Son of Fortune (32 page)

“And what lesson would that be, sir?” Aiden interrupted angrily.

Mr. Worthington sighed. “That industry is a machine that can't be stopped. That a machine cares for nothing except feeding itself—like a thresher in the wheat cares nothing for the field mouse it catches up and crushes.”

“Men are not mice.”

“But machines are still machines,” Worthington said wearily.

“You're right,” Aiden said, trying to keep his voice steady. “I have learned much about business now. I've seen harsh labor. I've done it myself. I've seen slaves worked. But the guano mines are beyond any of that. They are beyond hell. The coolies are starved and worked to death, most in a year or two! Tell me, how does that make sense in any way? To transport them from the other side of the world—six months in a ship—then work them to death? What if the coolies had three cups of rice a day instead of two? And two quarts of water instead of one? What would that cost to business?”

“You tell me,” Mr. Worthington said, setting his glass down on the little table. “You've just been there. You know the cost of rice and water. You know the cost of labor and shipping and ground transport, and the price of guano in the market. Do the sums. If three cups of rice will yield your investors a better profit—or at least ease their consciences for a small enough price—you may fatten the coolies as much as you want.”

“I don't know the cost of a human life,” Aiden said.

“The cost doesn't matter if no one will pay it,” Mr. Worthington said.

“How much profit do the rich really need?” Aiden looked down at the luxurious carpet with its elegant swirls. “Would your investors really flee if this were a lesser rug?”

“Yes,” Worthington said, with genuine sadness. “My investors would flee if there were a flaw in the seam of my suit. If my cigars were from Florida, not Cuba. If that decanter were Bohemian crystal instead of French.” He looked out the window and sighed. “I could probably get along without the polar bears, however. So how would your life have turned out then, my rich young man?”

Aiden's face burned with anger, embarrassment and confusion. “I would have made do.”

“I'm sure you would have.” He said this earnestly, with no sarcasm.

“The rich would still be very comfortable.”

“No one dreams of being comfortable.” Mr. Worthington stood up and smoothed out his jacket. “The dream of being comfortable brought us better stoves and lamps. The dream of being rich is bringing a railroad across a continent.” He tapped the toe of his impeccable shoe on a crimson rosette. “You did not walk across the country hoping for potatoes.”

Actually he had, Aiden thought. When he and Maddy had started their journey, he might have killed for a potato.

“I don't want to live that way,” Aiden said.

“Well, you don't have to,” Worthington said. “That is your decision to make. And you know what a rare privilege that is. I will ask you one favor. Give yourself time before you decide anything. You've been home barely three days. Wait until you can sleep through the night. The worst demons always haunt the midnight garden. The guano is in the warehouse, the ship is safely in the harbor. Peter has missed you, I think—who can know? But the ducklings certainly have. Come back to life for a while. There is plenty of time to decide. It's winter, everything is bleak. And you're only seventeen.”

iden left the house by the front door. He didn't want to have to talk to Christopher and Elizabeth in the garden or the servants in the kitchen. All he wanted was to walk and think—or not think. He had no idea what he was feeling, only that he hated this new life, with its constant traps and riddles and slippery ideas, where everything was really something else and then something else behind that, like the shifting scenery and illusion in the theater. But what life would he choose instead? What life was there to go back to? Bribing his way to a job on the docks? Slicing up dead horses in the knacker's yard? Back in Kansas, stuck for life behind the plow? The lumber camp seemed very attractive right now—that dark green world where the work was hard but the rules were simple: cut down trees, eat, sleep, fight. Was it really only a year since he had left? It felt like a lifetime. But he could not go back there without risking jail or worse.

It was early evening and the streets were busy. Carriages carried businessmen home. The day maids walked home in laughing groups, gathering up their friends from other grand houses as they went. The winter dark came early, and the lamplighter was already working his way along the street, leaving a string of little glows behind him as he passed. There was a good job, Aiden thought. How did one get to be a lamplighter?

What he really wanted right now was a good fight. Sometimes he just felt his insides build up like a storm and there was no other way to let it go. Even the pain from a fight was comforting in a weird way. Pain from a fight was clear. You hurt because someone punched you. It wasn't like this inside pain, this unending twist of doubt and confusion.

The Barbary Coast was not at all scary now—it seemed more like a silly charade of badness. The same touts and thugs still lurked in the shadows, but they were like actors on a stage. Aiden knew the tangled streets by now, even after months away, and felt at ease walking through them. He went into one of the basement saloons and drank a shot of bad whiskey. Almost immediately a woman came up beside him. Her eyes were cloudy, and the red powder on her cheeks was caked into the wrinkles of her skin. She had thin, raised scars across her forehead, nose and chin. She wasn't old, but plenty had gone wrong for her.

“Are you looking for company?” she said.

“No,” Aiden said, sliding off the rough stool. “Thank you.”

“Come on—I'm gifted.”

“What would you do for a hundred dollars?” Aiden asked.

“I'm not a hundred-dollar whore,” she said, scraping some blackened ooze from the corner of her eye. “But if you're daft enough to pay that much, I can do whatever you want.”

