“Talk sense,” said Tommy, without even contempt in his tone.
Jacaro snarled.
“No sense actin’ too big!” But the snarl encouraged Tommy, because it proved Jacaro less confidant than he tried to seem. His next change of tone proved it. “Aw, hell!” he said placatingly. “This is what I’m figurin’ on. These guys ain’t used to fighting, but they got the stuff. They got gases that are hell-roarin’. They got ships can beat any we got back home. Figure out the racket. A couple big Tubes, that’ll let a ship—maybe folded—go through. A fleet of ’em floatin’ over N’York, loaded with gas—that white stuff y’ can steer wherever y’ want it. Figure the shake-down. We could pull a hundred million from Chicago! We c’d take over the whole United States! Try that on y’ piano! Me, King Jacaro, King of America!” His dark eyes flashed. “I’ll give y’ Canada or Mexico, whichever y’ want. Name y’ price, guy. A coupla months organizin’ here, buildin’ a big Tube, then….”
Tommy’s expression did not change.
“If it were that easy,” he said drily, “you wouldn’t be bargaining. I’m not altogether a fool, Jacaro. We want those women back. You want something we’ve got, and you want it badly. Cut out the oratory and tell me the real price for the return of the women, unharmed.”
Jacaro burst into a flood of profanity.
“I’d rather Evelyn died from gas,” said Tommy, “than as your filthy Ragged Men would kill her. And you know I mean it.” He switched to the language of the cities to go on coldly: “If one woman is harmed, Rahn dies. We will shoot down every ship that rises from her stages. We will spray burning thermit through her streets. We will cover her towers with gas until her people starve in the gas masks they’ve made!”
The lean man in the tunic of Rahn snarled bitterly: “What matter? We starve now!”
Tommy turned upon him as Jacaro whirled and cursed him bitterly for the revealing outburst.