First a cardboard box, printed with blue diamonds and pink, Mezcal, says the logo, 400 Conejos, and atop it in his arms a blue milk crate with a dozen or so albums inside, and an awkwardly tilted gooseneck lamp. Next a sleekly slender turntable under a couple of boxy speakers braced with his chin, cords neatly wrapped about one grasping hand, following the first through the parlor and out the front door. A third backs down the staircase in his shirtsleeves, craning up over the unwieldy bulk of a thick rolled futon toward a presumable fourth, presumably clutching the other end. “Your pardon, miss,” says Pyrocles, there in the middle of the parlor in his dark blue suit, a smile polite beneath his mustaches. “We’ve not been introduced.”

Becker beside him turns to see the woman stood in the archway from parlor to dining room, her baggy T-shirt, hacked-off sweats and fuzzy socks, “right,” he says, as she says “Oz,” and he says, “Oz, this is Oz, meet Pyrocles.”

“Don’t I get an introduction?” calls a heavyset man over the futon, as it’s squeezed through the front door out onto the porch.

“You’ve already met,” mutters Becker, peevishly.

“Context, Arnie,” stepping within as the doorway clears, his enormous cardigan a-sway. “Never open your mouth till you know the shot; what flies in the street’s not fit for a drawing room.” Looking past Becker to Pyrocles. “Whoever told you that you could work with men.”

“Actually, Jimmy,” says Becker, “about the – ”

“Nah ah ah,” says Jimmy, lifting an implacable finger, “never quit a job, Arnie, if instead you can get yourself fired.” He produces a plain white envelope, folded once in half. “State law mandates that, by the close of the day upon which one’s employment is terminated, any monies outstanding are due, and so: eight hours’ wages, at fourteen an hour. Less taxes, of course.” Handing the envelope to Becker with a flourish. “You’ll note it’s dated yesterday.”

“Oh,” says Becker.

“And but also.” Jimmy produces from another pocket a glossy black phone.

“Oh,” says Becker, again. “Right,” as he takes it. “Sorry.”

“I believe this concludes our business.”

“Jimmy, seriously, I’m sorry, it all just – ”

“Enough, Arnie,” and there’s that finger again. “Live the dream,” he says, not unkindly. “Follow thy bliss.”

The shirt-sleeved man leans in from the porch, “Anything more, Anvil?”

Pyrocles shakes his head, but holds up a hand as Oz, who’s looking to her fuzzy rainbow socks, mutters mostly to herself, “This is all well and good, but I don’t suppose,” looking up, “I can’t imagine,” she says, a little louder, “anybody knows somebody who needs a room? Six hundred a month, communal kitchen,” trailing off.

“Good friend Oz,” says Pyrocles, and he holds out something to her, a tightly neat roll of bills wrapped about with a rubber band. “Go on,” he says. “Funds freely given, to be taken freely.”

“That’s, ah,” she says, but she takes it.

“And with them, this advice,” says Pyrocles, “a glass of cold, fresh milk, set nightly by your kitchen sink, will work wonders.”

Out the front door then, and off the porch. A sandwich board’s set up on the scraggled strip of frontage grass, Piano Lessons, it says, Weekday Appointments. Parked on the street a black late-model SUV and an older, smaller pickup truck, pale blue, meticulously clean, futon laid in the back of it, the milk crate, boxes. The last of the men climbs into the SUV, offering a wave of a salute to Pyrocles, and he nods in turn as that big engine clears its throat.

“Now what,” says Becker, taking hold of the handle of the pickup’s passenger door.

Pyrocles looks over the hood between them. “The haberdasher’s, I think,” he says. “You need a proper suit.”

•

“Charles Harlib,” says the delivery woman.

“I see that,” he says, “I mean, it’s just – ”

“That’s the address?” Her manner brusque.

“It’s,” he says, “yeah.”

“Can you sign for it?” Her shorts of baggy brown.

“I,” he says. “Yes.”

Back through the house, eyeing the box, it’s flat, not especially deep, a bit longer than his forearm. Past an empty mantel, into a narrow sitting room, a girl stood in the middle of it, face squeezed up in rapturous attention. Enormous headphones pinkly cup her ears, the music in them loud enough to leak a jouncing beat she’s nodding along with, “Grace,” he’s saying, he says, “Grace,” a flick of a gesture at his ear, push off, and seeing him she shoves back the headphones, chorus suddenly swelling, sinking down in this void like a crater, and she shakes her head, brow cocked, what?

