Rogues Read online

  “The lady, of course,” Surplus said with a little bow.

  Tawny curtsied and then, pushing aside a hidden latch at the bottom of one of the bags, slid out a silver ingot. From another bag, she slid out a second. Then, from a third, a third. A sigh of relief went up from all three conspirators at the sight of the silver glimmering in the lanternlight.

  “That was right smartly done, when you changed the fake bars for the real ones,” Tawny said.

  Darger politely demurred. “No, it was the distraction that made the trick possible, and in this regard you were both exemplary. Even the assayist, who was present all three times you almost sent the equipment to the floor, suspected nothing.”

  “But tell me something,” Tawny said. “Why did you make the substitution before the assay, rather than after? The other way around, you wouldn’t have needed to have that little plug of silver in the middle for the sample to be drawn from. Just a silver-plated lead bar.”

  “We are dealing with suspicious people. This way, they first had the ingots confirmed as genuine and then saw that we came nowhere near them afterwards. The ingots are in a safety-deposit box in a reputable bank, so to their minds there is not the least risk. All is on the up-and-up.”

  “But we’re not going to stop here, are we?” Tawny asked anxiously. “I do so want to work the black-money scam.”

  “Have no fear, my lovely,” Surplus said, “this is only the beginning. But it serves as a kind of insurance policy for us. Even should the scheme go bad, we have already turned a solid profit.” He poured brandy into three small glasses and handed them around. “To whom shall we drink?”

  “To Madam-Mayor Tresjolie!” Darger said.

  They drank, and then Tawny said, “What do you make of her? Professionally, I mean.”

  “She is far shrewder than she would have you think,” Surplus replied. “But, as you are doubtless aware, the self-consciously shrewd are always the easiest to mislead.” He poured a second glass. “To Master Bones!”

  They drank. Tawny said, “And of him?”

  “He is more problematic,” Darger said. “A soft man with a brutal streak underneath his softness. In some ways he hardly seems human.”

  “Perhaps he has been sampling his own product?” Surplus suggested.

  “Puffer-fish extract, you mean? No. His mind is active enough. But I catch not the least glimmer of empathy from him. I suspect that he’s been associating with zombies so long that he’s come to think we’re all like them.”

  The final toast inevitably went to Pirate Lafitte.

  “I think he’s cute,” Tawny said. “Only maybe you don’t agree?”

  “He is a fraud and a poseur,” Darger replied, “A scoundrel who passes himself off as a gentleman, and a manipulator of the legal system who insists he is the most honest of citizens. Consequently, I like him quite a bit. I believe that he is a man we can do business with. Mark my words, when the three of them come to see us tomorrow, it will be at his instigation.”

  For a time they talked business. Then Surplus broke out a deck of cards. They played euchre and canasta and poker, and because they played for matches, nobody objected when the game turned into a competition to see how deftly the cards could be dealt from the bottom of the deck or flicked out of the sleeve into one’s hand. Nor was there any particular outcry when in one memorable hand, eleven aces were laid on the table at once.

  At last Darger said, “Look at the time! It will be a long day tomorrow,” and they each went to their respective rooms.

  That night, as Darger was drifting off to sleep, he heard the door connecting his room with Tawny’s quietly open and shut. There was a rustle of sheets as she slipped into his bed. Then the warmth of Tawny’s naked body pressed against his own, and her hand closed about his most private part. Abruptly, he was wide-awake.

  “What on earth do you think you’re doing?” he whispered fiercely.

  Unexpectedly, Tawny released her hold on Darger and punched him hard in his shoulder. “Oh, it’s so easy for you,” she retorted, equally quietly. “It’s so easy for men! That hideous old woman tried to buy me. That awful little man wanted you to let him drug me. And God only knows what intentions Pirate Lafitte holds. You’ll notice they all made their propositions to you. Not a one of them said a word to me.” Hot tears fell on Darger’s chest. “All my life I have had male protectors—and needed them too. My daddy, until I ran away. My first husband, until he got eaten by giant crabs. Then various boyfriends and finally that creep Jake.”

