Elias sympathized. Some people just seemed collectively condemned to be born into a small place to which they were greatly attached, only to leave it behind for London or America, driven away by foreign overlords or hunger.
The man ordered an ale, and Elias asked for tea, all while gauging each other with unreadable eyes. Allegedly, the man was a relation of a man who worked with Nassim, so there was a rapport by association. It had to suffice.
Their drinks were served quickly.
“I’m in need of a crew,” Elias said after taking a sip. “Half a dozen men.”
The contact licked over his mustache. “Are you.”
“And two wagons.”
The man’s eyes narrowed. “You’re aware that my acquaintance trades in logistics only?”
Elias knew the business of “logistics only”—meaning a low risk of someone losing life or limb during an operation.
“I’m aware,” he said.
A noncommittal grunt. “Prices ’ave gone up for that, too.”
He’d afford it. A matter of honor had no price. His options were limited, however: the only moment he could strike was the bulls’ arrival in London. A man had to infiltrate the crew that was responsible for loading the antiques onto the train in Oxford, and several men would have to replace the workers sent by the museum to pick up the pieces at the London railway station. The London transfer would take place from train to carriage as officially planned, only that the carriages would speed to London Port, load their cargo onto a ship already running on all kettles, and sail back east. Simple in theory, rather complex in the execution. It also hinged entirely on Catriona following through with her plans to have the pieces transferred, and on her sharing the exact schedule with him even though it would cause her family a scandal. Catriona. He tossed back his tea, but the bitter black brew did nothing to wash her taste away; it had clung to him inside and out all morning.
“Wha’ are you needin’ it for anyway, cousin of Mr. Nassim,” the Cockney wanted to know.
“Li watani,” Elias replied. “For my homeland.”
The man’s dark eyes were quiet. “Awright,” he said after a pause. “I’ve a name for you. If ’e likes you, ’e’ll ’ave anofer name for you.”
Elias would stake his fortune that the man at the very top of this crime pyramid was a local, with good connections to the Metropolitan Police and the mayor, and he’d reside in a town house in the most expensive street. It always was so. A note with an address was exchanged for a small but heavy purse, and the Cockney wished him best of luck.
After they parted, the only intelligible sensation Elias felt was a hollowness right behind his ribs. While his plan was successfully set in motion, its trajectory would carry him in the opposite direction of more private desires. Instead of going to the nearest telegraph office to send news of his progress to Nassim, he briskly walked the short distance to the Thames. The area was busy with working people. A few street boys immediately recognized him as a foreigner and buzzed around him, cheeky and annoying like flies, imitating his gait and asking if he wanted to see tricks. Westerners had a name for their city urchins—Street Arabs, owed to dubious ideas about the Bedouins, whom they considered homeless, roaming, and possibly thieving. Perhaps that was why Elias indulged the boys; he spun his walking stick and tossed a few pennies to the smallest in the group, and their gratitude was repressed under a thick layer of mockery. When he reached Westminster Bridge, a horse-drawn omnibus rolled past and the boys lost interest in him; they ran after the vehicle and tried to cling to it.
Elias stopped at the middle of the bridge and turned east to watch the river on its way to the sea. Gulls balanced above him, throwing their yearning cries into the wind, and the stink of bilge water hung in the air. A short distance ahead at the southern side of the river, the brown brick buildings of the wharves lined the banks next to clusters of bobbing ship masts. London. All the world was not here, Mr. Leighton, son of a dog, but it was still the richest city in the world. And the largest. It kept growing, too, stacking people atop one another and spilling over old borders at a quicker pace than booming Beirut. Despite death on every shadowed corner, the place was rapaciously alive, its hungry pulse reverberated through the railing under his hands in a cacophony of crowded omnibuses and busy cogwheels, of ship horns, steel hammers, and telegraph keys. Just behind him in the palatial building of Westminster, policies that shaped the world were made during strolls down a corridor. Where else other than America would an Irishman—or any man—go, if not here, where it felt as though anything might be possible?