The Best Bad Things

by Katrina Carrasco

  “I’ve heard your opinions,” Delphine says. “But Rosales brings a fresh perspective. I directed her to find the man moving my product through the waterfront. She came to me with three leads: Barnaby Sloan, Dom Kopp, and you. Why did you go after the first two, Rosales?”

  “Kopp’s loaded. He claims it’s the railroad’s money, and that there’s more where it came from.” Alma stands wide legged. Hooks her thumbs into her belt loops. She is taking up the center of the room, the center of attention, and it pleases her. “He throws his cash around at the poker tables and likes to stage-whisper about bribes. He’s so obviously stupid I thought it might be an act—playing the fool so he can get away with under-the-table business. But after a few hours of his company I realized he is, in fact, an idiot.”

  Wheeler makes a small noise of amusement, though his face is unmoved.

  “Sloan’s a different story. He’s into the usual waterfront tricks: girls, beatings, knockout drops,” Alma says. “But he’s importing product. He uses it, sells it at his sailors’ boardinghouse, and I doubt he’s paying full price. He’s also getting bolder—his men have been knifing fellows on the pier at nights. People are talking.”

  “How is he getting product?” Delphine says.

  “I need to look into that.” Alma doesn’t say, Maybe he’s the one stealing it from your warehouses. But the words hang in the air anyway. Delphine raises one fine eyebrow and looks at Wheeler, who is kneading his fists together, his gold ring liquid in the candlelight.

  “This is the plan,” Delphine says, after allowing Wheeler, briefly, to squirm. “We must plug the leak but also prepare for the law’s arrival. Rosales has purchased us some time in that arena—and, through a bit of … improvising, has given us the chance to influence their investigation.”

  Alma bows, though she knows Delphine will find it irritating.

  “Sloan will take the fall,” Delphine says, standing. “He’s already dirty handed, and competent enough to be a convincing villain. Prime him. Get him into a corner.”

  Wheeler stands, too. Delphine is taller than both of them. Her skin in the lamplight seems impossibly smooth. Alma wishes it were just her and Delphine in this little room, with its soft corners, its raw silks and drapings.

  “I expect you two to work together,” Delphine says.

  Wheeler adjusts his shoulders, as if under a load. Alma catches his eye and smiles.

  “No mischief, Rosales,” Delphine tells her. “I know how you love it.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Then I leave things in your capable hands.”

  Delphine walks to the door, her perfumed body holding Alma’s gaze. This twisting wrings fresh pain from her throat. She presses her palm into the bandage. The latch clicks shut.

  “So,” she says to Wheeler, who is mashing the felt of his hat brim in his fingers. “Now are you satisfied?”

  “Hardly. Rosales.”

  “You really thought I was with the law?” Alma wants to know where she slipped, where she fell too hard into the wrong habits. “No marshal in his right mind would hire me.”

  “It doesn’t matter what I thought.” He puts on his hat, his jacket. “We have our orders. Let’s go.”

  “What did you get from Sloan’s man?” she says, standing between him and the door. She doesn’t mind following him around a bit, now that he knows they’re working together. She wants to see the Port Townsend setup, meet its key people. Get her footing as incoming deputy.

  “Enough justification to set fire to his sty of a boardinghouse.”

  Wheeler pushes past, shoulder hard against her chest. The rough contact jars her throat. Takes her by surprise. She exhales, mouth staying open, lip curling. So this is how it’s going to be. If he wants to muscle her around, two can play that game. Delphine said to work together, but she didn’t specify they had to do it nicely.

  “Don’t be coy.” She throws his own words back at him. Adjusts the bandage on her neck as she turns around. “Was Pike the one taking our tar? Give me the details. Before we’re out in the street and anyone can hear.”

  He drops his hand from the doorknob. Lifts his chin.

  “Sloan’s not behind the leak, though he was trying to get at our product with Pike,” Wheeler says. “He wants to control Quincy Wharf. He thinks he’s going to do it by blackmailing me into cooperation, or baiting me into an open war. And I’m free to amuse him—now that we are granted leave to fraternize.”

  The bitterness in his voice is not so carefully concealed.

  “You don’t like the way she runs things?”

