[PM to Join] Full House [Meraki]

[Ulysses Allardyce]

Old Rose Harbor - The Leviathan
The 28th of Dentis, 2719, after midnight

A

busy night and I was knackered. It felt like I’d been pulling pints for ages, as though my arm might merge with the taps. I like to think of myself as essential to The Leviathan, but I draw the line at being fused to the bar. Why was that night so busy? I don’t have a clue. No big merchantman had laid anchor in the harbor, and the only naval vessel that was new in port was The Redoubtable Wasp. So, the throng was just one of those causeless things. Fortune smiling on me, I guess. I don’t know what I did to deserve it, but I wasn’t going to go cursing the thing by asking too many questions When the gods decided to bless you with a perpetual horde of thirsty patrons, you don’t question it. You just pour the drinks and watch the black hole in your finances slowly become less and less dire. Busy nights are good for the accounts. Busy nights keep the creditors happy and the tipstaffs off my back. Not that’s I’d ever let a tipstaff past the doors. We do have some standards.

Busy nights are good for The Leviathan. Less so for Allardyce and Co. It’s not easy holding a quiet meeting with furtive clients when the drunken fancy man at the bar is demanding another glass of absinthe. Why do dandies always think absinthe is just the drink to lend them the right air of louche and debauched mystery? I’ve no idea. The stuff is awful. Far too sweet. Far too fiddly to make. Still, the faux peacocks pay well for it, so I suppose that’s another thing I should leave off complaining about.

Around an hour to midnight, there was a ruckus in the back room. I guess the three jolly idiots who were playing cards back there decided that a bit of recreational stabbing was in order. I hate when people bleed all over my furniture. It’s a pain to clean up. Sally and I had to eject those vicious reptiles out the back door and into the river. Well, Sally mostly. It’s amazing how effective a tiny lass with a very sharp knife can be at bringing a situation to order. Still, I’ve only got the one Sally. I’m not sure The Rose, let alone The Leviathan could handle another one such as her. Worth her weight in gold. Thankfully, she’s a feather-light piece.

After we’d sluiced down the back room and shaken our heads over the cost of the breakages, we stumbled back into a bar as lively as ever. There was no hope of any respite it seemed. I thought about closing shop early. Thought about going to bed. It would have been the wise thing to do. But I though about my debts, my creditors, my broken tables and chairs, and decided I needed to stay open. That was about to become a damn great mistake.

I hadn’t noticed when Gervaise slipped in, but I knew he and his flash crew were in the house when I got the order. They always ordered the same thing, I think they did it to annoy me. They were good at annoying me.

“The gents over yonder want two absinths and three admiral’s flips.” Byron had taken the order. Gods dammit, but he should have smoked the bastards right speedily. But, true to form, my lovable idiot of a brother had failed to recognize danger once again. Instead he brought me their request blythe as you please. Brilliant.

Before I could get the loggerheads hot on the braziers - who the hell orders flip on a night like this? - Gervaise hauled himself up to the bar, and smiled at me. Gods I hate that smile. It has all the warmth of long-expired turbot, and all the comfort of a bed of nails. The worst part was, Gervaise thought it was a rather winning grimace. He thought it made him seem suave and debonair.

“Hello, Dicey. A full house tonight.” That name again. In that affected voice with its horrible imitation of a man of substance. Gervaise just sounded like he had a cold and a lisp. “Good to know that you can be competent. We need to talk.” He tried that smile again. I noticed one of his teeth was going black. It would have spoiled his look, had he managed to pull it off. As it stood, that rotten tooth was the only thing about Gervaise that seemed proper authentic.

“Hello Gervaise.” I tried to keep my voice cheery. "Look, if this is about the medicine, it’s going to have to wait. I gave you my stash, I put you on to another shipment. It’s the best I can do. Do you think poppies sprout from my arse?” It would have made my life easier if they did. Well, the business part. Sitting down would have been a right bastard. Why in the name of all the gods did I think I could get the opium? I knew about the bad harvest, about the high prices. But no. Ulysses Allardyce had to think he was too clever by half. And now I was in up to my eyebrow in hock to this piss-poor imitation of a dandy. He might look soft, he might look silly, but Gervaise was not a man I wanted to cross. Well, not yet. Somehow, someway, I would crush him like a bug. For now, I had to mix him drinks.

“Go back to your table, fancy man. I have drinks to mix, and I can’t do that with you leering at me.” Especially not with the flip irons growing red hot. If Gervaise did not go back to his table, I was likely to shove one through his eye. Probably the right. I’d lose the flip iron, but that was a breakage I was willing to endure. “And you’ll have to wait for our little chat. Or would you like to have all these fine people turn on you for delaying their potations? It’s just me at the bar tonight.”

Gervaise grimaced, his expression went cold. “Then you should get another bartender. We need to talk. Now.”

Another bartender. True, I needed one, but everyone who applied was as awkward as a lame loblolly-boy and as brisk as a half-frozen bee. Not the sort I needed. I needed a dab hand. Someone with a sense of the spirits and a way with the shakers and irons. “Keep your knickers on Gervaise. Drinks on the house, and my sparking company at my earliest practicable convenience. Drinks are money dear boy. And I’ll need all the jingle I can muster if you want your dose.”

[Meraki]

28 Dentis 2719

A

busy night and Meraki was restless. From the waterfront, through the streets of Old Rose Harbor, the wick flitted in and out of the establishments. Ten days, he’d been in the harbor, and he’d started to get to know faces, names, people he could wave to. Waving was the first step. Once you could wave to a person, then you could maybe sit next to them. Once you could sit next to them, then maybe you could get them talking. Once they got talking and drinking, you could get them sharing. It went from there, as easy as in the Stacks… no, that wasn’t right. It was easier in the harbor because no one knew who he was. Not yet, anyhow. People were wary of a new face, sure. But they were also curious. The harbor was a dangerous place, but he wasn’t recognized as one of the threats yet. Just a new blood, with an eye on making friends.

He had to make use of that. Before it started to get around. Before people started to catch on. Before he got a name other than Meraki ascribed to him, as nicknames tended to go. Someone, eventually, would stick one on him and he doubted he’d be able to shake it. For now, though, to most of those in the harbor, he was nothing more than that new young wick, dumbly eager for work with a brash attitude but happy to talk or share a smoke.

Three days. That’s how long he’d spent to gather information about the Leviathan. It wasn’t a place like the other rinky-dink taverns around the harbor. He couldn’t just waltz in, unprepared, and expect a gig to fall into his lap or run one of his mediocre generic intrusions. No, this one required a proper dose of priming. Of learning beforehand. Of coming in with something tangible to offer. The business deserved it, anyway, from what he’d learned about the place.

