“Bah!” he said aloud.
“I quite agree,” Chen said with a small smile. He was occupying a neighboring rocker and swathed twice as warmly as Liam. “I find it a useful position on most things. What was your ‘bah!’ about?”
Liam waved his hand in frustration. “We’ve been back three days, Mike can’t take the time to come out since things are such a mess in the city, nothing useful’s happening here, and I’m going cuckoo sitting around listening to these people talk. You’d think, everything they’ve been through, Stanton’s persecutions and the exile in Canada and all that, they’d be wanting to get the bit in their teeth now they’re on the threshold of taking over. But as far as I can see their idea of really getting to grips with things is staying up an extra couple of hours after dinner jawing about politics.”
Chen’s smile took on an edge of mild irony: “Be patient, Mr. McCool. I feel certain you’ll have the opportunity to throw someone across the room or blow something up quite soon. Meanwhile, try to put yourself in President Lincoln’s place! Think of everything the man has been through, and imagine what he must be feeling. No doubt all the talk helps soothe his anxieties.”
Liam stared at Chen for a long moment with his own unreadable smile. “Here I thought when my old man got drunk for the last time and got himself shot for starting a riot I was finally going to be free of that whole paternal homily routine, but no! Providence sent me Ambrose Chen to remind me that There Is No Free Lunch, so if Providence thinks I rate a homily I’m going to get one even if I hide under a rock.”
“Hmmph!” sniffed Chen. “I should have thought that any man who had a genuine longing to play the fool with impunity would have avoided involving himself with a woman like Miss Fox.”
In spite of himself, Liam grinned. “You have a point there, Ambrose. Come on, let’s go look for …”
At that moment, as if they had been listening and waiting for a good cue, Becky and President Lincoln stepped out onto the porch and came to join Liam and Chen, Lincoln’s heavy automaton tread rattling the coffee cups at every footstep.
“Good morning, gentlemen,” Lincoln said cheerfully. “Have you heard the latest? The mining and refining of calorium are going to be banned worldwide!”
Liam winked at Becky: “Looks like you and Chen were right—it wasn’t such a bad thing that Lee blew up half of Virginia after all.”
“Tut, tut, Liam,” said Lincoln as he pulled up a special steel rocker that was kept for him on the porch. “No need for hyperbole, the reality was impressive enough. No one has been reckless enough to approach the blast site on foot, but surveillance from airships has shown a crater about a half mile wide and it’s said that the entire area gives off a sickly glow at night. But more to the point was the fact that all the representatives of the world’s nations who were present on government business in Washington saw the hellish fireball that rose from Loudoun County and felt the tremors and hurricane winds of the blast—after all, from there to Washington D. C. is scarcely thirty miles.”
“There’s going to be a giant convocation of world governments in Paris next month,” Becky added, “and they’ll be hammering out the details of a binding accord, but it’s going to mean that everybody will have to start re-thinking their plans for endless industrialization and military expansion. Without calorium it will all be much more tedious—thank God, human soldiers and workers have voices.”
“Of course,” Chen said mildly, “some governments might cheat.”
Everyone stared at him for a moment, until Chen spread his hands and shrugged, at which point President Lincoln sighed heavily, a deep pedal note of resignation.
“We’ll all just have to take it one step at a time,” Lincoln said. “Though it may seem a bit gloomy to say so in the midst of all the euphoria, human nature does have a stubborn way of sticking to old habits. Still …”
“It’s a beginning,” said Becky firmly. “Which brings us to the next order of business.” She gestured to Lincoln: “Mr. President?”
Lincoln nodded his great steel head and turned to give Liam one of his inscrutable looks. After a moment he managed a very good approximation of a sheepish chuckle and spoke:
“Yet another request, Liam, though I expect you must be mightily sick of my ‘requests’ by now.”
Liam smiled. “I’m not saying yet, sir, but just tell me this: does it involve sitting around Freedom Party Headquarters listening to a lot of palaver about the government?”
Becky beat Lincoln to an answer, which she underlined with tart emphasis: “No it doesn’t, Liam McCool, and I’ll tell you this for nothing—I’m going whether you come or not!”
Liam and Chen looked at each other and burst out laughing as Becky folded her arms on her chest and glared at them.
“Whatever it is, Mr. President,” Liam said, “it looks like I’m on board.”
“All I’m saying, Gran, is I didn’t want to be a magician or a sorcerer or whatever else you want to call it. I didn’t ask for it, did I? Because I didn’t need it. I was already the King of the Cracksmen and that should be good enough for any sensible man!”
