“You and Mr. Brenin spoke earlier of his favorite game.” The woman sat in a chair upholstered with zebra hide. “Do you play, Mr. Bauer?”
“You could say that.” Again, Steven worked to keep his expression impassive. “My father taught me chess when I was young.”
A cold pit opened at Steven’s core, his imagination offering far too many potential options as to his father’s circumstances back in the present. Taken by the Black, along with members of both Audrey’s and Lena’s families, Donald Bauer remained ever at the forefront of Steven’s mind. Far bigger stakes were involved in this ancient Game that had taken over their lives—there was no doubt of that—but getting everyone’s family members back safe and sound remained near the top of his list.
And the man responsible for taking them lounged behind one of the two doors leading from the room.
“Make yourself comfortable. Mr. Brenin asked me to keep you company until he was ready to meet with you.”
A quiet moan from behind one of the doors brought heat to Steven’s cheeks.
“I take it he wasn’t expecting me quite so soon.”
The woman leaned back in her chair and crossed her legs, a shapely knee emerging from beneath the hem of her sheer robe. “Mr. Brenin is, for the moment, indisposed, but I hope my company will suffice while you wait.” Her eyes again trailed down Steven’s form. “At your pleasure, of course.”
Steven had walked this particular tightrope before.
Beautiful woman. Black dress slit up to there. Her every word all “come hither.”
Right up to the moment she tried to burn him alive.
“What sort of business keeps Mr. Brenin in such posh accommodations?” Steven looked around the car, ignoring both her suggestive gaze and leading remarks. “If this railcar of his is any indication—”
“Mr. Brenin’s affairs are his business and his business alone.” Both her eyes and tone turned cold. “Your only concern should be his most generous offer to employ three men he has only just met.”
“My apologies.” Steven sat opposite the woman and interlaced his fingers. “I’m merely dazzled by the sheer opulence of what must be, no doubt, but a small example of Mr. Brenin’s wealth.”
She offered the barest of smiles. “Rest assured, Mr. Bauer, that Mr. Brenin has more than sufficient wherewithal to take excellent care of you and your friends.”
“And what of you and your two associates?” Steven leaned in, resting his elbows on his knees. “How long have you three…worked for Mr. Brenin?”
“You certainly don’t mince words, Mr. Bauer.” The woman rose from the black-and-white upholstered chair and went to the window. “My sisters and I do not work for Mr. Brenin, per se. We merely provide him companionship, among other services. In return, he makes certain we want for nothing.”
“Sisters, eh?” Steven raised an eyebrow. “That must be some arrangement.”
“You haven’t the first idea.” Zed stepped into the room from the door to Steven’s left. Dressed in an open shirt of white silk and loose black pantaloons, the man calling himself Victor Brenin appeared the very definition of a man of leisure. “Have you ever encountered a more exquisite woman, Mr. Bauer?” he asked, sitting in the chair opposite Steven. “Years ago, during one of my many excursions to the Orient, I first encountered Ume and her two sisters. Orphaned and hungry, I took them under my wing. And now, look how they’ve blossomed.”
As if on cue, the remaining two sisters glided into the room, one from each doorway, dressed in floral robes similar to Ume’s. One set of robes reminded Steven of the white cherry blossoms that filled the tree every spring in front of his childhood home and the other, the yellow mums his mother kept in clay pots on their porch every fall.
“Three sisters.” Steven rose from his chair, memories of the town in Oregon where he first met Audrey flitting across his subconscious, every image surreal as if from a movie he’d seen in another lifetime. “Everything old really is new again.”
“Their father was one of the last samurai who took part in the Satsuma Rebellion in southwestern Japan thirteen years ago. He and their mother both fell protecting their home from Meiji forces.” Brenin gestured to the three sisters and bowed his head. “A tragedy, indeed.”
“To lose one’s family.” Steven’s intestines coiled. “Is there anything worse?”
