Revolving Door: Volume 3
Atlantic Archives - I
Content warnings (may contain spoilers)
This chapter depicts harrassment, racist microaggressions, and alcohol consumption.
All considered, Felix finds ghosting with Honourless not much different from taking the Tunnel Machine or the wormhole portal. The only thing exceptional about it is that this world-shattering jump is powered by a person.
It seems to take a toll of equal measure, as if Honourless were hauling them bodily across an endless chasm with her bare hands. For more than a minute, he can see nothing but the spinning of colours, but he hears her agony somewhere, and that of his companions, their grips tight as talons around his wrists.
Then the pictures freeze, and they plummet through a blinding terrace of glass storefronts, groaning as they hit the rough pavement. Felix crawls to his feet and dusts out his shirt while his head spins. He fishes about in his pocket for his new watch, inspecting the glass for scratches.
In the middle of polishing its face with his handkerchief, he hears Honourless grumble and Marcia reply, “Thank you, we should be all right from here.”
He hears a deep inhale behind him, and turns just in time to see Honourless’ form twist into the fabric of space and vanish, like a needle pulled through cloth.
“Well, let us find ourselves the ‘Simmons Archives,” Vesper declares, hands on her hips as she peers up at an endless facade of stone and glass. “Where to start?”
Felix lifts a finger. “Now, before any looking,” he says, “how about somewhere to leave our luggage and get cleaned up?”
*
Vesper leads the search through the brilliant, faceted streets of New York City for the hotel where they will put up for the next ten days. Of course, as the source of their funds, it is Felix who makes the eventual choice—and that turns out to be the Ansonia, whose white walls and carved windows form the singular most opulent building that Vesper has seen since they began looking.
“Three single suites,” he states at the counter, “for ten nights starting tonight.”
Vesper watches with a gradually furrowing brow as Felix writes a cheque—six hundred and sixty dollars, all in block letters, signed with a flourish that seals in her mind her impression of his entire person.
She hasn’t any clue how much six hundred and sixty dollars amount to here—but she would baulk at the idea of paying six hundred and sixty of any currency for anything she won’t get to keep for years.
It is when the bellboys pick up their luggage on trolleys and they are ushed towards the lifts that Vesper starts to sense the obscenity of the price Felix has so casually slid over the counter. After taking their keys, all they have to do is move with their feet: the lift is presided over by a red-capped operator with a cheery smile, and at the top there are more staff waiting, who guide them down a hallway dressed in gold, flowers and filigree.
They have consecutive reservations on the ninth floor. Vesper isn’t quite sure what she will see on the other side of the door, but when she does open it, what she finds is more like a movie set than a place of repose. The suite is furnished with a king bed, a sitting room, a balcony overlooking the Manhattan streets, a kitchen, and two bathrooms—one with a bathtub and one without. There are velvet curtains that she draws to let in the sun, and a desk carved of old mahogany with a matching armchair, all watched over by a crystal chandelier brighter than the sun. Atop the desk lies a card presenting the hotel’s humble thanks and a list of meal hours.
She kicks her bag under the desk and tumbles backwards into the bed—soft as a cloud, but of course. She groans, staring up at the blinding chandelier overhead. Of all the things she assumed of Felix the day they met, she has been right on precisely every count.
Indeed, if she were asked to picture the heir of a business magnate who hails from the borough of Kensington—no, Kensington and Chelsea, for some God-forsaken reason—she would picture Felix. It is almost comical.
But if it gets us places, she thinks, flipping over, who am I to complain?
The Ansonia’s buffet lunch is as close to the comforts of home as Felix has had since returning to his own world. Roast, mash, salads, toast, washed down with a cup of tea. He is the last to finish his meal, on account of trying not to spill gravy anywhere he wouldn’t like it to be, and Marcia and Vesper are awaiting him at the door when they reenter the city to resume their questing.
