She gestured for them to move along, glancing once more over her shoulder.
“I suspect we are here,” Roma said.
He stopped, looking at the sight ahead with an undisguised puzzlement stamped into his expression. Juliette, too, searched along the row of shops, thinking that they were misunderstanding something.
They were not.
The address for the alleged vaccine center was a wonton shop.
“They advertised this place across the whole French Concession,” Juliette exclaimed. She couldn’t hold back the accusatory tone in her voice, though she was not quite sure whom she was putting at blame here. “It cannot possibly be a scheme just to have more customers for a bowl of húntún tāng.”
Roma suddenly pulled two revolvers from the inside of his suit jacket, one tucked on each side. Juliette blinked at his fast handiwork and absently wondered how she had not felt them when she was pressed up against him earlier.
“It cannot be a mere shop,” he said. “Let’s go, Juliette.”
By the time Juliette retrieved her pistol, Roma had already charged ahead and kicked in the shop door. Juliette hurried after him—feeling rather foolish to be storming into a wonton shop of all places—and found Roma by the register, demanding an audience with whoever had the nerve to be distributing a new vaccine. In the far corner, there was one elderly couple in the shop, eyes wide and concerned.
“Please, please!” the man behind the register shrieked, immediately putting his hands up. He was old too, but at the end of middle age, hair long and pulled back with a band. “Don’t shoot! I am not who you are looking for!”
Juliette tucked her pistol away, making eye contact with the elderly couple and jabbing a sharp thumb toward the door. Not needing to be prompted twice, they hobbled to their feet and gathered their bags, scuttling out of the shop. The door slammed after them so quickly that the ceiling light flickered.
“Then who is?” Roma asked. “Who owns this place?”
The man’s throat bobbed up and down as he swallowed nervously. “I—I do.”
While Roma kept his weapons upon the shop owner, Juliette leaned onto the register and peered around the back of the shop. A cursory sweep revealed a table dusted with flour, a lump of dough hardening by the sink, and there, by the chair—
“Well, I see that the flyers originated from here, so no use lying your way out,” Juliette said cheerily. “Lǎotóu, how are you making the vaccine?”
The man blinked, his clear terror suddenly morphing into confusion. “Making . . . the vaccine?” he echoed. “I—” His head pivoted back to Roma, eyes crossing to stare down the barrel of the revolver. “No! I am not making anything! I am auctioning off the last vial that remains from the Larkspur of Shanghai.”
Juliette pushed off the register. She exchanged a fast glance with Roma, and then, caring little for social propriety, she climbed right up on the counter in her heels and hopped into the back of the shop, retrieving one of the flyers. It was identical to the one that Ernestine de Donadieu had given them, down to the error-riddled French. Only this time, Juliette realized exactly what mistake they had made.
The madness arrives again! Get vaccinated!
Where did it say that the location upon the advertisement would be giving out vaccinations? They had merely assumed, because that was what the Larkspur’s flyers had said.
“Tā mā de,” Juliette cursed, throwing the flyer down. “You have one?”
The man nodded eagerly, seeing it was this information getting the two gangsters off his back. “I was hoping to collect offers from foreigners, then sell to the highest bidder. I am low on cash, you see. It is not easy running a húntún shop in Kunshan, and when my cousin from Shanghai passed along this vial he had held on to—”
“Oh, stop talking, I do beg,” Juliette interrupted, holding a hand up. This was not a vaccine center at all. This was an auction.
With a sigh, Roma withdrew his revolvers, shoving them back into his jacket. He was visibly annoyed. This had been a waste of time. What could they do with one vial? They had already asked Lourens at the White Flower labs to test the vaccine the last time around in an effort to re-create it, but he had not been successful.
Juliette’s eyes widened suddenly.
Lourens had failed in the past . . . but the Scarlets had Paul’s papers now.
“I’ll take it,” Juliette said, her declaration coming so loud and so abrupt that the man jumped. In a smooth motion, Juliette bent and swept up the flyer, then plucked a fountain pen from the side of the register, scribbling down a number. “My offer.”