Ring of Fire II

by Eric Flint

  "My mother," Noelle said crisply. For a moment, they both shared a laugh. Noelle's mother Pat was to good sense what a junkyard was to orderly. The woman wasn't stupid. She just didn't seem to have a clue how to separate abstractions from their application to the real world.

  In her favor, though, Noelle thought but didn't say out loud, at least Pat wasn't greedy. Something which couldn't be said for Claus Junker.

  "The point is, Eddie, nobody's going to go after your dad. But I'd like to know if there are any leads there."

  Eddie used the time it took to finish the sandwich to compose his thoughts. Then: "I think so, yes. Do you know a man—an up-timer—by the name of Jay Barlow? And another one by the name of Allen O'Connor?"

  Noelle stared at him for a moment. "Jay Barlow, yeah," she said abruptly. "He used to be a car dealer before the Ring of Fire, mostly used cars—and he was pretty much a poster boy for what people think of used car dealers."

  Eddie frowned. "Which is . . . what?"

  "Never mind. Crooked sleazeball is close enough. The kind of guy whose stock in trade was passing off lemons."

  "I thought you said he sold automobiles."

  "Never mind, like I said. Some other time I'll enhance your vocabulary of up-time slang. But right now I want to concentrate on the other guy. Allen O'Connor, you said?"

  "Yes. I think he's actually the more important of the two, although my father's direct dealings were with Barlow."

  Noelle chuckled. "Well, yeah, I can believe that. In the TO of organized crime, like any other enterprise I can think of, you'll find the Jay Barlows of the world pretty regularly enrolled under the rank of 'foot soldier.' "

  "What's a 'TO'?"

  "Table of Organization. Like I said, later for the vocabulary lesson."

  She scratched the tip of her chin, forgetting for a moment her long-standing vow to eliminate that mannerism on account of it drew attention to her chin. She thought it was on the pointy side, which was especially unfortunate given the shape of her ears, which were also too damn close to being pointed. Add into the miserable bargain her too-slim figure, which she'd had since she was a kid, even before she started exercising regularly. She began that regimen after the scares she'd experienced in Franconia during the Ram Rebellion convinced her she'd better be in top physical condition.

  All she needed, in her position, was for people to think she was some kind of elf.

  Catching herself, she stopped. Then, tugged at her earlobe. Then, silently chided herself and brought the hand firmly down on the table. "O'Connor, on the other hand, has the potential to rise to higher levels. Did rise to higher levels, in fact, not long after the Ring of Fire, when he set up a steam engine business."

  "So did Barlow," Eddie pointed out. "He's the partner and co-manager of the Grantville-Saalfeld Foundries and Metalworks—which is quite an important and profitable enterprise. More so than O'Connor's steam engine corporation, really."

  Noelle sneered, forgetting momentarily her long-standing vow never to sneer on account of it made her look like an impudent elf. "Yeah, sure—but that's due to the other partner, Bart Kubiak, who's the brains of the outfit. I heard—never mind where—that the only reason Bart asked Jay to become his partner—and he doesn't have anything close to an equal share in the business, by the way, just a token amount—is because Billie Jean Mase sweet-talked him into it and Bart wanted her to relocate to Saalfeld to be his office manager."

  She shook her head. "There's another mixed-blessing character for you. By all accounts, Billie Jean is a crackerjack office manager—"

  "I thought those were a kind of cereal candy."

  "What is it with your sudden obsession with learning every bit of American slang in one sitting? But whatever skills Billie Jean has in an office, she's a dumb blonde in the rest of her life."

  Eddie was now eyeing Noelle's hair dubiously.

  "Fine," she snapped. "It's sort-of blonde. It's just an expression. Some of the world's champion dumb blondes are brunettes and redheads. Trust me on this one, for just a moment. Who else but a dumb blonde would ever get hooked up with a guy like Jay Barlow? You can't even credit her with being a gold-digger, since she brings in most of the gold."

  She raised the fingers of her left hand and began counting them off with the thumb and forefinger of her right hand, forgetting also her solemn vow not to draw attention to her fingers because they were too slender and nimble and, well, sorta elflike.

  "First, he's a loser. Second, he's a sleazebag. Third—"

  "I thought the term was sleazeball," Eddie complained.

  Noelle contemplated strangling him. Then, simultaneously concluded her hands were far too delicate for the task—Eddie was on the heavily-built side—and remembered her vow not to display them. Hurriedly, she put her hands back in her lap.

  "Third," she said forcefully, "he's thirteen years older than she is. Remembering my charitable Christian nature—"

  Eddie was looking more dubious by the minute.

  "—I will forego pointing out that his potbelly matches his age and then some. Fourth, he's lazy. Fifth—since after two months Bart Kubiak gave him the boot and told him to enjoy his piddly little share of the partnership back in Grantville where he'd be out of Bart's hair—he spends most of his waking hours lounging at the 250 Club, trying to pretend he's a tough biker even if the only part of 'biker' he has down pat is the boozing. Sixth—"

  She broke off suddenly, and stared at the wall. Nothing there to look at, just getting an idea.

  "What is it?" Eddie asked.