The mission of the day is simple: to locate the Simons Archive. This is, of course, far easier said than done. The hotel receptionist hasn’t heard of it, nor has the newsboy at the train station on the corner of 74th and Broadway.
It is during this time that Felix begins to examine the city in proper—the hallowed land of which he has heard a thousand tales. The farthest he ever voyaged was Paris. His father sees the hundred-floor behemoth of the Empire State Building every year. And here they stand, peering up at the tower for the first time, and in its swooping facade he sees the distant future he so recently left behind.
His two companions are too busy to marvel at the scenery. He likes to size up his colleagues; it is often a matter of survival. But in this case, it is also a fascinating exercise by itself.
Now that he understands Marcia’s speech, he hears for himself her penchant for forceful persuasion, pressing for knowledge in words sweet enough to sidestep hostility. She seems like one who, if sparring with words, might strike with a rapier’s poise.
Vesper, however, is blunt as a sledgehammer and just wry enough not to abrade. He is sure that it is Gloucestershire that he hears in her voice, recalling to him a riverine countryside like the ones where he spent some summers, by churches watching the hills.
It takes five more strangers for them to realise the whereabouts of Simmons Archives is scarcely common knowledge. The closest they get is when one businessman claims, “It rings a bell, but I cannot say where I’ve heard it.”
“If I may,” Felix declares as they regather, quite disgruntled, “I know of a respected scholar of metaphysics who resides with the King’s College. He would surely know where so important a cache of knowledge might be held.”
“Lead the way, then,” Vesper answers.
“Well, I have never met the man myself,” Felix replies, “but my father has. And I shall need directions, too.”
“My mistake! Give your Daddy a ring, won’t you?”
He laughs. “He has more important business than giving us directions. Like,” he plucks his watch from his pocket to glance at the time, “sitting down for a nice supper, I reckon.”
“I’m sure a few strangers won’t mind being inconvenienced,” Marcia replies, already walking towards the newsboy who is coming this way again.
The location of King's College is much easier found in this way. “Easy! It's a five-storey building on the corner of Church Street and Park Place,” the boy declares when Marcia asks. She turns to her two companions with a raise of her eyebrows.
All afternoon, taxicabs have been passing their street corner to and fro, shiny and black with leaf-like glass panels rising on stems from their chassis. Vesper flags one down, and it trundles to a polite halt by the pavement. The trio climb aboard one after another, crammed hip to hip in a seat made for two.
“Corner of Church Street and Park Place?” she asks.
“Ah, King's College” The driver flashes a grin, pulling a lever with his left hand.
“What is it with all this glass?” Marcia asks as they roll along down Broadway, pointing out the tree of glass leaves rising from the portal of a mall arcade.
Felix glances over. “Solar power,” he says. “The glass panels turn sunlight into energy that powers our machines—our cars, our telephones. This is the way plants have always made energy, and we have learned to do the same.”
“Reckon you could make this car move faster, then?” Vesper says with an unmistakeable grin to her voice.
“Reckon you could make this car move faster?” he replies. “It's electric, you know.”
“Electric cars? Now I've heard everything.”
“Is a telephone like what Hong Yi has?” Marcia puts in.
“His phone is like no phone I’d ever seen up till then,” Vesper answers. “No, clunky metal things attached to walls by wires, that’s what a telephone looks like.”
It is a pleasantly conversational journey, the wind breezing between the buildings carrying the estuarine river air. The trio keep rambling on long after they have alighted—there is simply so much to knowledge align between their worlds.
They chalk up a fare of five dollars—surprising for the distance but nothing unheard of. Then the trio lift their gazes to peer up at the university’s brick facade. It is not much different from those of monasteries, owing perhaps to its adjoinment to the holy edifice that gives Church Street its name.
Inside, the receptionist, a Mister Pritchard, asks for their business. Felix has heard the name before. Sure enough, when he asks after Professor William Murrell and cites his connection with his father—Pritchard replies, “You're Felix! Mister Mercer has told us all about you. He was last here, what, a year ago? Blew in here and paid two students’ scholarships. Tell him we can’t wait for his next visit!”
