I had to wait for things to hit the boiling point. I knew that, instinctively. And I knew that things were only going to go badly when they did, because Baron, as much as it worried me, had decided to be reactive rather than proactive in dealing with the threats laid out in front of him.
I hated it. But there wasn’t anything that I could do but to hope that I was being overly cautious. Luckily for me, or perhaps unluckily, I didn’t have to wait long.
Baron walked me down the steps into the common room. There was something about walking with a man his size, looking the way he did, and being on his arm.
All of the men in Perdition were to type. Strong, burly men. The sort of men that, if they weren’t killers to a man, a lady might have trouble refusing for her own. Not that I had any room to criticize any of them. After all, the biggest killer of the group was the one I’d claimed for myself.
I noticed the tension in the room immediately. There was something going on, and there wasn’t going to be any more ignoring it. I knew in that moment that I wasn’t going to like being here. And I knew that there was going to be danger here.
If I knew it, then I knew that Baron had to know it. He had a sixth sense for danger, and it must have been going nuts. The girls were usually fairly sturdy, but today they seemed as nervous as anyone I’d ever seen.
Franklin stood up as we set foot on the common room floor. He didn’t look angry. Not violent, not threatening. He couldn’t have been more intimidating, to me, if he’d put his hand on the butt of his pistol and grit his teeth. He stood half-a-head taller than Baron and gave a hard grin.
“Boss! Good to see you tonight.”
“You’re feeling cheerful, aren’t you?”
I was intimately aware of the feeling of the pistol pressed against my hip, and the way that I stood in the way of it. I didn’t know whether I was supposed to stay close or move to give him room to maneuver.
“Of course I am, Baron. You’re the light of my life, you know.”
“Yeah, I’m sure,” he said. It wasn’t hard to hear the sarcasm in Baron’s voice. He’d forced his own face into a grin, as well, tight-lipped in contrast to Franklin’s toothy expression.
“How’s the little lady? Getting used to life around here?”
Franklin’s eyes never moved over to look at me. Like he didn’t see me standing there. I didn’t like it, because there was another implication there that I didn’t totally understand, except that I was sure that there was danger in it.
“She’s already learning the important stuff,” Baron said. He squeezed my shoulder, but his eyes never shifted my way, either. “Like who the rascals are.”
“That right?”
“You know it is,” Baron said. “I hear that there’s been talk while I was gone.”
“Oh yeah? What kind of talk is that?”
I didn’t like that there was so much going unsaid. It gave me the distinct impression that eventually, someone was going to crack, but that it was impossible to tell with any certainty who it was going to be. Each word seemed to be chosen to dare the other to make a commitment.
Eventually, someone would have to commit, and then everyone would show their hands. I was fairly certain that it would turn violent in the space of an instant. And I wasn’t certain how the violence would turn out. It wasn’t a feeling that I liked. None of it was. The others in the room had grown more than quiet. Every eye on either Euler or Franklin.
Eventually, even soon, one of them would either draw a line that the other couldn’t resist crossing, or one of them would back down. In the sick moment of realization, I knew that Baron wasn’t going to be the one to back down. He might be the one to cross the line first, but he wasn’t going to surrender.
Neither was Franklin. And the way that folks’ weights shifted, and the women-folk suddenly cleared out of the common, I knew that it wasn’t going to go the way that he wanted it to.
“Come on, babe,” I said. I hoped that I could get him to listen to me. My gut told me that it was past that. But adrenaline had me in its grip. “Let’s get something to eat.”
“Yeah,” Franklin said. “You should listen to your woman.”
From where I stood I could see Baron’s grin drop into a scowl.
“I don’t answer to any woman,” he growled.
“No? She seems to think that you will listen.”
“You’re going to regret this, Franklin.”
“Regret what? I’m just looking out for your relationship. You never know; you lose your grip on your lady, and she’s pretty enough, I’m sure that she won’t have trouble finding another man who knows how to keep his women.”
Baron’s teeth grit together.
“Yeah? You think you’re in a position to challenge me, Franklin Durham?”
“Me?” Franklin’s grin seemed less forced as he started to speak. “Where ever did you get the idea that I was planning to make a move? I’m just talking about possibilities. I’m looking out for you, here, boss.”
“Make sure you remember that, then,” Euler growled. He wrapped his arm around my shoulder again, and guided me towards a seat. The tension in the room lapsed, even if it was only a little.
And I knew that somehow, in spite of the fact that Franklin had been perfectly deferential, he’d won this round. I just didn’t know how, or what Baron was planning to do about it.
I guess I wasn’t in a position to understand that world at the time, because I didn’t understand half how much Franklin had won the day.