Railroad

by Graham Masterton

  The footman said, ‘Yes, sir. I understand you, sir.’

  ‘Good fellow,’ Collis told him, and handed him the letter and fifty cents. Without any sign of acknowledgement, the footman closed the door and left Collis standing in the damp afternoon wind.

  Well, that was that. The first part of his plan was accomplished. Now he had to go make arrangements for the rest of it. He turned away from the door and beckoned his cab driver.

  As the cab circled around the private gardens, around the breeze-blown flowers and the neat green grass, Collis sat up straight in his seat so that he could look back at the Melford House. For a moment he thought he could see one of the decorative net curtains drawn aside, by the hand of an unseen watcher, and then let fall again. He tried to smile to himself. If there was one weakness which everybody shared, rich or poor, it was curiosity; and it was curiosity which would win him the alliance of Laurence Melford.

  ‘Where now, sir?’ the driver enquired as they rattled over the planks of Third Street.

  ‘Jackson Street,’ said Collis. ‘Mr Kwang’s, if you know it.’

  ‘Oh, yes, sir,’ the driver told him, clicking encouragement to his horse. ‘I know it all right.’

  Mr Kwang was working on his accounts. He was sitting crosslegged in a dim room, lit only by a Chinese oil lamp with a blue-and-white shade of the thinnest frosted glass. He was writing on sheets of rice paper with a bamboo brush, and every now and then his fingers would fly at a large ebony-and-ivory abacus which stood beside him, making the beads rattle across the wires like a volley of musketry.

  Collis was shown in, and he stood without speaking for a while as Mr Kwang completed a column of figures. Then Mr Kwang looked up at him and said, ‘Mr Edmonds. Please make yourself comfortable.’

  ‘I hope I’m not interrupting,’ said Collis. ‘I didn’t have time to make an appointment.’

  Mr Kwang set his brush down in a small porcelain dish of ink. ‘You are a friend of the Chinese, Mr Edmonds. You are welcome at any time.’

  Collis took off his hat and sat down on the floor. ‘You’ve already done me one favour, Mr Kwang.’

  Mr Kwang’s face was expressionless. ‘Investment in the future of the Chinese people is not a favour, Mr Edmonds. By helping you in your personal difficulties, I hope I have assured the employment of Chinese labour on the transcontinental railroad.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said solemnly, ‘I believe you have.’

  ‘You would like tea?’ asked Mr Kwang.

  ‘No, thanks. I don’t have the time. I came for something quite specific.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Mr Kwang, nodding. ‘Is it money you want? I regret I can’t help you there. All of my money is tied up in property, and in girls.’

  ‘No, not money,’ said Collis. ‘Opium.’

  ‘Opium? You surprise me. You don’t mean to take it yourself?’

  Collis shook his head. ‘Oh, no. Nothing like that. I just want enough to put someone to sleep for an hour or two. Enough so the person doesn’t really realize what’s going on.’

  Mr Kwang looked down at his accounts. ‘You have something very devious in mind, Mr Edmonds. Something that involves the participation of somebody who, under normal circumstances, would not be willing to help you.’

  ‘You’re an astute man, Mr Kwang.’

  ‘I am the leader of the On Leong Tong, Mr Edmonds.’

  Collis cleared his throat. ‘Then you can help me?’

  ‘Possibly. But the opium will have to be taken as a tincture. You can’t persuade anybody to smoke it against his will.’

  ‘I’ll pay for it,’ said Collis. ‘I didn’t come here expecting something for nothing.’

  Mr Kwang regarded him for a moment with that smooth, impenetrable face. Then he clapped his hands, once, and his young hummingbird appeared, in a dress of turquoise silk. He spoke to her, quickly, in Hokkien. She nodded and went shuffling off.

  ‘I hear you were married,’ said Mr Kwang, as they waited. ‘I should offer you my congratulations.’

  ‘Kwang Lee told you?’

  ‘I don’t recall. My informants are too numerous. I know everything that happens in Sacramento, in Napa, in Sonoma, in Oakland, almost as soon as the ferries dock. I deal in girls, Mr Edmonds, just as you deal in hardware, and I need all the intelligence I can get.’

  The girl came back and handed Mr Kwang a small white bottle with a sealing-wax stopper. Mr Kwang passed it to Collis.

