Now Philip Ballister sighed. “Indeed, Miss Landry. Indeed.”
Chapter Four
“That’s a right ugly house.”
Ginny stood on the curb, staring up at the building Mr. Ballister said formed part of her inheritance. Tall and narrow, its boards painted dull gray, it huddled between its fellow buildings, a depressing row of them smashed so tightly together a cat could barely squeeze between their outer walls.
She’d been hoping for something better. Ballister said this was a fashionable street—if so, she would hate to see an unfashionable one. Apparently ugly houses didn’t do for her what ugly men did.
She glanced at the cabbie, who stood just behind her with her luggage in his hands. Emerged from his cab, he proved to be short—no taller than Ginny—but marvelously muscular. She liked muscular almost as much as ugly. For her, the combination often proved irresistible.
He grinned at her and focused an appreciative glance on her fanny. She certainly didn’t mind.
Later, she told him silently and followed Ballister up the walk. The door opened before they reached it; Ginny blinked in surprise.
A figure stood in the opening. All silver, it possessed vaguely human proportions—a head, a chest and abdomen, two arms, two legs. No features as such. Instead the facial area had been molded into an approximation of a face—two indents for eyes, a vague, jutting form for a nose, a suggestion of lips with a small grate between them from whence presumably a voice might emit.
Ah, yes, she’d seen a few of these on the train as she journeyed east. She certainly hadn’t engaged with them. And this one most disquietingly wore a starched white apron as well as an absurd ruffled cap on its head.
“Welcome, Miss Landry.” The words sounded clear, though the mechanical voice box whined a bit.
Apparently she’d been expected. Not sure how to respond, she said, “Thank you.”
The unit swung wide the door, and they entered a high-ceilinged hallway that smelled pleasantly of lemon polish. The interior of the house appeared much nicer than the exterior—well kept and luxurious. Ginny relaxed a tick.
“You have four servants,” Ballister announced even as three more units rolled in from the room beyond. “Why don’t you introduce yourselves?”
The unit wearing the apron spoke again. “I am Millie. This is Floyd, Gus, and Frannie. We have been keeping your mother’s home in readiness.”
“Even though no one was here?”
“It is our assignment.”
“I see.” Ginny’s stomach wobbled. It had been a long and not very pleasant day. For some reason, the presence of these units bothered her most of all.
Behind her the cabbie dropped her bags on the floor with a satisfying series of thumps.
“Well, now,” Ballister said. “Since you’ve decided to stay here, I’ll leave you to get some rest. We can meet again in the morning. Say eleven?”
“All right.”
“I can show you the other properties then.”
So he meant to leave her here alone with these machines.
“Come along,” Ballister said to the cabbie, who glanced at Ginny.
She leaned into him. “After you drop him off, come back.”
Ballister stopped abruptly. “Oh, Miss Landry, I almost forgot. Your key.”
He produced it from his pocket and laid it in her hand. “Have a good night.”
She fully intended to.
****
The house proved well appointed and comfortable, if only lightly used. Ginny allowed Millie to conduct her around in an abbreviated tour, during which the steam unit assiduously asked which of the four bedrooms she would like to use.
“Well,” she asked in return, “where do the four of you sleep?”
Millie turned blank eyes on her. “Miss, we do not sleep. At off hours, we put ourselves on standby to conserve energy.”
“I see.” A lie, since Ginny truly didn’t.
“Where should I have Floyd deposit your bags, miss?”
“Which room belonged to my mother?”
“This one, miss, to your left.”
“Not that one, then. You choose any of the others. I do not care which.”
Millie froze where she—it—stood. “Miss, I am not able to choose.”
“Why not?”
The unit waved its hands in distress. “I am not equipped for selection. I am not…I am not equipped.”
“Very well. I’ll sleep in the yellow room. You do know which one is yellow?”
“Yes, miss, thank you, miss.”
“All right. Let me freshen up.”
