Chapter Text
Stoker always hated the summer. It was a rare opinion in District Six, particularly given their long frigid winters. Plenty of the other residents of the district, the ones with threadbare coats who could not afford buy coal brought in from Twelve, were undoubtedly savoring the heat that always squatted over the drab factories and pavements of Six by June. Cold weather, however, meant nothing to the large boy. He paid it about as much mind as he did the dust that always lined the floor of his room at Exner’s place. But hot weather? That was something else, an oppressive, sticky feeling that got into everything. In the summer months, he felt like there was nowhere inside or outside where he could enjoy a moment without sweating profusely. The fact that summer also brought Reaping Day did it no favors in his book.
The sun was still up even though evening was approaching, another sweaty blessing from his least favorite season. The Reaping was in three days, a fact that Stoker did not his best to avoid pondering as he looked down in his hand at the slip of paper that Piston, who oversaw loans and collections for Tocco, had given him the day before. It read:
Ratch Coughlin, 20s, thin, dark hair, burn mark on left cheek.
Owes 100, collect at least 50.
Stoker did have to appreciate the way that Piston always got to the damn point, as consistent as the sunrise. Considering that Stoker could not recall Tocco letting a debt slide in the years since he had started working for him, he was a bit amazed the fools around the district still borrowed money from the older man. He supposed he should not have expected the folks gambling on fights or hopelessly addicted to morphling to exercise much foresight. In a strange way, he supposed he should have been thankful to them. Without their stupidity and Tocco taking ample advantage of it, he doubted he could have made it on his own.
Piston had advised him to look for Ratch around the Sugar Hill tenements. Exactly why that section of District Six, complete with its run-down apartment buildings and narrow streets that were often lined with garbage and dozing morphling addicts, was called Sugar Hill, Stoker did not have the faintest idea. Perhaps the reason was lost in the haze of the past or buried somewhere deep in the archives of the Justice Building. Given the countless empty liquor bottles the boy noticed scattered amongst the trash cluttering the sidewalk, he thought Booze Hill might have been a more fitting name.
It was a good thing he arrived before the day shifts at the factories ended, which was always at six. Stoker leaned against a large pole that hung a streetlight of questionable reliability, his arms folded across his chest as he watched the main road that led in and out of the Sugar Hill neighborhood. By six, the day workers would come trudging back from the factories at the same time that the night workers were heading out for their shifts. Whichever group of workers the Coughlin-idiot belonged to, Stoker knew his best chance of catching him out in the open was during that window.
As he waited, the sound of childish laughter reached his ears. It struck Stoker as odd because, casting a few glances around, he could not spot any children nearby. He supposed school must have let out, although that did not mean much in District Six. It certainly meant nothing for him. Still, the mysterious laughter certainly was not coming from the morphling addict sleeping on the sidewalk across the street. The only other person Stoker could spot was an older woman hobbling down the road in the opposite direction, a paper bag likely containing something from the apothecary or the grocer clutched in her withered hands, her eyes darting around for potential threats.
Stoker was just beginning to wonder if he was imaging the sounds when a wet glob of liquid plopped on the sidewalk to his right. His gaze snapped down towards the sound. He had just identified it as a nasty little bundle of spit and mucus when a second glob landed, this time hitting him right on the cheek. He jolted like he had been struck by a peacekeeper’s baton, his lip curling into a sneer as wiped the disgusting slime off his skin. The large boy looked around wildly for the culprit, his fists clenched and chest heaving. It was then that he heard it again: children’s laughter.
This time, the laughter was louder, unrestrained and closer to wild cackling than the hushed version he had heard before. Stoker placed the location in an instant, his eyes landing on the roof of the tenement building behind him, where a pair of freckle-covered, red-haired little brats were looking down on him as they howled in amusement.
They were spitting on him. Unbelievable.
“You rotten little shits!” Stoker barked up at the pair of children.
His rage only seemed to amuse them more as their laughter increased. “Why don’t you get outta here, you big dumb cow!” called down one of them, a boy who looked a few years shy of Reaping age. “Ain’t you supposed to be in District Ten?”
By this point, Stoker’s face had gotten as red as the snickering children’s hair. “You’re gonna regret that when I come up there and wring your scrawny necks!” Stoker bellowed through his bared teeth.
“And just how do you expect to do that?” asked the other one, also a boy but a bit younger than the other if his shrill voice was anything to go by. “How you gonna get your fat ass up the stairs?”