If anyone had been near enough to overhear him, they might have been surprised to hear the frail old man’s speech, and even more to see him addressing a considerably younger and sprightlier-looking old woman as ‘Gran,’ but she didn’t hesitate to let him have it with both barrels:
“‘Sensible man,’ phshaw! Sure, now, Liam McCool,” she said scornfully, “I didn’t think ye were as big a baby as all that. Next thing I know ye’ll be wantin’ me to come check under the bed to make sure there’s no monsters there!”
The other old lady in the party, who was walking next to Liam, giggled as she heard his grandma’s rebuke and Liam turned and gave her an indignant look. But before he could say anything Gran picked up where she’d left off as the bushy-bearded old man next to her grinned his appreciation of the attack:
“It’s been years now that I’ve known ye had the gift and I’ve said nothing since it wasn’t time. Ye’ve had all the years any young lout might wish for, runnin’ around the city havin’ fistfights and robbin’ rich folks down to their eye teeth and makin’ yerself look big! Well, now it’s time to stop playin’ the eejit and take up the mantle of the McCools, and ye’d best wear it with honor, or I’ll box yer ears till you can’t see straight!”
“Hmph!” Liam snorted.
Gran wagged her finger at Liam as they walked: “Ye can snort like a grampus and it won’t change a thing. Like I said to Becky before, the times are changin’ at last and magic’s turning the tide against the doubters. But ye can be sure it won’t all be good magic, some of it will be as black as Stanton’s heart, and decent people will need their defenders. You hear me, Liam McCool?”
“Jasus, Mary and Joseph,” he grumbled, slipping into her brogue, “I’d have to be deaf as a post not to!”
“Don’t ye dare talk back to me, ye saucy blatherskite!”
Liam sighed heavily. “Yes, Gran,” he said.
“That’s better,” she said with a satisfied nod. “Now then, how far are we from where we’re bound for?”
“Not far now, Mrs. McCool,” said Chen through his pasted-on whiskers. “The ley lines brought us to the same spot where we began our travels—Central Park between the Reservoir and North Meadow, and from what President Lincoln told us it’s in North Meadow that Stanton and Yurevskii have made a last stand. Right now there’s a cease-fire while Stanton’s forces and the rebel forces rest and re-group, and Stanton has announced that he means to have a giant rally today so that he can ‘introduce New Yorkers to their new Mayor.’ It’s that rally that President Lincoln wants a report on.”
“And we’re just four nice old New Yorkers come to greet Hizzoner,” giggled Becky, to whom being in disguise in enemy territory was meat and drink. Liam studied her appreciatively and then leaned over and kissed her neck.
“You’re one bad old lady, Mother Fox,” he said.
�
��Thank you, dear,” she said with a curtsy.
Stanton had set up a giant tent—more like a pavilion from some medieval tourney—and made it the temporary headquarters of two governments-in-exile, his own and Yurevskii’s. The Prince, however, had drunk enough rye whiskey with Willie Pilkington that the two of them had finally staggered away to look for a brothel—which was fine with Stanton, who was heartily sick of Willie and his Russian “ally” both.
Meanwhile, he had important business to transact with the “new Mayor,” banker and legendary financial bunco artist Jay Gould. Tall, dour and balding with a long, pointed nose and a face almost lost in thick black whiskers, Gould was a man who could play poker with wiliest of them and win. Now, however, his emotions were openly on display and he was yelling at Stanton as if he were a clumsy subordinate.
“You promised me, Stanton, we had a contract! I advanced you a hundred million dollars to finance all the calorium development and you promised me a one hundred percent return. If there was a default for any reason New York City was your surety and you would hand it over to me lock, stock and barrel!”
“But, Jay …” Stanton began in a wheedling tone.
“Don’t you ‘Jay’ me, you highbinder,” thundered Gould. “I’m Mr. Gould to you and don’t you forget it. Now! What is all this ‘Mayor’ folderol?”
Stanton took a deep breath and mopped his forehead with a handkerchief. “You know my forces have suffered some reverses, Mr. Gould. What we need to do if we are to regain the initiative is to rally the solid citizens of New York behind us, and that’s why I asked you to come all the way uptown like this. You’re a famous man,” he said in his most flattering tones, “if I can present you to the audience as a great man who’s willing to step down from his Olympus and help the good people of New York return to peace and prosperity, you can write your own ticket with them. For God’s sake, man, they don’t have to know that you own them now!”
Stanton could see Gould testing this idea mentally, biting the coin to make sure it was real, weighing its value. Finally, he gave a grudging nod.
“Very well,” he said, “you may present me to them.”
There might have been a couple of hundred people in the audience standing on the grass in front of the makeshift stage, but as Liam looked around he realized this was not a group of political curiosity-seekers. Instead they were mostly poor and haggard-looking, twenty or thirty of them bearing signs reading: “FOOD!” “FEED US NOW!” “WE’RE STARVING!” and other angry complaints in the same vein.