“What if I told you a man had to die for that hundred dollars?”

She sighed and rolled her eyes. “All the more reason to spend it on me, as he won't be needing it.”

“Ah, well, that's true.” Aiden had to smile. He gave her a dollar and went back out into the muddy street. He wasn't likely to find any fight in that place. Or anywhere this early. Neither liquor nor passion would be high enough for hours. A thin fog had settled in, condensing on the wool of his coat in tiny droplets that the ducklings called ladybug tears. The mud sucked at his boots.

He saw Blind Sally in a dark corner across the street. She was dressed the same as when he had last seen her, in the military coat, but with a bright red-and-blue-striped scarf added to thwart the cold wind. She was leaning against a wall, one palm pressed on the stone as if feeling the vibration of the city. Somehow she looked both frail and mighty at the same time, like she was holding up the building but quivering under the exertion of it. The Moon, as always, sat attentively by her side. The dog stiffened as Aiden approached, and gave out a low woof of warning.

“It's a friend, Blind Sally,” he said. “Aiden Madison—if you remember me.”

“Of course I remember you,” she said. “New lad jumped and robbed, turned a fancy lad with the rich boy, turned a sea captain and went to sea. Now you're back alive. So I'll take my fee!” She held out her small, crooked palm, steady as the equator.

“And what am I paying a fee for?” he asked, fishing for coins in his pocket.

“For the ship I sent you, for that's what! The black bird ship.”

His heart skidded sideways. “The
Raven
?”

“Aye. That one.” She curled her fingers. “Give on, then.”

“What do you mean, you sent me the ship? I won it in a card game.”

“Yes, you did—ha! So you did. And that happens every day about the place, does it? ‘I'll see your jacks and here's a ship'—easy as that.”

Aiden pressed some coins into her tissuey palm.

“What story are you telling?” he asked.

Blind Sally felt the coins and deemed them adequate, then gave an exaggerated shrug and pulled her scarf tighter around her shoulders. “Too cold to be standing around outside telling stories. Especially as being thirsty.”

“All right, then, come have a drink with me,” Aiden offered, as he knew she expected.

“Not in your fancy place. They won't let The Moon in, or me either.”

“Anywhere you like.”

“Come down the way, then. Where they like The Moon and pour a good level. Come down to Paradise.”

Aiden followed her down the darkening street. Paradise was slightly better than a cellar with planks, but not much. It had tables and chairs, a few lamps and a stuffed bear's head with peeling strips of fur on the wall. It actually seemed like a cozy place, friendly even. The kind of place where murder was infrequent—though more from lack of initiative than virtue. The Moon led them to a table in the far corner and sat attentively. The waiter girl appeared almost immediately. The Moon looked at her adoringly. She was a very pretty girl, part Mexican maybe, not young, but with a young girl's eyes.

“Good evening, Miss Sally,” she said. “And hello, dear The Moon.” She held out a crust of bread. The big dog took it delicately from her fingers, then curled up on the floor in a surprisingly small bundle. Blind Sally ordered three whiskeys. Aiden, unsure how many of those were meant to be his, looked blankly at the waiter girl and shrugged. She beamed him a far better smile than ought to be found in a place like this and pivoted away with a flip of her skirt. She returned a minute later and set down three small glasses in front of Blind Sally and one in front of Aiden. He took a small sip and waited for Blind Sally to talk. She tipped back one of her whiskeys, then another.

“I will say, and you must believe, I did not mean for such bad to come for you in it,” she said, looking away. “I do swear that on The Moon.”

“Why would you think it turned out badly for me?”

The old woman curled her fingers around the third glass.

“I'm not so blind as all that. You're down the Coast now here of a bad night, but hardly two days home and all alone with yourself when you have a fancy house instead, and the fancy place to drink. What says that but trouble?” She took a smaller sip from the third glass and scrunched her veiny knuckles around the dog's ears. “Talk says it's a murder ship now.”

“A murder ship?”

“Man was killed on it, yes?”

Aiden nodded. However did she know that? “Yes. A Chinaman.” He wasn't sure how that tipped the scales.

“I might have seen it for the devil's dealing.”

“Why—what do you mean?”

She fanned her crumpled fingers across the stained tablecloth. “The man comes to me on a night—asks can I find him men would burn a ship. I say will take a few days. He says no, must be done that night. So do the job yourself I say. Isn't hard to burn a ship. But then I say why burn the ship at all? A burn may not cure the haunting—may even make it worse for turning loose the spirits and having them adrift. Go lose it in a gamble I say, not advising it, but just I'm tired of him. He says yes, then he will do that, so I send him to you at that place.”

“At the Elysium? You told him to lose the ship to me?”

“I told him your face and form. But there onward is off my hands.” She finished her last whiskey and pushed the three little glasses into a triangle.

“Why me?”

He pushed his own glass toward her.

“I knew you were about.”

“Lots of men were about. Why me?”

“Why not you? Things have to happen to someone.”