Jesse felt himself grow cold—a literal coldness, a winter wind that seemed to travel from his heart to his extremities.
Some years ago, a knife-wielding Placer County miner had assaulted one of Madame Chao’s girls because she couldn’t make his pecker stand up. Jesse had helped his father evict the man. It hadn’t been easy, and he had taken a few cuts in the process, but the miner got the worst of it. Later, Jesse had tried to describe to his father the feeling that had come over him during the fight, a radiant chill that didn’t make him weaker but made him strong. I know all about that, his father had said: It was a Cullum trait, a blessing and a curse. Helpful in a fight because it numbed the nerves and left the mind cool and clear; dangerous because it made you less likely to turn and flee—almost always the wisest course of action.
Tonight Jesse didn’t turn or flee, just took the lantern in the icy fingers of his right hand and gripped his pistol with the icy fingers of his left. The coppery stink of shed blood was obvious to him now. It was what had made the horses skittish: They snorted and shuffled at every move he made, which convinced him that there was no one else here—no one living—except himself.
And he still needed a vehicle and an animal or two to draw it. So he pressed on until he found Aunt Abbie’s carriage, parked at the back. He was about to call in Elizabeth so she could help him put a horse in its traces when a faint odor caused him to pause and open the carriage door.
A body tumbled out and folded at his feet.
The smell of blood became overwhelming. The horses in their stalls rolled their eyes and began to rear and kick.
Jesse brought the light of the lantern to bear on the corpse’s face.
The dead man was Sonny Lau, though he wasn’t easy to recognize. His throat had been cut and his tongue pulled out through the bloody gap.
16
Elizabeth stood with Mercy and Theo at the stable doors like a good soldier, keeping an eye on passing strangers. Jesse was taking too long, though she could hear him moving down the straw-littered length of what was essentially a large barn, accompanied by the various unintelligible noises made by horses in their stalls. She glanced inward when a flicker of light caught her eyes. He must have found a lamp. Then a span of silence, more motion, ultimately a muffled thump.
Then Jesse was back at the entrance, beckoning her and the two runners inside.
He closed the doors behind them. She could see by the glow of the lamp that his face was clenched into an expression of shock and rage so intense she had to suppress an urge to back away. “What happened?”
He took her aside and answered her question in a monotone. He had found three corpses, he said: two men dead of knife wounds and Sonny Lau mutilated in the cab of their carriage. Sonny had been killed in the signature style of Roscoe Candy: “It’s his calling card,” Jesse said.
Anger boiled off of him like the reek of an overdriven motor. Although, Elizabeth thought, the metallic tang in the air probably had some other source. Reluctantly, she acknowledged the stink of spilled blood. “So what do we do?”
“We can’t use the carriage, it’s a charnel house, but we can steal another of these rigs. Help me harness the horses, and then—”
He trailed off. “What?”
“I don’t suppose you can drive one of these? Or maybe Theo—if he knows the way to the docks—”
“What are you saying?”
“Think about what happened. We left Sonny at the trinket shop. Sonny might have followed us, but why would he? My guess is that Candy’s men caught him not long after he talked to us. Maybe they were watching him the whole time.”
“Why would they be watching Sonny Lau?”
“Candy might have known that Sonny had a connection to Madame Chao’s. And if Candy’s men were watching Sonny, they would have raised a red flag if he met with an out-of-towner matching my description.”
“We saw Sonny twice today, and nobody stopped us.”
“By the time Roscoe got wind of it we were probably already headed for the Royal.”
Elizabeth pictured Sonny Lau as she had last seen him, an arrogant young Asian guy dressed like a riverboat gambler, and tried not to imagine how he must look now, butchered gangland-style by Roscoe Candy. “What do you think he told them?”
“As little as possible. Sonny would have put up a fight. But he’s only human, Elizabeth. In the end, he probably told them whatever they wanted to know.”
“Including the room number at the Royal.”
“But when they came looking for us, the room was empty. So they would have asked Sonny a few more questions.”
“Why here?”
“This is the closest livery stable to the hotel. Candy might have been lying in wait for us. But he’s not a patient man by nature.”
“You think he killed the stable hands, then Sonny?”
“Probably the other way around—killed Sonny on an impulse, then killed the witnesses. Leaving Sonny in the carriage was a message, aimed right at me. Candy wants revenge. He doesn’t care about Mercy Kemp or the City of Futurity.”
Elizabeth stared at him as the implications began to sink in. “They asked Sonny why you were in town. They asked how you contacted him. They would have asked—”
“About Phoebe.”
“He wouldn’t have given her up, would he? His sister lives in the house, too.”
“We don’t know what Sonny might have said. He might have given up Phoebe to protect his sister. And they left his body for me to find, because Candy knows the first thing I’ll do is go to Phoebe. They set a trap, Elizabeth. And I don’t have any choice but to walk into it.”
“But we have to deliver the runners to Kemp’s boat.”
Jesse said nothing.
“Tonight,” she said.
“I’ll take a horse of my own. You can take the runners to the dock. They’re not resisting. Hire a cab.”
“But you won’t get paid.”
Jesse gave her a scornful look.
“Anyway,” she pressed, “if Candy’s at your aunt’s house he’ll have his troops with him. You can’t take him on alone.”
“Can’t I?”
“You don’t have to. I’m a veteran. I’ve been trained. I can handle weapons.”
She had his full attention now. He put his hands on her shoulders. Big hands, but cold. “There’s no time for this. I thank you, Elizabeth. But you have a daughter to go home to.”
“Even if I miss the boat, Kemp won’t leave me behind.”
“Won’t he?”
“Not if we have his daughter.”
Jesse was slow to answer. “You can’t—”
“Yes I fucking can,” she said, realizing she meant it.
“Why would you take such a risk?”
“Because Kemp was wrong, he’s always been wrong, this isn’t a fucking diorama—it’s real, you’re real, Phoebe is real, this is a real place, and I’m in it, I’m right here, I’m real, too, and I can help.” And you can’t stop me, she added silently.
Jesse just stared. His hands tightened on her shoulders, as if he was about to push her away.
But he didn’t. “In that case,” he said, “we’re wasting time. Get Mercy and Theo into a carriage. Any carriage but the one we came in. And don’t forget the weapons. I expect we’ll need them.”
Two panting horses pulled the stolen rig up the slope of Nob Hill.
The people who lived here called it California Street Hill. But it was Nob Hill to the people who lived south of Market, Jesse had said, and Nob Hill was the name that would stick. The angle of the grade and the finite strength of the horses made their progress agonizingly slow, which meant Elizabeth had time to glance over her shoulder from time to time. California Street offered a comprehensive view of the business district, the rattletrap neighborhoods south of it, and all of the Chinese quarter. Which was burning.