Bitter Spirits
Page 12
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He grinned in response and pulled out into traffic.
Aida stared out the window through lengthening raindrops. Stores selling silk slippers and Oriental rugs blurred as they headed west. A few more blocks and she’d be headed into parts of the city where she’d never been.
Her hands didn’t know where to settle. She raised her voice to be heard over the rumbling engine. “How long have you worked for Mr. Magnusson?”
“Seven years, thereabouts. He hired me when he started helping his father with the family business—after he left Berkeley.”
Berkeley educated? Surprising. “How old were you when you started working for him?”
“Fourteen.”
Good grief. He was running around doing illegal things when he was still a child? She supposed she shouldn’t feel too sorry for him. He was obviously doing well now, and she certainly knew what it was like to be hungry for money.
“At first he just called on me now and then to run errands for him,” Bo explained. “Then I started working for him every day after school. After the accident—”
“The one that caused his eye injury? What happened, exactly?”
“You don’t know?”
“He didn’t say.”
“I’m surprised you haven’t heard talk around the club.”
“I’m all ears now.”
“He’ll have to be the one to tell the story, and I wouldn’t recommend asking until he’s warmed up to you. Touchy subject. Anyway, as I was saying, after the accident, he took over his father’s business full-time, and when he moved back into the family house, I came with him. I’ve got a room there.”
So Winter’s father was the original bootlegger, which meant he must’ve died in the accident, Aida reasoned. How terrible. She wondered if the mother was still alive, but it unearthed memories of her own parents that she didn’t care to think about, so she shifted the conversation back to Bo. “What exactly do you do for him, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“This and that. Communicating instructions, scouting, relaying information . . . driving spirit mediums around.” Brown eyes met hers in the rearview mirror, sparkling with humor. “And I guess you can add ‘personal valet’ to that list after that night at Velma’s.”
She laughed to cover up the unwanted picture of Naked Man floating inside her head. “I imagined the life of a bootlegger being a series of gunfights in dark alleys.”
“There’s a little of that. Winter’s definitely more comfortable with guns than ghosts, but you shouldn’t be afraid to call on him. He’s had additional security at the house since the supernatural business started up, and no one working for him has ever been killed . . . at least, not on purpose.”
She almost choked. “That’s, uh, helpful to know.”
He steered the car down a side street. “Honestly, I’m surprised you agreed to come today, after everything at Velma’s.”
“Guess I’m a glutton for punishment.”
“He might seem irritable at times, but he’s been through a lot, so I guess you could say he’s a little mad at the world. You just have to grow a thick skin around him when he’s in one of his moods. He’s not a bad person, despite what you might think.”
“I didn’t think he was. Maybe a little demanding.”
Bo grinned at her in the mirror. “You fight your way up to a certain level of success after being nothing but an immigrant fisherman’s son, you’d be demanding, too. Can’t command respect unless you act like you deserve it.”
In their line of business, she didn’t doubt it.
Houses began to increase in both size and grandeur as Bo turned onto a street with a steep incline. The Pierce-Arrow’s engine protested as it turned faster to make the climb past an eclectic mix of grand homes. “Where are we?” she asked.
“Pacific Heights. Never stepped foot here until I started working for Winter. It’s swanky—where all the Nob Hill millionaires built after the quake and the Great Fire. Everyone here pays for that.” He pointed toward a spectacular view of the bay and the rocky cliffs beyond, now shrouded in quiet rain and light fog. All the homes sat shoulder-to-shoulder, cramped on horizontal streets that lined the hill in tiers like movie theater seats, where everyone gets a good view of the screen.
Bo slowed the car as they passed through an intersection. Aida read the street sign here: BROADWAY. Her nerves twanged as she looked at a beautiful beast of a home on the corner. Bo parked the car at the curb.
“Welcome to the Magnusson house,” he announced.
FIVE
AIDA STEPPED OUT OF THE PIERCE-ARROW IN FRONT OF A GRAY green Queen Anne mansion. Four stories high, it was twice as big as the neighboring houses and looked like something out of a fantasy tale, with steeply gabled roofs, fish-scale shingles, bay windows, and a round, turreted tower. Like the other homes in this area, it had no yard to speak of—only a short iron fence and a shallow border of grass separating its massive girth from the public street. And like virtually everything else in this city, it was built on a steep slant with half the bottom floor disappearing into the hill.
“Goodness, it’s grand,” she murmured to herself, craning her neck to take it all in. She spotted two men stationed at either fence corner—security, she supposed. “He lives in this big house all by himself?”
