A Dash of Gunpowder

Previously: We learn more about the archivists, the three teenage girls who’ve been lurking in the periphery of this story, including their unusual upbringing and their unusual attachment to Mina. They’re very mad at Batya for the whole knee-shooting thing.

— 54 —

Batya tries to find the office watering hole, gets lost in the winding corridors, suffers a moment of abject loneliness when she encounters a dead end. (Actually a secret passageway hidden behind a rack of dying ferns, but she has no way of knowing that.) Then she follows the distinctive sound of sloppy carousing to the Depth Charge, wherein three couriers are sitting at the bar, hunched over a vast array of empty cocktail glasses.

Agnes the bartender/accountant waves her over. “I’m glad you’re here,” she says, and Bat is a little ashamed at how comforting those words are to hear, even from some rough old broad she hardly knows. “Got a new concoction I’m working on and need a guinea pig.”

“I’ll drink anything if it’s on the house.”

“You know Godfrey’s Cordial?”

“Of course.” Sassafras, laudanum, ginger—basically every Fort Hook toddler’s favorite sleepytime beverage.

“My variant adds black coffee, corn whiskey, and a dash of gunpowder.”

“Sounds terrible, let’s have it.”

As Agnes puts on some protective goggles, Bat sits next to the other couriers. Voletta Black, the girl she knocked down at the Harbormaster’s wedding. The burly guy named…she wants to say Hogface? And then one she hasn’t seen before, some gnarled old salt, nattily dressed in a waistcoat and sevenfold tie.

“Betsy,” Voletta says around her cigarette. “We were just talking about you.”

“Batya. Were you really?”

“No. But it’s high time we changed the subject from Hogwild’s favorite kind of soup.”

Hogwild, right. “What is your favorite?” Bat asks, accepting a murky highball glass from Agnes.

“I don’t know,” Hogwild says, vexed, dabbing at his wide sweaty forehead with a napkin.

Bat nods, takes a tentative sip of her drink, then two very confident sips. “Those, uh, spirited girls around? They seem to have a lot of bones to pick with me.”

“Yeah, we heard them yowling,” Voletta says.

“We’ll protect you,” Hogwild says, and again Bat feels a humiliating flush of gratitude. “They’re savage but tire out pretty quick.”

The old salt at the end of the bar says, “I daresay it’s past their bedtime.”

“That there’s Capital Sam,” Voletta says. “He mostly works offshore.”

“Charmed,” Capital Sam says. “I was unsettled to learn there was another Hull sister.”

“Funny, that’s what Mina said when I was born,” Bat says, enjoying her increasingly not-terrible cocktail.

“She gonna heal up good or bad?” Hogwild says.

“I dunno. Meantime this Snakehair job is just me. I hear you all passed on it.”

“I stopped listening as soon as Margaret said Dandy Gorgon. Ain’t stepping foot on that cursed ship, don’t care how tasty its products are.” Sure enough, he’s knocking back some kind of grog from a Snakehair Beverage Co. bottle.

“I hope she’s paying you extra,” Voletta says, putting out her cigarette somewhere in the vicinity of an ashtray. “Funerals are pricey these days.”

“Seems like I’m in a hole no matter what,” Bat says. “I’m wondering if a stowaway situation is possible. You know anything about the layout?”

Hogwild knows a thing or two: “Your standard galleon, I bet.”

Voletta knows he’s full of shit: “Nah. It’s a corporate flagship now. It’s got a whole bottling plant in there someplace. Surely been rebuilt stern to bow.”

“Aye,” Capital Sam says. “Runs on diesel these days. Which reminds me of a tale—”

“No tales,” Hogwild says. “You promised.”

“Just one quick tale,” Sam says, leaning back, clearly shifting into tale-telling mode. “Fortnight ago, I did a run to the Gorgon. As far as I know, that’s the closest we’ve gotten to it. Didn’t mention this part to Margaret, but I may have made a friend who could be of use. If Miss Batya here is so committed to throwing her life away.”

“Spill it,” Bat says.

Hawthorne Grain Job No. 00304

Courier: Sam // Client: Muto Enterprises // Item: Male, 19 years

Capital Sam unmoors the shoddy little boat, clambers in with the young man he’s been hired to escort, then rows them out of Camphouse Cove and into the chop.

He gives the kid the once over. “Sorry, lad, didn’t catch your name the first few times you told me.”

“Daniel Suwannagantha.”

“See, I was right there with you till the last twenty syllables.”

“Spelled like it sounds.”

“Very well, Danny boy, let us set sail for your new home, the Dandy Gorgon. The sky hangs low, I give it twenty minutes till the rain comes, but we should outpace it. My stroke is strong and true, as I tell the ladies.”

The kid pulls his collar up, already chilled.

“Tremendous day for you, yeah?” Capital Sam says.

“Aye.”

“I hear it’s no simple task securing a position on that vessel,” Sam says, knowing it to be the grossest of gross understatements. “Thus I find myself wondering how you got your foot in that particular door.”

“Eh,” the kid shrugs. “It’s all who knows who, you know.”

“Indeed. So you have a crony there on staff?”

“My pops worked the galley till his untimely. Reckon they figure me for a legacy.”

“And what shall you be doing in your new capacity? Dreaming up the next big sarsaparilla?”

“Just bottle washing for starters. Hope to be a flavor technician one day if I can learn it.”

“Outstanding. I see your future unrolling before you like a great magical scroll, as yet unwritten.” Sam squints at the fog rolling in. Losing the horizon always makes him a little uneasy. He adjusts course a bit. “I envy you, son, for my scroll dangles far behind me, flaccid and lackluster, already filled with regrets.”