  “You have nothing to worry about. Surplus and I have never abandoned a confederate, nor shall we ever. Our reputation is spotless in this regard.”

  “I tell myself that, and daytimes I’m fine with it. But at night … well, this past week has been the longest I ever went without a man’s body to comfort me.”

  “Yes, but surely you understand—”

  Tawny drew herself up. Even in the dim half-light of the moon through the window she was a magnificent sight. Then she leaned down to kiss Darger’s cheek and murmured into his ear, “I’ve never had to beg a man before, but … Please?”

  Darger considered himself a moral man. But there was only so much temptation a man could resist without losing all respect for himself.

  The next morning, Darger awoke alone. He thought of the events of last night and smiled. He thought of their implications and scowled. Then he went down to the dining room for breakfast.

  “What comes next?” Tawny asked, after they had fortified themselves with chicory coffee, beignets, and sliced baconfruit.

  “We have planted suspicions in the minds of our three backers that there is more profit to be had than we are offering to share,” Surplus said. “We have given them a glimpse of our mysterious young ward and suggested that she is key to the enterprise. We have presented them with a puzzle to which they can think of no solution. On reflection, they can only conclude that the sole reason we have the upper hand is that we can play them off of one another.” He popped the last of his beignet into his mouth. “So sooner or later they will unite and demand of us an explanation.”

  “In the meantime—” Darger said.

  “I know, I know. Back to my dreary old room to play solitaire and read the sort of uplifting literature appropriate to a modest young virgin.”

  “It’s important to stay in character,” Surplus said.

  “I understand that. Next time, however, please make me something that doesn’t need to be stored in the dark, like a sack of potatoes. The niece of a Spanish prisoner, perhaps. Or a socialite heiress. Or even a harlot.”

  “You are a Woman of Mystery,” Darger said. “Which is a time-honored and some would say enviable role to play.”

  Thus it was that when Darger and Surplus left Maison Fema—at precisely ten o’clock, as they had made it their invariant habit—they were not entirely astonished to find their three benefactors all in a group, waiting for them. A brusque exchange of threats and outrage later, and protesting every step of the way, they led their marks to their suite.

  The three bedrooms all opened off of a sunny common room. Given the room’s elegant appointments, the crates of black paper that had been stacked in front of Tawny Petticoats’ door looked glaringly out of place.

  Gesturing their guests to chairs, Darger adopted an air of resignation, and said, “In order to adequately explain our enterprise, we must go back two generations to a time before San Francisco became the financial center of North America. The visionary leaders of that great city-state determined to found a new economy upon uncounterfeitable banknotes, and to this end employed the greatest bacterial engraver of his age, Phineas Whipsnade McGonigle.”

  “That is an unlikely name,” Madam-Mayor Trejolie sniffed.

  “It was of course his nom de gravure, assumed to protect him from kidnappers and the like,” Surplus explained. “In private life, he was known as Magnus Norton.”

  “Go on.”

  Darger resumed his narrative.
“The results you know. Norton crafted one hundred and thirteen different bacteria which, as part of their natural functions, lay down layer upon layer of multicolored ink in delicate arabesques so intricate as to be the despair of coin-clippers and paperhangers everywhere. This, combined with their impeccable monetary policies, has made the San Francisco dollar the common currency of the hundred nations of North America. Alas for them, there was one weak point in their enterprise—Norton himself.

  “Norton secretly created his own printing vats, employing the bacteria he himself had created, and proceeded to mass-produce banknotes that were not only indistinguishable from the genuine item but for all intents and purposes were the genuine item. He created enough of them to make himself the wealthiest man on the continent.

  “Unfortunately for that great man, he tried to underpay his paper supplier, precipitating an argument that ended with his being arrested by the San Francisco authorities.”

  Pirate Lafitte raised an elegant forefinger. “How do you know all this?” he asked.

