Bitter Spirits

THIRTY-ONE

DOZENS OF MEN FILLED THE SHIP. SOME WERE WINTER’S MEN, some were tong members. Aida felt like a sideshow curiosity as Winter marched her past them while they took stock of the liquor. She kept her eyes forward and tried not to look too closely at the aftermath of the siege.

Both Bo and Ju were welcome sights outside. Bo squeezed her hand, and she gave them all a brief summary of what happened, but was interrupted when two police cars pulled into the dry docks’ gates in the distance. No sirens, no lights. But she doubted they were on a regular patrol route.

“I’ll deal with them and buy us some time,” Winter told Ju. “Tell everyone inside to stay calm and be prepared to truck the booze out before daybreak. Whatever can’t be hauled out tonight will have to be forfeited. And if any of Yip’s survivors want to defect, the tong leaders are going to have to decide if they want to give them safe harbor.”

“Both my men are dead?” Ju asked.

“By my hand,” Winter confirmed.

“Thank you.” Ju turned to Aida and bowed his head briefly, then strode to the ship.

Winter tilted Aida’s face up. Exhaustion weighted his eyes; his face was grim. She couldn’t imagine what was going on in his mind after seeing his wife’s body, but he didn’t speak of it. “I have to take charge of this, and it may take me hours. I want you to go back to the house. When I’m finished, we need to talk.”

She wanted to talk now. Wanted to tell him how sorry she was that he had to face Yip’s cruel creation . . . how sorry she was that he had to crusade onto the ship and do what he did. She knew he didn’t relish it.

She wanted to tell him how grateful she was that he did it.

But most of all, she wanted to throw her arms around him and tell him she was sorry about their fight and how stubborn she’d been and how stupid she’d been not to answer him when he confessed his feelings to her. “Winter—”

The police cars rounded a building and headed toward them, halting any chance of her saying anything she needed to say at that moment.

“Bo,” Winter said. “Get Will to drive her.”

He gave her once last glance, exhaled heavily, then walked away.

Cold and empty, she complied and left in a daze, riding in silence with one of Winter’s men back to Winter’s house in Pacific Heights. Four armed guards emerged from the home’s gates. Her driver gave three of them a mumbled update while another let her inside.

Lamplight kept vigil in an otherwise quiet house. The clock in the side corridor said it wasn’t quite midnight. Breathing in the consoling scent of orange oil, she plodded to the foyer with no thought other than a hot bath, but halted on her way to the elevator.

Lined up against one wall were her things—the elegant steamer trunk and several other pieces of luggage Astrid had bought her after the fire. She stood in front of them as her last remaining column of strength collapsed.

“He wants me gone,” she murmured to herself.

This was what he wanted to talk to her about when he got back. Not reconciliation, but a good-bye. Her weary mind dredged up the sting of his words on the ship. It was a fling. She was giving it up for free—just a skirt, nothing more.

“Miss Palmer.”

Aida wiped away tears and turned to face Greta. “He’s delayed . . . I’m . . .” She inhaled deeply and righted herself. “I need a bath and a change of clothes, something to eat. Then I’ll need a ride to the train station, please.”

The frosty housekeeper didn’t reply as Aida walked past her and headed upstairs.

She bathed quickly, sloughing off sweat and blood and the scent of death. One of the maids brought her fresh stockings and underclothes, a dress from her luggage. It wasn’t until she was fixing her hair that she noticed all the mirrors had been removed again.

After eating, she trudged to the foyer and found Jonte waiting for her.

“Miss Palmer,” he said. “I’m relieved to know you are all right.”

“Thank you.”

“But I must implore you to stay. Wait for Winter. Talk to him.”

“I think we’ve done all the talking we need to do.”

“Are you certain?”

She nodded and spoke rapidly to keep herself from falling apart. “Can you take me to the train station? I didn’t realize there was so much luggage. I’m not sure how I’m going to manage it all. The steamer trunk is bigger than I am.”

Jonte started to say something, but Greta strode in.

“You’ll hurt your back, Jonte,” she reprimanded in her singsong voice. “Get Christopher to help.”

They began speaking in Swedish—an argument, from the tone of it—so Aida turned away to give them privacy and surveyed the luggage. Something unfamiliar sat next to the steamer trunk. A battered wooden footlocker. She stepped closer to inspect it.

Over dull green paint, black words were stamped across the top. Her gaze rapidly jumped from one to the next: U.S.A. 36TH DIVISION. PVT—a rank, private. A brigade. Distantly familiar numbers. And two words that stilled her breath: SAM PALMER.

She dropped to her knees in front of the locker.

Her pulse drummed in her fingertips as she flipped the unlocked latch and cracked open the lid. The musty scent of old canvas and boot polish wafted up . . . a very particular smell she remembered from the scarce weekends Sam came home from training, field dust and army barracks. Engine oil and rain.

Her shaking hand lighted on folded fatigues, sleeve cuffs still dingy with wear. Several uniforms lay beneath. A hat. A canvas bag of old toiletries and his razor set. Three books, one she’d given him for Christmas the year before he died.

Inside a khaki canvas cap lay a few smaller things: two circles of metal stamped with his name and number, strung on a piece of cord; a creased photograph of a pretty young girl Aida had never seen; and a folded Western Union form.

She carefully opened it and scanned the yellowed paper. Sam’s name. A date: the day before he died.

Then on the recipient line, Aida’s name. The Lanes’ old address in Baltimore.

It was a telegram request. He’d filled it out, but the payment hadn’t been tallied by the clerk. A telegram that was never sent.

