Reciprocity

by Sean M Locke

  “Is that right?” Kasper said through clenched teeth.

  “Yeah. Just between you and me? I think they were trying to make fun of you. Like you’d be scared or something and would need an army at your back.”

  Hendrik lifted his eyebrows a millimeter, and I thought I saw the start of a smile on his face. Kasper spluttered and cursed some more, saying all sorts of nasty things about the Rademakers in general, and their mothers in particular. After a minute or so, the cursing died down, and he settled into thought and pacing again.

  He rounded on me again. “No, no. This doesn’t add up. Why did they send you back? They could have put you out of the way and sent one of their own. A ransom note or something.”

  I shrugged. “I guess they don’t know about the recent difficulties between me and you. They don’t know that you wouldn’t want to listen to me. They also don’t know that the aker and cash are gone. Far as they’re concerned, I’m just another affiliat.”

  Kasper pulled at his lip, his eyes scanning left to right and back again. “Maybe.”

  “Besides, they probably thought you’d believe me if they sent me back with Henriette’s sword. As a token, like.” I plucked at the saber on my hip and let it fall with a jangle of buckles and steel. A risky gamble, assuming he wouldn’t recognize one sword over another. Not in his state. “To be honest, I think they were making fun of me, too. Letting me walk out of there armed. They’re terrible people, is what I’m saying.”

  “Abhorrent,” Hendrik agreed.

  “We don’t have the stuff,” Kasper muttered. “But they don’t know that, right?”

  “They wouldn’t make this offer if they knew we didn’t have the stuff. They’d’ve probably just killed us both outright in order to send a message. Or, you know, killed her and sent me back here holding my guts in my hands and a note pinned to my coat. They ain’t exactly subtle. Why bother with a charade?” I was talking too much, and I knew that, but my nerves were acting up something fierce.

  “You,” Kasper said, pointing at me again with his glass. “You might be working for them. You might have completely rolled over for Rademaker, and you’re trying to lead me into a trap. Would you do that, Kaeri?”

  My eyes flicked over at Hendrik for an instant, which was useless. No way that old pirate was going to rescue me.

  I shrugged and tried for a casual response. “I wouldn’t do that, but there’s no way you could know for sure. You could decide I’m lying, cash me out, and not go to Grannis Island tonight. Do that, and Henriette dies at five past nine sharp. Or you could put the screws to me until I confessed something you want to hear. Then maybe you put a half-assed rescue together, and then you get slaughtered at Grannis Island anyway.

  “Or you could do the practical thing. You could trust me. We could come up with a plan to get Henriette out of there. Surprise them with a bunch of guys, and you with that fancy weapon of yours. They don’t know about it; it’s your ace in the hole.” That familiar warm feeling spread over my cheeks. The good con. He was eating it up. I kept going.

  “But let’s say I’m playing you wrong. Ain’t it better to go into Grannis Island prepared? All the guys and all the guns you can get? Put me in your hip pocket, keep an eye on me? Or to hell with that; let Ludo watch me.” I took a step toward Kasper and pitched my voice low so he had to strain to hear me. “So you can keep both hands on that repeater, and your eyes on the one that stole Henriette from you.”

  Kasper showed me his teeth. His eyes searched my face for any clue of truth or lies, but I didn’t give him anything. He might have thought I was talking sense, but he didn’t like it, not even a little. His gaze traveled just a fraction toward his father, but settled back on me again. I wanted to look at Hendrik, too, but I knew his face wouldn’t say anything at all, and breaking eyes with Kasper now would mean catching a pill in the heart.

  Kasper leaned his bulky frame away from mine and pursed his lips. “Fine. We do it your way. But if I even get the notion that you’ve set us up, you’d better hope you die quick.”

  I always hope I die quick, I didn’t say.

  “Ludo can keep an eye on me. If you can’t trust him, who can you trust? Now,” I said, and pulled out a chair for myself, “how about we call up some more grub and talk about how we’re going to do this?”

  Hendrik held up a hand, and I stopped in mid-sit. “I admire your gumption, Kaeri, and I like that you’re a survivor.” The little grin on his face said he didn’t like that at all, not really. “But you’re not welcome to sit at this table. The plan is simplicity itself, and we don’t need any more input from you.”