“Momsicle about?”

“In here,” says Carol, past the cluttered breakfast bar, there in the kitchen in her brown and yellow serape, book bag slung from her shoulder. He pinches a corner of the shipping label on the box and yanks, a ripping strip.

“Jason?” says Carol. “What is that?”

“I was going to ask you,” heading toward her, into the kitchen, away from heedless, prancing Grace. “I can guess, but,” shrugging, the box in his hands.

“They said it was coming tomorrow.”

“Well, that’s something else they got wrong.”

“So, happy Memorial Day, I guess, or whatever.” And then, “It’s for you, jackass. The retro keyboard you’ve been jonesing for.”

He looks up, stunned. “We can’t possibly afford this.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“Which card did you even put it on? OnPoint’s just about full, and Citi would’ve alerted – ”

“It’s not any card you have to worry about.”

“You can’t just say that, Charley, I have to – ”

“Hey,” she says, not loud, but sharp.

Jason closes his eyes, “I have to keep track of these things,” he says, and opens them again, but she’s looking, turning away, calling over the breakfast bar, “Not on the couch, Gloria, Gloria! Not on the couch.” Out in the narrow sitting room, Gloria hops off the cushions of the low couch to resume her yearning pose feet planted on the rug. “I swear,” says Carol, turning back, “I don’t know what it is right now, with her, and show tunes.”

“That’s a,” he says, “bit racist, don’t you think? Policing, what she ought to listen to, or not, just because of,” trailing off, “her,” a gesture, toward the living room.

“The point I was trying to make,” says Carol then, slowly, “is that show tunes, as a rule, are grotesquely overproduced, tragically underwritten, and, inevitably, mawkish. She can do better. A good murder ballad, maybe.”

“Carol,” he says, and winces at the force of it. “We’re running the ragged edge, these last couple months. Especially with you being gone so much, doing, whatever it is you, do, with those people, I have to keep track, so we don’t – ”

This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

“Keep track,” she says, so witheringly quiet. She hauls up her book bag. Yanks it open. “How about,” she says, rummaging, “that last run to Trader Joe’s? Or the other night, when Grace and I snagged dinner from FoPo? Did that show up on your cards or alerts, or,” she’s plucked something out, “did you even notice that it didn’t?”

It’s a gold credit card. MasterCard, it says. Bank of Trebizond. Carol L. Harlib. Good thru 21/45.

“I only put a couple things on it, at first,” she says, “because I didn’t really believe that it would do what they said it would. But it does.”

“They,” he says. “Who, they.”

“Gloria. Those people. This is for expenses. Within reason. Groceries. Take-out. The occasional gift.”

“For, what?” he says. “Singing? Sometimes? Hanging out?” She’s savagely hauling the book bag up on her shoulder. “Will they at least provide us a ten ninety-nine?”

“You’re welcome, Jason,” she snaps, pushing past him, out of the kitchen, away, leaving him with his box, and Gloria with her headphones, reaching up for a big finish.

•

She taps the last of a string of numbers written on the slip, “Thirty-seven,” she mutters, and then, pushing her narrow glasses back in place, “he wants what?”

“To speak with the owner?” says Petra B. “Or manager, or whatever.”

“Isn’t this what Gloria’s for?”

“I can’t find her, Anna, I’m sorry,” stepping out of the way as Anna shoves back her chair, “If it’s one more thing,” she mutters, on her way out the door, and Petra B left bobbing in her wake.

Out onto the balcony ringing, the warehouse spread below, overhead doors cranked open to either side to let in cooling, greying light, and all the hobs and clods, urisks and domestics, penates, broonies, mechanicals and here and there a peer, all about their various businesses, but it’s not the chopping, the rustling, the rattling, the scraping and tearing, the brushing and mixing, it’s not the indications and adumbrations, the attestations, the raucous laughter and that angered yelp, it’s the singing that’s most notable, as they make their way down the skeletal staircase bolted to the wall, it’s that lone baritone booming from out on the loading dock, “Fetch me some a thy father’s gold, and some a thy mother’s fee,” and the chorus, well-pitched, raggedly timed, an two a the steeds from the castle stalls, which hold em thirty an three!

