Page 70 of Havoc

"He died on the fifth of October." She doesn't look up. "Three weeks."

* * *

Blitz has the sheet under a lamp with a magnifying glass off Tyrant's desk by nine that mornin' and there's six men standing in a half circle behind him.

Nobody says anything about me not havin' a cut on.

That's how it's been for two days. Nobody says anything about it and nobody stands quite where they used to stand, and Deacon has taken to puttin' a hand on my shoulder every time he goes past, which he has never done in eleven years and which is somehow the worst of all of it.

"Hundred sixty-four thousand," Ransom says. "In oh-four."

"That's a lot?" Blitz asks.

"Boy, in oh-four that's this whole yard. That's the buildin', the land, the first six bikes, and a lawyer for two years." Ransom's got his rings off. "That is not a payment. That's a stake."

"From the Arceneaux." Tyrant's got the book open to the front where the charter's copied out. "Into somethin' that ain't in our book, 'cause I've read every page of oh-four twice since seven o'clock this mornin' and there ain't a hundred sixty-four thousand dollars anywhere in it. There ain't sixty-four thousand."

"It ain't our ledger," Warden says. "It's theirs. It's Gallow Kings paper."

"Then why's it in a Cottonmouth's linin'."

Nobody answers that.

"Not to book," Deacon reads over Blitz's shoulder. "Man wrote it down and then wrote down not to write it down."

"Which is why it's the only copy," Ransom says.

"Which is why somebody sewed it in a coat," Warden says.

Blitz has been on the receiving line for forty minutes and he is losin' his mind about it.

"It's two letters. Two! I can get an account off a routing string, I can get a name off a⁠—"

"There ain't a routin' string."

"I know there's not a routing string, Tyrant, I'm saying that if there were⁠—"

"Could be anything," Raider says from the door. "Ends in g-e. That's a hundred words."

"It's not a word, it's a name⁠—"

"Then it's fifty names."

"George." Deacon's countin' on his fingers. "Paige. Rutledge. Savage. Legrange, there's Legranges all over Pointe Coupee⁠—"

"It ain't a family name necessarily," Ransom says. "Man's writin' his own club's book. He'd have put down whatever he called the fella at the table."

The room goes still for about a second and a half.

Everybody thinks it at the same time and it's Blitz who says it, because it's always Blitz.

"Then somebody was there." He's turned all the way around in the chair. "Right? Somebody at that table in September of oh-four is still breathin' and he'd know who signed for a hundred and sixty-four thousand dollars, 'cause there wasn't but seven of 'em and two's dead and⁠—"

"Blitz."

"—and Prez was there, and Scourge was there. Scourge would know. Scourge was there, he'd remember a⁠—"

"Blitz."