City of Dreams (93 page)

“Yes. Of course. At least I’d have tried. Not, I assure you, out of any love of Caleb Devrey.” Because he lusted to try blood transfusion. “Because I took an oath.”

“So did I,” Morgan muttered. “God help me, so did I.”

Andrew tossed back the last of his spirit. “I’m leaving. Are you coming with me?”

Morgan shook his head.

He watched Andrew go, then stared for some moments into his empty glass. Finally he stood.

“Good evening. Captain Turner, isn’t it?” The landlord had finally decided to approach. He was doing his best to sound pleased with a visit from the most notorious privateer in New York.

“Morgan Turner it is. And I’ve come to see my cousin, Caleb Devrey. I’ll take myself upstairs. No need for you to trouble.”

“Dr. Devrey seems to be very popular with his cousins this evening.”

“Yes, well, that’s how it is among us, Mr. Fraunces. We Devreys and Turners love each other dearly.”

He’d seen many dead men. The look on this one’s face said he hadn’t gone quietly. Caleb’s eyes were open and staring and his mouth was twisted in a grimace of agony. “May you rot in hell,” Morgan whispered, staring at the corpse for long seconds.

He began his search with the body. The pockets of Caleb’s dank and musty black clothes yielded nothing. He moved to the bed linen. Nothing there either. Finally he started on the room, conscious always that he hadn’t much time. Bede’s Wall Street residence was a short walk away. He and Andrew would be returning any moment.

The room was small and the furnishings limited. It took less than five minutes to examine everything. Nothing. He’d have to search Caleb’s offices on the ground floor of the Devrey house. Perhaps the best time to do it was after Bede and Andrew came back to the tavern.

Holy bloody Savior. Right there on the mantel, under a turned-up mug, was the gold horse’s head. But the wax seal had been broken and the bauble was empty.

Morgan let himself into the grand mansion on the Broad Way with his own key. He’d kept it all these years knowing that one day he must return and confront her.

It was after eleven at night. The house was quiet, blanketed in sleep and snow. Morgan climbed the stairs to the second floor. Her parlor door was closed, but there was a thin seam of light above the threshold. He pushed the door open.

“Morgan! Oh, thank God …” Squaw DaSilva was fully dressed and veiled, sitting at her writing table. She jumped up when she saw her son, extending both her hands. “Thank God! I’d almost given up hope that you’d understand.”

“I haven’t come out of duty. Or because I feel any affection. Or because I’ve changed my mind about what you did.”

Their words could be heard quite clearly in the attic room above their heads.

Press down on the floor. Lie over Jennet. Like the old days. Listen to the voice of her son. Not his. Solomon DaSilva had no cock, so he couldn’t have a son.

Morgan made no move to take his mother’s outstretched hands. She dropped them. “I did what I had to do. To protect you and protect the treasure.”

“You had five men murdered who were completely loyal to me. For no reason except that they might have interfered with your scheme to make your enemy grovel in the dust at your feet. I’ve come here tonight because I wanted to be the one to bring you the news. Caleb Devrey’s dead.”

She put a hand to her heart. “Dead,” she repeated as if she didn’t know the meaning of the word. “Caleb’s dead?”

“Yes. So that crusade will have to end.” He took a step closer to her, trying to see beyond the folds of the veil. Her eyes were blue, like his and the child Clare’s. “There are other reasons for my being here as well.”

“Caleb Devrey is dead,” she repeated as if she hadn’t heard him.

“Of some kind of ulceration in his belly. Or so Andrew says.”

She had been staring at the floor; now she lifted her head. “Andrew? Was Andrew treating Caleb?”

“More perfidy real or imagined for you to become obsessed by,” he said wearily. “And you’ve given me the same contagion. But as it happens, tonight was the first time Caleb had sent for Andrew. I’m sure you can get all the details from him. My second reason for coming is that you have the best web of spies in the city.”

Spies. The Huron had spies. They watched while white men rode unsuspecting through the woods. Then they took the guns and ate the white men alive. Piece by piece. Starting with the cock. Maybe Jennet’s whore’s son, Morgan, was a spy for the Huron.

“Caleb’s dead,” she whispered yet again. As if he’d said nothing else.

Morgan was nearly overcome by despair. As long as he lived he’d never be free of what she’d made him, or of the hatreds and jealousies she’d put into him. “Holy Savior, can we talk of nothing but Caleb Devrey? Listen to me, damn it! It’s important. Are your spies as good as they were?”

Caleb Devrey. Jennet had been going to marry Caleb Devrey. Until Solomon DaSilva stole her away. Clever Solomon made her his, taught her to spread her legs and welcome him, and cry out with delight when he took her. No more. He had no cock so he couldn’t possess her. Maybe Caleb Devrey had fathered the bastard on Jennet. The bastard couldn’t be his. Solomon DaSilva had no cock.

“My spies,” she said, sinking into her seat. She looked up at her son. “What is it you wish to know, Morgan?”

“The whereabouts of a tar named Petrus Vrinck. I can probably find him myself if I keep looking, but if you have as many informants as in the old days and as well placed, you’ll do it faster.”

