Son of Fortune (9 page)

“Great” wasn't exactly the word Aiden would have used, but there was a certain tawdry excitement to it all. Most of the places were narrow and dark. Some of the bars offered little more than a few rough planks set on top of boxes, and served vile liquor out of a jug to the shabbiest men. But many places had brightly painted signs advertising shows and dancing girls. A few even had women standing outside to lure men in, women dressed in satin corsets and ostrich feathers and little else. Aiden was relieved when they turned a corner and Fish stopped in front of a large, brightly lit building.

“Here's the place.” Fish tugged him into a garishly painted doorway. “The top place! The Elysium!”

A bouncer in a blue velvet coat with shiny gold buttons stepped up to open the door. It seemed a little pretentious to Aiden, until he noticed the two hundred pounds of pure muscle inside the silly coat. The man had fists the size of ducks. He probably didn't need to use them much, since his evil-eye glance was enough to make most men cower just at the sight of him. Aiden followed Fish inside, then stopped, awestruck.

Fish grinned. “Look at all this—it's like a place in France!”

The room was grand as a cathedral, only where an altar might be there was an acre-long bar with a marble top and gleaming brass footrail. Instead of organ pipes there were tiers of liquor bottles, all reflected in gilt-framed mirrors that hung behind them. There were marble statues, though not of saints or angels. The walls on either side of the bar were painted with pastoral scenes in which beautiful girls tended fluffy lambs on gentle hillsides covered in buttercups. The artist had clearly never spent any time with any real sheep on any real hillsides, Aiden thought, for he had dressed the girls in floaty white gowns as flimsy as cobwebs, not at all practical for tending livestock.

“Come on, let's have a drink.” Fish expertly muscled his way through the crowd to the bar. Aiden had never seen so many people in one place. There were probably two hundred men. At one end of the room, there was a band with a piano, two fiddles and an accordion, a little stage and a small space in front of it for dancing.

Fish nodded at the bartender. “Two whiskey sodas.” The bartender poured the liquor into the glasses, then added water from a bottle with tiny bubbles fizzing up from the bottom. Aiden had never seen anything like it, but Fish treated it as ordinary, so he was embarrassed to ask. He watched the stream of bubbles boil up in his glass.

“Skoal!” Fish raised his glass in a toast. Aiden took a big swallow. The bubbles buzzed at the back of his throat and foamed through his head, making him cough and choke. Just as bubbles fizzed out his nose and dripped all over his shirt, two beautiful girls slid up next to them, sparkly as diamonds, silky as cats.

“Need a hankie, sweetheart?” One of them plucked a bit of frilled lace from the very low neckline of her very tight dress and dangled it before him. He smelled a wave of sour perfume. Aiden struggled to squelch the coughs but felt his face turning red.

“He's more of a straight whiskey fellow,” Fish explained, clapping Aiden hard on the back.

“Stick with us, boys, and you can have it any way you like,” the other girl said, fluffing her blond curls over her shoulders. “My little sister and I have a special tonight for handsome young gentlemen such as yourselves.”

“I'm sure you do,” Fish said, looking them up and down.

“Then why don't you buy us a drink?” The dark-haired “little sister” trailed a finger down Fish's arm and batted her eyes.

“Thanks anyway,” Fish said, reluctantly pulling his gaze up to her face.

“We don't look good to you?” she persisted with an exaggerated pout.

“I've been at sea over a month,” Fish laughed. “Your grandmother would look good to me. But I'm afraid my pockets aren't full enough to take care of ladies as fine as yourselves.”

“Oh, I'm sure we can find something in those pockets to make everybody happy,” the blond girl cooed, and rubbed her hand lasciviously down Fish's leg. He sidestepped her advances and gently peeled her practiced hand away.

“How about you, honey?” The other girl pressed herself on Aiden. “Special price for juniors.” Her experienced eye had quickly discerned his youth.

Aiden took a deep breath. He wasn't used to seeing that much bare flesh on a woman, let alone having it pressed against him, however briefly. It felt very hot in here all of a sudden.

“He's a preacher,” Fish said, by way of rescue. Aiden glared at him. Fish just shrugged and grinned.

