The Chimney: The Merc Papers
Page 15
“Are you all right, dear?” Beth asked. The old matron still looked concerned.
“I’m fine. Thanks. It’s only that… I screwed up big time, didn’t I?”
“Oh, I wouldn’t worry too much about it. It’s not like Old Tom is going to call the Mercs—that would be too expensive. He’ll straighten things out with the mill workers, just you wait and see.”
“I hope so.”
Beth smiled and changed the subject. “Have you had any experience in a kitchen before, dear?”
“Sort of. I used to help Sangyal back at the monastery, although his cooking wasn’t as fancy as this.”
“Fancy?” Beth laughed. “Hon, there’s nothing fancy about my cooking.”
“Compared to what I ate back home it is.”
“And where’s that?”
Emily shrugged. “It doesn’t matter.”
“You don’t like to talk about your home, do you?”
“There’s nothing to talk about.”
“But you were born in a monastery—that’s something.”
“I wasn’t born there. I only lived there.”
“So, where were you born?”
Emily walked over to one of the barrels and picked out a potato. “Should I start peeling these then?” she asked.
“Yes, dear. That will fine.” Beth sighed.
Grabbing a small knife from off the counter, Emily pulled up a stool and sat beside the barrel. If nothing else, the task gave her mind something to focus on. She sat in silence concentrating on every slice and didn’t notice the day slipping by. It wasn’t until Sarah and Kate came into the kitchen did she realize what time it was.
“Time to go home.” Sarah tossed Emily a small purse. “Tom gave me your pay.”
“Yeah, I don’t think he wants to get too close to you,” Kate added.
Emily pulled open the purse and quickly counted the contents. It was slightly more than she anticipated. She figured Tom would have taken most of it in order to pay for the damages. Sarah seemed to know what she was thinking.
“It wasn’t as bad as it looked,” she said. “We managed to clean up most of the blood and the trays aren’t worth all that much, so, all you had to pay for were their bills.”
“And the three men—how were they?” Emily asked.
“Well, one has a few less teeth.” Kate laughed. “But I don’t think he had that many to begin with. As for Angelo, you did a pretty good number on his face. He wasn’t too happy when he left.”
“What about the man in the red coat, the one I…”
“Oh no, he’s fine. Bit of a sore throat, but Tom managed to sooth it with a few drinks, which you paid for of course.”
“Of course.” Emily pulled the strings of the purse closed. “I should have gone out there and apologized.”
“It’s probably better you didn’t,” Sarah said. “Besides, it’s not like they haven’t been in a few bar fights before.”
“Still, I didn’t handle it correctly.”
“Maybe.” Kate smiled. “Then again, everyone in that room will probably think twice before touching another waitress.”
“Thanks.”
“Go home,” Sarah told her. “Get some sleep. Things will look better in the morning.”
“What about you?”
“I have that date with Curt—remember? I’ll try to find out what I can about your Brian, if I can work it into the conversation, that is.”
“Just be careful.”
“I’m always careful,” Sarah said before leaving the kitchen.
Emily got up from the stool and headed toward the back room.
“Hey, Em,” Kate called out. “Don’t be so hard on yourself. The man had it coming.”
“Yeah, maybe.”
Chapter 8
Was It an Accident?
Emily didn’t return to the apartment right away. After leaving the Bird and Bay she walked to a clothing store only a few blocks away. She had seen it when Tar brought her home the other night and made a mental note of its location. As it was, she still walked two streets too far. Fortunately, the first person she stopped knew what store she was looking for: a small place called the Dusty Trunk. Needless to say it didn’t offer high-end fashion but instead sold secondhand clothing. It wasn’t what Sarah would consider attention-getting either, but it was modest, practical, and more importantly, cheap. Emily spent nearly an hour going through the racks, picking out a variety of items she felt comfortable wearing. When she finished, she left the store with several new outfits, a pair of boots, and a backpack and still had over half her pay left. Once outside, she flagged down the first jitney she saw.
The vehicle pulled up to the curb and the driver stuck his head out the window. He was a young man, probably in his early thirties, with a thin mustache and a dirty brown cap pulled down over his eyes.
“Where to, ma’am?”
“I need to get to the shipyard, the one on level thirteen. Is that possible?”
The driver thought for a minute and nodded. “It’ll be an extra ten for the tolls on the ramps.”
Emily took a mental inventory of her finances. She had enough to get to the shipyard, but not enough to get back. She might be walking home.
“No problem,” she said and slid into the back seat.
As they pulled away from the curb, she pulled the jacket she had purchased out of the backpack and slipped it on. It had seen better days; the sleeves were a bit frayed and there was a small hole in the left elbow, but it fit and it was comfortable, and that’s all that mattered. The style was definitely not something Sarah would have approved of. She would have labeled it a man’s jacket and therefore not very flattering, but that’s what Emily liked about it. It was unassuming, black, and made from natural materials. It even had a hood, which she pulled up over her head.
Leaning against the door of the jitney, she watched the city race by.
