The Best Bad Things

by Katrina Carrasco

  A patron approaches the keep, who takes his time pouring the man’s drink.

  “No,” Wheeler says.

  “Where’s your pal?” Alma says, flipping around to lean against the bar. “I’ll help you find him.”

  “This should be the point when he’s pouring us two whiskeys on the house.”

  The bartender is looking right at them but has coolly returned to polishing his cups. He is a whip-thin man of middle age, with dark blond hair. His nimble hands twist the glassware and rag together in a knot of cloth and light.

  “Clay.” Wheeler waves the man over, and though he is slow to attend, he drifts toward them at last.

  “Mr. Wheeler,” he says, without a trace of good feeling.

  “Is there a problem?” Wheeler takes off his hat, undoes the buttons of his jacket.

  “I’d say so.”

  Up close, the bartender’s skin has that particular leathery sheen sailors acquire after years on the water. He has keen black eyes. A gold earring in his left ear. All he’s missing are the tarred pigtail and duck trousers.

  “You want to tell me what it is,” Wheeler says, “so I can set things right?”

  The barkeep’s eyes flick over to Alma and settle on her face.

  “He’s fine,” Wheeler says. “A new man of mine. Trustworthy.”

  “Like the rest of your boys?”

  Alma catches sight of a ratty little fellow sidling close. She steps around Wheeler to confront him, slipping out her knife and feeding the haft into her shirt cuff.

  “Back off,” she tells him. “This ain’t none of your business.”

  “Just wanting a nip,” the man says, breath hot and oniony.

  “You wait until we’re done.”

  He scuttles off at the flash of steel in her palm, and she returns to the bar. The two men are speaking in bare undertones, with no one but Alma near enough to hear them.

  “—and ask me for a favor,” Clay is saying. He grips the polishing cloth in one thick-knuckled fist, leaning over the bar counter so his face is close to Wheeler’s.

  “If you don’t explain yourself, I might get angry,” Wheeler says, not budging an inch as the bartender growls.

  “His jaw’s near on broken,” Clay says. “And he spit out two teeth. He’s got nothing to do with your concerns. Tell that to your trustworthy boys.”

  Wheeler resets somehow. The angle of his chin drops a fraction, and without actually stepping back, without losing the hard set of his shoulders or his ready stance, he draws away. Gives the smallest bit of room to the bartender.

  “I’ll take care of it,” Wheeler says.

  “You will.”

  “I need you to arrange that meeting.”

  “I’m not going to put myself in that position,” the bartender says.

  “I’ll advise you not to view this lightly,” Wheeler says. “I won’t ask twice.”

  All through this exchange Alma has toyed with the knife in her sleeve, nudging the blade into her palm just hard enough to feel sharpness but not hard enough to pierce. Parts of the men’s conversation might as well be code, but she is learning plenty about Wheeler under pressure. Calm, quiet. A man who will leave you to drown, who will not return to toss a lifeline. It’s not her style. Too restrained. But it works on the bartender. He sucks at his teeth, lets out a long sigh through his nose.

  “I take your meaning,” he says. “I’ll do it.”

  He pulls two glasses from a leaning stack and fills them with whiskey. His hand is steady. His jaw tight. Alma thinks he means to toast with Wheeler, a gesture of reconciliation, but the barkeep pushes one of the tumblers toward her. Then he leaves them, moving to the other end of the bar, where a trio of men has gathered.

  “You sure he didn’t spike that,” she says, nodding at the tumbler in Wheeler’s hand.

  “It’s always a worry.”

  He takes a sip. There is no gleam of triumph in his eyes, none of that dark satisfaction he let show, just slightly, after news of Doyle’s accident. With the barkeep otherwise occupied, Wheeler loosens his hold on himself in little ways: that slight working of his jaw, the wiggle of his right boot on the footrail.

  Alma shoots back her liquor, forgetting her neck until the motion tears her cut open. She knuckles the bandage. Swallows past the pain. The lantern above the bar splits into a fan of little flames in her watering eyes.

  “I’m in the dark here,” she says. “And I don’t like it. Meetings. Favors. I can’t do my job if you don’t keep me in on company business.”

  “I’ll explain at my offices.”

  “And when are we going there?”

