Page 4 of Crooked Kingdom (Dregs 2)
What am I doing here? Wylan wondered again. He found himself gnawing on his thumb and forced himself to stop. He was here for Inej. She’d saved their lives more than once, and he wasn’t going to forget that. He was here because he desperately needed the money. And if there was another reason, a tall, lanky reason with a too-strong taste for games of chance, he wasn’t going to think about that right now.
As soon as they made it to the outskirts of the Barrel, Wylan and Kaz ditched their capes and sky-blue jackets and wended their way east into the Zelver district.
Matthias was waiting for them beneath a darkened doorway on Handelcanal. “All clear?” Kaz asked.
“All clear,” said the big Fjerdan. “The lights went out on the top floor of Smeet’s house more than an hour ago, but I don’t know if the servants are awake.”
“He only has a daily maid and cook,” Kaz said. “He’s too cheap for full-time servants.”
“How is—”
“Nina is fine. Jesper is fine. Everyone is fine except for me because I’m stuck with a gang of hand-wringing nursemaids. Keep a watch.”
Wylan shrugged apologetically at Matthias, who looked like he was considering dashing Kaz’s skull against a wall, then hurried along the cobblestones after Kaz. Smeet’s home also served as his office, and it was located on a dark street with sparse foot traffic. The lamps were lit along the canal and candles burned in some of the windows, but after ten bells, most of the neighborhood’s respectable citizens had already retired.
“Are we just going in through the front door?”
“Use your eyes instead of running your mouth,” said Kaz, lockpicks already flashing in his gloved hands.
I am, Wylan thought. But that wasn’t strictly true. He’d taken in the house’s proportions, the pitch of its gabled roof, the roses beginning to bloom in its window boxes. But he hadn’t looked at the house as a puzzle. With some frustration, Wylan could admit this was an easy solve. The Zelver district was prosperous, but not truly wealthy—a place for successful artisans, bookkeepers, and barristers. Though the houses were well built and tidy, with views of a wide canal, they were tightly packed together, and there were no grand gardens or private docks. To access the windows of the upper floors, he and Kaz would have had to break into a neighboring home and go through two sets of locks instead of one. Better to risk the front door, to simply act as if they had every right to be there—even if Kaz was carrying picks instead of keys.
Use your eyes. But Wylan didn’t like looking at the world the way Kaz did. And once they’d gotten their money, he’d never have to again.
A bare second later, Kaz pressed down on the handle and the door swung open. Immediately, Wylan heard the patter of paws, claws on hard wood, low snarls, as Smeet’s pack of hounds rushed the door, white teeth flashing, growls rumbling deep in their chests. Before they could realize someone other than their master had come to call, Kaz pushed Smeet’s whistle between his lips and blew. Nina had managed to slip it from the chain the lawyer always wore around his neck, then tucked it beneath an empty oyster shell for Wylan to whisk into the kitchen.
There was no sound from the whistle—at least not one that Wylan could hear. It’s not going to work, he thought, imagining those huge jaws tearing into his throat. But the dogs skittered to a halt, bumping into one another in a confused tangle.
Kaz blew again, lips pursing in time with the pattern of a new command. The dogs quieted and flopped to the floor with a disgruntled whine. One even rolled over on its back.
“Now why can’t people be this easily trained?” Kaz murmured as he crouched to oblige the dog with a belly rub, black-gloved fingers smoothing the short fur. “Close the door behind you.”
Wylan did and stood with his back pressed to it, keeping a wary eye on the pile of slavering hounds. The whole house smelled of dog—damp fur, oily hides, warm breath moist with the stink of raw meat.
“Not fond of animals?” Kaz asked.
“I like dogs,” Wylan said. “Just not when they’re the size of bears.”
Wylan knew the real puzzle of Smeet’s house had been a thorny one for Kaz to solve. Kaz could pick just about any lock and outthink any system of alarms, but he hadn’t been able to come up with a simple way around Smeet’s bloodthirsty hounds that wouldn’t leave their plan exposed. During the day, the dogs were kept in a kennel, but at night they were given free run of the house while Smeet’s family slept peacefully in the richly appointed rooms of the third floor, the staircase closed off by an iron gate. Smeet walked the dogs himself, up and down the Handelcanal, trailing after them like a tubby sled in an expensive hat.
Nina had suggested drugging the dogs’ food. Smeet went to the butcher every morning to select cuts of meat for the pack, and it would have been easy enough to switch the parcels. But Smeet wanted his dogs hungry at night, so he fed them in the mornings. He would have noticed if his prized pets had been sluggish all day, and they couldn’t risk Smeet staying home to care for his hounds. He had to spend the evening on East Stave, and when he returned home, it was essential that he find nothing amiss. Inej’s life depended upon it.
