the champagne and pastry in Daniel’s hands. Daniel hastily sets both delicacies down on a side table. “We ate squirrels when we could catch ‘em. With no campfire, we ate them raw. Have you ever tasted raw squirrel? Tasted raw squirrel’s brains, raw squirrel’s intestines?”
“No, Mr. Duff, I have not had that privilege.” Daniel swallows hard.
“You young men with your petty troubles, your women, your drink, and your drugs.” Duff surveys the whirling party, contempt pulling at his features. “One day I fell, sir. A slip on the ice. Oh, I had slipped many times before. But that slip did me in. I fell down that cliff like a son of a bitch and shattered my goddamn leg forever.”
Duff raises his right leg, showing Daniel his boot with the heel built up three inches high and a brace that disappears into the leg of his trousers. “That’s when I started on the medicine, sir. I had to. Pain all the time.”
Daniel murmurs, “I am truly sorry.”
Zhu is watching and listening, her slanted green eyes wide behind the tinted spectacles.
“I took whiskey to the miners,” Duff says. “God knows they needed it. I make no apology for it. My wife and her people”—he spits this out—“enjoy chastising me for the source of my wealth. Take pleasure in suggesting my injury was God’s punishment for bringing them whiskey. Well, sir, there are punishments and punishments.”
“Real estate is hardly a better enterprise,” Daniel says, cringing when Duff’s frown deepens. A shiver of panic runs through him. Is he, in his bourgeois pirate’s costume, losing his friendly connection to the inestimable Duff?
“I took them whiskey,” Duff says, ignoring him. “I took them good whiskey, but I never touched a drop of it myself. No, sir, those were our goods. When we needed the fire of alcohol of warm us in the cold, we drank puma piss. Not a drink a fine young gentleman like yourself would know a thing about.”
“Ah, puma piss,” Daniel says. “Terrific rotgut. Homebrew, tobacco juice, and a dose of strychnine. Gave me astonishing visions.”
Duff finally cracks a small smile, and Daniel knows he’s in. “Let us find the gentlemen’s facilities, Mr. Watkins.”
Duff leads the way, Daniel follows, and Zhu dogs his heels again. He turns and whispers, “You cannot come in with us.”
“I follow master,” she protests in a low voice.
By God, he could throttle her!
Duff turns in midstride. “Oh, your manservant may attend us. Indeed, he should learn how this is done, Mr. Watkins. Like I said, he may prove very useful to you. And to me.”
They find the gentlemen’s urinal on the far side of the ballroom. Not too many fellows in here yet. The serious drinking has only just begun. They tour the gilt and scarlet antechamber set with spotless mirrors, marble tables, and upholstered chairs, porcelain sinks and pitchers of water, trays with brushes and combs designed for a gentleman’s special needs, freshly laundered towels, smelling salts, pots of mustache wax and hair tonics, tapers burning in candelabra, and colognes in cut-crystal flasks.
Negro attendants in scarlet uniforms swarm around them, politely offering various hygienic services. Duff dismisses them, takes a pitcher of water, and finds a table and a mirror on the far side of the chamber. “Now look here, Mr. Watkins.” He takes out a leather case from a pocket inside his tuxedo jacket, unsnaps the top. Inside nestle several vials of powders, a large steel spoon, a thick white rubber thong rather like an oversized rubber band, and a hypodermic needle.
Zhu expels a soft breath. Daniel knows that breath. The sound of her perpetual exasperation.
“Your manservant is impressed, eh?” Duff says, casting a keen look at his mistress who, despite her attempt at this manservant’s masquerade, cannot completely conceal her delicate feminine charms.
But if Duff is distressed by her charade, he gives no indication and promptly sets about tapping a quantity of powder into the spoon. He carefully pours drops of water from the pitcher and stirs the concoction with a silver toothpick over the hot tongue of a burning candle. Like an alchemist he sits, intently stirring, and says at last, “It is done. Take off your coat, Mr. Watkins and roll up your sleeve. Lay your arm down on the table, like this.” He proceeds to roll the thong up Daniel’s arm. “You must cook the medicine as a chef cooks a fine sauce. Like a fine sauce, it requires the right ingredients and attentive care.” Duff draws the liquid in the