The prisoner seems cowed. “This is how the Ratel works,” he says, his voice and eyes flat. They’ve drugged him, or broken through some other way. “The Ratel’s hierarchy is set up like a chess game. The Pawn is the lowest level. They run errands, stand guard, collect extortion money from businesses. Deliver drugs or guns. Drive cars. They do what they’re told and hope they make a name for themselves. If they do well, they might get promoted to Knight. Some people directly enter the Ratel at this level, but not many. To become a Knight, you have to prove yourself by committing a … worse crime than the ones you have already committed.” The man pauses, swallows. He seems haunted.

“What did you do?” the detective asks.

“I had to kill someone,” he rasps, and he shuts his eyes.

“Who?”

“It doesn’t matter. They were invisible.”

The detective frowns. “What –?”

“Do you want to know how the Ratel works or not?” the prisoner interrupts, harsh.

“Go on. Do you want water?”

The prisoner shakes his head. He pauses again, staring down at the table, as if gathering strength. “After that, you can graduate to a Rook or a Bishop, each with subtly different roles in the organization. They’re all under the King, of course, but Pawns and Knights hardly ever see him.”

“Do you know who the King is?”

“I’m a Knight, so what do you think?”

“That’s not a yes or a no.”

“It’s a no, you dick.” The prisoner leans away from the table, the chains of his handcuffs clinking together. He lifts his head in a defiant tilt. “That’s all I’m telling you.”

The detective opens his mouth to respond, but the scene dissolves.

“Do you know who the King is?”

The question again, asked by a different voice. The faces of the two people in the room are blurred this time, to protect the identities.

“Ensi,” the other person whispers, and the word picks up, echoing around the room: Ensi, Ensi, Ensi.

“Who is the Queen?” the voice asks. The Queen is the right hand—and like the chess piece, she goes anywhere. Does anything. Including some of the worst crimes in the Ratel. Most of the time, if you’re invited to see the Queen alone, you don’t leave the room alive. All this information slots into place.

The other blurred face responds: “Malka.” It, too, reverberates around the room. That’s all they have on the King and Queen. Whispered names or aliases. How they truly function, who’s closest to them—the SFPD hasn’t cracked any of that. Even after two years, Nazarin has only seen Malka a few times, and has never seen Ensi.