“A distraction,” Samantha said.
“Yes! Yes, a distraction. That’s it, that’s the one. Everyone needs a hobby, you know. And I miss the old days sometimes. I miss the old bravado. The rush. They say when you’re done, you’re done, but if I was, well. I’d go mad, I think.
“A man came to me not long ago. About two months ago. Little man with a mustache. Said his name was Colomb and he worked for someone very powerful in the city. Said he wasn’t a rich man, per se, but he had money he could spread around and he needed me to do a job. ‘A job?’ says I, and I act all interested. He said there was something they needed brought in. Naturally, I asked what, and he said he couldn’t tell me. Well, that wasn’t anything new, but old Spinsie doesn’t take a job unless he knows what he’s doing. I mean, what if it’s alive? What if it’s people? I knew a fella who got himself hung because he was smuggling women into Morocco and didn’t know it and a bunch of them died en route. One of the flaws of the game, I suppose.” He looked at Samantha very seriously. “I would never do anything to hurt a woman.”
“I believe you,” she said.
“I’m not like some people,” he said, shooting a glance at Hayes, who again ignored it.
“So, I told him I wouldn’t take it,” Spinsie continued. “Spinsie has rules. There’s things he does and things he doesn’t. After a bit of bargaining the man caves and he says the thing I’ll be handling is going to be ‘technology’ and I kindly ask him exactly what in the hell he means by that. He tells me they can get ahold of some very important McNaughton machinery, and they plan on holding it hostage. Maybe selling it to someone else. I’m sure you both are used to that sort of thing.”
“No, I’m afraid I’m not,” Samantha said.
“Oh. You, little brother?”
Hayes smiled slightly as though if he was he would never admit to it, perhaps out of professional modesty.
“Well,” Spinsie said. “Anyways. I got a bit concerned at that. Interfering with McNaughton business, that’s a little big. It’d be like walking up and putting a finger in God’s eye. But, you know, after a while I started to like the idea. I liked the idea of Spinsie pulling one over on McNaughton. David and Goliath sort of thing, and it’d put a bit of youth in my chest. And just maybe old Spinsie would see his little comrade again. If he tangled with McNaughton’s people, you see. And here you are,” he said softly. “Here you are, little brother.”
He thought for a moment. Then he turned to Samantha and said, “I never wanted anyone to die.”
“I know,” she said.
“I never did. Not at all.”
“I’m sure of it. Very sure. What sort of machine was it?” she asked.
“They didn’t say. I didn’t ask.”
“Is there anything you could tell me about it?”
“I’ll tell you what I knew then. They said it would be two crates. Only two. Big. Same dimensions. Same weight. Same items, really, from the sound of it. I asked them where they’d be coming in from. They said they had contacts in the East who’d rob a train heading through Russia. They’d pick the things up there, hop it to Novo-Mariinsk, and they’d have a ship coming in across the Baltic. I said that sounded elaborate as hell, so why would they want me handling it when they probably had someone already? And they said that it wasn’t just smuggling it in that was hard. It would be storing it. They’d want it in someplace safe. Someplace no one’d ever look at. So they needed an old hand for the trick, which was why they came to me. So I said I’d take it. Because, well, why not? You understand, don’t you, Miss Fairbanks? Sometimes a man needs to stretch his legs.”
“I do.”
He nodded and sipped his tea, though it was getting cold now. “So. So Spinsie starts planning. Starts thinking about how he’s going to do this. I already have some ideas, of course. Already know how to get the prizes on land and safe. And they’ve decided the ship’s arrival already. Going to be intercepted by a smaller vessel, which would come east and make a night landing, not too far west along the Strait from the city. And they had a few men ready. But from there they had no other idea. Well. I had a few. I used the old mortician switch. Remember that, Hayseed?”
“Oh, yes,” said Hayes. “If I recall, you always had a lot of reservations about killing the cat.”
