The Holver Alley Crew

by Marshall Ryan Maresca

  “Helene,” Asti said, giving her a signal to turn around.

  She laughed a little and shook her head. “I’ve got no problem here.”

  Asti didn’t need her games on top of everything else. “Seriously, brother, put something on, would you?” Asti said, throwing a pair of Kennith’s trousers at Verci. “I doubt Raych would approve.”

  “You’d be surprised,” Verci said, giving far too impish a grin for Asti’s taste. Despite that, he pulled the trousers on.

  Mila was still resolutely facing the wall. “Why can’t we scout anymore?”

  “I got made,” Asti said. “Part of the security team was an old colleague from Druth Intelligence.”

  “A former spy works for Tyne?” Mila asked.

  “It’s common,” Verci said. “Lot of his guards are probably ex-army.”

  Asti drew the wine merchant’s shop on his map. “All right,” he said. “We get into the wine merchant’s shop and find the abutting wall. What then? Knock through it?”

  “So it’s a punch-in job,” Helene said.

  “Can’t just punch in,” Asti said. “He’s got too many guards. We start hammering that wall, they’ll not only line them up on the other side, they’ll sent a squad into the wine shop. We’ll be pinned.”

  “We don’t hammer,” Almer called from the back. He skittered out, a burlap sack wrapped around his naked waist. “I’ve got a different idea.”

  “How fast and quiet can it get through the wall?” Asti asked him.

  “Very fast,” Almer said. “But, ah . . . not quiet.”

  “How not quiet?”

  “Deafeningly loud.”

  Asti sat back down on the bench.

  “Won’t work?” Verci asked. “Do we . . .”

  “Just hush a second,” Asti said. “Fast and loud, all right. So then it really is a punch in.” Ideas were slamming through his head, scenarios playing. He ran a plan in his head. That one failed. Tried a different one. Failed. He moved pieces around. Still failed. Another. Failed. Another. Failed.

  “Here’re the problems,” Asti said. “We need to get some people inside quiet, onto the gambling floor. Other people will hammer through from the wine shop. We need to be able to hit in hard, at the same time keep the guards from getting to where we hammer in. Give ourselves two routes of escape. Clear the ways to bolt with the crowns. Get them to our carriage and make a fast escape that they can’t follow.”

  “How do we get to the gambling floor quiet?” Verci asked. “We’ll need a password and someone to go down there.”

  “The password is ‘Queen Mara,’” Mila said.

  “How did you know that?” Asti asked.

  “One noble couple was discussing it before they went in,” Mila said. “They probably didn’t realize I could hear them. Or care.”

  “Chalk one up to rich and stupid,” Helene joked. “We still need to get access to the wine shop.”

  “Right,” Asti said. “The rest is pointless if we can’t get in there.”

  “Any ideas?” Verci asked.

  “There’s the fast and easy way,” Asti said. “Muscle in, crack some heads, take it over.”

  “No,” Julien said.

  “I was just—” Asti started.

  Julien pounded a massive fist on the table, cracking it. “No! That’s what they did when they burned us out. We’d be no better!”

  Julien Kesser was rarely an angry man. His large, muscular body and brutish looks made him frightening in appearance, but his demeanor was usually so calm that Asti had never before felt threatened by him. In that moment, a jolt of fear shot its way up Asti’s spine, hitting him deep in that chained beast in the back of his skull. He stumbled back away from Julien, grasping at the wall.

  Verci must have spotted something was wrong with Asti. He quickly stepped in front of Julien, placing a hand on the big man’s arm. “No, you’re right, we can’t do that. We wouldn’t do that. It’s not the code, right, brother?”

  “Right, right,” Asti stammered out, fighting off the urge to lash out, fighting his own racing heart.

  “What code?” Kennith asked.

  “Dad’s rules,” Verci said. “About who you can do something to. Like, he said it’s all right to kill guards, because they know what they signed up for. It’s fair. This wine merchant, he’s just doing business. He doesn’t deserve to get hurt because he’s in our way.”

