A Spot of Blackmail

There was another problem that neither Anna nor Jack knew about yet. In Anna’s previous life, when she had been called Maggie, she had had an extended family. Her father had had a brother, and her mother had had three, and a sister besides. All of them had had children, so Maggie would have been up to her ears in cousins. As Anna, she had nobody, and for the most part she liked it that way. She liked having somebody to share her bed with occasionally, and Jack provided that. Otherwise she liked to be left alone, and had developed a reputation for it. She also had a reputation for owning probably the best tavern in Tortuga, and that was what was going to get her in trouble.

With such a large number of cousins, there were of course a couple of bad ones. The worst of the lot was named Alfred. He was loud, messy, opinionated, always right, had an unquenchable thirst for alcohol and a squeaky voice that annoyed most people, and to top it all off, spent most of his time spending any money he could get his hands on, preferably as long as it was somebody else’s money. The only reason he hadn’t actually taken up picking pockets was because he couldn’t be unobtrusive if he tried. His habits had gotten him into enough trouble in England that he had taken ship for Jamaica, and from there he had gotten mixed up with a random collection of beached pirates and miscellaneous thieves. Naturally, the next step after that was for the whole mess to end up in Tortuga. Alfred, who had suffered for want of drink (not having had any in a whole day and a half), found himself at loose ends one night and wandered up to Anna’s tavern.

It was a busy night. The roof was half on, and the place was pretty well packed. Anna had left Gibbs and company in charge of the roof repairs during the day for the past three days and felt a lot more human as a result. She had just started the night’s singing, and was in pretty good voice. Alfred, of course, didn’t know anything about that, and wouldn’t have cared either. He did take his mind off his drink for long enough to realize that something about Anna looked very familiar. Familial, even. There was something about the eyes, ahe che chin…his train of thought broke off as he noticed his tankard was empty and shouted for a refill. As it happened, he shouted in Gibbs’ ear.

“Watch it! It’s bad luck interruptin’ Anna while she’s singin’. Makes the drink dry up.”

“It can’t get any drier than I am already, can it?”

“How’d you like not to drink at all for the rest of the night? She’ll do it, too.”

“She can’t do that!”

“It’s her tavern, man. If you want to take your chances, that’s your business. Now keep quiet a while and you’ll get your drink.” Alfred wasn’t used to being spoken to like that, but he had a fine regard for his own skin, and he decided that arguing with Gibbs wasn’t a very good way to keep it whole. He contented himself with staring at Anna instead, and trying to figure out what sort of relation she could be, and how he could make money off the family ties, whether they were real or not.

Anna had heard the unpleasant yell with the part of her brain that wasn’t occupied with singing, and had tracked it to the highly unsavory man Gibbs was talking to. He was sitting in fairly bad light, but what she could see of him looked greasy, untrustworthy and generally unpleasant. As long as his money was good and he didn’t bother anyone else, though, he could stay and drink as much as he liked. Most of Tortuga didn’t bathe much, and she wouldn’t trust most people further than she could throw them. She turned her attention back to singing again.

Alfred had finally, after about half an hour, gotten down to three possible relatives he could claim Anna was. One of them, he’d heard, had died of consumption in London after he’d left, and another was in an asylum. So that left the third, who would be his cousin Maggie. She and her father had disappeared off to Jamaica and hadn’t been heard from since. If this woman who called herself Anna was in fact his cousin Maggie, all the better. If she wasn’t, she must have a secret worth blackmailing her for. Everybody in Tortuga had secrets. He noticed she had stopped singing, and hoped he would get his drink now.

Not only did he get it, she brought it to him. Jack, who was sitting in a dark corner watching her, saw her deliver the tankard, saw the man she gave it to say something to her, and saw her turn absolutely dead white. He had seen her look like that before, and the last time she had looked like that, she had fainted about two minutes later. What the hell? He couldn’t quite get across the room fast enough, but Gibbs was there, and he caught her right before she hit the floor. Alfred slipped out in the confusion, taking his drink with him. No sense in wasting it, especially since he hadn’t paid for it.

“What the hell happened?”

“Can’t say, Cap’n. She brought a drink for this gent—where’d he go? Anyway, he was here, and she brought him a drink and he says something, and she turns white as a holystoned deck, and collapses.”

“Where’s he gone?”

“Didn’t see him leave. Ask Cotton, maybe?”

“Good, do that. I’ll take her out back.” Jack carried Anna off to the back of the tavern, and Gibbs went to consult with Cotton. Cotton’s parrot’s opinion was “Any port in a storm”, which they took to mean the mystery man had gone to ground somewhere.

“Keep an eye out for him. Cap’n’ll want to know about him.”