Rising Waters

by Chloe Garner

  “No,” she said. “But they were much less prepared for me than I was for them.”

  The corner of his mouth came up, showing teeth. A real smile.

  “That, I believe.”

  She looked around, remembering things about her days at college, things Jimmy would have learned, on his own, in his first few years away from Lawrence. She had a sudden realization, cool, like a sweet drink, that he had probably needed her at least as much as she had needed him, there at the beginning. He’d gone through everything the hard way, when she’d already learned it all.

  “We’re playing with the big boys, now,” she said. “We need to be aware of what we say and who could be listening.”

  Jimmy’s eyebrows creased.

  “You really did have a lot go on at college.”

  She nodded, looking around the train car and taking it in for the first time. Lawrence was too familiar to her. She needed to remember to be on edge everywhere, again.

  “Just training,” she said. “They tapped rooms to try to catch each other cheating. In love, then, in business now.”

  “I see,” he said. “This is my train car. They can supply it from outside, but after it left the manufacturer, no one would have been able to get into it.”

  “There are an awful lot of ways to capture sound,” she answered. “They don’t all require getting inside.”

  He tapped on the window with his knuckle.

  “Double-pane glass with a vacuum in between. Insulation throughout the walls of the car. Security system that logs every time anyone comes in and tells me when we get on.”

  She looked around again.

  “This is yours,” she said. He nodded.

  “The company that makes them calls them a businessmen’s special. I have friends who will only take a meeting in one of these, the one they own themselves. Moving from jurisdiction to jurisdiction over the course of a meeting makes it much harder for law enforcement to get involved.”

  “I see,” she said, and he nodded.

  “Like you said. Training. I met them all after they trained up.”

  She nodded.

  “I’d like to meet Descartes.”

  He pursed his lips, reading what he would from her face, then he nodded.

  “We’ll see.”

  She nodded back.

  “We’ll see,” she echoed.

  --------

  The whole trip was most of a week. They got out of the car at Carson and Wellsley, slept through the stop at Mont Blanc. Pulling into Preston, as the muted chaos around them amplified - men, women loading and unloading, the sound of cargo coming and going from the train.

  “What will happen to the car?” she asked Jimmy as she dressed in the bathroom. Her traveling clothes were good enough for the train, but she changed into her business clothes for Preston, pulling her hair up and back in a tight knot and adding enough makeup to make herself look serious.

  “They’ll detach it and it will wait for us here,” Jimmy said from outside. “I can’t wait to find out if you’re wearing cowboy boots to dinner.”

  She heard the puff as he lit a match, presumably putting it to the cigarette she’d handed him as she’d gone in to change.

  “Would serve you right,” she answered, opening the door. He pushed himself off of the wall and took a step to the side to look at her, shaking his head.

  “No wonder they didn’t recognize you.”

  “This is who you want me to be, isn’t it?”

  He frowned.

  “What makes you say that?”

  She took the cigarette from between his fingers and inhaled, holding her breath for a moment and then blowing smoke at the ceiling.

  “The woman you’re proud to show up with on your arm. Well-spoken, sharp, conforming.”

  He laughed. She looked, surprised to find that it was an honest laugh. He put his fingers over his mouth, but it only amplified the effect. He thought it was funny. His eyebrows went up finally.

  “Is that really what you think of me? What you think I think of you?”

  She shrugged, off-balance, and he shook his head, taking the cigarette back and offering her his elbow. She put her hand on the inside of his arm, watching him for a clue. He grunted, a low, deep noise that said so much and nothing at all.

  “This is a woman who is useful,” he said. “One who will make men jealous, and who makes me look… complete.” He pressed his lips, holding the cigarette off to the side and tipping his chin, a silhouette of power and control. His eyes were capturing. “I could have my pick of any of a hundred women like that in any of the cities we lived in, while we were gone.”

  “Should have,” she said evenly, and he smiled, a warning.

  “I’m about to pay you a compliment, Sarah. Don’t pick a fight now.”

  “All ears, Lawson.”