  “My colleague and I are journalists,” Darger said. Seeing his audience’s expressions, he raised both hands. “Not of the muckraking variety, I hasten to assure you! Corruption is a necessary and time-honored concomitant of any functioning government, which we support wholeheartedly. No, we write profiles of public figures, lavishing praise in direct proportion to their private generosity; human-interest stories of heroic boys rescuing heiresses from fires and of kittens swallowed by crocodiles and yet miraculously passing through their alimentary systems unharmed; and of course amusing looks back at the forgotten histories of local scoundrels whom the passage of time has rendered unthreatening.”

  “It was this last that led us to Norton’s story,” Surplus elucidated.

  “Indeed. We discovered that by a quirk of San Francisco’s labyrinthine banking regulations, Norton’s monetary creations could neither be destroyed nor distributed as valid currency. So to prevent their misuse, the banknotes were subjected to another biolithographic process whereby they were deeply impregnated with black ink so cunningly composed that no known process could bleach it from the bills without destroying the paper in the process.

  “Now, here’s where our tale gets interesting. Norton was, you’ll recall, incomparable in his craft. Naturally, the city fathers were reluctant to forgo his services. So, rather than have him languish in an ordinary prison, they walled and fortified a mansion, equipped it with a laboratory and all the resources he required, and put him to work.

  “Imagine how Norton felt! One moment he was on the brink of realizing vast wealth, and the next he was a virtual slave. So long as he cooperated, he was given fine foods, wine, even conjugal visits with his wife … But, comfortable though his prison was, he could never leave it. He was, however, a cunning man and though he could not engineer his escape, he managed to devise a means of revenge: If he could not have vast wealth, then his descendants would. Someday, the provenance of the black paper would be forgotten and it would be put up for public auction as eventually occurs to all the useless lumber a bureaucracy acquires. His children or grandchildren or great-great-grandchildren would acquire it and, utilizing an ingenious method of his own devising, convert it back into working currency and so make themselves rich beyond Croesus.”

  “The ancients had a saying,” Surplus interjected. “ ‘If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans.’ The decades passed, Norton died, and the black paper stayed in storage. By the time we began our researches, his family was apparently extinct. He had three children: a daughter who was not interested in men, a son who died young, and another son who never wed. The second son, however, traveled about in his early adulthood, and in the same neglected cache of family papers where we discovered Norton’s plans, we found evidence that he was paying child support for a female bastard he had sired here some twenty years ago. So, utilizing an understanding of the city bureaucracy which Norton’s wife and children lacked, we bribed the appropriate official to sell us the crates of seemingly worthless paper and came to New Orleans. Where we found Tawny Petticoats.”

  “This explains nothing,” Madam-Mayor Tresjolie said.

  Darger sighed heavily. “We had hoped you would be satisfied with a partial explanation. Now I see that it is all or nothing. Here before you are the crates of blackened banknotes.” A plank had been removed from one of the topmost crates. He reached in to seize a handful of black paper rectangles, fanned them for all to see, and then put them back. “My colleague and I will now introduce you to our young charge.”

  Swiftly, Darger and Surplus unstacked the crates before the doorway, placing them to either side. Then Surplus rapped on the door. “Ms. Petticoats? Are you decent? We have visitors to see you.”

  The door opened. Tawny’s large brown eyes peered apprehensively from the gloom. “Come in,” she said in a little voice.

  They all shuffled inside. Tawny looked first at Darger and then at Surplus. When they would not meet her eyes, she ducked her head, blushing. “I guess I know what y’all came here to see. Only … must I? Must I really?”

  “Yes, child, you must,” Surplus said gruffly.

  Tawny tightened her mouth and raised her chin, staring straight ahead of herself like the captain of a schooner sailing into treacherous waters. Reaching around her back, she began unbuttoning her dress.

  “Magnus Norton designed what no other man could have—a microorganism that would eat the black ink permeating the banknotes without damaging the other inks in any way. Simply place the notes in the proper liquid nutrient, add powdered silver as a catalyst, and within a week there will be nothing but perfect San Francisco money and a slurry of silver,” Darger said. “However, he still faced the problem of passing the information of how to create the organism to his family. In a manner, moreover, robust enough to survive what he knew would be decades of neglect.”