“We didn’t always kill the cat,” Spinsie said angrily. “If we could find one that was already dead then that would be fine, too.”
“Or a dog,” said Hayes. “Or a bunch of rats. Or a chicken.”
“What?” said Samantha, puzzled.
“Right,” said Spinsie to her, with some professional relish. “See, the real problem with bringing in anything is, how do you make it something everyone treats with careful respect, and also wouldn’t ever want to open? The answer is, well, you put it in something sacred. A coffin works best in a pinch.”
“Oh, Lord,” Samantha said. She covered her mouth.
Spinsie chuckled. “Yeah. So what I planned on having us do was transfer the cargo to a different boat with the coffins and all, and then put the cargo in a big crate with ‘Quarantine’ on the side and a few dead things tossed in for the odor. People will leave that alone, you believe me.”
“What happens if they search the other coffins?” asked Samantha.
Spinsie hesitated. “Well… well, they’re not empty.”
“You use real coffins? With people?”
“I know a mortician chap who’s putting his kids through school, he lends them out to me,” Spinsie said, now flustered.
“What do their families say?”
“Not much, they don’t often know about it. It’s not like we use the same corpses every time.”
“I should hope not!”
Hayes cleared his throat. “I think we’re getting off topic.”
“Right, right,” Spinsie said hurriedly. “Anyways, so I get the funeral barge all ready and we go out there at the dead of night and wait for these bastards. They’ve got a fair group of people waiting there to help me out. Strong crew. I didn’t get all their names, I usually don’t want them. Maybe a few of those men you listed, maybe they were in there. But one of them.” Spinsie tapped the drawing. “He was there. Quiet fella. Didn’t say much, maybe didn’t say anything. At first, at least. Just waited. The others were rowdy, ’specially these two snotty little pricks. Fancied themselves great criminals. Simple thugs is what they were. Christ, I wanted to throttle them.”
Hayes smiled at that, almost in recognition, but said nothing.
“How many were there?” Samantha asked. “In all?”
“Eleven, maybe. Maybe twelve. All working men, it seemed.”
“I see,” Samantha said.
“I expected a delay, I always do, but this one came puttering along, right on time,” Spinsie said. “We all got up and got ready to load the cargo into the coffin ship, but it was funny. The ship that came… I mean, they said they were intercepting a big frigate from Anadyr, right? Out in the Bering? But the vessel that came was just a little thing. No way that boat could fare in the ocean proper. It’d founder in a minute.”
“How far would you put that ship’s range, Spinsie?” Hayes asked.
“Don’t know. Not much more than fifty miles. Maybe seventy. I wasn’t the only one who noticed it. The quiet fella. What was his name?”
“John,” said Samantha. “John Skiller.”
“Yeah. He noticed it, too. Asked me what sort of boat that was. It was a shore boat, really. Like a ferry. Not that I told him that, he didn’t need to know. But I think he figured it out anyways. He might’ve been the only one with a brain there. ’Cept for me, that is.
“So we pull the little ferry alongside the shore and haul the funeral boat up alongside, too, and we hop aboard to unload the crates. What they were, hell, I couldn’t expect. A weather machine. Or maybe the parts for a fancy new type of car. But as soon as I looked at the boxes, I know. You just get a sense. You carry things like that enough, you just know these thing
s.”
“What was it?” Samantha asked.
He shook his head. “The other men didn’t know. They picked them up and hauled them onto the coffin ship. I shouted at them to watch it but they still dropped the damn thing. It broke open, just a little. But they still saw.”
“What was it, Spinsie?” Hayes asked softly. “What was in the boxes?”
“Guns,” Spinsie said. “But guns like I’d never seen before, and I’ve seen a few in my day. Guns of a type that I don’t think exist anywhere yet. When Heaven invades Hell I hope God gives the angels a few of those guns. I didn’t know much about them but I knew I didn’t want to be around when they started going off. And Skiller. He saw. Started asking, ‘What are those? What are those?’ The others, they didn’t care. But Skiller wouldn’t have any part of it. Went all quiet once he realized what they were doing. Oh, he still loaded it, after a while. But I could tell he didn’t like it.
