Reciprocity

by Sean M Locke

  That cut me a little, but it was the kind of cut where you wouldn’t get mad until later. I started talking before it got a chance to fester. “Well, the stuff with the bouncer and the hostess, that’s not charm at all. The bouncer owed me a favor, and I gave the hostess a truly obscene bribe. Donny, yeah, that’s . . .” I waved my hand like I could pull something from the air. “Charm?”

  “It’s different with you, and you can believe me or not, I guess. I’ll tell you something else: I’m not the only one with charm. I’ve just met you, and suddenly I’m throwing over a lot of old alliances for you. That scares me, and I don’t scare too easy.” I could hear the heat creeping into my voice, and I could see her eyes getting big. I backed off.

  “Anyway, Kasper and his bunch are gonna show up soon, so I gotta leave you here so I can join them. See those tables across the mezz, where the waiters are setting up buckets and bubbly?” She nodded. “That’s where they’ll be. Kasper sits at the head of the table so’s he can hold court and look down at the dance floor, too. Lewis will show up eventually, and he’ll take the dingus from Kasper and probably leave by the back door. When that happens, talk to Donny—he’ll get you a quick exit out.”

  “Thank you,” she said, voice only a little above a whisper. “It’s hard to express what this means to me.”

  I could guess. She didn’t want her family to be responsible for that damned gun multiplying in the Lower, killing who knew how many, wounding how many more. Streets running red, both gangs depleting each other’s numbers, the good people caught in the crossfire, the city set ablaze, until the cops and trade regulators stepped in. All that blood, staining Cantabile hands like reaching into a wine press. She didn’t want her dad to keel over from the stress of it all, the shame of uncorking this particular djinn on the world. She didn’t want to get into a duel with her sister.

  Her eyes, alive with worry, stared into the middle distance. “We can’t fail, Kaeri.”

  Gently, I took her jaw between my thumb and forefinger. She let me turn her head; her eyes were wet and shimmering. I laid my other hand atop hers.

  “We won’t fail,” I said, holding her gaze. “We’re going to fix this.”

  Her eyes searched my face, darting all over like a caged hummingbird. When it happened, I wasn’t sure who leaned in first. Maybe it didn’t matter. Our lips met, hers tentative at first, and then growing more urgent. Whatever I did, it must have encouraged her. Maria’s hand turned over and grasped mine hard, strong enough to crush my knuckles into powder, but gentle enough that I didn’t mind at all. I slid my other hand around to grasp the back of her head and pulled her into me, and she let me do it, her lips parting to draw my lower lip between her teeth. My head swam like I was jumping off a roof and onto the Cirkel, terror and exhilaration soaring through my nerves like heat lightning.

  A brief, sharp pain lanced my lip, and I pulled us apart. That didn’t matter. Fear and desire danced, or dueled, on her face. I wondered what my face looked like, my lips parted and panting, whether she could see the sweat prickling my forehead. But none of that mattered, not just then. I picked this table so that Maria could be less conspicuous as she watched Kasper and Lewis. We were anything but inconspicuous right then.

  “Gods, Kaeri. I’m so sorry.”

  “Don’t be sorry. We’ll . . . we can talk later. I have to—”

  “No, I mean I’m sorry,” she said, and touched her teeth. Her fingertips came away dotted with blood, and I reached up and touched my aching lip. My mouth tasted a little like pennies, but it wasn’t enough to overpower the grassy outdoors scent her skin left on my hand. “I don’t know what came over me. I’m not like—”

  “Forget it,” I said, but I could feel a half-smile crawling up my face. “Doesn’t hurt a bit. Gotta go, your Ladyship.”

  I stood up to leave, and she said her own name. She said it like she didn’t want me to go, one palm turned out toward me.

  I winked at her.

  “Maria,” I said, and walked away.

  Chapter 10

  The crowd in the mezzanine had gotten thick enough that I could make my way over to the Lange table from an oblique angle without being seen. The Lange spot was set up in the usual way—three rectangular tables lined up end to end, and a dozen or so soldaten sitting with their dates or in small groups. I settled in at the corner, next to the head of the table. Kasper’s seat, the place of honor, was empty. So was the seat right across from mine, where I expected Henriette would sit.