  “Now.” Wheeler leaves his glass half-finished, palms on his hat.

  “I need some food,” Alma says.

  It’s been hours since she ate anything—some crackers and salt cod in the early morning, as she worked on her letter to the Pinkerton’s agents. The blood loss and hunger are taking their toll, and the whiskey is pulsing hot and fast into her chest, into her forehead.

  Outside, dark to bright, too much flashing in and out of sunlight. A tight band draws across the back of Alma’s skull, just above the raw spot from the old watchman’s clobbering. She wants oysters from the vendor up the street, or bread and broth from the soup stall in front of the Cosmopolitan. But Wheeler heads toward the Clyde Imports warehouse, where the big man still sits whittling, tapping his foot and whistling an off-key tune.

  “Sir.” He stands when Wheeler approaches.

  “Get McManus,” Wheeler says. “I want him at my desk in twenty minutes.”

  McManus. One of Wheeler’s known henchmen, as Beckett termed it, along with a fellow called Benson. Wheeler’s top crew members. Maybe this big bastard is Benson.

  “Howdy.” Alma flicks her cap brim at him, shapes her voice into a mockery of his drawl. “Thanks for giving me my gear back.”

  The man frowns.

  “I didn’t give you shit,” he says, his gray eyes darting to Wheeler.

  Alma drops her knife fully into her palm, twists the blade so it reflects the sky. With her other hand she pulls open her jacket to display her loaded holster.

  “I guess you’re just such a useless watchman that I took it back right under your nose.”

  “Knock it off,” Wheeler tells her, and to the man he says, “That’s sloppy work, Benson. I expect better.”

  So this is him. Benson is good with a knife, though he doesn’t look it. It follows that if he doesn’t look that smart, he might just have a quick mind behind those dull gray eyes.

  “Twenty minutes,” Wheeler tells him again.

  Then Wheeler and Alma are headed for his offices, at last, only two blocks from the water. They do not take the side door on Quincy Street. In the daylight it is drab and unremarkable, withdrawn from the street atop its trio of wooden steps. Wheeler instead turns the corner at Washington Street, unlocks the shuttered Clyde Imports door. The cold room smells of ink, parchment, the polished sourness of brass. The private inner office, by contrast, is fire warmed. Its hearth yellow and crackling. Its air laced with vanilla tobacco. Alma slumps into her usual chair before the desk, amused at how quickly the office has changed shape into something familiar.

  “The Quincy door not good enough for you?” she says, rubbing at the bandage on her neck.

  “I keep the businesses discrete,” he says.

  “And you find that works, in so small a town?”

  “I find that people are happy to believe the best of those with money to lend.”

  Indoors, in his private space, his shoulders slump while he’s taking off his hat and jacket. But Alma is watching him, and this relaxed guard, this real breath, is quickly replaced with his usual stolidity. He circles the desk.

  “Jesus Christ,” he says, glowering at the floor. “Come pick this up.”

  Benson left Wheeler’s shirt, now in red tatters, in the wire wastebasket. The cloth is covered in pale wood shavings. A few of the wisps have absorbed Alma’s bloo
d and are tinged rosy as cherry blossoms.

  “What do you expect me to do with it?” she says.

  “It’s your blood,” he says. “That makes it your problem.”

  “You won’t like how I clean.”

  “No doubt.” He slides into his chair, starts flipping through his mess of papers.

  Alma stoops to collect the basket. Pink shavings slip out of the wire frame and ghost over her fingers as she carries it to the hearth. Nudging aside the fireguard with her boot, she drops the laden basket into the flames. It crunches against kindling with a scatter of sparks. Wheeler cranes around at the noise.

  “I said you wouldn’t like it,” she tells him.

  He glares at her, silent, angrier than she expected. Oh, well.

  “Now that we’re all tidied up,” she says, slapping wood off her palms as she walks back to her chair, “tell me about Sloan. From the company’s perspective, since he’s Delphine’s first assignment.”

  “Don’t say that name again.” Wheeler is frowning at the bloody shavings that trail past his desk. “Only Nell and Joe know it. She goes by Sarah Powell here. Mrs. Sarah Powell, widow of Conrad Powell, a wealthy Englishman some ten years buried.”