Stoker could feel the veins in his forehead throbbing as the gleeful children continued to taunt him. He was practically trembling with the urge to storm into the apartment building, search every room until he found the miserable little brats, and then give them a thrashing that would make their ancestors wince. It was only the thought of the slip of paper in the pocket of his trousers and how unhappy Tocco would be if he failed to collect from Coughlin that held him back. The factory workers could be back any moment. He could not risk missing them because he was off teaching some bratty kids a sorely needed lesson.
Grumbling and swearing under his breath, Stoker moved across the street, well out of spitting range. The cackling children continued to taunt him for a while, even though the large boy remained stubbornly silent and pointedly kept his gaze on the road where he expected the workers to soon appear. Eventually, the two little goblins grew bored and disappeared from the edge of the roof. Finally, some of the tension began to release from Stoker’s shoulders and he unclenched his jaw.
What was taking so long? Stoker had no watch and could only estimate the hour by the position of the sun. There still looked to be a few hours of daylight left, and unfortunately there was little shade to be had around Sugar Hill. The large boy could feel sweat gathering in all the crevices of his body as he waited, from his armpits to his groin. He scowled, silently cursing Ratch Coughlin for taking forever to appear, and dragged his hand across his perspiring forehead.
Stoker was just beginning to wonder if maybe he did have time to go find those brats when he caught sight of the first few workers streaming back from their day shifts at the factories. They made for a rather sad sight, a motley collection of thin men and women with gaunt faces, shoulders that drooped with fatigue, and well-worn blue overalls. Stoker watched them as they walked by, some heading towards the neighborhood’s apartments while others dispersed towards the local pubs. He doubted that the ones going to blow their meager wages on drinks were all childless. As if by some unspoken signal, other workers clad in the same blue overalls but with a bit more energy to their movements emerged intermittently from the doorways of the apartment buildings, passing the returning workers as they headed out onto the road towards the factories.
As the night and day workers passed back and forth, Stoker scanned each face. There were plenty of thin men with dark hair. Most looked worn and nearing middle age, although that did not always mean much in a place like District Six, where too much work, too little food, and plenty of vices often aged people at an accelerated rate. None of them looked back at him or questioned what he was doing. No doubt they had learned the same lesson that Stoker had at a young age: best to mind your own business.
Within five minutes, Stoker spotted what he was looking for among a cluster of returning day workers. Walking beside a gangly, rat-faced man was a shorter fellow with scraggly black hair, not the healthiest looking but definitely on the younger side. Most importantly, Stoker noted an ugly, pink stretch of skin on the man’s left cheek that could only have been caused by a burn. He made sure to let the pair pass, their heads bent as they conversed with one another, lost in their conversation as they walked along the road. Once they had gone by, Stoker slipped into the stream of workers behind them. He kept his distance, content to use his height to peer over everyone between Ratch and himself, never letting the little man out of his sight. As he walked, Stoker felt himself settling into the deadly sort of focused calm that he always favored on jobs like these, all the anger, frustration, and anxiousness of the previous moments forgotten.
The pair walked on for a while as Stoker followed. Eventually, Ratch’s companion broke off from him and disappeared into one of the nearby tenement buildings, leaving the small man to walk on alone. Without his friend, Ratch picked up his pace, as if he was afraid to be on his own, winding his way around different groups of workers all making the same walk home. It was no difficulty for the large boy to keep him in sight. Any ground that Ratch could cover in two steps he could cover in one.
Finally, Ratch split off from the road and headed towards an alleyway between an apartment building and a run-down junk shop where a few elderly district residents were picking through scavenged piles of so-called merchandise. The instant the small man disappeared around the corner, Stoker broke into a jog, hurrying to make up as much ground as possible. He reached the alleyway quickly and paused to peer around the corner, gratified by the sight of Ratch, still walking but now within striking distance and devoid of any help.
Stoker rounded the corner. “Ratch Coughlin,” he called out in the most booming voice he could muster. Ratch nearly stumbled as he jerked to a halt. Any doubts that Stoker may have had about his identity vanished instantly. The small man only turned his shoulders enough to glance back at the source of the sound. Stoker strolled forward, watching Ratch closely for any indication that he was about run. “I’m here on behalf of Mr. Tocco,” Stoker said.
It was all very predictable. Ratch’s eyes flew wide open, the same sort of panicked gaze he had seen dozens of times before when collecting for Tocco. He made his best attempt at fleeing, only getting a couple of steps in before Stoker caught him by the collar and flung him against the brick wall of the alleyway. The large boy loomed over the small man, who had gone pale.
