Fah, scratch one back and you get a couple more itchy bastards... Alcée narrowed his eyes and sucked his teeth. "Fella, give this ass a big smile."
Fella slowly raised his head and drew his lips away from his fangs, his ears turned and began to lie back. He didn't make a sound and remained on his belly.
The dealer crossed his arms and sneered. "You tryin' to threaten me? S'not gonna work. I ain't got any shit and there won't be any shit until a few thoughts get put into Sissy's head."
"All this for a couple kreteks. Is Jerro usually this generous, or am I a special case?"
"I don't see why you gotta make a fucken drama outta this. Just tell your sister 'bout those mountains! It'll be good for everyone." The dealer began to pace from one wall to the other, his hands clenching and unclenching.
"Good?" Alcée laughed. "Find a new boss man. Jerro's gone on a trip he's not coming back from. Make sure you tell him that if he wants a friend in the palace he'd better get to work finding something to hook General Verde."
The dealer stopped in the middle of the alleyway and shoved his hands in his pockets. "Jerro'll make sure everyone in town knows how much of tight bastard you are. There won't be so much as a poppy seed for you 'less you come crawling for it - not even then." He walked past Alcée, glancing over his shoulder after a few paces and turned at the first junction between the buildings.
Alcée watched him leave, then looked down at Fella. The large, rust-splotched brown dog had his head back on his legs and was steadily thumping his fluffy tail on the ground. Most dog handlers believed that too much time around a Mordecai made a dog lazy, but Fella was far down that path before Alcée 'inherited' him from Paris. So long as he had plenty of time to lay around and an equal supply of food, he was content.
"Glad to see you're happy. Think I can find anyone willing to do business with good old coin?"
Fella kept thumping his tail on the ground. Alcée knelt and scratched his ears, getting a grunt out of him.
Ever since Alcée Maverikko began flirting with laudanum at sixteen there was that one potential supplier willing to get him a fix in return for 'little favors'. Most of them a variation on the same song and dance: get the Matron to consider x thing, to reject y thing, to accept z thing, convince the rest of the family too. It wasn't until he wrote a letter of recommendation for Boss Virren's oldest daughter to enter the officer's program at the Academy that the gates of opportunity seemed to open for the rest of them. Never mind that it wasn't for drugs, all they seemed to hear was that he did a favor for a drug kingpin. As quickly as he could turn away from one, there was another willing to sell their shit straight for a couple weeks and spring some new request on him.
Maybe Jerro's toady was right. Fah, the way he was blowing through suppliers there wouldn't be one left to sell him anything.
A fake identity wouldn't work. Disguise was never Alcée's strong suit. He could always find a way to colour his pale skin and dye his white hair, but nothing could disguise the pale blue of his eyes. Or keep him from squinting and practically rubbing noses with people to see them clearly without his glasses. Even if he stuck to places he was familiar with and could get over his unease with talking to someone that was a fuzzy blob of colour, someone would end up recognizing him. Even a slum rat might know what the Matron's kid brother looked like and years of relatives parading themselves before the entire country gave the majority of the population an idea of what a Maverikko face looked like. A high forehead, crested eyebrows, thin lips and a little pointed nose.
Reajh was a fairly big city though, there was still some time before he had to consider branching out to another town. Or kingdom. He just had to find this new supplier.
