“A prayer of thanksgiving to Hawenneyu - the Great Spirit, one would say in English,” Shikalimo said.
“The smoke from the tobacco wafts the prayer up to the heavens. Incense served a similar function in Christian worship at one time, I believe.”
Bushell didn’t know enough about such things to say whether he was right or wrong. He asked, “How many of your people have kept the old ways, and how many gone over to Christianity?”
“We’re about evenly divided,” the Iroquois answered. “A couple of generations ago, there was fear the worship of Hawenneyu might fade away, leaving us without an important piece of our past. Even in this twentieth century, we have long memories, as you British do. But that seems not to have happened; the balance has remained more or less constant for as long as I’ve been alive.” He pointed toward the sign above Kilbride’s establishment. “Just as well, too, I’d say, for it keeps us from seeing more things like that.”
For a moment, Bushell didn’t follow him. Then he realized the sign was only in English, without an Iroquois equivalent. Most businesses in Doshoweh were more likely to be missing English than the language of the Six Nations. Kilbride’s choice said something about the way he thought. When you coupled that with his taste in art and the music of his door chime. . . . Bushell’s pulse quickened. Joseph Kilbride did seem to have all the mental furniture of a Son of Liberty, and he was also a capable, prosperous man. If he was a Son, he ought to be one of high stature. And a Son of high Stature might know quite a lot about The Two Georges. The bell above the door pealed when Bushell and his companions went into Kilbride’s establishment. He saw at once that the fine in the title of the shop was not misplaced. Kilbride sold fancy hams from Virginia and the Germanies, New Scotland smoked salmon, tinned lobster meat, fancy capers, salted olives from the Ottoman protectorates, and a variety of fresh spices whose aromas made Bushell’s nose twitch appreciatively. One wall held fine wines from France and Upper California, the Germanies and the Italian states, along with Russian potato spirits, Holland gin, and whiskey from Scotland and the provinces of Franklin and Tennessee. For good measure, humidors of expensive Havanas stood nearby. Bushell took a look at some of the prices. An eyebrow rose. Everything in the place was expensive. Part of that was quality. Part of it looked to be profit.
“May I help you?” a clerk called from behind a counter.
“Is Mr. Kilbride in?” Bushell asked.
“I’m sorry, sir, no,” the clerk answered, shaking his head. “What’s this in aid of, if I may ask?” As those of Kilbride’s butler had, his eyes grew wide when Bushell and the other officers displayed their badges. He licked his lips. “Uh, let me refer you to Mr. Whitby. He is our senior manager. Excuse me.” He headed for the back of the store at an undignified lope.
When he returned, he brought with him a stout, bald, sour-faced gentleman in a suit of grey worsted whose lines tried without much success to disguise his bulk. The man thrust out a large pink hand. “I’m Anson Whitby.” His voice was a rumbling bass. “Kilbride’s is not accustomed to having constabulary officers inquiring after its proprietor.”
“I’m not a constabulary officer,” Bushell said with a bright smile. “I’m a RAM.”
Whitby proved his face could express something other than glowering disapprovaclass="underline" he looked astonished. “Good heavens!” he said. “What on earth can Kilbride’s have done to deserve this?”
“Not Kilbride’s - Kilbride,” Bushell said, cheery still - it seemed to disconcert Anson Whitby. “Where exactly is Mr. Kilbride, if he’s not at home and he’s not here?”
“He telephoned me morning before last, saying he was called away to Pennsylvania on urgent business,” Whitby answered. “I asked him where in Pennsylvania and how long he would be gone, and he told me to mind my damned business. Beg your pardon, ma’am,” he added to Kathleen Flannery, “but that’s what he said.”
“Is that how he usually talks?” Bushell asked.
“Too right it is,” Whitby said. “And if he could keep his left hand from knowing what his right hand was up to, he’d do that, too.” He cocked his head to one side, so that he took on the aspect of a bulldog deciding whether to bite. “What do you think he’s done, anyhow?”
“I think he’s done all sorts of interesting and unpleasant things,” Bushell answered, not caring to give details. “I think he’ll pay for them with a good many years in gaol once we run him to earth, too.”
Anson Whitby stared at him. So did the clerk, in slack-jawed, round-eyed astonishment. From their reactions, he guessed neither of them was party to Kilbride’s extracurricular activities, though Whitby, at least, had the look of a man who could run a bluff.
The door chime rang. Bushell half turned to see who was coming in. To his surprise, the customer was an Iroquois, an elderly man in the dark suit, waistcoat, and homburg of a prosperous businessman anywhere in the British Empire. By the way he nodded to Anson Whitby, he was a regular here. That surprised Bushell, who hadn’t expected Kilbride’s shop to cater to anyone but whites. The Iroquois made a beeline for the wall of liquors. He chose a bottle of Franklin whiskey and another of potent Russian spirits and carried them to the counter. The clerk hurried behind it to ring up the sale on the register.
“That will be twenty guineas,” he said. The Iroquois gentleman drew a beaded wallet from a trouser pocket. He handed the clerk a red twenty-pound note, then added a gold sovereign to make up the extra twenty shillings. The clerk put the bottles of spirits into a paper sack for him. As the customer turned to go, he caught sight of Shikalimo among the whites in the shop. His smile was sickly as he hurried out the door. He leaped into the steamer he’d parked in front of the Supermarine and sped away.
Shikalimo sighed. “Even with the taxes we slap on liquor, our people remain too fond of it. You British have been drinking spirits for centuries longer than we have, and they still do you harm. With us, they might as well be poison.”
They were poison for Bushell, too, but that didn’t stop him from drinking them. His body was telling him he hadn’t had enough to drink in a long time. His body, though, thought enough to drink meant drinking till he couldn’t hold up a glass any more. His mind knew better . . . sometimes. Samuel Stanley said, “You won’t have a lot of drunks here, not at ten guineas the bottle you won’t.”
“That’s the idea, yes,” Shikalimo said. He turned a hooded glance on Anson Whitby. “Of course, not all establishments have tariffs quite so high as these.”
“How many Iroquois do come in here?” Bushell asked Whitby.
“A goodly number, that’s as much as I can say,” Whitby answered. “Keeping track of our customers by race would be a gross invasion of their privacy.” He seemed to wrap himself in an invisible banner of rectitude.
“What does Joseph Kilbride think about the Iroquois?” Bushell asked.
“I’ve never heard him express an opinion,” Whitby said.
He was a tough customer. When Bushell put that question to the senior manager, he looked not at him but toward the young clerk. At Whitby’s steadfast denial, the clerk stared down at the countertop and fiddled with some jars of gumdrops on it. The tips of his ears turned pink.
“You, there!” Bushell called, and the clerk jumped. “Have you ever heard Mr. Kilbride express an opinion about the Iroquois?”
“Me?” the clerk squeaked. The tips of his ears got redder. He glanced nervously toward Whitby, who stared back with a gaze a basilisk might have envied. “Uh, no, not really. That is - “