“Dinner is ready whenever you wish to partake.”
“Dinner? But how did you know exactly when I’d arrive?”
“Mr. Ballister sent word it would be sometime today. We prepared the meal over and over again.”
And after that, Ginny could scarcely claim not to be hungry. “I will wash my hands and change my clothing, and come straight down.”
“Yes, miss, thank you, miss.”
The meal, taken in the narrow dining room in the presence of the four silent steam units, proved so unnerving Ginny could have chortled for joy when a knock sounded at the outer door.
“That will be my cab driver. Please let him in.”
The unit called Floyd hurried off and returned with the squat and wondrously homely cabbie on his heels.
Ginny waved her fork at the newcomer. “Ah, welcome. I’m very glad to see you. Why don’t you pull up a chair and dine?”
“Well, miss, I don’t know.”
“Best to get a lining in your stomach if we’re bound for a tavern. I’ve heard about the taverns in this city. Have you already eaten?”
“No, miss, I didn’t take time.”
“Millie, please bring another table setting for my friend, Mr.—” She wagged her eyebrows at the cabbie in inquiry.
“Rexinger, but you can call me Fred.”
“Bring a setting for Mr. Fred. As you can see, Fred, there is plenty of food.”
“Don’t mind if I do.” He drew up a chair and pulled his cap from his head, revealing a shock of dirty blond hair. Ginny contemplated him through narrowed eyes. Could be cleaner, but beggars couldn’t be choosers.
“So, Fred, how long have you lived in Buffalo?”
“My parents moved the family out from Philly when I was five.”
“So most your life.”
“Yes, miss.”
“What’s the best thing about this city?”
“Well, now, that’s a tough one. Lots of good things. The beer, maybe.”
She grinned. “Good to hear. What’s the worst thing?”
Fred eyed the steam units. “Wouldn’t like to say, in present company.”
“I see.”
“Say…” He waited for Millie to lay his place setting before leaning toward Ginny. “Is it true what that lawyer fellow said—your name is ‘Landry’?”
“That’s right.”
“And you’re related to that Dr. Landry lady?”
“She was my mother.”
“Ah—my condolences on her death. A damn strange thing that was, though I wouldn’t care to discuss that here, either.”
“No.”
“Some peculiar things been goin’ on in this city since your mother died. It has a lot of people lookin’ over their shoulders.”
“You’ll have to tell me about it some other evening. For tonight, I want to forget about everything and have a good time.”
“How good?” He eyed her speculatively.
“I guess that remains to be seen and depends, in part, on just how good that beer really is. Where do you mean to take me?”
“Well, now, Clancy’s has some damn fine beer, but it’s full of Irish.”
“You don’t like the Irish, Fred?”
“They’re fine enough. But I’ve learned when they’re around there’s a higher chance a fight may break out.”
“A fight might be refreshing.”
Ginny had a lot of pent-up emotions she needed to disperse.
“Refreshin’?” he echoed in surprise.
“Well, at least fun.”
“Where did you say you’re from, miss?”
“The western territories—Dakota. And you’d better call me Ginny.” She returned his speculative stare. “Especially if we’re going to become well acquainted.”
Chapter Five
“There’s a riot down at Clancy’s. The duty captain says we need to get there quick.”
Brendan’s heart sank. Only an hour left of his shift and this had to happen. “What sort of riot?” he asked his fellow officer, Dennis, unhappily. “Not the steamies again?”
“No. Captain says there’s reports of some woman shooting up the place with a steam cannon.”
“What? And he’s sending just the two of us?”
“It’s an Irish bar. Nobody wants to go.”
“Ah, hell. Where would a woman be getting a steam cannon? And what’s become of the Irish Squad?” If one of those hybrid automatons took a steam blast, he’d be knocked out but would probably survive…unlike a human.
Dennis shrugged. “Apparently no one’s on duty.”