From what he’d gathered, the public house had a healthy amount of coin going through it. For various reasons. Not only was it structured for a higher class of people than the usual Old Rose tavern, with quality food and drinks, but it housed gambling and... other things, from the sound of it. Those other things ranged all over the place, and he couldn’t quite be sure which was rumor and which was truth. The owner, one Ulysses Allardyce, seemed to have his hands in a lot of different pockets.

Meraki had cleaned up for this, too. He’d spent the last of his coins to do so. Washed and pressed his outfit, simple shirt and vest with trousers. Even combed his hair so the copper-tinted blond strands were fluffy and soft rather than oily and stuck to his brow. He'd tied a vivid green handkerchief, that matched his eyes, around his neck. The Anaxi tsat felt damn decent because of it, which would help with his plans.

He didn’t enter the place alone. The wick had found a couple of those people that’d been willing to talk to him before. Human women, and from what he understood, daughters of some sailors. They weren’t especially pretty, or even plain, falling on the side of being unfortunate in looks. He’d convinced the two that he was from Vienda, and they enjoyed his stories – none the wiser, or not caring, that almost every word that left his mouth was fabricated. They were entertained by the wick, regardless. Plus, he seemed to listen to them, and that was about all that mattered. The one curly-haired lass especially liked it whenever he used his field to tickle her.

She giggled now, blathering on about something useless, while Meraki watched the bar counter of the Leviathan.

The bartender matched the description of the owner, almost precisely to how his features had been mentioned by a handful of different people. It had to be him. That, or closely related. Even from the distance between the counter and the table, he could see the tender was dealing with some familiar annoyance – it was common enough body language that Meraki recognized. He knew how some customers could be…

This was as good of a chance as he was going to get. Meraki slid past the giggling woman.

“Where you off to?” she asked, face flushed from inebriation. She grabbed at his vest to keep him there.

Meraki took hold of her hand, coaxing her to let go, and he winked. “Don’t mind. I’ll be back, my dearest.”

That sent her into another fit of drunk giggles and she not-so-lightly punched his arm. Sailor’s daughters… they reminded him of the broad-shouldered girls who worked at the lumber mills in the Stacks. He rubbed his sore arm, forced a grin, then left to the bar.

Meraki sidled up to the counter. He glanced at what lay behind it, taking quick visual stock of everything. Those were some expensive bottles he caught sight of... He listened to a portion of the exchange as the bartender dismissed the so-called leering fancy man.

The dismissal didn’t land well. He glanced over, slightly awkward in doing so, when he heard the cold demand: We need to talk. Now.

Damn. That didn’t sound good… Meraki had almost felt a shiver from how cold the man’s voice had gotten. His sight switched to look at the assumed-owner, then he quickly averted his gaze. He cleared his throat, tapped his fingers against the surface of the counter. Did he dare try? There was a good chance that the owner wanted an excuse to not talk to the other man.

“I could,” he spoke up, and he managed to sound clear in his words. “Don’t mean to interrupt, y’ fellahs. If y’ needed someone. I’ve poured before, out west of here, at few different houses, bars, what have you. You is pourin'…”

Meraki leaned against the bar counter, looked at the irons that were heating up, then said, “...Two absinths and guessin' three admiral’s flips, yeh?”

So, he had overheard the order before when it’d been given to the other server, but he pretended this was discerned from the mere sight of however far the owner had gotten with the drinks instead. He offered a slight grin, slanted but not wide enough to reveal any of his missing back teeth.

The wick added, “I’m a right quick hand with an iron.”

[Ulysses Allardyce]

Old Rose Harbor- The Leviathan
The 28th of Dentis, 2719, slightly more after midnight

E

ither the gods were playing with we, or my luck was holding. I needed a bartender and here was this kid who could recognize an admiral’s flip from the setup. Well, he might have heard the order, but he carried himself well. Swagger matters, and the kid had it in swathes. I was not about to look this gift-moa in the beak. I tried that once and got bitten. Badly. I still have the scar on my left arm and I swear it hurts every time I lose at the races. That’s why I stopped betting. Constant pain in the arm is no good to a barman. Though if my luck held out . . .No, don’t be an idiot Ulysses. Tempting fortune like that’ll get you beaten, killed, or worse, broke.

I looked the kid up and down. He seemed harmless enough, or leastways less harmful to my health than Gervaise and his bully boys. What did I have to lose? Unless my lucky pipsqueak here was some mad arsonist or had a bottomless gullet, I figured the bar would be safe for a little bit. Besides, the company was festive enough at this point that a few ill-made drinks and little extra on the breakages wouldn’t be ravaging my profits.

“Look Lucky,” I poked a finger into the kid’s chest with all the stern patronizing force of a foundering man grasping a floating spar, “you’ve got yourself a practical interview, ok? That’s it. Fix up this order, add in a madeira and brandy for me, and if it’s remotely drinkable then we’ll go from there. Now, take over with the pouring and mixing till I get back from my little chat.” I whipped the striped bar towel from off my shoulder and thwacked it on the kid. As a badge of office it would have to do. “Cash only for order when you’re back there, and if you try any funny business, Byron there,” I jerked a thumb in the direction of my lummox of a brother. He may be stupidly handsome, he may be softhearted, but he’s built like a solid block of oak that goes in for prizefighting. “Well, Byron will sort you out right quick.” It would be Sally who did the sorting, if things became too disarranged. But no one believes that a girl who’s maybe five foot when she’d feeling tall, and looks like everyone’s beloved little sister, can make short work of burly stevedores.

“You got that kid? Don’t make me regret this.” I was already regretting it. I turned from Lucky, and threw a mocking arm around Gervaise’s shoulder. He reeked of cheap perfume and cheaper pomade, the shoulders of his jacked were slick. Either the pomade had dripped down and greased up the thing or Gervaise’s natural oiliness was rising to the surface. Either way, I’d have to soak my arm in over-proof rum just to clean it. I should charge him for that. Over-proof rum’s running dear this year.

“Alright Gervaise,” I hated talking to the dandy, but it was own damn fault. I’d gotten myself into this mess, and I still didn’t see a way. “Look, I’m not holding out on you. I just can’t get the stuff as quick as I’d like. My contact in Mugroba had half his supply commandeered by the customs men. What made it across to the Rose already had buyers. And they weren’t selling.”

“Not good enough Dicey.” Gervaise had resumed his seat at the table, and was now leaning back, feet on the table, and giving me a really splendid view of the bottoms of his fancy shoes. In my bar. Cheeky bastard. “You promised. You failed to deliver. So, now, you gotta pay.”

