“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.”
He strode off.
“Oh!” Tawny breathed. “He beat Jake within an inch of his worthless life. It was the most romantic thing I’ve ever seen.”
“A horsewhipping? Romantic?” Darger said.
Tawny favored him with a superior look. “You don’t much understand the workings of a woman’s heart, do you?”
“Apparently not,” Darger said. “And it begins to appear that I never shall.” Out in the street, Jake was painfully pulling himself up and trying to stand. “Excuse me.”
Darger went over to the battered and bleeding man and helped him to his feet. Then, talking quietly, he opened his billfold and thrust several notes into the man’s hand.
“What did you give him?” Tawny asked, when he was back inside.
“A stern warning not to interfere with us again. Also, seventeen dollars. A sum insulting enough to guarantee that, despite his injuries, he will take his increasingly implausible story to Master Bones, and then to the madam-mayor.”
Tawny grabbed Darger and Surplus and hugged them both at once. “Oh, you boys are so good to me. I just love you both to pieces and back.”
“It begins to look, however,” Surplus said, “like we have been stood up. According to Madam-Mayor Tresjolie’s note, she should have been here by now. Which is, if I may use such language, damnably peculiar.”
“Something must have come up.” Darger squinted up at the sky. “Tresjolie isn’t here and it’s about time for the meeting with Master Bones. You should stay here, in case the madam-mayor shows up. I’ll see what the zombie master has to say.”
“And I,” Tawny said, “will go back to my room to adjust my dress.”
“Adjust?” Surplus asked.
“It needs to be a little tighter and to show just a smidge more bosom.”
Alarmed, Darger said, “Your character is a modest and innocent thing.”
“She is a modest and innocent thing who secretly wishes a worldly cad would teach her all those wicked deeds she has heard about but cannot quite imagine. I have played this role before, gentlemen. Trust me, it is not innocence per se that men like Pirate Lafitte are drawn to but the tantalizing possibility of corrupting that innocence.”
Then she was gone.
“A most remarkable young lady, our Ms. Petticoats,” Surplus said.
Darger scowled.
After Darger left, Surplus leaned back in his chair for some casual people-watching. He had not been at it long when he noticed that a remarkably pretty woman at a table at the far end of the café kept glancing his way. When he returned her gaze, she blushed and looked quickly away.
From long experience, Surplus understood what such looks meant. Leaving money on the table to pay for the breakfasts, he strolled over to introduce himself to the lady. She seemed not unreceptive to his attentions and, after a remarkably short conversation, invited him to her room in a nearby hotel. Feigning surprise, Surplus accepted.
What happened there had occurred many times before in his eventful life. But that didn’t make it any less delightful.
On leaving the hotel, however, Surplus was alarmed to find himself abruptly seized and firmly held by two red-furred, seven-foot-tall uniformed Canadian ape-men.
“I see you have been entertaining yourself with one of the local sluts,” Madam-Mayor Tresjolie said. She looked even less benevolent than usual.
“That is a harsh characterization of a lady who, for all I know, may be of high moral character. Also, I must ask you why I am being held captive like this.”
“In due time. First, tell me whether your encounter was a commercial one or not.”
“I thought not when we were in the throes of it. But afterward, she showed me her union card and informed me that as a matter of policy she was required to charge not only by the hour but by the position. I was, of course, astonished.”
“What did you do then?”
“I paid, of course,” Surplus said indignantly. “I am no scab!”
“The woman with whom you coupled, however, was not a registered member of the International Sisterhood of Trollops, Demimondaines, and Back-Alley Doxies and her card was a forgery. Which means that while nobody objects to your noncommercial sexual activities, by paying her you were engaged in a union-busting activity—and that, sir, is against the law.”
“Obviously, you set me up. Otherwise, you could have known none of this.”
“That is neither here nor there. What is relevant is that you have three things that I want—the girl with the birthmark, the crates of money, and the knowledge of how to use the one to render the other negotiable.”
“I understand now. Doubtless, madam-mayor, you seek to bribe me. I assure you that no amount of money—”
“Money?” The madam-mayor’s laugh was short and harsh. “I am offering you something far more precious: your conscious mind.” She produced a hypodermic needle. “People think the zombification formula consists entirely of extract of puffer fish. But in fact atropine, datura, and a dozen other drugs are involved, all blended in a manner guaranteed to make the experience very unpleasant indeed.”
“Threats will not work on me.”
“Not yet. But after you’ve had a taste of what otherwise lies before you, I’m sure you’ll come around. In a week or so, I’ll haul you back from the fields. Then we can negotiate.”
Madam-Mayor Tresjolie’s simian thugs held Surplus firmly, struggle though he did. She raised the syringe to his neck. There was a sharp sting.