  Say it. Say you’re not loyal. The shakier he is during their investigation, the better Alma will look as the candidate to replace him. And if she can unseat Wheeler before they solve the leak, so much the better: she likes directing her own operations, and finding the mole will be faster if she’s giving all the orders.

  “I don’t want you involved,” Wheeler says. “That is the extent of my dissatisfaction.”

  “But, boss—you’re meant to give me a tour of the town.” Alma lets her eyes go wide, plaintive, then drops her voice a notch. “Take me under your wing. Work real close with me.”

  “Go clean yourself up.” He waves at her neck, the crusting cuffs of her shirt. “You’re a mess.”

  “I don’t think you understand,” Alma says, stepping closer.

  Wheeler’s right hand curls into a fist, but she won’t flinch.

  “You don’t tell me what to do anymore,” she says. “I’ll play your sidekick when we’re out in public, but I’ve worked for Delphine longer than you. That gives me seniority. Don’t like it? Go complain. I’ll wait.”

  Alma can almost hear him sizzling, can almost hear his sinews strain as he holds himself together. She reaches down, hand nicking his hip, and twists open the doorknob.

  “After you, boss,” she says.

  10

  JANUARY 14, 1887

  Brittle sunshine. White sheets glaring on the line at the alley’s end. When Alma squints against the brightness her neck tightens, too, her cut throat twinging. It’s been a rough week. She is operating on too little sleep and not enough food, feeling every day of her twenty-nine years. In the windy alley, waiting for Wheeler to finish pulling on his leather gloves, she pushes against the creep of tiredness. Expands her rib cage. Unfolds her shoulders. Now’s not the time to wilt—not when there’s a fight stewing a few feet away.

  “Don’t smile,” Wheeler says. “Don’t touch me.”

  “You got it, boss.”

  Wheeler glowers at her, his hat brim slicing a hard line of shadow from cheekbone to jaw. He glances at the flapping sheets. They are unattended. The mouth of the alley, where Joe crouched, is empty save for paper trash rattling against the wall.

  “Roll up your god damn sleeves,” he says. “You look like a butcher’s boy.”

  Alma takes her time, shrugging off her jacket and folding the shirt’s bloodstained cotton over her forearms.

  “Don’t do a thing to call attention to yourself,” he says.

  “I can play a man better than you can.”

  Alma waits for him to lunge, to more than shove her—to really hit her, so she can hit back.

  He only stares, pale eyes undecipherable, then stalks toward the street. His ability to throttle down is impressive. But he must have a boiling point. And when he goes, it will be a glory. She follows his brisk footsteps, glad to be moving, warming with anticipation.

  On Tyler they turn toward the water, where the long stretch of wharf juts into the sun-glazed bay in a chain of plankboards. Beckett said Wheeler’s boatbuilder keeps shop at the foot of this wharf. Alma lifts her chin, neck stinging, to peer out over passersby and into the bright wavelets. Near the water’s edge lumber piles cast triangular shadows. There are dark coils of rope. A shingled roof nips into the horizon.

  “No tour of your boatyard?” she says.

  Wheeler grunts. Adjusts the knot in his sky-blue scarf and does not paus
e.

  At the corner opposite the boatyard is a slovenly building. The United States Customhouse. It has crook-shuttered windows. Peeling clapboards. A crowd of men smoking on the doorstep. What she’s seen inside is just as haphazard: no public waiting area, papers in piles on the floor, the leering clerk frowsy and reeking of gin. The house wears its corruption even more boldly than the San Francisco office, where deputies wallow in the pockets of dirty cops and smugglers, but at least there’s an attempt to appear law-abiding.

  “And your pals at the customhouse,” she says, as they approach the intersection, cart clatter and conversations damping her voice. “When do I get to meet them?”

  Wheeler’s step hitches, so Alma nearly runs into him. His shoulders stiffen under his gray coat. He touches his hat at a well-dressed man who is just leaving the post office across the street.

  “Wait here,” Wheeler says.

  She lets him get two steps ahead, then follows. Wheeler does not turn to check her: he won’t cause a scene. Alma’s interest surges. Any man who makes Wheeler cautious is a man she needs to know. Her boots crunch into the rough frozen mud of the road. A gang of kids tumbles out of the notions shop next to the post office, yelping and clutching fistfuls of taffy. Alma waits for them to run past, using the pause to check for blood on her sleeves and hands and pull her collar around her bandage. Neat enough. She ambles up behind Wheeler. His companion has a sallow complexion; a cropped beard brushed smooth; the somber, fine clothing of a rich man. He has been grieving. His eyes are pink at the corners, his mouth twisted.

