The Oilman's Daughter (20 page)

“Then what would you suggest?”

“I have some contacts here in Houston. They’ve got their fingers stuck into lots of pies. If anybody knows where those buggers have gone, it’d be them.”

“Why would a space pirate need contacts on the ground? Don’t you get everything you need by stealing it in orbit?”

“A spacer always has terrestrial business, lad. There’s ransom to be paid, goods to deliver, and I always need a place to fence me stolen goods. Or a specialist to get me items that ye don’t normally find in space tourists’ possession. Point is, they might have some information which they’ll part with for a goodly portion of, say, a thousand dollars.”

“I didn’t think that would slip past you unnoticed.”

“Avarice is an instinct, not a learned practice.”

Jonathan smiled and was glad the scarf hid it. Every once in a while the pirate came out with something that sounded brilliant. “Then I suppose we’d better go talk to your friends. Tell me, can you ride a horse or am I going to have to rent us a wagon?”

Phinneas snorted. “A horse? I’d rather walk. Bloody great untamed beasts. I don’t suppose ye have one of them fancy steam carriages layin’ about with the Orbital name upon it, do ye?”

“Not hardly. And certainly not around here. Our facility is on the opposite side of town.”

“Then why land here?”

“Flying through town is a risky, time-consuming operation. There are traffic signals for carriages, but nobody monitors derry traffic. There are collisions almost daily. The only saving grace is that nobody can go very fast so the collisions don’t usually result in gondola damage or falling.”

“Usually?”

“It’s been known to happen.”

“Bloody hell, Orbital. Can’t ye ground-pounders get anything right? At least in the Big Black, there are protocols for what Fultons can go where and when.”

“Something you blatantly ignore, I assume.”

“That’s not the point.”

A rattling steam carriage rolled up beside them. The boy at the wheel looked like he might have been eleven or twelve years old. He tipped his hat at them. “You fellers need a lift anywhere? Reasonable rates, and I know this city like the back of my hand.”

Jonathan produced forty dollars from one of his pockets and offered it to the boy. “Yes, I’d like to hire you for the day, if that’s all right.”

The boy’s eyes widened and he made the cash disappear. “I’m at your disposal, gentlemen.” He hopped down from the driver’s seat and pulled a lever to lower a two-step ladder into the carriage cabin. As Jonathan and Phinneas climbed inside, the boy yanked on another lever. Gears ground and then locked, making a small fan turn in one wall, providing a stream of air that helped to tame the sweltering heat of the cabin. “There’s a speakin’ tube there on the wall. Whether y’all want some great local cuisine, some entertainment, or perhaps some lady companions, y’all let me know and I’ll take you there. So, what’s your poison, sirs?”

Jonathan mopped the sweat on his brow with his sleeve. It came back stained with soot. He nudged Phinneas. “This is your show, Captain.”

Phinneas turned to the boy. “Rice Village. I’ll be more specific when we get there.”

“Yes, sir!” The boy hopped back onto his seat and a moment later, the boiler whistled and the rickety carriage bounced across the field toward the buildings of Houston, almost lost in the smog. Jonathan felt his nerves singing like a violin string turned far too tight. He hoped they’d made the right decision.

Phinneas was no stranger to filth. With water being as dear as it was in the Big Black, bathing was a luxury for even the most privileged spacers, and having a dozen men crammed into a flying tea kettle made for a swampy cocktail of sweat, grime, and even piss and shit if the containment vessels for such things failed, and they sometimes did.

Maybe his short time spent in the open air at the Grant farm had made him a little more sensitive to the stink of his fellow man, but there was no denying that Houston was the foulest armpit of humanity he’d ever set nose and eyes to, and he’d visited a lot of hellholes on this rock. As the steam carriage brought him and Jonathan deeper into the city’s warren-like slums, he noticed how people were walking ankle deep in mud and horseshit, with splatters of the foul muck going clear past their knees or spattering ladies’ skirts. Flies buzzed in clouds thick enough to rival the black stuff spewing out of the carriages and smokestacks surrounding them. The acidic rain from the morning’s storm had cut clean tracks through the soot-covered building facades to reveal ghosts of the red or brown brick beneath.

The faces of nearly every man, woman, and child were blackened with soot, and many of them looked as if they hadn’t had a good meal in years, evidenced by the thin, pale hands they held out to anyone who passed by. A few scantily-dressed women, grime caked in the soft places a man might otherwise have dabbled his tongue, mingled on the muddy street corners, selling their malnourished bodies as wares. As they entered Rice Village, a few children ran alongside the carriage, clearly drawn in by the comparatively cleaner clothes and skin of the passengers inside. They had the telltale sores of scurvy blooming around their mouths. Phinneas had seen plenty of that in both his sea and spacefaring days, but had rarely seen it in ones so young. At the rate they were going, they’d be toothless and crippled within the year. Or more likely dead. “Spare some change, sirs? A dollar or two to feed my brothers here?”

Phinneas looked over at Jonathan. The lad was clearly proud of his city, but he had probably never ventured this far outside his rich boy bubble before. His stiff posture and the way his hand dug into his thigh told Phinneas that his nerves were jangled. He nudged Orbital with his elbow. “Fer the love of Christ, man, give ‘em somethin’. I’m not carryin’ the purse.”