“There’s going to be trouble,” Liam murmured to Becky.
“Look over there,” she murmured back. Liam followed her eyes and saw a detachment of Johnnies drawn up in an area almost concealed by bushes and trees, clearly at the ready.
“Oh, oh.” Liam said.
At that point the curtain parted and Stanton came out and stood in front of them, sweating profusely.
“Fellow New Yorkers,” he began, but immediately he was interrupted by hecklers:
“Fellow horse biscuits,” one shouted back. “You’re from Ohio!”
“When are you planning on feeding your ‘fellow’ New Yorkers you swindling tub of lard?” shouted another.
One of them, a gaunt and feverish-looking woman, held a crying baby over her head:
“My baby hasn’t had milk in three days, when are you going to feed him?”
Stanton looked around desperately until he hit on an out: “And now,” he cried with plainly bogus enthusiasm, “your next Mayor, the famous financier and philanthropist JAY GOULD!”
Without any further ado, he tugged mightily on a rope and swept the curtains open, to reveal Gould—who, gauging the temper of the crowd with his usual acumen—was backing away towards the exit at the rear of the structure.
One stentorian voice bellowed from the audience:
“GOULD, YOU CROOKED BASTARD! WHERE WERE YOU ON BLACK FRIDAY WHEN YOU STOLE OUR SAVINGS AND MY PAPA BLEW HIS BRAINS OUT?”
That was enough for Gould, who vanished so quickly through the exit that his presence might well have been an illusion. Stanton shook his head desperately, then snatched a police whistle out of his pocket and blew three short blasts on it, at which the Johhnies came out of their semi-concealment and started trotting towards the stage with their chromed weapons at port arms, their gear clanking and their heavy footsteps clomping rhythmically.
“There’s going to be a slaughter,” said Gran worriedly.
Liam’s face grew dark as thunder: “No, by God, there isn’t!” he growled, fueling himself with the picture of the gaunt and famished faces surrounding them. Then, raising his arms over his head and glaring at the corpulent, sweating figure of Stanton, fat enough to make three of any of Liam’s skin-and-bones neighbors, he spread his arms wide and roared:
“PIGS!”
For a split second the picture held: Stanton with the whistle raised to his mouth and Johnnies double-timing towards the crowd with their weapons at the ready, then there was a colossal blinding flash, the biggest anyone there had ever seen, and a moment later as they all rubbed their eyes they saw, on the spot where Stanton had been standing, a hefty young pig at least three hundred pounds on the trotter, and next to the stage milling about among the dropped weapons and squealing in panic, a whole herd of nice, juicy hogs.
For another split second, the situation sank in on everyone, and Chen gave Liam a dubious frown. Liam held up a slightly shaky hand in defense: “You have to admit, Ambrose, I didn’t take away, I added.”
“Added what?” Chen asked dubiously.
As if in answer to Chen’s question an ecstatic shout arose from the crowd: “FOOD!” someone shouted. And then a joyous roar: “BARBECUE!”
At which the crowd surged forward as one man and tore after the pigs, which fled across the North Meadow squealing hysterically.
Gran put her arms around Liam and kissed him on both cheeks. “Finn McCool would be proud,” she said.
“Me too,” said Becky, taking over the embrace and adding extras.
Gran poked Chen in the ribs with her elbow. “Don’t be such an old fusspot,” she said, “let’s get back downtown and see if we can find something to eat.”
“Oh, very well,” Chen huffed. “But no pork!”
“Everybody ready?” Liam said. He raised a questioning eyebrow at Chen, who nodded and pointed towards a nearby rock. Stealing a quick look towards the pigs, now vanishing into the distance with their pursuers right behind them, Liam grinned, drew the katana and swept it downwards as one final brilliant flash lit the meadow and the quartet disappeared.
About the Author
Always impatient, Dennis O’Flaherty decided early on that it wasn’t fair to have to wait a whole lifetime before trying his next life. As a result, he’s been a U.S. Marine (rifleman, radioman, Corporal E-4), a historian of Russia (Harvard, Oxford, State University of Moscow on the U.S. Cultural Exchange), and a Grub Street hack in Hollywood (a shared Edgar Award for the script on Coppola’s Hammett, many Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle scripts, even a handful of cigar ads).
Now, after a lifetime of gypsying, he is happily settled in Arizona with his wife Mel, cats Smokey and Mickey, and legions of anonymous white-winged doves and collared lizards. But the anchor has always been his writing, and he still sees no reason to argue with W. B. Yeats’ dictum: “Of all the many changing things … words alone are certain good.”
The Calorium Wars Page 25