Intrigued, Malone turned sideways and leaned forward to inspect the pocket watch. It was beautifully engraved and chased with raised images of horses and a coach. “A fine example o’ the timekeeper’s art, Mr. Monk. Real gold, too.”
Monk looked proud. “Was given to me by Mr. Horace Greeley of New York, for getting him on time to a meeting in Placerville everyone said he couldn’t make. I’ll give it to you in return for your help.” He nodded at the timepiece. “Worth five or six hundred dollars, I’m told.”
Malone examined the watch a moment longer before handing it back. “I reckon you’ve used that watch as collateral in more than one dealing, Mr. Monk, and I expect there’ll come a time you’ll need it again. What need is so desperate, then, that you’d be willin’ to hand it over to a stranger like myself with no guarantee o’ receiving its worth in return?”
“I’ve a shipment to deliver to California and gold to bring back. The only man in either state who I trust to ride shotgun messenger on such a trip is John Barrel. He has been rendered indisposed by an affliction for which I am unable to find a cure. From what I’ve heard whispered and rumored, Amos Malone might be the one man with the wherewithal to bring him back to his duties.”
“I see.” Half-hidden beneath the lower lip of the wolf’s-head cap, furrows appeared in the granitic prominence of the mountain man’s forehead. “And would there be a name fer the nature o’ this affliction?”
Monk nodded curtly. “Love. Or more properly in this instance, infatuation. One so fast and unbreakable that poor John appears unable to move from the proximity of the woman who has caught him fast.” The driver’s expression darkened. “A woman of the East, no less.”
“New York?” Malone mused aloud. “Chicago? Dare I say Boston?”
Monk shook his head sharply. “Would that it were so, Mr. Malone, would that it were so. The East to which I refer is at once less and more civilized than those fine upstanding American cities. There are over a thousand Chinee in Carson City, sir, and this woman is of that country that supplies to us both labor and mystery. She has enchanted my friend, Mr. Malone. Bewitched him from the blond curls of his young forehead to the accumulated fungus between his toes. No argument, no logic, no reason or threat or promise of wealth has proven sufficient to bestir him from her quarters. I am not the only one who finds it more than passing strange. If there is not more to this than the straightforward draw of the loins, sir, I’ll gnaw the hindquarters off a northbound polecat!”
Malone considered. “If your need be so urgent, and the attraction so unambiguous, why not go with a few armed companions and drag him out by the heels?”
“I thought to do just that, sir, but this woman has friends and a respected employer. Somehow, she commands others with words as well as with movement, to the point that those who might help find themselves dissuaded in her company and depart her presence wondering what became of their senses. I have felt a touch of it myself. The sensation is akin to drunkenness, but without the vomiting. Also, it smells strongly of jasmine.”
The mountain man sighed and turned back to his drinking. Monk looked on anxiously. As the whip teetered on the cusp of certainty that his appeal had failed, Malone turned back to him once more and rose. He had been slumping on his bar stool in a courteous attempt to somewhat mute his mass, and, now, standing, his head nearly scraped the ceiling. Conversation in the room grew quiet, as though an unearthly presence had suddenly made itself known.
The djinn was out of the bottle, Monk realized. Or rather, out of the bottles. There was no backing down now. It occurred to the driver only briefly to flee. He was a brave man, having in the course of his employment faced down everything from starving catamounts to desperate bandits. All these paled, however, in the shadow of the immense and ripely unwashed simian shape that now stood, swaying ever so slightly from having ingested a truly phenomenal quantity of liquor, before him.
“Let’s go and see if we kin speak some sense t’ your pal, Mr. Monk. I make no promises. Of all the drugs that befuddle a man’s senses, love is by far the strongest.”
“Stronger even than, dare I say, sex?” Monk inquired as the room cleared precipitously before them.
Malone stared solemnly down at the driver. “We have yet to ascertain under which particular affliction your friend reposes. Does he say nothing of his circumstances?”
“I’ve not seen him in weeks, sir, and despite my most sincere efforts have succeeded in drawing no closer than the door to the rooms where he now resides. I did not see him, and could hear him shouting but one thing over and over before I was summarily ejected. ‘Holy jingle!’ he kept bawling. ‘Holy jingle!’”
“Interesting,” declared Malone as the two men, one traveling in the umbra of the other, exited the bar. “If naught else, we can believe that whatever has inveigled him is nothing if not costly.”
The building to which Monk brought him in the open buckboard was one of the more substantial structures in Carson City. Several stories tall, it was fashioned of local stone and boasted fine glass windows imported from San Francisco.
San Francisco. It called to Malone. For a scion of the mountains and the plains, he was inordinately fond of the occasional draft of salt air. Soon enough, he promised himself. Tilting back his head, he let his eyes rove the numerous windows, eventually settling on one on the topmost floor. Light from oil lamps within, the hue of soft butter, lit the rectangular opening. He nodded knowingly.
“That one. There.”
Mouth agape, Monk stared up at him. “Now, how could you know that, Mr. Malone? You’ve never been here before.”
Nearly buried beneath an incautious bramble of rabid, unkempt whiskers, a prodigious nose contorted. “I kin smell jasmine. And lotus essence, sandalwood, and other emollients most foreign to this part o’ the world.”
Frowning, the driver inhaled deeply. “All I can smell is street muck and night soil.”
Malone grinned. “I once spent some time in Paris sojournin’ with a master parfumerie and have retained a bit o’ that knowledge.” He started forward.
Monk contemplated the swaying, rolling gait of the giant before him and tried to imagine a connection between the mountain man and the tiny crystal bottles of mostly floral scent he had occasionally seen in rooms occupied by ladies of the evening. Failing quite thoroughly in the attempt, he set the unresolved contradiction aside and followed grimly in the big man’s wake.
Not all the way, though. He was stopped inside by the redoubtable Bigfoot Terry, the madam of the house, who was quick to inquire as to their purpose in visiting. The question was rhetorical, as her establishment dispensed one class of goods and one kind only. “The best in Nevada,” as the hefty owner was oft heard to declare. She glanced only briefly at Monk, her attention immediately drawn to his companion, her Carolina accent as thick as her thighs.
“Ah declare, suh, you strike me as a man in need of some serious service.” Blue eyes twinkled amusedly. “The question is, can a sizable but rough-hewn bumpkin like yourself afford the finery for which my establishment is famed?”
Malone was not looking at her, his gaze drawn instead to the wide walnut stairway that cleaved the back of the parlor as opposed to cleavage of a more neighboring but no less sturdy kind. Brushing past her without a word, he headed directly for the stairs.
Startled by his indifference, the proprietress seemed about to summon forth the men of unpleasant mien whom she kept on retainer to cope with just such discourtesy. Monk hastened to forestall her.
“I will pay for my friend. Despite your assessment, it is hoped his visit will be brief, and accounted accordingly.”
Adjusting the feathers that encircled her shoulders and neck like the boa for which the adornment was named, the madam calmed herself. Her attention turned to the smaller and more voluble visitor. “Fair enough.” She proceeded to name the figure for a standard visit. Monk nodded his understanding and reached into a pocket.