by Chloe Gong
Archibald Welch was seated at the very left of the bar, with a clear bubble of space between him and everybody else. Where others simply hovered around their plump, red velvet seats, Archibald was seated firmly: a hulking mass of a man with ginger hair and a neck thicker than his face. The scar tissue that ran across his face glowed under the bar’s blue light. The picture in his arrest file did not do his size justice.
“Huh,” Roma said upon spotting their target. “I don’t suppose we can try to intimidate him.”
Juliette shrugged. “We may as well try.”
The two surged forward, pushing through the crowds of Mantua and coming to a stop on either side of Archibald, settling themselves onto the velvet stools to the left and right of him. Archibald barely stirred. He didn’t acknowledge their presence, though it was quite clear that Roma and Juliette were here for him.
Juliette turned to him and smiled.
“Archibald Welch, I believe?” she said sweetly. “Do you go by Archie?”
Archibald threw his drink down. “No.”
“Really?” Juliette kept trying. “Archiboo, then?”
Roma rolled his eyes.
“All right, that’s enough,” he cut in. “We know about your business with the Larkspur, Mr. Welch, and I’m sure you know who we are. So, unless you want both the Scarlet Gang and the White Flowers coming down on your ass, I suggest you start talking. Now.”
Roma had decided to go rough in contrast to Juliette’s niceties, but it seemed neither tactic was working. Archibald didn’t give any indication that he had processed or even heard Roma’s threat. He just kept drinking his drinks.
“Come on, it’s not even information about you that we need,” Juliette said, allowing a whine to slide into her voice. “We only want to know how to find the Larkspur.”
Archibald remained quiet. The jazz music raged on in the background and the prostitutes mingled about, searching for their next clients. One came near, a fan clutched in her delicate fist, but she pivoted on her heel almost immediately, sensing the tension in that little nook of the bar.
Juliette’s fingers worked at a bead on her dress. She was prepared to prompt the man again, when, to her shock, he set down his glass and said, “I’ll tell you.”
His voice was gravel against rubber. It was the collision of a ship against the coastal rocks that would take it down with all its men.
Roma blinked. “Really?”
Juliette had a suspicion Roma hadn’t meant for that reaction to slip out. Upon Roma’s response, Archibald’s face split into a smile. His eyes became swallowed by his heavy lids, consumed into dark whorls.
It was the scariest sight Juliette had ever seen.
“Sure,” Archibald said. He signaled to the bartender, who abandoned her present order to cater to him immediately. He was holding three fingers up. “But let’s make this fun. One question answered for every shot you take.”
Roma and Juliette exchanged a perplexed glance. How did that benefit Archibald Welch in any way? Was he that desperate for drinking buddies?
“Sounds fair,” Roma grumbled. He eyed the liquid that had been set down before him with more disgust than his usual neutral expression.
Archibald raised his shot glass with a grin. “Gānbēi.”
“Cheers,” Juliette muttered, clinking her glass with his and Roma’s.
The liquid went down fast, fire hitting the back of her throat. She cringed more at the taste than the heat, at the terribly cheap brand that her tongue immediately revolted against.
“God, what is this hellfire?” Juliette coughed, clinking the empty glass down. Roma did the same, careful to keep his expression steady.
“Tequila,” Archibald said. He gestured for the bartender. “Next question?”
“Hey,” Juliette protested. “That didn’t count.”
“I said one shot for each question, Miss Cai. No exceptions.”
Three more shots landed before the three of them. This one tasted even worse. Juliette could have been drinking the gasoline that fueled the Scarlet cars.
“We’ll start simple,” Roma said once those glasses clinked down, jumping in before Juliette could squander another question. “Who is the Larkspur?”
Archibald shrugged, feigning apology. “I do not know his name; nor have I seen his face.”
It felt like a lie. At the same time, Juliette could not imagine that this man had any reason to protect the Larkspur. He did not have to engage in this conversation at all if he wished to tell nothing.
