“First night, he was up against some Gleb boys, and a pair from Alt Selene that throw their lines back at each other. He stumbled through a sestina and got a weak hand off the stage. Come back next week, I said. And he did. Surprised the hells out of me. You know what happened then?”

“Same thing?”

He nodded. “Same thing. He barely got words out of his mouth that time. Doggerel about flowers or some shit like that. Even worse reaction from the crowd, but he grinned like an idiot at the end, as if he knew he’d gone bad along the way, and having someone tell him so was the highest order of compliment. Next week, same poor show, bigger smiles. The boys got fresh with him. You ever meet Cabe and them?”

“No.”

“Big fellows, work down dockside. Old-style Kavekana boys. You know.”

Kai knew.

“Time was, they’d all be off on a ship hauling rock or salt pork or oil or whatever cross the ocean, with a captain’s whip over their heads. Which would have been good for them.”

“Because beatings make better men.”

“Hells no. Just that bad times pull folk together. Mad captain, he builds a crew. Ocean does, too. And age—age’s harsher than a whip. Point is, if you’re a young man and you have nothing harder than a clock to fight against, ’fore long you make up things to do with your time. And one of those might be, you know, find a poet you don’t like and jump him in an alley while he’s drunk and taking a piss, and beat him until there’s a stain on his pants and he bleeds from the nose and mouth.”

“Gods.”

He raised his hands. “Well, yeah. I mean. I saw what was going to happen, too late, when Eve told me Cabe’d settled up their bill early. I walked out after, to stop them.”

“You?” She tried to keep the surprise from her voice.

“They aren’t bad kids, understand. Bored. Young. Angry. They wouldn’t jump an old vet.” He slapped his sagging left bicep with his right hand.

“Awful lot of trust to put in thugs.”

“Nobody’s a thug from birth. So out back I went, and found them.”

“How bad was he?”

“They were all bad.”

“You mean Margot fought.”

“No. Margot was beat up proper. Face swollen, lips busted. The kids, though, they were cringing. Scared. Most unconscious. One awake and babbling. I say pain can make a man: those boys got scars that night they’ll wear with pride one day, once the fear fades enough to let pride back in. That’s the last mugging they’ll ever try.”

“Margot beat them up?”