“That does sound like him,” Felix answers with a laugh. While Mr Pritchard picks up the phone to make a call, his mind works away. A year ago—that was before he disappeared. Did the news ever reach the Professor?
“There we go,” Vesper says meanwhile, pointing out the brass object the receptionist is holding to his ear. “That’s a proper telephone. Like the ones my mother works with.”
“And it sends his voice to every room in this building?” asks Marcia. Vesper nods, and Felix notices how Marcia leans in with a sigh, too eager and pleased for him to mistake the feeling that accompanies her reply: “How magical.”
The two are in the midst of meeting eyes when Mr Pritchard puts down the phone and declares, “Take the elevator up to the second floor and look for Room 2-19.” He motions out the general location of the lift lobby, and with thanks from all three, the entourage is off to see the professor.
*
“Back from the dead!” is how Professor Murrell greets the group, extending his hand for a shake before they have even entered.
That is certainly one way for the meeting to begin. Marcia and Vesper both exchange a worried look with Felix, and he communicates as much as he can with his face—that’s not ideal, but do not worry.
“Well met, Professor,” he answers, shaking his hand.
“Oh, dispense with the formalities. Just William is fine. Please, please. Come inside. With your two friends, too. I never heard that you had returned!”
“Ah, had my father failed to mention it?” Felix answers, sitting down at the same time. “He must have wanted privacy, after the…press debacle.”
“Indeed, indeed! Can’t blame him. The coverage in London was scathing, by the sounds of it. Such is a world strung together by electric cables. A town may collapse across the sea, and you’d be none the wiser till someone called in with the news.” Murrell motions to Marcia and Vesper, who have yet to decide who will take the one remaining seat. “And how about you two? Pleasure to meet you…”
“Captain Lovelace, at your service,” Vesper answers.
“Captain! Of the navy?”
“The Royal Army,” she replies with a nod, to which he looks only impressed.
“And you?” he asks, turning to Marcia as she takes a seat.
“You can call me Marcia…or, Miss Junia.”
“Captain Lovelace, Miss Junia, a pleasure. How did you come to know Lord Mercer the Second here?”
“Oh, Professor, none of that, my father is hardly a lord—”
“I’m his, er, bodyguard,” Vesper says, and he can tell she is trying not to laugh.
Marcia makes a curtsey. “And I was his travel guide in my city for a while, but now I have joined them in their journeying.” Unlike Vesper, she sounds so convinced of her own statement that Felix begins to imagine it were true.
Murrell looks up. “Ah, a guide to which city?”
“Constantinople.”
“The Ottoman Empire,” Murrell gasps. Perhaps because of its outlandishness, the story they are spinning is drawing less suspicion than Felix expects. “How was it?”
“Exhilarating at times and trying at others,” Felix replies. “In fact, I have brought back with me a souvenir of sorts, if you’ll indulge me…”
Turning, he motions for Vesper’s bag, which she confusedly hands over. He makes a show of rummaging about in its largest pocket, before drawing a deep breath and producing, from its depths, a glittering dagger half wrapped in paper. The intricate metalwork on the hilt is inlaid with sparkling rubies—and it doesn't exist, of course, but it has all the presence of a real object.
“Absolutely remarkable!” declares Murrell, leaning in to squint.
“I cannot let you touch it,” he says before his nose can collide with the illusion. “It’s a very rare specimen, you see.”
“Of course, of course, I do not doubt that. But what an adventure, by the sounds of it!” He beams as Felix conscientiously puts the illusion away. “Why, I could sit here talking all day with the three of you about your travels—but I’m sure you have a reason for visiting.”
“Yes, and in fact, it has to do with my travels.” While the two have been talking, he has been concocting a singularly elaborate lie. “It is a bit of a story, if you’ll bear with me. And it concerns your research into metaphysics.”
“Well, then.” He hears the rustle of Murrell’s notebook as he pulls it from under his table. “Please carry on.”