  ‘In that bottle is a strong tincture of opium,’ he said. ‘Be careful with it. Too much, and you may arrest the heart.’

  Collis looked at the bottle for a moment and then slipped it into his coat pocket. ‘I’ll be careful.’

  Mr Kwang smiled faintly. ‘You need not pay me now. But when you have successfully accomplished whatever you intend to do with that tincture, you may present me with a railroad flag as a souvenir.’

  ‘How do you know this has anything to do with the railroad?’

  Mr Kwang picked up his brush. ‘You are getting yourself a reputation, Mr Edmonds. Everything you involve yourself in, no matter what it is, has something to do with the railroad.’

  Collis looked steadily at Mr Kwang. A gong reverberated somewhere in the house, like a reminder of a far country and a long-lost life. Collis stood up, paused, bowed, and then turned to leave.

  Mr Kwang said: ‘There is a Chinese saying, Mr Edmonds, which is almost impossible to translate. But the meaning of the words is that he who tries to buy the future can only do so at the expense of the past.’

  Collis stopped for a moment by the bamboo curtain. ‘You’re a hard man, Mr Kwang,’ he replied. ‘Harder than I am, without a doubt. But give me time.’

  He waited for an answer, but all he heard was the sudden rattle of the abacus. He pushed through the bamboo curtain, walked along the narrow balcony, and then went down the stone steps to the street.

  His last call of the afternoon was on Pine Street, at the corner studio of W. P. Naylor, Ambrotypist & Photographer. It was a small, dusty place, crowded with tripods and rolls of background paper and smelling strongly of sodium hyposulphite. In the window, faded by the sun, were gilt-framed photographic portraits of W. L. Winn, one of the pioneers of the fashionable San Francisco soda fountain; and of a homely lady in a white dress who plainly fancied herself as Ophelia.

  Collis went into the studio and pinged the brass bell on the counter. He waited for a while and then pinged it again. At length, there was a flurry of shuffling and cursing from the back of the premises, and a thin young man emerged, in rolled-up shirtsleeves and acid-stained vest, his spectacles perched amid his wild prematurely grey hair.

  ‘Yes?’ he snapped.

  Collis handed him the letter of introduction which Andy Hunt had written out for him. The young man peered at the front of it, then at the back of it, and then ripped it open with an orange-stained thumb. He read it quickly, sniffed, and then crammed it back into its envelope.

  ‘You know the consequences of what you’re asking, I suppose?’ the young man said twitchily.

  Collis nodded. ‘That’s why Mr Hunt sent me to you. Apparently you know the value of keeping your mouth closed tight.’

  ‘I know the value of not trusting Mr Andrew Jackson Hunt as far as I can toss him.’

  He took the letter out of the envelope again and re-read it. ‘Photography is a great art, you know,’ he said biting his lip. ‘Don’t you think it’s sacrilege to put it to such purposes?’

  ‘Let’s just call it progress,’ said Collis.

  ‘Progress? Well, I suppose so. If the recruitment of scientific methods for the more efficient extortion of money can be called progress – then, yes, I suppose it’s progress.’

  ‘I gather you’re not usually above taking a few sportive pictures,’ said Collis with a tight smile. ‘Mr Hunt said, “Naylor’s your man, for that kind of thing.” ’

  The young man extricated his spectacles from his hair and put them on. He stared at Collis with eyes as pale and
cold as a Sacramento salmon. ‘Mr Naylor’s dead,’ he said. ‘Died years ago, of pneumonia. My name’s Figgis. But everybody still calls me Mr Naylor in any case, on account of the name of the business.’

  ‘You can help me?’ asked Collis.

  ‘I suppose so. When, and where?’

  ‘In two days’ time, most likely at Knickerbocker Jane’s.’

  ‘I see. Well. I’ve done some work there before.’

  Collis rolled off one of his leather gloves, took out a cheroot, and lit it. ‘Sportive work?’ he asked Mr Figgis.

  ‘You needn’t be so patronising,’ the photographer retorted. ‘What you’re asking for here is just as bad. Worse, in fact.’

  Collis nodded. ‘That’s why I came to see you in person. To make sure that you were a good, trustworthy fellow.’