  She started scratching her chin again, forgetting her solemn vow to work on her memory so it wouldn't resemble Swiss cheese. Just what she needed, having people think she was as flighty as an elf.

  "I was just thinking, now that I think about it, that Jay Barlow is the mirror opposite of Buster Beasley. There's a guy who has 'tough biker' down pat every other way, except he finds most bikers pretty boring. So he doesn't hang out much at the 250 Club, true enough—but I'll bet he knows where all the bones are buried and whose skeleton is rattling which bike. He's honest, too. Well . . . allowing for a certain casual attitude toward mind-altering substances and stuff like that, but who cares? Those laws aren't in force anymore and even if they were you and I are working for the Treasury department, not the old DEA."

  "I am now completely lost," said Eddie.

  Noelle flashed him a grin, forgetting her solemn vow to suppress her quick way of smiling since she thought that was probably the silly way that elves smiled if elves existed which they didn't but too many damn people had heard of them and thought they probably did and she was suspect number one.

  "I'll introduce you." She glanced at the clock on the wall. "It's only eight. He's probably still at his storage rental place."

  She got up, grabbed her purse and shrugged into her coat, then headed for the door. Eddie followed. "If we're lucky, maybe his daughter Denise is there too. There's a real pip."

  Outside, Eddie asked: "What is a 'pip'?"

  Noelle did her best to explain, as they walked. She'd never realized before, just how hard it could be to explain a colloquial term like "a real pip." But, when she was done, Eddie nodded sagely.

  "Ah. Sort of an American elf."

  "There's no such thing as an elf," Noelle snapped.

  She thought his ensuing silence had a dubious flavor, too.

  "Forget Simmons," said Buster Beasley. With the booted foot he had planted on an overturned crate, he kept rocking back and forth on his chair. Given that it wasn't a rocking chair, just a beat-up old wooden kitchen chair, and given Buster's heft, Noelle wondered how much longer it would last.

  "Simmons is a clown," he continued. The light cast into the office of Buster's rental storage operation from a single naked light bulb in the ceiling threw his face into deep shadows, making him look more like a prophet than the middle-aged, long-haired, heavily-bearded and burly ex-biker that he was. If you ignored the muscular arms exposed by the cutawa
y denim jacket, anyway. Noelle was familiar with the lives of many of the saints and the Old Testament prophets, and she was quite sure not one of them had had a Born to Raise Hell tattoo on their shoulder, with or without a dagger through it.

  "He can manage to slice bread on his own, I suppose, but anything more complicated would stump him for sure. The only reason he got that job heading up the training program for the Department of Transportation was because his ex-wife Lorraine talked her twin sister Lauren into getting it for him, even though she'd dumped the bum years ago."

  Buster's fifteen-year-old daughter Denise was perched on an upended crate not far away, as was Eddie. Noelle had been given the one stool in the office to sit on. She'd have preferred a crate herself, actually, since the stool looked to be as rickety as the one and only chair in the office that was getting a workout from Buster.

  "I don't get it, Dad," Denise said. The girl's expression was one of intense curiosity, which seemed to fit her face quite nicely. She shook her head a little, causing her long dark hair to ripple. "I mean, sure, I like Lorraine. Who doesn't? But where'd she get the pull to land an ex-husband—not even the guy she's married to now—a job that good?"

  Denise didn't seem to think there was anything odd about her father calling another man a bum and clown. This, despite the fact that Buster's office furniture consisted of upside-down crates and stools, a cheap metal cabinet that looked like an antique except no antique shop would have bothered trying to restore anything that badly stained and covered with rust spots, and a desk—Noelle was still trying not to grin at the thing—that was actually the bed of a junkyard pickup truck that Buster must have cut out with a torch and provided with legs made out of parts from the frames of old motorcycles. He ran a welding business on the side and was quite good at it. Good enough, in fact, that if he'd concentrated on that business he could have become very prosperous. But Buster valued his free time a lot more than he did money.

  Noelle wasn't surprised by Denise's respect for her father, quite evident despite the relaxed and informal ease of their relationship. Buster Beasley, like Tom Stone, was one of those people who managed to live outside the normal boundaries of social custom without being considered a hopeless screwball. Screwball, maybe, hopeless—no. They were just too effective at managing their lives, each in their own way. In Buster's case, of course, the tattoos helped stifle vocal criticism, especially combined with the seventeen-inch biceps displayed by the cut-out jacket. Not to mention the scars.

  Despite her appearance, which she'd inherited from her mother—slender and very attractive, where Buster was neither—Denise was a chip off the old block. She was just a few weeks shy of her sixteenth birthday. Most girls her age would have been either egotistical or confused by her good looks, and the effect it had on boys. Denise was neither. She took it for granted, didn't seem to care in the least—she certainly didn't pick her girlfriends based on their looks—and God help the overeager high school boy who didn't take "no" seriously. Denise was the only girl Noelle knew who'd been hauled in front of the high-school vice-principal for punching a kid out. Fortunately, there weren't too many boys stupid enough to harass Buster Beasley's daughter.

  Buster gave his daughter a grin. "How many times have I told you not to underestimate networking skills?"