  Asti wasn’t listening to his brother. The panicked rage was still pounding at his skull, barely contained. He forced himself to breathe slowly, to sit back down on the bench.

  “You all right?” Kennith asked.

  “Cort’s drink still doing a number on you?” Verci asked.

  Asti was grateful for the cover. “Yeah. I . . . I just need a few more hours, and I’ll be pure silk.”

  “Good,” Verci said. “So we need to get unfettered access to the basement of the wine merchant, right?”

  “Right,” Asti said.

  “Plus we’re going to need to get someone credible on the gambling floor. Who can be a big spender, right?”

  “Right,” Asti said, now grinning. He knew where Verci was going with this. “So we’re going to the theater today?”

  “Blazes,” Helene said. “Pretty dresses, fancy dinners, and now the theater? This gig is loaded with culture.”

  Verci hadn’t taken a bath yet when they got to the West Birch Stage, and he didn’t stand out from the rest of the audience. The farther west one went in Maradaine, the more water closets became a rumor. People who lived on this block would claim they lived in Seleth, but people in Seleth would say this was Benson Court. The cobblestone road was riddled with cracks and holes, which were filled with proof of the lack of proper sanitation in this neighborhood.

  “You sure he’s here?” Verci asked.

  “Sadly, yes,” Asti said.

  The West Birch Stage was a rickety, rotting mess of moldy wood and tattered curtains. Verci imagined that the whole thing would come crashing down if it got knocked too hard. A misspelled sign in the front advertised that the show playing was The Marrage of the Jester.

  “I’m fairly certain that Marriage of the Jester is banned in the city,” Asti said.

  “Maybe that’s why they are doing Marrage instead,” Verci suggested. “Maybe that’s a different show.”

  “Maybe.” Asti snorted with laughter. “Instead of the whole cast rolling each other onstage, they disembowel the jester.”

  “The audience will love that,” Verci said. They paid the bored-looking porter two ticks each and entered.

  The scene on the stage confirmed that it was the banned performance, as most of the actors were in the process of ripping the dress off the bride. The actress playing the bride was in even worse shape than the theater, likely a phatchamsdal-dosed doxy well past her working prime.

  Only one actor was not part of the scrum, an older man with a thin face and hair salted gray along the temples. Costumed as a priest, he was out on the front thrust, giving an impassioned speech on the sanctity of marriage, the importance it plays in society, and how two souls joined such were blessed beyond all others.

  No one in the audience paid any attention to him. They were in a howling frenzy, fueled by the rest of the action onstage. One of them finally clambered up onto the stage to grope at an actress. Emboldened by the line being broken, the rest of the crowd charged up and leaped into the action. The older actor, clearly anticipating this, sprang to the side of the stage and grabbed a curtain. He dropped down to the ground, away from the screaming mob.

  Despite being offstage and the audience being in a sex-crazed fit, he finished the speech.

  Verci had to admit, it was a good speech.

  Shaking his head, the man walked to the door of the theater.

  “Isn’t there some axiom about l
eaving them wanting more, Pilsen?” Asti asked.

  The man looked up at the two of them, standing alone in the back of the theater, and his sad eyes brightened immediately. “Well, now! This is quite the surprise! How are you, boys?”

  “Seen better days,” Asti said.

  “Haven’t we all.” Pilsen glanced back and forth at the two of them. “The answer is going to be no.”

  “We haven’t asked you anything yet!” Verci said.

  “I am aware of that.” Pilsen gave a disgusted look at the debauchery up on the stage. “You know I once played Maradaine the First at the Kester?”

  “I remember,” Asti said. “Dad took us.”

  “Your father was a decent sort,” Pilsen said.

  “Why are the constabs not shutting this down?” Verci asked. Shows like this were banned for a reason, though they rarely played anywhere other than in the poorest parts of any city.

  “A few coins—and preferred seating—to a few of them does the job for now.” He sighed. “Sadly enough, that’s all it takes.” He gave another glance at the stage. “Fine, boys, let us leave this fetid pit of copulation and go someplace where you can tell me whatever stupid plan you have, so then I can tell you no properly.”

