The Gilded Age Part 22

The aurelia.

She hands the aurelia to Chiron, and he slips it in his jacket pocket.

Then the holoid winks off, leaving only the wall of blue light. The wall shrinks to a pinpoint and disappears.

"Thanks, Muse," Zhu whispers, struck to her soul. "We both needed that."

She sits in silence with Cameron, the ticking of a clock the only sound, cocoa pooling at Cameron's feet. Then she says, "The reality is, Miss Cameron, that you will never marry or live the lovely life you planned. But you will have this-your Cause." Just as Zhu has her Cause in 2495. And will have her Cause if and when she returns to her Now. "Will you argue with an angel? With this vision of what is to be?"

Cameron stands unsteadily, goes the door, and summons a girl, who dashes in, sweeps up the shattered cup, and mops up the cocoa, staining a white rag dirty brown. Cameron's lips are tight. "The vision proves nothing but my longevity, for which I am duly grateful, Miss Wong."

"But don't you see? Your companion is a Chinese woman. A green-eyed Chinese woman."

"Are you about to tell me that is you?"

"I don't think so, but I really don't know." In truth, Zhu doesn't know. She doesn't feel that jolt of recognition other t-porters report when they witness Archival evidence of themselves in the past. Still, she's as shaken by the vision as Cameron must be. Because she's not supposed to stay in the Gilded Age. If she does, she'll be trapped in a Closed Time Loop. A Closed Time Loop that could pollute the timeline. A Closed Time Loop that never ends.

Cameron snaps at the girl cleaning up. "You may go." She glares at Zhu. "I repeat, your vision proves nothing! I have Chinese servants now. I will surely have Chinese servants in my own house in the future."

"How cruel, Miss Cameron."

"Nothing can compare to the cruelty of this so-called vision. I shall always be kind to the fair s.e.x of the Chinese race. I shall always observe my Christian obligations. What more, what more do you have a right to demand of me?"

Zhu stands. "Then I shall leave you, Miss Cameron, to your obligations."

8.

A Miraculous Cure at Dr. Mortimer's Clinic "To Death," Daniel toasts Mr. Schultz, "in marvelous Californ'."

"Mira muerta, no seas inhumana, no vuelvas manana dejame vivir," croons the singer through his grinning papier-mache skull mask. Ricardo, the one-eyed guitarist, dreamily strums along.

"To el Dia de los Muertos," Schultz says, raising his shot gla.s.s. "Sehr gut, nicht wahr? Speaking of muertos, Danny, got myself in a bit of a fix."

"A matter of life or death?"

"You might say."

Daniel pours two more shots from a dust-furred bottle of mescal, smiling at the drowned worm at the bottom. Authentic, all right, this splendid rotgut with the disconcerting effect of making everything appear as ominous and strange as a nightmare. A more decadent drink than the Green Fairy, if such a thing is possible. And, like absinthe, the taste is vile.

He and Schultz lounge at a table in Luna's, finishing their fifty-cent Suppers Mexican. Frank Norris's recommendation amply deserved. The restaurant is quaint, with bright peasant pottery, dried gourds, silver trinkets, and red-and-white checked tablecloths. The singer's skull mask is quite a fright, though Daniel's dyspepsia is mostly caused by the Supper Mexican. Remains of their scorching hot dinner lie scattered in the colorful crockery-spicy pork sausages, tortillas, chiles rellenos, frijoles fritas, salsa, sweet tamales. Daniel could never have dined on such a fine feast in Saint Louis. Or in Paris or London. Only in marvelous Californ'.

Schultz sighs and knocks the shot back, licking salt off the rim of his gla.s.s. "I've been given the boot."

"Things crummy in Far East shipping?"

"Things are bang-up in Far East shipping, just not so bang-up for me." Schultz pours himself another shot. Just a small one.

Daniel's tongue has become quite numb. "Why so, old man? You seem to have been doing well enough. Plum position and all."

"Can't control the drink, and that's the truth of it. G.o.d knows I've tried. You and I, we start in on the brandy at breakfast."

"Don't I know it, sir," Daniel says. "Not to mention Miss Malone and her accursed champagne."

"She's forever pouring me another and adding it to my bill."

