KAZ
Kaz had learned to play Pontoon when he was a child, after Jordie had died and he was a new recruit with the Dregs. At first he would just watch the pigeons from the roost in the Crow Club, hidden in the darkness in a way that only a cripple could. The general rules of the game were easy enough, but what he had struggled with was bluffing. Sometimes his lies were too obvious and sometimes they were too subtle, but they came nonetheless and Kaz had learned to be the best at it and lied as easily as he breathed.
Sitting on the too plush seats of the VIP card tables, Kaz tried to think about this as the croupier dealt him his fifth dead hand of the night. Purposefully losing at the card tables was like lying, he supposed, but that didn't mean he had to like it.
"My hand," Maginello laid out his cards in a flourish, winning him a polite applause from the players around them as the dealer pushed their cheques towards him with a paddle. This applause was a rouse. Maginello had just taken thousands of kruge from them, and merchers weren't accustomed to losing. One such mercher, with a slicked beard and bald head, had turned red in the face.
"That's your third win tonight, Maginello," Kaz said, taking a tumbler from a passing waitress. He downed it in one gulp and stared into the crystalline china. "Luck is on your side."
"There's no luck to it. We played this game often in the First Army," he replied, refusing a glass of champagne offered to him. Kaz noted this. Marshall Maginello hadn't drank a thing all night.
"You served?" the bearded mercher beside them asked. Kaz piqued his eyebrow, feigning ignorance.
"I did," Maginello confirmed, clearing his throat. "I fought on the front lines for ten years until the Sun Summoner obliterated the Unsea. By then I was an old man, and old men can't fight the wars of the young."
"What do you mean?" asked the same mercher. He scratched his long beard inquisitively. "The Sun Summoner ended the war."
"Well," Maginello started slow like he was trying to find a way to explain it to a child. "When the Darkling and the Unsea were around, they were our enemies. We were united against one cause. And I knew how to fight those enemies. Well." Maginello said. "But wars of borders? Of people who breath and bleed like us? I just don't understand it. It makes them no different from us, and makes those who fight these ridiculous wars no different from the volcra."
Silence washed over the table, save for the chattering around them and the occasional shot from Jesper's outrageous shooting gallery on the floor below. It was clear that no one at that table, save for Maginello and Kaz, had ever had to deal with the reality of war. It made sense, in a way, because Ketterdam was an island and dominated by the university district, where the rich came to learn because they could afford it. The Unsea wasn't a threat like it was in Ravka. People who lived on Ketterdam were fat and their coffers were full, unlike their cousins on the mainland who lived on infected soil that would have died if Alina Starkov hadn't been sacrificed.
It's something that Kaz always kept in mind, something that made him better than the old fogies that sat around him who listened to Maginello's words like it was scripture, like if they listened hard enough that would mean that they could claim stake in the war, too. Though Kaz might not have been in the army, he knew suffering and he knew pain and the battleground that was Ketterdam. And he was better for it because all of those things made him stronger.
Kaz gestured with his cane to the croupier, who cleared the table and laid down fresh cards. Before the game had even started, Kaz had replaced the decks with his own customized cards that, with the slightest change of the backs in the illustrative designs, designs that Kaz had memorized, he could tell which card was which color and suit. He could also tell that, though he wouldn't win the next few hands, luck would be in his corner for the remainder of the night.
Around eleven bells, it became obvious to the merchers around them that they weren't going to win any games. They stood up with what was left of their dignities and wallets and walked away from the table. The lights to the VIP balcony dimmed and a smooth brass number played from down below. The whole ball room was sparse and those who remained lowered their voices. Even the dealer was packing up and soon the only people left at the card tables were Kaz and the leader of the Crown Suits, Marshall Maginello.
They didn't talk to each other for a while. Kaz patiently sipped on a fresh glass of brandy, reveling in the burn in his throat that too many years of drinking caused. Maginello stacked his cheques nonchalantly and cleaned the undersides of his fingernails with a steak knife. Jesper had stopped shooting, but Kaz could see him in in his peripheral talking animatedly to Wylan and a woman dressed like a paper boy in the corner. Eventually, it was Maginello that broke the silence.
"So what is Dirtyhands doing on a pleasure cruiser? Don't you have skulls to smash in Ketterdam?"
"You know me?" Kaz swirled the amber liquid around in his cup.
"How could I not? Even though our friends haven't had the pleasure," he tossed his head over to where the merchers they were playing with had coalesced on the seating along the wall, their words hushed and their eyes darting to Maginello. "I suppose I should be honored that the Bastard of the Barrel has graced me with his presence, but the only thing I can feel is concern."
"Oh? Concern for what?"
"Concern that you've shown specific interest in me."
For the first time, Kaz looked at Maginello. Truly looked at him, without pretense and assumptions and saw an old man who had clear eyes. He was not paranoid. There was no mania. Whatever he was doing, whatever he had planned for the firearms beneath them at this very moment, he did it with a clear conscience. Kaz couldn't decide how he felt about this.
"So then you know that my team is keeping tabs on you," Kaz said. Maginello didn't flinch. "And will be until this ship meets land. We expect you to be on your best behavior. Your deal with Onkle Felix rides on it," Kaz didn't actually know the details of this deal, but Maginello didn't need to know that. The only trump card that Kaz had was that they'd discovered the cache of weapons before Le Plaisir had set sail. For all he knew, the deal with Onkle Felix wasn't related. Until he found out otherwise, there was no need to reveal all of his cards.
Maginello's face steeled and for a split second Kaz saw what he had thought Maginello would be: someone indifferent enough to trade in slaves and daring enough to do it in front of him. But as soon as it had come it was gone. Maginello's face softened. A smirk spread across his chin and he was a harmless veteran who was using his savings to go on one last vacation. Maginello chuckled and waved a hand in the air like he was swatting away a fly.
"I didn't peg Dirtyhands as a babysitter."
"And you are anything but an infant."
The two Barrel bosses stared at each other. The silent shadow of the ballroom surrounded them like an ether, the undulation of he waves beneath them gently shaking the chandeliers that hung above, throwing around shadows that made Kaz think of ghosts. He'd never been the superstitious type. But after almost thirty years, he wasn't so sure anymore. What ghosts surrounded Maginello? How many men had he killed? Surely more than Kaz himself, and Kaz had plenty of skeletons in his closet.
Twelve bells rang out and Kaz upturned his drink, gently placing the crystal on the felted surface of the card table. The sound was like a gunshot in the night.
"Until tomorrow."
"I wouldn't be so sure about that," Maginello replied, picking his teeth with the same steak knife as Kaz pushed past him. "This is a large ship. So easy to get lost."
Kaz allowed his cane to take the brunt of his stride as he made his way down the stairs of the VIP balcony. When he was on the ballroom floor, he slid his hands over the hidden pocket that he'd sewn into his coat, where the cheques he'd lifted from Maginello as he was leaving the card table not moments before clanked together with his uneven steps. Such a close range dupe would have given him joy his younger years, but the only thing Kaz could think of was how, while he was observing Pontoon from the roost of the Crow Club instead of pillaging like the rest of the Dregs, he'd gone hungry for a week and almost died.
Greed may do your bidding, but Death serves no man, Inej had once told him. Pity it took him ten years to finally understand what she meant.