  “Why do you think the plan is stupid?” Asti asked. He looked more than a little offended.

  “It would have to be,” Pilsen said with a shrug. “It’s brought you to me.”

  Pilsen gave a slight wave to the porter as they walked out into the street. “Ah, West Birch. Where everything good and decent in the human spirit goes to die.”

  “I’d ask you not to be so dramatic,” Asti said.

  “But then you remembered who you were talking to, hmm?” Pilsen said. “There’s a place around the corner where the beer isn’t completely rancid.”

  “Well, Pilsen, when you sell it like that, how can we possibly refuse?” Verci said.

  “I’m nothing if not charming,” Pilsen said. He leaned closer to Verci. “Have you been swimming in the sewers, boy?”

  “Yes, I have.”

  “Whatever for, Verci?”

  “He was tracking after my piss,” Asti said.

  Pilsen stopped in the middle of the square. “Are you both playing with me?”

  “Not at all,” Asti said.

  Verci put on his best little-boy voice. “Swear to the saints, Mister Gin.”

  “I never bought that when you were a kid, Verci,” Pilsen said with a laugh. He led them around the corner into an alleyway. “Oh, I should mention before we go in, address me as ‘reverend.’”

  “You’re conning them for bad beer?” Asti asked.

  “I use every resource I have at my disposal,” Pilsen said, gesturing to his outfit. “Though, to be fair, they assumed I was a man of the cloth before I ever suggested it.”

  “Which you didn’t discourage,” Verci noted.

  “Blazes, no.”

  They entered the dingy pub, a cramped space dug out of the foundation of a tenement, with a dirt floor and a mélange of tables and chairs, obviously built from scrap wood. The old man behind the bar shouted, “Door!” when they came in.

  “Close it,” Pilsen whispered. “He has a thing.”

  Verci shut the door behind him. The old man hobbled closer, one leg a wooden stump. His face was almost consumed by an enormous shaggy beard, but a scar running over one eye was visible under it all. “You ever serve?” he shouted at Verci.

  “Serve?”

  “In the war!” he roared.

  “The war?” Verci asked, glancing over at his brother.

  “Against the Poasians!”

  “No, I . . . I was nine years old when the war ended.”

  “That’s no excuse! I was on a ship where a boy of seven killed five of them! With his bare hands!”

  “Now, Hentle,” Pilsen said. “You know you shouldn’t—”

  “And you!” The old man’s gnarled hand lashed out and grabbed Pilsen by the front of his priest outfit. “I was told what you are! An actor in that filth around the corner!”

  “I give ministry to those poor souls—”

  “You owe me thirty crowns!” he bellowed. “Pay me now or I’ll crack your fool head open!”

  “Thirty?” Pilsen asked. “I couldn’t . . . perhaps, boys, you could . . .”

  “Blazes, Pilsen.” Verci started fishing into his pockets, but before he got any farther, Asti had leaped onto the old man. Verci reached out to stop Asti from killing him, not sure what he could do if his brother was in another fury.

  A second later the old man was on the floor, and Asti had stepped away, his face completely calm. In his hands were the man’s beard and wooden leg. Verci looked back to the man, who clearly wasn’t as old as he had first thought, and had no scar, and possessed two perfectly good legs.

  “Really, Pilsen.” Asti shook his head disapprovingly. “You were trying to shake us for thirty crowns?”

  “Same as I would anyone else.” Pilsen shrugged and pulled himself to his feet. “Consider it a test to see if you were worth working with at all.”

  “Did we pass?” Verci asked.

  “He saw through my disguise!” the barman said. “I thought it was very good!” He looked on the verge of tears.

  “It was very good,” Pilsen said, kissing the man on the forehead. “Asti, tell him it was very good.”

  “It really was,” Asti said. “Future reference, old sailors never call it ‘the war with the Poasians’. It’s usually ‘the Island war.’”

