Inside Straight

A steel safe door two feet square gazed out from the wall at shoulder height like high-security Dadaist art.

“Fortune?” Jonathan said. “Hey, the Lone Grin here had a point that might be worth just kicking—”

“All her jewelry is in there,” he said, nodding at the safe. “Necklaces, amulets, beads. Whatever.”

“Yeah, but… you see, we were wondering if maybe getting back your powers… I mean the last time you had ’em—”

“I know what happened. I was there.”

“All we meant was, the stakes are a little—”

“You just thought of that now?”

Lohengrin raised a hand like a kid in school. “It was me,” he said.

“Yeah,” Jonathan said. “I didn’t really think of it.”

“Well, I did,” Fortune said. “It’s okay. I’m good with it.”

“That’s great,” Jonathan said, “but I’m not sure—”

“Step off, okay!” Fortune shouted. “You are the one who wanted to try this, right? I didn’t ask you to poke into my life. You took that on yourself. You’re the one who came up with the bright idea of hauling me up here and digging up this amulet. I’m just Captain Cruller, the guy who used to be famous for letting his own father fucking die! You hold up a chance for me to get that back, and then you want to talk about it? If you ladies are getting cold feet, go stick ’em in something hot!”

Fortune’s face flushed red, and his breath sounded like a bull’s.

“You are right,” Lohengrin said. “I gave my word to help in this. I will not fail you.”

“Um, hello?” Jonathan said. “What about maybe destroying the world?”

“I have given my word,” Lohengrin repeated. “Honor demands I do this.”

“Honor demands what? How fucking drunk are you?”

But Lohengrin had already put out his hand. The blade that appeared in it glowed with a soft, pure light. The German turned to the safe and with a flick of his wrist carved a hole in the steel door and part of the surrounding wall. John Fortune yelped and sprang forward.

“What the fuck!” he shouted.

“I opened the safe,” Lohengrin said, as if that wasn’t obvious. “Is what we came for, nein?”

“You broke the safe,” Fortune yelled. “You didn’t tell me you were going to break it.”

“But…” Lohengrin began. Fortune turned his back to them both, reaching into the darkness of the safe. The rant was going on under his breath. Jonathan caught the words “very clever” and “dickhead.”

He was starting to think John Fortune might not be a sentimental drunk.

Lohengrin started to pace, his wide, teutonic brow furrowed. Jonathan tried very hard to think, but there was still enough booze in his bloodstream to make things muzzy at the edges. There had been a plan when he’d started this, and he was pretty sure that this hadn’t been how it had gone.

“Fuck,” Fortune said.

“Didn’t work?”

“It’s not here,” Fortune said. “These… they aren’t…”

His voice wasn’t angry anymore. More sad. Fortune hung his head, and Jonathan put a hand on the guy’s shoulder.

“So here’s the thing,” Jonathan said. “I’m a real asshole sometimes. I didn’t mean to—”

“I am asshole too,” Lohengrin said, putting his hand on Fortune’s other shoulder. Jonathan caught their reflection in the vanity mirror. With Fortune’s head low and the pair of them flanking the guy, it looked like an old print he’d seen of Lancelot and Merlin supporting King Arthur.

Nice detail, he thought. He filed it away for when he wrote the book. Fortune’s head came back up.

“I know where it is,” he said. Before Jonathan could think through what the words really meant, Fortune was gone. Jonathan and Lohengrin fouled each other trying to get out of the dressing room door, so Fortune got to Peregrine’s study well before them.

It was another beautiful room—soft light, teak furniture, soft carpet. One wall was dedicated to images and mementos of the life of one of the world’s more glamorous wild cards. Magazine covers, newspaper clippings, plaques with her name and the appreciation of President Barnett and Senator Hartmann. Three Emmy awards. A People’s Choice award. Trophies and plaques detailing her charity work and other random appreciations. Pictures of her floating above the New York skyline, flying past the Eiffel Tower. Standing, wings spread and eyebrows raised, before the pyramids. Jonathan was struck by how young she looked back then. 1987. He’d been six years old.

Fortune sat on the corner of the wide, low, wooden desk. A simple loop of leather cord hung from his hand, a red bauble at its end. In the dim light, the setting looked brass. Jonathan and Lohengrin both stopped dead.

“Fortune,” Jonathan said, and licked his lips. “You should maybe put that down. You know, just for a second.”