Brendan, never one to complain about his orders—not aloud anyway—stiffened his spine. “All right. You get the paddy wagon and catch up with me.”
Clancy’s, down on Elk Street, had a bad reputation. Brendan went there occasionally on his own time—though never at this late hour—and often enough on duty also. He tramped the several blocks from the station and heard the racket from a block away. Hoots, hollers, the unmistakable sound of several rapid steam blasts, and ensuing cheers.
“Jaysus, Mary, and Joseph,” he muttered under his breath. He lived with the ever-present danger of taking a steam blast to the head that would end his life. This looked as good a chance as any.
Dennis pulled up in the paddy wagon just as Brendan put his hand to the door of the tavern. “Draw your weapon,” he told his fellow officer, “and give me backup.”
“Aye, Sergeant.”
The noise inside Clancy’s almost knocked him over backward when he went in, and he stared at the sight that met his eyes. The tavern, full to the gills and with every lamp lit, had been rearranged from its usual state of haphazard squalor, a few of the tables pushed aside, and an area cleared opposite the bar.
Brendan blinked. A long line of empties stood lined up on the chair rail halfway up the wall. Many more lay shattered and pulverized below, and the wall sported innumerable scorch marks. The place smelled like beer, piss, and steam.
A woman stood on the bar. How she’d got up there Brendan couldn’t say, it being a high bar. But she made a most fantastical sight.
Skin-tight boots caressed calves and thighs well on display, since she’d hiked up her skirts. She wore a well-fitting tan jacket that didn’t serve to cover her generous bosom, and she had one of the most glorious manes of hair he’d ever beheld—rich brown and streaming to her waist. Her stance of victorious and no doubt drunken confidence commanded every eye in the room, as did the tiny steam cannon in her hand.
Only one thing more frightening than a woman with a steam cannon, and that had to be a drunken woman with a steam cannon.
Dennis poked him from behind. “Let me see. Ah, hell!”
Dennis, like every other man in the tavern—and most of the patrons were men—stared at the figure on the bar with rapt attention. Brendan couldn’t blame any of them. She was the most magnificent woman he’d ever seen.
But that was neither here nor there, and he was on duty.
“Line ’em up again,” the woman cried in a husky voice.
“They’re already lined up, miss!”
She shut one eye. “So they are. Stand back and let me at ’em.”
“She hasn’t missed yet.” The man standing next to Brendan informed him, and then promptly did a double take before yelping, “Hold up! The coppers are here.”
“To hell with ’em!” the woman cried and opened fire. The empties along the wall exploded in an even line, and the room blossomed with heat and steam.
Brendan, mouth ajar, watched in horrified amazement as the explosions continued—at least until the cannon needed to recharge.
“Wall’s on fire!” somebody stated. One of the barmen ran forward and slapped out the flames with his cloth.
“Saints preserve us,” Dennis breathed.
It would take more than saints. Brendan, gathering himself, marched forward and glared up at the woman. “Get down off that bar.”
She focused on him—a bit blearily, but she focused. She seemed to contemplate his face, his hair, and his uniform before she sneered. “Says who?”
She accompanied the last word with a lean that allowed him a good view of her bodice, most of its buttons undone. Sweet mother Mary, full of grace.
“Buffalo police,” he declared himself, proud to hear he sounded steady as a rock. “Cease and desist. And while you’re about it, you can hand over the steam cannon.”
The crowd booed. The woman looked around at them and waved her hand. “Go away, Officer. You’re spoiling the entertainment.”
“This is not entertainment. It’s sheer stupidity. There are ordinances prohibiting the discharge of a steam cannon indoors.”
“And aren’t you the dull fellow to remind us of those ord-ord-ordinances?” She smiled the kind of smile the devil might. “How about if I blow out that wall? Then we won’t be indoors, will we?”
“We will. At least,” he allowed, “three-quarters. Miss, you’re drunk and shouldn’t have possession of a weapon. Hand it over, please.”