On the one hand, I could follow that logic. I’d used it myself, but only when I knew someone was holding out on me. I wasn’t holding nothing out on Gervaise. I’d scrounged up what I could, I even called in the Sawbone’s bar tab to get some of the purer opium that navy uses. He’s not been too happy about that. Still, it's amazing what a month of drinks on the house will do to mend a relationship. He’d delivered. Then I delivered. What the hell else was I supposed to do? “Gervaise, look old son, you may think threatening me, dunking my head in my own eels, skulking around my bar, and taking up space I require for other purposes is going to work some kind of magic, but it’s like no spell I’ve ever seen. Can you even do magic Gervaise?” I knew he couldn’t. I knew that inability wrankled with him. He wanted to be a toff, and toffs do magic. He wasn’t dense enough to think that a third-hand leaf-green velvet coat and horrible pomade would hide his origins, but I was sure he wanted it to be so. I’d feel sorry for him, if he wasn’t such a lob-cock.

Gervaise glared back at me, took his boots off the table and leaned in toward me. “You don’t get the poppy by fuckin’ yesterday, and we’ll hold a little ball, and dance on you in hobnail boots.” Now there was a pretty picture. I could just see it. Gervaise and his crew dancing a hornpipe on my own personal torso, the air wheezing from my lungs like the punctured bellows of my melodeon. Charming. Really.

“You squash me, sure, and then what? You going to find another supplier? Another warehouse to stash your gods-knows-what when the customs-men come snooping about? We’ve done business before, you and I, and I’ve never once let you down. So, cut me a little slack. I’ve already given you what I can get, and that’s more than two thirds of the order. You know anyone else in the Rose who could have done better? In the flower festival season, with the droughts still lingering, and probably a gods-damned poetry convention going one somewhere? Tell me Gervaise, where are you going to go, if not through me?” And where the hell were the drinks?

[Meraki]

28 Dentis 2719

L

ucky. The owner called him lucky, after a quick visual inspection. Meraki lifted his shoulders back, fixed his vest with a snap of the fabric, and even pivoted on his feet some in case the owner wanted a full-degree view of him. Never mind he was thin under his cheap thread-worn clothes, they were the hardy clothes of a worker and he was fit, not sickly.

Being called Lucky brought a slant of a smile to the Anaxi wick’s face. He glanced at the finger that poked against his chest. He leaned from the touch – not to sincerely get away – in a playful jest, as if the other man’s finger had all the strength of an actual shove. His eyebrows raised. He rid himself of the smile and nodded. He repeated the order plainly, “Madeira and brandy.”

The wick threw up a hand in a poor imitation of a salute. This was going well. The striped bar towel transferred over, with a loud thwack on his shoulder. Around the wick, the mona lightly trembled with a sort of eager tension. He nodded again, when he heard the rest of the instructions. Meraki glanced over at the brawny server who’d taken the order before. The wick added a quick acknowledgment in a respectful tone, “Mister Byron.”

Meraki had assumed correctly to prepare for this. As much as it might’ve gone smoothly, as much as to anyone watching it would’ve seemed like a stroke of luck, the wick knew otherwise. He had a rough approximation of who all was involved, now. While he was a stranger to the men, they weren’t exactly strangers to him… such as knowing the owner’s name when it hadn’t even been provided. He had to keep watch on his tongue, to make sure he didn’t slip up and give away too much. However, the tsat from the Stacks couldn’t resist a momentary size-up of Byron… he could take him, probably. Not that he would need to, but if it came to it… the wick felt assured he’d manage. He’d swung at larger and brawnier humans before, though not many. The key was to get on their back where they couldn't reach you, but you could get at them still.

He looked back to the owner and nodded once more. Lucky, he thought for a moment. He liked that name. Wouldn’t mind if that stuck, was a lot better than what the boys back in Brunnhold called him… and it was the sort of trivial thing that made all the difference when it came to Meraki’s interest for working at a place.

“Y’ won’t…” said Meraki but the man was already moving away, to talk with the oily dandy known as Gervaise. He didn’t know as much about that man, but he didn’t know nothing.

The wick didn’t linger though. He ducked under the bar’s entrance and popped back up on the other side. A smile toyed at his lips, in the swap of places while he took over the set up that’d gotten started by the other man.

If there was one thing that Meraki had learned through the swift hop between jobs he’d gotten used to performing, it was that for the jobs that resembled his past ones… he could fall in without a word otherwise. Easy as lying through his teeth, he could make it seem like he’d been working at a joint for years when it’d only been minutes or hours. Give him a day? A week? Well, if a place kept Lucky for more than a week, that was a miracle in itself.

He worked quick and without pause or hesitation. Not nimbly, for he had the bruised and scarred hands of a lifetime fighter, but his speed made up for his lack of fine-tuned agility. He hummed to cover the noise he made with the shuffle of a bowl, the clink of glasses, and the sound of his boots as he paced along the bar to inspect where things were located. He stirred sugar and eggs and the like, with a whisk he’d found, and got a good look at everything. Not a whole lot different than most hotel bars he’d worked in the Stacks.

A couple had approached the bar, to order drinks, and Meraki nodded to them while he listened. Nothing more than a couple shake-and-pours, though his hands were busy with the flips. He set down the bowl, and promptly poured the pair of absinthe before setting them near the drip faucets. Here, he slowed somewhat so he could balance the spoons and then the sugar cubes in the proper place. He glanced at the lady of the couple while he did so, and asked, “Ever had absinthe, m…”

“Miss,” she corrected his pause, glancing at the drip faucets and shaking her head. Her ringlet curls bounced in a spritely fashion around her heart-shaped face. “No, I hear it causes one to see frightful things.”

Meraki wiped down the counter in front of the couple, with a glance toward the disinterested man. Disinterested, he suspected, because they weren’t a pair for romance but perhaps a pair of circumstance. He returned his attention to the woman and said, “It can, it can… but only for those wit' frightfully evil minds. Do y’ got a frightfully evil mind, miss?”

She giggled and shook her head in denial.

“’Course y’ don’t,” said Meraki while he moved back to start thickening the flip mixture between two pitchers. He made a show of it for the woman, lifting the pitchers high as he aimed the liquid between them. “I’m not a gamblin’ man, but I bet you gots a right beautiful mind. Y’ know what that means, miss…?”

“Felicity,” she offered to his pause. She took out a fan, and fluttered it in front of her face, as she glanced at her companion. The man seemed to be looking toward the back area, as if checking for someone or thinking of something. He wasn’t paying attention to their conversation, that was obvious.

“Miss Felicity, lovely.” He offered a wink, then poured the flip mixture into three mugs he’d lined up before. “Well, Miss Felicity, if you gots a mind as half as pretty as you, then absinthe would do y’ nothing but good when it comes to things. Ladies like you are what makes the fairy green with envy.”

The wick set aside the empty pitcher. He carefully picked up the toddy rod, though he tried a small toss to switch the grip to the other hand. Once he caught it, he dipped the red-hot end into the first mug. It frothed and foamed over. He moved to the second, and then the third. Once done, he set the rod to cool.