Juliette resisted the urge to crush the shot glass in her fingers. “But you have interacted with him? He is a real person with a real place of operation?”
Archibald made a noise of consideration. “I believe there are two questions lurking in that.”
Six glasses this time. Juliette took her two smoothly, having prepared herself this round. Roma had to hold back a cough.
“Of course he is real,” Archibald replied. “Who sent you my way—Walter Dexter?”
Just to be petty, she should have made him drink for the answer to his question, but it likely would have done nothing substantial. It seemed like the alcohol was hardly affecting Archibald.
“Sort of.”
Archibald nodded, satisfied enough. “I make direct deliveries to the Larkspur. Does that count as interaction by your terms?” He tipped his glass upside down, shook out the last few drops. “I pick them up from Dexter’s warehouse and take everything to the top floor of the Long Fa Teahouse in Chenghuangmiao. That is where the Larkspur makes his vaccine.”
Juliette let out her breath in a quick exhale. That was it, then. They had their address. They could speak to the Larkspur directly.
And if this didn’t work out, then she didn’t know what the hell they would do to save their city.
“Is that all tonight?” Archibald asked. Something about his voice was teasing. He did not expect this to be enough. He was looking at Juliette like he could read her mind, could see the cogs turning rapidly beneath her skull.
“That’s all,” Roma said, already rolling up his sleeves, preparing to leave.
But Juliette shook her head.
“No.” This time she waved for the bartender. Roma’s eyes bugged. He started to mouth something at her in horror, but she ignored him. “I have more questions.”
“Juliette,” Roma hissed.
The shots appeared. Archibald chuckled—a big and heavy hoot that came right from his stomach and smelled of fumes—slapping his hand down on the table in amusement. “Drink up, Mr. Montagov.”
Roma glared at the glass, and drank.
“His vaccine,” Juliette started, when the heat in her throat eased, “is it real? You must know if you make the delivery. You must have seen more than the average merchant.”
This gave Archibald pause. He gargled his drink in his mouth, thinking for a long moment. Perhaps he was deliberating whether to keep silent on this question. But a promise was a promise; Juliette and Roma had already paid for their knowledge.
“The vaccine is both legitimate and not,” Archibald answered carefully. “The Larkspur makes one strain in his lab, using the opiate I deliver. The other strain is simply colored saline.”
Roma blinked. “What?”
If the madness was not stopped, at some point, it would spread to every corner of Shanghai. With two strains of the vaccine, one that was true and one that was not, the Larkspur controlled who was immune and who was not.
The weight of this revelation smacked Juliette dead center in the chest.
“The Larkspur is essentially picking and choosing who lives and who dies,” she accused, incensed.
Archibald shrugged, neither confirming nor denying what she had said.
“But how?” she demanded. “How does he have a true vaccine to begin with?”
Archibald waved for the bartender. Juliette tossed down her next drink before he could prompt her, slamming the glass down furiously. Roma was the slowest this time, grimac
ing severely as he wiped his mouth.
“You’re overstepping the extent of my knowledge, little girl,” Archibald replied. “But I can tell you this: The first delivery I made, I watched the Larkspur work from a little leather book. He referred back to it continuously, as if he was unfamiliar with the supplies I dumped at his feet.” The cheeky glint in Archibald’s eye seemed to fade. “You wish to know about his true vaccine? The Larkspur was working from a little book made of tough leather found only in Britain. Do you understand?”
Roma and Juliette exchanged a glance.
“That he is British?” Juliette asked.
“He prefers his notebooks made traditionally?” Roma added.
Archibald looked at them like they were both missing brain cells. “Tell me, if a merchant from Britain set sail for Shanghai when news of madness broke out, would he be here by now?”
Juliette frowned. “Depends how fast the ship is going—”
“Even the fastest ship would not explain the short time between the outbreak of the madness and rumors of the Larkspur’s vaccine,” Archibald interrupted. “And yet his book came from Britain. Which means he had the formula to a vaccine before the madness had even broken out here.”
