King Of Fools. Amanda Foody
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clenched his fists and whipped around, if not to storm out the door, then to drag Narinder back into the hallway and ask for someone better. He didn’t care if she could blow up the entire South Side—maybe the violinist or the pianist would have more moral fiber.
But before he could leave the office, he was grabbed by the shoulder. His knees nearly gave out with the sudden pain of it, like a bolt of lightning straight to his ribs. He shouted out a curse.
“Muck,” Tock said, startled by his volume. “You’re delicate.”
“And you’re—”
“Sorry,” she said, cutting off the insult before he spat it. “I’ll take the job.”
“What job?” he growled, turning around.
“Convincing people you’re a smart-ass, or whatever you said,” she said. Narinder’s face, which had seconds ago brightened, slid back into a scowl. “Not being a bystander when the Great Street War happens all over again. I don’t care that the Chancellor is dead, or that you and this Séance person killed him. I don’t think anyone in the North Side cares about politics and the laws that doesn’t affect them. But like you said, it’s the whole North Side that will go to war.”
Levi had heard far better apologies. “Is that the best you can do?” he asked.
“I’m sorry I called you delicate.”
He cringed. That wasn’t what he meant, but it did strike him as just absurd enough that he could laugh. “How do I know you mean it?” Levi asked.
“Because I’ll say the oath.”
If Tock grew up in this city, then she knew the legends of the North Side. When you swore a street oath to your lord, it wasn’t simply for show. There was a power to the words. It wasn’t like the omerta, which was power taken. An oath didn’t force you to do someone’s bidding. An oath was loyalty given, a solemn promise not to harm the lord or others who had sworn to them.
Levi nodded. “Go ahead then.”
She crossed her heart and recited the words. “Blood by blood. Oath by oath. Life by life.” When she finished the rest of the speech, there was an unmistakable tingling in the air. If Tock noticed it, though, she paid it no mind.
“There’s a tattoo parlor across from St. Morse,” he told her. “Tell her I sent you, that you need a diamond and a ten. She’ll do it no charge.” At least, with the papers saying what they did, he hoped that was still the case.
Tock’s gaze flickered to the set of tattoos on Levi’s forearms: the black A and spade. “What does the suit mean?”
“Diamonds mean you’ll get to blow things up.”
She grinned. Then she took the saxophone off her shoulder and heaved it ungraciously onto the couch. Narinder winced and picked it up.
“After you get your tattoos,” Levi continued, “find Mansi Chandra, at the Sauterelle. She’ll help you find the others.”
Mansi was a card dealer in the Irons. Levi had always considered her his protégée, and she’d once looked up to him like a little sister. Then she’d betrayed him and sided with Chez. That blow had hurt more than any of the ones Chez had landed.
Levi should’ve been angry with her. But really, he just wanted her admiration back.
“Yeah, I know the Sauterelle,” Tock said. “So I find your gangsters, I give them your message, and then what?”
“We’ll all meet tomorrow at the abandoned art museum,” he said. If Levi was going to lead differently this time, then he needed to appear more present in the Irons than before. He’d been too distant, and he wouldn’t make that mistake again. “Seven o’clock. Make sure they know.”
“And for the ones who say no?” she asked.
Unlike the Scar or Dove Lords, Levi swore he’d never run his gang on fear. But the Irons had betrayed him, and there had to be a better line between being weak and being a monster.
“They bear the tattoos, which means they each have bounties on their heads,” he said. “Tell them, as long as they stay in Olde Town with me, they have my protection.”
“And if they leave?” Tock asked.
Levi didn’t know what he’d do if the Irons left. He couldn’t help Harrison. He couldn’t help Olde Town. He might not like it, but in New Reynes, power wasn’t a commodity freely given. If he wanted it, he had to take it.
“Then they can face the gallows.”
By eleven o’clock the next day, Jac had smoked another half a pack of cigarettes—far more than he typically burned through in a morning. Every time he finished one, after twenty minutes or so passed, his fingers started to tremble and his heart palpitations sent him reaching into his pocket for another. All his new clothes already reeked of smoke.
He’d left Zula’s nearly as soon as he’d woken up, and the walk to the eastern side of the Casino District had cleared his head. For a while, he stood outside Luckluster Casino, staring at its slick black stone and flashing scarlet lights, and thought about how choosing a don for Harrison to sponsor would only help the Family to survive.
Jac would prefer to see them burn.
But Jac was one man against the entire Torren Empire. That included Luckluster Casino, the only other casino in New Reynes as large as St. Morse. It included the profits of drug sales all across the North Side, particularly its two most popular substances: Rapture and Lullaby. It included thirty-four different pubs they’d bought and converted into smaller gambling enterprises or drug dens. It included hundreds of employees, thousands of addicts, and millions of volts.
And he was just one man.
At eleven thirty, Jac slid into a yellow phone booth and called St. Morse. He knew Levi had scheduled a meeting with Enne around now, but it wasn’t Enne he wanted to talk to.
“’Lo?” Lola answered. Her voice sounded strangely on edge.
“It’s me.”
“Is that supposed to mean something? Who is this?”
Jac choked in surprise and coughed out a puff of smoke. “It’s Jac. Why do you sound all wrung out? What’s wrong with you?”
“I just spoke to my bosses, and now we have an appointment scheduled later today,” she explained. Jac supposed her bosses meant Bryce Balfour and the two others who ran the Orphan Guild. Judging from what he’d heard about that trio, that seemed a reasonable excuse for anxiety. “Why do you sound all wrung out?” Lola asked snidely.
If Jac explained all that over the phone, he’d run out of volts to feed the call. “Can you meet me?”
“Now? Where?”
“At, um...” He gave the first cross-street he could think of in this neighborhood that wasn’t near a Torren place. “18th and Rummy.”
“Fine,” Lola huffed. “But you better not be in trouble, because I really don’t have time today to save you.”
* * *
There was a bench on the corner, just as he remembered. He sat on it, his back to the building, trying to convince himself to wait an hour before his next smoke. He stared at the line of pubs across the street, a sight that had once been the view from his cramped bedroom window for nearly eight years. From here, it was a short walk to the factory where he’d worked. Jac imagined one of the wardens walking past him on the sidewalk, not recognizing him with his dyed hair or glasses.
It made him feel powerful.
It also made him feel like