It’s too dark to see what time it reads on our nightstand clock—all the hall lights have been turned off, the prison now a field of sleep and shadows—but I can tell it’s late. I’ve been running everything over and through for what feels like hours: what I know about Howie’s cousin, Shaw underboss Win Matthews, when I’m next going to see Agent Frain, how I’m going to break the news to my mother that I’m not coming home. So I’m surprised to hear that Howie’s still up too.
“Yeah, what’s up, man?” I answer softly.
“Nothing, I—” He stops. “Just had a bad dream.”
“About what?”
He sighs, rolls over with a huff. “My mom,” he concedes. “She was walking away. I was calling for her, but she didn’t turn around.”
I don’t know how to answer. From what I’ve gathered these past few weeks, Howie’s sorcering mom left him when he was little, took off with some wandering hobo sorcerer after Howie’s dad died, and never looked back. It’s why Howie started pickpocketing with his cousin Win on the streets, and how eventually, they found their way in with the Shaws.
“Christ, I could really use a smoke,” Howie says, as he turns over once more.
“Your pack’s finished?”
“Yeah.”
I dig out my cigarettes and matches from underneath my mattress. I pull out a cig, light the thing, and then release it like a dove from my hands, let the burning stick float in the air, up up up to Howie’s bunk, where I imagine it floating over to him like a cloud.
Howie laughs above me and grabs the cigarette, breaking my spell.
“I freaking love how you do that.” I hear a sharp inhale, see a creeping puff of smoke waft away from his cot and settle over our small cell like fog. “Better,” he says. “But if you weren’t such a roughneck, Danfrey, I’d swear you were missing your calling as a performer.”
“I think I’d rather be on the street than in some circus show.”
“Eh, I don’t blame you,” Howie says. “Though I’ve heard one of the Shaws’ shining rooms has become a far bigger deal since the last time I went in there.” He laughs. “That it ain’t so much a circus anymore as some all-night wild trip to the moon.”
My ears perk up a bit. “What do you mean?”
“Guys are saying that Harrison Gunn—he’s McEvoy’s underboss who runs a shining joint called the Red Den, down on M Street—finally got McEvoy’s blessing to clean house. That he canned all the sorcerers they used to have pulling card tricks while patrons waited for their shine, brought in all new talent.” Howie sends another cloud of smoke floating over the edge of his cot. “Win always says Boss McEvoy calls the Den a failing money pit, but apparently Gunn’s managed to transform the place. Now it’s some big immersive show: a spellbound performance hall that changes as you walk through it, a team of sorcerers brewing shine live, a huge audience group trip at the end. Gunn’s even calling the Den a ‘magic haven’ now. Freaking wild.”
My heart starts beating a little faster with all I don’t know, with all I want, need, to find out about Howie’s underworld. “You spend a lot of time in shining rooms?”
“Whenever I can, when I’m not on the road with Win,” he says. Then he drops his voice to a hum. “Speaking of, Sanders came by when you were out at the brick-making unit. I’m up for release. Going in front of the review board on Thursday. I’ll be right on your heels.”
A mix of dread, fear, excitement churns around inside. “That’s great, man.”
“Great for both of us. I plan on getting back in the smuggling game right away,” he says. “You need to meet Win. He’ll break you in, set us up, get me working again.”
All I need is the where and the when. “I’d owe you big-time, Howie.”
Howie must be stubbing his cigarette butt on the wall, because little flakes of ash start drifting down to my cot like a cinder waterfall. “You’d do the same for me, brother. Friday at five, at the Red Den, all right? M and Sixteenth Streets. Make sure to mention Win’s name or you’ll never get inside.”
Friday, five p.m., the Red Den. It begins. “Thanks, How. Looking forward to getting started.”
But Howie doesn’t give his usual boastful cackle, or jump into his laundry list of the ways we’re going to take over the Shaws. Instead there’s a long silence between us. A silence that begs to be broken. So I venture, “You feel ready to be out there?”
“’Course,” Howie answers. But he’s quiet again for a while. “But I mean, it just feels safer in here sometimes. I know that sounds crazy, but . . .” He pauses. “In here, we’re big deals. Out there . . . it’s going to be different.”
Howie would never talk to me like this in the morning. But at night, in your cell, when it’s just you and your bunk mate, you’re allowed to say things you’d never admit to in the daylight. I’ve done it with him, too—told him things about my father. Things I only see now with hindsight, little ways he conned me, when I thought he only needed one big score of magic cures to settle his debts with D Street. Not a year of breaking the law.
“I hear you, How. I feel the same way.”
“But we’ll get each other’s backs out there,” he says.