She read his hastily penciled words in the box designated for the message:

Have some big news for you. Sit down because you will not believe. I met a local girl named Susan. You will like her. I asked her to marry me and she said yes. I know. A shock. Do not tell Aunt and Uncle yet. Will tell you more in a letter later.

Much love, Sammy

A strangled sob escaped Aida’s lips. Through bleary eyes, she looked at the photograph again and flipped it over, seeing the name Susan inscribed on the back.

Her brother, who eschewed all sentiment and warned her time and time again about the pitfalls of love and marriage . . .

Sam fell in love.

Her world tilted sideways. “How can this be?” she mumbled.

“Winter hunted down Mr. Lane.”

“What’s that?” She looked up to see Jonte standing behind her.

“Emmett Lane, I believe.”

“How?”

“He lives in the city. Winter was upset about something you lost in the fire, so he tracked down your brother’s things.”

She picked up the dog tags and squeezed the cool metal inside her fist as she stared at the footlocker in disbelief. “He did this for me?”

“Yes.”

Sniffling, she folded the telegram form and sandwiched the photograph inside, then with Jonte’s help, stood on weak legs. “Does he want me to go?” she asked, blinking up at him.

The driver gave her a patient smile. “I think you already know the answer to that.”

Pink and gold streaks of morning sun lit up the fog covering Union Square. Wrung out and exhausted, Winter could barely keep his eyes open. He climbed in the backseat and Bo sped away from Shreve and Company.

They’d left the ship more than an hour ago. Most of the liquor had been recovered. Paulina’s coffin had been hauled away and was on a boat back to Oakland. The tong leaders had seen to the rest. The San Francisco police department would take control of it now; it cost him a small fortune in bribes, but his name would not be connected with the gruesome scene.

Now he just wanted to go home. An even bigger fight than Yip and his demented logic might lie before him there, and he only had a couple of hours to win it.

“If I ever need a good deal, I’ll remember to show up in bloody clothes and bang on the door before the shop’s even open,” Bo quipped from the front seat.

Winter chuckled for the first time in days. “I think he was seconds away from giving it to me for free as long as we left him alone.”

“You’re making the right decision,” Bo said in a quiet voice.

“I know,” he answered. But whether it was too late was another matter.

He dozed off during the ride home but got a second wind when they pulled in the driveway. Leaving Bo to pay the guards, he marched into the house with purpose. It was quiet. As it should be, he thought. No gunshots, no telephone ringing with bad news. He breezed through the side hallway and into the foyer.

He stopped.

The luggage was gone.

Panic fired through his sleep-deprived brain. Her train didn’t leave for hours—where were her things? She couldn’t have gone. No, no, no . . .

He called out for Greta but got no answer. He didn’t waste time trying to locate his housekeeper, just ran up the main staircase two steps at a time and bounded down the third-floor hallway. He stuck his head in the door of his study. Empty. Something clattered across the hall.

Heart in his throat, he strode to his bedroom and nearly stumbled over something just inside the doorway.

Luggage.

Aida’s steamer trunk stood open nearby. And standing in her stockinged feet a couple of yards away was Aida, straightening a dress on a hanger.

He stood still, breathing heavily as she stared at him. She was in his room. She was unpacking. He repeated these facts inside his head, a simple math problem even a child would understand but he couldn’t quite calculate. His brain was still stuck in fight mode.

“Aida—”

“No.” She pointed a finger his way and spoke in a roughened voice. “You listen to me. I’m not leaving, and that’s final. And since you claim I’m after your money, then I’ll damn well take it. I’m not living like some kept mistress across town, waiting for you to call on me when it suits you.”

“I—”

She raised her voice. “You’ll let me live inside your home, and you’ll protect me, because being connected to you is far more dangerous than me moving around the country unchaperoned. And on top of that, I’ll need money to start my séance business, because I can’t work at Gris-Gris any longer. I got booed offstage because of you.”

“Me?”

“Because of our fight in the kitchen, dammit.” She threw up a hand and tossed the dress on the bed.

“I see.”

“Do you?” she challenged, something between anger and desperation tightening her face.

“Yes.” He stepped over the luggage and rummaged in his suit pocket. “And while we’re making demands, you should know that I just went to the jewelers and bought you this god-awful expensive ring, and you will wear it, and you will not spend another night outside of my bed.”

He plucked out the square Asscher-cut diamond ring and tossed the box on the floor. Then he grabbed Aida’s hand and slipped it on her freckled finger. The band was a bit loose, and he could only imagine how thrilled the frightened jeweler would be to have to size the damn thing, but it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered but this.

She stared at the ring, lips parted. She didn’t say anything.

“Do you like it?” he finally asked. He hadn’t let go of her hand. He was a little afraid if he did, he might lose her again.

“Yes,” she said softly. “I like it quite a bit. Is this a proposal?”

“I suppose it is.”

“Ah, well, it’s probably a good thing,” she said, as if she were contemplating an everyday matter with practical intent. “Because even though I could live without you, I don’t really want to. I think that means I might love you.”

Her words melted the last of the ice around his wounded heart. He felt as woozy as a Victorian virgin crushed inside a corset in August. He snaked an arm around Aida’s back and pulled her close. “Say it again.”

She grasped his necktie with both hands, much like she did that first afternoon in his study. Her eyes were glossy with unshed tears. “I love you, dammit.”

He leaned down and captured her mouth with his, kissing her firmly. Too firmly, probably, but he couldn’t control himself. He was drunk with joy. “Again.”

“I love you.”

Winter’s past, present, and future collided in one singular moment. And he was finally ready to live in it. “I love you, too,” he said. “And that’s final.”