Skate was fuming. “Tell me what to do,” she muttered, kicking a lingering snowdrift to splatter onto the street. She began stomping away in no particular direction. Rattle’s food was in her belly, so she wasn’t hungry. She didn’t feel much of anything except anger, and the chill of the out-of-doors.
After a few minutes, her anger had cooled. She didn’t know whether it was simply that time had passed, that she was beginning to feel guilty about her outburst, or that the cold kept her from staying angry, but she began to think about what to do next instead.
“Young lady…” she mocked, turning toward the docks.
Skate entered the main room of the docks hideout. Boss Marshall was sure to be in this time, and she wanted to make a report about what she’d learned about Belamy and what he might have in his home. Haman was in the nearly deserted common area. Bleary-Eyes Bart was off duty, and so had given himself completely to the bottle; he was passed out on a table in the corner. A pair of burglars Skate knew by sight but not name were chatting over a large piece of parchment. Skate saw that it was a map of a building, and guessed that they were planning a heist. No one else was in the main room.
She approached Haman’s table, where he had several stacks of papers around him like a half-built wall. He was busy writing on a scroll, his dexterous hand scraping across its width as he left trails of looping marks in its wake. His handwriting was thin; he wrote so much on each line that by the time he started back at the beginning, the ink of the previous line had dried. His hands were almost entirely clear of black smudges.
Haman finished his current page and glanced up over the top of the glasses resting at the end of his thin nose as he waited for the final line to dry. “Good morning, Skate,” he said, pulling a blank page from one of his stacks. He settled it in front of him, next to the finished page. “Trouble with your mark?”
“Nothing I can’t handle.” She hoped she sounded more confident than she felt; she was not sure Belamy would even let her back in the house after her outburst. “I wanted to fill the Boss in on stuff I’ve learned about the old man.”
“Great, I’ll go in with you,” Haman said, taking the finished page off the table. “I’m interested in this wizard of yours, Skate. I have…well, let’s say I have some suspicions about who he really is.”
Haman moved to the Boss’s door and gave the particular series of knocks worked out by lieutenants and Bosses each week. Skate heard the Boss say something, and Haman opened the door. He waved her in first.
The room looked just as it had the day before, with the exception of who was sitting behind the fine desk. Boss Marshall filled out the chair much more than Haman had; his sides brushed against the arms as he leaned backward languorously, bringing a pudgy hand to the side of his bearded face. He looked suspiciously at Skate, but his countenance softened when he saw Haman closing the door behind her and taking a seat in front of the desk.
Boss Marshall’s eyes narrowed until they disappeared as he smiled a trusting grin Haman’s way. When he spoke, it was soft, deep, and strained, like heavy stones pushed slowly across metal.
“To what do I owe the pleasure, Skate?” he asked, turning his grin from his lieutenant to his underling. His grin shrank to a more manageable size, though he was obviously still in good spirits. “I’m told you’ve got a big job set up, huh?”
“Yeah, Boss. He’s got loads of stuff, and he’s letting me stay in his place. I guess he trusts me,” Skate concluded with a shrug.
The Boss’s smile widened again. “His mistake, eh?” He laughed a hearty laugh that quickly became a hacking cough. His belly and arms shook from the effort. After two or three bouts, he gathered control of himself again, and his quaking ceased. “Well, what’re you here for? Shouldn’t you be scoping the place out?”
“I wanted to tell you some stuff I’ve found out. Don’t worry,” she added quickly, seeing concern creep into the Boss’s face; “he don’t know I’m here, or that I’m in the Ink.”
“Good, good,” Boss Marshall said, his pudgy face relaxing considerably. “It wouldn’t do for him to learn of that, would it? Well then.” He leaned back into the chair, resting his face in his open palm. “Report away.”
“He keeps a lot of his stuff out in the open, and it looks like most of it would fetch a nice price with our fences. He’s gone and put weird locks on all the windows, but that won’t matter to me none, seeing as how he’s letting me in the front door. He’s got books for days, and it’s all he cares about, I think,” she said, feeling the note of bitterness in her voice and immediately quashing it. She smiled to hide it and went on. “I know those are worth a lot, but they’re heavy. I could maybe make it out with two or three of them when I do decide to cut and run; more if I get guys on the street. I’ve been thinking, I could toss books out the window upstairs if there’s someone below to catch them. We’d get a better haul of them that way.”
Boss Marshall looked at the ceiling as he considered Skate’s plan. “Yes, I’d guess so. My concern, though, is time. It doesn’t matter how many clods you got on the street ready to carry a haul away if you can’t get them out of the building fast enough, does it? Your man don’t leave the house much, does he?” he asked, directing the question to her while cutting a knowing glance to Haman.
Skate shook her head. “He didn’t when we were watching his house to start out with, and he ain’t gone out once since I’ve been around him, either.”
Boss Marshall was nodding sagely by the time Skate finished speaking. “So the amount of time you’d have to get the books out would be low. Too low to make it worth much of an effort. What else?”
Skate agreed, and remembered that Belamy claimed to need neither food nor rest, which would also complicate the theft. She decided to hold on to that piece of information for the time being. “Well, he’s got magic stuff, too. He’s got lanterns that never go out, a bottle full of some stuff that heals you, a stack of firewood that never runs out. I’m sure there’s loads of magic kit that we could make a clean getaway with if we tried. ’Course, if I’m gonna be working on my own, I’ll need to figure out what’s worth what and take the best thing he’s got. I’m pretty sure there’s loads of stuff I haven’t even seen yet, so it’ll take some time to narrow it down.”
The Boss was smiling congenially at her. “You’re a fine thief, Skate. I’ve known it since you first joined us. Your smarts and instincts are top-notch. You probably won’t get a chance to clean house, so you’re absolutely right: find the best thing he’s got and then get him for all he’s worth by taking it away. Don’t take too long, though; every second you spend in the home is a chance that you’re discovered, and it will all have been wasted. It sounds like you may be able to take care of your dues for the next many weeks if this works out for you.” He smiled again, his eyes disappearing behind his puffy cheeks.
Skate smiled herself, glad of the Boss’s praise. “Yeah. It won’t be easy, though. The guy doesn’t sleep.”