Tomorrow, the Killing

23

I walked into the Hen and Harpy early the next morning. It took up the first floor of a red-brick building in a quiet corner of the Old City. It was not a particularly nice restaurant – the décor and menu had remained unchanged since the plague. But then it didn’t need to recoup its costs. It needed to advertise that the Giroie family had money and age, and it did that effectively. The kitchen was closed, but a man sat at the bar, pouring coffee into a porcelain mug. He was dressed like a maître d’, but beneath his coat could be seen the outline of a knife.

‘I’d like to speak with Artur.’

He took a long look at my frayed shirt. ‘And who would you be?’

‘I’d be the Warden.’

He took another look at my frayed shirt. He was having trouble squaring it with my name, though what exactly he expected from the attire of a slum kingpin, I wasn’t sure. ‘Is Mr Giroie expecting you?’

‘Not unless he can see the future.’

‘So then you’re hoping he has a break in his schedule?’

‘Praying for it.’

Humor confused him, and it was a while before he answered. ‘I’ll have to send up and see if he’s available.’

I nodded and set down to wait. The concierge detailed a serving boy, then returned to his seat and his coffee, sipping slowly, pinky extended. When Senior had run the joint the bottom floor of the Hen was guarded night and day by thugs in bad suits, big guts and bigger arms, split even between friendly and threatening. I hadn’t liked them, but I’d liked them more than their replacement, a silk-clad twit who’d simper while slitting your throat. After a couple of minutes a firm set Rouender with no pretensions of belonging in the service industry took me up to the top floor.

If you followed the Giroie line back far enough, you’d find a man. A real fierce motherfucker, two-fisted and vicious, the kind you wouldn’t want to meet in a dark alley, or a lit one, or anywhere else for that matter. Savvy enough to catch the angles others missed, with the balls to take advantage of them. A man who’d carved an empire at the edge of a blade, who’d locked onto it with both hands and held it against all comers. Who’d inscribed his name deeply enough into his territory that it had become an inheritance. You could have seen traces of this man in Artur’s father – not the full allotment, but something of his progenitor’s savagery and cunning, rough patches beneath the polish.

Not so Junior – in him the blood had finally gone false, watered away to nothing. As far as he was concerned the family business was just that – he’d have been as comfortable running a merchant consortium or a winery. Had he been cognizant of his own weakness, he might have been OK, content to hold on to what his ancestors had earned, hopefully pass it down to a son who was hewn a little closer to his forebears. But Artur was a snake who thought himself a lion, and the Giroie family wouldn’t last him. It had genteeled itself out of existence.

He was still high on his recent success, having swallowed up some unaffiliated street gangs a few weeks back. I doubted he’d have long to enjoy it. There were plenty of players out there larger than the Giroies, and it didn’t do to draw their attention just to add a few blocks of territory. But then, Junior had a hard time seeing past his next meal. I’d known him for years – he used to hang around the restaurant, his father’s lieutenants bringing him candy and paying him compliments, a spoiled child who’d become a callow youth.

His office was altogether too elegantly outfitted for a man who, bottom line, made his living off choke and leashed whores. He was sitting at a table about the length of a coffin, and didn’t bother to get up as I came in. The top of it was one smooth sheet of translucent crystal, because who doesn’t want to be staring at another man’s thighs while conducting business?

‘Warden,’ he began happily. ‘A pleasant surprise.’ Artur was the wrong sort of pretty for his industry. Muscled but soft, with blond hair trailing to his shoulders and an outfit that seemed cut from a courtesan’s bed sheet.

‘Appreciate you making the time.’

‘A pleasure, a pleasure. How’s business going?’

‘A glorious string of uninterrupted successes. Yourself?’

‘It goes very well,’ he said. The sunlight came in through the windows and off his teeth. ‘Very well indeed.’

‘Good to hear.’

‘Can I get you something? Whiskey? Cigar?’

It was nine-thirty in the morning, but offering gifts reminded Artur that he was rich, so every meeting was my birthday. I shook my head just the same. ‘I’m solid.’ I took a deliberate look at the surrounding opulence. ‘Been some changes since I sat here last.’

‘Change comes for all of us, Warden – either we embrace it, or we let it swallow us.’