“How ‘bout it?” he asked while he set the mugs on a round tray. He turned away, moving quick as he gathered the brandy and wine. Meraki placed them on the counter, then he moved in front of the lady. He placed his elbows on the counter and leaned toward her in a casual posture. His field trembled, he focused on making it a pleasant vibration. He asked in a low voice, “Y’ feel like tryin’ some-thin’ new tonight, Miss Felicity?”

He watched the pink gather in her cheeks, unrelenting in his green-eyed gaze that he kept on her. She kept glancing at the man – who Meraki felt certain now, by everything he’d seen, was likely some sort of cousin – and then she placed a hand on her companion’s arm.

“Georgie? Can we?” she asked, then she glanced at Meraki. Her blush worsened but she tried to hide it behind the fan and then she asked again to the distracted man, “Dare we?”

“Whatever you want,” muttered Georgie. “Get on with it, will you?”

“Daring Miss Felicity,” complimented the wick. Meraki winked at the lady again, then he took down the two absinthes from before. He replaced them with new glasses, freshly poured, and set the drip on them. The wick moved back to finish up the drinks, with the madeira and brandy being the most straight-forward of the lot. He took care with it anyway, though, because it was the owner’s request. Didn’t matter how great the other drinks were… if the owner’s drink lacked any decent impression.

All of the drinks on a tray made for a perfect balancing act. Meraki kept the the absinth carefully away from the admiral flip mugs to keep the cool glasses far from the heat. He drifted away from the bar, with a glance toward Byron.

“Y’ mind watchin’ things for me, sir?” He glanced at the couple, where the lady still tracked him with a piercing gaze from above the edge of her fan. Meraki added in a teasing voice so she could hear, “Keep an eye on that there Miss Felicity, will ya? She sure looks like trouble.”

He didn’t wait to hear any answer. Meraki wanted to deliver these drinks himself. The wick slowed his steps, listening as he approached. It was obvious what the two men were talking over. Poppy. So that’d been truth, not rumor, then. The owner held himself strong, from the sounds of it, not cowering but also trying to buy some time.

“…Tell me Gervaise, where are you going to go, if not through me?”

And where the hell were the drinks?

“Here we are, fellahs,” said Meraki in a clear, energetic voice. He set down the brandy and wine first, in front of the owner with a nod. He then set down the absinth at the table, then two of the flips, for Gervaise’s boys. He swiftly moved around, and finally – lastly – set down the flip for Gervaise with only the slightest of spillage that drifted toward the fancy man’s shoes.

He spun the emptied tray between his fingertips, then tucked it under his arm. Meraki glanced toward the bar, then back and leaned down to hushedly murmur to the owner while facing away from Gervaise.

“’pologies to bother yer meetin’, Mister Allardyce,” he wagered the name even though it hadn’t been given, and he said, “But if youse is lookin’ for poet flowers…”

And here, he shrugged, then started back toward the bar without another word. If the owner caught the tone, if he had a smidgen of keenness, then he would know what the wick was getting at.

Meraki returned to the bar, ducking under the entrance, and he tossed the tray aside. He turned off the drip on the absinth, then set the two glasses down in front of Miss Felicity and her companion. The woman had set coins on the counter, far more than needed, and she said, “Extra’s for you.”

“Finally,” snapped Georgie. He swiped up the absinthe, roughly hooked his arm around the lady’s elbow, and guided her away from the bar and toward the back area.

“Enjoy your night, Miss Felicity,” he offered with a wave toward her, then fixed up the drip faucets so they were clean and ready for the next order. Meraki went about, to clean up the mess he’d left on the counter from the flips. He did his best to not glance over and see if the owner would follow-up or shrug off the hint of potential information. It wasn't like he had much time to spare. There were already new drink orders waiting to be made. He got to it, a growing familiarity with what was where.

[Ulysses Allardyce]

Old Rose Harbor - The Leviathan
The 28th of Dentis, 2719, slightly more still after midnight

I

t’s an uncomfortable thing, sitting at a table with a slug like Gervaise without so much as a drink to occupy your hands. You kind yourself trying to find some occupation for them other than wringing the slug’s throat. I settled for wringing my wrists and imagining. Probably not the best choice of actions, but it was better than committing murder in the middle of my own bar. The presence of his equally slimy companions did nothing to lessen the burden. I’d been to more congenial visits to the barber-surgeon. I had a tooth out once. I’d screamed at the time, cursed, and rained oaths down on the man doing his level best. Now, I was longing for the tender embrace of the pliers.

Pliers. If I got out of this in one piece, I would suggest that Gervaise have that rotten tooth seen to. I’d slip the barber some cash, or stand him a week’s drinks, to ensure the extraction was extra painful. It would be a public service.

My place at the table afforded me a decent view of the bar where Lucky was acquiring himself with what almost passed for confidence. He did not know the layout of the spirits, the home of the glasses, but he found them easily enough. I keep a well organized bar, everything ship-shape and Harbor fashion. He did lack a bit of panache, that I could see, and his focus was easier to break than I’d like. Well, Felicity had that effect on people. People always underestimate a giggling girl with her hair in ringlets. Very unwise.

Lucky, at least, managed to escape her company long enough to sail over with the drinks. He plunked them down, all ahoo and out of order. Gervaise turned up a disdainful lip. A gesture made all the more unpleasant by the pencil-thin mustache he was sporting. I cannot abide a man in pencil-thin mustache. I was re-positioning the drinks, Gervaise always took absinthe, and I nearly missed Lucky confirming the appropriateness of his name.

“But if youse is lookin’ for poet flowers . . .” Damn right I was! I pushed back from the table, stood up and threw my arm about Lucky’s shoulder in a way that I hoped looked avuncular and said ‘shut up you idiot’.

“Gentlemen,” I nodded to Gervaise and his crew, “It seems I need to confer with m’colleague here. Important business, you understand. Now, enjoy the drinks, let me have a word, and well see if can’t sort this whole thing out.” I looked around the barroom. Tables still busy, but no one seemed to be planning on killing each other for at least another ten minutes. Sally was flitting past when I caught her eye. I nodded. She nodded back. “Now, Sally here will take care of you while I am in conference. Ain’t that right?”

“Right you are, Mr Ulysses sir.” Sally gave them her most sweetly predatory smile. The smile like a cat who's got all her nice plump mice cornered and trying to decide which one will make for a fine first course.