Brenin’s eyes narrowed subtly, the man clearly picking up on Steven’s shift in tone. Barring the reading of minds, however, he couldn’t possibly understand Steven knew all too well exactly the kind of man who hid behind his serpent’s smile. Keeping his tongue, the Black King merely crossed his arms and waited for his opponent to make the next move.
“So, Ume.” Steven glanced in the direction of the woman’s two sisters. “Your two sisters? May I—”
“I am Sakura,” said the one who had entered from the same door as the Black King. “The eldest.” Her lips drew down to a tight moue. “And the least easily impressed.”
“And I am Kiku.” The third offered Steven what appeared to be a genuine smile. “A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Mr. Bauer.”
“A pleasure, indeed.” Clearly the youngest of the three, she must have still been in diapers when Brenin first took her in. In her innocent features, he found traces of Lena Cervantes, and in her beaming grin, the exuberance of Audrey Richards.
His heart ached, even as his resolve doubled. The man responsible for all of this misery sat before him—comfortable, happy, even smug.
Steven longed to wipe the self-satisfied smirk from his lips.
But justice would have to wait.
Steven didn’t understand much about the mechanics of actual honest-to-god time travel, but one thing a childhood filled with science-fiction movies and television shows running the gamut from Back to the Future to Planet of the Apes or even Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure left him with one simple understanding: Screw with the past at your own peril.
“So, Mr. Brenin.” Steven retook his seat. “The offer you made earlier. What services do you believe my friends and I can provide?”
“Straight to business, then.” The Black King shifted in his seat. “I respect that.”
Sakura sat on the settee next to Steven’s chair. “As Mr. Brenin stated before, it seems we are stuck in unfamiliar territory for the duration and merely would ask that you and your friends be our eyes and ears until such time as we are able to make our way east again.”
Steven’s brow furrowed. “And why do you believe anyone here would wish you ill?”
Besides the three men you seek to employ, of course.
“One does not rise to the top of society without making a few enemies, Mr. Bauer.” Brenin steepled his fingers beneath his chin. “Look around you. There are many who covet the things I have.” His eyes flicked in Sakura’s direction. “The things I love.” He stood and went to the window, peering between the curtains at the wilderness beyond. “I merely wish to remain undisturbed during my brief exile in this poor man’s excuse for civilization.”
“And why would you think anyone would come for you in Wolf’s Bend? I doubt anyone even knows you’re here.”
“The small-minded exist everywhere, Mr. Bauer. Those who would take what isn’t theirs. Those who would attack those who cannot defend themselves.” His eyes narrowed. “Those who would destroy an entire locomotive just to make a particularly rich target a bit more—shall we say—easy to hit?”
“You think the two men who blew the engine did it to get to you?”
Brenin’s gaze took on a patronizing slant. “Trains pass this way every week without event, Mr. Bauer, despite cars filled with bank notes and precious metals or dozens of people with wealth sufficient to travel cross country by rail. To my knowledge, there have been no railway robberies in this region to date, and yet, less than five minutes after a train pulling my car arrives in the Wolf’s Bend station, its locomotive is left a pile of scrap metal by a pair of bandits no one has ever seen before or since.” He took Sak
ura’s hand. “Pontificate on coincidence all you like, but the implications of today’s events are not hard to decipher.”
Steven paused momentarily at the unexpected show of affection. “And what, may I ask, are you transporting that’s so intoxicating it might bring out the criminal element?”
Brenin’s eyes narrowed. “That is truly the question of the hour, is it not?”
And that, apparently, was all he had to say on the subject.
Steven opted not to push. “So, all you want us to do is keep you up on the various comings and goings here in Wolf’s Bend?”
“For now.” Ume rose from her chair. “You will report to me, a minimum of three times daily at ten, two, and eight, not to mention immediately, should you feel anything has occurred that might require Mr. Brenin’s attention.”
Steven crossed his arms. “All of that sounds quite doable, assuming we can come to an agreement on compensation.”
