City of Glory

by Beverly Swerling

  “No doubt. I take it you’re trying to tell me you didn’t send Bastard packing.”

  “I’m not that stupid. I said I’d think about it. Same as all the rest.”

  The Astor Mansion, 5 P.M.

  Gott in Himmel, why would a man want these strange, yellow-skinned creatures to wait on him? Henry Astor thought the same thing every time he came to the kitchen door of his brother’s elaborate home, but he had yet to find the answer. Little Johann, they had called Jacob when he was a child; so small and ordinary on the outside, with such big ideas on the inside. While he—Heinrich he’d been then—was a big boy and later a big man, physically imposing, but content to work beside Papa in the butchering business in Waldorf, near Heidelberg. So when it came time for Papa to pick one of his sons to go to America as victualer to the Hessians hired to fight with the British in ’76, Heinrich was the natural choice. Johann didn’t come to New York until the war was over, but look how it was now. Heinrich lived in rooms above his Bowery tavern, while little Johann had become the great Jacob Astor, living in a palace with strange yellow servants.

  The girl’s feet were no bigger than his hand, tied into little silk shoes as might fit an infant. She saw him looking at them, and tottered off before he could tell her he wanted to see his brother. Wie eigenartig das Leben, life was strange.

  He waited a few moments. The servant called Ah Wong came. Astor pointed to the large bundle of meat he had deposited on the big wooden kitchen table. “Good chops,” he told the butler. “Sehr gut. Mutton. The best. And rump steak.” The Chinese nodded his head and bowed repeatedly and kept smiling. “Don’t be cutting it up into little pieces,” Astor warned. “Not like last time.”

  “No little pieces,” Ah Wong said. “No pieces. No pieces.”

  “Ach du lieber Gott…Everything twice you say. And I am never sure you understand. Now get my brother. Tell him I want him.” And when the man didn’t move, “My brother, China man. Your boss. My brother.” Heinrich pointed to the floor at his feet. “Here you bring him.”

  Wong went to the door that led to the rest of the house and opened it, then bowed in Astor’s direction. “Honorable brother come. Come. Come.” He waved his hand in the direction of the hallway beyond the kitchen. “Ah Wong take honorable visitor to his honorable brother.”

  Heinrich shook his head, hooked a stool with one booted foot, drew it close to the table, and sat down. “I’ll see him here. Go get him.” There was a cleaver tucked into the leather belt that held his old-fashioned jerkin in place and he reached for it. “Go on, you yellow devil!” Ah Wong ran from the room.

  Soon enough Johann—he could no longer call him little Johann—came into the kitchen. “Guten Tag, Heinrich. A surprise you are. Ah Wong tells me you bring meat. Danke.” He pulled another stool close to the table and sat down. “Cold beer, Ah Wong. At once.”

  Ah Wong brought the beer in large steins, the way it would have been served at home. They were so cold the outside was frosted, and the beer in them was sehr gut. The best. Like everything else in Johann’s palace. Except, to Heinrich’s way of thinking, the China people. “About Gornt Blakeman I come,” Heinrich said. He would never be more clever than his younger brother; there was no point in being subtle. “And that young man, the doctor with one hand only. About him, too.”

  “Joyful Turner. What’s he to do with you?”

  “You told me to watch him.”

  “I told you to watch Blakeman, not Turner.”

  “Ja, but Blakeman’s men are watching Turner. So everything comes together.”

  “I see. Where?”

  “Last night in Maiden Lane. Blakeman’s man was arrested. He was there because the doctor was. A meeting of some sort at the home of the goldsmith, though not exactly—”

  “Maurice Vionne. Ja, about this I know.” It was Vionne who had signed the certificate of authenticity that Blakeman had brought him, and Vionne had a beautiful unmarried daughter. It was not difficult to conclude that she was the lady who had told Joyful about the stone, the lady whose name he had so gallantly protected when he first told Astor the story.

  “I have a man in the Watch,” Heinrich said.

  Jacob smiled. “You are getting wiser in the world’s ways as you get older, Heinrich.”

  “A few coppers I pay him. Some meat occasionally. So he is my man and he tells me things. But Blakeman, he has at least two men in the Watch. Maybe more.”

