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‘That’s hard.’ Kitty gave a whine, now busying herself with the preparation of food, the woody aroma of sizzling smoked bacon significantly welcomed. Cockatrice eggs were struck on pan lips, joining the crescendo of noise performed by bubbling fats. Nobody had asked for anything to eat of course, but it didn’t need to be said.
‘Nice to know that we did well at some point in our lives.’
‘Comforting, I say.’ Kitty prodded the eggs about.
‘What do you remember best about those two? Misu and Franco I mean.’ Katerina sipped a good half of her drink and placed it oh-so-carefully on the perfect veneer of the cherry-wood tabletop.
‘The bickering, mainly. The boss had plenty of problems with the way Misu put things to him when he had a bad idea. Don’t take that the wrong way. I loved Franco for what he did but boy, he could be a pain in the ass.’ Corinne sipped her coffee, exhaling its heat. ‘Such a pain in the ass, I tell you.’
A ripple of laughter reached the edge of the room, encouraging all those it met.
‘That he was. But Misu wrangled him and kept him in check whenever he was too demanding. He was a perfectionist. There’s nothing wrong with that, but … I mean …’ Kitty juggled a line of frying pans, knocking the contents around, struggling to find the appropriate words.
‘Hard work at times,’ Corinne chipped in.
‘Exactly. Hard work.’
‘A break wasn’t such a bad thing to give us! What, was he afraid we would run at the first opportunity? Sometimes I just wanted to let my hair down, find some back alley street vendor and eat until I could barely move.’
‘What’s wrong with my food?’ Kitty pricked her ears up, taking it as an insult. Her tending to the contents of the pans was uninterrupted. Corinne made sure that she wasn’t misunderstood and taken personally.
‘Nothing, dear, you’re a fabulous cook. Sometimes people don’t want fabulous. They want –’
‘Dirty,’ Katerina added flatly, though queried her own word choice.
‘Exactly. Yes. That.’
Katerina rested her head in her hands, uneasy with Jacques tending to his grief with booze in hand. She had witnessed far too many succumb to the bottle when using it to drown misery and unable to climb back out again, persuading her to avoid that pitfall. It was a worry. He was a worry. Attempting to ignore it, she recalled her fondest moment with sincerity in her voice, though she kept an eye on his secretive grumbling.
‘I remember this one time that I fell ill. I spent a few days shivering and sweating in bed – horrible it was. Of course I was just paranoid I was going to let Franco down. I had only been with you all for a couple of weeks, so I was insistent I was going to perform for the show that night. So I’m there sneezing and my teeth are chattering as I’m so cold. Misu tells him that I’m sick. He comes knocking on my door and sits on the bed and I begin to ramble. I tell him that I’ll be fine. I tell him that I can do it no problem. No problem at all.’
Corinne smiled to herself, remembering the time all too well. ‘Not in your condition, he said. I remember that. All that sneezing – and you gave it to a couple of others if I recall correctly.’
‘You know what he does?’ Katerina’s voice faded slightly in earnest. ‘He shoots me down. I won’t have you doing that, he goes. You stay here and rest; we’ll be fine without you. It’s just one show – it’s not worth doing yourself a mischief. Well I’m just a wreck at this point anyway and I just start crying. I mean, I can’t stop. He leans over and takes my hands. I tell him that he’ll get sick – that this thing is probably contagious. You know what he says? He looks at me and goes: I’ll take my chances.’
Katerina dabbed her eyes on her dress sleeve, careful not to paint mascara on the material. Her smile was cracking as her lips quivered. ‘Wasn’t that just like him?’
‘I would argue he took too many. Thieving stowaways. Bad deals. Never saw him not bounce back from it all. The man sure did know how to push that luck of his.’
‘I suppose he never believed it would run out.’
‘What about you, Corinne? You knew Misu longer than any of us here. Surely you have stories to tell.’
* * *
Sure, she had stories. Plenty of them in fact. She had stories of the pair of them trapped in a nest of vipers, forced to do things to keep themselves alive and their limbs intact. There was plenty to be told about how Corinne herself was paraded on show for folks rich in currency and broke in morals. They had met one another in what generous people called an establishment of entertainment. In reality it was a club where criminals congregated, bragged about their misdeeds, and made their plans.
