The publisher looked at the coin without picking it up. “Give me another one of those, and I’ll save both to put on your eyes after America is free,” he said softly.
Bushell threw another shilling on the desk. “Save them for yourself.”
“One fine day - oh, and it will be a fine day - the Crown will go into the bonfire,” Kennedy said. “And when it does, it will light our country - America, our country - and all who serve it, and the glow from that fire can truly light the world.”
“My country,” Bushell answered, “is the British Empire, ruled by His Majesty the King-Emperor, Charles III. If the rest of the NAU didn’t feel the same way, the Independence Party would win elections and no one would need to read Common Sense .”
“Elections are bought,” Kennedy said with a scornful sniff. “That works - for a while. But those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.”
“Mr. Kennedy - “ Bushell let it drop. The publisher had composed so many editorials for his magazine, he even talked like one. You’d make Kennedy’s brother the archbishop a Baptist before you convinced him the British Empire did more good than harm, and persisted for that very reason. Perhaps a straight search for information might yield something. “Do you know a Joseph Kilbride, Mr. Kennedy?”
“The art collector? Yes, I’ve met him,” Kennedy answered. “Why?”
“Do you know his present whereabouts?” Bushell asked, not responding to the counter-question.
“He lives in the Six Nations, doesn’t he?” Kennedy made a dismissive gesture. “I don’t know him at all well, I’m afraid.”
“I didn’t ask if you knew where he lived,” Bushell said. “I asked if you knew his present whereabouts.”
Kennedy rewarded him with a hooded look that pleased him more than the glares he’d earned before: he’d been intended to take that as a fully responsive answer. The publisher spoke carefully now: “No, I do not know his exact whereabouts. I do know I have not seen him or talked with him in two or three years, so I’m afraid I can’t help you further.” He took a pocket watch from a waistcoat pocket. “Have you got a lot of other questions, Colonel Bushell? I have another meeting in five minutes. If there are more, perhaps we could resume this afternoon with my solicitor present.”
“Fascinating how someone who despises good British law is so quick to shelter behind it,” Bushell remarked to no one in particular. With his solicitor present, Kennedy would say nothing of any consequence, and would have the best legal advice his money could buy justifying that nothing. The man had developed skating on thin ice into an art, but he’d never yet gone through. Sighing, Bushell said, “I think that’s all.”
Kennedy got to his feet. Just for a moment, he looked smugly patronizing: a prominent men who’d fended off an impertinent busybody who had almost - but not quite - managed to become an annoyance. Then the friendly, smiling mask slid back into place, and Bushell, against his will, found himself smiling back. Whatever else you said about the man, he did have charisma.
Kennedy extended his hand again. “I don’t wish you ill, Colonel, not personally.”
On that basis, Bushell clasped it without hesitation. “No, not personally, Mr. Kennedy.” An open enemy, unlike the hidden terrorists who called themselves the Sons of Liberty, could deserve respect. Kennedy shook hands with Samuel Stanley, too; Stanley also seemed to accept him as a declared foe but not necessarily a villain because of that. As he had when they were introduced, the publisher lingered over Kathleen Flannery. “A pleasure to meet you, my dear,” he said. “I’d like to see more of you, if you’ll be in Boston long.”
“I don’t know,” she answered. “I expect I’ll be very busy, however long I am here.”
“What a pity.” Kennedy finally let go of her hand. He held the door open so she, Bushell, and Stanley could leave. “Good luck, Colonel,” he told Bushell, “but not too much of it.”
Someone was sitting on the couch by the secretary’s desk. Bushell glanced over at the man. Had this been the cinema, the fellow would have been Joseph Kilbride. Bushell had no idea who he was, but Kilbride he wasn’t. Bushell clicked his tongue between his teeth in regret, then headed for the lift. He and his companions spent the rest of the morning at the Boston RAM offices on Parliament Street. That proved as frustrating as the interview with Kennedy had. Like Pennsylvania, Boston was a stronghold of the Sons of Liberty, but if any of the local Sons had anything to do with the plot to steal The Two Georges or any knowledge of it, the RAMs hadn’t been able to prove it. They hadn’t found any sign of Joseph Kilbride, either. He might have dropped off the face of the earth or Michael O’Flynn might have been lying, down there in the coal mine. When church bells chimed noon, Bushell threw his hands in the air. “Where can we get something to eat?” he asked Major George Harris, the RAM who’d been helping in what looked more and more like a fruitless search.
“Try Durgin-Park, out in back of Faneuil Hall,” Harris suggested. He was a Bostonian himself, and talked like one: the name of the eatery he proposed came out as an almost unintelligible Duhgin-Pahk. After he said it often enough for Bushell to understand him, he added, “They’ll fill you up there, and they won’t leave you broke.”
Bushell looked at his companions. They nodded. “Why not?” he said. The three of them went out into the humid heat and walked over to the restaurant. He almost left when he found they had to queue up to get into the upstairs dining room, but didn’t know anywhere else to go. The queue proved to move swiftly. Before long, he, Stanley, and Kathleen were sitting at a long table with a dozen other hungry souls.
The place was as far from elegant as could be imagined - and by all appearances deliberately so. Large, noisy fans stirred the warm air. Steam pipes rattled and wheezed overhead. The waitresses came in two varieties: surly and wisecracking.
But the Boston baked beans with salt pork, the corn bread, and the roast beef were uniformly excellent, and, as Major Harris had promised, they gave you enough to feed a regiment. Bushell didn’t know how he managed to find room for Indian pudding, but the cornmeal-and-molasses mix found a corner nothing else was filling. “I wonder what Shikalimo would think of it,” he mused.
“Don’t know,” Samuel Stanley said.”Have you got a wheelbarrow? Dump me in it and roll me back to the hotel.”
“No rest for the weary - nor even the obese,” Bushell answered with a smile. “Back to the RAMs, and then on to the Boston constables.” He turned to Kathleen Flannery. “You see what a dramatic, exciting life we lead.”
She nodded without saying anything. She hadn’t said much since they left the offices of Common Sense. That worried Bushell. Had talking to John Kennedy made her wonder if she was on the right side after all? Was she really on the right side after all? He’d thought so; he’d been - almost - convinced. Now he started wondering again.
By about two that afternoon, Bushell was convinced he wouldn’t learn anything more from the RAMs. He and his companions went down the street to the central constabulary station. When he got there, he wondered if he’d ever seen so many Irishmen all in the same place before. They fell over themselves trying to be helpful; he had no complaint on that score. Even so, he couldn’t help wondering if one or another of Boston’s finest might not occasionally slip a shilling into a telephone at a public box and ring up Common Sense. He tried not to let the thought worry him. However friendly and solicitous they were, the Boston constables had not set eyes on Joseph Kilbride. The number of people who might have been harboring him ran into the hundreds, if not the thousands. Checking out each one would take a long time, time the investigation did not have. “And the worst of it is, there’s sure to be plenty of men without even the littlest record who’d do a Son a good turn,” a constabulary lieutenant said morosely. “If we do land this Kilbride item, it’s as likely to be by luck as by design.”