Jonathan seemed to snap out of his shock a little and he nodded rapidly. “Yes, yes of course. Sorry.” He dug into his breast pocket and pulled out three twenties, which he stuffed into the hand of the nearest boy. The children fell back, but the squeals of their shock and delight over what amounted to a small fortune, probably enough to feed all of their families for the rest of the year, echoed down the dank street.

“Great city ye have here. Full of riches and promise. The Great American Dream,” Phinneas muttered. Orbital didn’t respond, so he continued to dig. “Aye, Charles Dickens would’ve been mighty proud of how ye so closely captured the spirit of his books.”

Jonathan turned on him. “That’s quite enough, Captain Greaves!” The lower part of his face was obscured by the scarf, but his eyes told Phinneas the full story. The lad was angry, frightened, and most of all horrified by the conditions of his hometown, and that was to the good.

“Maybe now ye understand what sorts of things would lead a man to become a pirate. Believe me, I know that better than anyone.” Phinneas grabbed the end of the speaking tube and put it to his mouth. “Do ye know a place called The Flyin’ Dutchman?”

“Yessir. It’s just a few blocks ahead.”

“That’s where we need to be.”

“Yessir.”

Phinneas sat back, relieved. He wasn’t looking forward to this particular errand. The last time he’d spoken with the Dutchman’s proprietor, things hadn’t ended on the friendliest of terms. But if there was ever a man in a place like this who had enough eyes to see what needed seeing, it was Dutchy MacPherson. Phinneas had never met the man face to face. Most of their transactions took place via telegrams or the occasional third party messenger, but his reputation was well known throughout the smuggling and fencing community. The man had a knack for turning any piece of junk or information into coin, and he did a swift business.

A few minutes later, the boy brought the carriage to a stop in front of the filthy ramshackle of The Flying Dutchman. Soot obscured most of the letters of the poorly hewn boat-shaped sign hanging over the door, but it was clear enough.

“Here you are, sirs. Should I wait here? Y’all paid me ’nuff enough to sit here all day.”

“That would be fine.” Jonathan pulled out another of his endless twenties to hand to the boy. “For your discretion. And for raising an alarm should anyone strange start poking around.”

His eyes grew as wide as dinner plates, but he pocketed the cash without a word. Phinneas appreciated the boy’s shrewdness.

Jonathan gave the shop a once over. “What is this place?”

It was clearly a curio shop, with all manner of junk jammed into every inch of window space. There were rickety chairs, and scratched and chipped tables holding dusty oil lamps, old picture frames, tarnished jewelry and candlesticks. A few ghastly looking shrunken heads dangled down from the ceiling on twine. A rolled up Persian rug leaned in the corner of the window like an employee on siesta.

“It’s where the eyes and ears of the city be,” said Phinneas. “Let’s go.”

The inside of the shop was every bit as dark and dingy as the streets outside, but there was a sweet aroma of pipe tobacco beneath it all, a welcome change from the coal smoke and excrement stink in the street. More junk piled on top of more junk stretched all the way up to the ceiling in careless stacks that might come down on a man if he pulled out the wrong piece, like a keystone holding up a wall. A bulky man wearing a grimy apron stood near the doorway, sweeping the same spot over and over again. When the two men entered, he stopped moving the broom and glared at them.

“Are you Dutchy?”

“In the back,” grunted the man in a voice made gravelly from too many years of breathing dust and smoke. He must have decided they weren’t any kind of threat, for he turned his back upon them and in a moment the corn bristles of the broom began scraping once again across that same spot on the floor. The tinny sounds of Victrola music came from the back of the store, and that’s where Phinneas led Jonathan, through passages that seemed better suited for rodents. Both men had to walk sideways in parts.

Nobody staffed the back counter, where more wares were stored under lock and key. They were mostly baubles and jewels, deceptively cheap trumpery made of paste, but marked up two-hundred percent to fool the miserable souls outside into thinking they were purchasing true pieces of wealth. A man like MacPherson likely kept his real valuables in a safe in the back, where they were funneled to a different sort of buyer in such a way as to wash them completely of their dirt. Phinneas knew Dutchy had possessed several such rare treasures at times, for he’d sold the man many over the years.

A silver bell sat beside the cash register. Phinneas picked it up and gave it a ring.

“Hold yer damn horses!” someone barked from the back room, followed by the flush of a toilet. A second later, a short, fat man stepped out, fastening his pants as he waddled over. He wore a filthy suit and a scuffed up old bowler hat. Tufts of wiry gray hair poked out from either side, matching his scraggly beard and mustache. A pair of small gold-rimmed spectacles sat atop a bulbous nose, behind which gleamed a pair of blue eyes that grew a little more curious as he examined the two men, who probably looked to him about as out of place as a couple of diamonds in a pile of horse manure.

