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"That's my house," Cotswald said as they slowed below a brownstone monstrosity, pregnant with a glass-roofed patio thick with potted plants. "Should say, the top floor is mine. I rent out the bottom floor to a colonel and his family. Helps to have friends in the City Guard."
"I admire the neighborhood," Valentine said. Duvalier tapped her fingers on her walking stick.
"But I'm hardly ever there. I usually sleep at the office. Hard to make good when you don't have your own bank, but I couldn't manage it. The faces get to me."
Valentine marked Cotswald as one of the Kurian Zone survivors who made himself as comfortable as possible without hindering the regime. Born in a different time and place, would I shuffle loads of rice and beans in and out of my warehouses? Trade in a few luxuries on the side?
Look the other way to avoid the faces?
Docks with tethered small craft filled the riverbank. Valentine saw the soldiers of the City Guard everywhere, the russet-colored cotton uniforms and canvas-covered sun-helmets going everywhere in pairs. Pairs searching boats, pairs driving in small vehicles Valentine had heard called "golf carts," pairs walking along the raised wooden promenades.
They got out of the way for the Hummer.
"South end of the riverfront is strictly family fun," Cotswald said as they passed into an amusement park. Valentine marked a merry-go-round in operation and a Ferris wheel giving a good view of the area. Many of the other rides were motionless. "You should see it on Jubilation Day, or Peace Week. People camped out all over the hillside. Great time. Except for the Year Forty-three shelling. The vicious bastards across the river dropped artillery shells all over the place the last night of Peace Week. Killed hundreds. Hasn't felt the same since."
"That was-" Duvalier began.
"Horrible," Valentine cut in. "Macon radio carried the story." He'd heard some Wolves talking about it after the Kurian propaganda broadcasts. Evidently they'd hired mercenaries to do it, then killed the three gun crews. A patrol from Bravo Company found the bodies and shell casings.
The Pyramid grew larger as they approached. Valentine had underestimated its size at first glance. It too had a superstructure capping it, a tall, thin tower with a mushroomlike top, a tiny umbrella perched atop the great canvas-colored structure.
Valentine had never seen anything that more perfectly summed up what Mali Carrasca called Vampire Earth: a ruin from the old world, a pyramid of power, with a Kurian at the very top, looking down on the foreshortened, antlike inhabitants of his domain.
"That's some setup Moyo's got."
"It's an old convention center," Cotswald said, wheezing a little more. "Kind of a city to itself. Every riverman on the big three has his own story about his visits there. The Chicago or Vegas or New York girls got nothing on Moyo's; he takes his pick from the deposits across half a continent."
"I'm going to make Jacksonville compete," Valentine said.
"Moyo was young once too," Cotswald said, eyeing the gap in Valentine's shirt that showed the chain to the brass ring.
"What do you do for him?" Valentine asked.
"Run a little booze and high-grade beef."
"He pay you with parties?"
"No, I don't go in for that-not that I'm disapproving of your line of work, Stu. He's got his own clothing lines. When his girls aren't working they're sewing. Some of the fashions you saw downtown, they come from his Graceland label. I sell 'em to shops as far away as Des Moines and Chattanooga."
Duvalier had fallen asleep in the back of the Hummer. Her eyes opened again when it came to a stop.
Cotswald had brought them to the north edge of the commercial docks. A fresh concrete pier and wharves built out of what looked like rubble sat in the shadow of what must have once been a great bridge across the Mississippi. A low, tree-filled peninsula hugged the Memphis side. A rail line ran up into the city from its main tracks, running perpendicular to the old east-west interstate. Valentine saw platform cars being loaded with bags and barrels from the river craft.
"That's the river shuttle," Cotswald said. "My warehouses are at the other end of it."
A narrow pedestrian bridge jumped a few hundred feet of rail line and jumbled rubble separating the Pyramid from the rest of Memphis. Houseboats like suckling baby pigs lined up along the river side of the Pyramid in the channel between the tree-filled island and the Pyramid's plaza.
"You get a lot of boat traffic in Jacksonville?" Cotswald asked.
"A few big ships and a lot of small, intracoastal traders. Looks like you've got your share too."
"That big white one up against Mud Island is Moyo's yacht. Hey, your girl alright?"
Duvalier had sagged against the side of the Hummer.
"You okay, Red?" Valentine asked.
"Just a little faint," she said.