  Tawny had unbuttoned her dress. Now, placing a hand upon her bosom to hold the dress in place, she drew one arm from its sleeve. Then, switching hands, she drew out the other. “Now?” she said.

  Surplus nodded.

  With tiny, doll-like steps, Tawny turned to face the wall. Then she lowered her dress so that they could see her naked back. On it was a large tattoo in seven bright colors, of three concentric circles. Each circle was made of a great number of short, near-parallel lines, all radiant from the unmarked skin at the tattoo’s center. Anyone who could read a gene map could easily use it to create the organism it described.

  Master Bones, who had not spoken before now, said, “That’s an E. coli, isn’t it?”

  “A variant on it, yes, sir. Norton wrote this tattoo into his own genome and then sired three children upon his wife, believing they would have many more in their turn. But fate is a fickle lady, and Ms. Petticoats is the last of her line. She, however, will suffice.” He turned to Tawny. “You may clothe yourself again. Our guests have had their curiosities satisfied, and now they will leave.”

  Darger led the group back to the front room, closing the door firmly behind him. “Now,” he said. “You have learned what you came to learn. At the cost, I might mention, of violently depriving an innocent maiden of her modesty.”

  “That is a swinish thing to say!” Pirate Lafitte snapped.

  In the silence that followed his outburst, all could hear Tawny Petticoats in the next room, sobbing her heart out.

  “Your work here is done,” Darger said, “and I just ask you to leave.”

  Now that Tawny Petticoats was no longer a secret, there was nothing for the three conspirators to do but wait for the equipment they had supposedly sent for upriver—and for their marks to each separately approach them with very large bribes to buy their process and the crates of black paper away from them. As simple logic stipulated that they inevitably must.

  The very next day, after the morning mail had brought two notes proposing meetings, the trio went out for breakfast at a sidewalk café. They had just finished and were beginning their se
cond cups of coffee when Tawny looked over Darger’s shoulder, and exclaimed, “Oh, merciful God in heaven! It’s Jake.” Then, seeing her companions’ incomprehension, “My husband! He’s talking to Pirate Lafitte. They’re coming this way.”

  “Keep smiling,” Darger murmured. “Feign unconcern. Surplus, you know what to do.”

  It took a count of ten for the interlopers to reach their table.

  “Jake!” Surplus exclaimed in evident surprise, beginning to rise from his chair.

  “Come for his pay, no doubt.” Darger drew from his pocket the wad of bills—one of large denomination on the outside, a great many singles beneath—which any sensible businessman carried with him at all times and, turning, said, “The madam-mayor wishes you to know—”

  He found himself confronted by a stranger who could only be Tawny’s Jake and Pirate Lafitte, whose face was contorted with astonishment.

  Darger hastily thrust the wad of bills back into his pocket. “Wishes you to know,” he repeated, “that, ah, anytime you wish to try out her establishment, she will gladly offer you a 10 percent discount on all goods and services, alcohol excepted. It is a courtesy she has newly decided to extend, out of respect for your employer, to all his new hires.”

  Lafitte turned, grabbed Jake by the shirtfront, and shook him as a mastiff might a rat. “I understand now,” he said through gritted teeth. “The honorable brothel-keeper wished to deal me out of a rich opportunity, and so she sent you to me with a cock-and-bull story about this virtuous and inoffensive young woman.”

  “Honest, boss, I ain’t got the slightest idea what this … this … foreigner is talking about. It’s honest info I’m peddling here. I heard it on the street that my filthy bitch of a–”

  With a roar of rage, Pirate Lafitte punched Jake so hard he fell sprawling in the street. Then he pulled the whip from his belt and proceeded to lay into the man so savagely that by the time he was done, his shirt and vest were damp with sweat.

  Breathing heavily from exertion, he touched his hat to Darger and Surplus. “Sirs. We shall talk later, at a time when my passions are not so excited. This afternoon, five o’clock, at my office. I have a proposition to put to you.” Then, to Tawny, “Miss Petticoats, I apologize that you had to see this.”