The rest of Felix’s talking is punctuated by the scratching of the professor’s pen nib on paper. “You see, my life has quite changed in the past month. When I boarded the Tunnel Machine, I was expecting it to send me to San Francisco, but when I exited at the other end, the Tunnel Machine had deposited me in a place quite unlike America. There were ancient houses, and mosques, and all the signs of a brewing revolt. The machine had set me down in Constantinople!
“I’ve heard of the Orient Express, of course. But I had entered the machine without so much as a cent, and my bank has no branches inside the Ottoman Empire. So, for weeks I travelled, with Marcia’s kind aid. It was only by luck that I ran into Vesper, who had been waylaid returning home from the service, and I hired her to protect us. She knew of a ship that crosses the Mediterranean every fortnight, and true enough, it took us right home.
“When I arrived back in London, my father was elated to have me back. But when I told him of my curious findings, he was adamant about pursuing no further research into the Tunnel Machine. It was too dangerous, you see! It had stolen me away from him. I, however, see that as a missed opportunity. And I have since taken it upon myself to progress his work where he will not.
“Through my own research, I have learned that there is a document here in New York that may hold some answers, under the custody of the Simmons Archive, which I would very much like to get a hold of. A document by an author who calls himself Victor Riparius. And so, I come before you here today to ask if you know where I may find it.”
Murrell puts down his pen and leans back in his seat, drawing in a deep breath. “Well, what an adventure! Much as I'd love to spend the day learning about your travels, I see you are here on business.” He parts his hands. “You have come to the right man. I know exactly the records you seek, for I once had an interest in reading them, too.” Felix’s breath catches at these words. “Victor Riparius. A Theory on the Medium Beyond Space and Time. But I am afraid that that document…was recently stolen.”
Felix glances over his shoulder at his two companions, who stare back, both mirroring his quiet concern back at him.
Murrell's brow furrows. “But then…there may be a copy of it that survives yet.” The word brings all three attentions back. “There is something the late Mark Simmons—Junior, mind you—told me just before his death. The Archive is not quite the bastion it used to be, but back in the day…like all archives of the day, they made copies of everything. And supposedly, half a century ago, in a big old feud over the family legacy…the Simmons family split the collection down the middle. The firstborn, Mark Simmons Junior, kept all the originals. His brother, Michael, who had made and preserved the copies, kept the copies.”
At this point, Felix has started jotting notes in his pocketbook. “An archive without control of its spares—quite an unenviable position. Do you reckon the theft was orchestrated by Michael?”
“I respected Mark deeply, but he flirted with scandal more than would be wise. I am not in correspondence with the brother, but his copies may help you now. Michael Simmons…I hear he went on to start his own treasury—the Simmons Treasury…”
For the next hour or so, Felix continues to lie like his life depends on it, and his companions helpfully play along. At the end of the fruitful meeting, they deliver their pleasantries and part at the Professor’s door, all well and good.
They stroll out onto Church Street to the sound of the clock chiming five o’clock. The sun still hangs low in the sky, skimming the hard edges of skyscrapers. ”Too late for the Treasury, I think,” Vesper says. “Lord Mercer, why don’t you summon us another cab?”
Felix chuckles, shaking his head. “You’ll offend some lords, calling me that.”
“Seven hundred dollars for a ten-night stay,” she scoffs, albeit without venom.
“Seven hundred dollars is but a hundred and forty pounds.” He walks up to the pavement at the sight of a cab and waves a hand to hail it.
“What’s that? A hundred and forty pounds? That’ll fetch you a car.”
The cab’s electric wheels roll to a stop. “Two cars,” Felix replies over his shoulder, then turns to the driver. “The Astonia, please?”
*
Marcia has never been quite so startled by a city as this. Even San Francisco, despite its crowds, was easier to know, with its shorter, squatter houses, and streets that leaned towards the sea. The streets of New York City, however, feel as tall as they are long, edifices stacked into the sky, throwing shadows farther than she can see. It is like walking through canyon after canyon, all jagged angles and glass, and gazing up at the top of the Empire State Building makes her head spin.