“His younger sister, too. The help. His brother, when he comes home on holidays.”
Aida stared out the window through lengthening raindrops. Stores selling silk slippers and Oriental rugs blurred as they headed west. A few more blocks and she’d be headed into parts of the city where she’d never been.
Her hands didn’t know where to settle. She raised her voice to be heard over the rumbling engine. “How long have you worked for Mr. Magnusson?”
“Seven years, thereabouts. He hired me when he started helping his father with the family business—after he left Berkeley.”
Berkeley educated? Surprising. “How old were you when you started working for him?”
“Fourteen.”
Good grief. He was running around doing illegal things when he was still a child? She supposed she shouldn’t feel too sorry for him. He was obviously doing well now, and she certainly knew what it was like to be hungry for money.
“At first he just called on me now and then to run errands for him,” Bo explained. “Then I started working for him every day after school. After the accident—”
“The one that caused his eye injury? What happened, exactly?”
“You don’t know?”
“He didn’t say.”
“I’m surprised you haven’t heard talk around the club.”
“I’m all ears now.”
“He’ll have to be the one to tell the story, and I wouldn’t recommend asking until he’s warmed up to you. Touchy subject. Anyway, as I was saying, after the accident, he took over his father’s business full-time, and when he moved back into the family house, I came with him. I’ve got a room there.”
So Winter’s father was the original bootlegger, which meant he must’ve died in the accident, Aida reasoned. How terrible. She wondered if the mother was still alive, but it unearthed memories of her own parents that she didn’t care to think about, so she shifted the conversation back to Bo. “What exactly do you do for him, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“This and that. Communicating instructions, scouting, relaying information . . . driving spirit mediums around.” Brown eyes met hers in the rearview mirror, sparkling with humor. “And I guess you can add ‘personal valet’ to that list after that night at Velma’s.”
She laughed to cover up the unwanted picture of Naked Man floating inside her head. “I imagined the life of a bootlegger being a series of gunfights in dark alleys.”
“There’s a little of that. Winter’s definitely more comfortable with guns than ghosts, but you shouldn’t be afraid to call on him. He’s had additional security at the house since the supernatural business started up, and no one working for him has ever been killed . . . at least, not on purpose.”
She almost choked. “That’s, uh, helpful to know.”
He steered the car down a side street. “Honestly, I’m surprised you agreed to come today, after everything at Velma’s.”
“Guess I’m a glutton for punishment.”
“He might seem irritable at times, but he’s been through a lot, so I guess you could say he’s a little mad at the world. You just have to grow a thick skin around him when he’s in one of his moods. He’s not a bad person, despite what you might think.”
“I didn’t think he was. Maybe a little demanding.”
Bo grinned at her in the mirror. “You fight your way up to a certain level of success after being nothing but an immigrant fisherman’s son, you’d be demanding, too. Can’t command respect unless you act like you deserve it.”
In their line of business, she didn’t doubt it.
Houses began to increase in both size and grandeur as Bo turned onto a street with a steep incline. The Pierce-Arrow’s engine protested as it turned faster to make the climb past an eclectic mix of grand homes. “Where are we?” she asked.
“Pacific Heights. Never stepped foot here until I started working for Winter. It’s swanky—where all the Nob Hill millionaires built after the quake and the Great Fire. Everyone here pays for that.” He pointed toward a spectacular view of the bay and the rocky cliffs beyond, now shrouded in quiet rain and light fog. All the homes sat shoulder-to-shoulder, cramped on horizontal streets that lined the hill in tiers like movie theater seats, where everyone gets a good view of the screen.
Bo slowed the car as they passed through an intersection. Aida read the street sign here: BROADWAY. Her nerves twanged as she looked at a beautiful beast of a home on the corner. Bo parked the car at the curb.
“Welcome to the Magnusson house,” he announced.
FIVE
AIDA STEPPED OUT OF THE PIERCE-ARROW IN FRONT OF A GRAY green Queen Anne mansion. Four stories high, it was twice as big as the neighboring houses and looked like something out of a fantasy tale, with steeply gabled roofs, fish-scale shingles, bay windows, and a round, turreted tower. Like the other homes in this area, it had no yard to speak of—only a short iron fence and a shallow border of grass separating its massive girth from the public street. And like virtually everything else in this city, it was built on a steep slant with half the bottom floor disappearing into the hill.
“Goodness, it’s grand,” she murmured to herself, craning her neck to take it all in. She spotted two men stationed at either fence corner—security, she supposed. “He lives in this big house all by himself?”
“His younger sister, too. The help. His brother, when he comes home on holidays.”
