by Marino, Andy
“Probably?”
“I wasn’t really gonna use it on you and Rob.” She held up her right hand. “Apprentice Beetle Keeper’s Honor.”
“Pretty nifty gadget,” Maggie said, sticking a frizzy tangle behind her ear.
“She’s an absolute genius,” Hollis said. He wanted this knife-wielding maniac to understand that he was better friends with Delia than she could ever hope to be.
“Yeah, we made quite the pair, me and her,” Maggie said.
“So you’re from Hell’s Kitchen,” Hollis said, triumphantly deploying his one tidbit about Delia’s childhood.
“Yep. Delia’s just like me,” Maggie said, “only smarter. Smarter’n all the girls at St. Theresa’s combined. Smarter’n you, too.”
“Honestly, Keenan,” Delia said, “that’s enough.”
“St. Theresa’s…” The name was naggingly familiar. It took Hollis a moment to recall where he’d seen it. “‘Know your saints,’ right?”
Delia’s face fell as he reached inside the transmitter bag, feeling for the picture cards. Hollis supposed she’d completely forgotten about them. Her grip tightened on the immobilizer as his fingers closed around one of the cards, but the desperate, calculating look on her face—like she couldn’t decide who to zap first, him or Maggie—made him leave the card in the bag. He showed Delia his empty hand and moved on.
“I have a question about the transmitter you made for me.” Hollis shot a quick glance at Maggie. “Can it be reversed?”
“What are you getting at, HD?”
“If I can get us to central communication, can we tap the wires? I mean, can we sort of turn the transmitter inside out and use it to listen?”
Delia chewed the inside of her cheek, thinking hard. “I’m not gonna say we can … but I’m not gonna say we can’t, either.”
“Because if Jefferson Castor has control of the bridge and the lift chamber, I figure he’s also got the main prop tower and everything else. He’s probably even infiltrated the furnace rooms. And he’s not sending messenger pigeons to give his orders. So maybe—”
“If we find a way to listen to his telephone jabber, he might let slip where he stashed your mother and Chief Owens and whoever else he’s grabbed.”
“Right. And where he’s taking us.”
Hollis pictured the construction schematic for the Wendell Dakota tacked up on the wall of his mother’s office, next to the portrait of President Lincoln in his retirement cottage, flashing the smile that had turned famously cockeyed when the man reached his nineties. Thin black lines representing telephone wires snaked from the prop tower to the bridge to the lift chambers to a hundred other locations. The details were too intricate to remember, except for one: almost exactly amidships, the lines were bundled inside a central shaft, which had to dead-end somewhere beyond the wall at the other end of the hold.
“Hey, Maggie,” Hollis said, pointing toward the far side of steerage, “is there a way out through there? Like a tunnel, or a hallway, or a space between the walls where you go to…” He wondered what kids did for fun down here. “Drink gin?”
Chester perked up, as if Hollis’s words had reminded him of some important task he had to complete. He mumbled good-bye and hurried away. Maggie aimed a dirty look at his back and then turned to Delia. “I talk to the society boy, you let me borrow your moblizer.”
“Immobilizer,” Delia said. “If you help us, it’s yours. I have a spare.”
“You got a deal, Cosgrove.” Maggie grinned at Hollis. “Follow me.”
13
ROB CASTOR took the stairs two at a time, stirring up little clouds of sawdust. His mind skipped back through the day, only this time when his stepbrother barged into Delia’s room at some stupid predawn hour, Rob imagined shoving him away and diving back into Brice Blank and the Carnival Barker’s Mask. That simple act might have saved them both a lot of grief. He longed for the mind-erasing secretions of the Chinese paladin fly, harvested by the daring archaeologist Atticus Hunter in Rob’s own funny-book series (working title: Hunter), which currently existed in a sketch pad hidden in his underwear drawer. A little drop of paladin juice on the tongue for Hollis and another for Rob, and ZAP—they’d be friends again like nothing had happened. If only it were that easy to start over.