“And why do you care about this … Petrus?”

“This is why.” He took the gold horse’s head from his pocket and dropped it on the writing table.

She stared at it for some time. Then she reached out and fingered the hollow neck and the remains of the red sealing wax. “It’s empty. I put the piece of paper you sent inside, but now it’s empty.”

“Indeed.”

“And this Petrus Vrinck, you think he has the directions? He knows the whereabouts of the treasure?”

“Exactly.”

Ah yes, treasure. He knew all about treasure. Ducats and pieces of eight and guilders and cruzados. Treasure is what kept you safe. Wealth was what made you certain of going to bed with a full belly. Money meant you wouldn’t die in the alleys of São Paulo or the gutters of New York. The Huron wouldn’t get his treasure. They could take his cock, but his treasure was here in New York, in the little room below the whorehouse near Hudson’s River. No one would ever find his treasure. Certainly not Jennet’s son. He wouldn’t let the bastard boy get his treasure. That’s why he kept this knife beside him. They didn’t think he ever went out of his room, but they were wrong. He could go wherever he wanted. At night when they all slept. Down the stairs. Like now.

“Does the money matter so much, Morgan? More even than the hatred you feel for me?”

“The treasure has a purpose. It’s the one thing I’ve been sure of these past years. The whole mad scheme was yours, but what comes of it will be something better and more noble.”

He paced as he spoke; his emotions seemed to flash in the air between them, like lightning on a summer’s night. “Tell me how you know all this,” she whispered, desperate to renew the bond between them. Her fingers went almost of their own accord to the tarnished horse’s head that represented so much past joy and present pain. “Where did you get this? How?”

Morgan shook his head. “It’s too long a story, and unimportant. I need an answer. Do you still have spies, and will you set them looking for Petrus Vrinck?”

“A noble cause, you said. Tell me what you mean.”

To finance the Sons of Liberty, wherever their path led. It was the one decent thing he could do to redeem the years he’d been a captive of the schemes that possessed his insane mother. “The
Fanciful Maiden
belongs to me. The treasure is mine. It doesn’t belong to Petrus Vrinck. I have plans for it. Will you help me?”

“Morgan, I can’t.”

“Is that your answer? You can’t?”

“No. It’s just that I don’t understand. Why can’t you explain to me what you mean to do?”

Easier to hear standing like this, with his ear pressed to the door. Right beside them, and they knew nothing. Because he was smarter than Jennet or her bastard boy. Smarter than all of them. The
Fanciful Maiden.
Belonged to Caleb Devrey’s bastard son, the
Fanciful Maiden
did. Caleb Devrey had made Solomon a cuckold and there was nothing Solomon could do about it because he had no cock. The
Fanciful Maiden.
A ship. He knew. Flossie had told him. Down the stairs. Out the door.

“I won’t explain because it’s none of your infernal business! All my life I have marched to your tune, now I’m going to follow my own. With or without your assistance.” Morgan turned and started for the door.

“No, wait! Morgan! Please, don’t go like this. I’ll help you. I’ll give you anything you need!”

He turned and strode toward the door. “Keep your help. I was mad to ask for it. This is my affair, not yours. Stay here with your lunatic hatreds and your unrelenting grievances. There are more important things to fight for in this world. For my part, they’re what I choose.”

“Morgan!” This time she couldn’t let him go. She’d made that mistake once before. She wouldn’t make it again. “Morgan! Wait, I’m begging you.”

She ran into the hall. Morgan was already halfway down the stairs. She started to go after him, then paused to pick up a white square of cloth, thinking it was something Morgan had dropped. But no, it could be nothing of his. She tossed it aside. “Morgan, please. Wait! We must talk more. I can help you. Whatever you want, I can help you get it.”

He didn’t answer, just went out into the street, allowing the door to bang shut behind him.

The snow had stopped falling and the air was still. New York wore a white shroud. Near the harbor the spotless pall reflected the terrifying crimson of hell.

“Holy bloody Savior! That’s my ship!” Morgan had been striding in the direction of Burnet’s Key at the foot of Wall Street, only half aware that his were not the first footsteps to mar the virgin perfection of the snow. Now he broke into a run, slipping and sliding on cobbles slick with snow and ice, seeing only the red glow of the thing every sailor feared more than eternal damnation, a shipboard fire. “My ship! No!”

The
Maiden
was anchored in the roads, some distance from the wooden wharf. Morgan had left two crewmen guarding the vessel. One must be burned to death or gone over the side, because only one man was running back and forth, obviously trying to fight the blaze and failing to have any effect on the speed with which the flames traveled.

Others had seen the red glow in the sky and come out of their houses to watch the fire. They were crowding in on the dock. “It’s the
Fanciful Maiden!”
someone shouted. “That’s your ship, ain’t it, Cap’n Turner?”

“Yes. I need a boat! For God’s sake, man, get me a boat.”

“Morgan! No. Don’t go out there. There’s nothing you can do. I beg you, don’t go!”