She follows Felix and Vesper, both only slightly less disoriented as she, and when she is asked to talk, she does, still weighing in her mind the new rhythm and diction she hears in their mouths. Nevertheless, she cannot understand a single word painted or carved in any structure—with the exception of a few Latin mottos rendered in majuscule, always mounted on the facades of halls. These brief patches of familiarity beckon like hearths amid a maze of illegible print—some of them dressed in lights, flashing everywhere she looks.
The streets keep blazing into the depths of night, turning night to day below. Wearing a fresh dress, Marcia leans against the wooden frame of her suite window and gazes down on the streets. The wood is cool to her touch, through her hair, under her palm. But below her, everything is abuzz—a pulse of machinery beneath the veneer of the stones. Carriages roll back and forth, lighting the grey roads with nose lamps, horns blaring like strange marshland birds. Cables swing in the breeze.
She relaxes her shoulders and exhales, and only now begins to sort through her thoughts. This is Felix’s world, in more ways than one. He bought them these rooms. He has paid their way to the corners of the city. She isn’t sure what sort of birthright he comes from; perhaps he is more like Lady Diana than herself. And this place is revealing hidden faces of Vesper’s that Marcia did not see before. She’s from the future; she knows all about the telephones and cars.
And electricity. That is the part Marcia still doesn’t quite understand. Is there a circulatory system through the city, like plumbing, that feeds light to every house? She has seen the cables strung along walls and over streets, from the telephone receiver to its cradle.
She thinks of Vesper again, throwing lighting from her hands. Is that what does it all? The magic that brings the city to life? How can such thin vessels transmit such ferocious power, ignite the towers and halls for miles?
As Marcia notices her hunger setting in for the first time, she makes a quiet exit from her room. But even as she is stepping onto the carpet outside, the clicking of the next door makes her turn.
“Ah, Marcia! Good evening,” Felix calls as his head pokes out. He closes his door behind him. He is without coat and vest, wearing only a white shirt and trousers. “How went your rest?”
“Felix,” she answers. His name is also like a Latin word. She doesn’t quite know him, except through others: how Adelaide adores him, and how Vesper likes to make jabs that he returns gladly. “The rest was much needed, thank you. Being in this city has been…overwhelming.”
“It certainly has that effect.”
“Are you headed for dinner too?”
“Yes, but shall we wait for Vesper?”
Marcia glances past him at Vesper’s door. “Assuming she hasn’t already gone by herself.”
He leans and knocks on the door, once, then twice, calling her name. No reply.
“You know her well,” he says with a hint of a smile as they carry on towards the lift—or elevator—she has heard it called different things.
“Only as well as I could after two weeks,” Marcia murmurs.
She can still hear the smile in Felix’s voice as he replies, “You can learn a lot about someone in two days, let alone two weeks.”
“That you can. If you know what you’re looking for.”
“Unless they're like you. You strike me as the sort who only shows people what you want them to see. Subtle. But subtlety will only get you so far.”
“So says the master of pretences himself. What was all that about a trip to Constantinople and a debacle with your father? It was one lie after another.”
“What can I say,” he sighs, “if there were any trait worth inheriting from the man himself…”
Internally, she mulls over the meaning behind these words. “You know,” she ventures then, “it’s rare for one of your background to be so kind.”
He seems briefly surprised, then he laughs. “It’s rare for one like you to give someone like me the benefit of the doubt.”
The elevator rings up to their floor. A mutual understanding has settled between them, as the bell fills the silence. Marcia cannot know what he has surmised about her—but just like that, she is fairly certain of several things he did not say, too, and she knows her trust can be placed here.
Felix purchases a copy of the New York business directory and deposits it at the breakfast table. While he dines, he refuses to touch the book, but Vesper has no such reservations. She idly flips through it with her left hand while stabbing bacon with a fork.
