Idelba seemed impressed, which pleased Vlade. Their history stood between them like a third person, but he still had his feelings; that would never change. What it was like for her, he had no idea. There was so much they had never talked about. Just the thought of trying to scared him.
“It’s a beauty,” she said. “I always like seeing it from the rivers. It stands out quite a bit, considering there are so many taller buildings.”
“It’s true. It’s in a bit of a gap. And the gold top marks it.”
“So what’s with these leaks you’re finding?”
“I think someone’s trying to scare us. That’s why I’m hoping to suck up some evidence.”
“Worth a try.”
“Thanks for helping.”
“Just another service from your new partner.”
“What do you mean?” Vlade was startled by this word.
“I mean let’s go talk to your chairperson.”
Vlade gave Charlotte a call, and as it turned out she was still in the building. After a while she joined them.
“This is Idelba,” Vlade said to Charlotte. “She and her crew helped us recover that gold from the Hussar.”
“We were married too,” Idelba said, not knowing that Vlade had told Charlotte about it. “Just to help you understand why I would help such a creature as Vlade.”
“Funny,” Charlotte said, “I was just talking to my ex the other day.”
“The city is like that.”
Charlotte nodded. “So what’s up?”
“I want to know what’s happening with the gold, when I’ll get my share.”
Charlotte said, “We’re still trying to figure out how best to maximize its value. That isn’t real obvious.”
“I can imagine, but I want in on that too. Without me and Thabo, no gold for you, and we were promised fifteen percent of the take, and it’s been two months. And in the winter we can’t work as much, so we’re not getting paid as much. Times are tight.”
“I thought you were on a city contract.”
“No, it’s just the association over there. We get paid or given goods by people there, but sometimes we’re just taking lemmas or IOUs.”
“I understand. It’s like that here too. I just thought it was a city project.”
“A city project, in the wet zone?”
“True. Anyway, we’re talking to people to figure out what to do about the gold.”
Idelba wasn’t happy at this. “Maybe you could start payments on what you owe me.”
“We don’t have that kind of money available. What about some kind of goods exchange? Goods or services?”
“Like how I’m helping Vlade work on your place’s security?”
Charlotte frowned. “Yeah, only flip it.”
Idelba shrugged. “I don’t know if you have anything I need.”
“Possibly we could put you up here over the winter. You see those hotellos across the farm, we could put up a couple more, right, Vlade?”
Vlade tried to imagine what it would be like living near Idelba again, failed, but managed to say “Sure” without much delay. Just enough for Idelba to give him the stink eye.
“I don’t think so,” she said darkly. “I don’t know if I want to use up any of our compensation that way. A room is a room, and we have space heaters and blankets out there.”
Charlotte shrugged, imitating Idelba, Vlade saw. “You can let us know.”
“Meanwhile you’ll work on turning that stuff? Or give us some to turn?”
“Yes. Of course. We’ll have something figured out within a week.”
Vlade escorted Idelba back down to the boathouse. “You should join us while it’s winter,” he ventured. “It’s nice.”
“I’ll think about it.”
Back in his boathouse office he offered her a shot of vodka, and she sat down and sipped it. She had never been a big drinker. They sat drinking by the light of the various screens and instruments, and the boathouse’s few night lights. Sharing the dimness and quiet. No huge need to keep a conversation going; they had already not said all the things they weren’t going to say. It was painful to Vlade.
“Here,” he said, “I’ll show you what I’m doing with the gold.”
“Have you shown the boys?”
“Sure, but that’s a good idea. It doesn’t get old.” He wristed the boys as he got out the equipment from boxes under his worktable, and in a few minutes they ran in, goldbug madness lighting them like gas lantern mantles.
“This is so cool,” Stefan promised Idelba.
“Even though we shouldn’t be doing it,” Roberto added.
Vlade had had to look it up, but it turned out to be fairly simple. The melting point of gold was just under two thousand degrees. He had borrowed a graphite crucible and an ingot mold, both standard salvager’s equipment, from Rosario, and he already had an oxyacetylene torch in his shop. After that it was just a matter of sprinkling some baking soda over ten of the darkened coins when they were stacked in the crucible, putting on a welder’s mask and heavy gloves, firing up the torch, and slowly cooking the gold under direct heat, until the coins turned red and slumped into a single bumpy red mass, sizzling or bubbling very slightly at the edges; then the mass melted further and became a fiery red puddle in the crucible. Always interesting to do and to see. Then while it was liquid, he seized the crucible in tongs and poured the gold redly out into the ingot mold.
Idelba and the boys watched with keen interest. Idelba even said “Aha” when the coins turned red. When they deformed and melted together, leaving a scum of the sodium carbonate and dirt on the top, the boys squealed “I’m meltingggg …” which Charlotte had taught them was appropriate.
Vlade turned off the torch and flipped up the mask. “Pretty neat.”
“Did you let the boys here do it?” Idelba asked.
“Oh yeah.”
“It was fantastic! You see how hot it is. You feel it.”
Then Idelba got pinged and she looked at her wrist. “Are your systems showing anything outside?”
He glanced at his screens, shook his head. “Yours are?”
“Yep. I think your radar must be baffled on this shit.”
“I was wondering about that.”
“Let’s see if we can suck something up for you.” She spoke to Thabo, who was still out on the tug. Vlade went out and untied the building’s runabout from the boathouse dock, and they got in and hummed out the door into the bacino. Idelba indicated the north side, between the Met and North, under her tug. When they came around from the bacino into the Twenty-fourth canal, Vlade saw that the tug was about half as wide as the canal. Thabo and a couple other men were standing in the bow wrangling one of their dredging hoses, and suddenly the big vacuum pump motor revved up to its highest banshee scream. With the pale slabs of the buildings walling them in, it was very loud.
All of a sudden the vacuum was shut off and things went quiet again. Vlade pulled up to the tug and Thabo caught the rope Idelba threw up to him and tied them off.
“Whatcha got?” Idelba called.
“Drone.”
“Oh my,” Vlade said. “Hey, have you got a strongbox on board there?”
“You think it might explode?”
“I don’t want it to with your guys exposed to it, right?”
Idelba called sharply to Thabo and the other man in Berber, and Vlade glimpsed the whites of their eyes before they scrambled belowdecks on the tug. A tense minute later they returned with a box and one held it while the other tossed an object from the screen end of the vacuum tube into it. They worked fast.