The Queen of Diamonds

by Patricia Loofbourrow

  If Ma died, did it matter?

  I took a deep breath and faced the woman. "I'm Mrs. Jacqueline Spadros. There's a bomb on that zeppelin."

  The woman stared at me. "What?"

  "There's a bomb on that zeppelin," Morton said.

  She blanched, then grabbed a microphone. "Bomb alert. Bomb alert. Jettison all cargo. I repeat, jettison all cargo immediately." She kept repeating the words.

  Morton and I stared at the zeppelin as it rose, yet the cargo bay doors below stayed shut. Why didn't they jettison —

  They knew people were in the hold.

  "Um," Morton said, glancing down at the woman, "I —"

  The zeppelin engulfed in flame.

  Terror stabbed me. Ma!

  A huge sound, as if the world exploded.

  "LOOK OUT!" Morton pushed me under the counter at the same instant the stained glass windows shattered above us.

  Huge sheets of glass fell to smash on the wooden floor, shards flying like bullets whistling amidst the screams of the panicked crowd as we huddled under Morton's jacket.

  Silence. A huge sheet of glass crashed to the ground far down the concourse.

  Then all was sobbing and wailing.

  Morton held my upper arms, peering at me. "Are you hurt?"

  I shook my head, tears running down my face.

  Morton helped me up. I stood next to him watching the pieces of zeppelin fall burning from the sky.

  Ma ... I tried so hard to get you somewhere safe. I sent you to your death. I leaned against Morton, weeping as he held me.

  Then: Oh, Anastasia.

  As the last pieces fell, I remembered the foolish big-eared man, Trey, who thought I might marry him.

  Police and zeppelin officials swarmed the area shouting for doctors. People bled all around us. The floor was covered with glass, blood, bodies, crying children, people wailing as they knelt over loved ones.

  Morton grabbed my arm. "We must leave before the police start questioning people."

  We tried every door, every hallway, but they were all blocked, guarded. Finally, I put my hair up, my hat on, and tried to bully a guard into letting us out, telling him my name.

  "I'm sorry, mum, but we can't let anyone leave. This is a police matter. I can call Mr. Spadros if you wish."

  I turned away, terrified. What would Tony say? What would Roy do?

  But what could I do? I turned back to the guard. "Yes. Tell him I was here to see Dame Anastasia off." I pointed where the zeppelin used to be. "She was on that ship."

  "I'll have someone contact him right away."

  Morton found some chairs which weren't damaged, and not too covered in glass, and brushed them off. There we sat while doctors and assistants, police and officials, families and the dead were moved about, until Tony came and they allowed him to fetch us.

  The Aftermath

  Tony raged at everyone: Morton, Gardena, her brothers, and above all, at me. I told him of the letter Pearson gave me as I was leaving, how I persuaded Gardena to let me see Anastasia off, how Morton followed us (as Tony asked him to). How Morton protected me when the blast happened.

  None of it mattered. Tony didn't know where I was, I was hurt (a small piece of glass in my leg), and I had been in terrible danger. Worse yet, I had appeared in public with a bachelor gentleman (and without a female companion), and it had been noted in the papers. He drew his revolver to kill Honor and my driver, but I begged him not to. I told him I disguised myself, evading them on purpose in order to see Anastasia.

  He didn't speak to me or come to my bed.

  For several days, I didn’t leave my room. I suppose Jane Pearson took care of the household; to this day, I don’t know. Nothing seemed real. Ma was dead.

  Jane planned the outing. Madame Biltcliffe sent her mourning garb to me without my asking. We went to the memorial. I stood as the names of the uppers were read. No one mentioned the hundreds of Pot rags in the hold.

  Ma was dead.

  Anastasia was dead.

  Marja was dead.

  Tony didn't speak to me. After the memorial, I went to him. "I'm sorry for whatever I did to make you hate me."

  He pulled me to him with a cry, squeezing me so tightly it hurt. "I don't hate you, no, no, oh gods no. I came so close to losing you. I don't know what to say or do. I can't sleep or eat, thinking of how you might have died."

