Desperation and Decision (8 page)

Then the whole assembled company gasped. I
turned my head sharply back to the wall. A light shimmered and an
image snapped into focus. It was no grainy, flickering celluloid
film. It was as clear as if we all stood in the London Chancery's
squalid environs. A grimy, frizzle-haired old woman wearing a
coarse, formerly red and gray-striped skirt, a black shawl and a
grimy white shirtwaist, clutching a basket of washing turned
abruptly and looked up toward the ceiling of the room. Long,
finely-boned hands took possession of the basket and the woman
favored the possessor of the hands with a smile.

"'Allo, lovey. Lookey you, tricked out loik
Saint George!" cackled the old woman as dawn broke over the black,
huddled buildings behind her. She shuffled a little ways down the
street. "Goin' t' save this loidy fair from a dragon?"

"Fair though you be, Lady Gertie, today my
quest is to find someone else," the voice of Oliver Twist replied.
The conversation, clear and real as if the people were in the room,
appeared to originate from the device in Twist's hands just as
Madame Phoebe's voice had come from it last night. He twisted a
knob to reduce the volume for a moment and spoke over his recorded
patter of soothing words reassuring the woman.

"Gertie served the court by cleaning the
offices and doing laundry for some of the jurists." Twist fell
silent and allowed his recorded voice to continue. "Name's Jake
Larch. He was arrested about an hour ago and brought here for
breaking into a house in Chelsea."

"Not 'ere."

"You mean you haven't heard of him being
brought in?"

"Now, wot 'appens 'ere wot Gertie don't know
on?" She postured and preened and Twist took the opportunity to
sigh, "I wish she'd spared a bit of the soap she used on the
laundry to wash herself."

"I meanter tell yer 'e was 'ere but 'e ain't
ere. There were 'at advocate feller come t' see 'im. Wot's 'is
name?"

"A new advocate? Maybe he wasn't a
local."

"Don't matter. I knows 'em all. I'm
chancery's cleanin' lady, remember? 'At Larch come in at the front
roight enough, an' slid right through an' out the back. 'At's wot
'e did. Slick, 'at 'er feller is."

"Who's the advocate, Gertie? Striver? Vholes?
Tulkinghorn?"

Gertie shuffled and hedged. She muttered
something the recording device failed to pick up. Everyone in the
room strained to hear but the device whirred and though Doctor
Twist hastily touched controls her words did not carry to those
assembled.

"You mean you've seen him around here before.
You've seen him as somebody else, haven't you?"

Gertie appeared to consider this. Suddenly
her eyes went wide. "No. No, I don't know nothin' about 'im." She
grabbed her laundry basket from the slender hands and scuttled off.
The image winked off and Oliver cleared his throat in embarrassment
as the company murmured in astonishment and stared in disbelief at
the young man with the armored jacket and bronze tablet.

"What is this wizardry?" I demanded. "Where
is your projector, your film? How can you capture images, human
voices with such clarity?"

"Dr. Twist is a man of many talents," Madame
Phoebe interrupted before half a dozen others could form their
spluttered questions. "But I beg you, save your curiosity for
later. Continue your report, please, Oliver."

"I went back to question Gertie again about
this incident." Twist was now shy and ill at ease when facing the
company without his image-maker, just his own fragile-looking,
angelic but troubled face. "She has disappeared, and no one knows
what has become of her. Nor can anyone tell me anything about the
housebreaker, Jake Larch. Both of them are well-known in their
respective haunts. While there is really no one to lament the
disappearance of Larch, Gertie was a widow with a
severely-handicapped adult daughter who has been taken to the
poorhouse because there is no one to care for her."

Rose Campbell and Doctor Mac exchanged
glances. "Dr. Twist, give me the daughter's name after the meeting,
and I will see that she's provided for." Twist nodded stiffly and
sat down.

"So far we have given you a recital of
affairs that are local only, "Madame Phoebe said. "Now we have a
report from our good friend in the merchant and shipping trades,
Mr. Fun See Tokiyo."

