Chapter 2 #2
Tod had been built like a bruiser before he’d stepped out of the nursery, but he’d never had the right temperament to embody that fate unless truly, irreconcilably pressed to violence. That first night, the night they’d met, was one of the few times Roland had ever seen it happen.
And he’d never forgotten that it had been on his behalf, on behalf of a stranger.
He’d been a small boy with a pretty face that the others often resented for being chosen from the group to light a path home in exchange for a coin or two.
He wouldn’t have held it against any other linkboy for simply letting it happen and feeling like it was the cost of success.
They’d taught the other boys what they could, after forging their friendship.
They’d protected when they could.
It was never enough.
And even after he’d been too tall, too strong, and too capable to need to earn his bread with a link torch, he’d kept an eye out for the patterns he knew all too well. Tod had, too.
Roland knew he intervened more often than a sensible man ought to. He suspected Tod did the same, though he knew the other man would never speak of it.
Today, he had about half a dozen former linkboys in his own employ as runners and for odd jobs, who worked between this club and the Becks’ other establishment a few blocks away, the Flaming Fox.
He called them his kits.
He paid them better than men in the dark ever would, and likely gave them better working experience besides. Only one had aged out since he’d started employing them, and he’d immediately replaced himself with a little brother.
London would never be short of kits, should Roland have need of them.
Perhaps they could help with whatever this trouble at the Clerkenwell Clinic was.
To his immense relief, Vix was gone by the time they closed up for the night, having likely returned home to her sweet little family at a respectable hour.
He kept an eye on Tod as he assisted with stacking chairs and clearing rubbish from the floors, wondering just what had become of that cursed thimble while he was off being useful tonight.
They didn’t speak until the bartenders and coat girls and dealers and so on had left for the night, filing out together in groups for safety, with their own shared torches between them—a system Tod and Roland had insisted upon from the very first day of opening this establishment.
He sighed, bracing his freckled hands on either side of the bar, and stretched his shoulderblades and then his neck from side to side as Tod approached from the other end, this time pouring the glass of port himself and clicking it onto the polished wood between Roland’s fingers.
“There was some vandalism,” he said, by way of opening the conversation, “last night. It might have had to do with the clinic booting out an inspector with some not-so-lightly veiled threats of journalistic retribution if they continued to harass the establishment. Or it might have been brewing anyhow, with resentment for what the clinic stands for and the threat it poses to the established hierarchy of things. It is impossible to say.”
“Vandalism,” Roland repeated, looking up as he took the glass from the bar. “What did they do?”
“Tried to break the lock on the front door, from the look of it,” he answered, frowning.
“Who knows what they would’ve gotten up to if they’d gained access.
I suppose it’s a good thing we built high windows, because several were broken from hurled rocks, but none were low enough to climb through.
There was also some graffiti on the wall.
Some unkind observations about Miss Casper. ”
Roland paused, a muscle twitching in his jaw as he clamped it. “What observations?” he managed to ask through his teeth.
Tod shifted his weight, frowning. “I’d rather not repeat them. Words pertaining to her sex and her particular complexion. I’m certain you can guess.”
Roland paused, looking down at the port, and then knocked it back in a thick, syrupy swig.
He wished, just this once, that he favored something that burned a little when he drank.
“A watch at night seems the first and most obvious thing,” he said after a moment.
“Not an outright patrol. That would be too conspicuous. Some of the kits, perhaps.”
Tod nodded, looking thoughtful. “I’ve also put in a call to have some torches installed on the exterior of the clinic to stay lit through the night. I thought it prudent, especially since I had to call for the window replacement and a few other bits of repair besides.”
“And paint?” Roland added, unnecessarily and with a sharp edge in his voice as his friend nodded.
“We can attempt to temper the threats as they arrive,” Tod said with a shrug, “but it is not going to solve the problem in any permanent way. The others are working toward solutions on that front. They have hired more doctors to take the focus off Miss Casper as a start. Something I have been asking them to do since before we even opened the doors of the damned clinic, ever since that day we cut off that shoreman’s foot. Do you remember that?”
Roland stared at him. He stared at him and did not answer.
It made Tod give a rare chuckle. “What am I saying? Of course you do. Anyway, it’s beside the point. We need to squash the bugs as they emerge for now until we can root out the nest. Do you agree?”
Roland made a noncommittal grunt, which actually got a flash of teeth from his friend.
“The problem is that they’re going to need someone to offer protection during operational hours as well. Someone to physically be there at the clinic when these inspectors and auditors and God knows what else comes poking around. We can’t use the kits for that.”
“I have other business during the daylight hours,” Roland said immediately. “You know that.”
“I know you say you do,” Tod answered with a shrug. “If you weren’t so damned secretive about it all, I might even believe you. As it is, this job is the only one I know for sure that you actually have, and I am at liberty to change its location and hours. I’ve done so before.”
“Because the roof caved in!” Roland snapped. “And I just went to do the same thing at your other club. That was different.”
“Was it?” asked Tod, reaching into his waistcoat and pulling out the thimble, which he rotated between his large fingers.
“I seem to remember you getting up to quite a lot of matchmaking mischief of your own during that time. Hannah tells me you once offered to facilitate her designs on me in several creative ways.”
“I did— Not in so many words,” Roland stammered, blinking at the damned glinting silver bauble as it rolled. “That was different.”
“Was it?” Tod asked again. “Funny, I don’t think so.”
“It was,” Roland insisted, sounding weaker now, even to himself.
Tod sighed, glancing at the clock on the wall and tucking the thimble back away.
“In any event, I’ve some logistics to work out, so you don’t need to start right away.
Take the day tomorrow to see to any mystery business you might need to put on hold and to get a good night’s sleep. I’ll send instructions in the evening.”
“A day?” Roland repeated, balking. “A single day?”
“Yes. And it’s already started. Look at the time,” Tod said, taking the glass and placing it upside down in the washbasin. “Now get out of here. I want to go upstairs to my wife and daughter.”
“Tod!”
“Go on,” he said with a quirk of his lips. “I trust you know your way in the dark. If not, I’m happy to find a linkboy for you.”
And honestly, what could Roland say to that?