  I put my arms round him. "But I'm here. Why do you not speak to me?" His grip loosened and I took a breath. "Anastasia was my friend, one of the few I had here." It was then the tears finally came for her.

  "Dame Anastasia defrauded many," Tony said. "The papers are full of it." He let go and turned away. "Yet she came to my home, sat at my table. I exposed the three Families here at that table to scorn and speculation."

  I said numbly, "It's not your fault she did those things. We knew nothing of her crimes. No one blames you."

  He rounded on me. "You think not? Look at my mail. My verified mail. Look at the papers!" He held one up, shook it at me.

  The headline read:

  Families Conspire To Defraud The City?

  Scam Artist Welcomed At Spadros Manor

  Three of four Families present at secret dinner

  "We're all being implicated by association. Except, of course, the Harts. No one's made the connection with Master Rainbow being at your side in the station, which I suppose is fortunate for them." He paused. "Merchants across the city who bought her gems and are unable to sell them are ruined. Gentlemen have gone bankrupt." His face turned fierce. "Bankrupt! They want someone to blame, and she's dead. Who else do they have to turn to but her associates for vengeance?"

  I leaned against a chair, feeling faint. "Are we in danger?"

  "My father's men have rounded up anyone in the quadrant speaking against our Family. And Mr. Durak no longer is editor of the Bridges Daily."

  What? "Mr. Durak was a good man! Why —?"

  Tony shook his head. "He let Pike's editorial pass. He let the financial speculators on his paper whip the people into buying these things. Then he let this filth," he threw the paper down, "about us conspiring to ruin the city pass as well. He's no use to us. It's good he's dead."

  I took a step back. It was as if I no longer knew him. "Tony! How can you speak in this way?"

  His face turned sad. "I can't always be your Tony. These days, I must be Anthony, heir to the Spadros Family. And that man must be cruel if we're to survive."

  ***

  The next day, Tony and I went to the bank to retrieve Anastasia's gems. Mr. Roman confirmed what I feared: the necklace she made decades ago and passed off as worth thousands was a forgery, with clear "miracle" gems inside. "Worthless," Mr. Roman said. "But cleverly done; only a jeweler might know. That must be why she never met with us. Even the settings are steel, colored to resemble the patina of old silver."

  I had the smaller gems tinted black, then made into necklaces for each of our servant women. The rest I had cut, tinted, and placed into pins for our servant men to wear on their collars. At our outing, I presented them to our servants after I promoted Jane Pearson to housekeeper. Many of the servants wept in gratitude at the gifts and swore their allegiance to us again. That made Tony smile.

  When I presented little Pip with his pin, he hugged me. "Thank you."

  "Is the bed better than the stair?"

  "Yes, mum, much better. And the men are kind to me."

  I hoped Pip never learned he was Roy's son. But to me he was family. "I'm so glad you're happy."

  ***

  The lock-box also held an envelope with the deed to a small boarding apartment in the artists' area of Spadros quadrant, made out in my name. It was half of a duplex, about to be sold for back taxes, but I asked Tony if I might keep it.

  It was on a strange street: long, narrow, and winding. All the buildings on one side of the street were duplexes, separated front to back. Some called the road my apartment faced 33 1/3 Street, others called it Artists' Alley. It had a
kitchen, a dining room, four lower rooms, and one large upper room with picture windows. A shirtless, mustachioed man with his suspenders around his waist watered a rooftop garden across the way.

  I said, "I've thought one day to be a patroness, and own property. Perhaps with this, I can do both. We can rent the rooms downstairs to artists, and rent this room out by the hour as a studio for photographers and artists to take portraits. It would show our dedication to making this quadrant more refined."

  "I like this idea," Tony said. "Choose a housekeeper and put an advertisement for rentals."

  And so it was done. But nothing mattered. Ma was dead.

  From that day, I went nowhere without Amelia, not even into my own garden, and extra men followed every move I made.

  My cage tightened around me more with each day.