At the top of the stairs, he stopped to shake out his throbbing hand, ignoring some old man’s braying about soup. He picked his way through the tent city and along the catwalk, hopping onto the teeming gangway and retracing the steps that had brought him down into the hold. His body was still jumpy with adrenaline from the aborted fight. He felt like he could float his way out of steerage. A sudden tug at his sleeve almost made him lash out. It was a little girl.
“Excuse me.”
He picked up his pace without meeting her eyes. The passage up to the third-class bunk rooms was just ahead.
“Excuse me!”
“I’m kind of in a hurry here.”
“You dropped this.”
He stopped. A neatly dressed girl of six or eight or ten (he wasn’t good with ages) handed him a small packet of Herrimann’s pistachios, which he’d bought from a snack cart by the Mount Olympus fountain in the largest first-class ballroom.
“Thanks,” he said, tearing them open. “You want one?”
“What are they?”
“Ancient bird eggs.”
She giggled. “Eww.”
He held one out for her inspection. “Take it.”
She placed it in her upturned palm and peered into the gap in the shell.
“Let me know what you think,” he called back over his shoulder. As he headed into the corridor beyond the hold, lined on either side by trunks and blankets, his anger flared back up and he imagined Hollis’s face as nothing but a pulpy lump. The notion of his father—Dakota Aeronautics’ chief operating officer!—hijacking the airship was ridiculous. Actually, he was glad Chinese paladin fly secretions didn’t exist, because he didn’t want to start over. He wanted Hollis to remember that punch for the rest of his life. His only regret was losing his temper and screaming like a maniac in front of Delia. Popping Hollis a good one and then walking away silently, that would have been—what was that word?—debonair.
Rob had never come right out and asked, but he was pretty sure that Hollis blamed Rob’s father for his own father’s death, as ridiculous as that was. Sometimes Hollis’s feelings were so obvious they might as well have been on display in the window of the Bloomingdale’s aboard the Secret Wish. Other times, everything was bottled up and stoppered tight. Like Brice Blank, Rob considered himself a detector of hidden truths, and in his professional opinion, Hollis was casting blame like a beetle net. Wendell Dakota had had the rotten luck to lean against a decrepit section of railing at the edge of the old D.C. Sky-dock. If anything, it was Wendell’s own fault for refusing to get some underling to oversee the renovations. What kind of company president personally inspected some second-rate dock? His own father had taught him that a boss doesn’t do everything himself—he masters the art of delegating responsibility.
What Hollis couldn’t get over was that Wendell Dakota’s death was an accident, no more or less tragic than Rob’s mother’s death in a hospital bed seventeen minutes after he had entered the world. This was something he often hurled at Hollis in the imaginary arguments he conducted in his head: At least you got to know both your parents. I only ever had one. He forced himself to relax his jaw, which popped at the hinges when he clenched his teeth.
The piles of steerage-class belongings ended when he turned the corner and entered third class. Someone had painted drippy hotel signs on the doors of the cramped bunk rooms. Past THE WALDORF-ASTORIA, THE PLAZA, and THE RITZ, he came to an impromptu tavern that had sprung up in a sparse common room. The mingling smoke of a dozen cheap cigars made his eyes water. Someone inside began to sing in a strong but slurred voice.
As much as he could go for a hot lemonade to help pull himself together, Rob kept moving. He took measure
d breaths, trying to control another dizzying swell of anger. His hand reached inside the transmitter bag. Putting miles of corridors and staircases between himself and Hollis Dakota didn’t mean anything with instant communication at his fingertips. The machine ruined the purity of a clean break. Throw it down a garbage chute, he thought recklessly. Smash it. He needed that clean break, at least until he figured out what was really going on.
He imagined trying to explain to Delia Cosgrove why, exactly, he’d felt the need to destroy her invention. Then he shifted the bag so it hung behind him where he couldn’t see it. He was on his own now; he just had to find his father. Surely there was an explanation for the crew’s behavior. He’d been too hasty in his excitement to uncover some grand conspiracy. Maybe the crew went on strike at the last minute and left his father no choice but to replace them with transients and strike-breakers. That would explain their disheveled appearance. And the weather alert seemed to be true: the storm was so big out over the ocean, they were even catching the tail end of it along the coast.