Her only two leads hadn’t taken her too far and she was running out of ideas of where to go next. Heading back to the shipyard was an act of desperation, one that would probably prove useless. If Brian’s meeting with the people in the long black vehicle didn’t end with his demise, he might return to the Aeolus. If for no other reason than to retrieve the black sphere. There was one problem though: he was taken yesterday. If he was fortunate enough to still be walking around, he had more than enough time to return to the airship and find the sphere missing. Where would he go after that? She had no idea. She didn’t know enough about Brian, the sphere, or who he was supposed to deliver it to. That meant her only other option was to track down the man in the green overcoat. He obviously knew who Brian was and might even know who Brian worked for: the man with the squeaky voice.
Where do you start looking for a man whose face you never saw? Take off the green overcoat and he could be anyone.
It was over an hour before the jitney pulled up to the curb outside the shipyard. Emily paid the driver his fare and waited until he left before going inside.
The Aeolus was still docked and taking on cargo. Dower engineers were still climbing all over it. It didn’t look as if it was ready to leave anytime soon. When she approached the ship, she wasn’t surprised to find the docks nearly empty. It was getting late and the crew was probably on board or out in the city harassing waitresses. There were, however, three white uniforms sitting around a barrel playing cards with a couple of dower engineers. Bright orange, yellow, and blue chips were stacked up in front of each player. Oddly enough, gambling was not one of the vices forbidden by the tenets. It was quite common in the monastery, although never for money. Attas would wager their chores instead.
“Excuse me,” she called out.
One of the airmen looked up and grinned. “Oh, it’s you again,” he said. “Did you manage to get your money from Brian?”
“I’m sorry?”
“Your friend, the cute girl that you were here with yesterday, she said Brian owed you some money. It had to be a pretty sum by the way you chased him out of her
e.”
“Oh, that. No, he managed to get away. That’s why I’m here. He hasn’t returned, has he?”
The airman paused for a moment and shook his head. “I haven’t seen him.” He turned to his companions. “What about you guys?”
One of the men slid a few yellow chips across the surface of the barrel, then laid his cards down. “He’s not back yet,” he said. “But if it helps, he should be back tonight.”
“Why do you say that?” Emily asked.
“He’s got the evening shift. He’s supposed to relieve Tonkson on RF duty.”
She had no idea what RF duty was, but if Brian was supposed to return, it wouldn’t do for him to spot her standing around waiting for him.
“What time is he supposed to be back?” she asked.
“Twenty-one hundred hours.”
“And, uh… what time is it now?”
The airman looked at his watch. “It’s eighteen fifty-three”
Emily thanked them before leaving the docks. She needed to find a place where she could observe the yard without being seen. Across the street, she spotted a covered entrance, raised off the sidewalk by a long flight of stairs. It would offer her a clear view of the Aeolus while keeping her hidden. Climbing her way to the top step, she sat down to wait.
Time passed slowly. With nothing to do, Emily stared out across the plains of Eryona. As the sun set beyond the mountains, and the shadows of the city receded back into the walls, the dust-covered plains turned a bright shade of orange as the evening light spread across the landscape. This was always her favorite time of the day, when everything seemed possible and life made sense, or that’s what it felt like when she was younger. Now that she was older, she could see how naive those ideas were. It also meant it was getting late, and she hadn’t seen hide nor hair of the elusive Brian. Maybe Tar was right and she’d never see the young man again.
Just when she thought she was wasting her time, a jitney pulled up outside the yard. Emily held her breath. A man in dark clothing and a woman in a bright blue dress climbed out of the back and ran across the street to one of the buildings.
By now, the sun was gone and the dust was no longer orange but a dark shade of blue. It was time to go home. As she got up from the step, another vehicle arrived. This time, the man who got out was wearing the white uniform of an airman, but it still wasn’t Brian. He was much too tall. Right behind him a third jitney pulled up, this one carried four airmen. Emily ran down the steps to get a closer look, but she already knew he wouldn’t be among them either. Curt told Sarah that Brian wasn’t the type to hang out with his fellow crew members. Sure enough, none of them even resembled her prey.
Standing at the base of the stairs, she looked past the shipyard to the distant mountains. Darkness had fallen. She had no idea if it was twenty-one hundred hours yet. Maybe she should have purchased that watch she found at the Dusty Trunk. It wasn’t very expensive and it would have come in handy. Tomorrow, she thought, after work, she’d head back over there, but for now, she needed to find a way home.
Shouldering her pack, she headed east toward the lift station. She could ride the lift up to tier ten, and after that, it was a long walk back to Sarah’s apartment. It would be easier to hire a jitney, but she’d need the extra fyn if she was going in search of the man in the green overcoat tomorrow. He was her last hope. With Brian gone, and no word from Mira, she was running out of leads. It was starting to look as if she was never going to find Squeaky Voice or get the gríma back.
Emily navigated the quiet sidewalks of the city via the islands created by the streetlamps. There was no difference between day or night in the Chimney. Without a sky, how could there be? There was no sun, no moon, no stars, no clouds, only stone. People were not supposed to live this way. Maybe that’s why the city was the way it was—because people were slowly going mad.