Without warning, Archibald suddenly lurched in his seat. For a frightening moment, in her frantic train of thought, Juliette assumed he had been shot, but the movement was only so he could lean forward and wave down the bartender again.
“I believe that answer warrants a few more shots. It was a good one, wasn’t it?”
Juliette’s head was spinning. She was uncertain if it was over the information or the alcohol.
“The book,” she said to Roma. “I shall get the book—”
“Oh, don’t bother,” Archibald cut in. “I never saw it again. I did, however, see charring marks on the floorboards. He burned it. Once he had the methods memorized, do you really think he would risk people like you stealing it?”
It was a good question. Juliette thinned her lips, but Archibald only grinned at such an expression and pushed closer the two shots in front of her. Juliette took one without much hesitation. It was the final hurrah, after all. They had gotten what they had come for.
“Juliette Cai,” Archibald said, extending his second glass, “you have been a fantastic drinking partner. Mr. Montagov needs some more work.”
“Rude,” Roma muttered.
Carefully, making sure her hand wasn’t shaking, Juliette picked up her second glass too and raised it. Roma followed suit, and then the last shot of poison was going down, working its havoc. Wasting no time, Archibald stood as soon as he finished, clapping a heavy hand over Juliette’s left shoulder and another over Roma’s right shoulder in a gesture of camaraderie.
“It’s been a pleasure, kids. But the clock strikes past eleven o’clock, and my sources have told me it’s time to go.”
He hurried away, merged into the pulsing crowd and fading with the neon. An absolute agent of chaos. Juliette hardly knew the man and she respected him on principle.
She squeezed her eyes shut, shaking her head and forcing her focus to clear. She was fine. She could manage this.
“Roma?” she prompted.
Roma tilted sideways and pitched onto the floor.
“Roma!”
Juliette scrambled off her chair and knelt beside him, woozy enough to see in doubles but not enough to lose balance. She gave his face a light smack.
“Just leave me here,” he said with a groan.
“How are you this bad?” Juliette asked in disbelief. “I thought you were Russian.”
“I am Russian, not an alcoholic,” Roma muttered. He squeezed his eyes shut, then opened them wide, blinking at the ceiling with a stunned expression. “Why am I on the floor?”
“We’re leaving,” Juliette commanded. She hauled at his shoulder, trying to get him back onto his feet. With a grunt, Roma complied. Or attempted to—on his first try, he only managed to sit up. Juliette gave him another tug, and then he was standing again, albeit with some swaying.
“We’re leaving?” Roma repeated.
Suddenly, sirens were filling the room, a piercing wail cutting over the roar of jazz music. There was screaming and then there was a stampede of people running in all directions in such a whir that Juliette could no longer comprehend where the exit was. Outside, a voice on the loudspeaker was demanding that all patrons of Mantua come out with their hands up. Inside, people were pulling the safeties off their guns.
“We’re not leaving anymore,” she corrected. “Unless we want to get shot by the municipal police. Up, it is. Come on.”
She grabbed his sleeve and dragged him toward the little staircase she had noticed earlier in the corner of the establishment. While all of Mantua’s patrons rushed and pushed and stepped over one another to get to the exit, the brightly dressed girls booked it to the stairs instead, slipping up and out of sight.
“Careful, careful,” Juliette warned when Roma stumbled on the first step.
They were both breathing heavily by the time they came to the top of the stairs, trying to stand still while the world spun. On the second floor, the hallway was so narrow that Juliette couldn’t extend both her arms. The carpet was incredibly plush, half her heel sinking deep into the threads. The neon glow that pervaded the walls downstairs was absent here. This level was lit with the occasional dim bulb along the ceiling, illuminating just enough to see where they were going and to cast long, dancing shadows on the peeling wallpaper.
Juliette opened the first door she came upon. Two distinct yelps of surprise sounded as light seeped into the tiny room. Juliette squinted and saw a man with his pants down.