Black battleship of a pickup, parked by the loading dock, facing the hitch of the flatbed trailer, and stood in the back of it Big Jim Turk, hoisting one end of a bundle of yellow two-by-fours, hefting his big deep voice, “I’ll mount me on my milk-white steed, an thou the scarlet roan,” and at the other end there’s Lustucru, swinging the bundle in time, as Cherrycoke wrestles a roll of chicken wire up and over the tailgate, Cinædus and Brether Ned humping up twine-wrapped stacks of newsprint, we’ll ride till we reach the stoney strand, an hour afore the dawn!

Anna makes her way past all the unloading, keeping a prudent distance, there’s Powys stood on the corrugated flatbed, and paint-spattered Trucos beside, Getulos crouched behind them, but instead of a husband I’ve found me here a grave in the salty sea! as Petra hops out of Christian’s way, he’s leaping onto the flatbed with an awkward armload of rolled-up papers.

Down by the foot of the trailer, there on the pavement, a man’s stood in drab coveralls, arms pointedly folded, seething under a scowl as he takes Anna in, her smart blouse crisply white, her trousers neatly tartaned, “You in charge?” he belts.

“What can,” but “Pull off, pull off,” Jim Turk’s launched the next verse, “your rings and pearls, and deliver them up to me!” and she waits for the cæsura, “How might we help you?” she says, quickly, but solicitously clear, for I think it not fit such a glittering tip should rust in the salty sea!

“This has to stop!” shouts the man in the coveralls, a patch at his chest that says Gatto & Sons, much as the sign on the warehouse across the street, Gatto and Sons, Wholesale Produce. “The music! At all hours, the coming and going! Living here, and this ain’t a residential block! And the, that goddamn street fair!” throwing his arms frustratedly wide, for I think it not fit such a silky slip should be roughened by the sea!

Anna hitches up her trousers at the knee to squat there, on the dock, head now at a level with his. “We let your trucks through,” she says. “There was no impediment to your trucks.”

“If I’m to doff my holland smock, then turn your back to me!” booms Big Jim Turk, swinging another bundle of lumber. “You shouldn’t’ve had to!” shouts the man in the coveralls, and Anna manages not to flinch. “Tell me, sir,” she says, but she looks away as she does so, “are you Mr. Gatto,” somewhere up past the trailer, “or, ah, one of the sons?”

“Derek!” he shouts. “I’m the fucking day-shift manager!”

“And I would be Anna Nirdlinger. A moment.” Hand on the edge of the dock, she hops down, “Hey!” he shouts, but click-tock of heels she’s headed away around the foot of the trailer, for I think it not fit such a ruffian bent my beauty for to see!

Coming toward them all down the middle of the street a man on foot, his vest and trousers of rumpled plaid, expression slackly grave. “Shrieve?” calls Anna, hastening toward him, and another “Hey!” from the man from Gatto and Sons. “I did then turn my back to you, and laughed to hear you weep!” but there’s a commotion up on the trailer, “ahead!” yells Trucos, marching with an imploring gesture down toward the foot, “to see where she’s going!” but “She won’t be driving,” insists Getulos still crouched at the head of it, “she’s to draw everyone after!” and Christian beside him, trying to keep the plans from rolling back up, but I caught you by your shoulders wide, and tumbled you into the sea! For six pretty maidens drowned thou here, but the seventh did drown thee!

“Oh!” cries Anna, there by the man in plaid, or “No!”

“Hey!” shouts Derek, one more time. “Can somebody! Anybody! Please! Who the hell is in charge, here?”

•

The dim air’s doldrummed by arabesques of smoke that leak from the coal of the cigarette in her fingers poised, untapped, over a plastic coffee lid. She’s sat herself on the yellow table among the six of them set close together, red shoes propped on the cushion of a rolling chair, black trousers loosely baggy, black top sleeveless, rising to a close crew neck. “I’d heard your grace had quit,” says Bruno, closing the double doors behind him.

She looks over her shoulder, eyes hidden away behind small round sunglasses despite the dimly haze. “It’s a process,” she says. Ash tumbles as she lifts it to her lips, stopping just short of a breath, “What do we know.”