“Nice try,” Stoker said, crossing his arms over his chest and glaring at Ratch. “You borrowed from Mr. Tocco two weeks ago. The debt’s due.”
Ratch slowly, cautiously peeled himself off from where he had been pressed against the wall. “I-uh…well, the thing is…”
Here it comes, Stoker thought, his lip curling into a sneer.
“You don’t have it yet,” said the large boy, finishing the thought.
Ratch nodded. “Yes! It’s been hard down at the f-factory. The wage cuts they hit us with back in April haven’t been lifted, and e-everything still costs the sa–
Stoker cut the man’s nervous rambling off, seizing him by the scruff of his shirt and getting directly in his face. “I don’t give a shit if a goddamn meteor wiped the factory off the face of the earth yesterday. This ain’t a charity. Mr. Tocco says you gotta pay back at least fifty today.”
“I-I got some, but…,” Ratch stammered, gesturing towards the pocket of his overalls.
Stoker thrust his free hand into the pocket and plucked out a loose cluster of bills. He cast a suspicious glare at Ratch and began counting. “This is only thirty,” he said upon finishing.
Ratch swallowed. “It’s all I got. I swear.”
“Mr. Tocco said fifty or I break your thumb.”
Ratch was practically trembling. “Please, p-please, I can–
Stoker struck like a snake, seizing one of Ratch’s shaking hands in a flash of movement. Ratch thrashed like a caught fish as the large boy held him in an iron grip, yelling and pleading a way that Stoker always found obnoxious. With his other hand, Stoker grabbed ahold of Ratch’s thumb and, in one practiced jerk, broke it. The large boy felt the crack beneath his tight grip and knew he had gotten it. If that was not confirmation, then Ratch’s agonized shrieking certainly was. Stoker released the small man, who crumpled to the ground like a puppet whose strings had been cut. He made for a rather pathetic sight, moaning and writhing around as if he was on death’s doorstep, his mangled hand pressed against his chest. Perhaps Stoker should not have been surprised that Ratch started crying. So many of Tocco’s unreliable borrowers did, for all the good it did them.
Glancing down at the crying man’s overalls, Stoker caught sight of what looked like a bulge around his hip. Ratch gave no reaction as the large boy crouched down and began digging through his pocket, too preoccupied with his hand. Stoker pulled a flask from the pocket a moment later. He unscrewed the cap, and his nostrils were immediately filled with the pungent smell of cheap liquor.
“Wage cuts at the factory, huh?” Stoker sneered, making no effort to keep the disgust out of his voice. “You ain’t got the money to pay your debts to Mr. Tocco, but you got the money to buy this?” He jostled the flask in his hand for emphasis. Ratch gave only a pitiful whimper in his defense, his gaze remaining down on the ground. He barely flinched when Stoker turned his flask upside down and dumped every drop of liquor it held on to his head. Once it was empty, Stoker flung the flask aside contemptuously, which clanked against some rusty garbage piled up nearby in the alleyway. He glared down at Ratch, whose stringy hair was now soaked and dripping with alcohol. “Until you’ve paid back every cent you owe Mr. Tocco, I better not catch you buying a single drop of that stuff again. You understand me?”
Ratch gave no reply.
Stoker growled and kicked him in the shin, drawing a fresh groan of pain from the prone man. “Do you understand me?”
“Yes! For God’s sake, yes!”
Feeling the point had been made, Stoker pulled back from striking him again. He double-checked his pocket to make sure that he still had the thirty dollars Ratch had managed to scrounge together. If nothing else, it would be enough to keep Mr. Tocco from wanting some other part of Ratch’s body broken any time soon. Once content, Stoker made to leave, casting a glance back at the whimpering man still on the ground.
“When making any future payments, I strongly suggest you come see us,” Stoker said, pausing near the exit to the alleyway, “I’m gonna be a lot less gentle if I have to come looking for you again.”
It was nearly dark by the time Stoker made it back. It did not help that Sugar Hill was practically on the other end of the district from Tocco’s place, better known as The Fridge among the locals. There was a running joke that it was called the Fridge because only cold-hearted bastards could stand to be inside. The truth was that the large, abandoned brick building once housed a special repair shop for refrigerated train cars, the kind needed for transporting cuts of meat from the stockyards of District Ten to the Capitol. This also explained the long-forgotten tracks that ran along the back of the Fridge. At some point, the design on those special refrigerated train cars had improved substantially, enough so that the old repair shop had fallen into disuse and been abandoned by district authorities.