"Brushes her teeth with the bubbly."

"At any rate," Schultz says gloomily, "showed up corned at the office one time too many. Not that the old man doesn't do it himself. He just manages to hold his liquor better, is all."

"Plus he's the old man."

"Guess we've all got an old man somewhere."

"By blood or bad luck."

They laugh unhappily.

"Lousy bit, Schultz."

"At any rate." Schultz's mustache stiffens. "Don't suppose you've got any paying work for hire, do you, Danny? Help out a pal? I'm not asking for a handout, you know. I'm no beggar."

"Wish I did."

"You just sold that property of your vater, though, didn't you?"

"It was only a patch of worthless weeds way out on Geary Street. Nothing much going on out there in the Western Addition, and I daresay that will be the fate of it for some time. The other lot has got no takers, and the rest of the deadbeats are giving me grief. That old fool Ekberg on Stockton Street has stalled me for weeks. As for Mr. Harvey in Sausalito, the good gentleman sent thugs as his answer to my request for payment. They followed me, Schultz, while I was taking my stroll along the c.o.c.ktail Route and worried me up quite a bit."

Daniel would rather not confess that his mistress, costumed in coolie's clothes, gave Harvey's thugs a run for their money while the thugs gave him a goose egg on the noggin, sore kidneys, and a bad scare. Not to mention he's spotted suspicious characters skulking around the boardinghouse. He's taken to sneaking in and out of the tradesmen's door rather than promenading out the front. It's an unhappy way to live. He's been s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up his courage for weeks to go and confront that d.a.m.nable Harvey himself.

"Perhaps you need a manager."

"A bodyguard is more like it."

"Can't help you there. No good with a pistol or fisticuffs, I fear." An ugly look of envy curdles Schultz's large, puglike features. "Still, you've got some scratch anyway. Me, I haven't got one thin dime. And I still can't quit the drink." He knocks back the shot, toys with the bottle. "I'm weary to my bones of it. What I need is a cure."

A cure.

They both contemplate that possibility as the singer launches into another melancholy ballad, "Esta alegre calavera hoy invita a los mortales para ir a visitar las regions infernales."

Daniel knows no Spanish, but the meaning leaps right out at him--we invite you mortals to visit h.e.l.l. Mescal, by G.o.d-now he is comprehending Spanish. He doesn't know Schultz quite well enough to confide his darkest secrets, but Daniel is no fool. He knows exactly what Schultz is talking about. A cure. He knows he behaves like an a.s.s when he's stinking. Look at how he treats his mistress-his ugly words, his uglier actions. Shoving her about. Having his way with her whenever they're alone without asking her if she wants it. He hasn't struck her-not yet-but he cannot promise himself that will never happen. Not when he's stinking.

He's not sure where his cruelty comes from. Even less sure why she allows him to get away with it when she has amply demonstrated she's no wh.o.r.e or dimwit. Indeed, he would venture to say-only to himself, of course-that Zhu possesses more intelligence than ten gentlemen strolling along the c.o.c.ktail Route. Oh, she has her peculiarities. She claims she's from the far future like a creature out of Mr. Wells's novel, which only makes him angrier with her when he's stinking. Then she goes temperance on him. Drinking's going to kill you, she says, tears lingering on her lashes. Lunatic, he shouts at her. Off to the loony bin with you.

He awakens after every binge feeling soiled, stupid, and contrite.

He's been binging every day. Brandy with breakfast, sir, to start.

But those are his scruples. What about his physical const.i.tution? His vibrant health, which he's always taken for granted, is no longer so vibrant. He suffers frequent nosebleeds and a sore throat. Paunch has started thickening his middle, and his gut is frequently on the blink. His hands, of all things, tremble. And the headaches. His head aches something fierce when he awakens. Relief only comes when he's got his morning brandy under his belt.

But it isn't only his scruples and his physical const.i.tution. He is plagued by odd feelings. Melancholy and guilt. Strange memories of his father and mother intrude on his peace of mind. And so on and et cetera till he cannot abide this anymore. Weary to his bones, indeed. There must be something he can do.

"Know of a cure, then?" Daniel says cautiously.

