Railroad

by Graham Masterton

  ‘But what did you want to do?’ she asked him. ‘You still haven’t told me.’

  Collis stood up and paced across to the spyhole. He lifted the flap, and a dusty ray of sunlight pierced the room. The rain must be clearing outside, he thought. He wished to God he’d never been headstrong enough to believe that his preposterous plan would work.

  ‘Your father and I, when it comes to business, are mortal enemies,’ he said. ‘For me to make my fortune, I desperately need to build my railroad. For him to preserve his fortune, he desperately requires that I shouldn’t. So we’re at total odds; and there is no way the conflict can be resolved unless one of us resorts to unfair pressure.’

  He turned to her, with a resigned smile. ‘That’s why you’re here. You’re my unfair pressure. I was going to have you drugged with tincture of opium; then undressed, with Maria-Mamuska as a chaperone, and photographed by Mr Figgis. I was then going to have a sample calotype sent to your father, with a threat for money. Signed anonymously, of course, by the Calotype Gang, or whatever came into my mind.’

  Sarah looked back at him with an expression of disbelief. ‘He wouldn’t have paid,’ she said. ‘He would have turned San Francisco upside down, looking for the culprits, with the express intention of having them hanged.’

  ‘Precisely,’ said Collis. ‘Except he never would have found them.’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘I don’t suppose he would. Even I don’t know where we are.’

  Collis sat down again, breathing out smoke. ‘We would have sent a second calotype, maybe even a third, with more demands. Your father would have gone berserk with rage. Then, at the right moment, I would have approached him at his office, very discreetly, and told him I had been given to understand that he was being put under pressure from blackmailers. He would have been angry with me at first, and even suspected I had something to do with it. But my alibis would have been seamless, and after a while he would have had to listen. I would have offered to act as a middleman – to retrieve the calotype negatives, all of them, provided he did me a favour in return. I wouldn’t have asked for much. Just that he should withdraw from all active resistance to the Sierra Pacific Railroad, and announce in the Evening Bulletin that he considered the railroad inevitable, desirable, and profitable to all who might care to invest in it.’

  There was a pause. Then Sarah said, ‘That was all you wanted? You were prepared to go through all of this performance, all of this kidnapping and photography and false blackmail, just to have my father say that?’

  ‘Your father’s word is San Francisco’s law. You should know that by now. The whole of the business community takes its cue from Laurence Melford, and so do the pioneers. He’s a solid-gold, one hundred per cent, rich, influential, irresistible Bear Flagger.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, frowning. ‘I think I’m cross with you, Collis.’

  ‘Well,’ Collis told her, ‘I’m not surprised. The most I can ask of you now is that you accept my apologies, and my explanation, and forget about the whole thing. I won’t try it again.’

  ‘You won’t have to,’ she said.

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘I said, you won’t have to. I know what your railroad means to you. I’ve read about you in the newspapers. I also have the wit and the intelligence to know what it’s going to mean to San Francisco. It’s going to help San Francisco to grow up – to grow more educated, more aware of the world around it, and more fashionable. How do you think it feels to wear dresses that have travelled for two hundred days around Cape Horn, knowing that even before you’ve set eyes on them, they’re nine months out of date? What do you think it’s like going to operas and concerts and theatrical plays that are eons behind New York? For the sake of their absurd monopolies, my father and all his cronies are doing everything they can to keep us isolated, and stifled, like a bunch of country simpletons on a hill.’

  Collis put his head on one side quizzically. ‘Are you trying to tell me that you agree with the railroad?’

  ‘Agree with it? Are you mad? It would change my whole life. I could travel to Washington whenever I wanted. I could go to New York. I could order clothes and books and expect them within the month. My father’s mistake, Collis, was to bring me up as an educated and fashionable and self-opinionated young lady, and I’m not the only one. There are plenty of wealthy young men and women in South Park who feel just the same as I do. We’re bright, social, and cut off from civilization, and we don’t like it.’

  ‘Oh,’ remarked Collis. He didn’t know what else to say.

  Sarah stood up, and came across to him, and took his hand. ‘Listen,’ she said, ‘we can make your plan work, but we’ll do it my way.’

