Page 98 of Long Way Down

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The address Kat had given him belonged to the building next door to Hauser’s Pub. It made sense, he supposed, given that he’d met Kat in Hauser’s.

He’d walked by the place more times than he could count, but had never paid it any mind. Four stories of ugly yellowish brick with a roll-top garage door at street level, and a narrow portico up a ten-step flight of stairs. Most of the windows were boarded up, and not so much as a shred of light glimmered at the edges. In the glow of a flickering streetlight, Pongo could just make out the sign above the door: Roger’s Antiques.

“Damn,” he said to himself. “You guys are really slummin’ it, huh?”

“We don’t all have fancy British sugar daddies footing the bill,” a voice said behind him, and it was an effort to swallow a curse and turn slowly.

Kat approached soundlessly from across the street, all in black, glow from a lit cigarette winking from one hand. When he reached Pongo, he lifted it to his lips and took a drag, unbothered gaze pinned on the building.

“The club wasn’t exactly broke before Shaman came along,” Pongo said, feeling a bit petulant in defense. “We had shit.”

Kat hummed a noncommittal note.

“Why didn’t you say you were Alpine?”

He exhaled a plume of smoke, gray against the dark around them. “It wasn’t your business.”

“It is now, if your boss wants a meeting.”

“He wants lots of things.”

“You enjoy being a cryptic asshole, huh?”

“Come on.” He strode forward. “Prince is waiting.”

“Okay, so this Prince guy,” Pongo said, as they started up the stairs, shoes scraping over the scored and gritty concrete. “His whole thing’s neutrality, right? Switzerland?” He tilted his head toward Hauser’s in demonstration while Kat fished out keys and unlocked the door. “The club reached out to him, like, ten years ago trying to move some guns in a hurry, and he told us to kick rocks. Dogs went tojailover that,” he said, emphasizing the last part, so that Kat finally looked at him. “Why’s he wanna talk now?”

Kat studied him a long moment, gaze shaded by the lip of the portico overhead, expression impossible to gauge. “He’ll tell you,” he said, finally, and pushed the door open.

It was a good thing, Pongo reflected as he stepped over the threshold first, that he wasn’t twitchy, because this place would have had a lot of his brothers twitching like hell. They entered a close-walled vestibule floored in grimy penny tile, lit by a sputtering overhead fixture that looked at least a hundred years old. One wall held an array of coats and jackets and umbrellas. There were two old, solid-wood doors: one straight across from him, and one to the right. A security camera perched high in one corner, mounted with screws through the nicotine-stained crown molding.

Men with all manner of weapons could lie behind either door, or both. Confined, with a relative stranger at his back, and possible danger ahead, it was enough to make anyone a little claustrophobic.

Kat stepped up beside him, the space so narrow that their shoulders brushed. “That” – he pointed to the door to the right, marked with a fly-spotted plaque that read OFFICE – “is where the customers go through. That” – a nod straight ahead, marked PRIVATE – “is the inner-sanctum.”

Pongo snorted. “Sanctum.”

“God,” Kat muttered, and led the way, smoke trailing over his shoulder.

Based on the boarded exterior, and the dingy vestibule, Pongo had already formed a certain image of the place – one completely dispelled when they passed through the door. He stood now inside a wide room filled with the buttery glow of a variety of lamps perched on tables throughout. The floors were a dark, polished hardwood that glowed like buffed leather, the furniture dark and tidy. Sconces were set at intervals in the cherry paneled walls, and the air smelled, not unpleasantly, of cigar smoke and something he thought might be wood polish.

Two men played pool in the far corner, balls clacking softly, smoke curling up toward a Tiffany lamp that reminded him vividly of the ones next door at Hauser’s. Another man was parked in a leather chair in front of a wide-screen TV; he spared them only a glance away from the boxing match he was watching, and tossed up a wave that Kat returned, offhand.

“Come on.” He motioned to the foot of a staircase. “Let’s go up.”

The stairs sported a carpeted runner and a heavy banister wider than his palm.

“So, uh, nice place, I guess,” Pongo said over his shoulder as they climbed. The treads didn’t even creak beneath their feet, which would have been standard in a building this old. “Good for you guys.”

Kat nudged him none-too-gently in the center of the spine. “Keep going.”

“Fine, fine. But if I don’t walk outta here, or if you put me back out on the street beat to shit, my boss is gonna have some major words with your boss.” He arrived on the landing, at the end of a hall set with sconces and flanked by polished doors, the dark, floral-patterned runner continuing ahead. It was like being in somebody’s mansion, or a nice gentleman’s club: the old-fashioned kind, where it was all smoke and gambling and drinking, a big betting book up front, rather than the kind where he’d taken Dixie to watch April Showers do her thing.

Pongo turned and fixed Kat with a look that was, for once, serious. Kat acknowledged it with the faint curl of a nostril. “I’m not kidding. I’m showing – theclub’sshowing – a lot of trust by being here. If you kill me and dump my body, that’ll suck for me, yeah, but it’ll suck harder for you guys.”

Kat let out an annoyed-sounding breath, but jerked a nod and motioned him forward. “Nobody’s gonna kill you. They call him the Prince for a reason, you know.”