Exactly when Tocco had taken the building over, Stoker was not quite sure. At the very least, it was well before he was born. Even as a little kid, he had known not to mess with any of the rough-looking guys that hung around the Fridge. Back then, the place had a dark aura of mystery to him. When he was out roaming the streets of the district, he had often found himself watching the place from afar, imagining all sorts of nefarious black magic being conducted inside. He had loved to watch the guards out front, inventing a wide array of violent backstories for them and speculating about the weapons they were carrying.
Now, at seventeen, Stoker found it a bit ironic that he knew the Fridge so well that it had become mundane to him. The object of his childhood fascination, where he had imagined all sorts of schemes being concocted and shocking crimes concealed, was now just another of his daily stops. It was where he went for work. What had once been mysterious and forbidden was now as routine as going to one of the district’s meager stores.
There were two guards standing by the side door to the Fridge, which, despite being rather small, functioned as the main entryway since Tocco had ordered all the other doors on the ground floor barricaded shut. The guards out front carried no visible weapons, a precaution in case the peacekeepers happened to launch a surprise search. Considering their substantial sizes, their visible scars, and their generally unwelcoming dispositions, Stoker did not think they really needed much to deter unwelcome visitors. The guys Tocco put on the outer door were some of the only ones that matched Stoker’s imposing stature. Still, they knew him well, and nodded at the large boy as he passed through the door.
If one were to merely glance inside first floor of the Fridge, it would not be apparent that a single person had been inside the building in years. Old mechanical parts, broken tools, rusty bits of metal, shattered glass bottles, and an unseemly amount of dust filled the entire space. From the first day he had been inside, Stoker had never seen what the space looked like well-lit. Although there were light fixtures strung from the high ceiling, many with cracked or shattered bulbs, Tocco had never bothered to have them repaired so the space existed in a permanent state of darkness. It did not help matters that the large windows that lined the wall to Stoker’s right were all boarded up or blocked by piles of dilapidated junk.
In a way, Stoker could see the wisdom in Tocco’s thinking. Even if someone got by the guys he had on the door, there was absolutely nothing on the first floor of the Fridge that indicated that the building served any current purpose. It was only with an insider’s knowledge that Stoker wound his way through the maze of cobwebs and rusted machinery to reach the inconspicuous door at the back. Stoker rapped on the door five times in slow, steady strokes, not the rapid-fire, pounding sort of knocks that peacekeepers were prone to.
The door opened partway, and Stoker was suddenly bathed in a flood of light. Through his squinting eyes, he took in the familiar pointed face of Tocco’s doorman. “Hey, Cyl,” greeted the large boy. “Got a drop off for the boss.”
“Good to see ya, Stoke,” Cyl said, opening the door wider for him to enter. Once the teenager was inside, the guard promptly resecured the door, bolting the locks and resetting the thick wooden board that was a permanent fixture stretching across the closed entryway. The job done, Cyl returned to the chair he kept at the bottom of the dingy stairwell.
“How’ve things been today?” Stoker asked, taking in the familiar sight of Cyl’s sawn-off shotgun leaning against the wall beside his chair.
Cyl shrugged and plucked a nude magazine off the floor, his usual reading material while on duty. “Been slow. The boss sent quite a few boys off to collect the past few days, but you’re the only one that’s come back so far.”
Stoker felt a little swell of pride in his chest but tried to play it off. Nobody around the Fridge liked anyone who ran their mouth too much. “I got lucky. The fool was just walking around out in the open. He even had a nasty mark on his face that made him easy to pick out.”
The doorman hummed as he perused several pages of dirty photos. “He have the payment?”
Stoker shook his head. “No, but he ain’t got two good thumbs now either.”
Cyl chuckled along with him. “If I was gonna try to welch on a debt, I’d like to think I’d have enough sense to stay out of sight. What do these fools think is gonna happen to them if they don’t pay?”
“Beats me,” Stoker muttered, scratching at the patchy stubble on his chin. “There are more than enough folks in the district with broken bones that they should know Mr. Tocco ain’t likely to forget about money he’s owed.”
“Well, head on up,” Cyl said, beginning to hum some tune unknown to Stoker. “And watch yourself. Turb’s in a foul mood today.”
Stoker nodded at the doorman and bounded up the metal stairwell. On the second floor, the Fridge looked so different that it almost difficult to believe it was the same building. The space had apparently once been office space for the managers and engineers employed at the repair shop. After Tocco had taken the building over, the second floor became his headquarters.
