Grantville Gazette, Volume XII

by Eric Flint

  "You don't know any more than that?"

  "Nope. If it's him, he's about the same age as my dad, so I didn't really know him. Just some of the stuff from the rumor mill, you know. But I remember Dad saying that if it ever came down to a no-holds-barred no-rules fight with anyone, Harold was the one man in town he wanted on his side, 'cause there wasn't anything he wouldn't do in a fight."

  Gotthilf swallowed. This Herr Baxter did not sound like anyone he wanted to get involved with. He looked to Byron, and saw that his partner was sober-faced; no funny expressions at all.

  "If we need to know more, who should we talk to?"

  "Maybe Frank Jackson. Like I said, Baxter's from my dad's generation, so he ought to be around sixty years old. He's maybe just a little older than Frank, so Frank probably knows something more about him."

  On their way out of the office, Gotthilf looked at Byron. "The Penguin?"

  "Well, before I can tell you about the Penguin, we'll have to talk about Batman first."

  "Batman?" Fledermaus? Hieb? All sorts of thoughts went through Gotthilf's mind.

  "Batman. See, there's this comic series . . ."

  Americans were crazy, Gotthilf decided yet again.

  * * *

  Baxter watched his last customer of the day walk away from his table. The backpack he'd brought with him was empty. Six settings of stainless steel, a couple good butchers' knives and two settings of Melmac had all sold. Those who bought from him knew better than to try and bargain any longer. Once he said his price, that was it. Early on a couple of guys had tried to bargain with him, but he'd showed them. Every time they argued, he raised the price. He snickered at the thought of their expressions.

  He emptied his stein and waved for another. The thought ran through Baxter's head that he was getting into a rut. Maybe he needed to start looking for the dogs he had planned to buy. From the looks of it, he'd never have much more money than he had now. His stash of "unique up-time wares" was about to run out, and with Grantville bulging at the seams, he'd never be able to scrape up its like again. From what he could tell, even the garage sales in town were a mere shadow of what they used to be like. Seemed like whenever anything was offered for sale nowadays, down-timers would swoop down and carry it off, with only enough bargaining to salve their own pride. Nope, if he wanted to get his kennels started up, he'd have to get started, and right soon.

  * * *

  "Now?"

  "No." Benedikt Schiffer looked to his younger brother Ebert—half-brother, actually—as the familiar thought ran through his mind that his brother wasn't much brighter than the boar he was named after. Of course, the thought continued, his mother was noted more for being soft and placid than for any great amount of mental strength. Benedikt had inherited their father's brains and his mother's hardness. "No, Eb, we need to wait a bit longer. Make friends with him first."

  "Oh." Ebert turned his stein in his fingers. "I wish Lubbold hadn't gone and gotten himself killed."

  "Me, too, Eb. And don't talk about him anymore."

  "Why, Ben?"

  "Because," Benedikt summoned all of his scant patience, "he did something bad. He killed a little girl, and if people find out we were his friends, they might get mad at us."

  "Oh. Okay."

  That American word was popping up everywhere these days, Benedikt thought, then turned his mind back to Lubbold Vogler. Vogler the mastermind, whose plan to link gangs in different cities so that stolen goods could be transported to different regions for resale died just as it was about to be put into effect. Benedikt had come from Hannover with the final agreement of their folk, which was all that was needed according to Vogler, only to find him dead. Killed in a fight with city watchmen led by up-timers. Called themselves Polizei now, whatever that was supposed to mean. But to have everything—all the plans, all the contacts, all the names—resident only in Vogler's mind meant that it was all fuel for the flames of Hell. If the city men hadn't shot Vogler, Benedikt might well have done it himself. He ground his teeth until his jaw ached.

  So now, now Benedikt was trying to find something with which to salvage this trip, and he had stumbled onto Herr Baxter peddling bits and pieces of the up-time. He took another glance at his target out of the corner of his eye.

  * * *

  Gotthilf looked to Byron. "Is Herr Lang in sight?"