“Isn’t he polite?” She appealed to the bar at large, while Brendan’s temper rose. He didn’t lose it often but felt damned close now.
The other patrons hooted some more and stamped their feet.
Brendan called to his fellow officer. “Dennis, let’s get her down.”
Both of them tall men, each reached for one of the woman’s arms, intending to swing her down from the bar. As soon as they touched her, though, she began to holler.
“Fred! Where are you, Fred?”
A fellow stepped forward. Squat and red-faced, he appeared at least as drunk as the woman. He balled up his fists. “Leave go of her now.”
Ignoring him, Brendan grunted as he and Dennis swung their charge down, him all too aware she still had the now-recharged cannon in her hand.
He set her squarely on the floor, took a half step back, and held out his hand. “Give me the weapon.”
“No one takes this cannon from me.”
“Hand it over, miss, unless you wish to be arrested.”
****
Ginny glared harder at the tall, strapping hunk of man—police officer—who stood before her. She supposed being a police officer didn’t exclude him from being a man, but at the moment she felt a little fuzzy about it. In any case, he was much too good-looking, well over six feet, with a good set of shoulders, reddish hair, and features that had been entirely too well carved. And those eyes—just look at those eyes: bright blue and snapping with rage.
She detested handsome men.
He had to be the most detestable she’d ever seen. And his voice! That Irish accent of his caressed his words the way his tongue might well caress a woman.
“I do not wish to be arrested. What blame fool would want to get arrested?”
“Then hand over your weapon. You can reclaim it tomorrow at the station.”
How professional he was. How well he kept his anger under control. But Ginny could feel it, and she wondered what it would take to make him lose that control.
“I’ve had this steam cannon since I was fourteen years old.”
“Well, you and it are going to have to spend the rest of the night apart. Dennis?” The officer jerked his head at the second cop—at least Ginny thought there were two and she wasn’t just seeing double. The two of them closed in on her again, one from either side.
She raised t
he weapon, dimly aware it was a stupid thing to do. The cannon had now fully charged; she could kill someone.
The detestable police officer moved too quickly for her, wrested the cannon away, and handed it to the second man. Yes, there were two of them.
Ginny saw red. While the tavern’s patrons hooted some more, she drew back her arm and punched the detestable police officer as hard as she could, right in the face.
The blow—surely one of the best she’d ever delivered—barely rocked him back on his heels. The crowd gasped as one.
“Now she’s done it,” someone cried.
Oh, shit, she had!
Without a word, the cheek below his eye blooming red, the detestable police officer captured her wrists in fingers like iron. Before she could protest, he had her handcuffed and began to hustle her from the bar.
“Fred!” she called back over her shoulder, “don’t forget me.”
Looked like she wouldn’t have the chance to spend the night in her ugly cabbie’s arms after all.
Chapter Six
“I understand you’re Candace Landry’s daughter.”
Ginny lifted her aching head from her hands and fought back the need to vomit. She had the grandmama of all hangovers, which she couldn’t understand. Back home she could drink the local brew half the night with few ill effects. This Buffalo beer must be brewed in the bottom of a chamber pot.
And it didn’t help that there stood Officer Detestable, looking bright, well-pressed, and not much the worse for the redoubtable night they’d shared. The only sign he showed was a large bruise on his left cheek, where her fist had connected.
That at least made her smile. She struggled to her feet. Two steps took her to the bars of the cell, beyond which he stood. The cell—one of few intended for women—lacked in space what it made up for in the abundance of prostitutes.
All of those, though, had now gone—released, every one.
Ginny looked into the officer’s face. “What if I am Candace Landry’s daughter? Does it make a difference?”
He inspected her slowly before he replied. His gaze moved from her hair, now in a tangle, all the way to her boots. “It may. Then again it may not. I’ve been informed you’re from out of town. You may not have been aware of the ordinance prohibiting the discharge of firearms in public buildings.”
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