Unlike the first floor, it was well-lit, somewhat clean, and as busy as a beehive. There were large windows that would have offered decent views of the surrounding area had they not been covered by thick curtains meant to keep anyone from being able to peer inside. To his left, Stoker could see Cotter, who oversaw Tocco’s morphling operation in addition to being his half-brother, bent over a table and flipping through a manifest as a Luka, Cotter’s son, stood beside him and prepared the morphling for the dealers by slipping vials of the illegal substance into the usual empty beer cans scavenged from the local dump. On the right, he spotted Turb, a big fellow with an abundance of tattoos and an equally permanent scowl. Turb handled the dangerous business of stealing and reselling all kinds of goods for Tocco, an assignment that seemed to be as stressful as it was lucrative. The area surrounding his desk was always chaotic, piled high with boxes of whatever had been lifted recently from the supply trains that passed through the district, all of which had to be sorted and repackaged before it could be sold. As he looked at Turb, Stoker noticed that his left sleeve was rolled up and a bandage was wrapped around his bicep with a few spots of blood seeping through the white gauze. As Stoker was pondering Turb’s injury and its possible causes, the older man caught him looking and sent a sharp glare his way.
“Stoker!” Piston’s loud voice called from his spot near the back wall, pulling the teenager’s attention from Turb’s hostility. Piston waved and beckoned him closer. Stoker readily complied, still feeling Turb’s glare on him as he turned away. “How are you?” Piston asked as Stoker approached his desk, which was covered with neatly piled papers filled with names and numbers, undoubtedly the carefully kept records of those foolish or desperate enough to borrow money from Tocco.
“Not too bad, I suppose,” Stoker answered, glancing at the buzzing old fan blowing in the corner, which was at least making some effort to cool the stuffy space down. “I collected from Coughlin.”
“Coughlin? Coughlin…” Piston muttered the name a few more times as he pushed his glasses up in his nose and began sifting through some of the papers on his desk. Not for the first time, Stoker thought that Piston did not have the fearsome appearance someone would expect for one of Tocco’s main lieutenants. Tall, thin, near-sighted, and balding, he looked like someone who should be working in the dusty stacks of an archive somewhere. The long scar on his jaw, undoubtedly from a blade of some kind, was the only physical indication that his life had ever included any kind of excitement.
“His first name is Ratch,” Stoker added, hoping to speed up the process.
“Ratch…oh, yes. Here it is,” Piston proclaimed, tapping his finger on the appropriate name and debt in his records. “How much did you get back?”
“Thirty,” Stoker answered, producing the wrinkled bills from his pocket and handing them to Piston, who promptly deposited them into the lockbox he kept on his desk that everyone knew not to touch if you planned on staying alive.
“And?”
“I gave him the usual for being short.”
Piston nodded and picked up one of the several pencils he kept in a coffee cup on his desk, scribbling a few notes onto the Coughlin’s record. Stoker was not really surprised by the older man’s lack of reaction. People had failed to pay Tocco countless times and suffered the consequences because of it. Considering how much older Piston was, he could only imagine how unimpressive it must all must seem to him.
“I told him to come by here to make the rest of the payments or else he’d get worse from me.”
Piston chuckled. “Well, now that he knows we’re not fucking around, hopefully you won’t have to go looking for him again.”
“He had a full flask on him.”
“I guess a man has to have something to keep him sane,” Piston said with a shrug, returning his papers to their neat piles.
Stoker scowled at the older man. “It’s funny how he had money for that but not for paying his debts.”
“Eh, most of the fools around here don’t give much thought about tomorrow. Not much point really. It’s likely to be as shitty as the day before. Trust me. I’ve been around a while.”
Stoker huffed. “I don’t think drowning yourself in booze is likely to make anything better.”
“Kid, you’re way too young to be this uptight.” Piston finished reordering his papers. He pushed his eyeglasses, which were slipping again, back up his nose and fixed Stoker with an assessing look. “Here,” he said, reaching into his desk and producing an envelope that he offered to the boy. “Maybe this will put a smile on your face.”
Hoping to avoid proving Piston right, Stoker did his best to keep any sign of excitement off his face as he took the envelope. “Isn’t it a little early for my cut? It’s Wednesday.” Even though it was sealed, he could feel the neat stack of bills packed inside.