  I stood again, nice and slow, and kept my eyes on Kasper. “Simplicity itself?”

  “Yeah,” Kasper replied, laying a meaty fist on his open palm. “We get every soldat and affiliat we can muster up, and every gun we can get our hands on. We go to Grannis Island, and we shoot the hell out of every one of them if they don’t give up my girl.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “So, you don’t want to send some guys ahead? Maybe a couple sharpshooters on top of the carnival rides, some lookouts to see if Rademaker sent any of their own guys ahead? No one to look out for any nasty traps or choke points?”

  Kasper smiled with all his teeth and retrieved the violin case from under the table. He swept dishes aside and laid it down, opened it with a flourish, and spun it to face me. A drum magazine, the twin to the one I was carrying, was strapped to the inside of the top lid. The carbine itself was all blued steel and oiled wood and ugly angles. A prototype, Maria had said. No shiny filigree, no ornate carving. Just a machine, like any other.

  “I got this thing. That’s all the preparation we need.” He laid his hands on either side of the case, smiling down like a doting father. “Just need to keep this baby fed, and we’ll be in good shape. Speaking of which, that little runt should have got the other magazine working by now.”

  “Right, I forgot,” I said, and retrieved the other drum. I hadn’t forgotten. Lewis’s magazine hung heavy and hot on my back like a sack of teakettles. Like I carried the whole world in that little satchel. “Lewis asked me to bring it to you.”

  “Leave the drum,” Kasper said, never taking his eyes off the carbine. He gestured at a small plate close to my hand. “Take some tiramisu.”

  “All right, Kasper. It’s your show.” I backed out of the room, trading a look with Hendrik. He regarded me over his steepled fingers, and I couldn’t quite tell what he was thinking.

  * * *

  Jurgen joined me at the bar. I expected that Kasper sent him to make sure I didn’t leg it while everyone was planning the fight at Grannis Island. That was sensible enough—I wouldn’t want me to run off, either. We had bruschetta and drinks, but it wasn’t any kind of a jolly time. He squirmed in his seat like he had something to get off his chest, so I asked him about it.

  “It’s Ma,” he said into his glass, after a bit of hemming and hawing. “She told me about last night. How the cops talked to you and that noble girl awhile, and that you and her looked real cozy together. Then they sent you on your way. Not handcuffed.”

  Acid churned in my stomach. “Her eyes aren’t too good, and a lot of stuff happened—”

  “No, Kaeri, don’t start,” he said, shaking his head. I’d expected anger, but I got resignation instead. “You warned her trouble was coming; you got her safe. You got my gratitude for that.”

  I didn’t like where things were going, so I held my glass to my lips and said, “All right.”

  “Ma did say one crazy thing, though. She said she came back downstairs once, before the shooting started, and heard the spook call you ‘little sister.’” He was looking away, embarrassed for me. He should have been staring into my eyes, gauging my reaction; he should have had a weapon close to hand. “But she couldn’t have heard him right. Right?”

  I emptied my glass and set it down. “The old lady can move quieter than she lets on.”

  Jurgen nodded. “Anyway, it sounded crazy,
and I told her so. I said there wasn’t no way she heard that, no way she saw you break up a Santuar standoff between the cop and the noble. It took some talking, but I think I convinced her that she didn’t see nothing like that.”

  “Good thing. Crazy story like that gets out, why, my reputation could be ruined. Since when do I cry?” I chuckled, my heart beating like an overheated piston. “I guess I owe you one.”

  He shook his head and stood up. “We’re even now. All the times you looked out for Ma and the neighbors and stuff, when you bring food and medicine, when you help board up windows before a hurricane. And how you looked out for her last night. Me and Ma, we’ll forget the crazy stuff Ma thought she saw, and you and me calls it even. Fair deal?”

  “Yeah. Yeah, okay—fair deal.”

  “All right. Since we’re even now,” Jurgen said, “I’m gonna ask you a question, and maybe you answer me square.”

  “Sure, I’ll answer you square. As much as I can, anyway.”

