The Manual of Detection: A Novel - By Jedediah Berry Page 0,30

deliberate closing and reopening of the eyes.

“Shouldn’t you have told me the rules before we started?” Unwin said.

“The laws of the land are not read to us in the crib,” was Josiah’s reply. “And you just expended another query, though you are allowed only one.”

“It was rhetorical,” said Unwin, but he tossed aside the two chips anyway.

Zlatari said, “Hell, we should be fair to the new guy,” and he told Unwin how to trade up: two queries for a single inquiry, two inquiries for a perscrutation, two perscrutations for a catechism, two catechisms for an interrogation, and so on.

Unwin’s next hand did not look to him as strong as the first, and he folded early, assuring himself there were better cards to come. Worse hands followed, however, and the other players directed their questions at one another, ignoring him. He listened carefully to their answers, but they were of little use because he hardly understood the questions. He heard names he did not recognize, references to “jobs” that were “pulled” rather than worked, and a lot of talk that sounded more like code than speech.

Zlatari asked, “Would putting the hat on the uptown bromides win dirt or be a fishing expedition?”

“A few rounds of muck could show ghost,” was Josiah’s reply.

At the end of the next hand, it was Jasper who threw in enough chips for a perscrutation and said to Zlatari, “Tell me about the last time you saw Sivart.”

Zlatari shifted in his seat and scratched the back of his neck with grimy fingernails. “Well, let’s see, that would have been a week ago. It was dark when he got here, and he did a lot of things he doesn’t usually do. He was nervous, fidgety. He didn’t ask me any questions, just took a seat in the corner and read a book. I didn’t know the man could read. He stayed until his candle burned down, then left.”

The Rooks appeared dissatisfied with the account. Apparently a perscrutation was a rather weightier kind of question and required a more thorough disclosure. Zlatari drew a breath and went on. “He said I might not see him again for a while. He said that Cleo was back in town, that he had to go and find her.” Zlatari glanced at Unwin when he said this, as though to see if it meant anything to him. Unwin looked down at his chips.

Cleo could only be Cleopatra Greenwood, and Unwin had long ago come to fear—even loathe—the appearance of her name in a report. She had first come to the city with Caligari’s Traveling Carnival and for years was one of Sivart’s chief informants. But to file anything regarding her motives or aims was to risk the grueling work of retraction a month later. Mysteries, in her wake, doubled back on themselves and became something else, something a person could drown in. I had her all wrong, clerk: how many times had Unwin come upon that awful admission and scurried to fix what had come before?

The others were waiting for Unwin’s next bet. His winnings were largely depleted, so he traded an inquiry for two queries but quickly lost both. The Rooks, as though sensing that Unwin would soon leave the table, turned their attention on him. Jasper used a query to learn his name, and Josiah spent an inquiry to ask what kind of work he did.

Unwin showed them his badge, and the Rook brothers blinked in tandem.

Zlatari’s brow wrinkled behind his question-mark curl. “Well,” he said, “it wouldn’t be the first time I’ve had an Eye at my table. Detective Unwin, is it? Fine. Everyone’s welcome here.” But on this last point he seemed uncertain.

Unwin lost and lost again. All the questions came to him now, and he gave up answers one after another. His opponents were disappointed at the spottiness of his knowledge, though Zlatari licked his lips when Unwin told what he knew about Lamech’s murder, about the bulky corpse at the desk on the thirty-sixth floor, its bulging eyes, its crisscrossed fingers.

Zlatari dealt new hands, and Unwin’s was unremarkable: no face cards, no two or three of any kind. His beginner’s luck had run out. This would be his last hand, and he had learned so little.

Zlatari folded almost immediately, but the Rook brothers showed no sign of relenting. They eagerly took up their new cards and just as eagerly counted out their bets. Unwin was going to lose. So he said to Zlatari, “A two, three, four,