Arm still around Lucky, I pulled him toward the bar. “Now see here old son,” I gave him a smile, friendly like, “If this is some sort of set-up, if you’re trying to have me on, then I’ll have your guts for garters. They’ll look rather natty when I roll up my sleeves to pour at the bar. I can point to them and tell people the tale of what happens to the last man who tried to peel me. You follow?” I didn’t wait for him to follow. I’d given him the stick, now time for the sweetner. “However, as I am a trusting man, if you really do have a line on the stuff, I’ll kiss you.” I slapped him hard on the shoulder. “Well, maybe not that. My last kissing partner was not what I’d call pleasant.” She’d been an eel whose barrel I’d nearly drowned in, thanks to the burly piece sitting to Gervaise’ left. “So, what say we skip the kiss and go straight on to business? Tell me about these pretty flowers of yours.”

[Meraki]

28 Dentis 2719

M

istakes were made, but when the wick set down the drinks in the wrong order – that mistake was purposeful. He couldn’t resist the tiny twist of personal amusement from setting a flip in front of the toft while he aimed to distract the man from menacing the owner. It was an appropriate distraction for when he slipped the line that he’d been holding on his tongue since he arrived at the Leviathan. He had a few other things, but the poet-flower card proved relevant to what he’d overheard.

He raised his eyebrows when Mr. Ulysses (as Sally had called him) threw an arm around his shoulders. His lips flicked in a shy smile, and he nodded. He could keep quiet until the owner requested more information. Nothing like a tip on supply to bait a distributer who had the pressure of immediate demand on him. When a petite lady moved past, Meraki glanced over Sally. She seemed nice enough, and he liked that smile of her’s. A smile like she knew her way around a city and knew how to take care of herself too.

Returned to the bar with the friendly-seeming Ulysses, Meraki glanced over the owner’s smile and decided it was far less pleasant than Sally’s. When he heard the straight-forward threat that followed the smile, he snorted in a scoff. Meraki winced at his own reaction but didn’t have time to confirm one way or another that he followed when the older man continued. The Anaxi retrieved a cigarette from his vest pocket and placed it between his lips while he listened to the rest.

The cigarette fell right out of his mouth when he got slapped hard on the shoulder. His eyes widened. The tsat hurriedly tried to catch it. Roll-up bounced between the palms of his hands as if it were hot, even though it was unlit, then fell to the floor. Meraki huffed, then looked over and kept quiet for a moment. Better to keep quiet with these sorts. Owners liked to think themselves in charge of most everything, including conversations. Especially within their fancy establishments. So, he kept his thoughts to himself and simply nodded again.

“Right, y’ are,” he started with, after a moment’s pause when he felt certain that Ulysses waited for him to answer. The wick glanced around before he swiftly bent down and swiped up his cigarette from the floor. Meraki mentioned, “’bout that kiss, I’d much more ah-preci-ate somethin’ else…”

“Y’see, I’m new to the harbor and all, Mr. Allardyce. Where I’m comin’ from, I’m what y’ call a student of life. I learn things, useful things. Things ‘bout people, ‘bout pretty flowers, ‘bout… whatever might need to be known,” he explained, then he shrugged in a meager attempt to get rid of the other man’s arm around his shoulders. Meraki knew that sort of touch; he used it himself many a time on other people. Created a sense of familiarity, a quick sense of fabricated closeness and privacy. Keenly aware they were still in the public space of the establishment, where a sharp eavesdropper could hear, he added, “That ent somethin’ I can float on my lonesome for long, but I ent the best when it comes to workin’ with family types and I heard yer an orphan.”

He quietly clapped his hands together. The tsat leaned back slightly with a nervous survey of the area, and the people within it, then he returned his attention to the older man, “I suspect y’ understand what I’m sayin’.”

“Help me out, and what I’m ‘bout to tell y’ wit’ where to pluck these flowers, it’ll be like a spot of tea before a golly supper,” he wagered. Meraki scratched the back of his head, fingers ruffled through his copper-blond hair. “Y’ want me to say it right here, mister? It ent somethin’ no one couldn’t toe their way ahead of you on. Easy to hear ‘bout in this place, like wit’ that drink order.”

The tsat inclined his head toward where Gervaise and his boys drank. A slanted smile showed on his lips slightly. Quiet, stay quiet now. Let him do the talking. Meraki was good and aware he hadn’t given the tip over yet. It was a bartering chip, and he wasn’t about to hurriedly serve it on a silver platter without some attempt of securing something worthwhile in exchange.

[Ulysses Allardyce]

OId Rose Harbor - The Leviathan
The 28th of Dentis, 2719, slightly more still after midnight

R

ight. So, Lucky had a line, and decent one. Clever bastard. I wasn’t sure I trusted the kid. No, scratch that, I did not trust the kid. It was common courtesy to distrust a young chancer when you met him. Were our positions reversed, I’d want to be distrusted. I was a young chancer once, and I’d have been sorely put out if a greying cove with more fiddles under his belt than I had years had just trusted me. Sign of respect and all that; sign you are open to surprises. No, I did not trust Lucky. But I did trust Gervaise. I’d trust him to have me beaten with marlinspikes or thrown weighted into the harbor where I’d dance my final jig for the squids and crabs. I’d prefer not to jig. A man grows attached to living.

Sometimes the old saw gets it wrong. Tonight it was ‘better the devil you don’t know’.

My arm still around the kid, I steered him toward the bar. He had the sense at least to know that his words would be easy enough to follow. Well, at least Lucky’s no puddinghead. Of course, the kid did indulge in cigarettes, so he can’t be too bright. I can’t abide cigarettes. The reek from the god’s know what is in them, well, it turns my stomach. They’re the dodgy sausages of the tobacco world. And believe me, magistrate, I know my dodgy sausages. No, I’m a pipe man myself. Far better aroma for one, and for another, it gives me a certain contemplative air.

But now was not the time for contemplation. Now was the time for damn sharpish business. I either had a lifeline here, or a trap. Time to find out which it was.

Behind the bar I keep a little private room. The Sawbones calls it the Ready Room. That’s a laugh. It ain’t much, no golly captain me, bit it serves when I need to have a quiet chat. I needed one now. I pushed the kid in, dropped him into a chair with a less than gentle hand, and glared at him for a moment. What are you up to, kid, and how do out-think you? Well, I could try and sozzle him. That usually worked.Two glasses plunked down on the old oak table, and a bottle of overproof rum, the good stuff, fine and old and quite ill-gotten. Dubious provenance always enhances the taste of rum I find. I poured, and slid the glass along to Lucky. “Drink, kid. No arguments. No business in The Leviathan is done without a toast to open it. I am a civilized man”

I raised my own glass, watched the light from the oil lamp glinting through the sun-colored rum. “Cheers.” I offered my glass, then looked him straight in the eye. “Well done, kid, trying to play your cards close to the chest, but I fancy Gervaise and his sorry little gang smoked what you're about. Still, that buys me a little time I think. So, here’s to a little artlessness.” I took a drink, letting the warming burn fill my throat.