“We took the coffin ship back to the docks. Plan was to have the cargo shipped to a tobacconist pal of mine and have it repackaged as cigars. Then they’d wait a while and move it. Out to that, that big place, what’s it called?”
“Construct, probably,” Samantha said quietly.
“Yeah. You can stash anything there. The plan was to secure it real good, make sure no one could jimmy it. But once we got to the docks and unloaded them and started putting the corpses through the dockmaster we noticed Skiller was gone.”
“Gone?” Hayes asked.
“Yeah. Just gone. No one had any idea where he went or anything.”
“No one hurt him? No one attacked him?”
“No, not at all. He just slipped away.”
“Where do you think he went?” Samantha asked.
Spinsie shrugged. “Well, he wasn’t stupid. He knew something was up. He knew those guns hadn’t come from any Baltic freighter. Wherever they came from, it could only have been a few miles away. So I think he doubled back to the night landing, and just started walking. Started walking west to look for some pier. Some small dock. Something. To see where those guns had come from.”
Samantha and Hayes did not speak for some time. Spinsie rocked back and forth, glancing between them nervously, still desperate to please.
“Where are the guns now?” Hayes asked.
“I don’t know,” Spinsie said.
“You don’t?”
“No. After the tobacconist it was all up to them. They handled the Construct part. I wasn’t going in there.”
“And they didn’t know what they were going to do with the guns. Just that they were bringing stolen McNaughton cargo ashore.”
“Yeah. Yeah, little brother. That’s right.”
“Where was the night landing at? Off of what point on the shore west of here?”
Spinsie gave him the coordinates, or near enough.
“And you didn’t tell anyone about this?” Hayes asked.
“No. Spinsie keeps his mouth shut. Never says anything he doesn’t need to.”
Hayes nodded. “All right,” he said.
Spinsie glared at him. He took his cup of tea and tossed it back violently. Then he slammed it down on the table and said, “ ‘All right.’ All right, he says. Like he knows everything. You don’t know everything, you know that, little brother? Just ’cause you’ve been around. Just ’cause you managed to get out before I could. That doesn’t make you any better.”
“There’s no need to be angry,” Hayes said.
“I think there is. I think there’s plenty need. Always one step ahead, aren’t you, little brother? Always smarter than everyone else, always need to show it. How’s the god, Hayseed? How’s the little god that sits on your shoulder and tells you what to do? Very Socrates, that.”
“Enough,” Hayes said.
“You’re not always smart. Weren’t when I found you. Don’t think you are now. What put you on the streets? What about that girl you knocked up all those years ago, if you remember?”
“Enough,” Hayes said angrily.
But Spinsie kept talking, speaking louder with each word. “You didn’t see that coming. Didn’t see her putting the knife to her wrists, did you?”
“Enough!”
“Didn’t see daddy dearest tossing you out of house and home, did you, Hayseed, my little brother? Did you see that? Did you see that?”
Hayes rose and strode over to Spinsie and gave him three quick slaps. Spinsie recoiled and felt his lip and stared up at Hayes, stunned.
“You always were an ass, Spinsie,” Hayes said fiercely. “A stupid, ignorant ass. The reason I was always on land and you were at sea was that no one could ever stand you. You can’t even stand yourself. It’s the reason you were alone then and it’s the reason you’re alone now, and it’ll be the reason you’re alone for the rest of your damn days.” He turned around and waved to Samantha and said, “Come on.”
He marched out the front door with Samantha following. She hurried up to him and said, “Mr. Hayes, your friend, shouldn’t you-”
“He is not my friend, Sam.”
“But he-”
“He’s an idiot old man living an idiot old man’s life. I’m content to leave him here. Come on. Back up to the road.”
