Page 90 of Crooked Kingdom (Dregs 2)
“That’s right. Two more fools for you to cozy. Now tell me his name.”
“Kaz and…” Rollins clasped his hands on top of his head. Back and forth he crossed the chapel, back and forth, breathing heavily, as if he’d run the length of the city. “Kaz and…” He turned back to Kaz. “I can make you rich, Brekker.”
“I can make myself rich.”
“I can give you the Barrel, influence you’ve never dreamed of. Whatever you want.”
“Bring my brother back from the dead.”
“He was a fool and you know it! He was like any other mark, thinking he was smarter than the system, looking to make quick coin. You can’t fleece an honest man, Brekker. You know that!”
Greed is my lever. Pekka Rollins had taught him that lesson, and he was right. They’d been fools. Maybe one day Kaz could forgive Jordie for not being the perfect brother he held in his heart. Maybe he could even absolve himself for being the kind of gullible, trusting boy who believed someone might simply want to be kind. But for Rollins there would be no reprieve.
“You tell me where he is, Brekker,” Rollins roared in his face. “You tell me where my son is!”
“Say my brother’s name. Speak it like they do in the magic shows on East Stave—like an incantation. You want your boy? What right does your son have to his precious, coddled life? How is he different from me or my brother?”
“I don’t know your brother’s name. I don’t know! I don’t remember! I was making my name. I was making a little scrub. I thought you two would have a rough week and head home to the country.”
“No, you didn’t. You never gave us another thought.”
“Please, Kaz,” whispered Inej. “Don’t do this. Don’t be this.”
Rollins groaned. “I am begging you—”
“Are you?”
“You son of a bitch.”
Kaz consulted his watch. “All this time talking while your boy is lost in the dark.”
Pekka glanced at his men. He rubbed his hands over his face. Then slowly, his movements heavy, as if he had to fight every muscle of his body to do it, Rollins went to his knees.
Kaz saw the Dime Lions shake their heads. Weakness never earned respect in the Barrel, no matter how good the cause.
“I am begging you, Brekker. He’s all I have. Let me go to him. Let me save him.”
Kaz looked at Pekka Rollins, Jakob Hertzoon, kneeling before him at last, eyes wet with tears, pain carved into the lines of his flushed face. Brick by brick.
It was a start.
“Your son is in the southernmost corner of Tarmakker’s Field, two miles west of Appelbroek. I’ve marked the plot with a black flag. If you leave now, you should get to him in plenty of time.”
Pekka lurched to his feet and began calling orders. “Send ahead to the boys to have horses waiting. And get me a medik.”
“The plague—”
“The one who’s on call for the Emerald Palace. You haul him out of the sick ward yourself if you have to.” He jabbed a finger into Kaz’s chest. “You’ll pay for this, Brekker. You’ll pay and keep paying. There will be no end to your suffering.”
Kaz met Pekka’s gaze. “Suffering is like anything else. Live with it long enough, you learn to like the taste.”
“Let’s go,” said Rollins. He fumbled with the locked door. “Where’s the damn key?” One of his men came forward with it, but Kaz noticed the distance he kept from his boss. They’d be telling the story of Pekka Rollins on his knees all over the Barrel tonight, and Rollins must know it too. He loved his son enough to wager the whole of his pride and reputation. Kaz supposed that should count for something. Maybe to someone else it would have.
The door to the street burst open, and a moment later they were gone.
Inej sank down into a squat, pressing her palms to her eyes. “Will he get there in time?”
“For what?”
“To…” She stared up at him. He was going to miss that look of surprise. “You didn’t do it. You didn’t bury him.”
“I’ve never even seen the kid.”
“But the lion—”
“It was a guess. Pekka’s pride in the Dime Lions is plenty predictable. Kid probably has a thousand lions to play with and a giant wooden lion to ride around on.”
“How did you even know he had a child?”
“I figured it out that night at Van Eck’s house. Rollins wouldn’t stop flapping his gums about the legacy he was building. I knew he had a country house, liked to leave the city. I’d just figured he had a mistress stashed somewhere. But what he said that night made me think again.”
“And that he had a son, not a daughter? That was a guess too?”