  Denise snorted. "Coming from you!"

  He shrugged. "I didn't say I was good at it, I just told you not to underestimate them. In this case, sure, Lorraine doesn't have any direct clout worth talking about. But—"

  He held up his thumb. "Her twin sister Lauren owns and runs the town's best restaurant, along with her husband Calvin." He raised his forefinger alongside the thumb. "If there's a power-that-be in Grantville that doesn't hang out there, I don't know who it is." The middle finger came up to join them. "For sure and certain, Joe Stull—remember him? he's the secretary of Transportation—eats lunch there practically every day."

  Buster brought up the ring finger, somehow managing not to haul the little finger along with it. He was a very well-coordinated man, despite the graying beard and the muscle. "Moving right along, since Lauren and Calvin Tyler's daughter Rachel has all the sense when it comes to men that Lorraine doesn't, she married that Scot cavalryman Edward Graham, who—he ain't no dummy, either—immediately left the Swedish colors and wrangled himself a partnership in the restaurant with his new in-laws. And—"

  Finally, the little finger came up. "That damn Scotsman could charm a rattlesnake, which Joe Stull ain't—and Graham makes it a point to be the waiter any time a bigshot shows up."

  Denise was looking a little cross-eyed by now. For that matter, Noelle thought she might be herself.

  The fingers started closing back down, one at a time, gracefully despite their heft. "So Lorraine talked to Lauren and she talked to Graham and Graham put in a word with Joe Stull, and I guess Joe must have been having one of his rare off days because he agreed to hire the clown. And that's how it happened."

  Throughout, he hadn't varied in the slightest the metronome regularity of his chair-rocking. Now, he looked back to Noelle. "So, like I said, forget Simmons." He gestured with his thumb to the tattoo on his shoulder. "If Mickey had a tattoo, it'd read Born to be a Small-Time Loser. No, the people you want to start looking at are the Barclays."

  Noelle frowned. "Pete Barclay? The guy who works for Dave Marcantonio?"

  "Yup. Him and his wife Marina. She works there too, y'know." He finally ceased the chair-rocking and stood up. Then, picked up a big black flashlight perched on a shelf, one of those long, heavy Maglites favored by cops because they could double as a club in a pinch. Buster was holding it the way cops did, too, with the lamp cupped in his hand and the shaft perched on his shoulder, ready to swing forward if need be. So far as Noelle knew, Buster Beasley hadn't been in a brawl in years. But he'd been notorious for brawling in his younger years—if not for starting fights, certainly for ending them—and he clearly still had the ingrained habits.

  The big ex-biker headed for the door, not bothering to put on a coat to fend off the autumn chill outside. "Come on. Let me show you something."

  A minute later, they were staring into one of Buster's storage sheds. It was one of the big ones down by the end.

  "There is nothing in it," said Eddie, puzzled.

  "Not today, sure enough. But if you'd looked into it three mornings ago, you would have found it packed full. The Barclays showed up right when I opened, along with Allen and Neil O'Connor—I think most of the stuff belonged to them, actually, even though the Barclays are the ones who paid the rent—and cleaned it all out. They had three wagons for the purposes. Well-built wagons, driven by some down-timers I don't know. The guy who seemed to be in charge was a real dandy, dressed to the hilt. Fancy plumed hat, the whole works."

  Noelle hissed. "The O'Connors? But . . ."

  There seemed to be a thin smile on Buster's face. Between the beard and the darkness, though, it was hard to tell.

  "But they have a successful business here? I wouldn't be too sure of that, the way they go through money like it was water. I can tell you this much, for sure. Since the Barclays rented this shed six months ago, they've been steadily filling it up with mechanical equipment—smallish stuff, of course, no big machines—tools, blueprints, diagrams, you name it. I'm pretty sure some of it was swiped from Marcantonio's machine shop, although I couldn't swear to it."

  "Oh, wow," said Denise. "Dad, the fuckers are defecting."

  "That's my guess. Got no idea where to, though."

  Noelle's lips were tight. "You know, Buster, you could have maybe said something about this earlier."

  He swiveled to face her. Whatever smile might have been on his face was gone now. "Said something to who? The so-called 'authorities'? Meaning no offense, Ms. Murphy—"

  "It's Stull, now. I changed it."

  "Good for you," said Denise. "I kinda like your mother, but her ex-husband—the guy who was supposed to be your dad and wasn't—is a complete shithead."
<
br />   Clearly enough, whatever parental instruction Buster had felt it necessary to give his daughter had never included "proper language for a young lady." Noelle couldn't really fault Buster for that, though. He made a lot better father in everything essential than Francis Murphy had, she didn't doubt that in the least.

  "Yeah, good for you," echoed Buster. "Your real dad Dennis is an okay guy, in my book. But like I was saying, Ms. Stull, I mind my own business. I'm as likely to go to the cops as I am to eat tofu for breakfast. I got along with Dan Frost well enough, once him and me straightened out a few issues. But I've generally got as much use for cops as I do for cockroaches. Especially since, in this case, I can't see where they were doing anything illegal anyway except for maybe some petty theft from Dave's machine shop."