Piston shrugged and leaned back in his chair. “Yeah, but I figured you earned it since you actually managed to collect something. God only knows what the rest of our guys are getting up to out there. Plus, if you’re feeling strong, you could put some of it on yourself in the fight tomorrow.”
Stoker rolled his eyes. “Why? So I can give it right back to you when you collect your percentage?” Tocco did not allow anyone else in the district to take bets on the fights except Piston, who in turn offered a tribute to the boss for the opportunity. Stoker could recall an incident from a few years prior when an upstart bookie had tried running an unauthorized operation, quietly taking bets on the all the fights the district had to offer. The peacekeepers finally found his body floating in the canal a few weeks later.
Piston’s face split into a sly grin. “Don’t be a grouch. It’s not my fault I have a gift for it. As I’ve told you before, I know how to pick winners and losers.” He tapped his chin with his finger, as if pondering a subject of the gravest importance. “Y’know, if you’re looking for some action on the dog fights, I got a few hounds in mind that are looking like they could pull an upset.”
A small chuckle rumbled through Stoker’s throat at Piston’s enthusiasm. While he did not put much faith in the idea of destiny, he could not deny that the older man was well-suited to his trade. “I’ll keep that in mind,” he replied, placing the envelope in one of his pockets and casting a glance towards the door. “Well, if that’s it…”
“Wait a minute,” Piston said, halting the boy and rising from his seat. “The boss said he wanted to see you earlier.”
Stoker froze. “Did he say what about?”
Piston shook his head.
Did he seem mad? Stoker squashed the thought, hating how childish it sounded. He could feel his palms beginning to sweat. “Was he upset about something?” he managed to ask.
“Nah, he seemed alright.” Piston clapped Stoker on the shoulder, offering a reassuring grin. “It could be good news.”
Stoker nodded, saying nothing else as Piston gestured towards the hallway that led away from the main area on the second floor. All three of Tocco’s main lieutenants shared the space, but the boss had his own private office, sequestered down a hallway towards the back. Stoker forced himself to begin the walk to Tocco’s office. Although the lights worked well in the main area, the ones towards the back had a habit of flickering on and off. Stoker could only guess that nobody had ever bothered to fix them because nobody worked in the small corridor. The effect left the small space in an ominous state of stuttering shadows. Tocco’s office was further back, near the emergency exit that led out to the fire escape, giving the boss the best opportunity of getting away in the event of a raid, although the chance of that was low.
As he approached Tocco’s office, the door swung open and Stoker all but jumped back. A large figure that Stoker immediately recognized emerged. His name was Declan. Even if the people of the district did not know the name, the certainly knew his face, who he worked for, and what he did. On occasion, Stoker had seen Declan sitting in the district’s cafes or perusing one of the local shops. He was always alone, with the other patrons always giving him a wide berth as if he carried something contagious. Stoker stood completely still as Declan emerged, like a rabbit hoping to avoid being spotted by a nearby predator, even though there was nothing to conceal him in the hallway. The big man was close to the teenager’s size, but somehow, without exerting any clear effort, he exuded an aura that sent a chill down the boy’s spine. Declan was smoking a cigarette as he walked, the smoldering little stick extending from his bushy beard and carrying its familiar acrid stench. His icy blue eyes briefly flicked towards Stoker as he passed him before shifting away in what the boy could only hope was disinterest.
Never could Stoker recall reaching Tocco’s office being such a relief as he straightened up and knocked on the open door. Inside, the office was much like it had always been; a well-stocked liquor cabinet towards the back, a bookshelf filled with an abundance volumes and ledgers, a large mahogany desk with a lit cigar burning in the ashtray, a tall lamp standing in the corner, and the familiar battle painting hanging on the wall behind Tocco’s leather chair. Seated behind the desk, was the man himself. Perhaps a bit like Piston, Tocco’s physical appearance seemed at odds with his position. He was a small man, his olive skin wrinkled by age, with thick tufts of silver hair that stuck out like the quills of a porcupine. Unlike many of his underlings, who were lax in their grooming standards, Tocco always looked as dapper as one could expect from a wealthy resident of District Six. He was clean-shaven, minus a thin, well-trimmed mustache, and was likely the only man aside from the mayor who could regularly be seen wearing a suit. He even had a gleaming silver watch on his wrist that most people would never wear for fear of being mugged for it.
Tocco looked up at Stoker’s knock. “Stoker, come in, come in,” he said, his lips splitting into a grin that revealed his gold tooth, an unthinkable extravagance for anyone else in the Six. “Shut the door behind you and have a seat.”