  He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. ‘You want us to go ahead? You want us to – you actually want us to take the calotypes and blackmail your own father?’

  Sarah beamed and nodded. ‘Not completely undressed, mind,’ she said, raising her finger. ‘A few pictures in my corsets. But we can always imply in our blackmail letter that we have something more intimate.’

  ‘We?’ asked Collis, stunned.

  ‘Yes, we. We’re the conspirators, aren’t we? I just as much as you, if I let you take these pictures of my own free will.’

  ‘Well, yes,’ said Collis, still unsure of her. ‘But how can you blackmail your own father? He’s – well, he’s your father.’

  Sarah leaned forward and kissed Collis on the forehead. ‘It won’t do him any harm, my dear. He won’t lose any money, or any prestige, or anything. Everyone around him is so sycophantic that when he says he’s in favour of railroads, the whole business community will probably nod, and say how farsighted he is, and how adventurous, and why didn’t we think of that.’

  She smiled at Collis for a moment, and then added, ‘I wouldn’t hurt him, Collis, not for anything. I love him. But he’s made me into my own woman, for better or for worse, and this woman he’s made believes that the railroad will change this city into the most exciting place on earth.’

  There was a hesitant knock at the door. ‘Come in,’ Collis said, and Maria-Mamuska came in with an anxious expression and two flutes of champagne on a tray.

  Collis said, ‘Bring more champagne, Maria, and join us. And tell Andy and Dan and Mr Figgis to come in, too, I think we have something to celebrate after all.’

  He learned during the course of that afternoon a lesson that, in time, was to change his view of women radically; a lesson that over the coming years would deepen and strengthen his marriage to Hannah, as well as his friendship with Sarah Melford. While Mr Figgis took ten or twelve calotypes of Sarah, lying sprawled on the bed in her pink-ribboned corsets with her eyes closed, as if drugged, she and Collis talked about her father, and about San Francisco society, and about the new breed of California debutantes.

  ‘I don’t know how our parents expected us to turn out,’ said Sarah. ‘They were made of tough pioneering stuff themselves, which most of us inherited; and on top of our fine genetic inheritance they gave us money, and influence, and a thorough education. Did they expect us to be meek, and subservient – polite little ladies who desired nothing more out of life than to flatter their daddies and go to tea parties?’

  ‘Your father means well, though, surely?’ asked Collis.

  ‘Meaning well and doing well are not the same thing,’ said Sarah. ‘He can be very understanding and lovable on occasions, but he’s bull-headed, and reactionary, and he doesn’t give me any freedom with boys. I was walking out with that delicious Francis Bret Harte until recently, until my father got to hear about it. Bret’s so witty – and you couldn’t find anyone more respectable than the secretary to the director of the mint. But no, father said he scribbles, and so he wasn’t fit company.’

  ‘Can you keep still, please?’ complained Mr Figgis from beneath the musty depths of his calotypist’s cape.

  ‘Is that why you’re helping me?’ asked Collis. ‘To make your father realise that you’re not such a pristine pri
ncess after all?’

  ‘I have my honour,’ said Sarah. ‘But I have my life to lead, too, and my own politics to follow.’

  Collis stood up and strolled across the room with his hands in his pockets. Mr Figgis clucked loudly at the disturbance, but Collis ignored him.

  ‘You know something?’ said Collis. ‘When I first saw you at the theatre, arriving in your box with your family, I think I fell in love with you instantly.’

  ‘Most men do,’ said Sarah, in a matter-of-fact way.

  ‘Andrew Hunt had told me on the ship from New York that you were incomparably beautiful, but unassailable, too. Nobody could get past your father, he said. Not unless they were a baron, or a prince. Or John Frémont’s father-in-law’s best friend.’

  Sarah smiled. In her corsets and her garters, with her big soft breasts pushed together into a tight cleavage, and her long legs revealed in nothing but silk stockings, she looked infinitely desirable to Collis, and even Maria-Mamuska was watching the proceedings with appreciation.

  ‘Are you still in love with me?’ Sarah asked.

