Company Town (19 page)

It took her a moment to find Rivaudais, but being as he was the best-dressed man for miles, it wasn't difficult. Today he wore a plum-coloured suit with a gold silk tie. It strained across his shoulders as he checked his shoes for what must have been the tenth time in the last two minutes. He toted his tartan umbrella a little higher.

“If you were worried about birdshit, you should have worn different shoes.”

Rivaudais turned and gave her a big smile and a Montréal-style kiss, one for each cheek. But when he spoke, he was still from New Orleans. “You looking healthy.”

“And you keep on not aging. It's weird.”

“Black don't crack, baby girl. You know.”

Hwa sucked her teeth. “Joel Lynch, meet Étienne Rivaudais, owner and proprietor of the Aviation bar on 4-30.”

Rivaudais's eyebrows jumped up into his bald forehead. “Joel Lynch? As in
père
Zachariah Lynch?”

“Oui.”
Joel held out his hand and Rivaudais shook it. He looked a little confused. Probably because Joel was still wearing his gym clothes and wasn't surrounded by skullcaps.

“I'm Joel's bodyguard,” Hwa said. “And part of my job is physical training. So I thought I'd bring him along.”

Rivaudais glanced at Joel. “And you're all good with this plan?”

“I'm still not entirely sure what's involved.”

Rivaudais laughed. He had a big laugh, one that rocked him back on his heels and caused his umbrella to tip back a little.

“And the rest?” Rivaudais gestured at his skull and looked at Hwa. “Good?”

Hwa shrugged. “Mostly.”

“Et votre mère?”

“Encore une chatte.”

Rivaudais grinned and slapped her on the back. “All right. Let's get it done.”

Together, they crossed the dock to the
Angel
. She had new turrets, each mounted to a sizeable generator with a gyroscope icon on the side. The turrets awakened and tracked them as they mounted the stairs to the main deck. An insistent chirping sounded. Rivaudais swiped an invite at the camera posted at the top of the stairs, but the chirping continued. A team of guys in sweaters and orange waders jogged their way. Hwa didn't recognize them. They seemed not to recognize her, either. How many times did she have to do this gig before the crew just wrote themselves a fucking note?

“What's going on with your face?” one of the crew asked. He had a fuzzy beard the colour of weak tea, and a huge mop of hair to match.

“What's going on with your attitude?” Hwa hawked back and spat on the deck. “I have a rare seizure disorder. Thanks for drawing attention to it.”

The asshole in question stared at the glistening wad of phlegm she'd just horked up, and then at her face. His face registered no emotion whatsoever. “Your face fucks up our cameras,” he said. “Is that on purpose?”

Master control room,
she reminded herself.
Push the buttons. Lock the doors.

“Je reste intéressé,”
Rivaudais said,
“si ce connard s'excuse.”

“You heard the gentleman.” A blond man wearing vintage, unconnected aviators and a Peruvian wool sweater over a bare chest and loose surfing shorts padded over to them on browned, callused feet. “Apologize to the lady.”

“Sorry.” Moptop turned. “Sorry, Captain.”

Matthews held out one tattooed arm. This year it was pixies emerging from lotuses. As his skin moved, the glowing pigments activated and the fairies danced up to his shoulder and across his chest. “Mr. Rivaudais. It's good to see you.”

The two men shook hands. Matthews turned to Hwa. “You look good. Healthy.”

Hwa frowned. “Why do people keep saying that? Did I look sick, before?”

Matthews didn't answer. He gestured for them to follow, and began leading them belowdecks. Lights flickered on as they went down past the bottling floor toward the hold. The two guys standing on either side of the massive, rusting door threw their shoulders back and pointed their chins when Matthews came down the spiral staircase.

“Guys, guys, it's cool. Calm down. I'm just introducing Mr. Rivaudais here to this year's product.”

The guys looked pointedly at Joel.

“And me,” Joel said. “I'd like to, uh, sample some of what's on offer.”

Matthews clapped his hands and pointed. “See? This is good. This young man knows what he wants. And I like a man who knows what he wants. It just cuts through all the bullshit.”

The door spun open and they stepped into a cold, dark place. Hwa held out her hand for Joel. “Watch your step,” she said, as the lights blinked on.