  “Judge Hamilton,” Wheeler says. “Is everything all right?”

  “Mr. Wheeler. I’m afraid not.”

  “Good afternoon, sir.” Alma knuckles her cap at the man.

  Wheeler links his hands behind his back, the leather squeaking, a single dark fist that only she can see.

  “And who’s this young fellow?” Hamilton dabs at his nose with a silk kerchief.

  “My new clerk,” Wheeler says. “Forgive his appearance. He was robbed in Tacoma on his journey into town.”

  A clerk? That’s her cover? Alma would smirk if Wheeler were looking at her. But he is pointedly turned away.

  “Those heathens,” Hamilton says. “I’m sorry to hear it.”

  He holds out his hand, shakes Alma’s firmly. There is a splotch of blood on her inner wrist that she did not see, but Hamilton is distracted, his gaze twitching between her and Wheeler.

  “I hope you’ll find Port Townsend a welcoming city,” he says, “though it is an inauspicious day. We’ve had something of a tragedy.”

  “What’s happened?” Wheeler takes off his hat, presses it to his chest.

  “Not an hour ago—”

  A greengrocer’s handcart rattles past, its wheels shaking the board sidewalk. The man’s singing chant—“Onions, potatoes, peas, and cabbage in brine!”—is hollered three times before he moves far enough away for his wailing voice to fade.

  “Not an hour ago, Harrison Doyle was run down by a horse,” Hamilton says.

  Alma recognizes this name. She flips through connections, through faces. Nothing, nothing … In profile Wheeler is tight-drawn, silent, but makes no other show of emotion.

  “It was a building accident. On Washington,” Hamilton says. “He attempted to rescue a boy who ran toward the animal and was caught by its kicks. His wife is with him at home, with the physician.”

  Alma was there. With Joe. When the crane broke and the horses spooked. There was no boy near the horses. It’s possible she missed the kid, in the clamor, in the sharp light and shadow of the winter street. Or there is spin being applied to the incident. She looks hard at Hamilton, at his tired face. His grief seems true enough.

  “My God,” Wheeler says. “Will he be all right?”

  “The doctor is allowing no visitors,” Hamilton says, shaking his head. “I tried to get in and was turned away. Poor Mrs. Doyle. I just sent a telegraph to their son in New York.”

  Alma’s got it. Harrison Doyle is a banker, fat on old East Coast money and stocks. Money and stocks that are catnip to the railroad trustees. Trustees who are considering Wheeler’s bid to join them—and Doyle is the man who is most opposed to allowing a foreigner upstart into an American enterprise. Wheeler telling Alma all this at one of their suppers, his brow ridged in the candlelight, his injury surprisingly bare.

  And now Doyle is down. If he stays down, Wheeler’s position is stronger. His success almost guaranteed.

  “I must be off,” Hamilton says. “I need to inform the other trustees, and my wife will be wanting to visit Mrs. Doyle. We’ll talk.”

  He nods at Wheeler, then crosses the street toward the way they came, heading for the Upper Town stairs.

  “Bad news,” Alma says.

  She watches Wheeler for a hint of satisfaction. He only puts his hat on with careful movements. Alma walks behind him through Water Street’s crowds, which thicken and coarsen as they approach Sailor Town. Maids and errand boys are replaced with seamen, laborers, bleary gentlemen stumbling out of low doorways into the salt-laced brightness of early afternoon. They pass the oyster vendor at Adams Street, his clanging handbell, his buckets of ice and winking shells. The prickly sting of brine catches at Alma’s stomach. At Quincy Street Wheeler turns west, toward his offices, but pauses on the corner, under the shade of a fruit shop’s awning.

  “Do you have a match?” he says.

  He takes off his gloves. Pulls a cigar case from his jacket, its silver frame reflecting the blurred reds and greens of apples, the golden skins of pears.

