service once you’ve been properly trained. It’ll be much more rewarding work than finding cats and following philanderers.” She tapped her temple with enthusiasm. “I believe that what’s inside your head —”
Inventor Call’s joy at my map of the Cathedral flashed through my mind. Was that what the Clubbs wanted? Access to the Cathedral’s secrets?
“— is more valuable than you know —”
Wait, I thought. I do know something she doesn’t.
“— This could save our city. And as long as you’re with us, you’ll never want for anything again.”
Instead of no choice, I was suddenly presented with three. But I felt uneasy, hesitant. “If I told you what I know, would you let me leave?”
At this, Regina put her hand to her chin; her gaze turned inward. Then she nodded. “If what you told us was helpful. You could write a goodbye letter to Gardena, telling her you’ve reconsidered and wish her happiness with my son. We could tell the DA we interrogated you and found no evidence of crime.”
I stared at my hands. The thought of betraying my people like this made me ill. I�
��d not only have to lie to Gardena, I’d be betraying Tony all over again. And the Clubbs could still broadcast to the city that they helped me.
I’d be free. But I would regret this the rest of my life.
I forced my face to reveal nothing. They were desperate. “What if what I knew wasn’t enough?”
She shrugged. “My dear, competent farmers use everything they have on hand to their advantage. We’d like your knowledge, but if you hold something back, as I suspect you will, it doesn’t matter. It wouldn’t matter even if you chose not to tell us anything. Your friends in the Cathedral would give much, I think, not to see you harmed.” She gave a dismissive wave of her hand. “You’ve agreed to help us with Gardena. As long as you hold up your end of the bargain, my offer of aid at your trial still stands.”
Outrage surged through me. I was one of the Dealers’ Daughters! Did she think I would open the Cathedral to blackmail? Use me as a knife at their throats — forever? I pictured myself — in a golden cage this time — being combed and dressed like a mannequin until my death.
I would die before I let this happen.
I stalked over, grabbed Mrs. Clubb by the arms and shook her. “The ONLY man I EVER loved is DEAD!”
She recoiled, face pale, eyes wide.
Mrs. Clubb was afraid of me!
Three men burst into the room, guns drawn.
The whole world went silent.
I remembered Tony’s words: The servants love you.
The people love you.
Not the Family.
Me.
They’ll believe whatever I tell them.
Not three choices. Four.
I could play this game too.
“Mrs. Clubb, I may be a Pot rag, but by the gods, I’m from the Spadros Pot.” I dragged her to the window, opened the curtain, and showed her the mass of reporters below. “The only way you’ll take me to Clubb Manor is bound and gagged. Or I’ll scream for help everywhere we go. Flock to you? They’ll flock to Clubb quadrant, all right. When my people hear you’re ‘holding me against my will,’ you’ll have war.”
The Ace of Clubs Page 23