“Name your price.” Brenin rested his drawstring purse on the table at the room’s center, just adjacent to the inlaid chessboard. “I suspect I can more than meet your expectations.”
“A fair day’s wages is all we require.” Steven leaned back in his chair. “And, one small request.”
“Interesting.” Brenin leaned forward. “And what might this request be?”
“At a future date, time, and place of my choosing…” Steven crossed his arms. “The honest answer to a question.”
Zed’s eyebrow rose cautiously. “And what question might that be, Mr. Bauer?”
“I will ask when the time is right. Like you, Mr. Brenin, I like to keep my cards close to my chest.” Steven forced a congenial smile. “Do we have a deal?”
Brenin pondered for a moment. “You think several moves ahead, Mr. Bauer. I respect that in a man.” He extended a hand. “We have a deal.”
Steven shook the Black King’s hand for the second time that day, though this time the prodigious strength only parlayed into a firm show of respect rather than a concerted effort to break Steven’s fingers.
“Before I go,” Steven said, “I do have a suspicion as to identities of the men responsible for your current predicament.”
“I thought you might.” Brenin stepped back and held his hands before him, palms up. “Please, do feel free to share.”
Steven cast his mind back a few days and detailed what he remembered of the pair he thought of as Scarface and Slick—their references to some plan that sounded anything but above board, the cryptic nod to a mysterious “old man,” and the fact that neither Steven nor any of the others had seen the two men around town since.
“An ‘old man,’ you say?” Brenin said when Steven had finished, his brow knit together with worry. “Those were their exact words?”
“That’s what they said.” Steven studied the Black King’s features, attempting to scry his adversary’s thoughts.
“So, these brigands have a benefactor. Interesting.” Brenin opened the railcar door and showed Steven out. “I wonder if even the two desperados in question have the first idea who it is they’re dealing with.”
“Wait. Do you know who they’re—”
The dark steel door of the Black King’s railcar closed in Steven’s face with a quiet clunk, the sudden silence punctuated by the hiss of steam as the door again sealed itself shut.
21
Bad & Worse
“Is it possible?” Steven gauged Archie’s expression. “Could Grey be here?”
“I haven’t had so much as a flash of him.” Archie cast his eyes around the crowded saloon. “Now, keep your voice down. You’ve already got local law enforcement trying to pin a federal crime on you and accepted employment from a man who’s tried to kill you half a dozen times. Maybe we don’t try to get the rest of the town whispering about you anymore than they already are?”
“Who else could Zed be thinking of, then?” Steven brought his voice down a few decibels. “He was all calm and in control till I mentioned the ‘old man’ Slick and Scarface were talking about.” Steven inclined his head to one side. “By the way, any word on them? You know either out here…” He motioned to the general hubbub of the saloon. “Or up here?” Steven pointed to his temple, an eyebrow raised in question.
“There are lots of ‘old men,’ Steven.” Archie ran his fingers through his kinky grey locks. “Hell, I’m one of them.” He laughed. “I know we were just discussing that all of this is happening for a reason and that everything pertains to the Game, but we should also consider the possibility that maybe these brigands really do just want to blow up a train.”
“I suppose.” Steven peered around the room. Most of the saloon’s late afternoon clientele paid him no mind, but he found more than one furtive glance focused in his direction. Clearly, their arrival had become a matter of town gossip, and unless he missed his guess, the locals weren’t organizing a welcome party.
Not that he could blame them. The whole “mysterious stranger found standing over a dying federal marshal” thing was anything but the stuff of good first impressions.
Niklaus strode into the saloon. “So, we’re officially working for the ‘man’ now?”
“Apparently so.” Steven sighed. “Just sealed the deal an hour ago.”
Niklaus paused mid-step. “And our marching orders?”
“To keep our ears to the ground and report anything that might be counter to his agenda until he’s long gone from Wolf’s Bend.”
“At least he doesn’t want us to kill anyone.”
“Not yet, anyway.” Steven swirled the whiskey in his glass. “Any word on when the replacement engine will make it into town?”