“Student of life eh? That’s a grand claim for a kid who looks too young to shave properly. Still, I’ll take it under advisement.” He didn’t look like much, just a kid with too many freckles and too much self-regard. Still, we’d all be young once. “Let’s drop the pretty words shall we, Lucky? Now, I’ve had my ear to the ground for months trying to scounce all the opium I can. I’ve got most of what I owe, but shipments have been delayed, abandoned, and such. I can’t get the stuff for love or money. And now, here’s you, just waltzing into my bar with your decent hand at the drinks and just what I need to get me out of bind.” I gave him my least comfortable smile, the wide one that showed too many teeth. I’d known men go pale at that one. They knew what I meant. It meant business. Serious business. “If you really are a student of life," whatever the clocks that was, "You can see, my lad, why I might be just a tad suspicious of you and your well timed entry into my affairs. So,” I kept up the smile and swirled the rum in my glass, “what’s your angle? I ain’t stupid kid,” well, that was open to debate, considering my current debt to Gervaise and his crew, “but no one has ever said I ain’t reasonable. Now, where is this opium, how do I go about acquiring it, and what’s it going to cost me?”

[Meraki]

The Leviathan
28 Dentis 2719

B

y the time it went from real gentle out where we could be seen, to rough hands in the private little room past the bar, I knew I had ‘im hooked. The drink poured? Formality. Could have been some sort of test too, really. Or maybe he wanted me guttered. I knew that trick too. Knew plenty of the cards he was playing so far. Easy stuff, it was. But it was the space itself that gave the measure of my progress away. Allowing me a look-see behind the curtain, risky move that. I had just walked off the street and all, could be working for anyone really, but I appreciated the desperation that provided a degree of hospitality from the old man. Long as my tip panned out, I knew he wouldn’t care one way or the other what I did or didn’t see. Alioe’s sake, I mean, he hadn’t even bothered to ask for a name! Taking me in, all the way back to his nest so we could get cozy and talk about poet flowers, and not even knowing a name otherwise. Not that it mattered, good chance I’d make one up anyway. That’s beside the point… wait, or is that the point?

Rum was a fine offer, tell you that much, and of good quality too. No flecks of sawdust stuck in the liquid. Golden, clear, smelling of spice and gods did I ever want it. More than I wanted anything. I’d give up my whole lot of cigarettes for the bottle, but I’d been so good lately about that. I hadn’t touched anything in days. Really, if I’m gonna be honest, I didn’t know how much more of the stuff my body would put up with. Not after ending up in the harbor like I did, can’t even remember how much I drank to get myself there. Had to be a lot, had to be more than I should have had, ‘cause I was still dealing with the aftermath. Some hours, I just felt like dying all over again, but it was getting better. No arguments, that’s what he said? Ah, shit. This old guy was the sort to take a refusal as some chroveshit insult, weren’t he? Gods blast it, no winnin’ against that trick. Whatever. It was just one drink, right? I’d make sure not to have any after. Or… nope, no potted plants nearby to spit it out. Just me and the table and the guy I coined as my best bet for a proper boss in Old Rose.

Picking up the glass, I offered a smile. Little smile, not too big, not enough to show the mess of my teeth. Balanced, practiced, hint of cockiness with a dash of deference. Mixing pulls of the face, not too different from mixing drinks once all the ingredients were known. I’d practiced enough times in mirrors to know I nailed this concoction of an expression. In willing agreement, because look, I’m a good fellow, I can play along even if I don’t want to. Can even be nice about it. I raised my glass and muttered a quick “Cheers”.

He looked at me, and he had eyes as blue as the harbor waters. Pretty eyes, they was. Bet he looked fit when he was about my age… still looked a fair sort, now that I got a closer look. Fit and knowing about how things worked. Yeah, okay, that added to the positives of him being my boss. Meant it’d pass the time a bit more interesting, knowing those ocean eyes might be watching me close from the back room. I hid behind a sip of the rum and listened to what amounted to a sense of accolades or something of that sort. I don’t know, those eyes trying to be all serious and like, and the burn of alcohol on my tongue, distracted me from caring too much either way about the intention behind the words.

“Oy,” I interjected when he commented on my younger age. Right, I didn’t mind too much. Bit of a compliment, that was. I was getting a fair bit old, in my estimation, nothing like I was just few years back… especially when I never thought I’d make it past the two-oh mark anyway. Now I was already on my way to two-three and that was sure something amazing if I took a moment to reflect about it.

Drop the pretty words? There he was, calling me Lucky again… I liked it still. He could call me Lucky, yeah. Call me Lucky any day with those blue eyes of his lookin’ like he was trying to pierce right through me. I’d call him Boss, I would… Probably shouldn’t have kept sipping the rum, I realized bit too late. Drink was almost clean gone in my glass. But Lucky, that was a good name. Better than mine, even. Would let me hide myself again. Didn’t know what came over me, opening myself up like that and letting people know who I am. Handful or so, not too bad, but enough to bother me. Didn’t want to go back to being Toby, that was a name better left in the mud of the Stacks. Lucky, though, yeah, I liked that a lot. I could be a Lucky.

He gave me a smile, all toothy like, as if mocking that he had all them to show me. I smiled back, and I let my mess of teeth reveal this time. Let him see the gaps in the back, the tobacco stains, all o’ it. He wanted to smile at me like that? As if I didn’t know this was business already? Course I knew it was business. The fuck else would I be doing here? So, I’d smile right back. Friendly, right? I knocked back what little remained in my glass. Playing with the base of the glass, little spins so that it hovered above my palm before it landed between my fingers again. Good test to know how drunk I was or wasn’t, to know if there was something in that drink that shouldn’t have been, whether I could keep tossing the glass and not accidentally shatter it. If the glass fell, if it shattered on the floor… that was the sign that I needed to retreat. That my mind had slowed too much.

I didn’t need to look at the glass while I did it either. Let my smile fade, though. Deferential, right. I was trying to be that way about it. I’d forgotten there, for a second. The rum, and the ocean eyes, and the smile, and everything had gotten me confused and thinking sideways, and I needed to straighten out quick. Ent why I had come here, that. Leaned back in the chair, I set my ankle on my knee in a wide crossed seat. Comfortable, real comfortable, but not closed off. Arm rested against the back of the chair, I glanced around the little room.

“No pretty words.” Simple agreement, playing along. I flipped the empty glass up some, catching it at the rim between my fingers and thumb. “It ent that mys-ty-fying, Mr. Allardyce. I’m new to the harbor and ent said nothing that ent the truth.”

I tossed the glass a little higher. “Can’t say it ent anythin’ but dumb luck that I showed up when I did, but it ent luck that I know what I know and that I know y’ might be keen.”