  "No." Byron muttered.

  "What was that?"

  "I said, you'd think it wouldn't be that hard to find one man."

  "Like you told me, if it was easy, they wouldn't need us." Gotthilf smiled.

  "Oh, shut up."

  * * *

  Harold looked up as two men seated themselves across the table from him. "I don't know you." Harold was a direct man. He didn't see much sense in dancing around—just get to the matter at hand. "What do you want?"

  "Ah, but you are well known, Herr Baxter. You are the man with the many up-time things—small things, but things that are so very useful that many people want."

  "You want them?" More directness.

  "Perhaps, Herr Baxter, perhaps. And there may be other things we want that you might be able to help us get. But I forget myself, talking business before introductions. I am Benedikt Schiffer and this is my brother Ebert."

  "Harold Baxter." Harold decided there was nothing lost by being polite, especially since they already knew his name, but he dropped his hand into his pocket to grab his razor just in case. "You boys ain't from around here, are you?"

  It appeared to Harold that it took the other man a moment to figure out what he'd said. "No, Herr Baxter, we are from Hannover."

  "That's a pretty fair distance from here." Harold spit into the fire. "You all didn't come this far just to talk to me."

  Benedikt waved at the waitress, and held up three fingers when she looked his way. "We came to conclude a business agreement, but by the time we got here, the merchant had died. We were seeking some other opportunity, when we happened to see you making your deals with the local peddlers. Your wares would be very welcome in Hannover, so we are interested in buying as much as we can."

  Harold's mind began racing. These guys weren't from here . . . they might pay a premium for what stock he had left. There were bits and pieces of stainless and a couple of knives still in the footlocker he had stored at the goldsmith's, but the prize was a full set of stainless and two sets of Melmac that he hadn't had to break up yet. He should be able to hold them up for good money. Maybe his kennel was closer than he thought.

  "Well," Harold drew the word out, "we might be able to do business, depending on what you want and how much you want to pay."

  Benedikt laid a groschen on the table. "We have money. How much we pay depends on what wares you have."

  Harold scratched his chin, thinking. "I'll want some silver—quite a bit of it for some of my stock—but maybe you boys can help me." Benedikt cocked his head and nodded for the up-timer to continue. "I want some breeding stock—dogs—fighting dogs, you understand?"

  "Like they use in bear baiting?" Benedikt asked.

  "What's bear baiting?"

  The two brothers looked at each other with obvious astonishment. Benedikt turned back to Harold. "Bear baiting? Where a bear is chained to a post, and a pack of dogs is loosed upon him? It is good sport."

  "Chained?" Harold went beyond astonishment. "Chained how?"

  "By the neck, or by a hind leg. There is much cheering, and betting on whether the dogs kill the bear or the bear kills the dog."

  Thrills were running up and down Harold's spine. "You're serious? They really do this? Where at?" He swallowed spittle.

  "They did not do this in the up-time?"

  "Are you kidding? I've seen dog fights and cock fights, but never anything like what you're talking about. The animal rights folks would have had to change their pants, they'd have been so upset. The old ladies in the churches would have screamed so loudly if something like that show was put on, the government would have shut it down so fast your he
ad would be spinning. They'd have thrown everyone they found at it in jail, and lost the keys to the locks."

  A bear-dog fight! Harold was salivating. It would be like something out of the old Roman days, he thought. Man oh man, he had to get in on this!

  "So, uh, you boys know someplace where this happens?"

  Benedikt got a knowing look in his eyes, like he knew he'd hooked a fish. Harold didn't care. If they could take him to a place where fights like that happened . . .

  "This is not our first time in Magdeburg, Herr Baxter." Benedikt's voice was smooth. "There is a bear pit outside the city. We know where it is." He turned to Ebert and rattled something else off too fast for Harold to follow. Ebert stood and went to the bar. "Ebert will see if the bar man knows when a fight will be."