It is fairly simple finding where the S’s begins, less so locating “Simmons Treasury” from the cascade of businesses starting with “S”: even the “Si”’s seem to go on forever, until she finds her quarry and jabs her finger at the line to keep her place. She swallows her mouthful and then reads it out: “Simmons Treasury. 216 DeKalb Avenue, Brooklyn.”
Felix puts down a slice of toast in his plate. “Brooklyn? That is across the bridge from here.”
Vesper inhales a bacon strip. “What do you know about Brooklyn?”
“Next to nothing. So…this will be an adventure for all of us. Unless Marcia has secretly visited Brooklyn before.”
“I do not know what Brooklyn is,” Marcia puts in. “Into uncharted territory we go?”
Brooklyn is many things: a city on slopes, a city on a creek, a city across a bridge. The metal cable stays strobe past as they ride, the blue-green waters gleaming through.
It doesn’t soar quite as high as the spires of Manhattan, but it makes up for that in density, wires criss-crossing the streets on telegraph poles, brickwork and stonemasonry and wood crammed side by side sheltering storefronts, apartments, factories. Their taxi trundles under elevated rails, through markets and past parklands where picnickers feed swans.
This time, it is a ten-dollar fare, which Vesper supposes makes good sense for the scenic route, but she at least is glad she isn't the one paying. They hop off with thanks in front of a three-storey brick terrace and peer up at the entrance, above which is mounted the name of their destination: Simmons Treasury.
Beneath the sign, a man leans smoking against the archway in a suit too small for his builder’s physique. Through a door propped open with a wedge, stairs descend into a basement, out of which wafts the scent of old tobacco and spilt wine. The treasury’s only visible windows are set at knee height, blacked out by wooden boards. Telltale shards of beer bottles and smoking pipes are trapped behind their bars.
The three look at each other. “Not the treasury I was expecting,” Vesper mutters.
“It must be the place, it was the only Simmons Treasury,” Felix replies, then steps backward from the doorway, clearing his throat. “Er, after you.”
Vesper fires him a look. “Your Daddy never taught you how to hold your own in a pub?”
“Well…erm, no.”
Laughing, she turns to Marcia and waves her to her side. “You can handle a few drunkards, I take it?”
“Over the table, yes,” she answers as they step up. “But failing that, I can throw that table, too.”
As they arrive, the man whom Vesper now understands to be a bouncer lowers his pipe. “Good morrow,” he says with a nod of his shaved head. “Any weapons to show?” Each one lifts their hands in turn, Vesper opening her coat to reveal nothing hidden there. Felix hesitates, but eventually does the same with his coat.
“Take care of your things, eh,” says the bouncer with a meaningful nod, then waves them inside. “And mind your step.”
Vesper quietly shakes her head as they enter the cool shade of the entryway. “You should’ve dressed less flashy,” she mutters.
“How was I to know this ‘treasury’ was not actually a treasury?” he whispers pointedly back.
“We’ll defend you,” Marcia replies, bringing up the rear as they begin downstairs.
The stairs first descend half a floor, growing more uneven as they go. The brass railing is all that stands between them and a fall. A chandelier hangs from the centre of the ceiling, dressed in gauzy cobwebs, but it only lights the scene as much as a pub asks for. It hangs only a few feet above the heads of the clientele, and one could climb atop a table to pluck out one of the glass crystals if they so wished.
Their flight of stairs ends at a mezzanine overlooking the dining area proper. Much larger than the entrance betrayed, it is a maze of round tables with the bar up against the facing wall. This balcony runs halfway around the edge of the hall on either side, a few couples kissing and swaying in the shadows. Then where the balcony ends, two flights of steps descend to the tables, hugging the walls.
“No convenient escape paths,” Vesper says, considering the structure.