  He gave her another cool smile, opening the door for her and letting in the noise.

  “Who you are here is a role. Nothing more. I want the woman underneath of that, the woman that you are in Lawrence. You don’t belong on my arm because you don’t belong on anyone’s arm. You don’t belong to anyone. No one can buy you and no one can change you, least of all me.” He stopped, turning to face her, holding her fingers pressed against his side so that they breathed the same air. “You don’t make men jealous, Sarah Todd. You make them afraid. You make me afraid. We both know what men around here are willing to pay, to feel that, and it would be enough, if that were all it were, but it’s more. They see you, and they see that you are my wife, and they see that I am able to survive you, and you make me look even stronger than I would on my own.” He pressed his lips again, tossing the cigarette away as he turned to start down the steps to the train platform. “And that’s worth more than anything else I know.”

  “And for a second, there, I thought you were going to turn romantic on me,” she said, seeing the twitch of humor at the corner of his eye as they both reacted to motion on the platform.

  “Lawson,” a baritone voice called. “Heard a rumor you were going to be in town today.”

  Jimmy stood straight as Maxim walked across the platform toward them. Women watched him go by, and he turned his head to watch them back. He had a broad-shouldered figure that didn’t ever go out of style, and he carried himself with a confidence that was winsome to the right type of woman. Maxim had been one of Jimmy’s earliest contacts, when he’d left Lawrence, and he had the uncouth feel of the lower levels of society that Jimmy would have been evolving up through at the time, though his money was just as good as anyone else’s. He’d bought two claims at the auction.

  “I expect that was an expensive rumor,” Jimmy said, shaking Maxim’s hand. The man turned to Sarah.

  “I swear, you change colors every time you show up,” he said.

  “Hello, Maxim,” Sarah said. “How’s business?”

  “Comes and goes,” he said. “I win both ways, if I’m doing it right. Where are you two staying?”

  “We have reservations at Clairbon,” Jimmy said, shifting his grip on the suitcase and starting toward the train building. Maxim fell into step beside him.

  “Not a chance,” the man said. “You’ll stay with me.”

  “Maxim,” Jimmy said. “I’ve told you where we’re staying. That’s all the discussion I intend to have about it.”

  “I’ve got a villa up on the coast,” Maxim said. “Six models staying there, right now, for a photo shoot, and we’re throwing a party tonight…”

  “Tonight you’re going to be at Delphus’ place,” Jimmy said, and Maxim fell silent. Jimmy didn’t turn his head a fraction, though Sarah was watching out of the corner of her eye for how that would impact Maxim. “I assume you have the money,” Jimmy went on.

  “That’s just rude,” Maxim finally said. “Turn down honest hospitality and then insinuate that I’m not good for my bids.”

  “It isn’t honest hospitality if it’s looking for a leg-up on a competition,” Sarah murmured, and Maxim
laughed.

  “It is, when you’re a businessman like Jimmy or me,” he said. Sarah turned her head to look at him, and he gave her an exaggerated wink. “Honestly, Lawson, how’d you end up with someone that cold, when you’ve got your pick of the litter, here?”

  “Perhaps he wasn’t interested in a puppy,” Sarah said, not looking away. Jimmy shifted her easily a half step to the right, toward him, and she didn’t even look to make sure she wasn’t going to run into the obstacle he was avoiding on her behalf. Maxim probably hadn’t noticed it happen.

  “No,” Maxim said, eyes hungry. “He got a viper, instead.”

  Sarah licked her lips.

  “I don’t think you’re in the market for a puppy, either, are you, Mr. Maxim?”

  “No,” he said slowly. “No, you’re probably right about that. Maybe I should have spent a few more days around Lawrence and found myself a woman more like you.”

  “That well’s dry,” Jimmy said, the pressure on Sarah’s hand telling her that he wasn’t going to put up with much more.

  Maxim laughed.

  “Can I at least give you a ride to the hotel?”