"Well, sir, I heard a fellow talking about it at the Bank Exchange. Dr. Mortimer's Miraculous Cure for dipsomania. Guaranteed, money back and all. There's the trick for me-money. The cure costs an arm and a leg, but is well worth it. Or so the fellow said."

Daniel tries to overlook the unfortunate fact that this hot tip was imparted in one of the busiest bars along the c.o.c.ktail Route. "This Dr. Mortimer, he's in San Francisco?" He apportions the last finger in the bottle between himself and the worm. "To the handmaiden of Death," he toasts the worm.

"Ja, Dr. Mortimer's got his clinic in the Monkey Block," says Schultz, succ.u.mbing after a short struggle to the last drops of mescal. He seizes the bottle and empties the remnants, worm and all, into his mouth. Suddenly he looks green and dashes out of Luna's to the gutter where he noisily airs his paunch. The scowling maitre d' and a scullery maid dash outside with buckets of hot salt water and vigorously splash the pavement clean. Mr. Schultz's antics are a terrible reflection on their fine establishment.

Daniel picks up the tab-a dollar for two splendid Suppers Mexican. A dollar fifty for the terrific rotgut. A penny each for the maitre d', the waitress, the singer, and the guitarist. He reluctantly counts out coins. He's not exactly flush, himself. He strides out past Schultz on his hands and knees, heaving. What won't a drunk do, Daniel wonders, to stiff his pal for the bill?

Daniel hurries down Columbus to where the avenue intersects Montgomery Street and veers south into the financial district. Two roughnecks in fishermen's togs, caps pulled low over their coa.r.s.e faces, fall in step behind him. He sprints like a schoolboy for half a block till he reaches his destination and ducks inside the four-story monstrosity-the Montgomery Block. Affectionately known as the Monkey Block.

He stands hidden just inside the door, watching, as the roughnecks stride by, disappointment plain on their faces, sniffing about like bloodhounds. Hah. From Mr. Harvey again? This has gone too far. He fingers his Remington pistol. Perhaps he should employ Schultz after all, just for show. Then he reconsiders. Perhaps he should have his mistress dress as a coolie and accompany him to Harvey's as his manservant. He hates to admit it, but the little lady can fight with her bare hands.

He takes a deep breath. The dose of fear has cleared his head like a whiff of smelling salts. He feels dizzy, though, and slightly ill. By G.o.d, he could use a drink. He looks around the cavernous lobby, inhales the scent of mold. He's heard plenty of tales about the place, sipping Pisco Punch at the Bank Exchange or dining on chicken Portola at Coppa's Restaurant, both establishments right across from him on the other side of the lobby. Halleck's Folly--that's what they called it when the hulk was built--was once the largest commercial building on the West Coast and a prestige address, though no one knew if the hundred offices would ever be fully leased. Up and down went the fortunes of the Monkey Block as commerce and fashion went their fickle ways. It's quite cheering, he thinks, the contemplation of history. To know that other men of means, wit, and dynamism lost their fortunes to the whim of chance makes Daniel feel like less of a dunce. Perhaps bankruptcy isn't such a sin, after all.

The law firms, stockbrokers, and mining companies that once filled the s.p.a.cious suites have all departed for the fancy new skysc.r.a.pers on Market Street. Now the Monkey Block has become a hotbed of bohemians. In a ma.s.sive effort of will, Daniel declines a visit to the Bank Exchange for a quick one and climbs the white marble stairs. His footsteps echo off high ceilings, and sunlight cascades through enormous windows at the end of each hall. Painters, musicians, and writers appreciate the s.p.a.ciousness and light of these old rooms. Good history here, too. The great Robert Louis Stevenson visited the place in 1888 before setting off for the South Seas.

He peers in an open door. A man poses a woman draped in white muslin before another sun-drenched window. Daniel gawks. Is she in her birthday suit? The artist's model laughs at his startled expression. "Come on in, sir," calls the painter. "Do you collect art?"

"I do, but it will have to wait for another time."