The only thing he couldn’t figure out was why Hollis would make up some crazy kidnapping story about his mother. Maybe he’d just dreamt the entire thing. Rob decided not to care. He was done thinking about Hollis.
At the end of the hallway, he stepped onto an abrupt swatch of sea foam carpeting that led to second class. The stairs were guarded by two men and blocked off with a braided rope. Behind them, a series of framed illustrations depicted the joyful life of a shipyard worker, muscles glistening as he hammered rivets, nailed boards, and hoisted a foamy mug after a satisfying day on the job.
Rob approached with bold steps. No more sneaking around.
“Gentlemen,” he said, tipping his cap.
“No passage here, kid,” said the guard on the left, whose sleepy-looking face drooped like a hound’s.
“I’d be much obliged if one of you would take me to see Mr. Jefferson Castor.”
The other guard, a teenager a few years older than Rob, produced a rag from his back pocket and blew his nose with a great, wet honking noise.
“I said clear the air,” said the older man.
The younger man studied his rag in amazement. “Look at this, Will!”
Will ignored his partner and gestured back down the hall. “Come on, kid, don’t make it hard on yourself. Just get outta here.”
“My name is Robert Castor. I’m Jefferson Castor’s son.”
Will studied Rob’s face.
“No,” said the young one, imitating his partner’s squint, “you ain’t. ’Cause we’re all of us keepin’ a sharp eye out for Robert Castor. We got orders. So I think we would know if he up and walked right to us, wouldn’t we, Will?”
“I don’t know,” Will admitted.
“Then just tell me where my father is,” Rob said, “and I’ll find him myself. Don’t let me interrupt your analysis of that handkerchief.”
“Here’s what I’m thinking, Will. What if he’s not Mr. Castor’s son, and—hey!”
Rob ducked beneath the rope and charged up the center of the staircase. Will plodded behind him, but the younger guard was quick. Rob felt a tingling whoosh of air from a swiping hand that missed by an inch. Around the corner, he plowed into a startled tangle of doughy flesh, stiff uniform fabric, and flailing limbs. He squirmed and wriggled, but it was no use: he’d run straight into the middle of three more guards. After much yelling and confusion, they righted themselves. Two strong pairs of arms pinned him against the wall. Three pairs of eyes bored into him. He had no idea if these men were waiting for some kind of explanation or just catching their breath before beating him senseless. It was also possible that they were too dull-witted to do anything but hold him until someone else came and took charge of the situation.
“Really should’ve stayed in bed,” Rob said to himself.
“What’s that?” asked a panting bald man whose breath smelled of onions and tobacco.
“You wouldn’t understand.”
The man chuckled. “Whatever you say, kid.”
14
MAGGIE LED HOLLIS and Delia into a neighborhood of clotheslines and quilts. They scurried to keep up as she darted between battered trunks and baskets, the worldly possessions of entire families packed into squares no bigger than Hollis’s bedroom. In this labyrinth, Hollis felt safer. People were too preoccupied with mending clothes or preparing meals to give him a second look. Hollis marveled at the fresh set of sights and sounds. It was as if an enclave had sprung up within the city of steerage, itself merely a small part of the greater metropolitan area of the Wendell Dakota.
“How did you become friends with that one?” Hollis asked Delia quietly, keeping an eye on the messy knot where Maggie’s kerchief joined a clump of hair.
“I’ve known her for a long time.”
Hollis thought for a moment. “That doesn’t really count as an answer.”
They turned sideways to follow Maggie down an aisle of crates packed with skinny chickens. Their smell reminded Hollis of the petting zoo on the leisure deck of the Secret Wish, where a llama had slurped oats from his hand and left his palm slimy and warm.
“There’s a lot you don’t know about me, HD. Just like there are things I don’t know about you. It’s not that big a deal.”
“You can ask me anything.” He paused. “Go ahead.” Met with silence, he thought about bringing up St. Theresa’s, then changed the subject. “Hey, look. Pigs.”