  Mr Figgis hesitated for a moment, still chewing at his lips. Then, quite suddenly, he reached under his counter and produced a lavish red-morocco album, embossed with gold leaf. He laid it flat and opened the first page so that Collis could see it. Framed in a soft oval halo of sepia was a portrait of a plump naked girl with her hair tied up in plaits and a necklace of wild flowers.

  ‘You see?’ said Mr Figgis. ‘You can call it “sportive” until you’re black in the face, but it’s art, too.’

  Collis leafed through the album. There were daguerreotypes and ambrotypes of girls sitting dreamily in artificial sylvan settings, of girls kissing each other on rustic bridges, of girls fondling naked gentlemen with moustaches, narrow chests, and stocking garters.

  ‘Fifty dollars the whole album,’ remarked Mr Figgis, as if that were an extra credential for its artistic merit.

  Collis closed it. ‘Do this job well – give me half a dozen pictures that are half as good – and I’ll come back and pay you twice that much for it.’

  Mr Figgis looked down at the album and frowned. ‘This is not going to be dangerous, is it?’ he asked. ‘I don’t ususally take on anything dangerous.’

  ‘Dangerous?’ asked Collis. He shook his head. Then, without another word, he left the studio and stepped out on to Pine Street again to call his cab.

  Mr Figgis watched him through the dusty glass of his window, and the late sunlight cast the shadow of the gilded letter N across his face, like warpaint.

  Collis and Hannah dined that night at the Poodle Dog, in one of the private rooms upstairs. These rooms were furnished with parlours, bathrooms, and even bedrooms, and were mostly used by ladies and gentlemen who wished to dine and then dally together without being seen in public. There was even a separate entrance at the side of the restaurant, where ladies could alight from their carriages, veiled or disguised, and make their way directly to the upper three floors.

  Collis ate there because the surroundings were silent and sumptuous, all velvet and brocade drapes, and because the food was good. Hannah was a little uneasy about it, but then Hannah seemed uneasy about their whole trip to San Francisco.

  ‘Have you arranged to meet Laurence Melford yet?’ she asked Collis, as they ate a concoction of San Francisco Bay shrimps, cream, and brandy.

  ‘I’ve contacted his attorneys,’ Collis said, without looking up.

  ‘But what are you going to say to him, even if he condescends to meet you? You keep saying you’ve got it all worked out. You keep saying you’ve got a plan. But you won’t tell me what it is.’

  ‘It’s complicated, that’s all,’ said Collis, taking a swallow of champagne. ‘And I didn’t want you to trouble yourself about it until I’d gotten it all arranged.’

  ‘Collis,’ she said, ‘that’s what I’m here for. That’s why I married you. I want to trouble myself with your business, and with all of your plans, whether you’ve finished arranging them or not. I don’t want you to think that you can’t involve me in any of your ventures until they’re satisfactorily settled. You’re not a cat, you know, bringing in dead mice to please its mistress.’

  Collis smiled. ‘You’re a perfect wife, Hannah. Do you know that?’

  ‘I wish I were. But I can’t be, unless you allow me to be.’

  ‘How am I preventing you?’

  She set down her fork. ‘You’re preventing me by refusing to tell me how you’re going to persuade Laurence Melford to approve the railroad. For goodness sake, Collis, it was my idea to come to San Francisco in the first place. The least you can do is tell me what you have in mind. I might be able to improve on it.’

  Collis paused, and then he said, ‘I doubt it.’

  ‘How can you doubt it until I’ve had the opportunity of trying?’

  Collis wiped his mouth with his napkin. ‘Hannah, my dearest, I don’t think you completely understand. Laurence Melford is more than a rival – more than a Southern businessman with an antiquated point of view about railroads. He’s a rich, ruthless, and very powerful enemy. He wouldn’t stop at anything to keep the transcontinental railroad from crossing the Sierras, not just because he believes it threatens his wealth and his influence, but because he knows that it will wreck the whole world as he knows it. He’s frightened, as well as angry, and that’s what makes him so formidable.’

  ‘I appreciate all of that,’ said Hannah. ‘But isn’t that all the more reason why you should seek from me all the assistance you can? If he’s so formidable, if he’s so ruthless, surely it makes sense for you to confide in me?’

  Collis pushed aside his plate of shrimp. He had a fragment stuck between his teeth, and it took him a moment to worry it out. Then he said, ‘Under normal circumstances, Hannah, I’d agree with you.’