  The house lights dimmed as rowdy soldaten traded barbs and drinks and smokes. I looked up and across the gap between wings of the mezzanine, toward where I knew Maria was sitting. Could she see me staring at her? What was she thinking about just then?

  A soldat whose name I couldn’t remember leaned into me and said something that sounded a lot like how whiskey smelled. I’d hoped to sit back and wait for Kasper to show up and keep half an eye on Maria, but no dice. The last thing I was in the mood for was some jerk trying his luck with me, but I had to put on a friendly face. It wouldn’t be too long before I could drop the act, anyway.

  “Say that again?”

  “I said I’m surprised to see you here,” he yelled.

  I shrugged. “Is there anything to drink in this dump?”

  “You damn betcha there is.” He gestured to the silver buckets with bottles and ice in them. “We’re waiting to pop these bottles until Kasper gets here. I’ll get you something to warm you up to the idea.”

  I put on a smile and let him buy me a drink. The alcohol stung my lip. With her eyes on me, flirting with this bozo was the last thing on my mind, but I knew that looking cagey would spoil the party. I didn’t need the soldaten getting suspicious of me. Not now, not yet. Drinks flowed, and I did my share of leaning into the guy’s shoulder and laughing and such while the warm-up act warbled their trumpets and plinked on their piano.

  Silence washed through our little merry band, and at some unspoken signal the soldaten set down their drinks down and stood, more or less in unison. The gaudily dressed molls and johnnies stood also, though they were more tentative about it. We watched as Kasper, accompanied by Henriette, came up the stairs, resplendent in a pinstripe charcoal number, immaculate tie, and ruby stick-pin. He affected a diamond-studded cane today; whether there was a sword inside was anyone’s guess, but chances were good.

  Henriette draped one delicate hand on his forearm as they ascended. Usually she favored shimmering dresses with scandalous necklines, but today she was in a man’s suit tailored to her very feminine shape. She was as nattily turned out as Kasper, but wore a claret silk scarf instead of a collar around her neck. Her blonde tresses were piled up atop her head and pinned in place with pearl-studded combs. She wore her weapons openly: a slim rapier with a hammered-brass basket hilt on one hip, and what looked like an ivory-handled, gold-plated revolver holstered cross-draw fashion on the other.

  Her free hand held a violin case. I could guess what it contained. All the baubles and all the weapons turned her into a walking riot, a signal flare shot into a graveyard.

  The two assumed their places—Kasper to my right and Henriette in front of me. He motioned with his hand and sat; the other soldaten and their dates took their cue and followed suit. The soldaten murmured to each other and sipped at their drinks, none of them willing to be the first to break the subdued cloud that had settled over the table.

  The warm-up crew on the stage wrapped up to scattered applause on the lower floor, and then main act took the stage.

  Kasper stood again and grabbed one of the bottles of champagne from a steel ice bucket. The bottle he held was at just the wrong angle for comfort; he could backhand it across my face at any moment. He’d done it to a soldat before, when the news she delivered wasn’t so good. It wasn’t any surprise that this particular seat was empty when I’d come to the table.

  “Ladies, gentlemen,” Kasper said, his voice jolly and smooth as buttercream, “thank you all for joining me. Some
of us couldn’t be here tonight, because they’re out giving Rademaker a swift kick in the grapes and stealing their lunch. And so we’ll drink in their honor.”

  Laughter and murmurous agreement rippled through the soldaten. Someone at the far end asked, “So what’s the ruckus, Kasper?”

  “Well, you all may know Josef, brother of the lovely Henriette.” Kasper waited while the soldaten collectively mumbled their agreement and nodded their respects to the smiling noble girl. “He’s come through for us again, and tonight’s score looks like it’s going to be a big one. I expect we’ll hear how it went before closing time, but I thought why not celebrate now?”