“Is that so?” the blond girl purred. “Well, you know, a preacher ought to have a good working knowledge of sin.”

“The Bible says sin is an ugly thing,” Aiden said. “So I don't see how you girls can be of any help to me.”

The girls were silent, trying to decide if that was insult or compliment, then gave up and flounced away in search of better prospects.

“Damn, that was a good line,” Fish laughed. “How'd you think of that?”

“You can always say something is from the Bible,” Aiden said. “Anything you want to say for or against, you can find something in the Bible to back it up.”

“They're called pretty waiter girls,” Fish explained as he watched the bright dresses swish away into the crowd. “And talking is the only thing they do for free. Even then, they'll ask for a tip if they think you're looking too long. Don't ever say you'll buy them a drink. They'll order some expensive French champagne, and you have to pay. Or they'll slip something in your drink, and next thing you know, you're out cold and robbed in the alley. Some of these places have a special room just for robbery, with a chute to slide the bodies out the back. Anyway, they're two dollars to go upstairs here. The girls next door are half that, and just as pretty and clean.”

Aiden knew about prostitutes and the business did not shock him, but he didn't want to “go upstairs” with these or any others. It was not a question of beauty or cleanliness, of morality or even expense; it was just impossible to put aside thinking about them as real people and who they might otherwise be. He had become close friends with a woman named Bandy who led a group of women on a circuit through the far northern lumber camps. Her own fate had been cruelly decided by smallpox, which had left her scarred and robbed of any chance at normal life. Society may have reviled her, but she was also his dearest friend and one of the kindest people he had ever met.

He reached for his drink and took another, more cautious sip, but he still couldn't get the hang of drinking bubbles. He pushed the rest of the hornet fizz to Fish.

“Soda water is all the fashion, you know,” Fish said.

“Well, I've never been so good with fashions.”

Fish met some other sailors he knew, and they caught up on ship talk. Aiden mostly just looked around and listened to snatches of conversation and watched for glimpses of the pretty waiter girls as they flitted in and out of the crowd like bright tropical birds in a drab forest of men. At the other end of the room, men crowded around gambling tables in a thick blue cloud of cigar smoke, shooting dice or spinning the roulette wheel. There were at least a dozen card games under way, and Fish was eager to join one called faro, but Aiden didn't know the game.

“It isn't hard,” Fish said. “Do you play poker?”

“Not well,” Aiden confessed. Fish joined a game and Aiden stayed at the bar. Just one year ago, on the bare plains of Kansas, the possibility of ever being in a fancy saloon in San Francisco with music and dancing girls was about the same as being crowned king of England. But now here he was, and it was oddly disappointing. He wasn't sure why. He slowly sipped his drink. He was careful with alcohol now. In the logging camp, he had started relying on it a bit too much, especially after a fight. It was plentiful and soothing and softened the harsh world for a while. But he had also seen it make men stupid and mean and ruined. He wanted his wits sharp, especially in a place like this.

“Oh my God, you're the shark killer! I was sure it was you!” The tall, handsome, fair-haired young man was suddenly walking toward Aiden. Other men slipped out of the way to make room for him, not in deference but automatically, the way people turn to the sun on a winter day. “Boys, come on—I told you it was him!” Christopher Worthington called back to his friends. Four other young men slipped up through the crowd and pressed close around. They were all dressed in shabby coats and worn old work pants, but the crisp collars of their tailor-made shirts and their fine boots immediately marked them as impostors. They were all seventeen or eighteen years old, Aiden suspected, except for one who looked around fourteen, and they were all, except for that young one, very tipsy.

“This is the fellow I told you about,” Christopher went on. “Fought off a man-eating shark with his bare hands! Cracked its head open with a hatchet, then dove in the water to save his shipmate!” He focused, as much as he could, on Aiden. “We've only heard it roundabout, so you must tell us the whole story! They say you kicked out a tooth and you wear it now in a pouch around your neck. Can we see it?” Christopher smacked a hand on the bar. “Sir!” he shouted at the bartender. “Another round, and one for our friend here!”

“I don't know where you heard all that—” Aiden said, embarrassed at the attention.