  Jacob shrugged. “I am not surprised. So last night, a lovers’ tryst and an Irishman is taken by the Watch. This brings you and your fine mutton and your equally fine rump steak to my kitchen today, Heinrich?”

  His brother did not answer immediately. Jacob took a long swallow of the cold beer. Ah Wong and the other servants had discreetly withdrawn from the kitchen. A large basket of fresh-picked corn had been left half shucked in the middle of the table. Jacob set down the stein and drew the corn closer. He began peeling the husks back from a large ear, fastidiously picking each strand of silk from between the kernels. “You like corn, Heinrich?”

  “Well enough.”

  “When we were children, never we had such a thing at Mama’s table.”

  “Corn is American.”

  “Ja, American. And you and I, Heinrich? What are we now? Are we American because we are here?”

  His elder brother’s stein was empty. Heinrich pushed it across the table, but when Jacob turned as if to summon Ah Wong for more beer, Heinrich held up a forestalling hand. “No. Leave the yellow people wherever they are. Something I wish to say.”

  “It doesn’t matter. A little English they speak, but no German. But it will be as you say. Now, tell me what you have come to tell me.”

  “I do not take Blakeman’s side.”

  “I have it on good authority that a Mr. F. X. Gallagher believes you do.”

  Heinrich moved a thick finger through the ring of moisture the stein of beer had left on the table. “F. X. Gallagher is not a man to cross, Johann. It is easier to tell him ja than nein. That does not mean ja is what is true.”

  “I am glad to hear it, Heinrich. Anyway, on my side I thought you were.”

  “Ja, but the same thing I am thinking it is. You are a rich man. Blakeman is a rich man. In all the city the rich men agree to be another country with Connecticut and Massachusetts and Rhode Island. They say that is a better thing than to be the United States and every day lose more and more money.”

  “Not all the rich men, Heinrich.” Jacob’s tone was mild. He began shucking a second ear of corn.

  “I am not clever like you, Jacob. I need things said plain. You are not for this new country?”

  “I am not, Heinrich.”

  Heinrich grinned. “So! So! Ach, it is a contagion in this palace of yours. To say everything twice like the yellow people. So where is he, this China man with the beer which for little Johann is cold even in August?”

  “A miracle it is not, Heinrich; I have an ice house near the river. Ah Wong! Send Hai for more beer!”

  It was the job of Ah Wong’s son to regularly bring kegs of beer from the ice house to the kitchen. The cold beer appeared instantly, as if Ah Wong had been hovering near the door waiting until it was wanted. No German? Perhaps the Chinese butler was more clever than Jacob realized.

  The brothers raised their steins. “America,” Heinrich said.

  “America.”

  “Another thing you should know, Johann.” Heinrich leaned in close and whispered. “F. X. Gallagher and his boys and the rest of the butchers. They are all with Blakeman. And when they say yes, they mean it.”

  Greenwich Street, 9 P.M.

  The tap on the door was very soft. Joyful was not sure he had heard it. A second tap came, this one a little more forceful. Joyful went and opened the door.

  A man, almost as tall as he was stood in the door frame, wearing a broad-brimmed hat and buckskins. The man swept off the hat and his queue swung free. He bowed. “Chi le fan meiyou?”

  “I’ll be�
��Chi le. Chi le. Wong Hai?”

  Ah Wong’s son gave him a grin as broad as his shoulders. “Wong Hai,” he agreed, motioning with the hat to the room behind Joyful.

  Joyful let him in and closed the door. He was extraordinarily conscious of the fact that he wasn’t wearing the harness or the leather glove. “Ni de yifu tong nali lai de?” Where did you get those clothes?

  “There is everything a man can ever want in Mr. Astor’s mansion,” Hai said, his English clear despite an odd accent Joyful couldn’t place.

  “Holy God Almighty. You’re word-perfect, aren’t you?”

  “I make an effort, Lord. But my English is not as good as the lord’s Mandarin,” Hai said, accompanying the words with another bow. “I was twelve when I came to New York.”

  Translation: I know all about you, including how young you were when you first went to China. Information imparted subtly, in true Chinese fashion. Joyful motioned to the room’s only chair and sat himself on the bed. “I take it no one knows you’re here.”

