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“I had a thought.”
Benedikt looked up from his sketch pad, squinting in his attempt to focus on Marshall’s face. It was an overcast day, yet there was still a blinding brightness glaring through the thick clouds and streaming into their living room. The result was a terribly depressing sky without the comfort of proper, heavy rain.
“My ears are on the top of my head.”
Marshall flopped down on the long couch too, carelessly shoving Benedikt’s legs aside. He pretended not to hear Benedikt’s sound of protest, not moving even when he almost sat right on his friend’s bare foot.
“Don’t you think it is a little peculiar that Lord Montagov has been sending us on so many Scarlet missions lately? How is he getting this information?”
“It is not peculiar.” Benedikt’s focus returned to the movement of pencil against rough paper. “We have spies in the Scarlet Gang. We have always had spies in the Scarlet Gang. They certainly have spies among our ranks too.”
“We have spies, certainly, but not to this extent,” Marshall replied. He always looked so somber when he was trying to concentrate. Benedikt found it a little funny, if he was honest. It didn’t suit Marshall—it was like a jester wearing a three-piece.
“What? You think we have managed to infiltrate their inner circle?” Benedikt shook his head. “We would know if that were the case. Can you stop wriggling around so much?”
Marshall did not stop wriggling. It seemed that he was trying to adjust his seat to get comfortable, but the couch cushions were going to detach and fly right off if he kept at it. Finally, he settled in and propped his chin on his fist.
“The information has just been so accurate lately,” Marshall said, a hint of awe entering his voice. “He had the time of the masquerade before Roma did. This morning he sent me after Kathleen Lang and had her exact location. How is your uncle doing this?”
Benedikt looked up from his drawing, then looked down again, his pencil moving in a quick arc. A line of a jaw merged with the curve of a throat. A smudge in the shading became a dimple.
“Lord Montagov sent you after Kathleen Lang?” he asked.
Marshall leaned back. “Well, he’s not going to send you or Roma into a Communist meeting. You speak the language, but your face does not blend in as mine does.”
Benedikt rolled his eyes. “Yes, I understood that. But why are we following Kathleen Lang now?”
Marshall shrugged. “I don’t know. I suppose we want the information she acquires.” He squinted at the weather outside the window. A beat of silence passed, nothing but the rapid sound of shading from Benedikt’s nub of a pencil.
“Should we resume our pursuit for a live victim today?” Marshall asked.
Benedikt supposed they should. They were running out of time. Alisa was counting on them, and if they had more avenues to exhaust in order to find a cure, wasn’t it on them to at least try?
Sighing, Benedikt tossed his sketchbook onto the table. “I suppose we must.”
“You may always resume drawing after we fail and call it a night,” Marshall promised. He craned his neck and peered at the sketchbook. “But my nose is not that big.”
* * *
At sunset, Juliette slipped out of the burlesque club with her head down, her chin tucked into her collar. It was both an effort to avoid being seen and to brace against the frigid breeze—a gale that stung her skin with every point of contact. She didn’t know what it was about today that brought the early winter in with such a bite.
“Buns, hot buns for two cents! Get them now, get them hot—”
“Miss, miss, we’re selling fish for cheap—”
“Fortune-telling! Palm-reading! Xiaojie, you look like you need—”
Juliette swerved left and right through the open markets, staring at her shoes. She pulled the hood of her coat up until most of her hair was buried in the fur, most of her face swallowed by the fuzz. It wasn’t that it was dangerous to be recognized—she had ten thousand excuses up her
sleeve as to where she was going, but she wasn’t in the mood to spin lies. This city was her old friend. She didn’t need to look up to find her way around. This way and that way and this way and that, soon she was moving along Avenue Edward VII, finally lifting her head and bracing her cheeks against the cold to search for Roma.
The activity along this street all headed in one direction—toward Great World. It wasn’t quite fair to call the place an “arcade” like Juliette was fond of doing. Rather, it was an indoor entertainment complex with everything under the earth. Distorted mirrors and tightrope walkers and ice cream parlors came together in a cacophony of activity that worked to suck away a day of your life and all the money in your wallet. The central attraction was the Chinese opera, but Juliette had never liked it much. Her favorite was the magicians, though she hadn’t been inside the arcade for years, and by now all the magicians she had once been familiar with had probably moved on or been replaced.
Sighing, Juliette scanned the five blockbuster Chinese characters sitting directly atop Great World. They burned against the glow of the fading sun, backlit with the barest hint of fiery orange.
White… golden… dragon… cigarettes, she translated, the task more confusing than it had to be. She had forgotten for the shortest second to read right to left instead of left to right, which she had gotten used to in the last few years.
“Focus,” she muttered to herself.
