Ghosts of Columbia

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  The sky lightened as I sipped tea and ate my way through a too-ripe pear and three slices of Marie’s bread slathered with my own blackberry preserves. I actually made them—had ever since I’d returned to Vanderbraak Centre.

  Finally I backed the Stanley out of the car barn and headed into town. I went around the square first, just for effect, before stopping in at Samaha’s to pick up my paper. Louie didn’t look at me when I left my dime on the counter. Neither did Rose, his equally dour wife.

  I didn’t open the paper until I was back in the Stanley. The story was played straight—too straight.

  Last night, a Vanderbraak Centre watch officer was killed, apparently by another officer, as he tried to enter the home of Johan Eschbach, a former Deputy Minister of Environment. Although Eschbach was not hurt, both the officer who was forced to stop the intruder and another attending officer suffered psychic disassociation.

  According to unofficial sources, after firing several shots, the intruding officer suffered a fatal skull fracture, apparently inflicted by a watch truncheon.

  Eschbach reported that the intruder wore a strange metal cap, a fact confirmed by the Vanderbraak Watch Chief, Hans Waetjen. Neither Waetjen nor Eschbach would speculate on the reason for the apparent attack or the cause of the psychic disassociation of the other two officers.

  Chief Waetjen indicated that a complete investigation is ongoing.

  I folded the paper and restarted the Stanley. After I pulled away from Samaha’s, I waved to Constable Gerhardt through the wind, and headed northward on Route Five, just until past the woolen mill. There I took the coveredbridge turnoff onto the back road that eventually reconnected to Route Five south of Vanderbraak Centre. In the dimness of the woods beyond the Reformed Church’s summer retreat, I twisted the knob under the dashboard to get the thermals on. The thermosensitive paint faded from red to maroon to dark gray.

  At that point I changed from coat and cravat into comfortable flannels and put the wallet with Vic Nuustrom’s license in it in my pocket. The coat and cravat went into the garment bag in the trunk, along with my real identification.

  I took Route Five south almost to Borkum, where the Wijk flowed into the Nieumaas, before taking Route Four west. Wider and smoother than the Ragged Mountain Highway that ran from south of Vanderbraak Centre to Lebanon, Route Four skirted the base of the Grunbergs and entered New Ostend just south and east of Hudson Falls.

  Just before I left New Bruges, I ran into a series of snow flurries, but they passed about the time I left Riisville and the girls’ seminary there. All the buildings at the seminary were white-painted clapboards, a southern affectation hardly at home in New Bruges.

  It was late morning, almost noon, before I crossed into New Ostend and Route Four became the Heisser Parkway. And that was despite some periods where I had the Stanley really moving on the open stretches. One positive sign was that none of the highway watch in New Bruges had stopped me. I had to admit that I began to breathe easier when I saw the sign that said WELCOME TO NEW OSTEND.

  By midafternoon I got to the outskirts of New Amsterdam, coming down the new Hudson River Bluffs parkway, two lanes in each direction all the way, with mulched gardens in the median. I even had the now-maroon Stanley close to its red line a few times, but even with the new parkways, driving was definitely not so fast as traveling by train.

  I stopped near Nyack to eat and to top off the tanks. I avoided the Royal Dutch stop on principle and pulled into the Standard Oil station. First came the water and kerosene, then the food.

  “Both?” asked the attendant, a girl not much older than Waltar would have been.

  “Both. Filtered water?”

  “It’s the only kind we have. Single or double A on the kerosene, sir?”

  “Double, please.” The double was nearly twenty cents a gallon higher, but the purity more than paid for the price in cleaner burners and, in my case, the ability to redline the Stanley if necessary. Eastern water wasn’t usually a problem, but some of the mineralized water in the west played hob with steam turbines, coated the vanes and literally tore them apart.

  The flaxen-haired, red-cheeked teenager wore her jacket open over a blue flannel shirt, despite the chill, and whistled something that sounded like the Fiddler’s March, well enough that any Brit would have been apoplectic.