  “No one, Lord.”

  “Look, if we’re going to speak English, call me Joyful. Or Dr. Turner if you prefer. There’s no direct translation for the honorific, and there’s no royalty here. You haven’t had much opportunity to practice speaking, have you?”

  “No, Lord…Dr. Turner. When we first came, there was an old woman, the cook of honorable Mr. Astor, Mrs. McBride—she gave me lessons.”

  That explained the accent, a mix of Irish brogue and German. “Where is this Mrs. McBride now?”

  “With her ancestors.”

  “I see. And Astor doesn’t know about your language skills.” The young man grinned and shook his head. “What about your father?”

  “Honorable father knows.” Hai did not meet Joyful’s glance.

  “But not that you’re here, right?”

  “Honorable father does not know that I am here.”

  “And that’s why you came dressed like a woodsman?”

  “Honorable Mr. Astor says it is not safe these days for people of the Middle Kingdom to be seen on the streets.”

  “Probably correct.” Joyful was still trying to assimilate all the remarkable things about this visit. “But how did you know where to find me? And how did you get past Ma Allard?”

  “I read and write as well as speak, Lo—honorable Dr. Turner. The note you gave honorable Mr. Astor, saying you would come the first time to his home…It is my job to clean my honorable employer’s study.”

  Joyful had given Astor his address in that note. “And what about Ma Allard?”

  Hai grinned. “Easy,” he said, making no attempt to disguise his pride. “I do not ever see the honorable Ma Allard. I wait with patience until one who lives here comes and opens the door and I enter behind him. Hai is very quiet. Very quiet. And honorable Dr. Turner’s name is written on wall by front door. Beside name is number of the room.”

  On the board where they all hung their keys when they went out. “You’re a clever one, Hai. I’m impressed. Now, tell me why you’re here, since your father did not send you.”

  Hai looked down at the woodsman’s hat he held in his hands and did not immediately answer.

  “Let me help you,” Joyful said. “It’s something to do with a Cantonese tset-ha tset-ha called Thumbless Wu.” Hai nodded. “Thumbless Wu and your father,” Joyful said softly, “and Jonathan Devrey, the apothecary—who is my nephew, as it happens.”

  Hai looked startled, then miserable. He stood up. “Your honorable nephew. I did not know. Honorable Dr. Turner will please excuse me, I must go.”

  “Sit down. You’re not going anywhere until you tell me what you came here to say. You stole”—the young man made an anguished sound—“all right, borrowed, clothes from your employer’s house and risked whatever was involved in getting here. I don’t plan to let you leave until I hear it.” Hai still didn’t speak. “If it makes you feel any better, I don’t particularly like Jonathan Devrey, despite the fact that I’m his uncle, I don’t like any of my Devrey relations if it comes to that. But you can’t know—”

  “Bastard Devrey,” Hai said, and sketched a double cross in the air.

  “Son of a bitch! You are far too clever to be running loose, Wong Hai. Now, what about Thumbless?”

  “White smoke,” Hai said.

  “White…opium?”

  Hai nodded. “Jonathan Devrey’s Elixir of Well-Being. White smoke. Same thing. Almost.”

  “Near enough,” Joyful agreed. “So that’s why Thumbless Wu went to so much trouble to get here. He’s looking for an American source of opium to compete with the stuff the British bring in from India. It’s madness, you realize that? All of the laudanum in America comes nowhere near the quantities of the stuff they grow in India. And that’s an established trade. Besides, bringing opium into China’s illegal.”

  “I believe Honorable Dr. Turner speaks the truth. But honorable father…”

  “Yes?”

  “He and Wu Thumbless…guanxi…Because of me.”

  “How so?”

  “Honorable father wishes his son to return to the Middle Kingdom and be a man of wealth and property. Make a fine marriage. Become an ancestor.”

  “In English we say ‘to found a dynasty.’ Not bad as ambitions go, but what do you want, Wong Hai?”

  “To be an ancestor, make a dynasty as you say, yes. But not white smoke.”

  Joyful thought for a moment, then he stood up. “Go home, Hai. You can get there safely?” Hai grinned and flexed the muscles of his two arms. “Well, yes,” Joyful said. “Doesn’t seem like you need a one-handed escort. Go back to Astor’s, and don’t do or say anything. I will be in touch. Agreed?”