  When he came back, Ebert rattled off some fast words in their version of German that Harold didn't catch. Benedikt asked a question, and Ebert nodded. Benedikt turned back to the up-timer with a smile that bordered on sly. "Fortune smiles on us. Tonight, Herr Baxter; there is a fight planned tonight."

  * * *

  Byron and Gotthilf had been searching for Albrecht Lang for a couple of days now, and even the normally ebullient Gotthilf was starting to show some signs of irritation. They walked along this morning, hands in pockets, with none of their normal conversation. For lack of a better destination, they were headed to the street where Byron had first seen the man, with the intention of once again questioning everyone in sight.

  "I suppose that," Gotthilf finally said, "if nothing else, we might make ourselves so great a nuisance that someone will say something just to get rid of us."

  "That's possib . . ." Byron stopped in mid-word and grabbed Gotthilf by the shoulder. "There he is—straight ahead and off to the left, next to that vegetable cart."

  It took a moment for other people to move out of the way enough for Gotthilf to spot their target. "I see him. He looks like a rat."

  Byron chuckled, leaned over and murmured, "I'll go around the crowd and come up on the other side of him. Count to a hundred, then move toward him."

  One of the things that still sometimes amazed Gotthilf about the up-timer lieutenant was that he could slide through a crowd of people like a knife through water—barely a ripple showing his passage. He wasn't sure if it was an up-time thing, or a tall person thing, or maybe just a Byron thing, although if he had to pick he'd probably take the last. But after a moment, he shrugged and started counting.

  ". . . 98, 99, 100." Gotthilf tugged at his jacket, patted the pockets where his new badge and his pistol rested, and started toward the object of their search. "Herr Lang?"

  "Yes?" An obsequious smile appeared on the pointed face of the peddler. "How may I help you, Herr . . .?"

  Gotthilf pulled his badge out and showed it to Lang. "Polizei." Before he could get another word out, Lang whirled and started to run . . . right into Byron, who grabbed him, spun him around and hauled one hand up behind him until his elbow was almost touching his shoulder blade.

  "Herr Lang," the up-timer pronounced, "we have some questions for you. Now, we can do this one of two ways: you can come with us politely and we'll buy you a beer afterwards, or we arrest you on suspicion of selling stolen merchandise and you can talk to us in the magistrate's court. What's it going to be?"

  "I . . . I know n-nothing," Lang stammered.

  "You are wrong," Gotthilf purred with a stark smile. His voice dropped to a murmur. "You know about Harold Baxter, and you really, really want to tell us all about him." Lang turned white, and would have dropped had Byron not been holding him up. "So let's go find that beer and you can tell us what you know."

  * * *

  Harold sat straight up in bed, then almost fell back again as someone drove a hot railroad spike through his temples. His stomach was calm, for which he would have thanked God if he believed in him. But his head felt as if someone was using the inside of it as an anvil to pound out horseshoes. He stood and stumbled to where his bush jacket hung from a peg in a wall. From one pocket he pulled a pill bottle, from which he shook a couple of APCs into his hand. Another of the many pockets produced a flat Jim Beam bottle with perhaps a finger's worth of amber liquid in it. The pills went into his mouth, followed by the last of the whiskey. Holding the bottle up in front of him, Harold said, "So long, Jim. I'm going to miss you." He screwed the cap back on the bottle and set it on the table. Something else that could be sold.

  It wasn't long before Harold felt half-way human again. What did he drink last night? The memory came to him: oh, yeah—shots of gin chased with ale. He remembered drinking Ebert and Benedikt under the table after the bear fight.

  The bear fight! His normally fulsome vulgar vocabulary failed him at the thought of what he had seen last night. The bear pit was really a pit, a big hole that had been dug in the ground, with seats that Harold could only call bleachers built up on both sides of it. Obviously, this pit had been here for quite a while and had regular enough action if the owners went to the extent of building the seating. A beer keg to one side and some guy selling sausages on skewers passed for a concession stand. Harold approved of the owners' smarts, and he was more than a little envious that they could operate so freely in the here and now. Well, it was going to be his turn soon.