  ‘Of course,’ said Collis, ‘and I always shall be. But I would rather love you as a friend than as a lover. If I seduced you, if I managed to clamber up to the top of that glass mountain you sit on, I don’t think our association would last longer than a week. I would have conquered that pinnacle that every able-bodied man in San Francisco dreams of, but what would I have to show for it? No – you’ve shown me today that you have intelligence, and wisdom, as well as beauty, and I value those more.’

  ‘Apart from which, you’re married now,’ said Sarah. ‘And don’t tell me you don’t love your wife madly.’

  Collis grinned. ‘Well, there’s that point, too.’

  They both started laughing, and Mr Figgis struggled his way out of his cape in annoyance.

  ‘Do you want these pictures or not?’ he demanded.

  Collis put his arm around Mr Figgis’s shoulders. ‘Of course we do, my dear fellow. We promise to be still as statues from now on. Just tell me one thing, Sarah, before you pose again. What are you going to tell your father when you get home?’

  He was back at the International Hotel by six. The rain had cleared, and it was a bright, clear evening, with a dazzling sunset over the bald peak of Fern Hill. In their suite, Hannah was dressing for dinner, in the hope that Collis would be back in time. He came in, walked quickly across the room, and kissed her as she sat at her dressing table.

  ‘How did it go?’ her reflection asked him in the mirror.

  He kissed her again. ‘It went completely wrong, but completely right. I shall tell you everything about it over dinner. How do you fancy Delmonico’s?’

  She turned on her stool and looked up at him. ‘I’d love Delmonico’s,’ she told him, with an abstracted smile. ‘Did it really go so well?’

  He peeled off his coat, loosened his necktie, and began to unbutton his shirt. ‘I hope you’re feeling broad-minded,’ he said. ‘But I’m sure you are. You’re a very bright, broad-minded wife.’

  ‘You flatter me.’

  ‘No, I don’t. I’m telling you the truth. And I should have told you the truth before. Now this is all over, I promise you one thing, and I promise it solemnly. I shall never keep anything from you again, the way I did with this plan. Because, my God, if Sarah Melford can see the sense in what I’m doing, after all I put her through, then I know full well that you can.’

  Hannah blinked at him. ‘Sarah Melford?’ she asked.

  He approached Laurence Melford a week later in the dining-room of the Hotel du Commerce. It was a noisy, high-ceilinged place, with polished carving trolleys being speedily wheeled from table to table, and waiters hurrying in and out of the service doors with lobster, and brant, and hare chops in salmi; and above it all there was the raucous sound of businessmen who had taken one cocktail too many, talking one octave too high.

  Laurence Melford must have seen him coming, because his head sank a little, as if he didn’t wish to be recognised. But Collis came smartly up to his table, bowed, and said, ‘Perhaps you have a moment, sir?’

  Laurence Melford was lunching with Andrew Crawford, the wealthy ships’ supplier. Crawford sat back in his seat, a little perplexed at Collis’s interruption, but Laurence Melford didn’t even raise his eyes.

  ‘I’m having a private lunch, Mr Edmonds,’ he said, in a low and testy voice. ‘If you wish to see me, you may make an appointment through my staff.’

  ‘I really think it better if I see you now,’ said Collis. ‘Begging Mr Crawford’s pardon for the inconvenience, that is. How are you, Mr Crawford?’

  ‘I was well, thank you, Mr Edmonds, until I saw you,’ said Crawford, wiping his mouth with his napkin and pushing away his plate of broiled venison.

  Laurence Melford pulled a sour smile. ‘I think you’d better leave, Mr Edmonds,’ he suggested. ‘My servants are waiting outside, and they could always be summoned to have you expelled.’

  The Maître d’ had seen out of the corner of his eye that Laurence Melford was disturbed by Collis’s presence, and he came across with his plum-coloured nose and his curled-up shirt front to find out what was wrong.

  ‘You want a table, sir?’ he asked Collis, trying to nudge him away from Laurence Melford’s side.

  ‘No, thank you,’ said Collis, without looking at him. ‘And if you push me once more, I shall punch you very hard in the belly.’

  Laurence Melford raised a hand. ‘It’s all right, Carlo. I can deal with this. Mr Edmonds and I go through this kind of performance with tiresome regularity.’