  “Agreed. Agreed,” Hai said.

  He bowed and started to back out of the room. Joyful stuck out his left arm, forgetting for the moment that he wasn’t wearing his glove, and placed the stump on Hai’s shoulder. He offered his right hand. Ah Wong’s son took it and pumped it mightily. “Guanxi,” he said softly.

  “Guanxi,” Joyful agreed.

  Friday, August 26, 1814

  Chapter Twenty-two

  New York City,

  the Dancing Knave, 11 A.M.

  O’TOOLE WAS UNSURE how long he had slept. “What time is it?” he demanded of Bearded Agnes.

  “Middle of the morning. Brought you some breakfast. Time you had something solid in your stomach.” She put the tray on the table beside the bed and started to go.

  The Irishman looked around him. The small bedroom was done up a bit, not like those in most bordellos. God knew he’d been in a few o’ those in his day. Not usually alone, however. “Where’s the woman?”

  “Cecily,” Agnes supplied. “She’s gone about her business. This place ain’t a hotel, you know—for all Miss Delight put you up here in this nice little room as is beside her own private parlor. You’d o’ been turned out yesterday or the day before, weren’t that Miss Delight has a kind heart.”

  “Kind heart? That one? She’s—” The bearded lady’s look silenced him. “Yesterday or the day before you said. How long have I been here then?”

  “Since Monday night.”

  “And what day is it now?”

  “Friday.”

  “Christ Almighty Savior. Four days. At the tables, was I?”

  “Some o’ the time.”

  “And the rest?”

  “Up here with Miss Cecily. Though she says you weren’t worth the bother most o’ the time.”

  “That will do, Agnes.” Delight stood at the open door. “At the Dancing Knave the ladies do not tattle. Good morning, Captain. I trust you slept well.”

  His head was thumping like a longboat drummer beating stroke for the oarsmen. “Well enough.” He reached for the mug of spiced ale Agnes had brought and downed it in a couple of quick swallows. It helped some.

  “Since you are, as you say, ‘well enough,’ Captain, I think it is time you got out of that bed and went on your way. Do you not agree?”


  “I might do. But not until you and her get yourselves gone.” He was stark naked beneath the thin summer coverlet.

  “I assure you, Captain O’Toole, you have nothing to display we have not seen before. But I will leave, as I’m expecting my mantua maker, and Agnes will wait outside. When you’re dressed, you will, I’m sure, wish to settle your account. You owe Miss Cecily three dollars for four full nights’ companionship. I will take that out of the golden guinea you left with me. And for your gaming…” Delight consulted a slip of paper she carried in the pocket of her morning gown. “There is a balance due of one thousand seventeen dollars and twenty coppers. Your luck was not the best this visit, I’m afraid. The seventeen dollars are covered by what’s left of your golden guinea, and…” She paused, frowned, then smiled. “We have enjoyed your company, Captain. I will forgive the twenty coppers.”

  Where in Christ’s name was he to get a thousand dollars? He remembered it all now. Taking the cat to that careless bastard Tammy Tompkins, and the tar telling Blakeman about Thumbless Wu. Blakeman turning him off the Star so he got blind drunk, and that wretch as called himself Peggety Jack stealing the six thousand he’d made for running the blockade. Joyful thought he was lying about what Jack said about the Jews having his treasure, and that Finbar O’Toole wouldn’t sail Lisbetta to the Caribbean for fear o’ the poxed British navy. Holy Mother o’ God. What a mess.

  O’Toole got up, yanked the coverlet off the bed, wrapped it around his hips, and threw open the door. Agnes was still there, standing with her arms folded, waiting for him. “Get me a proper drink,” O’Toole said. “Rum. I’ll not manage to get my trousers on else-ways.”

  Agnes took a moment to consider. The ladies were all asleep on the floor below, getting their beauty rest now that their night’s work was done. Except for Preservation Shay, standing guard a feet away outside Miss Delight’s door, even the chuckers-out were abed. As for Miss Delight herself, her mantua maker had arrived with an assistant to carry some extra bolts of silk. The three women would likely be in Miss Delight’s private parlor for some time. All the same…