Amanda Foody - King Of Fools

Lola let out a wild cackle of victory and snatched a switchblade from the pot of weapons. “You muckhead.” She threw down her own pair of fours on the table.

He scowled. “I don’t like Pilfer. It’s a kids’ game.”

“Then deal a game of Tropps. You don’t have much else to lose.” She shrugged and slipped what had once been his best switchblade into the pocket of her jacket. The nightdress she wore underneath, borrowed from Enne, was clearly several sizes too small and made her look bone-skinny and vaguely feral. Jac had encountered stray cats who looked more charming than Lola did in the morning.

She rested her feet on the table, and he crinkled his nose as he yanked the pile of cards out from under them. “I thought Irons were supposed to be good at these sort of games,” she said.

Strictly speaking, Jac wasn’t half lousy at cards. But the sirens that had blared all through the night in search of his best friend had suddenly gone silent. He twitched his leg restlessly. “I’m gonna open a window.”

“It’s hotter outside,” Lola warned. Both of their foreheads dripped with sweat. It was officially a New Reynes summer.

“I need a smoke.” He stood up and slid the window open. Twelve years he’d lived in New Reynes, and he’d never heard Tropps Street so quiet. Not after One-One-Six, a long dead street lord, shot up every last soul in a private auction house. Not after the casket of Sedric’s father, Garth Torren, had been solemnly paraded outside his casino, as though he’d died some kind of saint.

It was hard to scandalize a city built on sin, a city that had seen it all. But today—more than any other day—the city was shaken to its core.

Jac struck a match and watched it burn like a votive candle.

“I can turn on the radio, if you want,” Lola offered. “But Levi’s probably fine.”

“I’d rather you didn’t.”

“Afraid you’ll hear your name?”

He inhaled his cigarette deeply. It was no secret that he worked with Levi; that he lived on 125 Genever Street in Olde Town, apartment 4C; that he covered the Wednesday through Saturday shifts at the Hound’s Tooth tavern. The whiteboots had probably already interviewed his boss, already rummaged through his home and what little he had. He tried to imagine what conclusion they could’ve drawn from his possessions. A loner, this one , they’d say. No decorations. No sentimentals. Jac had lived there for two years and still treated his place like it was temporary—a side effect of someone who’d never really had a home.

“I wasn’t in a good place not that long ago, but I have been lately, or at least in a better one,” he explained. He didn’t normally share these details with anyone, even ones so vague. But he needed to unload his thoughts on someone other than Levi, someone who could feel sympathetic without also feeling responsible. “I guess that’s gone now.”

Levi and Enne had made sure of that last night.

He squeezed his hand into a fist. He knew Levi hadn’t wanted to start that shatz investment scheme that got him invited to the Shadow Game. And Levi had looked out for Jac time and time again, so Jac didn’t feel he had a right to be angry. Hell, he was angry at himself for feeling angry.

But Jac also knew Levi and his reckless dreams. And if Levi was safe right now, then Jac would swear some part of his friend was mucking pleased—even if Levi had put everyone around him in danger.

But he didn’t say that. Instead, he bitterly spat out, “I hate this casino.”

Lola pursed her lips, and Jac waited for her to say something about how, while he’d sworn his allegiance to Levi willingly, she’d been forced to give Enne her oath with a knife at her throat. Or how good people did bad things, and bad things happened to good people, and neither they nor their friends could really call themselves good people anyway. She was annoying and wise like that.

But all she said was, “Deal the cards. You’re clearly very vulnerable right now, and I intend to take advantage of that.”

Jac snorted and tapped his cigarette ashes into the rim of a teacup as he slid back into his seat.

“Enne will hate that, you know,” Lola told him. The teacup was porcelain, covered in some floral design that Enne would find pretty. Jac realized Enne, who’d only lived here for ten days, probably didn’t possess much she could call her own, so he retrieved his cigarette guiltily and pushed the cup away.

Lola leaned over and slid it back toward him. “But fuck them.” The corner of her lips slid into a smile.

Jac barked out a surprised laugh, and the knots in his shoulders loosened. Over the next ten minutes of Tropps, the teacup’s bottom steadily grew coated in ash.

Then the apartment’s front door swung open, and Enne marched inside wearing an outrageous floppy hat, a floor-length jacket she definitely didn’t have on when she left, and at least a dozen bags hanging off of each arm. “I’m back,” she chirped. She set the bags down in a heap by the couch.

“Why are you dressed like you’ve suddenly become a rich widow?” Lola asked.

“I went shopping. Levi doesn’t exactly own anything anymore, does he?” she huffed, collapsing into an armchair as though she’d just finished back to back gloves-off matches in the ring.

Jac raised an eyebrow. “Dressing him now, are you?”

Enne ignored him and gestured aimlessly to all the bags. “I also bought him some medication, since he looked terrible last night. There’s stuff for you, too, Jac. I guessed at your measurements.”

Jac stood up and examined the pile skeptically. “I’m almost afraid to look. What do gentlemen wear in Bellamy? White ribbon boater hats and daisy cufflinks?”

“As if that soiled newsboy cap you wear every day is such a deliberate fashion choice?” Enne countered. Jac cleared his throat, prepared to defend his beloved, patched-up hat to his grave, when Enne furrowed her eyebrows and sniffed the air. “What’s that smell?”

“Jac’s been using one of your prized teacups as an ashtray,” Lola said quickly.

Jac glared at her and muttered, “You traitor.”

Enne waved her hand dismissively. “I don’t care. And I didn’t just go shopping. There’s something I want to talk to you both about.” She reached into the closest bag and pulled out a copy of today’s The Crimes & The Times . She tossed it at Jac, who caught and unfurled it. He squinted at the headline for a moment, untangling the words he recognized, but he didn’t need to read them to understand the significance of the two wanted posters on the front.

Lola’s chair screeched as she stood up. She studied the paper from over Jac’s shoulder.

“Three thousand volts,” Lola read under Levi’s sketch. Instantly, all Jac’s resentment from earlier vanished like a puff of cigarette smoke.

His best friend was a dead man walking.

“I’m getting out of here,” Jac breathed. It was still several hours before Levi had asked to meet, but he didn’t care. If Levi was in danger, then Jac would find a way to save him.

Because that was what they did for each other. There was no line they wouldn’t cross. Not even a line of fire.

“Wait,” Enne said sharply. “Turn the page.”

He did, though a part of him already knew what he would find.

“One thousand volts,” Lola murmured, reading his own bounty.

Jac stared at his face with the feeling like there’d been some terrible mistake. Levi was hardly a notorious political assassin, and Jac was barely a second-string bouncer at a third-rate pub. Not that long ago, the two of them had sat on street corners in the Casino District, goading passersby with games of coins and cards in the hopes of conning at least enough for a meal.