“I spoke to the town telegrapher.” Niklaus raised two fingers. “Train’s a couple days out.”
“And any whispers about how they’re planning to get the other locomotive off the tracks?”
Niklaus pulled in a breath. “Yet another engine, this one coming from the east. From what I understand, one of the biggest in the fleet. Since the blown locomotive is still on the rails, they intend to have the big engine pull the wreckage a few miles east to the next town for scrap.”
“Is that going to work?” Steven asked. “The locomotive is pretty much destroyed.”
“One of the townsfolk used to work for the railroad. He said most of the force of the blast went either straight up or out to the sides, leaving the bottom of the locomotive for the most part intact. The internal steam engine may be so much scrap metal, but the wheels should turn.”
“And if they don’t?”
“Then all of us are stuck here for a hell of a lot longer than we hoped.”
“Okay, then.” Steven pounded a fist on the bar. “Assuming they can clear the tracks, that means we’ve probably got just over forty-eight hours to puzzle out the rest of all this.”
“A little ambitious, don’t you think?” Archie wiped down the bar, the motion all but robotic. “Trying to figure out the mysteries of the universe in two days?”
“I don’t know.” Steven’s eyes slid shut. “But without Grey, we’d never have gotten out of 1946. If we let Zed head on down the tracks…”
“There’s a possibility we’d be stuck here.” Niklaus motioned for Archie to pull him a drink. “What if Zed is the only one that knows how to—”
A blast of cold hit as the door leading outside crashed open revealing a shivering Emilio, his eyes wide with fear.
“What’s wrong, Emilio?” Steven turned on his barstool. “We weren’t expecting you back for a couple more hours.”
“I found them,” Emilio got out between chattering teeth. “God help us, I found them.”
“Scarface and Slick?” Steven rose and took a step toward the door. “Where?”
“Right here.” The man Steven referred to as Scarface sauntered into the room with his pomade-coiffed associate close on his heels. “I hear you’ve been looking for us, Mr. Bauer, isn’t it?”
An army of ants crawled up the back of Steven’s neck.
“Been saying some not-so-nice things about a couple of gents you barely know, I hear.” Slick slid out of a long leather duster and folded it over one arm, resting his opposite hand on the hilt of his revolver. “Not the smartest thing to do in a town this size, wouldn’t you say?”
“You boys keep your guns in your holsters, you hear?” Archie pulled the shotgun up from behind the bar, the movement far more fluid than Steven would have anticipated considering Archie’s return to septuagenarian status. “This is the only place in the whole damn town where everyone can get out of the cold. I won’t have you or anyone else blowing holes in the walls. Understand?”
Slick raised both hands before him, the gesture mocking in its over-the-top congeniality. “Don’t worry, Mr. Lacan. Nobody’s shooting anybody today.” His eyes went to Steven. “That is as long as Mr. Bauer here agrees to start keeping his unfounded opinions to himself.”
“Let’s talk about this.” Stunned at the strange turn of events, Steven’s mind worked frantically to put together a scenario where the two armed men before him could even know his name, much less his suspicions. He’d only shared his thoughts with his inner circle, and none of them had the first motive.
But that left only…
Zed.
Steven had left the Black King’s side less than an hour before, but that was more than enough time to deliver a message to a pair of outlaws hiding on the outskirts of town.
Dammit.
He’d tipped his hand to the very person who controlled the opposite end of this particular chessboard.
Steven took a breath as he studied Scarface with as impassive an expression as he could manage. “First things first. May I ask what it is it I’m supposed to have said?” With every eye in the saloon trained on him, he fought to keep even a hint of stammer from his voice. “Last I checked, the accused gets to hear the charges against him.”
“An interesting turn of phrase, Mr. Bauer.” Scarface strode over and rested an elbow atop the bar’s wooden surface. “Seeing as how you’re the one telling anyone who’ll listen we were the ones who blew the train today.”
Queen's Peril Page 22