“Well, that’s not an optimistic appraisal,” Felix answers in an undertone. “Clearly the ‘treasury’ wasn't very successful.” Then he points at the bartender, wiping a few glasses despite a pair of men jostling each other and making jabs from the other side of the counter. “If anyone knows anything about the owner, it’ll be she.”
They pick their way around the left side of the hall, down the stairs. They turn many heads as they arrive below. The trio pull together into a tighter knot, Marcia and Vesper only just a step in front of Felix.
“Never thought I’d become your actual bodyguard,” Vesper mutters. “And I’m not even getting paid. Lousy assignment, this.”
“I may as well at this point,” Felix sighs.
By now, the bartender has nonchalantly sidled over to the left end of the bar, but the two leery men have followed her. They come to a stop beside the men, catching one’s last sentence— “Come out from behind that counter.”
“Excuse me,” Vesper says, positioning herself with an arm on the bartop such that the men have to make her room. The bartender, polishing a wineglass until now, looks up.
“Oi, who do you think you are?” one man spits, beer on his breath. He wears a gold ring on one hand, tarnished with age.
“I’m here to talk to the bartender,” she replies coolly.
“What can I get you?” asks the bartender, putting on her customer smile. Her hair is in a long braid, a red bowtie and black suspenders over her spotless white shirt.
Vesper trawls through her memories to call up her father’s favourite. “Wouldn’t happen to have a malt whiskey, would you?”
“MacAllan?”
“I’ll have a shot of that.” She looks over her shoulder at her companions. “You?”
“Happy with a glass of chardonnay,” Felix says.
“I have a Buena Vista, it’s a lovely local offering…”
“That sounds agreeable.”
“None for me,” Marcia replies. “I don’t drink.”
These words immediately draw the attention of both men, and the one wearing a ring cuts in, “They don’t let you drink in your culture? Let me get you a glass, dove…I’ll show you the American way…”
“Shut your gob,” Vesper snaps, and the man reels back. Marcia, playing the part without a thought, retreats to Vesper’s side. “We don’t want trouble, so don’t come looking for it.”
“Oh, she’s getting fresh with me. Jealous, are you? Jealous you’re not as lovely as your friend.”
Vesper forces herself to look away, but she continues to seethe until the bartender, meeting her eye, gives her a subtle shake of her head. She says, “There is one more thing. Can we talk to you somewhere less…open?”
The bartender makes a show of looking left and right, nodding as she does. “Less open? After we close, then.”
“What time would that be?”
“Eleven o’clock.”
Vesper blinks. “Eleven…all right.”
The ring man slaps his forehead. “Oh, I get it! They’re trib—” He does not get to finish the word, for his friend clamps his hand over his mouth, and then they descend into a spat while the bartender calmly pours the whiskey.
Vesper doesn't drink often, but when she does, she cannot tell the difference between a good spirit and a middling one. They pick a table, but only for Felix’s benefit, because he seems to genuinely like his wine. Vesper downs her whiskey in two mouthfuls and turns to Marcia. “Sorry about those twats back there.”
Marcia shakes her head. “I'm used to it.”
“Well, that's even worse. Maybe you're pretty, but that doesn't give anyone the right to be—”
“I’m pretty?” Marcia asks with a raising of her eyebrows.
“Well, yes, anyone with eyes can see that.”
“Is that so?” She accompanies this with a laugh both shaky and coy.
“Oh please, Marcie. Now you're just making me say it again on purpose. Fool me twice…” Across the table, Felix laughs. Vesper frowns at him. “What’s so funny now?”
He covers his smile with the back of his palm. “Sorry, hearing you two talk is…it's quite delightful. Marcia, like I said, subtlety…”
“Don't start now,” Marcia gasps.
Vesper holds up both palms. “All right, now I feel like you're joking about me. But it's flying over my head.”
“Oh, it's nothing, nothing important,” Felix murmurs, again hiding his smile behind a hand, then he distracts himself with his half-drained glass. With a shrug, Vesper glances over at Marcia again, but the latter's eyes never stay in one spot for long.