  “I have other stops to make,” Jimmy answered, and Sarah turned to face forward again, letting Jimmy drop her arm as he went to go open a car door ahead of her. She turned to face Maxim in their moment of solitude.

  “You think that I am the type of woman who would entertain you,” she said. He smiled broadly.

  “All women entertain me,” he said.

  “Threats titillate you, so I won’t make any,” she said. “I will just give you a warning. I married Jimmy just a few days ago, and he is, as you might expect, not very permissive in how he allows other men to behave toward me. I don’t let him fight my fights for me, so I’m going to have to intervene, with you, even before he would, and be even more merciless. Is that a clear enough picture for you?”

  “Oh, the fun we would have,” Maxim said confidentially. “I know Jimmy well enough. Didn’t know the two of you were involved.”

  She gave him a very cold smile.

  “Yes you did, and that was much of the fun of it.”

  He took a step back, looking her head to toe, then turned to Jimmy, who was waiting with the door open.

  “Hear you got married while no one was looking. How about I throw you a late bachelor party to make up for the misunderstanding?”

  Jimmy looked from Sarah to Maxim, then turned his face back to the car. Sarah got in.

  “We’ll talk about it tonight,” she heard him say to Maxim, then Jimmy got in beside her.

  “You wouldn’t actually go, would you? To a party that he’s throwing?”

  “It’s a good way to make contacts,” Jimmy said without looking at her.

  “Jimmy,” she said. “I don’t like his kind of party.”

  There was a twitch, one that would have been humor of there was anything to be amused about, but which was, in this context, just dismissive.

  “I know you don’t.”

  --------

  The car took them out to the beach, a white-walled restaurant that overlooked a spectacular blue bay. Jimmy tipped the host, who set them a table on a balcony, giving Jimmy a little bow as he backed away, white jacket and white cloth over his arm reflecting the bright sunlight.

  “You don’t do anything halfway, do you?” Sarah asked, and Jimmy gave her a little smile. She looked at the third chair.

  “What haven’t you told me?”

  “I always tell you everything you need to know,” he answered, and she shook her head a fraction.

  “That’s why I have to ask when I want to know anything else.”

  Another half a smile, then he looked up from the menu.

  “What are you in the mood for, this afternoon?”

  “Three chairs, Lawson. What does it mean?”

  “It means I’m late,” a voice said, and the host gave them another bow as he motioned a young man into the third seat and left. “Sorry Jimmy,” the man said.

  “Sid,” Jimmy said. “Meet Sarah Todd.”

  The young man turned to look at Sarah, open expression, face lacking the nuance most of Jimmy’s friends had. Sarah found this perhaps more unsettling than anything else she’d come across in her adventures abroad with Jimmy Lawson.

  “The Sarah Todd?” Sid asked. “I wasn’t sure you actually existed.”

  “Oh, she exists, all right,” Jimmy said. “I just wouldn’t repeat anything any of the boys told you about her.”

  “Thomas told me once that you were the other monster that lives under the bed,” Sid said, open bemused expression flustering Sarah in a way she couldn’t put her finger on.

  “Except Thomas,” Jimmy agreed. “Thomas adores her.”

  Sarah drew a breath. Started to speak. Stopped. Looked at Jimmy.

  “Who is he?” she asked.

  “Sidney Lewraugh,” Sid said, offering to shake hands with her. Sarah didn’t look at him.

  “Jimmy?”

  Jimmy’s eyes flashed amusement. He touched a finger to his cheekbone as he considered letting her remain in the dark, then he picked up his menu again.

  “Sid’s father worked for me, back when we first came out of Lawrence.” He drew a breath, pausing, and giving Sid just about the most honest smile he had, albeit a contained one. “I paid for Sid to go to medical school.”

  “All right,” Sarah said. “And why is he at our table?”

  “You are tough,” Sid said. She glanced at him and he beamed. She shook her head.

  “You didn’t spend all that much time around the Lawsons, did you?”

  Jimmy chuckled.

  “Oh, no. His father knew better than that. But it didn’t keep Sid from trying.”