  Standard Oil or not, the station had a well-mulched flower garden in the shape of an oval that matched the sign. Did the flower patterns spell out “Standard Oil” in the summer? I asked as she racked the kerosene nozzle.

  “No, sir. Grosspapa tried, but the blues didn’t really work out, and people complained. So I plant whatever suits me now that he can’t do the gardening anymore.” She smiled. “That came to twenty-five fifty, sir.”

  I nodded and handed her a twenty and a ten. With the latest round of energy taxes, fuels were running over three dollars a gallon. “Thank you.”

  “Thank you, sir. Please stop and see us again.” She handed me my change in silver.

  I drove a quarter-mile down the side road to the Irving Tavern, where I parked and locked the Stanley outside the restaurant. Lace curtains, freshly laundered, graced the windows. On the way into the dark-paneled dining room, where the dark wooden tables still shimmered, their wood set off by glistening white cloths, I picked up a copy of the New Amsterdam Post.

  “One, sir?”

  “Please.”

  The hostess’s white cap could have come from two centuries earlier. She escorted me to a small side table. “We have everything on the menu except for the pork dumplings, and the special is a dark kielbasa with sauerkraut. Would you like coffee or chocolate?”

  “Chocolate.”

  After pouring me a cup, she set the pot in the center of the table and waited as I studied the menu, glancing over the stuffed cabbage while trying to repress a shudder at the list of heavy entrees. If I ate half of what was listed, the Stanley would be carrying double—if I made it out the door.

  “I’ll have the Dutch almond noodles with the cheeses.”

  “They’re good today.” She nodded and departed.

  While I waited, I leafed through the Post and found the RPI wire story, which I read twice, stopping at the key paragraph.

  Although the Vanderbraak Centre watch officer killed in the scuffle outside former minister Eschbach’s house has been determined not to be Perkin Warbeck, his true identity remains unknown. Sources who have requested not to be named have indicated that items found on the dead man link him to the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

  In Columbia, President Armstrong called for an investigation of the Spazi, asking how the nation’s security service could allow a former official to be almost assaulted or murdered.

  Speaker Hartpence responded by calling a meeting with top officials of the Sedition Prevention and Security Service.

  Ambassador Schikelgruber responded by denying that the dead man had any connection to the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

  Public perception—that was the key. It didn’t matter what really happened in politics, but what people believed happened. Still, vanBecton would be out to nail my hide, preferably somewhere very dark and unpleasant, that is, if Ralston didn’t get me—and Llysette—first. I had to act quickly, but not too stupidly. It’s wonderful to be so well liked and wanted. The last paragraph had someone’s twist.

  Former minister Eschbach, no stranger to controversy from his links to the Colonel Nord incident and the man at the center of the strange occurrences at the university, was not available for comment.

  That was disturbing, because I clearly was available when the paper had been put to bed—or had vanBecton and company blocked my wireset? I wouldn’t have known. I hadn’t tried to call anyone after my comments to the Asten and Vanderbraak papers.

  “Here are your noodles,” offered the smiling hostess, who apparently doubled as waitress. “And your bread.”

  Along with the noodles and bread came four thick slabs of cheese—white cheddar, yellow chedda
r, Gouda, and a double Gloucester—and cauliflower smothered in processed cheese.

  “Thank you.”

  I forced myself to eat most of the noodles, but I couldn’t finish the cheeses or the bread.

  “Would you like any dessert? More chocolate?”

  “No, thank you.”

  The heavy lunch came to three-fifty, and I left a dollar tip before I lumbered out to the Stanley.

  There really wasn’t that much I could do except keep driving, not until I got to the Federal District. Once I left New Ostend and entered New Jersey on the Teaneck Parkway, I had to slow down because the parkway was so rough in spots. That was probably because Speaker Colmer had choked off most road payments to New Jersey more than a decade before, when the incidence of ghosts along newer highways rose as the number of Corsican “family” members precipitously dropped.

