No, it wouldn’t be, Viola thought. Dolph was good to his people and did what he could to protect them. Certainly he’d feel regret about her loss, as he did about Spot and Appo . . . and certainly he mourned Leena still. But he valued those who could take care of themselves.
In that way he wasn’t that different from the other bosses. In the Bowery it wasn’t always a matter of good and evil. Often it was a matter of what you could live with. What—or who—you were willing to sacrifice to survive. It was a lesson she’d learned well enough herself.
Dolph clapped Jianyu on the shoulder. “I need information. If it was the Order, they’ll be celebrating. Someone will slip up.”
Jianyu finished his drink. “I will look into it myself.”
Dolph tilted his head toward Viola, who came closer. “That girl—I want you to keep an eye on her for me tonight, eh? She’ll have no second chance here.”
TO STEAL THE NIGHT
Esta watched Dolph Saunders make his way back across the sawdust-covered floor of the saloon to where she and Werner waited. He walked unevenly, putting his weight on the cane he held in his left hand, but Esta didn’t mistake that for a weakness. Not with the way patrons parted for him without a word as he passed.
And not with the way the two at the bar had followed his every move, like he was the center of their universe. The girl behind the bar didn’t look much older than Esta herself, maybe seventeen. Then there was the boy who had appeared, it seemed, out of nowhere. One minute the space next to Dolph had been empty, and then in a blink, the boy had materialized.
He wore his black hair in a long braid down his back in an older style she’d seen in Chinatown when she’d stolen the Dragon’s Eye. He was dressed in the style of the day: close-fitting vest and trim pants, but his black shirt was made of silk and had a mandarin collar. Like the girl, he clearly had talents of his own, but even from across the barroom, Esta could tell from his posture that he held a wary respect for Dolph.
“My apologies,” Dolph said, taking his seat at the small round table once more and pinning them with his one-eyed stare.
“The lights—” Werner shifted into anxious German, as though to keep Esta from understanding.
“It happens,” Dolph said, cutting him off.
But Esta understood it was a lie. The flare of the lights had been something more than an outage. It wasn’t that Dolph Saunders had any visible tell—he kept his voice calm, his posture easy and still—but with the unease permeating the barroom, the man’s stillness spoke volumes.
He turned to Esta and shifted back into the unaccented English he’d originally spoken in. “I’ve decided to give you a trial.”
She bobbed her head in acknowledgment and thanks, keeping all trace of the victory she was feeling from her expression. She was one step closer to her goal.
“Don’t be so pleased with yourself. Not yet, at least,” he growled. “It’s been a slow night, and I’ve seen at least fifteen leave already because of that trick of the lights. Nobody else is going to come in this late, especially with the power still out. If you’re going to work for me, the thing you need to know before we begin is that I hate to lose and I can’t stand waste. ?Tonight will be both—a loss of profit and a waste of my employees’ talents. Rectify that. ?You’ve got twenty minutes to turn me a profit for this evening.” He leaned forward, a gleam in his eye. “Steal me the night, girl.”
Esta couldn’t help but smile. Steal me the night, like it was an impossible task. Like she hadn’t been born to do exactly that.
Her limbs might have still felt drained, and the back of her head still ached from whatever they’d hit her with earlier, but her blood was free of the opium’s effects now, so without a word she turned and lost herself in the crowd. Even with the electric lights still out, there was barely room to step between the bleary-eyed men and women who stared morosely into their cups. Easy pickings, really.
But these weren’t the sort of marks Esta usually gravitated to. They had a desperation hanging about them, an air of exhaustion and hope and regret all mingled with the warmth of their magic. ?They probably worked long hours to afford what little relaxation an evening at the Strega could give them. She wouldn’t steal from them. Not even for Dolph Saunders.
Besides, she had the sense it wouldn’t be enough to bring him a pile of their coins. To earn his respect and a place in his world, it would take more than money.
From behind the bar, the girl watched, tracking her through the barroom with subtle adjustments but never actually looking in Esta’s direction. No doubt Dolph had instructed her to keep an eye on her . . . which gave Esta an idea.
? ? ?
It didn’t take her twenty minutes, but the opium had drained her more than she’d expected, and it took every bit of her energy to slip through time undetected as she made her way around the saloon, selecting her prizes. It was barely twelve minutes later when she faced Dolph Saunders once again.
“You’ve got more time,” he said, barely glancing up at her. “I told you, I can’t abide waste.”
In reply, she tossed a fat leather wallet onto the table, the money within spilling out of the unlocked clasp. The eyes of the man standing behind Dolph went wide in recognition, and he reached into his coat, searching for the wallet that was sitting in front of him.
Dolph watched as the man picked up the wallet and counted the bills inside. Then he turned back to Esta, unimpressed. “With more time, you could have brought me twice as much.”
“I can only bring you what they’re carrying, and in this crowd, that isn’t much,” she told him easily. “If I take all of it, what will they have left to buy your drinks with?”
Dolph Saunders frowned before glancing up at Werner. “Tell Bridget I can’t use her.”
Esta ignored him. She pulled out a brightly polished brass disk she’d taken from the guy who’d appeared at the bar and set it on the table. It turned out he wasn’t actually invisible. When she slowed time, she could see that he’d simply been manipulating the light and shadows of the room, bending them around him to make it seem like he’d disappeared.
Dolph Saunders stared at the disk. “Impressive. Though you can buy these anywhere over on Mott Street these days.”
“I haven’t been to Mott Street today. Do they sell these there as well?” She tossed a gleaming silver knife with a thin stiletto blade onto the table before he could finish. It slid across the scarred wooden surface and came to a rest in front of him, the sharp point aimed directly at him. The bare tang of the knife had a series of arrowlike marks like the letter V cut into the metal.