“Get out,” she demanded.
“This is my room,” the woman on the bed protested.
Below their feet, there was a heavy thud, then gunfire.
“Oh, I’m sorry, let me rephrase,” Juliette said. It was getting very hard now to stay serious. For the most absurd reason, she had laughter bubbling up into her throat. “Get. Out!”
The man recognized her first. He was probably a Scarlet, judging by the speed at which he pulled his pants back on and hightailed it out of there, nodding to Juliette on his way out. The woman was a slower case, begrudgingly stepping off a bed that took up half the room. There was one window above the bed, but it was too small to push a cat out, never mind a person.
“Move faster,” Juliette snapped. She could hear footsteps thundering up the stairs.
The woman brushed by and exited, throwing a glare back. Juliette tugged Roma into the vacated room and slammed the door shut.
“I don’t think she liked you very much,” Roma said.
“I don’t care to be likable,” Juliette replied. “Get under the blankets.”
Roma visibly cringed. Screams reverberated into the second floor. “Must I? Do you know what people get up to under those—”
“Do it!” Juliette hissed. She reached into her dress and pawed through her money pouch, digging out an acceptable amount. It was rather difficult given that she couldn’t really read the numbers anymore.
“Fine, fine,” Roma said. Just as he stumbled onto the bed and drew the blanket over himself, an earth-shattering banging sounded upon the door.
Juliette was ready.
She opened the door a sliver, not enough for the officer to barge in but enough so he could get a good look at her face, at her American dress. That was usually all it took to put the dots together, and she waited—she waited for that millisecond when the realization set in.
It set in.
“This room is empty,” she instructed him, as if she were putting the officer under hypnosis. He was Chinese, not British, which was fortunate for Juliette, because it meant he was more likely to fear the Scarlet Gang. Juliette passed the cash in her hands, and the officer inclined his head, tipping at her the coat of arms of the International Settlement on his dark-blue peaked cap.
“Understood,” he said. He took the cash and then he was on h
is way, marking the room off as examined and leaving Juliette to shut the door and lean against it with her heart thudding.
“Is it safe now?” Roma asked from within the blankets, his words muffled.
Sighing, Juliette marched over and whipped the blankets off him. Roma blinked in surprise, eyes wider than saucepans, his hair flopped in all directions.
Juliette started laughing.
The giggle bubbled up from the warmth in her stomach, spreading all over her chest as she plopped down on the bed with her arms wrapped around her middle. She didn’t know what was so funny. Nor did Roma when he sat up.
“This is… your… fault,” Juliette managed to hiccup.
“My fault?” Roma echoed in disbelief.
“Yes,” Juliette managed. “If you could handle your alcohol, we would have left when Archibald Welch did.”
“Please,” Roma said. “If I hadn’t fallen over, you would have.”
“Lies.”
“Yeah?” Roma challenged. He gave her shoulder a hard shove. Juliette’s entire, unstable body teetered backward onto the bed, her head spinning wildly.
“You—”
She came at him with her two hands, though she didn’t quite know what her intent was. Perhaps she was to throttle him, or pluck out his eyes, or go for the gun he had in his pocket, but Roma was faster even in his inebriated state. He caught her by the wrists and pushed, until she was on her back again and Roma was hovering over her, smug.
“You were saying?” Roma asked. He didn’t move away once he had proved his point. He remained—his hands holding her wrists down over her head, his body hovering over hers, his eyes strange and dark and on fire.
Something had changed in Roma’s expression. Juliette inhaled sharply, a small, quick breath. It might have gone unnoticed, if Roma hadn’t been so close. He noticed.
He always noticed.
“Why do you flinch?” Roma asked. His voice dropped to a conspiring, merciless whisper. “Do you fear me?”
A hot fury swept into Juliette’s stilled veins. Such an insolent question reawakened all of her dulled senses, sweeping back the numbness of the alcohol.