“Oh, it's all the talk in the sailor bars,” Christopher interrupted.

“Since when do you go to sailor bars?” One of his friends laughed.

“Oh no, not me! This is the deepest into rough I ever wish to visit!” He waved a dismissive hand around the gilded room as if it were a cowshed. “My father sent his clerk back around to the dock that evening to tip the crew. One always tips for special services,” Christopher explained. “It got overlooked that morning, with all the snarling and fangs and such. But our clerk learned this fellow here”—he grabbed Aiden's arm with drunken familiarity—“saved our bears! He shot a seal with a genuine Indian bow. That he got from real Indians—in—in—well—Indian lands! Right?”

Aiden glanced back toward the faro tables, hoping Fish would come to his rescue. “I did shoot a seal,” he said simply.

“You see! Just as I said! And then the shark attacked them!” Christopher clapped his hands together, accidentally slamming them against the bar. “Ow!” he yelped. He examined the wounded knuckle carefully. “Go on—tell us the whole story!”

“That's about it,” Aiden said.

“There must be details!” Christopher's eyes were blurry and he swayed unsteadily. “Our lives are dull. Give us a story!”

His friends laughed, but it was an embarrassed sort of laughter. The youngest one tugged on Christopher's coat sleeve. “Christopher, it's getting late.”

Christopher shrugged him off. “At least show us the tooth,” he said to Aiden.

Aiden had never thought about the lives of rich people being dull. They had books and food and were usually warm. But if this tale had come through Captain Neils or any of the crew, which of course it must have, he didn't want to be rude. Mr. Worthington was obviously a good client, and it wouldn't do to antagonize his son. Aiden drew open the leather pouch, took out the tooth and held it out to them on his palm.

“It's enormous!” Christopher said, his bright demeanor restored.

“You can hold it,” Aiden offered.

The young men passed the tooth around with murmurs of admiration, noting the size and weight of it, the sharp jagged edges. They peppered Aiden with questions. How big was the shark, really? Did he think he would die? Could it take off a leg in one bite? Aiden was eager to escape but decided the easiest way at this point was just to give them what they wanted.

“The waves were high as mountains,” he said. “The unpitying beast bit so continually at our oars that the blades became jagged and crunched, and left small splinters in the sea!” He paused for dramatic effect and hushed his voice. “I could see the bluish pearl-white of the inside of its jaw, not six inches from my head.” His audience murmured with appreciation.

“I remember the sound of its body slicing through the water.” Aiden concocted what he supposed would be the proper sound. In reality, he had heard nothing but the low roar of his own panicked blood pounding inside his head. The group leaned in close like eager children. “It was of prodigious size and strength,” he went on. “It had no mercy, no power but its own.”

Christopher Worthington gave him a suspicious look.

“Then slam!” Aiden finished with an exaggerated flourish that startled a few. “I hit it with the axe. The blood poured out red as—as a—a red rose.” It wasn't the best simile, but what else was red but roses and blood? He hurried to finish. “Then the monster vanished, and the great shroud of the sea rolled on as it rolled five thousand years ago.”

“Wow.” The youngest boy's eyes were wide, and Aiden could tell they were all satisfied with the story. They grew very quiet, sipping their drinks and reflecting on the brevity of life, the savagery of nature and the tenacity of the warrior hero. Or maybe not. An instant later, when a couple of the pretty waiter girls paraded by with feathers and promises of a fandango dance, the young men followed eagerly, ready for a new diversion. Except for Christopher. He watched his friends go off and gather around the stage, then turned and looked at Aiden with a slight, knowing smile.

“I've read
Moby-Dick,
you know. Have you memorized the whole damn thing?”

“No,” Aiden laughed, surprised Christopher had recognized it. “Just those bits. ‘Bluish pearl-white jaw' is the kind of thing that sticks in the mind. I've read it seven times.” He took a well-earned sip of his drink. “I wasn't mocking you, sir.”

“I'm not a ‘sir,'” Christopher said with a laugh. “I'm hardly older than you, I think. And even if you were, mocking with Melville isn't such a bad thing, I suppose. But seven times? I did like the book—though, honestly, did it really need to be so long?”