  A chorus of cheers answered that question. Soldaten took up bottles from the ice buckets near them, and everyone without a bottle took up an empty flute. At Kasper’s cue, corks flew from bottles with a babbling of pops, and the champagne poured freely.

  When everyone had a glass filled, Kasper raised his high, and everyone followed suit. “To Josef and the victories he brings.”

  “To Josef!”

  “To Henriette,” he said, looking warmly down at her, “and to productive alliances.”

  “To Henriette!”

  For her part, Henriette blushed a little and lay a hand on her chest. It all looked about as genuine as paste jewelry.

  “To us, and those few like us.”

  “Too damn few!”

  At that ritual call-and-response, all assembled emptied their glasses. I couldn’t stand champagne, but I drank it with gusto anyway. Even if I was about to betray every one of them, I couldn’t quite help getting caught up in the spirit of the thing.

  Kasper raised his empty glass. “De familie volhardt,” he said, his voice pitched low.

  “De familie volhardt!” came the response, and one cheeky moll cried out, “And down with Rademaker!”

  The table erupted in raucous cheers. The general merriment picked up again, and I watched as Kasper sat down and pressed his forehead to Henriette’s. They exchanged a few words, but I couldn’t hear anything on account of the music and the racket everyone was making.

  Chatter bubbled up like fizz in a champagne flute, and I caught none of it. These people, these soldaten all around me, and Kasper, they were bad people. It struck me as strange to finally realize it, but maybe it took meeting someone genuinely good to see it clear. Maria, waiting in the dark somewhere over Henriette’s shoulder, waiting for her chance to stop a massacre before it started. I’d been surrounded too long by men like Kasper. I was like a fish swimming in churning, muddy waters—too close to all the filth surrounding me to remember there could be something better.

  Maria’s kiss had lit me up like an arc lamp, and my skin shivered to think of it again. I ran my tongue along the inside of my lip where her teeth had nicked me. The flesh was raw, the copper taste overwhelmed by alcohol. Absently, I touched my lips with the hand that had held Maria by the nape of her neck. It still smelled of grassy open fields and the salt of clean sweat. Who leaned in first? I wondered. Did it matter?

  A warm hand touched mine. I nearly snatched it away until I saw that Henriette had reached across the table for me. Looking down, I saw the ring-shaped callus of a swordswoman—so much like the one on Maria’s hand. I relaxed the grip I had on a wadded-up napkin.

  “What’s the matter, Kaeri? Do you hate the band that much?” She was peering at me the way a duelist watches her opponent, looking for an opening to strike. I couldn’t read Kasper’s look at all, and that was even more dangerous.

  “I’m fine, miss.” I forced a smile. She was definitely pretty, but pretty in a deliberate, intentional way. She wielded pretty like it was a weapon. “Just wish I’d heard about the raid before coming here tonight.”

  “Ah, you wanted in on the kill, did you?” She gave me a sympathetic grimace that was meant to be comforting. It was more like spooning with a shark. “Kasper told me that you have . . . how do you say it? A beef with Rademaker? Something about a lover that was killed.”

  Heat flashed up my neck and into my cheeks, and something invisible clamped around my throat. I stared at the hand that clasped mine, the disproportionately thick wrist. I grimaced through a long drink of champagne. “It’s very old business.”

  “I would not blame you if you wanted to satisfy a vendetta against them. It was ten years ago, so Kasper tells me. Why, you must have been just a girl.”

  I carefully avoided looking at Kasper; I could not have stopped myself staring daggers at him, and there was a very good chance I would dive across the table for his neck. I poured us both another glass instead, whether I wanted it or not. It was a good excuse to take my hand away from hers. My head spun, unable to pin down a reason she was talking to me.

  “I was sixteen, miss.” I looked up at her through my lashes. It twisted my stomach to do it, but she needed to see me looking at her. “Not much younger than you are now, I suppose.”

  “It’s just so sad.” She tilted her head in the other direction, like a raptor considering her prey.

  “It’s a hard age to lose your sweetheart. Especially to violence.”

  Henriette gave me a cold half-smile, like she knew I was threatening Kasper sideways. If Kasper picked up what I was putting down, he didn’t let on. Or he was signaling someone to garrote me at that very moment. Wondering went nowhere, though.

