Ace Of Shades. Amanda Foody

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       LEVI

      Muck. Of all the gambling taverns in the city, why had the whiteboot captain chosen Grady’s? Levi Glaisyer hadn’t set foot in there since he’d handed Grady his resignation four years ago. He paced back and forth in the alley outside the tavern, dropping the copy of The Crimes & the Times he’d been carrying. On the front page, a photograph of Malcolm Semper, the oh-so-respected Chancellor of the Republic, soaked up the muddy rainwater.

      After a few more moments of cursing, Levi gathered his nerve, straightened his felt homburg hat and strode to the door.

      The inside of the tavern hadn’t changed at all. It still reeked of tobacco and burnt food, and the patrons were loud, even now, early in the morning. A group of men seated at the main card table—what was once Levi’s card table—were dressed in clothes with more patches than original fabric. A woman in fishnet stockings giggled and toppled into one of their laps.

      The dealer at the table did a double take once he noticed Levi. Most gamblers considered Levi to be the best dealer in the city, and he didn’t normally show his face in establishments as small-time as this one.

      But he hadn’t come to gamble. He’d come for business.

      Levi searched the room for Jamison Hector, the captain of the city’s whiteboots. The two of them were supposed to meet here at ten o’clock sharp, and Levi had been on edge about it for days. He wasn’t usually the sort to rendezvous with authority—if only on principle—but lately, Levi had done a lot of things he’d never thought he would.

      He locked eyes with the captain at a table in the back corner but made it only halfway to him before Grady slapped his shoulder, hard enough for him to wince.

      “Levi, never thought I’d see you again,” Grady said with a laugh. His enormous gut tremored. “How you doing?”

      As if Grady didn’t know how Levi was doing, what he’d become since his stint here as an amateur card dealer. Reputation aside, he was easily recognizable with his dark brown skin, his calculating gaze and his signature coarse curls—bronze at the roots, but black at the ends, like a burnt-out match. Levi had a look like he was trying to sell you something, and a smile that made you want to buy it.

      “I’ve been busy,” Levi answered. “How’s business?”

      “Just hired another new dealer and had some rotten luck. He barely makes ten percent profit. Ten percent.”

      Levi whistled with feigned concern.

      “It was better when you were dealing for me. No, don’t bother apologizing. St. Morse must shell out three times what I paid you. At least.”

      Try ten times, Levi thought. But that doesn’t come without strings attached.

      “I could get you an Iron,” Levi offered, always the businessman. He made a show of adjusting his sleeves to brandish his tattoos: the ace on one arm, the spade on the other. They marked him as the Iron Lord. “I found this new kid who deals pretty well—”

      “I would, but I can’t. The whiteboots keep paying me visits lately, and I don’t want any trouble.” Before Levi could point out that technically speaking, the Irons were the only gang that didn’t break the law, Grady continued, “They think I’m smuggling.”

      “Aren’t you?”

      “Of course.” He laughed again. “I’ll get you a drink, on the house. Anything for my best dealer—and youngest, I might add. A Snake Eyes—that still your favorite?”

      “Sure is,” Levi said politely, though he’d never had a taste for the drink. It was also barely ten in the morning. “Thanks.”

      “You should stop by more often. Teach the new fellow how it’s done.”

      “Maybe I will,” Levi lied. He had no intention of revealing his tricks to anyone, especially a no-name dealer who wasn’t an Iron.

      When Grady walked away, Levi approached the whiteboot captain. The captain wasn’t dressed in his usual uniform, but Levi never forgot a face—and the captain had an interesting one. His nose had been broken so many times that it was bent decidedly to the left, and an ugly scar traced across his jawline to the place where his right ear had once been.

      “Not every day I have a drink with the Iron Lord,” the captain said. He had a grandfatherly voice—all condescension, but with an added hint of malice. He looked Levi СКАЧАТЬ