  Alma pinches the matchbox out of her vest pocket. The cup of her fingers guards the little flame. Wheeler inclines his head to puff life into the cigar. A sweet note of vanilla. Then the wind shifts, twists around them, bringing a waft of blood and offal from the butcher’s shop across the road.

  “You don’t need to look so grim anymore.” Alma keeps her voice low as she tucks the matches away. “Your fine friend the judge is long gone.”

  Wheeler licks cigar paper off his lower lip. Spits into the gutter.

  “Do I look grim?” he says, and there, in his voice only, is the glitter of dark humor.

  Alma grins.

  “Did you arrange it?” she says.

  Wheeler lets a column of smoke drift out of his mouth. Narrows his eyes. A man brushes past Alma toward the fruit shop, holding a sheaf of papers and a little tin pot. He pastes a bill onto the doorjamb, whistling, so close to them that Alma smells the bittersweetness of the glue. MACAULAY VS DOBBS, the bill says, OUR MAN VS TACOMA. A boxing match. Set for the coming Wednesday, at Chain Locker saloon. She studies the paper with interest while waiting for the man to move off.

  “There was no kid,” Alma says, when they’re alone under the awning once more. “Joe and I saw it happen. A crane lost its load. Spooked the horses. How he ended up under them … Bad luck. Maybe something else.”

  “Are you suggesting he was pushed?” Wheeler tucks his gloves into his coat pocket.

  “I’m suggesting that whoever told your friend about it added some embellishments.”

  Behind his fingers, behind his cigar, Wheeler’s mouth is stretched almost into a smile. The green awning overhead flaps and trembles in the wind.

  “Let’s raise a glass to the man,” he says. “To his speedy recovery.”

  “Whatever you like, boss,” Alma says. “Though I hope you’ll treat your poor injured clerk to the round, seeing as I was robbed and I can barely afford a coal fire on my wages.”

  “A desperate soul.”

  “Cold and hungry as you keep me,” she says, as they cross Water Street. “You’re a monster.”

  He is almost smiling again, the cigar clamped between his teeth, his hat brim blotting his eyes so she can’t quite gauge how her humor is landing. She walks beside him, not a step behind. They pass the tall windows of Waterman & Katz, spice bottles and twill jackets and candles arrayed behind the glass. The merchant hovering in the next do
orway calls to Wheeler, comes out into the crunchy mud to shake his hand. Wheeler promises a new crate of Brown’s Four Crown Scotch by the following week. Alma keeps her fists in her pockets, keeps quiet. She doesn’t look like a clerk in Camp’s getup, but she can play any part Wheeler gives her. She won’t be tripped.

  Out onto the long, boot-shaped expanse of Quincy Wharf. Wheeler’s brisk puffs of cigar smoke rising. He doesn’t even glance at the old cannery, at its plank stoop where two of Sloan’s men lounge reptilian in the sun. Opposite the cannery, a neat whitewashed boardinghouse. Then the narrow passage between buildings widens into a platform over the bay. On it, a triangle of buildings: the Chain Locker saloon; a freight warehouse; and on the bay side, in a prime loading spot, the tawny brick walls of Wheeler’s own Clyde Imports. Sitting out front is the big man who knifed Alma that morning. He’s back at whittling, his blade a quick glimmer in the shadows.

  At their approach he hefts himself up. Shakes wood shavings off his buckskin jacket. Alma wants to get closer, wink at him, show him she’s good friends with the boss. But Wheeler stops at the Chain Locker’s low door, thirty yards from the Clyde Imports warehouse. She leaves the big man to his knife.

  Inside, the saloon is dim, all latticed shadows. Close ceiling beams. Thick pillars. Smells of kelp and damp wood. The lanterns salvaged off some ancient hulk, their frames warped with salt. There are a few men at the tables, too early in the afternoon for a full house. Bills for the boxing match are tacked along the bar.

  Wheeler stands at the counter, waiting for the keep.

  “I was serious about you treating.” Alma elbows up next to him. “I’ve got nothing on me.”

  He stubs his cigar into an ashy metal dish. Leaves the bar of his forearm lowered between their bodies. At the other end of the counter, some ten feet down, the keep polishes glasses. He sees them, he must see them, but he finishes one glass, picks up another.

  “Why are we really here?” she says.

  “A social call.”

  “The welcome’s not too friendly.”