“So, my angle? And I ent think you’re stupid,” because I didn’t. A stupid man couldn’t own a place like the one around us. They would’ve already lost it to someone smarter than them, I was sure of it. “My angle is I want y’ to get me a job. Here. As a bartender, server, whatever, you get? And I want to be able to talk to people that come through. In the long run - yeah, the long run - I’d like for you to tell me how it is you don’t got brotherly ties like all the other taverns in this place. Lest y’ want to tell me now, wouldn’t say no to that.”

I set the glass on the table, no longer spinning or flipping. My senses seemed sharp enough that there hadn’t been anything slipped into it. “As for the opium, okay, I’ll give you some even though I’m having to trust y’ here. Trust that y’ll come back around...”

How much to give the natt? I felt the mona round my eyes then, the familiar little things danced about my vision and gave the room a bit of a haze to where the lights came in. My fingers found the cigarette from before, as I rolled it between my knuckles before I set it to my lips and struck my lighter to get it going. Helped focus me, it did, and kept me busy from saying too much or wanting to drink more. I leaned forward, picked up the glass meant for me, and turned it upside down so it wasn’t open to pour into. I didn’t need no more, no.

“Down at the docks, by the north-end pier, three nights from tonight. There’s a shipment of crates that’ll be locked up in the west sector of the storage houses. They is gonna be marked as a certain sort of shorthand and few numbers, right. Y’ ent gonna know those until morning of, when they come in and list gets put out.” I paused, to breathe in the cheap tobacco smoke and let it linger in my lungs. “Supposed to get moved ‘round midnight, but they is gonna be in there since they arrive in the morning so… they thinkin’ no one is gonna bother while it’s broad daylight, right? But if someone did…”

I shrugged and focused on smoking. Maybe Allardyce preferred to cut a deal rather than sweep the rug out from under someone. Which reminded me, “Oh, and these ent meant for the King.” Now I could be quiet and let the man figure whether he wanted to risk it or not. Either way, I was still gonna swing for a job in a hub like this. Would benefit us both, but I’d assume he'd get that already. He wasn’t stupid, right?

[Ulysses Allardyce]

Old Rose Harbor - The Leviathan
The 28th of Dentis, 2719,even more after midnight

T

he kid talked a good game, had his banter worked out. It was even halfway decent banter, though his accent was thick enough to garble the effect. Well, he wasn’t lying about being new to the Rose. No one would mistake him for one of our local flowers. Not with that bloody awful accent. Like the kid had marbles in his mouth, or had swallowed a rancid potato. Come to think of it, it wasn’t so much an accent as a throat condition. Still, it did make him memorable. Memorable, and easy enough to trace if all this went as pear-shaped as I was fearing. I’ve had any number of pears in my time, some worse than others, but occasionally, just occasionally, one of them turns out to be ripe. There’s nothing sweeter than a true pair magistrate. Nothing in the world.

For now, however, I’d settle for getting Gervaise and his stinking barnacles out of my bar, out of my business. I had better things to do that try and butter up the swaggering dandy.

“Alright kid, so, you think your’re a people person, eh? Got the wit to serve drinks and winkle out confidences?” Well, he’d shown that well enough tonight. Granted, the kid just fell into my lap. Right place, right time. It was still too damn convenient, but with a fruit knife in my pocket and an altogether more businesslike affair in my boot, it stood to reason I could fillet this sprat, should be try anything. Alright, let’s come clean. It would be Sally that did the filleting. I never asked where she got her skills with the knives. It didn’t pay. She was a proper artist, and who was I to question talent. Talent. Well, the kid had some of that to be sure. And, godsdammit but I needed another bartender. “Tell you what, since we’re men of business, you and I,” well, that was charitable on his part, by flattery will get you everywhere, “I can take you on, provisional like. If this opium wheeze works out, well, I can consider a more permanent position.” I took another drink of the rum, letting it slosh around in my gullet for a while, enjoying the burn and the fragrance. “I ain’t doing you a favor kid.” Well, that was a lie, but then one does have to keep in practice. “I need what you’re offering. You need what I can offer. The way I see it, this works out between us. All well and good, but if you take the job, just remember, you are working in my bar. I don’t forget a favor. I don’t forgive a tricky bastard.”

The kid wasn’t a fool. Neither was I. But I could see the desperation of his face, I could feel mine in my bones. And a dead man can’t run a business, can’t turn a profit. Nor can a man whose strings are being pulled.The kid had picked up on that fast enough. Clever. Too clever by half. Opportunity knocks, might as well seize it.

“I ain’t one of the Brothers, no, well spotted. And I like to keep it that way. I run my own affairs, and I don’t recognize any king. This is a republican public house. You follow?” I stared him down, trying to show I meant business. I was no Brother, not Kingsman. I cannot abide kings. “I’ll deal with self-styled kings if need be, and that need is often enough.” Too often. The Brothers can be lucrative, sure, but they’re too shiny by half. A man can get distracted by the shine on the ging. I did. Bloody lot of good that’s done me this time around. Gervaise was sitting out in my bar, taking up space I required for other purposes because I’d been too clever by half, thought I could hold my own against the Brothers. I looked at the kid again. Maybe I was right.

"The Brothers do find that, from time to time, a neutral operator is a useful man, so by an large they leave me be." Save when I was too damn useful to them. I wasn't about to put myself under their thumb any more than was absolutely necessary. They'd been growing too high and mighty of late, too much interest in politics. Bugger that for a lark. Politics, now there's a murky business, and one more like to get you killed than running dodgy goods and contraband. Still, with the King and his men trying their hand at playing the big game, it left us, the real chancers, with a wide field in which to play. Good times. Dangerous times.

“Alright Lucky, the job’s yours for the week, don’t fuck up and you can keep it as long as I need you. Pay’s decent,” I gave him the usual figure. It wasn’t much, truth be told, but enough to afford a room and eat on a regular basis, I’d done with less. “And there are some perks. Dinner on the house when you work nights, a tipple at end of shift, that sort of thing.” It was better than most offers the kid would get, if he got any at all. Eh, call me a softy if you want, that’s your business, but the kid was not without his merits. Merits I needed just then.

The kid lit up some horrible cigarette again. The air filled with acrid smoke. That would have to stop, at least here. I enjoy a pipe as much as any, the occasional cigar as well, but cigarettes reek of desperation and tarwater. There’s no thought in them, no rumination. Only something to suck out of desperation. For the nonce, though, the kid had the advantage, so there was not use in snuffing the damn thing out. I’d have to cover it up.

Just where the hell was my pipe? I patted my pockets with no luck. I did locate a cigar case. That would have to do. At least they were of fragrant quality. Something smooth and mellow, something that might overwhelm the kid’s rancid spur. I lit my own on the wick of a convenient oil lamp, let the smoke fill my mouth, roll about on my tongue, perfumed and sweet, like fine old whiskey and vanilla. With a long and language breath I sent first one, then another smoke ring drifting aloft. An old tick of mine, nothing fancy, but one I enjoyed.

