“I’m not sure, Win. Just because something is a small problem doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be addressed. Small injustices conceal larger ones.”
“Is that something your father used to say?”
No, I told him. It was my own wisdom, and something I had learned through experience.
Sunday after church, I went to talk to Fats at the Pool. His stomach was distended and his eyes were red. I worried that he might have been poisoned. “You feeling all right?” I asked.
“I look that bad to you?” He chuckled, then patted his gut. “I’m an emotional eater.”
I asked him if anything specific was bothering him.
He shook his head. “Nothing to concern your pretty little head with. Been working nights at the speakeasy and here in the days. Let’s just say there’s a reason guys in my position don’t live that long.”
Fats punctuated that remark with a laugh so I suppose it was meant as a joke. I reminded him that my father had been “a guy in his position.”
“Didn’t mean any disrespect, Annie. So what’s on your mind?” Fats asked.
“I’ve got a proposition,” I said. “A business proposition.”
Fats nodded. “I’m all ears, kid.”
I took a deep breath. “Have you ever heard of medicinal cacao?”
Fats nodded slowly. “Yeah, maybe.”
I described what I had learned from my discussions with Mr. Delacroix and the man at the market.
“So what’s the big idea?” Fats asked.
I took another deep breath. I had not wanted to admit to myself how invested I was in this idea. Before she whacked me over the head, Sophia Bitter had called me the “daughter of a cop and a criminal” who would always be at war with herself. It was a cruel thing to say, but it also happened to be true. It was cruel because it was true. I felt it in my every impulse, and I was incredibly tired of living that way. This idea, for me, was a way to end the war. “Well, I was thinking that instead of selling Balanchine chocolate on the black market, we could open a medicinal cacao dispensary.” I looked at Fats to see what he thought of the idea, but his face was blank. “Eventually, maybe even a chain of them,” I continued. “It would all be aboveboard. We’d hire doctors to write the prescriptions. And possibly even nutritionists to help us come up with recipes. And the only chocolate we’d use would be Balanchine, of course. We’d also need pure cacao, but I know a great place we could import that from. If the dispensaries were a success, maybe this could even go a long way toward changing public opinion and convincing the lawmakers that chocolate should never have been illegal in the first place.” I snuck another glance at Fats. He was nodding a little. “The reason I came to you is because you know all about the restaurant business and, of course, you’re the head of the Family now.”
Fats looked at me. “You’re a good kid, Annie. You’ve always been a good kid. And I can tell you put a heck of a lot of thought into this idea. And it’s definitely an interesting one. I’m glad you came to me. But I got to tell you, from the semya side of things, this will never work.”
I was not yet ready to let this go. “Why won’t it work?”
“It’s real simple, Annie. The machinery of Balanchine Chocolate is set up to service a market where chocolate is illegal. If chocolate became legal or there even became a popular way to get around its illegality—à la the medicinal dispensaries you propose—Balanchine Chocolate would be out of business. We exist to serve a black market, Anya. The only way I know how to run a restaurant, if you want to call it that, or any sort of business at all is under the conditions of illegality. Chocolate is legal, Fats is obsolete. Maybe someday chocolate will be legal again, but I honestly hope I’m dead by then.”
I didn’t say anything.
Fats looked at me with sad eyes. “When I was a kid, my senile old grandma used to read me vampire stories. You know what a vampire is, Anya?”
“Kind of. I’m not sure.”
“They’re like these superhuman beings that enjoy drinking human blood. I know, it doesn’t make any sense, but Grandma Olga was mad for them. So, okay, there’s this one vampire story I remember. Maybe the only reason I remember it is because it’s the longest. This human girl falls for this vampire boy, and he loves her, but he kind of wants to kill her, too. And this goes on for a really long time. You wouldn’t believe how long! Should he kiss her or kill her? Well, he ends up kissing her a lot—you wouldn’t believe how much! But ultimately, he kills her and turns her into a vampire anyway—”
I interrupted him. “What is your point, Fats?”
“My point is, a vampire is always a vampire. We Balanchines are vampires, Annie. We will always be vampires. We live in the night. In the dark.”
“No, I disagree. Balanchine Chocolate was around before the chocolate banning. Daddy wasn’t always a criminal. He was an honest businessman, dealing with obstacles.” I shook my head. “There has to be a better way.”
“You’re young. It’d be wrong for you not to think that,” Fats said. He reached out his hand across the table. “Come see me with your next big idea, kid.”
I walked home from the Pool. It was a long walk, past Holy Trinity and through the park. The park looked about the same as the last time I’d been there—sere, seedy. I jogged across the Great Lawn, and I had just about hit the south side of Little Egypt when I heard the sound of a little girl screaming. She was standing by a graffiti-covered bronze statue of a bear. She didn’t have shoes on and her only clothing was a T-shirt. I went up to her. “Are you okay? Can I help you?”
She shook her head and started to cry. That was when a man jumped me from behind. I felt his arm around my neck. “Gimme all your money,” he said. Obviously, he and the little girl were a team. It was a shakedown. I can only attribute my imprudence to the fact that I had been preoccupied and dejected because of Fats’s rejection of my idea.
I only had a little money on me, which I gave to the man. I did have my machete but I wasn’t going to kill someone over a small amount of money.
“Stop,” a brassy voice called. “I know her.”
I looked in the direction of the voice. A girl with mousy brown hair cut short looked at me. My old bunkmate, Mouse.
“She’s okay,” Mouse said. “We were at Liberty together.”
The man loosened his grip. “Really? Her?”
Mouse came up to me. “Yeah,” Mouse said to her colleague. “That’s Anya Balanchine. You don’t want to mess with her.” Mouse smelled foul and her hair was matted and dirty. I suspected that she had been sleeping outside.
“Mouse,” I said. “You talk now.”
“I do. I’m cured, thanks to you.”
I didn’t need to ask her what she’d been up to. She was obviously a member of some kind of band of juvenile criminals.
I asked her if she had ever called Simon Green.
“Yes,” she told me. “But he didn’t know who I was so he basically blew me off. I don’t blame you. You had a lot on your hands.”
“I’m sorry for that,” I said. “If there’s ever anything I can do to help…”
“How about that job?” Mouse asked.
I told her I was out of the family business, but maybe I could help her financially.
Mouse shook her head. “I don’t take handouts, Anya. Like I told you at Liberty, I work for my keep.”
I definitely owed her. “Maybe my cousin Fats could give you a job.”
“Yeah? I’d like that.”
I asked her how I could get in touch with her. “I’m here,” she said. “I sleep behind the statue of the bear.”