City of Glory (67 page)

Joyful knew he was correct. “Very well, I will buy the Devrey house at eight thousand. Meanwhile”—he took a step closer to Randal’s sketch of the New York to come and put his hand on what was marked as Fourteenth Street and Sixth Avenue—“how do I find out who owns these three lots here?” It was the meadow surrounded by woods where Holy Hannah had her shack.

Astor leaned forward. “Ach, that is simple. I own those lots.”

“I wish to buy them. I’m going to build a proper house there for Holy Hannah. So she can look after boys who have no homes of their own.”

“But the land, Joyful, that you do not give her?”

“No, Jacob, the land I do not give her. Only the house. For as long as she lives.”

Astor smiled. “
Sehr gut.
For five hundred each I will sell you the lots.”

“Two hundred,” Joyful said. “You’ve just admitted you can buy eighty lots for a hundred a piece. Two hundred each for these three is more than a fair price.”

“Two,” Astor agreed. He put out his hand. “
Teilhaber,
Dr. Turner.”

“
Guanxi,
Mr. Astor.”

“So, everything then is settled.”

“Not quite.” Joyful strode to the door to the hall and yanked it open. As he’d expected, Hai Wong was standing inches away. He held a polishing cloth and the moment the door opened he began frantically working on the nearest table. “Don’t waste your energy, Hai. I know you’ve been listening to every word. Now come inside.” And to Astor, “Do you know, Jacob, that Ah Wong’s son understands English? And speaks it? And reads it?”

“No,” Astor admitted. “These things I did not know. Though I should perhaps have guessed.”

“Except for borrowing some buckskins and reading the occasional note, I don’t think he’s used his skills to do you any harm. But he’s an ambitious lad, and his knowledge of America as well as China and the Chinese will be invaluable. I propose to send him to Canton at the earliest possible opportunity to be the comprador of Devrey Shipping. He will earn a monthly wage, and get three percent of the annual profits of the company. And if he serves us loyally and well, we agree to employ whatever blood relative he nominates when the time comes for him to retire. That way he’ll be what the Chinese call an ancestor. The founder of a dynasty.”

Astor’s face was wreathed in smiles. “Excellent. I approve.”

“And what of you, Hai? You approve as well?”

“Absolutely, Lords.” Hai was breathless with excitement and bowing repeatedly. “Every word I agree. And I will serve you with—”

“Wait,” Joyful said. “There’s one more condition. This afternoon at four o’clock you will meet me at Devrey’s Pharmacy in Hanover Square. And you will bring Thumbless Wu.”

It was a couple of years at least since he’d been to the pharmacy, but as far as Joyful could tell, nothing had changed. In fact, nothing might have changed since Clare and Raif opened it in 1779. Fair chance there had been a goodly number of the brown bottles of Devrey’s Elixir of Well-Being stacked on the counter back then as there were now. “Good afternoon, Jonathan. How are you keeping?”

“Well enough, Joyful. I trust you can say the same.”

They had agreed long since that the honorifics of uncle and nephew, reversed from the usual age order as they were, could be dropped. “Very well, thank you. And business, Jonathan? Business is good?”

“Fair. Good as can be expected given the war.”

Joyful picked up one of the small bottles of Elixir. “Get three coppers apiece for these, don’t you?”

“I do. Of course, if you want—”

“No thanks. I was simply considering how profitable an old family recipe can be. But you’re not the simpler your mother was, are you, Jonathan? Any more than I know all Roisin’s healing secrets. The Women of Connemara pass their knowledge from mother to daughter, never to a son. What Clare knew went to Molly. Isn’t that so?”

Jonathan shrugged. “It was Molly she favored. Always.”

“So with Molly gone…” Joyful returned the brown bottles to their place on the counter and leaned forward. “Seems to me there’s not much you can do for Thumbless Wu, is there? About the white smoke, I mean.”

“I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.

“Spare us both, Jonathan. Lying will only make it worse.”

The large street clock in Hanover Square tolled four times. “My dinner hour,” Jonathan said. “So if there’s nothing else…”

“Your dinner will have to wait, Jonathan. We’re to have visitors.”

The pharmacy door opened while Joyful was speaking. There were three as it turned out. Hai and Thumbless Wu, as expected, and Ah Wong as well. The Chinese men all bowed formally. Ah Wong, Joyful noted, did not meet his gaze. Nonetheless, he was the first to speak. “We apologize to the honorable gentlemen for interrupting their day. And since I do not speak well in English, I will speak in my language and my son will translate.” He turned to Joyful. “I wish to explain—”

“I am about to close,” Jonathan interrupted. “I must ask you all to leave.”

“Ta bu hui zuo ren,”
Joyful said to Ah Wong, referring to his nephew: He does not know how to be a human being. Then, to Jonathan, “These visitors will leave after we explain to Thumbless Wu here that you have not the least idea how to make the smoking opium he wishes to buy. That you know only how to follow to the letter your mother’s instructions for making the Elixir. And that even if you did know the technique, you’d have not the least idea where to find enough poppies to make the quantities that would be required. It would take a mountain of poppies, Jonathan, and there’s nothing like that anywhere here.”

Hai translated, repeating what Joyful was saying in quick Cantonese, speaking directly into Wu’s ear.
“Saan ma. Saan ma. Hung sik fa ma.”
A mountain of red flowers.
“Bat ni do.”
Not here.

Wu stared at Joyful, the malevolence in his gaze knife-sharp. A dagger that could thrust and kill only with good joss, or a scalpel wielded by a hand that knew where to cut? There was no way to know until it came to the test. Then it was up to joss. Joyful turned to him.
“Nei ming baak, tset-ha, tset-ha?”
Did the limp stalk entirely understand?

