Chapter 3 - The Ghost of Briar HillThe arrival of Victor Vance did not go well for Victor Vance.
He came into the study smelling of expensive scotch and cold sweat, expecting the usual arbitration—a percentage of the skim, a stern warning, maybe a transfer to the docks in Peoria. Instead, he found a paralyzed mob boss sitting in the dark and a six-year-old girl sitting cross-legged on the rug, coloring a picture of a horse with a blue crayon.
"Marcus," Victor started, his hands shaking as he adjusted his silk tie. "The numbers on the Milwaukee run were—"
"Quiet," Marcus said.
He didn't look at Victor. He looked at Amara.
"Mara," Marcus said, using the nickname her mother used when she wasn't mad. "Is the blue crayon the right color for a horse?"
Amara paused, squinting at her paper. "No. Horses are brown or white. But I like blue horses. Blue horses can run over the moon."
Marcus turned his cold, dark eyes back to Victor Vance.
"You heard her," Marcus said softly. "The horses are blue. You missed twelve thousand dollars on the Milwaukee run, Victor. And you put lithium in with the lettuce."
"I—I don't know what you're talking about—"
"The child knows," Marcus interrupted. His voice didn't rise; it dropped into that hollow, cavernous register that made men jump off balconies in the Loop. "A child who has to count her potatoes before she eats them found the hole in your ledger before my chief accountant did. Do you know what that makes you, Victor?"
Victor swallowed hard. "Marcus, please—"
"It makes you redundant." Marcus clicked a small silver remote on his armrest.
The heavy oak doors swung open. Two men in gray wool coats stepped in, neither of them speaking. They didn't look at Victor; they looked at Marcus, waiting for the nod.
"Take his passport," Marcus said. "Take his car keys. Take his shoes. Put him on the bus to Gary with forty dollars and a box of saltines. If he sets foot in Cook County again, I want his toes mailed to his mother in Florida one by one, starting with the pinky."
"Marcus! You can't—you can't let a kid—"
"She's smarter than you," Marcus said, his voice flat as lake ice. "And she costs less to maintain."
As the guards dragged a weeping Victor Vance out into the hallway, Amara didn't even look up from her blue horse. She simply reached into her rabbit backpack, pulled out a small, foil-wrapped square of peanut butter crackers, and offered half of it to the most feared man in Chicago.
"You didn't eat your short ribs last night," she said. "You're going to get headaches. My mom gets headaches when she skips the meat."
May you like
Marcus looked at the half-cracker on her small, smudged palm.
Slowly, deliberately, he reached out and took it.
