Polly stopped abruptly before a picturesque limescale house, ivy climbingtrellises to the gutters, opposite jewelers and a tea parlor. It wasn’t the largest of homes, but there were rosebushes by the gate, a neatly edged path, a polished brass knocker on the door. A chimney flue puffed. Someone was home.
Polly took moments to galvanize, straightening her spine rung by rung, then stepped through the gate.
John tsked. “How do you figure the odds here?”
Patrick sighed. “Not a fuckin’ hope in hell.”
They crossed the lane to the street corner, where a coal bin and streetlamp created a mite of cover. John and Patrick warmed their hands with their breath and languished against the outer walls of the jewelers. The swanks passing with their canes and parasols would only think them lowlifes, shirking their labors in favor of a smoke and some weak sunshine.
The window at Patrick’s back showed a collection of shining pocket watches. He eyed their ticking hands. “We’ll give her till quarter past the hour,” he muttered, settling in.
John stalked toward a nearby Crafter stand selling limp produce, and said, “Johnny!” as brightly as though he’d known him from birth.
The young Crafter frowned some. “Johnny’s me Dad,” he said warily.
“Bugger me. Goin’ blind in me old age,” John barked a laugh. “You look right like him.”
Patrick leaned against the brick and crossed his arms over his chest, watching his father as he struck up conversation about the weather next, then politics. His hand disappeared into his coat frequently. First with a box of matches, next a packet of rolled smokes, then a handful of plums. He bid the vendor a “fine afternoon,” and returned, already lighting a new smoke.
Patrick hesitated when his father offered him his own, but the needle on the watches had already revolved twice. Anticipation cracked open in him like a beast hatching. He took the cigarette and dragged deeply. “Are we regressin’ to cheap tricks now?” he asked his father. In Kenton, they’d take a man’s finger for theft.
“Still got some sleight left in these old bones,” John said, leaning beside him. He whistled as an Artisan woman passed them, her waist so tightlycorseted it looked painful. “They do got some talent among these swank ladies, though, I’ll give ’em that.” He tipped back his cap to better see.
Patrick’s sights were oscillating between the windows of that limescale house. He pulled smoke into his lungs as though it gave him sustenance. “Lord, that’s good,” he muttered, his muscles relaxing some.
John was eyeing him. “You sound like a man starved, son,” he said.
Patrick flicked ash to the pavement. “Nina don’t like the smell.”
John shook his head pityingly. “Lord, boy. She’s got her talons in you.”
“No help for what’s done,” Patrick said absentmindedly. Another minute lapsed. No Polly.
“She’s a pretty girl, Pat. I won’t deny it. But you gotta keep your sights in the right place.”
“My sights ain’t your concern,” he said, his irritation mounting. Artisans continued to intersect in the lane. The door to Polly’s family home remained shut.
“She’s a liability, Patty,” his father was saying now. “I taught you this, didn’t I? Everyone we let close to us becomes a weakness. A crack in the hull.”
“She ain’t my weakness anymore.”
“We need her to perform a job,” John continued.
Another minute fell away. His fists clenched. “And she’ll do it. She’s on our side.”
“I don’t doubt it,” John grumbled darkly. “But when the hammer falls, she may revisit her former principles, Patty. Women are funny like that. Their hearts get in the way of their heads. Logic don’t play a part. She might grow nostalgic or tired or bored of the work. She might decide she don’t want to get her hands dirty for the Union—”
“You don’t know her.”
“—and if that time comes, she’ll fall into your lap cryin’. She’ll tell you how she can’t go on. How she’s had a change of heart, and she’ll beg for your understandin’. And you’ll have to rip out the talons then, Patty. You’ll have to ignore the weepin’ and turn her back to the dirt.”
“Stop.” His vision was closing, narrowing, the way it did before it turned red.
“It don’t matter what she says, Patty, even if she says it with her mouth ’round your cock—”
Patrick took his father’s collar then, the same way he would with any other pig. He rammed John’s back into the wall hard enough for his head to crack into the brick, hard enough to rattle his teeth.
John laughed. “Ah,” he said knowingly. “How deep do the talons go, Patty. Eh?”