  Two pairs of feet—one heavy and one light—came up the stairs and headed toward the table. Jurgen posted up at a respectable distance from Kasper, and the engineer Lewis approached our corner of the table.

  “Kasper,” Lewis said stiffly.

  “Lewis, there you are,” Kasper said. “So Kaeri tells me that you didn’t like my art project.”

  “That is correct; your schematic was inadequate. I require more details.” Few people could talk so short to Kasper and keep their skin glued on. “Do you have the device?”

  “Yeah,” he said, cold and even. “Hennie?”

  She picked up the violin case and opened it. The top half of the hard shell faced me, so I couldn’t see what was inside, but I could guess. She withdrew a squat cylinder, like a pie tin wrapped in burlap. When she handed it to Kasper, I could hear the faint clack of metal on metal.

  “It’s empty,” Kasper said. “But you’ve got some brass, right?”

  “Yes. I should be able to reproduce ammunition, given adequate funding to secure bribes and acquire materials.” He thrust his chin forward minutely.

  “Yeah, yeah. Don’t push your luck.” Kasper smirked and reached inside his jacket. He handed over a thumb-thick roll of cabbage along with the pie-shaped parcel.

  Lewis stuffed the dingus into a satchel around his neck and the cash into his pants pocket. He said his good-byes, and both he and Jurgen left the way they came, weaving their way through drunken club-goers. I ground my teeth as I watched them. Did I risk my bacon that very morning for nothing, if Kasper just handed over the dingus with no fuss at all? It was one more reason to toss onto the teetering pile of reasons to walk out on Lange—if the future Boss was willing to risk good talent on bad choices, was that something I wanted to throw in with?

  Kasper and Henriette murmured things to each other, touching noses and crinkling their eyes. I didn’t want to vomit on the spot, so I looked over at Maria’s table again, and then at the bar. She said something to Donny, and Donny nodded and walked her through a service door.

  So far, so good.

  I pushed my chair out and stood, gave my excuses about visiting the little girls’ room, and made my way to the bar. Donny nodded and led me to the kitchen and led me to a dumbwaiter marked OUT OF ORDER DO NOT USE. He took away the boards that barred the dumbwaiter car and hooked a thumb at it.

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Nope. Your friend fit in here just fine. You should be okay. You can go through the kitchen and out the loading dock.”

  “All right.” I got in and squatted. It wasn’t the most comfortable thing, and I imagined that Maria was all sorts of aggrieved
for having to take a ride in it.

  He replaced some of the boards and ducked his head into the car. “Looks cozy. Any room in there for me?”

  Donny waggled his eyebrows at me, and I slapped him playfully on the cheek. “Maybe next time, doll, but I gotta get out of here.”

  He pulled a lever, and I was on the ground floor again within seconds. The downstairs kitchen staff got an eyeful of someone else who didn’t belong there as I made my way through to the rear exit.

  There was a good chance Maria got the dingus away from Lewis without a fight, but there was also a good chance she was out cold on the loading dock with a broken nose and a bruised ego. I opened the back door and jumped into the loading bay.

  * * *

  I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised that the place was such a mess. Jurgen was laid out cold on the dusty concrete bay, his bowler hat knocked off somewhere and a bloody handkerchief on his chest. The blood on the handkerchief had a funny cross-hatch pattern on it. More blood covered his mouth and nose, and the half-moon cut across his lips was just like the kind you’d get if someone smashed you in the mouth with the butt of a pistol.

  I laid a hand on his shoulder. Jurgen moaned and turned in place, waking up from a nap he didn’t plan.

  “Jurgen. Hey.” I patted him on the face, and he moaned louder.

  He said something unprintable, and the F sound was sloppy and indistinct, and bubbled a broken tooth from his mouth. I winced and hated to do it, but I shook him a little more by the shoulders and kept saying his name.

  “Kaeri,” he finally said when one eye focused on me. “Tax me blind, what happened?”

  “Hoping you can tell me, friend.”