They were almost to the fence when she heard the shouting. She turned and saw Spinsie on his knees in his doorway, screaming at them to come back, come back, he had done a bad thing and he was sorry, just please come back. He waved his arms and then dropped them to his sides and sat there on the ground, watching them leave.
“Mr. Hayes?” she asked.
But Hayes did not hear her. He walked on until they could find a phone station and call a cab.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
It took Garvey more than three hours to get to Collins among the desks of the Department. It was much the same as it had always been in his absence, even painfully the same. Same stale scent of coffee. The sting of cheap aftershave and old cigarette smoke. The other police watched him with a medley of expressions, surprise and disdain and frowning sympathy. Garvey waited quietly in one of the chairs witnesses occupied so often, the box of files balanced on his knees. Finally Collins came charging in, riding a wild head of steam and still muttering curses. When Garvey stood he stopped and said, “Holy hell. What the fuck are you doing here?”
“I need to talk to you,” said Garvey.
“We don’t need to talk to you,” said Collins. He turned away. “Go talk to someone else.”
“And to show you something.”
“You don’t need to show me anything. Go home, Garvey.”
“Please, sir. Just listen to me.”
“No. No, no. Go home, Garvey. Just go home.”
“You need to see this.”
Collins squinted at him over his shoulder. “Would you bet your career on it?”
“I’d be willing to bet my life,” Garvey said simply.
Collins led him to his office. It was famously messy, covered in little cities of files and papers and paperweights, old clothes and shoes he had had to change in and out of in the depths of a case. They sat and Collins took out a pipe and read over the file as Garvey spoke, just like any other case, like any other day. With each word his lieutenant’s eyes became wider and wider. Eventually he turned off the light as if he didn’t want to see any more and they both sat in the dark.
“You’re sure about this?” said Collins.
“Positive. That’s McNaughton records. Right there. You can see the M.”
“How did you get these?”
“They were given to me,” said Garvey. “I’m not sure how they got them.”
“And you have a witness? That guy in the cabin? Out west?”
“I think so. And Colomb, if we can find them. We can make them testify.”
“You don’t know that.”
“No, I don’t. Not for sure. But we have to try. We have to try.”
Collins sat there, not moving, pipe ticking up and down in his mouth like the pendulum of a cl
ock. “And Brightly was directly involved.”
“He had to have been. He’s the director of Securities there, he had to have known. Maybe the whole board did, I don’t know.”
“But Brightly. You’re sure.”
“Yeah. I’m sure.”
Collins looked out onto the Murder office. Then he said, “Go home, Garvey.”
“But-”
“I know. I know. We’ll do something. We’ll do something soon. Tomorrow. Just go home for now. Where I can contact you. And we’ll do something. Okay?”
“Do you think we can win it? Make it stick?”
Collins sighed. “We’re already gearing up for this denner war, Garvey. You didn’t give me anything on the murders, and that’s what we’re concerned with. We got enough on our plate right now. But just go back home and come in tomorrow. All right?”
“All right,” said Garvey. He reached for the file.
“I’ll hold on to this,” said Collins sharply.
Garvey stopped. “Yeah,” he said. “Okay, that’s a good idea. That’s only half of it, though.”
“Half?”
“Yeah. I kept the rest. For security. I don’t like traveling with it.”
Collins looked down at the file. The paper flexed as he held it tighter. “Make sure you bring it, then. Tomorrow. Make sure you bring all of it.”
“All right.” Garvey stood and said, “Good night, sir.”
“I doubt that,” said Collins.
Collins sat in his office and watched Garvey walk away quickly. Weaving through the maze of desks as he’d done a thousand times. Then Collins strode out of his office and called for a phone.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
By the time they reached the ferry landing it was nearly dark. Samantha could not tell if it was raining or if it was the wind bringing the sea haze onto them. She suspected it was still raining, very slightly. Perhaps it had never really stopped.
“How far west is this again?” Samantha asked.
The Company Man Page 36