He climbs the stairs again and walks past billboards depicting palms, staring eyes, mystic triangles, astrological signs. Ah, this must be the hall of fortune-tellers. Then calligraphy on gilt and red signs, drawings depicting the weird little legs of the ginseng root. He glances in the door and spies a Chinese herbalist bending over huge straw baskets of roots and barks and sticks and G.o.d knows what. A wicker tray offers lizards, serpents, and other unidentifiable reptiles split open and dried like beef jerky. Down the hall, a billboard of a man's body, his internal organs and nerves and blood vessels on display and lines and arrows drawn all over him purporting to show the currents of the body's energy. Myriad needles are poised at certain junctures. Acupuncture. Daniel believes that's what they call this strange science. Brr, needles. Not for him.

Then there are tailors with their bolts of cloth and dead-faced mannequins, and dealers in goods too old to be new and too new to be antiques. He finds another open door yielding to a spectacular room. The floor on the next story has been torn out so that the ceiling is a full two stories high-thirty or forty feet! A cast-iron staircase winds up to that ceiling, and the room is entirely lined, floor to ceiling, with books. Books, books, and more books-some crumbling and dirty-looking, quite a few more finely bound in leather with gold and silver leaf glinting on their spines. Daniel has never seen so many books.

"What is this place?" he whispers to a bespectacled clerk who pa.s.ses by with an armful of books.

"Why, this is Mayor Sutro's private library," the clerk whispers back. "He'll have a million books before long." He shoos Daniel out and shuts the door.

Third floor, fourth floor. He huffs and puffs up the stairs. Zhu claims chain-smoking is what causes his shortness of breath. What nonsense. He taps out a ciggie, lights it. It's this indolent life he's led in San Francisco, lazier than his time in Paris. That's what has stolen his breath. Dust has gathered along the baseboards of the fourth floor, and quite a few of the suites are vacant. Other gentlemen, apparently, are not so willing to hike up four flights of marble stairs, and the Monkey Block boasts no elevator like the skysc.r.a.pers on Market Street. Perhaps, when his business picks up, Daniel himself could establish an office here. There's a happy thought-Daniel J. Watkins, Esquire, etched in gold letters on a gla.s.s door. But what is he? A real estate broker, a spinner of pictures, a dreamer, a drunk?

No! Not a drunk. Not anymore.

And there, at the end of the hall is the sign for Dr. Mortimer, Physician.

Daniel hesitates before knocking, suddenly unwilling to confess his distress to a total stranger. He could simply cut down. Skip the brandy for breakfast. h.e.l.l, do not breakfast with Jessie Malone at all. The Queen of the Underworld is a terrible influence. He ought to take coffee and toast and Mariah's fresh-squeezed orange juice in his suite. And stay away from the c.o.c.ktail Route, lay off the Green Fairy, not to mention mescal and Pisco Punch. He ought to purchase a bicycle. Bicycle riding, that's the ticket. Fabulous for the health, they say. Put him right in no time. A two-wheeler with one of those silver bells, a horn, and a silver flask. A flask, of course. He licks his lips. By G.o.d, he's dry.

As though sensing his presence through the smoked gla.s.s, the physician bounds out into the hall. "h.e.l.lo there, sir! Either you're lost or you've come to see me, and both may amount to the same thing." He makes a show of sniffing Daniel's breath. "Ah, here to see me, then. Here for the cure. Of course, you are. Come in, come in!"

Daniel recoils. What unpardonable rudeness from a total stranger. From anyone else, that would warrant a good pop in the trap. But this is the good doctor with the cure.

Dr. Mortimer seizes him by the sleeve and practically flings him inside, shoving him down in a burgundy leather club chair. A full skeleton dangles from an iron rod in the corner. Hand-colored lithographs of bodily organs line the walls as Mortimer seats himself at a spartan walnut desk. Bile rises in Daniel's throat. The opposite wall is even less comforting-stoppered jars contain decomposing organic matter moldering in formaldehyde. Daniel compares the preserved rot to the lithographs, identifying a brain, a kidney, a curled intestine. He cannot identify the rest. Does not want to try.