Fun rose and bowed studiously to all in the
room. His round face beamed upon all and his almond eyes seemed a
little sleepy. He was dressed in a shimmering red brocaded tunic
and black trousers. A round, flat-topped red silk cap sat atop his
sleek black hair which descended in a queue nearly to his knees.
Black brocaded slippers decked his feet.

"I have the honor to present my tale of a
ship that formerly belonged to my uncle, called the Green Jade Sea.
A former employee of our company, Huang Lo, purchased her and he
made a very auspicious beginning, seeming to prosper at an
unusually rapid rate. We frankly wondered how it was that he had
amassed the capital to purchase the ship and his trade stock so
quickly, but we wished him well and did not question it. Recently I
had occasion to serve British customs by going aboard the Green
Jade Sea for a surprise inspection when the ship was about to leave
port to go to Hong Kong. I was not told the reason for the
inspection, and I thought nothing of it. Such things are
common."

"What is the meaning of this, my honored
friend?" Huang Lo demanded of me, stepping into my path as I
mounted the ramp and started down to the ship's hold. Huang-Lo wore
the finest black silk tunic and trousers embroidered with
nightingales in rich colors.

"It is an inspection requested by the
British government. It need not take long, Huang."

Huang did not step aside. "We have passed
all the customs requirements. Since when do they inspect an
outgoing ship a second time?"

"The government has the power to inspect at
any time, for any reason, without notice. You know this,
Huang."

"I cannot permit it! You will rip open
packing crates and undo hours of preparation. My cargo is fragile
and perishable. Speak to the port authority for me, Master Fun.
Tell them I am well known to you and you can vouch for me. We shall
miss the tide, and I must make my scheduled stops."

"You are known to me, Huang, but your cargo
is not, and I cannot vouch for that which I have not seen. Your
manifests say you carry cloth goods, tools and metal ware. How can
these be perishable?"

"I tell you I cannot allow an inspection!
Master Fun, please! It is only paperwork. I will be ruined if I do
not make these deliveries."

"I will be ruined if I falsify an inspection
report. I begin to think there is a need to inspect your hold,
Huang. Step aside, or I will bring assistance and have you removed
from the ship. The Green Jade Sea cannot leave anchor without my
approval. It is you who are wasting precious time, not I."

I pushed past Huang Lo and moved down into
the hold of the ship. I blinked in the dim light and then caught my
breath. There was not one packing case or barrel in the entire
hold. It was filled with human beings, mostly young people, some
only children. There were at least two hundred people in the hold
of the ship.

"What is the meaning of this?" I demanded as
Huang came up behind me, panting and white-eyed.

"My investors," Huang bleated, falling on
his knees. "They forced me to carry these people."

"Who are your investors? Who are all these
people? Where are they going?"

"Huang Lee has been carrying people in his
hold for at least three months. They have been smuggled into every
port where the ship calls on the way to Hong Kong. He does not know
their purpose. The company he claims invested in him is listed in
legal filings as a private foundation, and such entities are not
required to give many details about their makeup. Huang can say
only that a rather short, bow-legged man came to his ship on a
rainy, foggy night wrapped up to the eyes, and gave him money
enough to make his trade flourish. Just when Huang began to prosper
the man came back, demanding that Huang transport people on very
short notice, usually after all probable inspections would be over.
None of the people we discovered will say what their purpose was or
who sent them on this journey. We cannot even learn who they
are.

"There are no real charges upon which to hold
them, either. It is not a crime to be in the hold of a ship sitting
in a London port. Poor Huang is jailed, of course, for falsifying
his manifests. His business is ruined, his ship confiscated. But it
is clear that someone had a purpose in transporting these people.
It is our belief that these are the thieves the organization is
putting in place throughout the empire and Europe."

Fun See made his formal bow again and sat
down. Madame Phoebe turned her attention to a gigantic black man,
dressed in shirtsleeves and a gold and white brocaded vest, with
black trousers tucked into leather boots. His heavy belt supported
something that looked like a whip with a long shaft and many
relatively short knotted tails with small leather pieces tied to
their ends. His complexion was a little ruddy as well as very dark,
and his head was shaved and shining.

"Zambo, we must hear your tale next, for you
have the key to the mystery of Huang Lee's cargo of souls."