Joel's mouth opened. “Wow…”

It was vast. To their left, a set of gleaming steel tanks three metres across and two metres deep sprouted pipes that disappeared into the rafters and reappeared on the other side of the room, near tall stacks of barrels. They bore insignia Hwa didn't recognize from her previous trips to this room.

“Those are new.”

Matthews nodded. “Whiskey barrels. Got 'em in Hokkaido. We're doing a weiss bier in there, with yuzu peel and shiso decoction.”

Hwa whistled. “Nice.”

“You want? I'll tap it for you right now.”

Hwa shook her head. “I don't drink beer. Beer makes you fat.”

Matthews clicked his tongue. He led them toward the bourbon barrels. “You need a little extra fat, for this climate! Otherwise how can you handle the winters?”

“Are you … aging the alcohol on the ship?” Joel asked.

“Oh, my Lord.
The alcohol.
This one's just adorable.” Matthews turned around and walked backward, so he could address Joel. “Why yes, son. We do age
the alcohol
onboard this ship. The
Angel from Montgomery
used to be a fishing vessel that contributed to the mass-murder of ocean wildlife, and I'm helping that wildlife take revenge by ruining the livers of every human I come across.”

Joel blinked. “Seriously?”

Matthews gave him a shit-eating grin. “No. Booze is good business, that's all. It's a good business in bad times, and even better business in better times.” He gestured at the barrels. “As we circumnavigate the globe, the temperature in this room changes and so does the humidity. The barrels expand and contract, and that has an impact on the flavour of my product. The aging process that takes some punk-ass in Okanagan a whole year takes me four months.”

Joel nodded. He glanced at Rivaudais and then back at Matthews. He trailed one hand over a barrel. “So you can sell it faster, and pick up more raw materials as you travel. The wheat, or grapes, or whatever it is you need.”

Matthews nodded. “Exactly right.”

“And even blend stuff from other countries, at different stages of production.”

“Yes, indeedy.”

“And create different collections, as you go. Limited editions.”

“
Very
limited.” Matthews beamed. He snapped his fingers and pointed one at Joel. “You got your daddy's business mind, son. I'll give you that.”

Joel looked at all the barrels. It didn't seem to faze him that a stranger might know who he was. Then again, Matthews had probably already picked it out of his halo. Or maybe he was just used to it. “Do you follow the harvests?”

“Mostly. It's October, so I'm about to go collect some Alberta wheat from the east coast. Montréal is our next port of call.”

Rivaudais cleared his throat. “That reminds me.” Rivaudais nodded at Hwa. “I have a message I'd like Captain Matthews to relay to a mutual associate of ours.”

Hwa nodded. She steered Joel down the aisle toward the sampling barrels. “Come on. Let's go.”

“This is really interesting.” Joel's gaze remained on the barrels stacked high into the darkness. “Thank you for bringing me.”

“You think it's interesting now, wait 'til you taste it,” Hwa said.

“I thought you said you didn't drink.”

“I don't drink
beer
. The average serving of beer has as many calories as a candy bar.”

“Do you like drinking?”

Hwa had never heard it put quite that way before. “I guess. I like having been drinking.”

“Is it really all that fun? Because it seems like it just makes people stupid.”

“Being stupid is fun, sometimes.”

“Is it like sex? Because everyone acts like it's really important, but it just seems…” He wrinkled his nose. “Messy. And possibly painful.”

Hwa swallowed in a dry throat. She reminded herself that she was a grown-ass woman much older than Joel. She was the adult. She could handle this. Hwa spotted the tap kit and picked up her pace. “If we're going to keep talking about this, we're going to have to start drinking.”

She picked a bourbon aged in cherrywood casks that promised a medium-bodied drink with notes of heather, vanilla, clove, and leather. At that particular moment, she would have taken hull cleaner. She opened the tap and poured off two measures into tiny sampling glasses.

“These glasses look funny,” Joel said.

“They're antique insulators.” Hwa peered at the glasses to make sure they were equal. “Like on old transformers.”

“Cool.” Joel took down all his bourbon in one drink. There was one terrible moment when he looked like he'd swallowed a bunch of broken glass. His eyes watered. His lips puckered. Then he coughed so hard he had to bend over.
“What the hell is that?”