It just so happened that women like them were bought and paid for, shuffled around like property. Corinne kept her mouth shut, doing enough to keep her unscarred, performing as was expected and never putting a word out of turn.
But Misu was different.
She adapted. Instead of falling into the long-drop trap, she talked to the right people and made the right impressions to ensure that nobody laid their hands upon her person. She was clever – too clever some would say – walking the thin line of cunning, though those around her would not compliment her for that. Cunning usually resulted in betrayal. And betrayal could get you killed.
So she carved her reputation among those caught up in the debacle that nobody was to cross her. She would be your best friend if you won her favour, or your greatest threat if you lacked it. Securing her place in the food chain, she and a handful of others brokered the dealings of innocent women, played the games those in power wished them to play, and did so in such a way to keep herself always one step ahead.
Corinne had stories, but none that they would want to hear, and nor were they appropriate. Instead she recalled something more light-hearted.
‘I remember the dandiest thing I got told. It was when Franco took on that stowaway, whatshername …’ She circled her hand at the wrist.
‘Wyld,’ someone added.
‘That’s her. Jacques has this girl dragged out of her hiding place and taken to the boss. She’s squirming, thinking that she’s going to be straight up executed and babbling about being heard. On the way she sees her opening and belts him one! Bam! Gives him a damn good print of her fist on the cheek, which stuns him somewhat. Jacques hits the floor and Wyld runs for it. Well she doesn’t reach the carriage door before Misu steps through. She sees Jacques all down-like and deduces that this desert rat must have been the cause.’
‘Then what?’ A handful of others parroted the question. Corinne tossed her hands out, gesturing.
‘She stands aside! Just, whoop, steps to the side in the doorway, looks her right in the eye, and says: In case you’ve not noticed, you’re stuck on this train in the middle of the hottest damn sand you ever did see. Unless you’re looking at dropping every last one of us like you did our friend there, this is all rather pointless. You’ve got nowhere to go, unless you fancy jumping. And you know what Wyld did?’
‘What?’
Jacques bit at the inside of his mouth, impatient for the anecdote to end.
‘She gives up. Just sits her ass on down and waits for Franco to turn up. A moment passes, Franco barges in, and Jacques picks himself up from the ground …’
Jacques interrupted with a sudden, sarcastic snort before Corinne continued.
‘However she does it, Wyld convinces Franco to give her passage. Now Misu, she doesn’t like this one bit. Change to the status quo makes her suspicious so, when the need takes her, she sits herself down and starts interviewing Wyld.’
‘Interviewing?’ Kitty scrunched her young face up, producing wrinkles before her time.
‘Interviewing. Like, asking her all the questions of initiation to make our troublesome little stowaway a showgirl. Calm as anything, she was. It’s a ruse of course but the girl don’t know this. Wyld starts protesting but Misu is too quick and starts saying this and that, asking her how good her dancing is, and makes a point that she’ll need significant work prettying her up for the shows – especially the hair. This goes on for a good few minutes until Franco, who’s been staying silent up to this point, just bursts out laughing, finding the whole thing hilarious. It took a few minutes before Wyld calmed herself but it was a joy, such a joy …’
The broad smile eventually subsided upon realizing once again that two of their number from the anecdote were missing. This was mirrored by almost everybody else in earshot.
Corinne took to her bare feet, a mite unsteady, and raised her drink up. The others followed in unison, blinking back tears of their own.
‘To the Gambler’s Den. To those who are with us today.’ Corinne held her cup aloft, trying desperately to keep it steady before sternly adding with a final push, ‘And to those we have lost along the way.’
* * *
Jacques sank the last of his tribute with one large, quick mouthful. Since he had arrived he had taken a bottle of white wine for himself and emptied its contents, first by a glass before forgoing this step completely. He slowly assessed every face around him, the collected showgirls of the Gambler’s Den, now performers without a stage, comfortable in their new home. And what a home it was! Such extravagance! What incredible generosity from the locals! How fortunate that they should land on their feet.
