“Darkness,” said the woman, “is on the face of the waters.”
Because he was an actor, and only because he was an actor, Charles did not flinch, or in any way betray the salience of her phrase. “What,” he asked, “have you got something against Pinkerton subcontractors?”
“What,” countered the woman, “you got something for ’em?”
“Last time I checked,” drawled Charles, “they were tracking down the godless animals who are throwing bombs into crowds of innocent people.”
The woman laughed derisively.
“Into crowds of innocent people I happened to know!” Charles was all but laughing back at the woman — or rather, with her.
“I suppose it never occurred to you that the Pinkerton gang was doing the actual throwing.?”
Now Charles laughed out loud. “Oh, it occurred to me, all right!”
He and the woman engaged in what seemed to be genuine mirth.
The man cleared his throat and returned to the subject of weights. “Better get rid of ’em all. They’re all bad, Charles.”
“Call me Chick.”
“Take my word for it, Chick. Save yourself a lot of time and money and effort and I know all about time and money and effort going down the drain. Just go down to the foundry and say, ‘Hey, I need new accurate weights for every elevator in the state of Minnesota! It’s either that or every farmer in the whole goddamned Midwest dries up and blows away!’”
“Well, sir, that’s the way we heard it too,” said Charles.
“Only way there is to hear it.”
“Can I get a drink? Big glass of water and a shot, and for—”
“Fraid not. As a representative of the state government, you ought to know better than to ask.”
“I hear you. But if I could convince you that there’s more to me than meets the eye, and that the part of me you can’t see is 100 percent in favor of your running your business twenty-four hours a day and seven days a week or however it is you feel like running it, what would you say then?”
“I would say no soap, stranger. But in the friendliest way possible.”
“Not even a glass of water and—”
The woman poured four glasses of water from a bucket and set two of them on the bar. Charles and Vera drank thirstily, even noisily. The woman took the other two into the darkness for the Wobblies. Passing Ray, she asked if he wanted one too. He said he did, and thanked her. When everybody was done, the woman filled their glasses again, spilling water from each glass onto the bar, laughing and saying “ooops” each time, picking the glass up, mopping the bar, setting the glass back down.
“Good water up here,” said Charles.
“We don’t have any trouble with it,” said the man.
“Can you direct me,” Charles continued briskly, “to the sheriff’s office and to a doctor?”
“The sheriff’s office and a doctor,” repeated the man. “That kinda sounds like trouble, if you don’t mind my saying so.”
“I’ve got a prescription for the latter and some questions for the former,” Charles said. “I must, as per the outline of my duties, visit the sheriff, and I want, more than anything else, to find morphine for Vera here, who is in a great deal of pain from a recent bombing. I fear she will go to pieces on us, and we need her rather desperately to stay together.”
The woman laughed, as if anticipating something the man was about to say. “No, the prescription should be for our poor old sheriff and it would read, ‘Get out of town before they tar and feather you,’ and the question would be for the good doctor: ‘Doc, how much you charge to set the broken bones I aim to come to you with when I suggest those darned old weights aren’t quite what they seem to be — or I should say, there’s more to ’em than meets the eye!’”
The man and the woman laughed privately and lengthily.
“Not exactly sure what you’re saying,” Charles said with a polite smile, “but I guess it won’t take long, is that right? For me to get it?”
“BIG DOINGS IN TOWN!” shouted the man.
Charles clapped his hands, feeling altogether upstaged, and said, “HOT DAMN!”
“You’re not the first guy,” said the man, shooting an amused look at Vera but speaking to Charles, “that I’ve ever seen before to come in here wanting a drink to start the day out right. How do I know you’re a Pinkerton? How do you know I’m not? How do I know you’re not from the NPL pretending to be a Pinkerton for God knows what nasty-ass reason — to decoy another goon from the Justice Department who’s actually a militant prohibitionist striking a deal with the Chicago Wobblies to thwart the, uh, the, uh. ”
“Detroit,” said the woman.
“Detroit Wobblies. How do I know that’s true or not true? How do you know that? And while we’re at it, who are these other men here? Do you know? Do I know?”
“We’re Chicago Wobblies,” said the older man at the table.
“How ’bout you, buddy?” The man at the bar lifted his face to Ray.
“My name is Rejean Houle. I am a hired gun.”
This was inspired stagecraft and Charles brightened.
“Who hired you?”
“Mr. Minot.”
Charles applauded.
“YOU’RE UNDER ARREST!” the woman hollered at the top of her lungs. Then she and the man collapsed in laughter. It was now clear that they were both quite drunk. Charles stepped down the bar to an open bottle of whiskey, picked it up and saluted the two of them with it, then took a long drink.
“Jesus Christ,” said Vera. “Mr. Minot? You’re gonna make yourself sick.” He took another long drink. “Charles? Chick?” Vera tried. “You look hypnotized. Come on, let’s go. Yes, these people are comrades and they are charming, but let’s go.”
“Yes indeedy-do!” said the woman. “Mr. Minot, aka Charles, aka Chick, wants to find that darn doctor and the sheriff before he tips over, which will be in a second or two, because whatever I don’t know, I do know who can’t hold liquor!”
“Good luck to ya!” the man sputtered.
Charles had begun to make his way to the door, following Vera, but came back to shake the hands of the man and the woman, as he was evidently not going to stop swilling whiskey. Vera let him tug him a step, still drinking, then stopped with a jerk that threw him a little off balance. He reached out and slammed the bottle down on the bar and to the saloonkeepers said, “The blonde is with the NPL, and was with the Wobblies in Paterson and Lawrence. It’s possible she met the old man and the young man at the table over there in Paterson, or possibly had a hand in some goings-on in Los Angeles and later in San Francisco, where we all met. I am an heir to one of that city’s biggest fortunes. Family owned a theater and it was bombed — by somebody trying to look like somebody else. Then there was this parade. We all left when it got bombed. Some of our friends have been framed for the bombing and some of our friends have been killed in the course of the frame-up. Because I have connections in DC, I’m working way up high, the high wire, don’t you know, with the MCPS. And yes, you heard right: I’m a Minot. That’s my little town they got out there somewhere in the Dakotas. We’re riding along together up here in the dynamic northland, kind of on a little picnic, because we were in the right place at the right time. I don’t know why we weren’t put in the same all-purpose frame in San Francisco, and I don’t know if anybody here knows exactly who we are, if we’re on a tether or just the lucky recipients of high-speed bureaucratic incompetence, or if nobody really gives a shit. My father is — was, sorry, just died, hasn’t sunk in — an important enough man for the railroad folks in San Francisco to have tried to kill him. In court! So maybe I’m just a pawn. Maybe I’m a target. Maybe I am being used. Maybe I am being used up. I don’t know, and I don’t care.”