  Governor Biaggi had protested, but the Speaker refused even to meet with him, politely declining on the grounds that federal grants could not be dictated by local political concerns. That was right after Colmer had met with Governor Espy, the youngest governor ever from the state, and increased the road payments to Mississippi.

  It might have been coincidence, but Biaggi dropped his protests and the Spazi dropped their investigation of Governor Biaggi’s brother’s contracting business.

  Around ten that night, my eyes burning, I finally gave up, after winding down past Philadelphia and skirting Baltimore. It had been a long day, after too many days and worries with too little sleep. I wasn’t likely to sleep any longer in the future, either, not after I reached my immediate destination.

  In a town named Elioak, which I’d never heard of, about forty miles north of Columbia City, I found a motor hotel, not quite seedy, the kind that Vic, my transitional identity, could have afforded. I took a room and walked across the street to the chrome-plated diner meant to be a replica of the Western Zephyr. It wasn’t a very good replica. One waitress lounged behind the green-tiled counter, a gray rag in her hand, listlessly watching two white-haired men in the corner booth.

  “Fiske could stop any shot, even Ohiri’s … big lug broke Rissjen’s wrists …”

  “Still remember Summerall … got around anybody … big reason big Ben never got that hundredth shutout.”

  “Ben was overrated. Take what’s-his-name—the blond guy with the bad legs, played for the New Ostend Yanks for a year. Even he got one in the nets …”

  I slumped into the worn green leather of a booth for two, on the side where I could watch the door, and glanced at the dark-speckled menu as I waited for the woman to slouch from behind the counter.

  “What will you be having, sir?”

  “Number four, heavy on the gravy, and make sure it’s hot. Black tea.” I set the menu back in the holder with a thump.

  “Number four, hauler style.” A minute later she returned and set down the chipped white mug of tea. “Don’t see no rig,” she offered.

  “No rig. Woolen mill rig, up north. Just on the way to visit my sister. She lives outside pretty city.”

  “You going to make that tonight?”

  “No reason. Don’t get along with her man. He’s on the road tomorrow. Dumb bastard.” I shrugged. “She’s happy. I don’t mess, but I don’t put up with that crap.”

  “Takes all kinds.”

  I nodded and sipped the tea—bitter with a coffee aftertaste, just the way most haulers liked it, even in England. I could drink it without wincing, and that was about all I could manage, but the taste made it easy to look sullenly at the smears on the table’s varnish.

  The fried steak was far better than the tea, and the mashed potatoes didn’t even have lumps. The gravy was almost boiling, but the beans looked—and tasted—like soggy green paperboard. I doused them in the gravy and left a clean plate.

  “Don’t know how you haulers eat them beans. Tried’em. Taste like green pasteboard to me.” The sad-eyed waitress with the incipient jowls shook her head slowly. “You want any dessert?”

  “What’s good?”

  “Banana cream pie. Best thing Al makes.”

  “One slice and more tea.”

  “Haulers … guts like iron tubs.”

  Since it had been a long day since my heavy noodle lunch and a light and early breakfast, my stomach hadn’t been all that discerning. Then again, maybe lunch had put it in shock. The pie was good, certainly far better than the beans or the tea, and actually had a taste vaguely resembling bananas.

  I did manage to lock the room door before dropping almost straight into a too soft bed that felt more like a hammock than a bed. But Vic wouldn’t have minded, and I was too tired to care.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  The Albert Pick House had seen better days, probably back when it had been the Columbian flag hotel of the Statler chain, but it was still clean, and my room was three floors up, high enough to be off the street, low enough for some forms of emergency exit, not that I really wanted that. The videolink set was small. I supposed it worked, but I hadn’t bothered to check. Somehow even I wasn’t desperate enough to sit and watch video.

  With its fake Virginia plates, the steamer was safe enough in the hotel lot. They were actually copies of real plates, but since the originals were still in place on another Stanley, it wasn’t likely that anyone would care. I also had Maryland plates and a set from New Ostend racked inside the false trunk, all three sets made up in earlier, even more paranoid days after Elspeth’s death and right after I’d purchased the Stanley.