Kaz had arranged for the private parlor in the Cumulus, Nina had caressed the whistle from beneath Smeet’s shirt, and, piece by piece, the plan had come together. Wylan did not want to think about what they’d done to obtain the whistle commands. He shivered when he remembered what Smeet had said: One of my clerks never came back from his holiday. He never would. Wylan could still hear the clerk screaming as Kaz dangled him by the ankles from the top of the Hanraat Point Lighthouse. I’m a good man, he’d shouted. I’m a good man. They were the last words he’d spoken. If he’d talked less, he might have lived.
Now Wylan watched Kaz give the drooling dog a scratch behind the ears and rise. “Let’s go. Watch your feet.”
They sidestepped the pile of dog bodies in the hall and made their way quietly up the stairs. The layout of Smeet’s house was familiar to Wylan. Most businesses in the city followed the same plan: a kitchen and public rooms for meeting with clients on the ground floor, offices and storage on the second floor, sleeping rooms for the family on the third floor. Very wealthy homes had a fourth floor for servants’ quarters. As a boy, Wylan had spent more than a few hours hiding from his father in his own home’s upper rooms.
“Not even locked,” Kaz murmured as they entered Smeet’s office. “Those hounds have made him lazy.”
Kaz closed the door and lit a lamp, turning the flame down low.
The office had three small desks arranged by the windows to take advantage of the natural light, one for Smeet and two for his clerks. I’m a good man.
Wylan shook off the memory and focused on the shelves that ran from floor to ceiling. They were lined with ledgers and boxes full of documents, each carefully labeled with what Wylan assumed were the names of clients and companies.
“So many pigeons,” Kaz murmured, eyes scanning the boxes. “Naten Boreg, that sad little skiv Karl Dryden. Smeet represents half the Merchant Council.”
Including Wylan’s father. Smeet had served as Jan Van Eck’s attorney and property manager for as long as Wylan could remember.
“Where do we start?” Wylan whispered.
Kaz pulled a fat ledger from the shelves. “First we make sure your father has no new acquisitions under his name. Then we search under your stepmother’s name, and yours.”
“Don’t call her that. Alys is barely older than I am. And my father won’t have kept property in my name.”
“You’d be surprised at what a man will do to avoid paying taxes.”
They spent the better part of the next hour digging through Smeet’s files. They knew all about Van Eck’s public properties—the factories, hotels, and manufacturing plants, the shipyard, the country house and farmland in southern Kerch. But Kaz believed Wylan’s father had to have private holdings, places he’d kept off the public registers, places he’d stash something—or someone—he didn’t want found.
; Kaz read names and ledger entries aloud, asking Wylan questions and trying to find connections to properties or companies they hadn’t yet discovered. Wylan knew he owed his father nothing, but it still felt like a betrayal.
“Geldspin?” asked Kaz.
“A cotton mill. I think it’s in Zierfoort.”
“Too far. He won’t be keeping her there. What about Firma Allerbest?”
Wylan searched his memory. “I think that one’s a cannery.”
“They’re both practically printing cash, and they’re both in Alys’ name. But Van Eck keeps the big earners to himself—the shipyard, the silos at Sweet Reef.”
“I told you,” Wylan said, fiddling with a pen on one of the blotters. “My father trusts himself first, Alys only so far. He wouldn’t leave anything in my name.”
Kaz just said, “Next ledger. Let’s start with the commercial properties.”
Wylan stopped fiddling with the pen. “Was there something in my name?”
Kaz leaned back. His look was almost challenging when he said, “A printing press.”
The same old joke. So why did it still sting? Wylan set the pen down. “I see.”
“He’s not what I would call a subtle man. Eil Komedie is in your name too.”
“Of course it is,” Wylan replied, wishing he sounded less bitter. Another private laugh for his father to enjoy—an abandoned island with nothing on it but a broken-down amusement park, a worthless place for his worthless, illiterate son. He shouldn’t have asked.
As the minutes ticked away and Kaz continued reading aloud, Wylan became increasingly agitated. If he could just read, they’d be moving twice as fast through the files. In fact, Wylan would already know his father’s business inside out. “I’m slowing you down,” he said.
Kaz flipped open another sheaf of documents. “I knew exactly how long this would take. What was your mother’s family name?”
“There’s nothing in her name.”
“Humor me.”
“Hendriks.”
