Page 43 of Better in Black
“Ice cream where? And what are you doing?” Thomas said, struggling to keep upright as the cab careened around another corner.
“How should I know?” Alastair demanded. “What is this appointment he mentioned? Lunch at what club?”
“He must have told the driver something,” Thomas said.
“I’m sending a fire-message to Henry,” Alastair said, scribbling away at the paper with his stele. “At least he might know what the mirror does or how to undo it.”
The cab came to a sudden halt, and both of them jerked forward unpleasantly. Thomas saw that this was because their driver had allowed another carriage to turn in front of them at a crossing, and now was forced to follow at a normal pace. “Show some spine, man!” Alastair told the driver. “Urgent business!”
The driver gave him a doubtful glance. “What kind of business?”
“A child’s life is in danger!” barked Alastair.
“I didn’t see a child get into that cab,” said the driver. “I saw a middle-aged man.”
“It’s the same thing!” Alastair shouted frantically.
The driver had begun to slow the carriage down, probably due to thinking Alastair and Thomas were dangerous lunatics. Fortunately, a bit ahead, Zachary’s cab was coming to a stop.
“Never mind!” Alastair shouted at the same level of intensity. “We’ll take it from here!”
With a flourish he finished the fire-message and held it in the air, where it disappeared with a bright flash and a loud crackle.
“What in blazes was that?” the driver demanded, but Alastair had already flung the door open and leapt from the coach. Thomas, sighing, reached for his wallet and began counting out what he estimated to be three or four times the actual fare.
“What just happened?” the driver demanded of Thomas. “Who are you two?”
“I can’t say,” Thomas said, honestly enough. “Important city business. But thank you.” He handed over the coins. “Do keep the change.”
The driver looked down at the small windfall he’d received, a little mollified. “Well,” he said. “It’s the least you can do.”
Thomas nodded, and without another word, sprang from the carriage and sprinted down the block after Alastair.
—
Once Thomas caught up, he realized why Zachary had alighted where he had. Alastair was staring through the picture windows of a sweetshop. Above the door hung a painted sign in an elaborate, old-fashioned Victorian style advertising the shop asbutterwick’s fancy.Brightly colored sweets of all shapes and sizes nestled appealingly in glass jars. Thomas might have halted on his way to look in the windows himself; the spectacle spoke to a kind of childhood whimsy and delight that could pierce the heart of an adult with nostalgia. For an actual eighteen-month-old, Thomas thought, it was essentially an opium den.
Alastair did not look swept away by nostalgia or whimsy. He looked appalled. Inside Zachary sat on the checkerboard floor, legs sprawled in front of him, his suit jacket unbuttoned. He’d got several of the glass jars in front of him and was grabbing handfulsof boiled sweets, toffees, and licorices out of them and cramming them into his mouth. His cheeks bulged like a chipmunk’s; his beautifully polished cordovan Oxford shoes bounced up and down on the ground in delight. His waxed mustache had gone askew, and there was a red ring of sugar around his mouth.
Alastair exchanged a look of exasperation with Thomas, gave a heavy, resigned sigh, and pushed the door open. Its merry jingle was mostly drowned out by the snuffling noises made by Zachary and the shouting of the baffled proprietor—Butterwick, Thomas presumed—a small round figure in a white apron brandishing a metal scoop. “Get up, man! Be reasonable!”
Zachary ignored the shopkeeper, who seemed to not know what to do.
“You have to pay for what you take!”
Zachary let a mouthful of congealed, brightly colored sugar fall from his mouth. “Put in on my bill!” he shouted back.
Butterwick looked up at Alastair and Thomas with great vexation, as though he needed them to confirm that what he was seeing was actually happening. “You don’t have a bill!” he argued with Zachary. “I’ve never seen you before in my life!”
Zachary folded his arms in haughty annoyance, an effect somewhat spoiled by the wad of caramel slowly oozing from between the fingers of his closed fist. “That’s preposterous! I come here all the time! You must not have worked here very long.”
Alastair gave another long-suffering sigh and went to kneel down and try to reason with Zachary. Thomas had already taken his wallet back out of his pocket and approached Butterwick apologetically.
“Apologies, good man. Let me pay for whatever he’s taken.”
“You’d better, my good sir!” Butterwick snapped. “I’ll have tothrow out all the jars he’s got in front of him! Are you going to pay for all of that?”
“I suppose I am, yes,” said Thomas. He wondered idly if he could submit a statement of expenses to Sona when all this was over. Of course, that would require Sona to know what had happened, which he hoped would never come to pass.
