Danielle Mies prides herself on her ability to keep a clear head under pressure. It's what she does best. In many ways, it's her role amongst these people. Her job (amongst all the other bloody jobs) is to stand back and look objectively at situations where the gentlemen perhaps aren't displaying the best judgement. To say, 'Now hold on' and 'But what if' and, on rare and very gratifying occasions, to deliver a sharp, stunning slap.
It is, therefore, very much against her better judgement that she finds every breath of her harsh, bitter cigarette becoming about all the things Charlie Milverton has ever stolen from her.
It's a bad idea. A little rage might be good for the game on the rugby pitch or in the boxing ring, but not when you're toying with such delicate strategies, managing Chance. It's a really bad idea, but she can count these things, and she's not sure she wouldn't need her toes to tick them all off. This latest betrayal, taking her best mate and his lucrative property deal away from her, that's barely a broken fingernail compared to what's gone before. He's had this coming a long time, when she starts to think about it, and if she can decimate him on the board she might not have to tear him limb from limb in life.
"If you could stop doing your impression of a wronged woman," Jim calls, interrupting her brutal reveries, "and come back and throw the dice, we'd all be much obliged."
"…Seb, help me out, would you?"
She hears them thrown, and hears them land. But when three voices tell her three different numbers, she leaves the cigarette on the windowsill and goes back to them. Moran, bless him, was the only one who wasn't lying to her. She doesn't blame him, anyway. He only took the best offer available.
Her squares earn her a Community Chest card. "Advance to the free car park. Roll again to dictate what happens to you there."
Rolling a one would give her control of the Race Car token, absolutely free. That would be nice, getting such a powerful item for nothing. Two, and she meets an old enemy, who'll shoot her unless she can pay for police protection or the aid of some backstreet doctor. Three would see her buying a shipment of narcotics, which might be placed on any property to drive out the current owner and give her total control until a police officer lands there. Four gives her a copper all her own. Five and a journalist sends her to jail, directly, do not pass go, do not collect £200…
But fate is a very strange thing. It gives Miss Mies a six, and gives her back something of her usual clarity.
You see, six brings her to an old enemy, and to a vicious stab wound in the stomach. (There are three other players and she could glare at any of them as she reads this out. Being a lady, of course she refrains). For the next three rounds, she can move only one square at a time.
What a handicap. What a horrible thing. Her next move, without a shadow of a doubt, will bring her to Charlie's place in the Strand. She'll pay up, or God knows what he'll try to involve her in. The one after that brings the awful uncertainty of Chance again.
But… provided, of course, the Chance card doesn't send her injured body halfway round the town… that third move…
That's another red spot. And Charlie hasn't had a chance to snap it up yet.
That's Fleet Street. And yay, though I walk through St James' trailing death, I shall fear no journo, for they are with me; their pens and their iPads shall be my shield.
She goes quietly back to her cigarette, and waits. About a round later, just before she moves again, Milverton puts it together. She feels his burning, terrified eyes in the side of her head and spins, barking, "This is for the fucking prayer wheels, you shit!"
"You're reaching back a bit there, dear. Are we to have the full litany of my trespasses?"
"No. This time I'm not going to be so stupid as to let you live that long."
"…Lady Houghton gave those to me of her own free will, you know."
Yes. And all those shamefaced socialites pay up to him monthly of their own free will, and he eats at a certain three-Michelin-star restaurant almost every night in life at no charge by the chef's good graces, and his Jermyn Street tailor does all that work gratis because he likes him. Mies rolls her eyes and taps ash into the roses under the window.
Milverton sighs off these petty shows. Peacock tails, that's all it is.
Anyway, there are more interesting things going on here. If Charlie's not much mistaken, their brave and fearless leader is starting to get a little bit bored. Jim's tapping his foot, looking like he wants in on some of this drama. Looking like he wishes he smoked, just to have something else to do for ten minutes. He'd dearly love to turn his back on the board and see if his money would dwindle the way Mies' is, as Moran quietly slips note after note towards his own stocks. Just because then he'd get to come back and deal with that.
It's no great surprise then, when he announces brightly that he wants to work, wants a job on, wants to play. And being at Pentonville Road, there's not a doubt in his mind what he wants to play at. Those ice blues down in the corner have Moran's name on them, though. He'll have to play this carefully. Anyway, hadn't he decided it's Moran he wants? He's going to shelter Moran from the storm, drag him through the dark times and out the other side in one piece. Use him to battle the victor when the dust settles after Dani and his Lordship go nuclear. It's too early yet to place a bet on which of them it'll be, but that won't matter. He'll have Moran well in his pocket by then.
"Oi, Cannon," he mutters, as if it's only just occurred to him, "Let's you and me have a pop at the Governor."
The man in charge of Pentonville. The keeper of the keys. The big lad. Got his own personal toilet and sets up heists himself, if you've ever seen The Italian Job. The Governor. It's tempting. Moran scratches his stubble and asks, "What do I get for my services?"
"Off me? Not a pick, son. But if we pull this off, the two of us together, that gent will personally see to it that neither of us ever spends more than one turn of the board in jail. As opposed to the usual three, I think you'll agree it's a prize worth fighting for. I've seen you get stuck inside, Moran; you know this is a gift I'm giving you."
There is a slight tip of Moran's head. Waiting, listening for something. But Mies is at the window, wrapped up in her own carefully plotted vengeance. She's not paying enough attention to hiss advice at him this time. Instead, Moran just has to remember, and echo an earlier stipulation. "Alright, but I don't want any heat from this. We pick up a copper he is all yours."
Charlie thinks he understands the smile on Jim's face. He smiles right along, thinks he's got this all stitched up.
He watches them go at it. The Governor gets a cannon pressed to his head and a wheelbarrow full of bodies shoved under his nose and really has no choice but to do a deal with his gentleman visitors. That was a foregone conclusion.
What's interesting is what follows. The dice rolls go against them. Not only do they pick up a police officer, but the Governor sets some of his more vicious parolees on the same trail. And Jim only winces and swears and seems to accept this. He takes it all, drops them the prerequisite squares behind him. Takes it on the chin.
"But wait," Charlie asks, "You own the police. You bought Bow Street, all of that is yours."
Jim sighs. "One good egg, that's all it takes."
And, though most of them are empty now, four coffee cups are lifted up in toast, amongst respectful, defeated murmurs of 'To Sally' and 'May she prosper and thrive' and 'Nasty bloody cow'.
Someday, when they've all got a little bit less on their minds, they ought to tell you that story…