Hwa took a more delicate—ladylike, even—sip of hers. “It's a medium-bodied bourbon, with notes of heather, vanilla, clove, and leather.”

“It tastes like licking my dad's desk chair.”

“Your tongue ages along with the rest of your body, you know. So you taste different stuff as you get older.” Hwa checked the PO for Rivaudais's bar. “Huh. You lucked out. We're not moving too many cases.”

Joel goggled at her. “
That's
what we're here for? To move product?”

“Aye. Rivaudais owns a bar. This is a place that distills alcohol and sells it wholesale. What did you think we were at?”

Joel pointed at the two insulator caps in her hands. “Sampling!”

It was hard to make a
pshaw
motion when both her hands were full of pricey artisanal bourbon. “Come on. You wanted to lift weights? These are the weights.”

Joel now looked significantly less impressed with the whole operation. “Don't they have people for that?”

“Yes. Us. We're the people.” Hwa had a feeling this second sample would taste a bit better with some ice. It needed more time to open up. Where it was once sharp and grassy and green, it now tasted more heady and floral. She took a picture of the barrels with her specs. She wanted to remember this one.

“You've got good taste,” Captain Matthews said, from down the aisle. “That one's special to me. We used rainwater from Ireland.”

Hwa gave him what she knew to be a very skeptical look.

“No, really! We have catchment clients. My water taster said it really made a difference.”

“Your water taster is robbing you blind,” Hwa said.

“So it's not a great batch?”

“Of course it's a great batch. But the water makes no difference. It's all the barrels.” She stuck her tongue out. “I'm a hundred percent organic. I know these things. I taste better than other people.”

Matthews leaned against some barrels. Dimples appeared in his smile. “Well, now. That's quite the claim.”

Joel's hand landed heavily on her shoulder and curled into it. “My bodyguard and I have some cases to lift,” he said, suddenly all seriousness.

They had to fetch the cases of bourbon from the retail area and bring them to be weighed, then take them all via hand truck and jitney to the Aviation and load them into the barback's area. Why Rivaudais never had the barback himself do the job, Hwa didn't know. She suspected he simply didn't trust him not to pocket something on the way. That was why she did a lot of small jobs like this, she explained to Joel, as they wheeled all the cases of liquor to the weigh station. People trusted her.

“I think it's 'cause I don't have any augments. I have an
honest face
.”

“I can't believe I let you talk me into this.” Joel tugged on a pair of gloves one of the men had given him, and lifted a case. He began walking it to the weigh station.

“Hold on!” Hwa darted around from her cart. “We have to zero it out, first. Keep lifting that. It's good for you.”

“Am I lifting it right?”

“Yes.” She smiled. “You are. You lifted from your knees. That was the right way to do it.”

He huffed his bangs. “Well, get to it. My arms won't hold out.”

Hwa jumped on the weigh station. It was nothing more than a black platform set away from the racks of barrels. Two flats of barrels stood beside it. Each barrel had a weight-by-liquid-volume stamped on it, and then a secondary stamp indicating whether it met the acceptable minimum. They'd all met the right weight. Captain Matthews, for all his shirtless, barefoot lassitude, ran a tight ship.

“Shame you can't pick up some more from us,” she heard him say.

“Les loyers,”
Rivaudais said. Hwa turned. Rivaudais was jerking his thumb up in the air. The rents were going up. No wonder Rivaudais couldn't afford more merchandise. Joel watched her, oblivious. Of course they wouldn't say this in front of him. His dad was the one raising the rent.

“I'm getting another cart,” Joel said.

“What? Okay. Hold on.” Hwa tapped the panel on the weigh station. She tilted her head and took off her specs. Maybe she was looking a little healthier, but she hadn't tripled in size since her last weigh-in. “Get off the platform, Joel.”

The numbers danced in the panel. Fell. Back to her normal weight. Then they rose again. Like lottery numbers, rolling up and up and up. How was he doing that? It was like he was bouncing high in the air over the platform and then silently crashing back down onto it. Maybe he had some special high-tech Lynch Ltd. toy that made it all possible. She'd dragged him here and now he was punishing her for it. She put her specs back on.