A promise
would keep you fat-fed and happy. Worst of all: Balkey was not allowed
to hit anyone important, and in that dim hole, they all were deemed
important. So, the boy did not like the back; he liked the front where he
worked, where everyone knew his name and his face and his fists.
But they knew Balkey in the back, too, and they loved him there, his collar
as bloody and brown as the rest of Coral’s crew. So, the politicals and
the work-runners and Pin’s men would jaw all day long, and the machine
of the club would run smooth as violence from a soldier. Not today, though.
Balkey thought on where his rep could take him with Oro, the poor fool,
the old guard. He reckoned it’d take him far. “Say, old towner,” Balkey
said straightly, “you know I hate this back hole. Stinks like fakery and such…”
Oro eyed him as he spat, nodding along like Balkey’s tongue was sunny.