  ***

  Molly came to visit, and when I saw her, I wept in her arms. Amelia curtsied and left us alone.

  When I calmed, Molly said, "I'm sorry about your friend."

  I nodded, feeling numb.

  "Your Ma is perfectly safe," Molly whispered. "I made sure of it myself. She never left the Cathedral."

  Ma was alive?

  The room turned gray and Molly took my hands as I half sat, half fell into the chair behind me. "You poor dear." She put my feet up, then smoothed my hair.

  I stared at Molly through the haze, mind racing.

  Tony didn't know. I never said a word to him, hoping against hope Roy never learned I contacted Ma. But now even that hope was lost. "How did you find out?"

  Molly gazed back at me with a slight smile.

  Gardena didn't know my Ma, nor did Cesare, nor Lance, and even if they did ... they would never have spoken about her, least of all to Molly Spadros.

  Cesare didn't know it was a person. Lance didn't know who it was.

  I gasped. There was one other person who knew Ma was going to be on that zeppelin.

  Molly clamped her hand over my mouth, her voice stern. "Outside. Now."

  Frightened, I followed her past the maids in the hallway out into the garden. We sat on a bench where no one else might hear.

  I whispered, "Rachel Diamond. How ... why?"

  Why would she spend her life pretending to be incapacitated?

  "Rachel is ill," Molly said, "but not as ill as people think."

  Molly and Acevedo, Julius and Rachel. They had been friends, in spite of the old hatreds between their Families. Julius and Rachel were there for Molly after Acevedo's murder. She was there for Julius after Hector and Rachel's terrible accident.

  For some time after the accident, Rachel seemed lost, but little by little, her mind returned. "She began listening, trying to understand what happened. But people said things around her they never would have before, and she began to spy." Molly glanced away. "We've had difficult times over the years, but then ... they came to me with a small problem, and we realized we had more in common than we thought."

  Molly spoke more to herself, it seemed, but then she straightened and faced me. "Rachel took an awful risk getting a message to me. She's weak and slow-moving, and if anyone knew she was in her right mind she would be a tempting target. She was an Apprentice once, and knows the secrets of both the Apprentices and the Diamond Family. But she's incredibly brave. You have Rachel Diamond to thank for your Ma's life."

  Why would Mrs. Diamond help me? I never said a dozen words to the woman.

  I remembered Gardena's tears at our Queen's Day dinner. "Why doesn't she tell her daughter?"

  Molly's face darkened. "Gardena is a spoiled, willful child, who may get us all killed before this is over."

  Gardena's own mother doesn't trust her. "Does Julius know?"

  Molly smiled fondly. "Of course he knows. He's not as terrible a man as most make him out to be."

  I didn't think I would get another chance to ask, so I did. "Why does Mr. Diamond hate my husband so?"

  "That's for Tony to tell ... I'm sorry, I promised him I wouldn't speak of it, no matter how much you entreated."

  "Something terrible's happening to him. He doesn't sleep, he hardly eats. I want to help him. Why does he keep this from me?" Why did he trust me so little?

  Molly laid her hands on mine. "When it's safe for you to know, you'll understand."

  I stared at our hands. Who would decide that? Tony? Nothing would ever be safe enough for him, I saw that now.

  "My Ma. What's to become of her now? Is Roy going to kill us? I didn't go into the Pot, I swear." I didn't know if his threats reached to contacting her. "Joseph Kerr's housekeeper sent word that whoever attacked Tony wanted to kill her too."

  Molly gave me a smile meant to be soothing. "Never fear. There's no way we would ever let her fall into his hands."

  We. Who was we?

  Then I realized: whoever they were, they needed Ma alive.

  She was their only hold on me.

  I stumbled back to the veranda and sat at the table, staring at my garden. Molly spoke, and Pearson spoke, then Tony spoke. But I heard none of it, even when Tony carried me up to my room as my little bird chirped in the darkness.

  Dame Anastasia was dead by Frank Pagliacci's hand. Frank Pagliacci was loose, Jack Diamond was loose, and Gardena's blackmailer was as well. The more I thought about it, the more I came to believe that Joe was right: we were not like these people.