Then there was talk about the restaurant. It was Kitty’s idea really, what with her vested interest in the practice since a considerably young age. Being raised on a farm had its perks of becoming creative with food. Being that the Den was no more, not only could the restaurant be a source of income but it would also ensure the girls remained together.
She had tossed the thought around with one of her drinking sessions with the landlord, who excitedly proclaimed he knew someone who would happily front the money as a partner. Corinne had intervened when word got out, to ensure everything was being done on the level; but all this talk made Jacques uncomfortable. Plans were being made. Futures were being decided. All without him.
A half-hearted suggestion was made that he could work there too, but doing what exactly? Carrying plates? Scrubbing dishes? That wasn’t his forte. There would be little need for decent muscle, the only requirement being the possibility of shaking down those who hadn’t paid their bill.
It was laughable.
Good for them. They’d made a life. They’d become comfortable. They were moving on.
Good for bloody them.
It wouldn’t have occurred to them that one of their number hadn’t enjoyed such good fortune. They never had to settle for barn floors or dark alleys to sleep the drink off. It didn’t matter to them that good-natured smiles never followed warm welcomes when he made his presence known. Reminiscence bore into him like a drill, pulling and churning his temperament into frustration.
While they were spending the coin of others, what did he have to contend with? Dock work? Working in the mills or the mines? He may as well find his fortune as a singing vagabond. Sadly a man of his status, or a man in general, was not so fortunate to enjoy the generosity of strangers. His reputation had ensured anybody who was worth anything in this city would distance themselves. Associating themselves with Jacques was suicide of both status and possibly of the mortal variety too.
While the girls comfortably avoided peril, Jacques was a marked man. Franco Del Monaire had asked him to do what was necessary to protect the girls of the Gambler’s Den no matter the personal cost. To ensure this, Jacques took it upon himself to testify against Wilheim Fort, a cruel individual who riddled the great city of Windberg with his wrongdoings.
The chain reaction this caused was momentous. Once respected individuals were discovered to be in cahoots with Wilheim, arrests were made by the dozen. Powerful people fell from grace. That power had to be directed somewhere so repercussions became inevitable.
The first time it happened, a couple of goons tried to jump him at a bar, giving a quick warning and a knife to the gut. He was lucky and the resulting tussle left him with just a few cuts but the message had been delivered sternly. Jacques took to carrying iron every day after that in preparation for the inevitable reoccurrence.
Despite catching a bullet in the thigh, the next assailants caught considerably more to the chest. The one after that was tossed down a cliff after an almighty struggle. Standing on the cusp of a windswept gully, Jacques had grimly realized these attempts weren’t going to stop. He had no concerns about killing a man. He had done so plenty of times and for plenty of reasons, a handful considerably rotten, but this? The relentlessness of it was painfully apparent.
The cost of this bargain was uncomfortably high. Inconveniences he could deal with, hell it was expected, but forfeiting his life, his entire life? Nobody else was dodging bullets. Nobody else had to toss unscrupulous folks down into ravines for a dirt nap.
And here the girls were, speaking as if Franco and Misu were heroes, monuments to the people they once entertained, worthy of praise that stopped just shy of worship.
‘This is stifling,’ he finally said, striking his bottle on a table with a thump, narrowly missing the handle of his revolver that had been placed there for convenience.
‘Jacques?’
‘It makes no real difference, does it? They’re both dead and we’re sitting around talking about what could have been. We’re left behind contemplating the future. It’s selfish, is what it is. No two ways about it.’
Everyone fell quiet, the more timid among them avoiding eye contact and fiddling with their drinks.
* * *
‘We’re all hurting, Jacques. You’re not unique on that front.’ Corinne scrunched up her features in disgust. She had grown tired of this spectacle some time ago. His constant moaning and alcoholism was a bore and, frankly, she expected better of him than to drink himself stupid. They needed solidarity between them, not this.
