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“Yes?”
“About making a trip to New Orleans. ”
“When?”
“Soon. Real soon. ”
“That’s … quite a ways off, for a jaunt. May I ask why you’ve chosen such a destination?”
“An old friend wants me to run an easy job, down there on the Gulf. It wouldn’t interfere with anything you’re asking—not at all—and New Orleans has everything you’re looking for. ”
“And then some, I’d bet. ”
“You’d bet right,” Cly said. He was surprised to hear himself selling the idea, but he sold it anyway. “It’s huge, and with all those Texians on the premises, you can bet I’ll find plenty of good industrial-quality wares. They’ve got the best machine shops on the continent. ”
“I’ve heard as much,” Yaozu said, considering the possibilities. “I wouldn’t have thought it’d be worth the trouble, to send you so far away. But if you’re already going … it might work out well for us both. Two of my engineers are Texians, or they were. They’ve been known to complain about things I can’t provide them—instruments and tools they wish they had, or equipment they can’t necessarily find on the West Coast. ”
Cly said, “Ask them what they want. I’ll get it for them. I’ll kill two birds with one stone, Yaozu—yours and mine. ”
“And you’ll collect two flight fees for a single trip. ”
“There’s that, yes,” the captain admitted, counting up the coins in his head. Between what Josephine was offering and Yaozu’s bold statement that he’d double the usual asking price … there was enough money in the trip to make major plans.
Life-changing plans. Settling-down plans.
The Chinaman contemplated the pros and cons, staring alternately into space and into the captain’s eyes. After a few moments of deliberation, he declared, “I like the sound of it! I’ll speak with my engineers, and you and I shall confer again shortly. ”
/> With that, he made a short, dipping bow and excused himself down the far passage to the right. He disappeared on the other side of a sign that said KING STREET. Before long, even his shadow and footsteps were lost to the buried city.
Captain Cly stood in the moldering chamber, chewing over the conversation, replaying it in his head—trying to figure out how much to believe, and how much to accept regardless of whether it was true or not.
Yaozu had been an unknown quantity back in the bad old days, suspicious for the obvious fact that he kept so close to a capricious madman. Even his fellow Chinamen didn’t trust him, for they had suffered too much at Minnericht’s hands. And Angeline, last surviving royalty of Chief Seattle’s reign, had made concerted efforts to kill him. Under the best of circumstances, it would have been difficult for the primarily white, working-class doornails to warm up to the oriental man with the educated voice and a millionaire’s manners. And now that he was running the empire that remained—whether it was by default, ambition, or some other power mechanism yet undetermined—the enigma of his presence was both a blessing and a curse.
On the one hand, he managed an operation that peddled poison to willing takers. On the other, he’d done an admirable job of holding the underground together while leaving the doornails in peace. Therefore, complaining was kept to a superstitious minimum, as if Yaozu might change his mind or vanish, only to be replaced with someone worse if too much ill were spoken of him.
“Strange persons such as ourselves,” Cly recalled out loud.
He resolved to await the list with an open mind and an open pocket, and he approached the great vault door.
From the outside, it looked like the portal of an enormous bank—which it had been, once upon a time. The spinning lock jutted like the spokes of a wheel, and though the combination to this lock had been long-since lost or forgotten, it had been rigged to open to a different key. Now, when a visitor wished to come inside, all he had to do was pull a lever hidden beneath the panel. Unless the door had been barricaded from within, it would open with a tug.
Cly lifted the panel and pulled the lever with its rubber grip and rusting hinge. With a creak and a low moan, the heavy door swung out, and Cly descended the uneven steps down into Briar’s living quarters in a basement beneath a basement, two cool, secure stories deep underground.
Three
Night at the Café du Monde was illuminated with strings of hanging lanterns anchored to gas lamps on pillars; candles in jars made the small tables bright enough for beignets and coffee blended with chicory root. These small bubbles of light pocked the darkness and gave the impression of privacy in public, a place where people might be seen, but they might not be observed. It was never quiet, always bustling with the kitchen fryers and workers calling back and forth, taking and filling orders. The café always hummed with the noise from the river off to one side, and the street on the other—ships’ horns and paddle wheels, horse carts and singing, drunken partiers, the patrols and bickering of soldiers, and the music of a dozen bands playing for their supper within half as many blocks.
Josephine Early was careful to keep the lace from her gloves away from the candles, and the napkin in her lap was covered in powdered sugar—but not a drip of coffee. She was joined by Marylin Quantrill and Ruthie Doniker, both of whom nibbled and sipped along with her. Together they chatted about virtually nothing, and at length, until the four slowly sobering Texians at the table beside them finally rallied and staggered back to their barracks.
Marylin raised the white mug to her lips, blew at the steamy mists of the still-warm beverage, and said, “We aren’t meeting much luck at the airyard, ma’am. Lots of fellows are interested in us, but only for the usual reasons. ”
“And we aren’t finding useful foreigners, either. ” Ruthie, darker and by some accounts prettier, sighed and discreetly adjusted her bodice. She was thin as a waterbird, and twice as graceful. “Nothing but Rebels and Texians. And a very pretty Spaniard, but he wasn’t a pilot. Perhaps a new customer, though?” She lifted her mug and an eyebrow at the same time, and hid her smile behind her coffee.
“A new one for you?” Josephine asked. “Be careful, love. ”
“A new one for me, maybe. He is very beautiful, and the Spanish … they are almost as easy as the French in these things. ”
Marylin asked, “What about you, ma’am? Have you found anyone to fly for us?”