  Jurgen shrugged. “Good enough. You’re looking to strike out on your own now, ain’t you? You and Lange are quits, if you can survive it. You’ll set up some kind of enterprise outside the whole Lange-and-Rademaker business.”

  “I’ll be honest, Jurgen: I haven’t thought that far ahead, but it sounds like a fine idea. If I manage to keep my head on my shoulders, maybe I’ll go into business for myself. Why do you ask?” I tilted my head at him and smirked, not feeling jolly at all. “You looking for a job?”

  “Nah,” he said with a lopsided smile. “My family is too wrapped up in Lange, and anyway I ate Donatella’s salt way back when. Signed my contract with blood, all that stuff.”

  “So did I. But Donatella isn’t running things. Lange now ain’t the same as Lange back when.”

  Jurgen laid his scarred hands flat on the table. “Still and all, I signed my contract, and that means something, so I’ll stick with Lange. Reason I ask is, I wanna know where you’ll stand tomorrow after all this is over. Or if you reckon you’ll go out in some blaze of glory tonight, a pistol in each hand and a stick of dynamite in your teeth. Something crazy like that.”

  “No. There’s no percentage in heroics, and you know I’m not one for guns. Where will I stand?” I sighed into my empty glass and thought hard about it. “I hope I’m still standing at all come tomorrow. And I hope I’m standing at a respectful distance from both Lange and Rademaker. And the cops, for what that’s worth.”

  “I’m not the smartest guy on the block, Kaeri,” Jurgen said, running his thumb along the pistol butt–shaped mark on his lips. “But I think you’re going about it wrong. You can’t keep away from Lange and Rademaker—you can only get stuck between them and all the nasty business we peddle. You try to keep two carnosaurs at arm’s length, and they’ll both just eat you up.”

  Jurgen wasn’t an egghead or a priest, but sometimes he said a smart thing. I didn’t like it, not even a little, but you had to admit when a man was right. “So what are you suggesting? That I grovel and hope Lange takes me back? That I flip sides and join Rademaker?”

  “Naw. The Boss won’t have you, and if you went over to Rademaker, well . . . that would be a shame. I don’t want to have to kill you or something.” I might have called that a threat, but Jurgen was so solemn and genuine that I couldn’t help but take it at face value. “Wherever you’re going, there ain’t any coming back, I think. I just hope that if you’re still in the Lower come tomorrow, you and me can still be peaceable and friendly.”

  “If I’m still alive and I haven’t skipped town, I’d be glad to still call you and your ma my friends.”

  “You want another drink?”

  “Yeah. One more before Kasper and the guys come out with their brilliant strategy.” Getting tight wasn’t my best idea, but listening to Kasper’s cockamamie plan while sober sounded even worse.

  Chapter 17

  The ferry pitched and tossed in the unseasonable storm, and I decided that my final drink had been a terrible idea after all. I was too nervous to puke, so I just stood on the open deck and got wet. Lange soldaten and affiliat pressed in all around me, shifting from foot to foot and fingering their weapons. Out of eighty, maybe one in three actually had a gun of some kind—homemade pin-fire jobs of wire and pipe, or hunting shotguns, even a percussion-cap musket and bayonet from fifty years ago. The rest carried maces and machetes, slingshots and stilettos.

  “On the bright side,” said Ludo next to me, “Kasper let you keep your weapons.”

  I grunted, not quite trusting myself to say anything without losing my dinner. Instead, I rested my hand on Maria’s saber and ran my fingers along the contours of her family seal on the pommel. With any luck at all, I’d be able to give it back to her. The baton in my sleeve hung heavy and reassuring.

  Kasper’s plan, what little he told me, sounded monumentally bad. Any weapon was bound to come in handy when things fell apart. And they would fall apart.

  My part in it was pretty simple. My job was to hold on to a heavy suitcase, a close match to the one Bart had before he got cashed out. Pino got to carry the other one, which said something about how Kasper was feeling about his pet fink lately. The bags weren’t full of cash and aker, since Wolfgang and his boys had that stuff. Two suitcases full of dime-store novels and skin mags wouldn’t fool Rademaker for very long at all, and I’d be lucky not to catch a couple pills in the backside for the trouble. Kasper was probably counting on that.