“Daan duk, ma,”
Wu said.
“Jeung loi, ma.”
Some day we’ll be alone.
“Ji di sin tset-ha tset-ha.”
We will see whose stalk is limp.

Joyful felt Ah Wong and Hai looking at him, waiting to see how he handled the threats. He laughed and saw Wu’s face darken.
“San nin,”
he said. Make it a New Year’s Day.
“Ho wan joss, Wu.”
So Wu’s joss will be at its best and all the gambling junk Wu clan can see him fail despite that.
“Sei. Sei.”
Dead.
“Bu yam jing. Bu yam jing.”
Without his male stalk, limp or otherwise.

Wu let loose a string of Cantonese curses. Joyful turned away.

“One thing more, Jonathan. The opium trade’s illegal in China, run by murderous gangs. So it’s highly likely that even if you could figure out how to do what Thumbless here wants, and once you had gone to all the trouble and expense of setting up the production, he would be found dead and probably castrated in some Cantonese alley, murdered by the traders he plans to oppose. So this scheme ends right here. Is that entirely clear?”

Jonathan’s demeanor changed. “Of course, I’m quite sure you are right, Joyful. Mr. Wu and I will have to give up our plans, won’t we, Mr. Wu? We’re going to do everything exactly as cousin Joyful says.”

“Pitiful,” Joyful said very quietly. “Jonathan, listen carefully, because I’ve a number of things to tell you and I shall not repeat myself. First, as soon as the war is over, Hai here is going to Canton to be comprador of Devrey’s Shipping. Meaning he will be working for me. If there is even the least hint of opium coming in from America, Hai will know about it and he will tell me. And I will see to it that you will most sincerely regret getting into that trade.”

“What makes you think you can—”

“I know I can, Jonathan, because, among other reasons, Molly is alive and well. He watched the blood drain from Jonathan’s face and saw his white-knuckled grip on the counter. “Your sister is living in Nova Scotia practicing surgery.” He would not explain the rest of the story Delight had told him as they sailed back from Wallabout Bay. The part about Molly assuming her brother’s identity and living all these years as if she were a man.
Always seemed to me she was a lot more comfortable being Jonathan than she had ever been as Molly. And since she wanted to be a cutter, like you and Dr. Andrew…Well, a woman can’t be that in Canada any more than she can here.

“No surprise her wanting to be a surgeon, is there, Jonathan? Molly inherited the family skill and the inclination, and ran away to follow her dream. Mind you, after all these years, she might be happy to run back. Have her share of the pharmacy, live here with you…But I don’t imagine that would be entirely to your liking, would it?” He turned to the Chinese. “This is our family history,
jia ting lishi.
Nothing to do with you. What you must do now is take Thumbless home with you. Mr. Astor has agreed to find work for him until the blockade’s lifted. After that he’ll return to Canton with first son Hai. Ah Wong,
ni dong ma?
” Do you understand?

“Understand. Understand. And the honorable gentleman should also understand. Ah Wong never meant any disrespect. Only to do what is right for son and family and—”

“
Mei guanxi,
Ah Wong.” No harm. “And providing Hai lives up to his promise, your son will definitely be an ancestor. Mr. Astor and I agree that it is to be so.” He led the three Chinese to the door as he spoke; as soon as they were on the street, he closed and turned the lock.

Jonathan looked terrified. “I never really considered…You mustn’t think it was in my mind to—”

“I don’t give a tinker’s damn what you considered or what was in your mind, Jonathan. As long as you don’t get into the opium trade with Thumbless Wu, you can do as you like.”

“You’re not going to write to Molly?”

“Absolutely not. Unless…”

“Unless what?”

“Unless you refuse to grant Laniah manumission.”

“Laniah? What she’s to do with any of this?”

“Everything, Jonathan. Her complete freedom from ever being or having been a runaway slave.”

His nephew apparently didn’t realize his expression was so revealing. “Of course a runaway slave is just what she is. My mother bought Laniah when she was eight years old, and she escaped three years later.”

“She ran away with Molly, Jonathan. Reclaiming Laniah means Molly would have to be involved. As I said, she might like to come home and rest a bit.”

“Manumission,” Jonathan said, the word coming out rather like a sigh. “Very well.”

Chatham Street, 5
P.M.

Eugenie had little appetite for dinner. She ate a few bites, then pushed her plate away and went to the front room, standing by the window, waiting for Meg to come back. She’d had no word from Gornt since yesterday. Since the riot. Meg had been there, and brought home the story. “Remarkable it was. Never seen the like. Mr. Blakeman rallying the crowd, and that handsome redheaded cutter hanging out a window and shouting about the Constitution. Then along came the High Constable and his men on the biggest horses you’ve ever seen and—”

“What about Tintin?”

“The pirate?”

“Yes, of course the pirate.”

“Never saw hide nor hair of him. Why should you think he’d be there?”

“They’re connected somehow. I know they are. The time I…When I spent the night at Hanover Street—”

“Let Blakeman between your legs, you mean.” They’d been alone in Eugenie’s bedroom, and Meg was eating a peach so ripe the juice dripped down her chin. “You never told me Tintin was there as well.”

“Of course he wasn’t there. I’m not a whore who goes with two—Wipe your chin, Meg. You’re dripping. It’s disgusting. And it is disrespectful for you to eat in my presence.”

“Gave you suck and changed your shitty nappies,” Meg reminded her. “Don’t talk to me ’bout respect. Have you got yourself into more trouble than you’ve told me about?”