  “Ten years! That explains the deathly getup, and how she gets away with wearing gold in mourning,” Alma says. “She does love her jewels.”

  It’s a beautiful piece of fiction—true to Delphine’s genius at deftly covering every angle. After such a long time, even a devout widow may put on ornament again and not be perceived as vulgar. It explains Delphine’s fortune, too: all her money looks less suspicious if she came to it through marriage. And the perished Englishman is another nice touch. The upper crust of Port Townsend will more easily swallow the notion of European decadence than they would the idea of a white American man taking Delphine as his wife.

  There is a knock at the Quincy-side door. Wheeler looks up from the carpet. Readjusts his body in the leather chair.

  “What?”

  “Brought you some lunch, sir.”

  Alma hustles to the door. Conaway has his cap in one hand and a wrapped packet in the other. He steps back, blinks.

  “You still here?” he says.

  “Oh, I’ll be around,” Alma tells him, taking the packet. It is soft, seeping faint warmth. She brings it to her face and it smells of sweet yeast and ham and butter. “Get us some coffee, too, won’t you.”

  Conaway hesitates, looking past her toward Wheeler.

  “Go on,” Wheeler tells him.

  The big man nods, scrapes a bit, still looking between Alma and Wheeler when she closes the door on him. She carries the packet to her chair and unwraps a thick sandwich, the bread crusty and freshly baked.

  “You probably don’t want any,” she says. “I was just handling the trash.”

  “Help yourself to some whiskey, too, while you’re at it.” Wheeler leans back in his chair, crosses his arms over his chest. “Don’t neglect to smash the bottle once you’ve done.”

  The warm bread is dense under her teeth, the ham and butter richly salted. Swallowing big bites hurts her throat, her jaw, but she is ravenous.

  “May I suggest starting with the silver decanter, as that’s the bloody expensive stuff,” he says as she eats. “Since you seem intent on destroying my office.”

  “Don’t ask me to clean again, and your office will survive.”

  Alma wipes crumbs from her mouth with the back of her hand. Picks up the second half of the sandwich.

  “Sloan,” she says. “What do I need to know about him?”

  Wheeler stands, goes to the liquor board. He picks up the silver-topped decanter. Trades it for another. Whiskey’s clean, sharp scent cuts through the air, which has gone smoky and metallic as the wire wastebasket blackens in the hearth.

  “He’s been a blight on Quincy Wharf for two years now,” Wheeler says, after a sip that washes the sharpest edge out of his voice. “Started as a boardinghouse master and has expanded his interests.”

  “Into tar?”

  “Rumor has it.”

  “What did Pike say?”

  “Pike was ready to accuse Sloan of anything, once Tom started on him.” Wheeler pours more whiskey. “One of his claims was that Sloan has girls bringing in product. But until I see it, it’s still a rumor. Not enough to take him down.”

  “So give him some,” Alma says. “Give him enough rope to hang himself, and there’s one of our problems solved: he’ll swing for all our sins.”

  Wheeler turns around. Leans against the marble-topped board, considering her.

  “I was hoping to kill him,” he says. “This new directive puts a crimp in my plans.”

  Alma pauses, the last of her sandwich tucked into one cheek.

  “A crimp in your plans?” she says around the food, one eyebrow lifting.

  “Aye.”

  His face is blank, but his voice is wry. He did mean it as a joke. Alma licks butter off her lips. It’s a shame she has to get Wheeler out of her way. There’s so much about him to like.

  “So let me guess,” she says. “Your new plan involves Clay the barkeep’s favor.”

  Wheeler sips at his whiskey, and by now she can read that as a tell—he likes to shield his face when he’s surprised, or unsteady.

  “Give me some credit,” she says. “We went to him first for a reason, and right now our biggest worries sit with Barnaby Sloan.”

  “Malcolm Clay is a useful man.” Wheeler brings his drink to his desk. “Between his bar and his sailors’ boardinghouse, he keeps the waterfront’s pulse. And keeps me informed of it.”

  “But today he was not in an informing mood.”

  “No.”

  “Can he get Sloan to cooperate?”

  “I want him to host a meeting between us,” he says. “Where I will get Sloan to cooperate.”