  Now she looked sharply at the young man.

  “How many years of Perpeto are you on?” she asked. He shook his head.

  “In med school, they advocate we let ourselves age to at least thirty, because the persisting illusion of age lends us credibility.”

  She blinked.

  “You’re actually only in your mid-twenties?”

  He smiled, and she looked sharply at Jimmy.

  “What is he doing here?”

  “Sid’s going to ride back with us,” Jimmy said, putting the menu back down on the table. “He’s going to be our new doctor, back in Lawrence.”

  It felt odd, being this rude in front of someone who genuinely didn’t expect it, but odd hadn’t stopped her before.

  “Jimmy, they’re going to eat him alive, out there.”

  “Maybe, maybe not, but if we’re going to civilize Lawrence, we’re going to have to bring some of the seeds of civilization back with us.”

  “You don’t bring something that needs this much cultivation, to start,” she said. “You bring the weeds that are hard to kill, and then a place like Lawrence kills them anyway.”

  “You mean like my regular friends,” Jimmy said, and she widened her eyes at him.

  “Yes.”

  “Excuse me,” Sid said. “I’m tougher than I look.”

  She gave him a look that was somewhere between patronizing and outraged, then returned her attention to Jimmy.

  “It’s true,” Jimmy warned playfully. She shook her head.

  “He was a child when you came out here.”

  “He’s not that much younger than Yip,” Jimmy said. “And this is what he owes.”

  Sid nodded.

  “I’m happy to do it. We talked a lot in my classes about servicing underserved areas, bringing modern medicine to places that haven’t had it in a long time, if ever, and I think it’s something I’d be really good at.”

  “I’m sure you do,” Sarah said, not looking at him. “Jimmy, Doc is fine.”

  “He’s going to work for Doc,” Jimmy said. “Doc isn’t going anywhere.”

  “I’ve trained on all the new equipment and new techniques,” Sid said earnestly.

  “Isn’t going to matter when you don’t have any of t
hat equipment to work on,” Sarah said, still watching Jimmy.

  “That’s why we’re meeting tonight,” Jimmy said. “Sid has a license, which means he can buy a lot of the medical supplies I don’t actually have access to.”

  Sarah paused at this.

  “What are you saying?”

  “There’s a civilized world out here that you and I don’t have a lot of experience with,” Jimmy said. “One that requires identification and digital currency with a known source.”

  “That hasn’t said anything useful,” she said. “What are you saying?”

  Jimmy dug into his pocket and pulled out a stack of bills, setting it on the table next to him. Sid eyed it for a moment, then put it away.

  “There’s a little more in there than you said you’d need,” Jimmy said. “I expect you to spend it wisely.”

  “Of course,” Sid said, looking at Sarah. “You were there the whole time, right?”

  She nodded, and Jimmy glanced up at her, this a warning look. She needed to play nice for the time being. She finally looked over at Sid again.

  “The people of Lawrence,” he said. “What are the needs that they have that are currently unmet?”

  She swallowed, trying to keep the flare of temper she felt, directed at Jimmy, from lashing out at Sid.

  “Food,” she said, nodding. “Shelter. Income. Brains. A plan.” She nodded some more. “That would be a good start.”

  A bit of the earnest faded.

  “Miss Todd…”

  “Ms. Todd,” Jimmy said. “She’s my wife.”

  “Really?” Sid asked, breaking from his serious moment. “Congratulations.”

  She gave him a tight smile and he dipped his head again, frowning. Serious. Serious boy-child. She locked her face down to keep from mocking him.

  “Ms. Todd. I don’t know what your medical care has looked like, in the past, but the things that I can do are life-changing. I can treat chronic disease, diagnose genetic root causes and create regimens that make those diagnoses something other than the life sentence that they were before.”

  “Before what?” Sarah asked.

  She looked at Jimmy, who shrugged.

  “Look, Sid. In Lawrence, the leading cause of death is lead.”

  “Bad water?” Sid asked. “I can get chelation machines, if it’s that widespread.”