Good for thinking, your smoke rings. Just enough effort to give the old mind a pause as it works though the needful. The kid had a lot to say. I let him say it, sending out the occasional smoke ring by way of acknowledgement. Still, the kid was damn cagey with the details. Sure, he had where, and when, but was coy on who. Coy on how much. Coy on who the shipment was for. No good. I had nothing like the muscle needed to steal the stuff. Byron, Sally, maybe the kid, and a couple others. None of us dashing thieves. Oh I knew a few of that sort, but I was not about to get into hock with another sharp operator. I’d need another line of approach.

“Ok Lucky, or whatever you call yourself when you’re at home, I can thank you for the details of where and when, but, who’s this shipment for? The north docks are the King’s territory. So, he and his are going to take an interest. Can’t have that. Who’s the buyer, old son?”

[Meraki]

The Leviathan
28 Dentis 2719

A

people person; that was one word for it. Sure, I could be a people person. I could be an all sorts of people person. Lots of people I had, on my person, ready for the being. And sure I had enough wit, sure, sure…. And confidences? It was a whole lot easier to manage that when the lot was guttered, and I knew that the old pretty-eyed man knew that too. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have given me some liquor to drink. It was a good test, had to give ‘em that.

Men of business too, eh, the boss had a mind on him, then. Wasn’t sure yet what sort of mind, but there was at least one there. Nothing worse than working for a boss without a mind at all. Unless I aimed to take from them, but that wasn’t my intention here at the Leviathan. I could leave the other taverns for that nonsense. No, this was a different sort of gig, maybe a proper job… as proper as I’d get, that is. No need to delude myself about that. Men of business, yeah. That was a good way of putting it. I’d have to remember that one. Provisional, too. What a word that. I could respect a boss who knew words like that and used ‘em without wonderin’ if I also knew them or not. Though maybe I should pretend to be a bit more confused. Maybe I was seemin’ a bit too smart in the whole matter and needed to whittle it down some?

I didn’t mind the warning, either. In fact, I even gave him a bit of a smile because he deserved it. What with the veiled tricky bastard comment. The old natt had no idea just how accurate of a clockin’ statement that was for me. Sure, he might have had a clue... but… just no idea how much of one. Not that I cared all that much about forgiveness, though I knew what he actually meant by the word.

Nodding along, I listened close and hoped I seemed patient enough – able enough – respectable enough to trust just long enough for the whole provisional span. Leaned forward in the chair, I didn’t mind the stare down from those ocean eyes. I lowered my own gaze though. No need to act like a challenging pup about this. No need to challenge directly, not on this. I nodded in agreement and repeated, “A re-pub-lican public house, yessir. I do follow.”

I glanced up and nodded again, at the explanation about the “King” and still, I wondered why it was that this man out of all the men in the harbor managed to get away with operating like he did. What was so special about Mister Allardyce? What did he provide that allowed for such freedom in the very dominion of the king that he wouldn’t recognize or allow into his many affairs. Neutral operator, huh? An… I knew this word… what was it… an.. arb… Arber… Arbor? Arborehurg? No, that definitely wasn’t it. An… arburterd? Hm… I’d have to try and find a place to look it u- oh! Oh! Traitor? Ar-bit-raider! Arbitrator! That was it. Yeah, arbitrator.

Oh shit, did the old guy say something more? Don’t fuck up? Don’t fuck up what? I can keep- oh! I got the job! Yes! I didn’t bother trying to hide my grin. Why would I? Anybody should be happy to get a decent paying job, and perks? If I didn’t know any better, I’d think the boss was trying to sell me on something I walked in wanting… That always amused me, when people would do that. Like I didn’t know what I wanted already. Sure, there were some things in life that weren’t so obvious about whether I should want it or not – like I wasn’t sure if I should be thinking about my boss’s eyes in the way I was, in the back of my mind there, but then there were lots of things that were just plain and simple. Like the job itself.

“That’s right generous of y’,” I mentioned at the offered perks. “Sure will appreciate the dinner, boss. I’m not much of a cook, if y’ can believe it. I’ll make sure I earn it, I will, promise.”

Cigarette in hand, I took a quick inhale and tried to soothe the excited nerves that ran through me. How many jobs was it and yet I could still feel this way when with a new boss, a new opportunity, a new place to turn upside down and burrow about and learn all the ins and outs from the inside and… that would all come in time, yes, yes. Or it wouldn’t. Sometimes things happened, and jobs fell away like dead leaves on a tree in a windy day. Still, I felt the excitement regardless. Ent never gonna be a day where I didn’t feel it, deep in my gut, roiling about from the surge of a stranger believin’ in me and my potential – wanting me – if even just for a few meager minutes.

What was that the boss got out, though? A cigar? It smelled… good. Really good. Like vanilla and fine whiskey. I’d been around cigars before. Guy like me didn’t get through life without being around them in certain places, and it sure made me wonder about those ocean eyes again. Made me wonder what sort of underground was about in Old Rose for fellahs with tendencies like me, and if boss would know of them. I watched the smoke ring, then swiftly put my cigarette out in the nearest ashtray. I’d have enough to get my lungs filled and I’d rather smell the cigar anyway. It wasn’t like I smoked what I did because I wanted it, but I smoked whatever I got because my body needed it. Starting at an age as young as I did, that was just a fact of life. Couldn’t go a house without starting to get anxious and twitchy and snappish, if I didn’t smoke something.

Business matters first though. I shoved those other thoughts to the back of my mind again, for a time of play, which was not now. Not giving it all away, not yet, I teased Boss a little. I got right to it though when he spoke directly to me. Least I could do with how he was treating me with respect like he was. “Lucky works fine for me, sir, thank y’. Who, who… supposed to be this little thing of a competitor, it is. Some sort of play on words, let me think… I’ll remember…”

I waited a little bit, enough to make it seem like I was trying to recall while I stared up at the ceiling. Then I snapped my fingers and said, “That’s it, sir. Somethin’ called the Drain, if I’m remembering it right. Heard it meant to be a bit of an insult, tryin’ to do it that way, why I got it out to hear ‘bout and all. Gettin’ bold they are, up ‘gainst the King, I hear. ‘course, unless y’ know anythin’ ‘bout ‘at and not wantin’ to think it ruins yer newtralatea.”

“Y’ need me for it, too, I can sure help. I can do more than talk and pour, sometimes,” I offered with ease, though I didn’t elaborate. I had to ask anyway, “Say, what’s it yer smokin’? Smells real la-de-da fancy sweet, boss… Can I call y’ boss, Mister Allardyce, sir? ”