The aisle widened, and suddenly they were flanked by animals in big, sloppy pens. He’d never been around so many pigs—or even a single pig that he could recall—and he was surprised at the low, guttural noises they made. Ahead, Maggie stopped and turned.
“Not everybody was born with their heads in the clouds.”
“I was born in Richmond,” Hollis said.
“Me and Delia watched each other’s backs. You know what that’s like?”
Delia sighed. “C’mon, Maggie, lay off.”
But Maggie had that fiery gleam in her good eye that Hollis recognized from their first meeting. She stretched her arms out wide, and Hollis had a sudden memory of his father standing in the shipyard.
“So now that you’ve seen how it is,” Maggie said, “you don’t seem like you got much to say about it. Delia was wrong about you—you are just like all the rest.”
Delia winced. “Godsakes! Shut up.”
Maggie kept talking, but Hollis didn’t hear a word. Delia was wrong about you.… It dawned on him that it had been Delia’s idea to meet in steerage. “You set me up!” He pointed at her, finger trembling slightly in disbelief. “You planned this whole thing. You knew they were gonna ambush me down here.”
“I’m sorry, HD. She took it a bit too far—I only wanted you to see what it was like. I should have planned it better, but everything happened so fast.”
“A bit too far?” Hollis was yelling now—he couldn’t help it. “She almost cut my throat, Delia. My mother is still missing, and now, thanks to you, we’re running around down here”—his eyes flicked to one of the pens—“with the pigs.”
Shink went Maggie’s switchblade.
“Keep your voice down, or I’ll stick you like one,” Maggie said, pointing the knife casually toward the middle of his chest as if she were handing him a pencil.
“Put that away!” Delia said.
Maggie laughed and lowered the knife. “Relax, Cosgrove. I’m not gonna slice up your swanky friend. He don’t rate at all with me, one way or the other.”
“All I’m saying,” Hollis said to Delia, “is that you could’ve picked a better time to take me on a tour. We’re kind of in the middle of something important here, you know?”
Maggie gave Delia a look that was easy for Hollis to read: I told you so.
Delia said, “Let’s just keep going.”
Maggie turned without another word and led them past the final row of pens and into a long, half-open shelter that ran along the edge of the hold. One side was propped up by vertic
al slats and boards, hastily nailed together. They passed through brief sections of darkness where the wall was complete on both sides, then a quick slice of steerage life returned, followed by another plunge into darkness. This happened again and again, as if someone were flicking a switch.
“This place was supposed to be divided up into sleeping quarters,” explained Delia as they followed Maggie through the half-finished tunnel. “But early on, they decided the carpenters would be put to better use elsewhere. Then I guess they just forgot to finish.”
“Who’s they?” Hollis asked, dreading the answer.
“Your dad, mostly.”
What did Delia expect him to say? That his dad wasn’t perfect? He knew that.
“Hey,” Delia said gently, “I said I was sorry, and I meant it, okay?”
“Fine.” Hollis felt itchy. “I’m sorry, too. Let’s just get to the wires.”
They walked through a few long seconds of darkness, and when the wall opened up again, Hollis had a direct line of sight into the candlelit interior of the sick bay. A woman was setting a table of overturned crates for a small boy whose shirt drooped from his skinny body like a wizard’s robe. At the center of the table rested a steaming bowl of lumpy stuff from the vats. An older girl stepped in front of the blanket flap, which had been clothespinned back. She met Hollis’s eyes for a moment, but didn’t seem to register his presence. With a practiced motion, she raised a wadded-up rag to her lips and muffled the wet sandpaper sounds of a coughing spell. Through the triangle of space defined by the girl’s bent, spindly arm, Hollis watched the woman deposit a spoonful of stew into the boy’s mouth. Then he kept moving, and the wall closed up.
THE HISTORY OF FLIGHT IN AMERICA
PART
FOUR
THE SECOND NOTE from Hezekiah Castor arrived two weeks after the first. This time, the message was a crude drawing of a burning sky-canoe. In the middle of the canoe, spiky flames engulfed a charred stick figure waving his arms and screaming in agony. Beneath the ship were the letters H.C.
