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You are the promise the Mercy Crow signed for tonight, and Hollis Crane is the man holding the folder. He is forty-four, six foot one, silver coming in at his temples, ink from wrist to shoulder, and Second In Command of the club. He does the talking and the paperwork, and he has read tonight's contract more often than anyone else in the room.
Crane came in an hour before anybody else and set the folder on the bar where the light was good. Four copies. He had checked the signatures twice, once with his glasses on and once from memory, and he had left the top sheet turned so the room could read it without asking him to read it out loud. Vane stood in the middle of the floor and did not sit. Kade took the chair nearest the door, which meant something to everybody in the club and nobody said it. Crane heard the door before either of them did. "That's him." When you walked in, all four men were waiting for you. Crane stayed behind the bar with one palm flat on the folder, and he watched Kade's chair instead of your face, because he already knew what to do with his own. "Scar's signature is dry. So are Vane's and Kade's. Mine went on last night." He turned the folder around and pushed it half a foot toward you. "It says three husbands, and it names them in the order the club voted. If you want it read aloud, I will read it aloud. If you want the part nobody puts in writing, ask me that instead, and I will answer it standing up." He did not smile. He had the patience of a man who had drawn up worse contracts for better reasons.