‘Oh, work it out why don’t you. Sitting about here moping, mumbling little treasures about how the good times were. Let me tell you a fact and take it any way you desire. We weren’t saved by that pair. We were cast aside. We were left behind! They took the easy way out, dying a death out in the Sand Sea like martyrs. We got the bum end of the deal. You can be all red and puffy-cheeked in outrage but that doesn’t sway the fact that I’m right. You were all taking too long to work it out so I figured I would accelerate maters. Let it sink in. Think it over.’
His eyes locked defiantly with Corinne’s. She waited for this little outburst to be done, though he spoke with considerable malice and smiled like a predator would smile, then he took a hearty swig of poison.
‘Stings like a bitch, don’t it?’
Corinne retaliated flatly. ‘You’re drunk. Again, may I add, and it’s not even midday. Did you wash in scotch when you woke this morning? On today of all days?’
‘What can I say? Sobriety has lost its sparkling appeal.’
‘Has compassion too?’ Corinne snarled in challenge. She had tolerated this tirade for far too long. For a handful of weeks now, she had endured Jacques being stinking drunk whenever he rolled himself out of whatever bordello he had talked himself into.
‘You don’t get to say that to me. Nobody does. You have no idea how much I’ve put myself on the line for you, for all of you! You can doll yourselves up and pretend to move on, be in tears for the papers when they take nice photographs to further your agendas, but some people, better people, just don’t have the stomach for that. Sick as it is to admit, you have to respect Wilheim Fort. He has one over each and every one of you. For all his terrors, at least he never put on a charade to hide what he did. He never faked his intentions. Can you all say the same?’
There was a pregnant pause. Nobody moved.
‘You want to turn around and go out that door. Right now,’ Corinne threatened, though what she said was not a suggestion but a demand. He wasn’t welcome here any more, not if he was going to behave so undignified.
‘You’re damn right I do,’ Jacques agreed. He swung his jacket from the seat arm in a rush and made his way outside, slamming the door in frustration. The connected bell danced on its bracket, almost detaching itself in shock. Nothing was said inside for a while, as the only noise was the slowing rattle of glass in the doorframe, followed by an empty bottle tossed into the street and bursting on impact.
‘So … we’re not doing anything about that?’ Katerina finally asked. Corinne was quick to shoot down the suggestion. She marched to the door and flipped the latch to lock.
‘No. Let him go. Let others suffer his egotism – I’m done with it. We don’t need it under our roof.’
‘And what he said of Wilheim?’
Corinne sunk her teeth into her lower lip in frustration. The insult stung considerably more than the pain she administered herself.
‘Pay it no mind,’ she dismissed. ‘He’s behind bars now. He’s no concern to anybody.’
* * *
Wilheim Fort sat quite contentedly in his cell. The bars were pitted and stained by age and who knows what. The walls were carved with the names of previous occupants, some now being the only evidence of their existence. The uncomfortable slab that passed for a bed was seemingly designed by someone who clearly despised the spine and had set about destroying it under the pretence of rest. It was a cell befitting murderers, thugs, terrible people who did terrible things by the score and were to be incarcerated in equally fitting surroundings.
It was not at all appropriate for a man of Wilheim’s stature.
As was regular, the guard rapped the bars with his truncheon to get the inmate’s attention. He held in the other hand a tray of what some might generously call food. The meal was slid through its designated slot, spilling somewhat onto the stone floor, not that the jailer actually felt the slightest bit of remorse for this. He knew full well the crimes that Wilheim was to be trialled for, though in his humble opinion would rather the city forgo the circus and simply have him shot.
There were plenty who shared his thinking, a considerable amount under this roof and scores in the city who had cheered the outing of the architect of a criminal empire. Another pair of Bluecoats behind tended to the other cells with equal attention, conveying the meals with little care for the occupants within.
But, curiously, Wilheim simply sat on his uncomfortable bed, surrounded by the words of dead men, and stared directly through the bars stained with who knows what at the man beyond.
In fact, he did more than this. He smiled.
He smiled with such simplicity that one could easily mistake it as arrogance. The guard did so. He had seen this smile every time he took the slop to the cell, every time he called for attention, every time the prisoner’s lawyer came to discuss matters with him. Previously the Bluecoat had been patient. He was disciplined enough not to enter into a conversation with this individual, as his words could easily lead to attempts of bribery, or threats upon his person. This time, however, was different. This time, the Bluecoat gave in to his curiosity.
