Re: [Second City: Cat & Jack]
She hummed her acknowledgement of his commentary on beauty.
And then she showed him a different place. She didn't notice his consumption of the liquid in the bottle. Had she done, she might've waited to see what effect it had on him, if any. Oh, most of the things sold here were steeped in legitimacy. This wasn't the upper-world, where big stores counted on customers being too lazy to return items that didn't work as promised. This was a small place, a place where people were held to their words and to their actions. Here, there was retribution. The liquid in the bottle would do something, but there were many interpretations for everything, and the cost had been low. It was like capturing a genie and tricking it into giving you what you really wanted. And who knew what that bottle would give Jack.
But then they were in the room, the game afoot, and she looked over at Jack when he asked the question she'd expected him to ask. "Futures. Lives. Marriages. Careers. Business. Big things. Meaningful things. Playing for lives, it's much more than playing for money." These were things you couldn't play for in Cat's club, but there was thrill to it that Cat could comprehend. Allure, and life and death balanced on the turn of a card.
She, too, saw the man close his hand around the butt of the gun, and the kitten rolled her lined-green eyes. Honestly, and men were so predictable. "Power," she added, because, really, that was what was being played for. "Do you want to play?" she asked him, curiosity brimming in green. "I can show you something else, something beautiful, but it won't feed a craving." Ah, there was the question. It was perched on her harlot-red lips. "There's an empty seat for you, Mr. Penhaligon."
There was, in fact, an empty seat.
The kitten moved away from Jack, and she walked around the table, stopping to whisper, to be whispered to, and then she returned to Jack. "On the table now? There's someone named Patience Turner. There's a company name. There's the promise of a destructive secret for a political official, and that one's folded over. There's a Mafia Family name, Irish, small Family. There's the birth name of an illegitimate child, also folded over. There's a murder, a hired hand. There someone named Rufus Wyatt. There's a bride." As if the things would help Jack decide, and she wound round behind him, close and like a cat wrapping itself around a shin, and looked over his shoulder. "Well?"