She wasn’t sure how far she walked when she spotted the familiar figure on the opposite side of the street. He was kind of hard to miss: a large, powerfully built vir, dressed in the uniform of a Red Wolf. He was heading east at a slow pace and looked like a man who was not thrilled about getting to his destination. Abandoning her path home for one of curiosity, Emily decided to follow Berk instead.
It was strange to see him on tier thirteen, so far away from his home base. She was under the assumption that this part of the city was controlled by another mercenary company, but to be fair, she didn’t understand how the Mercs operated or how territorial they were. She only had the misfortune of confronting two of the organizations, and from what she experienced, they were operated quite differently. For starters, the Blue Tigers seemed more organized and better equipped than the Red Wolves. If she had known that a few days ago, she would have taken her problem to the Tigers. They might not have dismissed her as quickly as the Red Wolves did. Of course, now, going to the Tigers would be paramount to a suicide mission. As Sinclair pointed out, it appeared the Blue Tigers considered her public enemy number one.
She tailed Berk for three blocks and didn’t have to be nearly as stealthy as when she followed Brian. The Merc wasn’t paying attention to his surroundings or even looking where he was going. He seemed preoccupied with something in his hand. It didn’t matter anyway. The people on the sidewalk parted before him. In spite of his boyish face, he was still an imposing figure. When he finally stopped, it was in front of a two-story building that looked as though it had long been abandoned. There was no glass in the windows, and the door looked as if it had been hastily boarded up. Berk glanced down at his hand again and that’s when Emily noticed the small notepad he had concealed in it. He looked between the building and his notepad a few more times before stepping up onto the porch. Checking around to see if anyone was watching, he grabbed hold of the boards barring the door and tore them off with ease. Wiping his hands on the back of his pants, he stepped inside the abandoned building.
Emily waited across the street. When it didn’t look as if he was coming out, she moved in closer. There was something odd about the surrounding area. The years seemed isolated to this one building. For some unknown reason, the other structures didn’t appear nearly as old. It was possible that they were built at different times, but the style and the architecture were almost identical. Reaching the porch, she stopped and inspected the frame around the door. It was gray and dry to the touch, as if every bit of moisture had been sucked out of it. She ran her hand down the molding and was able to pull a section of it off the wall with little effort. The wood crumbled in her hand. Emily rubbed the dust between her fingers. It felt chalky and brought back memories of her visit to the crypts beneath the monastery. Wiping the dust from her hands, she proceeded into the building.
The air was unnaturally cold and tasted stale. As she stood in the foyer, she could hear Berk talking. It seemed like an odd place for a rendezvous. Quietly, she made her way from room to room. The closer she got to where Berk was, the worse the damage appeared. Whatever happened radiated outward into the streets. She stopped to listen in on his conversation but only heard one voice.
“Fire. Definitely a fire… I think.”
It was Berk’s voice, and it sounded like he was talking to himself. Emily peeked into the room and saw him carelessly poking around at the decaying furniture. Just as she thought, he was alone.
“An accident… maybe… possibly… yeah, I’d say it was a fire in the hearth that got out of control.”
Was this an official Red Wolf investigation? If it was, it wasn’t worth the money someone was paying. She watched as Berk scribbled something down in his notepad and knew his conclusion of the cause of the damage was incorrect.
“It wasn’t a fire,” she said.
The large man spun around, his massive arms flying out on either side, turning a bookcase into a pile of dust. “Who’s there?” he shouted, sounding a bit nervous. “Show yourself. You are interfering in a Red Wolf investigation.”
Emily stepped out of the shadows and stood in the doorway.
“Didn’t you just say it was accident by fire? If it was an accident, how can it be a crime?”
“I didn’t say it was an accident, I said it might be an accident… I’m still investigating. I haven’t decided yet.”
“Decided? If you’re investigating, shouldn’t the evidence decide?”
“Yes, of course it will. What I meant was, I haven’t examined all the evidence yet. I still have to—” Berk stopped talking and took a closer look at Emily. “Haven’t I seen you somewhere before?”
Lowering the hood of her jacket, she stepped into the room. “That’s right. We met once a few days ago. You helped me find the Red Wolves’ headquarters.”
“You asked Captain Petrova for help, but he turned you down.”
“Somehow I didn’t meet his standards.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not surprised.” He slowly shook his head. “The Red Wolves have run into a few problems lately. Resources are low and Captain Petrova is very selective about which cases we take on.”
“I can imagine. I’ve seen the competition.”
Emily causally surveyed the area, making sure not to touch or disturb anything. Berk had already done enough damage with his so-called investigation. Now that she was standing in the room, it was easier to see the patterns along the wall and across the floor. Everything seemed to be drawn to one central point. Sweeping a bit of the decaying floor away with her foot, she exposed a series of thin black lines etched in the stone beneath.
“You know, you really shouldn’t be here,” Berk said. “I can get into a lot of trouble having a civilian interfering with an investigation.”
“I thought I’d repay the kindness you showed me, but if I’m going to be in the way, I’ll leave.” She headed for the door. “Just so you know, I stand by what I said. It wasn’t a fire.”
She barely made it out of the room before he called her back.
“Wait.”
“Problem?”