Page 36 of Spade

I did. The chair creaked under my weight, a high whine like a dying animal. I let it happen. Roux didn’t look up. She was working something in her left hand, some ritual bead or chunk of quartz, rolling it against her palm like a worry stone. Her nails were clean and sharp, the kind of detail that stuck out in this dump. I set my forearms on the table and met her gaze through the glass.

“You look like hell,” Roux said, and then, “Want coffee?”

“I’ll take a cup.”

She didn’t move at first, just stared me down over the globe, her pupils flared wide in the lamplight. Then she stood, lifted a battered Mr. Coffee from the back shelf, and poured two mugs with the deliberate slowness of a chemist. She didn’t ask if I took sugar, just put a packet in mine, none in hers. When she set it down, the mug was a quarter full, black as ink and twice as bitter.

“Thanks,” I said, taking a careful sip. The chicory bite went straight to the root of my teeth. “You always have a sense for timing.”

Roux flicked a glance at the sphere, which caught the lamplight and split it in two. “Who’s the badge?”

“Detective Shaw,” I said. “Homicide.”

Roux reached across the table and snuffed the lamp with her thumb and forefinger. There was a hiss, and the room shivered into a colder darkness. Then she cupped her hands around the crystal, fingers splayed as if she was about to palm a basketball.

She started whispering, low enough that I had to lean in to catch the shape of her words. It wasn’t English, or not any kind I’d learned. Maybe Polish, maybe the gutter-Latin I’d heard in basements back east.

In the orb, something moved—a smear of color, red on black, the illusion of depth where there should’ve been none. I stared, because that’s what she wanted, and because that was the price of the appointment.

“You will see him tonight,” Roux said, snapping back into English, eyes locked on mine. “At the water’s edge. Badge in the blood. There will be a choice—two doors, both open, but only one brings you back. You are drawn to red, always, but sometimes that is not enough. You remember the lesson?”

I nodded. “When you feel the draw, go against it. If you want to stay alive.”

“Or out of prison,” Roux said. “Or both.”

She leaned closer. Her breath was strong with coffee, and something else underneath, like black licorice and burned wood. “The badge is marked like you. He has the sign. But he doesn’t know what it means.”

“He’s in the dark,” I said.

“For now.” Roux lifted her hand and spun the orb a quarter turn. “I also see her in the sisterhood. I see her at the crossroads. I see you holding the knife, and you don’t want to do it.”

She let that hang there. My hands were steady on the mug, but I felt the pulse at my throat pick up a notch.

“Is that all?” I asked, quiet.

“You think you’re cold, Spade. You think you can make the cut and walk away.” Roux’s face softened, just for a second. “But the mark burns brighter when you hesitate. The next time you let someone live, you’ll wish you hadn’t.”

I looked down at my hands. The tattoo work was so dense it looked almost solid in the low light, the blue-black lines bleeding into one another. “You always this optimistic?”

“I’m still here,” Roux said, a shrug visible even in shadow. “That’s more than most.”

I stood, draining the cup in a single swallow. The coffee scalded on the way down. I took out two bills and set them under the cup. “If the detective’s got the sign, you should stay clear.”

Roux turned the lamp back on with a flick, and her face reemerged, composed and impassive. “You should be careful, Spade. Not every badge is looking to die.”

“They usually find a way,” I said, buttoning my jacket and turning for the door.

“Are you ready for what happens if you pick the wrong door?” she called after me.

I paused with my hand on the knob. “I don’t pick. I break the lock.”

“Do you know what I am?” I asked. “What I do in the darkness of Vegas?”

Roux smiled, thin and sharp as a razor. “You’re the one they send when they want someone to wish for mercy, but find your face instead.”

“All you old women, talking riddles,” I said, but there was a smile in it, too. “Do you know how many bad people I’ve killed?”

Roux licked her thumbnail and tapped it twice on the crystal. “Not enough to fill a river, but a lake might drown them. The ones you let live—maybe they haunt you more.”