  “Don’t do it at Chain Locker,” Alma says. “That place is a death trap. We couldn’t cover all the doors even if we pulled every man off warehouse duty.”

  “I won’t have him in my offices.”

  “Take the offer to Sloan’s house,” Alma says. “Where he’ll feel strong. More willing to make a deal, when he feels like he’s able to push for advantages.”

  “Walking in there is a fool’s errand,” Wheeler says. “My men and I won’t be welcome.”

  “I’ll go.”

  Alma leans forward, sets her balled-up sandwich paper on the edge of the desk. It unwrinkles, slow, with little ticks of sound.

  “He doesn’t know I’m your man,” she says. “That’ll get me at least as far as his rooms upstairs.”

  “How do you know he has rooms upstairs?”

  “I cased him. We didn’t go for a carriage ride, though, so I hope you still feel special.”

  “If you were in his rooms, how is it that he doesn’t know you?” Wheeler’s voice is flat, even.

  “He didn’t see me,” Alma says, annoyed that he ignored her jab. She stands up, needing to move around, to keep her body warm as she thinks.

  “I’ll take some product in.” She paces from one edge of the desk to the other, a tight, six-foot-long orbit. “Just enough for bait.”

  “I don’t keep it lying around,” Wheeler says. “We only store it here if there’s a holdup in Tacoma.”

  “When’s the next shipment due?”

  A pause. “Tonight,” he says.

  “So free some up. Enough for bait and to make a trade.” Alma stops at the center of the desk, where her body is aligned with his, looking down on him. “I take some product, along with a token showing we’re serious, and explain there are consequences to saying no.”

  “What kind of a token.”

  “Do you still have Pike’s body?”

  Wheeler’s eyes narrow, his mouth twisting toward a grin. He understands what she’s after. Doesn’t think it’s such a bad plan, by the dark current flickering over his face.

  “Coffee, sir.”

  The door opens on Conaway. Metal flare of
a canteen and two tin cups in his broad fists. A new man is beside him, small and pale in comparison. Alma is startled by his youth, and by his resemblance to Wheeler. They have the same thin mouth. The same black hair and ice-blue eyes. Is he Wheeler’s brother? Their age difference seems too great: the man looks to be in his twenties. Father and son? That would be an interesting piece of knowledge for her mapping of the Port Townsend organization—and its weak spots.

  Conaway clangs the tinware onto the desk, his every move noisy: boots hard on the carpet, the door clapping shut as he leaves.

  “You wanted to see me?” The pale man has Wheeler’s brogue, too, and a limp that favors his left leg. He takes off his cap. Gives Alma an unfriendly once-over.

  “Pay another visit to Peterson, did you, Tommy?” Wheeler says.

  Alma pours herself some coffee and carries it to the sideboard. This must be McManus, brought to the office by Benson’s summons. Seeing him at Wheeler’s desk takes away from the family likeness. They have similar coloring, a mirrored stern control over their faces, but Wheeler is hard-cut angles and planes while McManus’s features have an unfinished look to them, as of clay not quite sculpted to completion.

  “He was talking to the cops again,” McManus says, his voice composed. “I thought I’d remind him who he answers to.”

  He shifts his gaze to Alma as she leans against the wall by the sideboard.

  “Who’s this?” McManus says.

  “This is Camp. He’s to be trusted.”

  A flash of displeasure tightens McManus’s mouth and jaw. Alma swallows bitter coffee, gives him a nasty little grin. He turns toward her, hands fisted.

  “Pay attention,” Wheeler says, sharp. “What do you mean, ‘again’?”

  “They were at his yard all morning,” McManus says. “Right after Beckett was found. When they left, I stopped by.”

  “Did they ask him about Beckett?” Wheeler says.

  “Aye.”

  Wheeler glances at Alma, who shakes her head. She can’t see a connection with what Beckett told her. Beckett’s letter had linked Peterson to smugglers, but it was penned anonymously. There should be no link between the ex-collector and the boatbuilder. No link to draw the lawmen back to Peterson. They might only be grasping at straws—a tip-off about the boatyard’s link to smugglers, then a butchered body turning up the next morning, doesn’t look so good for Peterson—but now that Beckett is silenced, someone else might be talking.