Stoker did as the old man requested, closing the door and sitting awkwardly in the wooden chair before Tocco’s desk. He was grateful it did not have armrests, or he doubted he would have been able to cram his enormous body into its confines. Even so, the chair creaked in protest at having the large boy’s immense weight pressing down on it. “Piston said you wanted to see me when I came by,” Stoker mentioned. He did not dare ask about Declan. The man’s mere presence signified that somebody in District Six was living on borrowed time.
“Yes, I did.” Tocco picked up his cigar and took a deep pull from it. The old man’s dark, almost black eyes studied him from behind the lenses of his glasses. “I wanted to check in with you before the fight tomorrow. How are you feeling?”
Stoker did his best not to fidget underneath Tocco’s scrutiny. “I feel good.”
“Just good?” Tocco blew a big burst of smoke into the air between them.
The boy hesitated, feeling as if the old man was searching for something but he could not quite be sure what. “I feel as well as I can, I suppose,” he finally said.
“Bagley hasn’t been beaten yet,” Tocco said, referencing his upcoming opponent. “He’s got some years on you, too.”
“Is there something you want to know, sir?”
Tocco grinned again. “I guess I’m trying to figure out who I should be putting my money on tomorrow.”
Stoker raised an eyebrow. If Tocco wanted a bigger payday, he could just demand a larger tribute from Piston for the privilege of taking the bets, although perhaps that did not carry the same sort of excitement as gambling and winning himself. “I’m sure Piston would be happy to advise you.”
“I’m sure he would, but I know you two are close,” Tocco said, leaning forward on his desk. “While I don’t think he would lie to me, I can’t have that clouding his judgement. I need to know from you if you think you have a shot at winning.”
Stoker raised his chin and met the old man’s gaze. “Yes.” He had seen Bagley fight a few times before. He was big and strong, like nearly all the guys who decided to enter the fights, and Stoker did not doubt that he could dish out some punishment. Several of his opponents had left the fight battered and bloodied. Still, somewhere inside, the boy knew that he could take it.
Tocco studied him closely. “Do you think you will win? Am I gonna be wasting my money if I put it on you?”
“I can take anything he has.”
Tocco actually laughed at that, although Stoker thought he spotted a look of approval on his weathered face. “Well, I suppose if you say anything else, you’re not much of a fighter. But okay. I like the confidence.”
As the old man talked, Stoker’s gaze flicked up to the painting that hung behind his desk. It was a strange picture, one that depicted a scene that almost certainly predated Panem. In it, a battle raged across some sun-drenched grassy field strewn with dead men and wounded horses. Soldiers in blue uniforms carrying archaic wooden rifles faced cavalrymen in red through a thick haze of smoke rising from firing lines and cannons. Further back, Stoker could see one of the cavalrymen skewering a helpless, blue-coated soldier with a lance, all while another took careful aim with his rifle.
“You like that painting?”
Tocco’s words shook the boy from his observations. “Huh?”
The old man gestured back towards it with a jerk of his head. “That painting. I found it a long time ago when I was cleaning out a basement. Not bad, right?”
“It’s nice, sir.”
“It’s also a good reminder of certain things, certain truths that you never want to lose sight of. For one, life’s a battle. Always has been, always will be. If you ain’t ready to fight, someone a lot meaner than you are is gonna fuck you up sooner or later.”
Stoker pondered that statement for a moment. After years of struggling to survive on his own in District Six, he could not quite say that Tocco had it wrong. Maybe somewhere where there was enough to eat, laws were fair, and parents actually looked after their kids, things could be different. Still, he learned that he would have to fight to survive a long time ago, perhaps from the first time one of the older boys at the community home stole his breakfast ration. “There’s wisdom in that,” Stoker admitted.
Tocco snorted. “Of course there is. I especially like that fella,” he said, pointing towards the blue-coated soldier aiming his rifle at the oncoming cavalrymen. “He’s a man after my own heart.”
“What do you mean?”
“He clearly learned something that it took me quite a few scars to learn.” Tocco puffed on his cigar again and smirked. “When someone wants to destroy you, kid, it’s best to put them in the ground before they get the chance.”
It was far from the worst advice he had ever received. Even though his fight with Bagley would likely not be lethal, Stoker could see the wisdom in trying to finish his opponent off as swiftly as possible. “I’ll keep that in mind,” he said.