He leans a hand on the back of another of those scattered rolling chairs, “Nothing more, I fear. But – ”

“Nothing,” she says. “Is that what there is? Or just what you’ve been able to find out?”

“Your grace,” he says, strained.

“Sorry,” she says, a wave of that cigarette, the cigarette she lowers to crush out on the coffee lid. “There’s no record,” he’s saying, “of anyone with the name May, or Hector, being processed into the Detention Center in the past two days. There was a Jack listed, as an alias, but too old to be whom you described.”

“What about Johanna?”

“And no record of a Johanna Draper. Of course, there’s no record of your incarceration, either.”

“Right,” she says.

“My lady,” says Bruno, “the Queen’s Huntsman is dead.”

Squeak of the wheels as her feet drag that chair toward the table, “I told her,” she says, folding her arms atop her canted knees. “Where’s Luys?”

“I – couldn’t say. He, is, where he is.”

“I ask for help this morning, I get Astolfo, I get Sweetloaf, I get one of Agravante’s boys, and that’s it?”

“Jeffeory’s no more with the Hound. Her majesty’s named him her Axe.”

“Yeah, I,” she says, straightening, “I don’t care,” she says. Looking to him, down at the corner of the lavender table. “Where’s the Mason?”

He takes in a breath, examining a moment the cracked leather of his worn brown brogues. “Your grace,” he says, “does yet stand with her majesty?”

Her own inhalation’s sharp, through her nose, “Jesus,” she says. “The hell kind of question is that.”

“Unfortunately apposite.”

“Shit,” says Jo, tipping back her head.

“I would not disagree,” says Bruno.

“I can’t,” says Jo, and then, with a kick that spins the chair away, she hops off the table. “I can’t. There’s too much – if they didn’t get picked up by the cops, they must’ve, at least, one or two of them, I need somebody, I need several somebodies, who know the current, ah, situation, where the camps are, who to talk to,” but Bruno’s shaking his head, “what,” she says. “What.”

“For that sort of work, we’ve always gone outside the company. There’s the gentleman who fancies himself the Commanding Officer of the city’s indigents, but,” a grimace of a grin, as he notes the blank expression she’s offering, “of course, your grace knows the CO.”

“We’re not going that way,” she says. “Shit.”

“There’s still the matter of the Huntsman’s death,” and then, as she turns away, “my lady – it appears to have come at the hands of the Harper.”

“Christ!” she roars, and he flinches, “Bruno! I know!” Both hands up to her face, “You think,” she says, “I got any sleep last night,” removing her sunglasses to glare, directly, at him.

“Your grace,” he says, and ducks his head.

She steps away, toward the darkening windows, folding up those glasses. “Okay,” she says. “So. Smart guy. What’s the play.” Looking back, over her shoulder. “What’s your plan.”

He spreads his hands. “I, have no plan, your grace. I never do. My dearest wish is only to see that, those who do? Have everything, and everyone, they need, to see them done.”

She closes up her eyes, and after a moment opens them again. “Bruno,” she says. “Shrieve. You’re getting sentimental on us.”

His lips quirk with a touch of rue. “Assume, for the moment, that I don’t believe her majesty, when she tells us Count Pinabel’s no longer himself. Assume I don’t account your grace a blasted fool for trying to bear – ”

“Hey,” she says, sharply.

He leans into an avuncular smile. “Our counterfactual is you don’t shoulder a terrible burden you refuse to share.”

“You have no idea – ”

“Indeed, your grace,” he says, quietly, even tenderly, and she bites back what she’d been about to say. “My point is this,” he says. “Downstairs from us, right now, a Queen’s ransom sits in a great wooden tub, open to all, knight, or churl, or peer of the court, that any might take what they would, and none,” he says, “not one, ever takes more than they need. I don’t know that your grace appreciates the magnitude of what her majesty has done. What you, Jo, helped her do.” He takes a breath, a shadow in the hazy unlit shadows. “It’s returned to me a faith I hadn’t realized I’d lost,” says Bruno. “For that, alone, I’d follow her majesty over the very rim of the world.”

“And the rest of us tumbling after,” says Jo. “Shit.”

“It is even as your grace has said,” says Bruno.