"My history begins with slavery, ladies and
gentlemen," Zambo said with a thick Caribbean accent. "The Flail of
God, Lord Roxton, set me free and worked tirelessly to free
others."

I had been staring at Zambo's belt, cudgeling
my brains to know what that strange leather implement was, and
suddenly realized that it was, indeed, a flail, a tool used to beat
the shells off of grain. I was finally able to return my attention
to what the man was saying.

"... He impressed me with the need to make
his work my own. I have spent time in many countries and usually
find people such as myself, blacks, sometimes Indians, sometimes
those of mixed race, and many times whites, kidnapped from their
homes and families, sold because of crushing need, or deceived and
lured into slavery by promises of paid work, a respectable
marriage, admission to a party thrown by a celebrity, any number of
tricks to secure their trust or their servitude. They are never
paid, married, entertained, or, most importantly, never are they
set free. It was through this quest that I found my wife.

"These conditions I have given are bad
enough, but I came to London a few months ago on the trail of a new
kind of slavery. I heard of people gathered in the usual way, but
not for field work or mere prostitution. They are groomed to mingle
in society, to operate in cities and towns. They are trained in
vicious methods of theft and of preventing their capture and
identification.

"If they fail, they disappear. In a few
cases, we have found the bodies of these wretches. Their deaths are
made to excite no unusual suspicion because they are carefully
staged to fit into a local pattern of domestic violence, drunken
brawls, or even reported killings with similar features. I regret
to say that after serving token sentences for withholding
information, every one of the people on the Jade Green Sea have
disappeared. More than half a dozen bodies agreeing with some their
descriptions have been found. Perhaps these tried to gain their
freedom and were made an example of. The others apparently were
gathered up and forced to once again be smuggled to other places as
slaves of this organization."

Mowgli was not asked to give a report.
Neither was the woman I gathered was Sluefoot Sue.

She managed to fill the room with her
presence, however. As tall as Mr. Campbell, nearly as tall as
Doctor Mac, she wore an outlandish western costume. Sleek doeskin
cowboy boots peeked out beneath a fringed, divided riding skirt and
vest, a turquoise blouse and a scarlet bandana. Ornate silver and
turquoise chasings and tooling ornamented the leather garments. Her
gloves and hat were also leather, elaborately tooled and silver and
turquoise-decked. She wore her glossy chestnut hair in thick braids
and her eyes were an extraordinary golden shade. Wind and sun had
given her a flushed and very freckled complexion but she was a
handsome woman indeed.

"All of our researches indicate that the
leader of this organization is in London," Madame Phoebe said. "You
understand that these stories are only examples. Many such
incidents have been documented, and we will show you anything in
our files that you desire to see."

"Sounds clear enough that these things are
happening as you say," Doctor Mac said when his wife remained
silent and thoughtful. "But not so clear that there's one
organization and one head. How did you arrive at that?"

Sluefoot Sue rose to her feet with a peculiar
whirring, hissing and clanking sound. The noises were repeated as
she moved in her roving way about the room. Her step was heavy and
uneven. "Ah'd like t' explain that, Miz Phoebe," she said with a
nod to Doctor Mac. "Mah husband and Ah was trackers by profession,
taught by th' First Nations people as well as th' U.S. Cavalry an'
th' Pinkerton Detective Agency. We done stretches with 'em all. Ah
learnt t' read all kind'a' sign, bootprints in th' mud, a thumb
mark on a window, to th' stamp a' one evil personality on a lotta
little things. Ah understand Mr. Mowgli here is also pretty good at
cryin' a trail, an' Ah'll let him correct me if'n Ah go astray."
Mowgli's eyes glowed and he fixed his full attention on Sue.

"We didn't git these clues in order, y'
understand, but Ah'll put 'em in order fer y' so's y' kin foller.
We got us a lotta cases a' th' pickpocket with th' pig-sticker, so
many thet we reckoned th' whole way a' life was changin' fer
'em.

"The little ones jest nab the hankies and
timepieces like they always done, but at some point they git orders
t' look out fer bigger game, an' by appointment. It got t' be too
much of a coincidence, pickpockets just happ'nin' t' nab important
documents an' property.