“Sirs!” His voice changed to something that could have lubricated the most stubborn of gears. “Welcome to The Flying Dutchman Antiques and Curio Emporium. What can I do you gentlemen for this fine day? Are you searching for a rare piece, perhaps? Or something charming and unique to give to a lady friend? An exotic relic from distant lands? Y’all are in the right place. I’m the proprietor here, Dutchy MacPherson.”

“Aye, there’s much ye can do for us, Mr. MacPherson. Ye don’t know me partner here, Mr. Orbital, but ye and I have done business on a number of occasions. Just never face to face.”

His eyes climbed up and down Phinneas’ considerable frame. “You do got the look of a spacer, but I’m afraid I’ll have to ask ya for a little identification before we proceed.”

“As ye wish.” Phinneas unbuttoned the top buttons of his shirt, revealing the delicate clockwork device that kept his heart beating. Most people who knew of him were aware of the unique mechanism, making it the best identification he could offer.

MacPherson’s eyes first grew wide and the narrowed into slits. His hands blurred so fast Phinneas could barely follow them, and before he realized it, he was staring down the wide barrel of a sawn-off shotgun that looked capable of killing an elephant. Both he and Jonathan raised their hands.

“Whoa now, Dutchy. Ye ain’t got to be like that!”

“You got a lot of nerve comin’ into my shop, Greaves. ‘Specially after what you done.”

“What did you do, Phinneas?” whispered Jonathan.

“Nothin’. It were just a misunderstandin’.”

Jonathan looked at him. “A misunderstanding? If this is who you call a friend, Phinneas, I’d hate to run into one of your enemies.”

MacPherson barked out a phlegm-filled laugh before turning his head and spitting out a wad of yellow snot. The business end of his ridiculous gun stayed firmly trained on Phinneas the whole time.

“
Friend
. Is that what ya told this feller I was, Greaves? That’s mighty rich, considerin’ all the money you’ve cost me.” He looked at Jonathan. “Never trust your life or livelihood to a pirate, son. You don’t look like an idiot, but it’s a fair warnin’ nonetheless.”

“Dutchy, put down the gun. We ain’t even armed. We just want to talk.”

“So I guess the pistol in the boy’s pocket is just a play toy, then? Go ahead and place that pea shooter there on the counter. Maybe then we’ll talk like more civilized folk.”

Jonathan glanced at Phinneas, who gave him a short nod. He reached slowly into his jacket and removed the pistol. After setting it on the counter, he stepped back. There was a moment there, before Dutchy lowered the blunderbuss, when neither Phinneas nor Jonathan took a breath, as if the old man would blow them both away and save himself the trouble of dealing with them at all. But when the barrel was tucked beneath the counter again, both men exhaled at once.

“Glad ye’re able to see reason, Dutchy.”

“Reason. That’s a helluva word comin’ outta your mouth. The only reason you should be here is to pay me back what ya owe me. With interest. If that ain’t why you’re here, I might just take the fancy gadget out of your chest. I’d both get rid of you and make a handsome profit.”

“What does he owe you?” Jonathan asked.

Dutchy took a seat on a rickety wooden stool that creaked under his weight. “The worth of a hundred pounds of premium Chinese opium that he dumped before encountering a Space Guard intercept. That puts him on the hook for about twelve-hunnerd clams, I should say.”

Jonathan gasped and rounded on Phinneas, a sneer of contempt on his face. “Twelve hundred! You’re a
drug smuggler
?”

Phinneas balled his hand into a tight fist, but he kept it at his side, much as he would have liked to use it to remove the self-righteous indignation from Orbital’s face. Now wasn’t a good time to tell the lad that the drug trade had never really suited him, that he’d run a few such jobs in his early pirating days in order to secure the capital needed to really build his reputation. His real trade was art and jewels.

MacPherson had paid him a sum much smaller than twelve-hundred dollars to intercept the Shanghai freighter on its way to the Sargasso. Their rusted and creaky stovepipe was no match for the shiny new
Ethershark
, and likely wouldn’t have made the full journey, anyway. The whole job had been like taking candy from a babby. But what he hadn’t anticipated was that the Guard had been tracking that shipment from the time the pipe had left Earth orbit. There was no way he would have been able to make the delivery back to MacPherson’s courier without getting them both in hot water. It had been a calculated risk to dump the shipment and Phinneas felt he’d actually done both sides a favor in the long run, but weasels like MacPherson only saw the world in terms of dollar signs.

“We’re lookin’ for a French lass bein’ escorted about by a group of Arabs. Have ye seen anything of the sort in these parts? They might’ve been seekin’ alternative passage on one of the ships down here, or perhaps one of yer couriers has spotted ‘em in another part of the city.”

MacPherson sat back and crossed his arms over his considerable belly. His dirty white mustache twitched. “Might be I could help you. I have couriers all over this city. But as they say gentlemen, money talks and bullshit walks. Let’s see some dead presidents.”

Jonathan sighed and dug around in his breast pocket for a moment before placing the money the butler had just given him beside the gun. “There is a little over eight hundred there. Will that settle matters with Captain Greaves enough to loosen your lips?”

MacPherson’s mustaches twitched even faster as the greed overcame his face. But the old bastard shook his head. “The only thing that interests me, fellers, is the balance paid in full. Otherwise, blow.”