  My timing had been lousy, since there was no practical way to do what I needed to on a weekend. So all I could do was scout and plan and ensure that everything would go like clockwork on Monday. It wouldn’t, of course, but planning helped reduce the uncertainty—and the worry.

  Wearing the nondescript tan trench coat over my cheap, hard gray wool suit, a brush mustache, and a battered gray fedora, I left my closetlike room and walked down the hall. I noted the black plate across the lock of the room two doors down and wondered how long the hotel had been forced to seal it. After all, they couldn’t very well rent a haunted room to paying guests.

  I entered the elevator, nodding at a young man with lipstick on his cheek and a cravat not quite cinched up to his collar. He hadn’t shaved, but he looked happy as he left the elevator in the lobby. I hefted the battered sample case that contained the documents I needed as well as several other items, and strolled across the not-quite-threadbare imitation Persian carpet.

  The Bread and Chocolate pastry shop across the street provided two heavy nut rolls and bitter tea. I sipped and chewed until I finished all three and my stomach stopped growling.

  Then I slowly walked up Fifteenth Street, turning northwest on New Bruges and pausing for a moment in Ericson Circle. The gray of my clothes fit right in with the sky and my mood. I had plenty of time, and there was no reason to hurry. I could have driven, but you don’t get the same feel for things when you’re insulated inside a steamer.

  The pigeons looked at me from under every gray-painted lamppost, but they were city pigeons and didn’t move unless you almost stepped on them. Before long I reached Dupont Circle. The fountain in the circle had been drained and contained only dampened leaves, leaves that would have been removed had the fountain been in the square in Vanderbraak Centre or even in New Amsterdam or Asten, cities that they were. More pigeons skittered around the base of the fountain, and two old men leaned over a stone chess table like weathered statues.

  A block up on New Bruges Avenue, holiday-sized flags were flying from both the Chung Kuo embassy and the embassy of Imperial Japan, across the avenue from each other just as they were across the Sea of Japan from each other.

  According to my research, vanBecton lived in the upper Bruges area, uphill and behind the embassies. It was a long walk from downtown, but I needed the exercise, and the feel, and sitting around a hotel room would have driven me crazier. So I kept walking, keeping my eyes out for what I needed.

  One thing I wa
nted to find was the local power substation. In Columbia City they’re generally disguised as houses, and most passersby don’t give them a second thought. You can tell by the power lines, though. On a dead-end half-street off Tracy Place, I found the substation that probably served vanBecton’s house before I located the house itself.

  At first glance, the substation didn’t look much different from a normal, boxy, white-brick attempt at Dutch colonial, but there was a sloppiness in the off-white trim paint, a hopelessness in the way the lace curtains in the false windows were so precisely placed, and an un-lived-in air that permeated everything from the evenly placed azaleas to the cobwebs linking the porch pillars to the white bricks.

  To me, those were more apparent than the faint humming or the power lines that spread from the brick-walled backyard.

  I paused, resting my left leg on the low stone wall that contained the raised lawn, and balanced my battered case on my leg while I opened it and pretended to check the papers inside. I was actually studying the substation, making a few written notes and a lot more mental ones.

  There were definite advantages to working in more affluent areas, and I intended to make use of every one of them. With my notes taken, I walked along the hilly, tree-lined streets.

  Some houses had perfectly raked lawns and white-painted trim that gleamed, betraying the more northern origin of their owners. On others, especially those with pillars, the white paint almost seemed designed to peel, giving an aura of the lost South, the time that had begun to fade with Speaker Calhoun’s machinations. Senator Lincoln only applied the last nails to the coffin, nails that had led to his murder by Booth, the Anglophilic actor. And yet, despite the fall of slavery and its lifestyle, vampirelike, the essence of the English south still seemed to drift through the Federal District, especially in fog, twilight, and rain.