Free City of Glory by Beverly Swerling

What’s he to do with this? Your da told me he couldn’t remember where—Ach, all right. I know what happened in ’59. But Andrew Turner and your da were never close. It was your ma Andrew cared for. That’s why he took you in.”
    “I know. Nonetheless, Andrew had the note my father wrote, the one that said where—” Joyful broke off.
    “Had, you said. Who’s got it now?”
    “I have.”
    “So that’s where the money for a merchantman’s going to come from?”
    Joyful shrugged.
    “It’s a long odds wager, lad. Made a few o’ those in me day, God help me. It’s not often they pays off.”
    “I know. But my ship and getting control of Devrey Shipping, that’s going to happen just the way I plan it. I feel it in my bones, Finbar.”
    “Yer da wanted you to have the tr——, what we’re talkin’ about. That’s how come he told me about it. Said he knew he’d hid it for well and certain, but after the godrotting British finished with him on their poxed prison ship, he couldn’t remember where it was. Biggest sadness in his life, that was.”
    “Then he will rest easier once this is done.” Joyful leaned forward. “What’s Vinegar Clifford’s connection to Blakeman?”
    “No idea. Didn’t know his name neither, till you said it. Looked to put the fear o’ God into a heathen, he did. Rather face an enemy with a cutlass, even a pistol, than a bullwhip.”
    “I agree. Take my word for it, Clifford’s a genius with his whip, and without a trace of pity for his victims. He’s called Vinegar because back when he was the town’s official whipper, as soon as his victims passed out, he’d revive them with a gallon of vinegar splashed over the wounds. More pain that way.”
    The Irishman shuddered. “Worst o’ the world’s devils, them as enjoy other folks’ suffering. You think Clifford’s workin’ for Blakeman now?”
    “I didn’t think so until this morning. How did you know he was the person sent to claim the box?”
    “He knew the password. I was told to wait until we were an hour into the unlading, then bring the box ashore and give it to him as said bei mat. Then I answered nang lik. Then he said wing yuen. Long as he did all that, I’d know he was the right one.”
    In Cantonese, bei mat meant “secret.” Nang lik, power. Wing yuen, forever. Secret power forever. Pretty fanciful, particularly considering Gornt Blakeman wasn’t Chinese. “As far as you know, has Blakeman ever been in Canton? He didn’t hire you in person, did he?”
    The Irishman shook his head. “Never set eyes on him. It was his comprador as hired me.”
    A comprador was usually Chinese, though the word was Portuguese. Come into use because the Portuguese had opened the China trade nearly a century earlier. A comprador was a facilitator, a man who could move easily in the Asian community but understood the business ways of the Europeans. He was a shipping company’s eyes and ears, and counted upon to be fiercely loyal because he had a substantial share in the company’s profits, and because the job was customarily passed from father to son. A few compradors were independents, men who worked for any shipper who offered employment on a given day. These men were also trusted to keep the shippers’ secrets; nonetheless, they were talking about Canton. Bei mat, secret, was written with the symbol for an open mouth.
    “Forget about the poxed box and whatever’s in it,” O’Toole said. “Forget everything about this damned voyage, in fact. Bad joss otherwise.”
    Joyful knew joss was more than luck, it was fate, something you had to accept. But in New York as in Canton, money trumped luck every time.

Chapter Five
    New York City,
Maiden Lane, 2 P.M.

    M ANON VIONNE WAS TALL and slender and remarkably pretty, with pale gold hair and eyes the color of dark purple pansies. She was also, at the advanced age of twenty-two, unmarried, thus marked for spinsterhood. Which did not seem to trouble her in the slightest