Dancing With Bears - Michael Swanwick [58]
Kyril presented him with a thick stack of banknotes. Darger ran a thumb down one corner and then snapped his fingers three times briskly. “All of it.”
With obvious reluctance, Kyril produced several more bills.
Darger neatened the edges, and then peeled off five hundred-ruble notes from the top. “This much goes to repay me for the necklace. It may have been paste, but it was of excellent quality for its sort.” He placed them in his billfold. “That leaves two thousand rubles. Since you ran the operation and took the lion’s share of the risks, Kyril, you are entitled to half. The rest of it will be doled out in equal shares to your confederates. All right, lads, line up.”
Grinning and elbowing each other, Oleg, Lev, Stephan, and Dmitri formed a short line and received two hundred fifty rubles each. When the last had been paid, the bandits ducked under the fallen girder that had made a breach in one wall, anxious to be on their way to the surface where they could squander every kopeck of their new-won wealth. Leaving the library empty save for Darger and Kyril.
Darger picked up his book, adjusted the oil lamp, and said, “Listen to this:
“Summer will be ours, if you but say you love me,
Night-hawks flitting under the stars
And jasmine perfuming your skin.
If not, winter. And I—”
“I don’t see why I had to pay them so much. They didn’t do nothing but put up a bunch of posters, and keep an eye out for the goats. I did all the fucking work.”
With a sigh, Darger shut his book again. “Admittedly, my paraphrase from Sappho’s impeccable Greek was a touch rough. But you had the opportunity to hear a poem that was long believed to be lost forever, and you brushed it aside simply to whinge that your comrades weren’t pulling their weight.”
“Well, they ain’t.”
“I promised to show you how to live by your wits, and here are the first fruits of my teachings.” Darger tapped the stack of bills with his fingertip.
“More money than you’ve ever had in your entire life, earned in less than an hour. A wise young man would take this as a sign that his mentor was worth listening to.”
Angrily, Kyril said, “Maybe you know a few good tricks, but that don’t mean you’re any smarter than me.”
“Oh? Then how did I trick you into bringing me here?” Darger waved a hand to take in all of the library: the shelves of books—stacked sideways in the Medieval manner—that stretched from floor to ceiling and dwindled into the gloom, and the honeycombs of scrolled parchment and papyrus texts, as well as the solid wooden tables, chairs, and other library furnishings, beneath which the children had made their beds.
“What? You already knew all about it…didn’t you?”
“I did not. But when we first came here, you may remember that I kept a hand on your shoulder in an avuncular manner.”
“I thought you was just keeping me from running away.”
“Of course not, you had nowhere to go. No, I was reading you. Whenever we came to a turn and your muscles tensed up, I would say, “We turn here.” Then your eyes would dart in the direction you normally went, and in that direction I would go. By such small shifts and stratagems, I allowed you to lead me right here.”
The boy spat out an unfamiliar word. Doubtless slang, and doubtless obscene.
“Exactly. Now, you want to know why I insisted you be so generous to your friends. And, though you have not asked, you are wondering why I directed you to have the thousand-ruble notes converted to small bills.”
“Yeah. The bastard at the bank made me give him twenty rubles for doing it, too. So why?”
“As for your friends, simply because they are your friends. The man who lives by his skill and his wits must be able to trust his business associates and they him. When the swag is swept up at the end of the game, and everyone scatters, they all must know that their share of the take is as safe as houses. Otherwise your plans will fall apart in your hands. You see?”
“I… guess so. What about changing the bills?”
“Watch and learn.” Darger picked up the stack of bills and placed them in his billfold.