I’d make sure to polish up that pearl of wisdom and set it somewhere safe. ‘That’s what happened to the James Street Boys? They got eaten up by the future?’

He smiled, coy as a ten-ochre whore. ‘You heard about that?’

‘Word spreads.’

‘An ugly sort of business, really. If it were up to me, these sorts of things wouldn’t be necessary. Business could be conducted honestly, with all sharing in the profit. But,’ he sighed dramatically, ‘we do not live in such a world.’

‘Your world, maybe – mine’s nothing but spun sugar and sunsets.’

‘You’ll have to invite me over sometime.’ He leaned back in his chair and folded his hands. ‘I’m sure you didn’t make the walk up here just to listen to me ruminate.’ Though that wouldn’t stop him. ‘What is it that brings you to the Hen before noon?’

‘Call it a sense of neighborliness.’

That crossed his eyes. ‘I was unaware our homes abutted.’

‘All the world is my home, Artur, and every man my neighbor.’

His laugh was too close to a giggle for my tastes. ‘Speak on, citizen of the world.’

‘I hear you’ve been having trouble with the Association.’

He looked faintly quizzical. ‘No, not really.’

‘You won’t be able to say that much longer.’

His desk was covered with a wide variety of bric-a-brac, paperweights and gilded timepieces, useless but expensive gadgetry from the Free Cities that chimed when you tapped them. He picked one of the assemblage, a miniature pikeman, and began to wind its key. ‘What kind of trouble?’

‘The kind of trouble an organization subsisting of narcotics distribution would have with an organization once sworn to eradicate it.’

Artur grimaced, unhappy to be reminded he didn’t operate a cotton concern. He set the toy back onto the desk. It marched forward a few inches in awkward lockstep, then tumbled over. ‘The family has many and varied interests, most strictly legal. I wouldn’t at all describe us in the terms you used.’

‘I’d assumed both of us were too busy for hair splitting, but if I’m the only one who’s got things to do today . . .’

‘We haven’t been in conflict with the veterans for over ten years, since Roland Montgomery was killed.’

‘I hope you enjoyed the break.’

‘You’re saying they’re going to move on us?’

‘Haven’t they already? You think Pretories doesn’t know who pulls the Savages’ strings?’

‘The Savages are not affiliated with the Giroie family,’ Artur said. ‘Like any other wholesale operator, we have a wide variety of customers. Whatever activities they engage in after our transactions are finalized is no concern of ours, I can assure you.’

‘A neat distinction, one I doubt the other syndicates will make. The street respects winners, Giroie – and not yesterday’s winners, either.’

‘You don’t need to tell me my business,’ he said with a pinched-lemon face. ‘Where’s your information coming from? Is it reliable?’

‘You don’t need to tell me my business either, Artur. I wouldn’t have wasted the walk if I didn’t think what I had to say was on the level.’

He tapped nervously at the glass shelf. ‘No offense, Warden – I know your sources are well placed. But the Association has kept themselves out of our business for over a decade, and we’ve done the same. Pretories has never shown any willingness to renew our conflict, and I don’t see why that would change now.’

‘You hear about this march they’ve got planned?’

‘Of course.’

‘Next week he’ll have fifty thousand men underneath his banner. Numbers like that, might be he gets to thinking about settling old scores.’

‘Might be,’ he responded, unconvinced but nervous.

I boosted myself to my feet. ‘Do whatever you want, Artur – this was a courtesy.’

Artur stood as well. ‘Don’t misunderstand – I appreciate the information. You’ve always been a loyal friend of the family.’

I’d never been anything of the sort, but there was no reason to point that out. ‘I’m near enough to Association territory to warrant keeping an ear out. They finish with you, might be they set sights on me next.’

‘I doubt it will come to anything,’ Junior said, back straight, doing his best to seem like a person of importance. ‘But if they make a play, we’ll answer it.’

Downstairs the maître d’ and Artur’s guard sat together at a table, drinking coffee and playing chess. They played ugly, trading pieces at random and without any sense of deeper strategy. The guard had mate in three, but he didn’t see it. I watched their game for a moment, wondering if either would be alive at the end of mine. But it was too hot for speculation, let alone sympathy, and I headed on out.