  ‘But these circumstances aren’t normal?’

  ‘My plan isn’t – altogether normal.’

  ‘You mean it’s illegal?’ she wanted to know.

  He gave her a quick, embarrassed smile. ‘Let’s just say that it skirts around the law as it’s generally understood.’

  ‘Like the blanket affair?’

  Collis nodded. ‘A little like that, yes.’

  She reached across the table and held his hand, her fingertips touching his wedding band.

  ‘I think you believe me to be far more sensitive and shockable than I really am,’ she said. ‘I’m a Catholic believer, and I try to live my life by the Good Book, but the Lord is as practical and sensible as anyone here on earth. He knows that men have to trade and do business to better the life of the community; and unless what you’re planning to do is harmful or hurtful, I’m sure He’s capable of forgiving. Or at least of understanding.’

  Collis laid his hand over hers.

  ‘It’s for the railroad, Collis,’ she said. ‘Think of the days when I was on the brink of death from the yellow fever. Think of all the people you’ll save in the future from the pestilence in Panama. Your plan may not be legal, but if it harms no one, how can anyone complain that it hasn’t been undertaken for the greatest of goods?’

  Collis looked at Hannah for a long while. At her clear blue eyes, her high cheekbones, her hair as blonde as fresh-cut pine. He thought of their nights together, for some reason of which he wasn’t quite sure – of making love to her, of feeling her soft breasts in the hollows of his hands. He touched his cheek and remembered how he had woken on the morning after their wedding, with the imprint of an embroidered pillowcase on his skin.

  ‘Hannah,’ he said in a quiet voice, ‘I married you because I loved you, with a passion that was real but which I was unable to understand. Now I’ve found out what excited that passion, apart from your beauty. You’re a railroad builder’s wife, that’s what you are. You’re full of strength, and determination, and of tireless cunning, too. I married you because I couldn’t possibly have married anyone else.’

  Hannah blushed and smiled. ‘I feel the same way about you.’

  There was a discreet rapping at the door. Collis called, ‘Come on in, it’s unlocked,’ and a waiter appeared to clear their dishes and set out the next course. He kept his eyes studiously averted as he served them, and even when Hannah said, ‘It’s all right,
you know, we’re very respectably married,’ he kept his head lowered and backed out of the door as quickly as possible.

  Collis took the lid off his lamb pot pie, and for a moment he was wreathed in fragrant steam.

  ‘I never know how anyone manages to dally in this place, after the food they serve,’ he said, picking up his fork. ‘There’s still the boned capon to come, and the ham in champagne sauce, and the saddle of venison, and you mustn’t miss the bouchée à la Palermitaine.’

  ‘Collis,’ said Hannah, ‘my corset is beginning to feel distinctly too small.’

  He glanced up at her. It was the raciest thing that she had ever said to him in normal conversation. He knew why she’d said it, too: to let him know that she was ‘one of the fellows’, and that whatever his plan was for dealing with Laurence Melford, he could safely tell her about it.

  He put down his fork again. ‘Hannah,’ he said, ‘I simply can’t tell you what my plan is. Not yet. Don’t think badly of me, will you, for keeping it a secret just for now?’

  The smile left her face like a reluctant guest. Then it came back again, but forced this time. ‘All right,’ she said. ‘If you feel you really can’t, then I respect your judgement. You’re my husband, and I accept what you say.’

  Their conversation during the remainder of the meal was stilted and uncomfortable. Hannah didn’t eat much, and left her peach pie untouched. As he cleared away the last dishes, the waiter caught Collis’s eye and pulled a mournful face, as if Collis’s chances of a vigorous evening’s entertainment were looking more than poor.

  After the waiter had left, Collis said, ‘That fellow doesn’t think much of my prospects tonight.’

  ‘What fellow?’

  ‘The waiter. He just gave me a nod of deep commiseration.’

  Hannah loftily looked away. ‘Well,’ she said. ‘He may be quite right.’

  He was writing at his escritoire in their suite at the International Hotel the following morning when he realized the significance of the day’s date. 18 September 1860. His father’s birthday. The day on which three years ago he had promised to meet Maria-Mamuska outside of Walter West’s store on Montgomery Street, at noon.