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’s 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 Tresjolie 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 paper-hangers 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.