“OK,” the kid says.

“Your dear old dad, tell me of him.”

“A good man, bold and kind, you sure do ask a slew of questions, grandpa.”

“I apologize, I just know Cap’n Muto runs a suffocatingly tight ship, so to speak, so I’m curious to hear the tale of how you got the nod. Especially since you are not who you claim to be.”

The kid makes eye contact for the first time. Then he twists awkwardly as if trying to get at an elusive itch on his back, then turns and points a tiny pistol at Sam’s chest.

Sam bursts out laughing. “Goodness, lad! Is that a derringer? Here, let me see.”

“Back off!” Daniel cries. “I’ll kill you dead!”

“You’ll perhaps scuff my vest, which is worse. Give it here.”

“I won’t! How dare you accuse me of falsity?”

“Well, firstly, you don’t know how to pronounce your own name, which is Suwannakintho.”

The kid slumps against the gunwale. “I never could get it right.”

“What happened to the actual Daniel?”

“Mouthing off to a packed cantina about his golden new gig aboard the Gorgon, fella was just begging for what happened there in the alleyway, you ask me.”

“Ah,” Sam says. “Well, hats off to your initiative.”

“Muto sniffed me out, didn’t she. And now she’s hired you to plug me.”

“I only spoke with an assistant, who said your bona fides were pristine, which made you suspect. Thus I was asked to row, and observe, and file a report based on those observations.”

“Yeah? What’s this report gonna say?”

Sam leans against the oars so they hover above the waves. “You tell me. What do you wish to inscribe upon your magical scroll?”

“Your metaphors exhaust me, grandpa,” the kid says, raising the wee gun toward Sam’s head.

“You are not the first to say so. I merely ask how you intend to make the passing of young Mister Suwanna…akinta…”

“See, you can’t say it neither.”

“…how you intend to make his death a worthy sacrifice.”

“Was him or me, way I see it. Life I had going here in the Hook, I wasn’t lasting much longer. Maybe on the Gorgon I can learn a trade and pocket some dough and see the new year.”

“Make a name for yourself by pilfering his.”

“Say what I said in different words if that’s what pleases you.”

Capital Sam eyes the incoming storm. “I may or may not have pursued a similar path, in this very town, an aeon ago. And my own personal alleyway encounter allowed me to carve a course through this life, earn enough to be comfortable, and afford a vest I do not want ruined, as well as a grown-up weapon…” He pulls out his revolver and cocks it. “Throw your toy in the drink.”

The kid gives his gun a sad look. “Took me a long time to save up for this.”

Sam sighs. “And you’ll no doubt find use for it in the days ahead. Well then, put it somewhere other than my face. And I recommend using it only as a deterrent. Firing it at your opponent will merely anger them.”

The kid tucks the gun in his waistband. A gust of wind blows the hair in his eyes and shudders his lapels. Sam holsters his revolver and starts rowing again.

“I suppose you’ll be demanding a percent of my cheques,” the kid says.

“Nonsense. I will ask something of you, however, in return for my glowing and fraudulent report.”

“Is it of a…erotic nature?”

“No, I simply request that you keep your eyes and ears open, and submit to my questioning from time to time. Having a friend inside the Gorgon will be useful to my organization.” He gestures with his chin to the east. “And there she is.”

The kid turns and sees the galleon, thickset and tall, its mast stabbing into the rainclouds. From here they can make out the warm glow of gaslights and the sound of rummy scuffles. Sam steers the rowboat close, then lets out a shrill whistle. After a moment a rope ladder is tossed down. The kid unsteadily gets to his feet and starts climbing.

“Farewell, Daniel Suwannakintho,” Capital Sam calls. “Su-wanna-kin-tho.”

“Yes, I have it,” the kid says.

“Keep your wits close, and wait for your moment.”

“Aye, sir, I will.”

The ladder is withdrawn and Sam begins the return trip to shore. The rain comes right on time, as always.

“Huh,” Hogwild says. “How come you didn’t tell Margaret about your boy? Seems exactly the kind of connect she’s been looking for.”

“Maggie doesn’t need to know everything,” Capital Sam says, and everyone’s eyebrows shoot up at this nickname. “You’ve been here long enough. You should be smarter by now.”

“I know, I should. Smarter about what?”

“Always keep something in reserve for yourself. Because you never know when the tide’ll turn.”

Bat finishes her drink and feels dangerously friendly. “OK, Capital Sam. You think you can pull this kid’s string?”

“He does owe me a favor.” The sound of Sam stroking his white stubble is deafening.

“The Gorgon docks first thing in the morning,” Voletta says. “How long has it been out?”

“Harbors once a week,” Sam says.

“Then I figure the whole crew will pour out posthaste, make a beeline to the nearest cathouse—”

“That’d be the Mossy Grotto,” Hogwild happens to know.

“Sam,” Voletta says. “Rouse yourself at first light, will you? Help Batya eyeball our man when he disembarks.”

“I’m afraid I do not awaken afore ten,” Sam says. “Unless I have plumbing issues downstairs.”

“Alls I need’s an introduction,” Bat says. “And then I’m sure everything will go just per—”

“Terribly sorry to interrupt,” Too Handsome Anthony interrupts, “but we have a visitor from White Clinic.”

EVERYONE: (delighted gasp)

Bat blushes. “Oh yeah. I forgot I placed an order.”

EVERYONE: (hooting, hollering)

“Uh,” Bat says. “Do we have a sex room here or..?”

Anthony extends his hand to her. “We call it the pod.”

+++

This has been Chapter 54 of Chokeville, a novel by Josh Fireland.

Next up: The Dragonfly Trench