  Poor sad Mr. Durak's death was the final straw.

  I couldn't live like this anymore. I needed to get me and Ma out of Bridges before we both ended up dead.

  ~This ends Chapter Two of the Red Dog Conspiracy~

  Appendix

  The Four Families

  (Those members named)

  Spadros

  Motto: We never changed our name

  The Spadros family has been in Bridges since the raising of the dome, being among the original laborers brought in to work on the project.

  Patriarch: Roy Spadros (wife: Molly, daughter: Katherine)

  Heir: Anthony (Tony) Spadros (wife: Jacqueline)

  Inventor: Maxim Call

  Retainers:

  John Pearson, butler (wife: Jane, daughter: Mary)

  Jacob Michaels, manservant

  Peter Dewey, stable-man (wife: Amelia, son: Pip)

  Skip Honor, day footman

  Blitz Spadros, night footman

  Dr. Salmon, private surgeon

  Rocket, a bomb-sniffer dog

  Poignee, kitchen maid (deceased)

  Ottilie, kitchen maid (deceased)

  Treysa, kitchen maid (deceased)

  Anne, kitchen maid

  Monsieur, chef

  Business:

  Sawbuck (Ten Hogan), Tony’s right hand man

  Crab, Associate (deceased)

  Duck, Associate (deceased)

  Diamond

  Motto: Diamonds protect their own

  A large group of immigrant workers from the South African diamond mines settled in Bridges in the early 1500’s AC. Proud of their unique identity, this disparate group of families began to call themselves “Diamonds” and exclusively intermarry.

  Patriarch: Julius Diamond (wife: Rachel)

  Heir: Cesare Diamond

  Other Sons:

  Jack Roland Diamond III (Black Jack, Mad Jack)

  Jonathan Courtenay Diamond, his twin brother

  Daughter:

  Gardena Diamond

  Retainer:

  Daniel, manservant (deceased)

  Others:

  Octavia Diamond, a nanny

  Roland, a small boy

  Hart

  Motto: Ready for anything

  Descended from Appalachian and Chinese workers, Crispin Hartmann led one of the early street gangs of the early 1700’s. This gang called themselves the Harts and were a major player in the looting and other unpleasant acts seen during the Coup.

  Patriarch: Charles Hart (wife: Judith)

  Heir (and Inventor): Etienne Hart (wife: Helen, daughter: Ferti)

  Under protection:


  Joseph Kerr

  Josephine Kerr, his twin sister

  Polansky Kerr IV, their grandfather

  Marja, their housekeeper

  Daisy, a maid

  Clubb

  Motto: A golden harvest

  Clover Banditerna was a worker on a farm near the zeppelin until the Alcatraz Coup. Seeing an opportunity, he and his fellow workers called themselves the Clubbs Of Justice and seized the zeppelin station, along with the controls to the aperture.

  Realizing no one could go in or out of the city without going through them, the group charged exorbitant rates and became extremely rich.

  After the Coup, Clover Banditerna changed his name, calling himself Johnny Clubb.

  Patriarch: Alexander Clubb (wife: Regina)

  Heir: Lancelot Clubb

  Other players

  Spadros quadrant

  Dame Anastasia Louis, a gemologist

  Trey Louis, her great-nephew

  Eleanora Bryce, a widow

  Nicholas (Nick, Air), her son (deceased)

  Herbert Bryce, her son (deceased)

  David Bryce, her son

  Madame Marie Biltcliffe, a dress shop owner

  Tenni, her shop maid

  Vig Vikenti, a saloon owner

  Natalia, a woman of the Romani in Vig’s saloon

  Peedro Sluff (Jacqui's father), a liquor store owner

  Market Center

  Bridges Daily, a newspaper

  Acol Durak, the editor

  Doyle Pike, a lawyer

  Thrace Pike, a law clerk, Doyle's grandson

  Anna Goren, an apothecary

  Probationary Constable Paix Hanger, a policeman