“An educated one. He named his new gambling hall the Kaelish Prince. Had to be a little red-headed boy. And what kid isn’t fond of sweets?”
She shook her head. “What will he find in the field?”
“Nothing at all. No doubt his people will report that his son is safe and sound and doing whatever pampered children do when their fathers are away. But hopefully Pekka will spend a few agonized hours digging in the dirt and wandering in circles before that. The important thing is that he won’t be around to back up any of Van Eck’s claims and that people will hear he fled the city in a rush—with a medik in tow.”
Inej gazed up at him and Kaz could see her completing the puzzle. “The outbreak sites.”
“The Kaelish Prince. The Emerald Palace. The Sweet Shop. All businesses owned by Pekka Rollins. They’ll be shut down and quarantined for weeks. I wouldn’t be surprised if the city closes some of his other holdings as a precaution if they think his staff is spreading disease. It should take him at least a year to recover financially, maybe more if the panic lasts long enough. Of course, if the Council thinks he helped set up the false consortium, they may never grant him a license to operate again.”
“Fate has plans for us all,” Inej said quietly.
“And sometimes fate needs a little assistance.”
Inej frowned. “I thought you and Nina chose four outbreak sites on the Staves.”
Kaz straightened his cuffs. “I also had her stop at the Menagerie.”
She smiled then, her eyes red, her cheeks scattered with some kind of dust. It was a smile he thought he might die to earn again.
Kaz checked the time. “We should go. This isn’t over.”
He offered her a gloved hand. Inej heaved a long, shuddering breath, then took it, rising like smoke from a flame. But she did not let go. “You showed mercy, Kaz. You were the better man.”
There she went again, seeking decency when there was none to be had. “Inej, I could only kill Pekka’s son once.” He pushed the door open with his cane. “He can imagine his death a thousand times.”
38
MATTHIAS
Matthias jogged along beside Kuwei’s lifeless body. Two of the stadwatch had hefted the boy onto a stretcher, and they were running toward the Beurscanal with him as the plague sirens wailed. The medik struggled to keep up, his university robes flapping.
When they reached the dock, the medik took Kuwei’s wrist in his hand. “This is pointless. He has no pulse. The bullet must have pierced his heart.”
Just don’t pull that shirt back, Matthias willed silently. Jesper had used a wax-and-rubber bullet that had shattered when it struck the bladder lodged behind Kuwei’s shirt button, bursting the bladder’s casing and spraying blood and bone matter everywhere. The gore had been collected from a butcher shop, but there was no way the medik could know that. To everyone in the church, it appeared that Kuwei Yul-Bo had been shot in the heart and died immediately.
“Damn it,” said the medik. “Where is the emergency boat? And where is the dock steward?”
Matthias suspected he could answer those questions easily enough. The steward had abandoned his post as soon as he’d heard that plague siren, and even from this narrow vantage point they could see the canal was clogged with watercraft, people shouting and jabbing
at the sides of one another’s boats with their oars as they tried to evacuate the city before the canals were closed and they were trapped in a plague warren.
“Here, sir!” called a man in a fishing boat. “We can take you to the hospital.”
The medik looked wary. “Has anyone aboard shown signs of infection?”
The fisherman gestured to the very pregnant woman lying at the back of the boat, sheltered by an awning. “No, sir. It’s just the two of us and we’re both healthy, but my wife’s about to have a baby. We could use someone like you on board in case we don’t make it to the hospital in time.”
The medik looked a bit green. “I am not … I do not treat female problems. Besides, why aren’t you having your baby at home?” he asked suspiciously.
He could care less if Kuwei survives, thought Matthias grimly. He’s looking after his own hide.
“Don’t have a home,” said the man. “Just the boat.”
The medik looked over his shoulder at the panicked people spilling from the doors of the main cathedral. “All right, let’s go. Stay here,” he said to Matthias.
“I am his chosen protector,” said Matthias. “I go where he goes.”
“There isn’t room for all of you,” said the fisherman.
The stadwatch officers exchanged furious whispers, then one of them said, “We’ll put him on the boat, but then we have to report to our command station. It’s protocol.”
