“I’m finally out, Jacks. What do you want me to say?”

“You know I got no one else to call, right? Now that Mickey’s unreachable and Yuri’s dead, no one else will even take my call. And I’d like to have a job to go back to when I’m out of here.”

“Maybe you should consider a different line of work?”

“You finding it real easy to move on, Annie? It’d be about a million times harder for me, you know.”

“You’re not my problem,” I said, and then I hung up the phone.

I went back into Natty’s room, where she was folding up a raincoat. She wanted to know who had been on the phone. “No one,” I said.

“No one?” she repeated.

“Jacks. He’s worried that Fats is…” I let my voice trail off. If Fats was running Balanchine Chocolate into the ground, it wasn’t necessarily my problem, but it could definitely be my opportunity. “Excuse me, Natty. I have to go make a call.”

I went back out to the kitchen. If I were to make a go at this, I’d need a lawyer. I thought about calling Mr. Kipling, but we hadn’t been on the best of terms since Simon Green’s return. I thought about calling Simon Green, but I didn’t trust him. The greater problem with Mr. Kipling and Simon Green was that both men had spent their whole careers defending people from the wrong side of the law and what I needed right now was someone who played for the angels.

I thought about calling Charles Delacroix. In terms of drawbacks, he had thrown me in a reformatory twice, and also, Win would hate it.

It really did make the most sense to call Mr. Kipling. Maybe we’d had some hard times, but he was a good man and he was always on my side. At the very least, Mr. Kipling would be able to point me in the direction of the kind of lawyer I thought I needed.

I picked up the phone. I was about to dial Mr. Kipling when I found myself pressing the numbers for Win’s apartment instead. Win answered the phone. “Hello,” he said.

I didn’t reply.

“Hello,” Win repeated. “Is anyone there?”

I could have abandoned the idea right then. I could have just asked Win if he wanted to come over. I could have at the very least told him what I was thinking. But I didn’t do any of these things.

This might sound low to you, but I decided to disguise my voice. I made it deep and husky and a bit New York. “I’m calling for Charles Delacroix,” I purred. I was no vocal chameleon and part of me expected Win to burst out laughing and say, Annie, what are you playing at?

“Dad!” I heard Win yell. “Telephone!”

“I’ll take it in the office!” Charles Delacroix called back.

A second later, Charles Delacroix picked up the phone, and I heard Win hang up. “Yes?” “It’s Anya Balanchine,” I said.

“Well, this is a surprise,” Charles Delacroix replied.

“I’m going to do it,” I said. “I’m going to open the medicinal cacao dispensary.” “Good for you, Anya. That’s terribly industrious,” he said. “What changed your mind?”

“I saw a window—an opportunity that was too good to pass up,” I said. “I’m thinking that you should be my business lawyer.”

Charles Delacroix cleared his throat. “Why would I ever do that?”

“Because you have the expertise in city government and because you have nothing else to do and because I know you think it’s a good idea.”

“Let’s meet,” Charles Delacroix said finally. “I don’t have an office other than at home, and it would appear that you’re keeping this information from your boyfriend, my son, so…”

We agreed to meet at my apartment. Although I’d met with Charles Delacroix many times and under far more trying circumstances, I was still nervous. I took a while deciding what to wear. I didn’t want to look like a schoolgirl, but I also didn’t want to look like a little girl playing dress-up. I finally picked a pair of gray pants that might have been Daddy’s though I couldn’t say for certain and a black tank top that Scarlet had left at some point. The pants were too big so I belted them below the waistband. I looked at myself in the mirror behind the door and concluded that the outfit was silly. The doorbell rang—too late to change.

I invited Mr. Delacroix into our living room. He still hadn’t shaved, but it looked like his beard might have been trimmed.

“Tell me about your plan.” Charles Delacroix sat down on the couch and crossed his legs.

“You, um, already know the basic idea. I’ve done a little research since then.” I turned on my slate. I had made notes there, but as I scanned them, they looked less thorough than I had thought they would. “So, you’ll obviously know that the Rimbaud Act of 2055 banned cacao and specifically choc —”

“I can remember when it happened, Anya. I was a little younger than you and Win are now.” “Right. But, well, the law was designed to stop the food companies from producing chocolate.

Most cities, including this one, still allow the sale of pure cacao in small quantities as long as it’s for medicinal purposes. I guess this includes beauty products but it can also include anything health-related. So, what I thought is, I could start with a small store, less than five hundred square feet, maybe somewhere uptown, so that I wouldn’t compete with Fats. I’d hire a doctor, and a waitress, and I’d sell medicinal health drinks, made from cacao and chocolate. But where it would be different from Fats is that everything would be in the open. I wouldn’t have to be underground.”

“Hmm,” he replied. “It’s clever, as I already told you, but you’re thinking too small.” I asked him what he meant.

“I’ve worked in government a very long time. Do you know the way to get the city to leave you alone? Be the biggest business out there. Be an elephant right smack in the middle of Midtown. Be popular. Give the people a product they want, and the whole city will be on your side. They’ll be grateful to you for making legal what they thought should never have been illegal in the first place.” He paused. “Also, medicinal cacao dispensary has no ring to it. People won’t even know what you’re talking about. Hire your doctors and your nutritionists, but you need to make the whole enterprise sound sexy.”

I considered his words. “What you’re describing could cost a lot of money.” I had Natty and Leo to think of.

“True, though it could also make you a lot of money. And as for the space, that’ll be cheap as the city has more mammoth abandoned spaces than it knows what to do with. How do you think those criminals who run Little Egypt manage it? You should have dancing, too, by the way.”

“Dancing? Are you saying I should open a nightclub?”

“Well, that makes it sound tawdry. How about a lounge? Or just a club. I’m thinking out loud here. If it were a club, all the members would need to have prescriptions before they could join. It would be a requirement of membership. Yes, then you wouldn’t even need the doctors on-site.”

“Those are, um, interesting ideas. You’ve certainly given me a lot to consider.”

Charles Delacroix didn’t say anything for a while. “I’ve been thinking about this ever since you called me and I want to help you do this. Because I respect you, I’m going to be completely candid about why I want to help. It isn’t because I like chocolate or you, although I do. The fact of the matter is, I’m a failure right now. However, if I give chocolate back to the people, I’ll be a hero. What better platform for me to run for DA or even some other, higher office?”

I nodded.

“So, why do you want me to help you?” Charles Delacroix asked. “Don’t you already know? You always know everything.” “Humor me.”

“Because you have a reputation for being ethical and always on the side of the good, and if you say this is legal, people will believe you. What I learned during those months I was away is how much I don’t want to spend my whole life in hiding, Mr. Delacroix.”

“Fine,” he said. “That makes sense.” He offered me his hand to shake and then he pulled it back. “Before we agree on this venture, I need you to know something. I don’t think anyone knows what I’m about to say, but if it came out later, I don’t want you to be shocked—I poisoned you last fall.” He said this as if he’d been asking me to pass the sugar.