  ‘I didn’t want to bother you for long,’ Collis said. ‘Just long enough to say “Calotypes”.’

  Laurence Melford’s cheeks tightened, and his eyes suddenly looked very dark. Andrew Crawford noticed the change in him and frowned uncertainly. ‘Larry?’ he asked. ‘Do you want me to leave? I don’t mind if it’s really important.’

  Laurence Melford hesitated, and then nodded. ‘Just for a minute or two, please, Andrew. Carlo – would you take Mr Crawford’s lunch to that table over there for him, please? And would you bring a drink for Mr Edmonds?’

  Andrew Crawford stood up, and Collis sat down in his place. Before the waiter arrived to take the plate away, Collis forked up one of Andrew Crawford’s slices of venison, and he chewed it placidly while he waited for his drink. Laurence Melford watched him with the patronising coldness of a god on Mount Olympus.

  ‘Well?’ he asked, after Carlo had set down a stone fence and left them alone.

  ‘Well,’ said Collis, running his fingertip around the rim of his glass, ‘I hear you’re having some embarrassing trouble. I also hear that the trouble isn’t completely unconnected with photographic reproductions of a member of your family.’

  ‘How did you hear that?’ he said harshly.

  ‘Mr Melford, I was a tenderfoot in San Francisco when you first met me, but these days I’m a little more au fait.’

  ‘I suppose you set up this dirty little business yourself?’

  ‘Mr Melford, I’m a respectable hardware dealer from a respectable city. I’m also a partner in the Sierra Pacific Railroad Company. You don’t seriously think that I’d get myself involved in a nasty affair like this, do you?’

  ‘Yes, if you want my candid opinion,’ said Laurence Melford. ‘But I don’t suppose I’ll ever be able to prove it.’

  Collis swilled his drink around his mouth before swallowing it. ‘I happen to be friends with the leaders of several Chinese tongs, Mr Melford. If you hadn’t been so racially prejudiced, you would have had the good sense to cultivate a friendship with them yourself. They are the wisest and the best-informed men in the whole of this city.’

  ‘They’re a collection of crooks,’ remarked Laurence Melford.

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Collis. ‘But it takes a crook to know what crooks are up to; and they tell me on excellent authority that Sarah was temporarily abducted last week for the purposes of a very novel and ingenious
crime.’

  Laurence Melford toyed with his fork. His suppressed anger made the glasses and plates tremble.

  ‘I won’t beat around the bush,’ said Collis. ‘I happen to know, by a fortuitous stroke of luck, the identity of the perpetrators of this crime. They were unscrupulous, vicious, unprincipled, and mean; Sarah was fortunate to escape unharmed. But I must warn you that they won’t stop at anything if they’re not humoured.’

  ‘You sound as if you’re acting as their collecting agent,’ said Laurence Melford.

  ‘Not at all. I’ve come here to see you today because I’m in the happy position of being able to make a deal. It so happens that these rogues owe me a sizable favour – a favour which only just kept them out of jail. Now, if I were to go to them on your behalf, and insist that this favour should be returned at once, in the shape of all their calotype negatives of Sarah, they would hardly be in any kind of position to resist my demands.’

  Laurence Melford’s eyes were as narrow as musket slits in a stockade. ‘You’d do that? And what would you expect for your trouble?’

  Collis smiled. ‘I’m an opportunist, Mr Melford. I can’t deny that. As soon as I heard about this lamentable business, I thought to myself, aha, here’s another opportunity to help the cause of the Sierra Pacific Railroad.’

  ‘Yes?’ growled Laurence Melford. ‘How, exactly?’

  ‘I’ll get those negatives for you if you stop blocking my plans for the railroad,’ said Collis. ‘That includes saying or doing anything to discourage any of your fellow businessmen from investing in it, and any attempts to manipulate the state administration into voting against public funds for it. I shall also expect you to write a letter to the principal San Francisco newspapers, saying that, on reflection, you now regard the arrival of a transcontinental railroad link to be historically inevitable.’

  Laurence Melford sat quiet and hunched for a long time. The only sign of the fury that was grumbling and boiling within him was the way in which he was slowly digging his fork into the table, again and again and again.