‘Every time I see your stupid face,’ he snarled, dragging the truncheon across the bars, ‘every single damn time with no break in between, you’ve got that ridiculous smile on you. You have to tell me, sitting in there and stripped of everything that made a monster like you, what could you possibly have to be so damn happy about?’
Wilheim found amusement in this, something that only made his smile wider. He chuckled, descending into a full-blown belly laugh that caused his bulbous body to ripple with each shake. When he found it appropriate to do so, he spoke.
‘You’re correct in saying that plenty has been removed from my person. Plenty has indeed been taken from me. All that I have acquired. All I have built. Well, of course, not all. A man like myself makes allowances for times such as these and ensures that if ill fortune falls upon him, then he owns a safety net of sorts.’
The guard kept tapping the bars. Wilheim continued, getting to his feet with a grunt.
‘It’s not true that I am naked in this cell. For I have something in abundance that I treasure, something that you and your ilk cannot fathom the importance of.’
The Bluecoat strained himself thinking what it could be. His eyes darted around the bare lockup, searching for any hint of something stashed away.
‘Time, you imbecile, I’m talking about time,’ Wilheim hissed in amusement. ‘I have time here to think, to contemplate … to do anything I so wish. With enough time you can raise the grandest of ambitions from nothing.’
‘That doesn’t sound so great to me. Get enough of that and you’ll be reduced to bones right here. I can imagine better things to smile about.’
‘You miss the bigger picture.’ Wilheim tilted his head to the side, his eyes momentarily flicking behind the Bluecoat and back again. ‘Time allows one to achieve a great many things. You can reclaim that which people have taken from you. You can organize repercussions for the ones who have wronged you. With enough time a broken empire can be re-formed. All one needs is patience.’
The Bluecoat exhaled in boredom. It may have been one of the more eloquent rants he had been subjected to, but it was still delivered by a crook behind bars.
‘Then you’ve got plenty of time to think on such things.’
The guard went to turn, though he froze in doing so quite quickly. The smile upon Wilheim’s face had gone, replaced with a bitter, nasty scowl. The air turned cold in the space between them.
‘I’m going to take an educated guess,’ Wilheim said, taking a pair of steps towards the bars. ‘You were assigned especially to watch over me, correct? The sheriff has considerable trust in you – you’ve no doubt been close to him on many an occasion. I imagine he deems you to be steadfast. Honourable. Infallible. Which is why you were given this most prestigious task.’
‘Something like that.’ He frowned in curiosity. Where was he going with this?
‘I imagine it was down to that raid you performed with him on the illicit bootleggers, where you saved the life of the good sheriff and two of his captains. I imagine that would have gained said trust.’
The Bluecoat turned pale.
‘H-how did you know that?’ he stammered.
Wilheim stepped forward once more. ‘Time, as I said. Time to look into my circumstances – with the assistance of others loyal to me of course. For instance, I know that you are married to the rather fetching Darleen and live in something I would consider no bigger than a shoebox. You are proud of your eldest son, since he shows interest in following your misguided footsteps. You are forthright, admired by plenty, with a badge for your steadfast, incorruptible nature.’
Wilheim stood a scant foot from the bars, his eyes glancing behind to the uniformed colleagues who busied themselves.
‘You guard me because the sheriff knows that if I offered you a bribe to secure my freedom, your unshakable character would ensure that you would decline it.’
The Bluecoat swallowed as Wilheim delivered the end of his piece.
‘But your friends wouldn’t.’
The first knife sank into the Bluecoat’s back, deep and between the shoulders. The second slipped around the bare nape of his neck, emptying its contents and robbing the man of breath. He collapsed onto the floor, twitching a few times until remaining still for good. Blood pooled beneath the corpse, reddening his uniform.
All the while Wilheim showed no measure of emotion in his face. Instead he gave his thanks to the pair of now loyal Bluecoats who had carried out the deed, now unlocking the cell with a ring of keys.