  “And that’s why I tell you, research, research, research,” Pilsen said to the barman. Now that Verci got a good look at him, he really was quite young.

  “All right,” the young man said. “Beers all around?”

  “Yes,” Pilsen said. “So, boys, as you can see, I’ve got a comfortable little niche carved out here in the bowels of the city. So whatever crazy, stupid thing you are doing that you need my inestimable skills for, I am not interested, and nothing you will say will change that.”

  “We’re robbing Mendel Tyne,” Asti said.

  Pilsen’s eyes flashed with hate. “Then I’m in.”

  “I expected more argument,” Verci said.

  “Tyne and I go very far back,” Pilsen said. “Before you boys were born. You’re going after him, I want a piece of that.”

  Pilsen’s young friend put a hand on his shoulder. “Is he the—”

  “Yes,” Pilsen said hotly. He turned back to Asti and Verci. “What’s my part?”

  “Two parts,” Verci said. “First there’s a wine shop where we need unfettered access to the basement.”

  “And we don’t want to go the hard muscle route,” Asti added.

  “Why?”

  “I think it’s because of morals,” Asti said.

  “More of a code,” Verci said.

  “Morals? Code?” Pilsen raised his eyebrows at the two of them. “The two of you?”

  “Consider it a matter of degrees,” Verci said. “We’ve got reason for going after Tyne. But this wine merchant . . .”

  “Doesn’t deserve to get caught in the middle of it,” Pilsen said. “So you need to get in his place without actually hurting him or his business.” He nodded approvingly. “I can think of a few ways to do that. Have you scouted him at all?”

  “Not yet,” Asti said. “We should put Mila on that.”

  “Better eyes than you?”

  “No, just . . . I have to limit my exposure in the neighborhood.”

  “Tyne’s security made him.”

  “I don’t remember you being sloppy, Asti.”

  “I wasn’t sloppy!”

  “He wasn’t,” Verci said. “One of Tyne’s men worked with Asti before.”

  “Ah,” Pilsen said. “Fair enough. Had more than one job
soured by that. What’s the second part?”

  “We need someone to go into the gambling floor at Tyne’s,” Verci said.

  “Play the big money.” Pilsen’s eyes sparkled. “A man of substance. Title. Position.” He nodded eagerly and got to his feet, pulling off his priest coat with a flourish. “I will accept the role!”

  “Do you need another . . .” the young man asked from behind the bar.

  “No, puppy,” Pilsen said, holding up a hand to his friend. “This is a job for the big dogs.”

  “I can—”

  “I said no,” Pilsen said sternly. “I couldn’t stand it if you got hurt.”

  “All right,” he said. He looked quite put out.

  “Besides, I need you to keep the store open here,” Pilsen said. “This will take a few days.”

  “What about the play?”

  “Pff,” Pilsen said. “I doubt they’d even notice I was gone. If you really want, you can go play the priest.”

  This seemed to please the young man.

  “Good,” Pilsen said. “So now what?”

  “Meet us tomorrow morning in the Birdie Basement up in North Seleth.”

  “There?” Pilsen said. “That’s a worse hole than this place.”

  “That’s the place,” Asti said with a shrug. “We didn’t pick it.”

  “All right, go,” Pilsen said. “See you there. I’ve a bruised ego to mend.”

  “This is coming together, right?” Verci asked as they walked back up Junk Avenue.

  “It’s coming,” Asti said. His head was throbbing. The effects of Cort’s potion had passed, at least the most noticeable ones. Now he just needed sleep. He had been going on pure willpower for days now, resting only in spare moments. If he was going to finalize a solid plan of what exactly they would do so that they had the best chance of success and survival, he needed a solid night of pure, untroubled sleep.

  At least, as untroubled as he ever got nowadays.

  Verci cleared his throat. “One thing I’m worried about—”

  “Only one thing?”

  “One thing that’s standing out. Presuming we get to the vault, that’s got to be a serious lockbox. We have no idea what he’s got in there.”

  “Yeah,” Asti said. “I’d been thinking about that. You don’t think you could crack it?”