“Don’t I?” Malcolm stood and balled Aristide’s handkerchief between his bloody fists. “She was my girl.” He tossed the red-splotched rag onto the coffee table and stalked out.
Aristide stared at it, bereft of words. Finally, his growling stomach spoke for him. He lifted the little glass bell from its bracket and rang for supper.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-NINE
Cordelia’s wrist was swollen up, purple and black, and she could feel the edges of crushed bones grinding just beneath the skin. Nobody had offered to splint it. Nobody had offered her water, though her voice had given out with answering the same questions, over and over. Nobody would even tell her what time it was. There weren’t windows, wherever they’d brought her, but from the sticky dryness of her eyes and the exhaustion making her head pound, she guessed it had to be well into the next day. Maybe evening time. She hadn’t gotten more than half an hour’s sleep together, and usually less.
But she hadn’t told them anything, because she wasn’t a bird. One sleepless night wouldn’t get her singing.
They hadn’t put her in a cell, at least. Just a room with four bare walls, a chair, a table. Men came in, asked questions, left. The light stayed on. Sometimes she heard footsteps in the corridor, sometimes muted voices.
She was just starting to nod off again when the door opened and a new sculler came in. Not one of the stout, clerk-faced types that had visited her so far. He was tall and on the thin side, hair clipped close. A badly set break had put his nose crooked. He wore a plain, dark suit, jacket unbuttoned over a rumpled white shirt. No waistcoat. When he pulled the jacket off, his sleeves were already rolled up past the elbow.
He stood across from her, leaning in. Didn’t say anything. She could see the sinews of his forearms ridged beneath the skin. And she saw them tense, seconds before he turned his hands and hooked his fingers underneath the table’s edge. Cordelia scrambled from her chair, but not fast enough. The falling table struck her knee. She reached out to catch herself, forgetting her broken wrist. When she came down, her vision went white. Pain sent electric sizzles through her body.
Opening her eyes, she realized she was lying on the floor, curled up like a baby around her throbbing arm. The thin man stood over her. Down here, she could see the scuffed toes of his boots, and guessed there was steel behind the leather. She thought of her sister, whose man had got her in the belly with boots like these, and the long three days it had taken her to die.
“You gonna ask me any questions?” She squeezed her eyes shut. It was easier to sass him if she couldn’t see. “Or you just gonna start kicking?”
She heard hobnails scrape on wood. Gritting her teeth, she pulled into a tighter ball. The blow was a long time coming, but the thin man would’ve been good on stage: He knew the value of anticipation.
*
She held out until the knife. It was a good run, she thought. Might have given Ari time to get out of the city, even.
Sometime after the thin man broke her nose, but before her left eye had swollen shut, a dumpy sculler in a gray suit came and sat across from her, his hands folded primly in his lap. He looked like a pudding, pale and soft, his thinning hair combed neatly over his scalp.
“Hello Miss Lehane,” he said. “I’m Konrad Van der Joost. My colleagues tell me you’ve been somewhat reticent during your questioning.”
She didn’t have the energy to talk smart, so she didn’t say anything.
“Your silence is unfortunate, for us and for you. We are attempting to bring a criminal to justice, and I’m sure you are more than ready to go home.”
Home. She didn’t rotten have one anymore. Not in this city. Not with people like this in charge of things.
“Why don’t you tell me who gave you those papers,” he went on, “and we can all get exactly what we want out of this.”
“Why don’t you stroll off,” she said, summoning the last of her attitude, “and leave me with my friend here.” She jerked her chin at the thin man, who stood at Van der Joost’s shoulder. “We was getting along just fine.”
“Regrettably, Miss Lehane, I will not be strolling anywhere. But please don’t let my presence interrupt your rapport with Rehimov.” He waved the thin man forward with two fingers. Cordelia braced herself, sinking down into the solid foundation of her chair. She latched her good hand under the seat, holding on, but Rehimov grabbed her wrist and yanked her fingers free. One of her nails splintered and she yelped. Van der Joost pursed his lips.