  I’d be damned if I was going to give him the satisfaction of dying so easily.

  When our ferry chuffed and churned its way into the landing at Grannis Island, a whole gaggle of regular folks was milling around under awnings or holding newspapers and coats over their heads. The rain had spoiled almost everyone’s fun at the amusement park tonight. It was nasty enough out that you could hardly see the Spray sparkling in the southern sky at all.

  “The good people are heading home for the night,” Ludo murmured.

  “That’s just fine,” I replied, my throat tight.

  “Fine?” Kasper echoed behind me, his breath suddenly hot on the back of my head. I hadn’t heard him come up at all.

  “Fewer people likely to get accidentally shot with that bullet hose you’re carrying. All due respect.”

  “Nah,” he replied, a nasty smile in his voice. “I’d like a few more people around—they’d carry the news about how we slaughtered Rademaker tonight. But that’s fine. Word will get ‘round.”

  I blew out my cheeks and looked up at the storm-cloaked Spray, but it didn’t have any answers or comfort for me.

  When the ferry finally docked, the park visitors surged to board but backed away when they saw the armed Lange mobsters swaggering their way down the gangplanks. They were full of fight tonight—Kasper had wound them up pretty good back at the hotel. I wondered if they’d be so eager for blood once their fearless leader’s fancy gun jammed or blew up in his hands.

  Outside the gates, the good people were streaming away from the soggy amusement park, but they made way for us like water breaking around a dead rat in a gutter. Electric lights lit up the place, glittering bright enough to rival the Spray. The mountainous spiderweb of wooden gantries that made up Grannis Island’s famed Gut-Twister roller coaster were silent now, the last thrill-seekers abandoning the attraction for drier places. Dozens of calliopes inside the park were still hooting away, as if their cheery music could chase away the looming storm clouds.

  We passed the gates without any trouble and made our way down the main thoroughfare. At Kasper’s direction, penny-packets of affiliat led by a soldat broke off and wound their way through side alleys and around the attractions and carnival games. The remainder of Lange men and women spread themselves out thinner and shook out into loose, staggered ranks, the better to fill the width of the thoroughfare and appear more numerous than they actually were.

  It wasn’t what you’d call a military operation, all right angles and spit and polish. But what Lange lacked in discipline, it mad
e up for in guts and greed and fear of the Boss. After today, if things went right, it’d also have a healthy fear of Kasper, which was what Hendrik wanted after all.

  Our thoroughfare let out into the south entrance of the Pinwheel Piazza, a roughly square space maybe fifty meters on a side lined with food stalls and games, now shuttered against the rain and lack of business. Steady rain obscured the Carousel Massif in the northeastern corner of the plaza; I could barely see the lights that rimmed the tent covering the wooden horses and carnosaurs and miniature madills.

  In the southeastern corner to our right, the great whitewashed gazebo turned. Years ago, some clever boots had installed motors and gears to make two counterrotating plates on the old girl. Prior to the storm’s arrival, the outer plate would have been filled to bursting with pairs of dancers spinning in their own private orbits, the stars of fairy lights twinkling overhead. The inner plate contained a twenty-piece orchestra. It was still playing a gay and lively waltz, but the uneasy looks the players gave each other told the real story. The madly grinning maestro standing atop his stationary central platform directed with sweeping gestures, seemingly ignorant of the storm gathering around him.

  The attendants of the famous Ferro wheel had fled the rain and rumors of gangsters without shutting the motors down. The huge, intricate wheel of wood and steel turned slowly, its empty gondolas swinging. On a clear day, you could see almost all of the Great Socket Bay from the top of the wheel. If you paid the attendants a few guilders more, they’d stop the wheel a little longer for you, the better to enjoy the view with your sweetheart.

  We passed the gazebo and the Ferro wheel into a wider, more open space in the Pinwheel Piazza dotted with wrought-iron lampposts. On a warm summer night, this space would be filled with families and couples and student groups and all sorts, mingling and buying things. Now the space was empty but for a couple dozen gangsters, a handful of abandoned tchotchke stands and food kiosks, and wooden footpaths running with mud. I had no doubt they would run with blood, too, before the night was out.