The look of disgust on the merch’s face was something that deserved its own DeKappel oil to commemorate it.
“Don’t look so disappointed. Just think how miserable you would have been to discover this canal rat had a patriotic streak. You might actually have had to uncurl that lip and treat me with something closer to respect.”
“Thank you for sparing me that discomfort,” Van Eck said disdainfully. He opened the door, then paused. “I do wonder what a boy of your intelligence might have amounted to under different circumstances.”
Ask Jordie, Kaz thought with a bitter pang. But he simply shrugged. “I’d just be stealing from a better class of sucker. Thirty million kruge.”
Van Eck nodded. “Thirty. The deal is the deal.”
“The deal is the deal,” Kaz said. They shook.
As Van Eck’s neatly manicured hand clasped Kaz’s leather-clad fingers, the merch narrowed his eyes.
“Why do you wear the gloves, Mister Brekker?”
Kaz raised a brow. “I’m sure you’ve heard the stories.”
“Each more grotesque than the last.”
Kaz had heard them, too. Brekker ’s hands were stained with blood. Brekker ’s hands were covered in scars. Brekker had claws and not fingers because he was part demon. Brekker ’s touch burned like brimstone – a single brush of his bare skin caused your flesh to wither and die.
“Pick one,” Kaz said as he vanished into the night, thoughts already turning to thirty million kruge and the crew he’d need to help him get it. “They’re all true enough.”
Inej knew the moment Kaz entered the Slat. His presence reverberated through the cramped rooms and crooked hallways as every thug, thief, dealer, conman, and steerer came a little more awake. Per Haskell’s favoured lieutenant was home.
The Slat wasn’t much, just another house in the worst part of the Barrel, three storeys stacked tight on top of each other, crowned with an attic and a gabled roof. Most of the buildings in this part of the city had been built without foundations, many on swampy land where the canals were haphazardly dug. They leaned against each other like tipsy friends gathered at a bar, tilting at drowsy angles. Inej had visited plenty of them on errands for the Dregs, and they weren’t much better on the inside – cold and damp, plaster sliding from the walls, gaps in the windows wide enough to let in the rain and snow.
Kaz had spent his own money to have the Slat’s drafts shorn up and its walls insulated. It was ugly, crooked, and crowded, but the Slat was gloriously dry.
Inej’s room was on the third floor, a skinny slice of space barely big enough for a cot and a trunk, but with a window that looked out over the peaked roofs and jumbled chimneys of the Barrel. When the wind came through and cleared away the haze of coal smoke that hung over the city, she could even make out a blue pocket of harbour.
Though dawn was just a few hours away, the Slat was wide awake. The only time the house was ever really quiet was in the slow hours of the afternoon, and tonight everyone was buzzing with the news of the showdown at the Exchange, Big Bolliger ’s fate, and now poor Rojakke’s dismissal.
Inej had gone straight from her conversation with Kaz to seek out the card dealer at the Crow Club.
He’d been at the tables dealing Three Man Bramble for Jesper and a couple of Ravkan tourists. When he’d finished the hand, Inej had suggested they speak in one of the private gaming parlours to spare him the embarrassment of being fired in front of his friends, but Rojakke wasn’t having it.
“It’s not fair,” he’d bellowed when she’d told him Kaz’s orders. “I ain’t no cheat!”
“Take it up with Kaz,” Inej had replied quietly.
“And keep your voice down,” Jesper added, glancing at the tourists and sailors seated at the neighbouring tables. Fights were common in the Barrel, but not on the floor of the Crow Club. If you had a gripe, you settled it outside, where you didn’t risk interrupting the hallowed practice of separating pigeons from their money.
“Where’s Brekker?” growled Rojakke.
“I don’t know.”
“You always know everything about everything,” Rojakke sneered, leaning in, the stink of lager and onions on his breath. “Isn’t that what Dirtyhands pays you for?”
“I don’t know where he is or when he’s getting back. But I do know you won’t want to be here when he does.”
“Give me my cheque. I’m owed for my last shift.”
“Brekker doesn’t owe you anything.”
“He can’t even face me? Sends a little girl to give me the boot? Maybe I’ll just shake a few coins out of you.” He’d reached to grab her by the collar of her shirt, but she’d dodged him easily. He fumbled for her again.
Out of the corner of her eye, Inej saw Jesper rise from his seat, but she waved him off and slipped her fingers into the brass knuckles she kept in her right hip pocket. She gave Rojakke a swift crack across the left cheek.