Billy’s scrutiny intensifies. With every passing moment, his eyes pry information from me.
“What do you want with Old Gin?”
“Information costs five dollars per question.”
I try to keep the shock out of my eyes. Five dollars is more than a week’s wages. “How shall I know if you have information I want to buy?”
He gives me a sly grin. “Life is full of risks. Keeps it interesting.” The water makes rhythmic slaps against the sides of the tub.
“Well, I don’t have five dollars. But I do have something you might want.”
The water stills.
I unsheathe the bottle in my pocket, which I’d filled with barley tea and sealed with wax. “Pendergrass’s Long-Life Elixir.”
His lips peel open, exposing a small gap between his front teeth. “Where’d you get that?”
“I bought it at Buxbaum’s before you showed up.”
Billy snorts, and the suds shift alliances, though I try not to look. “That only costs fifty cents a bottle.”
“One should never confuse cost with value,” I say, an echo of his own words from our last encounter. “As I recall, the next shipment isn’t due until Tuesday.”
Some of the suds have scaled Billy’s face. He makes his finger into a razor and shaves them off. Fft! Fft! The moment feels slick and dangerous. Maybe I have miscalculated the Pendergrass’s value. Knucks’s steel eyes lock on to mine, and suddenly he does not appear quite so dead after all.
Someone knocks. “Water.”
Knucks unlatches the door, and in steps a maid with a steaming bucket. I consider fleeing while I have the chance. The maid quickly empties her vessel. I force myself to stay the course. I have come this far, and there are answers in this room, just as certain as there are questions.
The maid leaves and Knucks resumes his guard.
“Very well, I will answer your question,” Billy announces.
I hand him the Pendergrass and quickly step back.
He winks. “Bottoms up.” He works off the cork and swigs. After a thorough swish and swallow, he recorks the bottle and sets it on the side table. His attention lingers a moment on the Buddha vase. “Now, to answer your question, Old Gin needs to pay a debt.”
“For what?”
Water drips off his long eyelashes when he blinks. “Questions are five dollars each.”
“That is hardly fair. You barely answered my question, and as I told you, I don’t have five dollars.”
A cunning smile grips his face. “Fortunately for you, I offer several payment plans. If you would like the conversation to continue, you must answer a question for every answer you want from me. Easy, right?”
Easy as a dime pitch, until you discover that dimes bounce. “I want no part of your blackmail scheme.”
“Blackmail is such an unfortunate term. Personally, I don’t discriminate. Black, white, red, yellow, I serve all. If there is a question you don’t wish to answer, you can stop at any time, agreed?”
“Fine,” I say primly. “What’s your question?”
“Who is the most important person in the world to you?”
Why would he want to know that? He must want to know my weaknesses, probably to tuck away for further blackmail.
When I fail to answer, he adds, “Be careful. I will know if you are lying.”
My molars grind. He already knows of my concern for Old Gin, so I would not be giving him anything new. “Old Gin. My turn. But I would like to revise my question.” I shall need to extract as much information as possible from each question. Old Gin already told me that Shang owes the debt, and Billy just confirmed that Old Gin is covering it for Shang. What I don’t know is why. I could ask straight out if Shang is my father. But I don’t yet want him to know that I don’t know. The information game is tricky as a two-headed snake. “Why did Shang come to your father?”
His eyebrows rise, and he nods, as if approving of my new question. “A loan of twenty-five dollars, which together with interest over the years is now three hundred dollars.”
A drop of condensation, or maybe perspiration, slithers down my back.
“Now. You were recently fired from Mrs. English’s—”
A shiver picks up the hairs on my arms. “How do you know that?”
“If that’s a question, you must wait your turn.”
“No, it’s not a question. Disregard it.” The Buddha appears to be laughing at me.
“I won’t warn you again. If I had answered, you would owe me.”
My indignation drains from my face, to my soles, and into the floor. I’m reminded of the dice on the front door, advertising Billy’s cunning.
He peels back a tin smile. “What scares you the most?”
“Being boxed in,” I answer truthfully. Two can play at this game. If he wants a better explanation, he will need to ask me, and that will cost him a question.
His face turns strangely thoughtful, as if he understands what I mean. But what could a cretin like him understand about how it feels to be a pawn on the chessboard, only moving within tightly prescribed rules? Perhaps he has simply mastered the art of not taking the bait.
His mocking grin returns. He shoots me with a finger pistol, crudely indicating my turn.
“What did Shang need the money for?”
“A woman, as I understand.”
If Shang is my father, could this woman be my mother? This is as tedious as picking up bread crumbs, one by one.
Billy’s grinning face sinks into the horizon of his bath suds, only to emerge dripping but still gleeful. He rubs water from his cheeks. “Does Caroline Payne have a lover?” he casually drops.
“How dare you!” He must be fishing. Undoubtedly, this is the pond in which Billy regularly drops a line. I could sell her out and not lose a moment’s sleep over it. But as much as I dislike her, I dislike Billy Riggs more.
He hooks an arm over the tub, and water dribbles off his twitchy fingers onto the floor. “I dare whenever and wherever I like is how. And since I just answered another question for you, you owe me an answer. I warned you.”
“But ‘how dare you’ is not a real question,” I sputter.
Knucks stretches his fingers with loud popping sounds and Billy grins. “Knucks doesn’t like coolies. Thinks they’re bad luck. If you don’t know how to follow rules, he’ll show you how.”
“Fine.” I shrink farther into the room away from Knucks. “But . . . I’d like a different question.”