"Now then, young sir, let's get down to business." Mortimer is absolutely blazing with healthful energy. He's in his early thirties, perhaps, with a receding hairline, a neat French mustache, and penetrating brown eyes sparkling with deep sympathy. Those eyes notice Daniel's distress, and the physician leaps to his feet and fetches a cut-crystal gla.s.s of water. He's got an excellent physique, Daniel notices, trim and wiry beneath his well-cut brown serge suit, his slim waist nicely cinched. He hands Daniel the gla.s.s and seats himself at the desk again, making a show of whipping out a clean new file and snapping it open to a questionnaire. He dips his pen in an inkwell, poised to write. Smiling, rosy-cheeked, and bright-eyed.

Daniel tips the gla.s.s to his lips. Water is the last thing in the world he wants. Poor old Tchaikovsky and his cholera. But he sips, encouraged by Mortimer's energy and kindly purpose.

"I shall need to take your vital statistics," Mortimer says and spits out questions. "Mhm, twenty-one years of age. Mhm, Saint Louis. Ah, real estate, you don't say. Splendid." His lively eyes flip up from the questionnaire and regard Daniel acutely. "Now then, young sir. Drinking every day, are you?"

"I fear so."

"When do you start?"

"At breakfast, of course.'

"And continue till night?"

"Well into the night." Daniel kneads his forehead. Mescal is leaving a nasty ache behind his eyes. He licks his lips. If only he had a shot, one little shot. Of something. Anything.

"Hung over now, are you?"

"What in b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l do you think?"

"Splendid. Got the shakes? Mhm." Scratch, scratch of his pen. "Bowels loose? Nosebleeds? Dyspepsia? Aches and pains? Unpredictable moods? Melancholy? Seeing things?"

"Seeing what things?" Daniel snaps.

"Well, I don't know. Things crawling just out of the sight of your eye. People out to persecute you."

"No, nothing like that." Were the roughnecks in the fishermen's togs merely his imagination? No, Harvey's thugs are hardly imaginary. The goose egg on his noggin is still tender.

"Splendid. Beat the wife?"

"Not married."

"Beat the mistress?"

The mistress. Daniel is silent. His mistress says she's from six hundred years in the future, and she sees things. She's insane, quite insane, slipping her eyes to the side when she thinks he's not watching, muttering to herself. Speaking in voices. He remembers the first time he heard one of her lunatic voices, which she managed to project with the facility of a professional ventriloquist. It made the hair on the back of his neck stand up. What does he see in her? She's Jessie's servant. A Chinese servant, one of the lower races and a woman, an inferior to him in every way he can fathom. Yet he's seen her heal the crack in a man's skull. Seen her fight off thugs with her bare hands. Seen her, for that matter, add and subtract columns of numbers that would make his head swim. The mere sight of her excites in him the snake of l.u.s.t and, when he's stinking, she robs him of his sense and good graces. With her gentle strength, she entreats him not to harm himself, while he harms her so much with his cold fury, his a.s.saults on her womanhood. In so many ways, she's better to him than his own-- Better than his own mother, is the thought he wants to finish. You see? he berates himself. He thinks too much when the drink is in him. Thinks and thinks till he's half-mad.

"Can you help me, Dr. Mortimer?"

"Can I help you?" Mortimer flings his pen down, caps the inkwell. He leaps to his feet, sprints over to the chair, pulls up a stool, and straddles it. He leans intently into Daniel's face. "Young sir, I am not a moralist. I am not a temperance worker. I am a physician, and I know very well how the cares of our modern life weigh heavily upon us all." Mortimer sighs deeply. "Do you know how man used to live? Man did not live in these accursed cities, filled with bad air and noise and poxy women. Man did not live subjected to the factory boss or the financier. No, man lived in the country, in the field, in the forest. In the jungle! In paradise, young sir. Man was free. He worked as he pleased, took his ease when he wanted, ate healthfully and abundantly. And man in these blissful times had another healthful amus.e.m.e.nt besides the hunt, the games, the songs, the virgins."

"What other amus.e.m.e.nt was that?"

Mortimer moves closer, and Daniel can smell lavender cologne over the athletic smell of his sweat. "In our very own New World, south of the border, is a marvelous plant known to the glorious gold-drenched civilization of the Incas. It is the sacred plant of their heathen G.o.ddess which they harvested readily from their jungle paradise and used extensively in arcane ancient rituals."

Daniel gulps more water, still thirsting for a drink. Perhaps less so, now.