dante-44

He called himself the bookkeeper. No office, no card, no name. Just the back booth of a diner that never closes and never cleans, and a ledger he didn't open.

“You know a man named Lucian?” he said.

“No.”

“Good. Then you won't mind that he's dead.”

Lucian owed a hundred and twenty grand to people who don't send reminders. He died owing it. On his desk, under the paperweight, they found a note: my name in a hand that wasn't his, and a number that was.

“Half-written,” the bookkeeper said. “Nobody knows if you're the heir or the mark. That's why you're still breathing, Dante. I like to know what I'm collecting.”

I looked at the number. Then I looked at him.

“I'll take the debt.”

He blinked. First human thing he'd shown. “That's a hundred and twenty thousand reasons to say no.”

“It's not a debt,” I said. “It's a ledger with my name on it. I'd rather own the page than be on it. You'll get your money. You'll get it from me, in my city, on my schedule. And the next time my name shows up in your books, you check with me before you sharpen the pencil.”

He studied me the way Kiki does, except he was hunting for a seam and she's hunting for the man.

“Lucian's note,” he said. “You sure you don't know who wrote your name?”

I didn't answer. That's how you give a man something to think about.

Kiki was awake when I got back. Coffee on, window cracked, watching me hang the jacket like she could read the meeting off the fabric.

“How much?” she asked.

“Enough that he'll remember the name.”

“And what did it cost?”

Not the money. The cost. I sat across from her.

“Nothing yet. But I liked the room. That's the part that scares me.”

She nodded slow. “Then you keep the door closed, and you keep coming back through it.”

“Every time.”

The ledger has my name on it now. That's territory. The door's still mine. That's the part I don't trade.

Custom noir chapters, written to order. First paragraph free: [email protected]