Tocco nodded and waved his hand, a silent signal that it was time for Stoker to go. As the boy rose from his uncomfortable chair, the old man spoke again, “I’m gonna be taking you in the fight tomorrow, kid. I sincerely hope you don’t let me down.”
Darkness had fallen by the time Stoker made it back home. If asked, he could not say that his home really amounted to much, although that was not uncommon in District Six. His home was merely a room he rented at the large but decaying house of Lewis Exner, a retired factory worker who somehow squirreled away enough money over his decades of toiling to purchase the old wooden home and managed to live long enough to actually enjoy some peace in his final years. The house had five bedrooms, two on the ground floor and three on the second. Exner lived in one on the first floor while the remainder, including Stoker’s room on the second floor, were rented out.
The porchlight was on as Stoker made his way up the creaking steps, digging around in his pocket for his housekey. It was a good sign that the power was on. It never failed near the factories or the peacekeepers’ barracks, but further out in the purely residential areas was another matter, especially for the southern part of the district. As he opened the door, he heard the familiar sound of the ridiculous Capitol news program that Exner always watched on the television in the living room when the electricity was flowing.
“Who is it?” came the familiar, gruff voice of Exner from the living room, temporarily overpowering the strange Capitol accents and their elongated vowels. “I have a knife on me, ya know!”
Stoker nearly snorted at the implied threat. The old coot could barely spread jam on his toast in the morning. “Relax, old man. It’s me, Stoker,” he called back.
“Lock the door behind you.”
Rolling his eyes, Stoker did as the old man requested. He had certainly seen enough in his years wandering the streets of District Six to lock the door without being reminded. He briefly considered heading to the kitchen and attempting to prepare oatmeal or something else to eat before he dismissed the idea. He could not remember if they had gotten enough wood for the stove, one of the few necessities that all residents of the house contributed money towards purchasing. His bed also called to him with ever growing urgency.
The boy yawned as he hauled himself up the musty staircase of the house, not reacting when he heard the familiar squeak that never failed to emit from the third step from the top when he placed his wide foot on it. The doors to the other two rooms on the second floor were both shut with no sound escaping from within. Whether his neighbors were asleep or out somewhere, Stoker did not bother to check. They could handle their own business just fine without him butting in.
His door was locked, as it always was. After digging his room key out of his pocket, opening the door, and letting himself inside, Stoker was quick to shut it and lock it again. He released a big sigh, relishing the sense of security that always came from being shut up in his room, closed off from the entirety of the outside world. The small lamp that he kept on an old crate beside his mattress provided more than enough light to get ready for bed. He could see the large wooden trunk that Piston had helped him scavenge from an estate sale, which held all his clothes and most of his limited worldly possession within its scuffed confines. On the other side of the room, there was window with a view into the backyard, complete with patchy grass and a hackberry tree that was as tall as the house. Out in the darkness, Stoker could see a few fireflies flickering, yet another sign that summer had arrived.
The boy dropped his keys on the crate near his bed and sat down on the mattress to remove his shoes. He was about to strip off his pants when he felt the envelope Piston had given him in his pocket. He dug it out and ripped the paper open, immediately gratified to see a neat stack of bills inside. After he counted it up, he felt embarrassed even though he was alone. There was more there than he expected, more than he was owed. Once again, Piston had helped him out, done something nice for him when he did not have to. Giving him his cut early was already a favor, but this?
Stoker shook his head, pushing his muddled feelings aside and rising from the bed. He crossed the room and found the right floorboard, completely indistinct from the others to the untrained eye but of great importance to the boy. Reaching down, he pulled it free, revealing a small pile of bills, every bit of money Stoker had managed to save since he started working for Tocco three years prior, even with unforeseen expenses eating into it periodically. He added the portion he had gotten that day before crumpling the empty envelope into a ball and tossing it into the corner of the room. He then returned the floorboard to its place, making sure it was secure before rising to his feet.
He supposed he better get some rest. Still, before he moved to turn off the light, the boy began to search the room. Down on his hands and knees, he checked the old baseboards, just like he had for hundreds of nights before, unwilling to go to bed before he had seen with his own eyes that there were no signs of rodents anywhere. He ignored the smell of mold that never quite left the old walls of his room, even looking behind his trunk to make sure that there were no visible droppings or gnaw marks hiding there. Even without any visual evidence that the vermin were inside his room, Stoker knew that after he had turned off the lights and climbed onto his bed, his ears would be listening closely for however long it took for him to fall asleep, listening for the repulsive, terrifying sounds of the little beasts scurrying around in the dark.