  The fight, now—well, that was the most fun he'd ever had with his clothes on, better even than the last time he beat a woman into submission until she let him do whatever he wanted with her. The thrill of watching a dozen dogs tear into that bear and the bear tear back was way beyond sex. The blood flowed until much of the bottom of the pit was littered with dog corpses and red mud.

  It ended finally. The bear's ears were bloody ribbons, his front paws were mangled and his sides and back legs had had strips of hide torn off of them. Two dogs were left, both of which could have been ancestral stock of Rottweilers from the looks of them. They danced in and out, until finally the bear charged to the limit of the chain locked onto his left hind leg. That quickly it was over. The bear fell, and the two dogs were at his throat in black and tan blurs. Moments later, the weakening roars and bawls of the bear fell silent, to be replaced by the cheers of the crowd—those of them who hadn't lost money by betting on the bear, that is.

  Harold came back to the present, grinning for all he was worth. He knew what he wanted to do, now. He wanted to buy some breeding stock from the guy who owned the two big black and tan almost-Rottweilers and breed some dogs. Give him two years with good stock and the training he could give the resulting pups, and he could start cleaning up.

  Then he remembered what was supposed to happen this morning. He looked at his watch . . . only 9 a.m., more or less. Good, he still had time to get his stuff together before the Schiffer brothers showed up. Harold grabbed his jacket and headed out the door of his room.

  It wasn't far to the goldsmith's shop. A few minutes later Harold stepped into the front door of Meister Alaricus Glöckner. He was met by Dieter, the master's son and oldest journeyman.

  "Good morrow to you, Herr Baxter."

  "Hi, Dieter. I need to pick up my footlocker."

  "Pick up?"

  "I'm taking it with me."

  "Ah. A moment, please." He turned to an apprentice and murmured something that sent him scurrying for the back of the shop. "Will you be bringing it back?"

  "Probably not."

  Dieter frowned a little. Harold could see that he was sorry to lose the storage fees they had been assessing to keep his case in the safety of their strongroom. "Well, let me figure up the final charges, then."

  The apprentice lugged the footlocker through the back door in the middle of the bargaining over the storage fee. Harold was feeling so good that he only put up a token resistance and paid over a silver pfennig, receiving two broken bits back as change. Just as he bent over to grab the footlocker handle, the back door opened again and a girl entered the shop.

  "Didi, did you . . ." She turned pale, stopped and placed a hand on the wall.

  "Did
I what, Rosina?"

  Harold straightened with the footlocker in hand, smiled at the girl and walked out of the shop. His smile broadened as people stepped out of his way.

  * * *

  Gotthilf watched as Byron pounded on the door of the room for the second time. Still no response. The up-timer looked around. "Doesn't look like he's here. You know the way to that goldsmith Lang mentioned?"

  "Glöckner. I think so."

  "Let's go, then."

  * * *

  "Do we go see Herr Baxter now, Benedikt?"

  "Soon, Ebert."

  "And will he give us the pretty things?"

  "One way or another, Ebert. One way or another."

  * * *

  Gotthilf stopped in the middle of the street.

  "What's wrong?" Byron raised an eyebrow.

  "I turned the wrong way at that last corner. We need to go back that way."

  The two men reversed direction.

  "I thought you said you knew the way."

  "I do, but I haven't come at it from this direction before."

  "Where's a map when you need one?"

  "Oh, shut up."

  * * *

  Harold set the footlocker on his bed, then reached over to close the door. He pulled a couple of keys from his pocket, opened the padlocks, and threw open the lid to the footlocker. A quick check verified that everything was still there; all the pieces he needed to tempt the Schiffer brothers. Closing the lid, he snapped the padlocks back and put the keys back in his pocket.

  The bush jacket went back up on its peg. Harold stretched, then scratched his chin. The rasp of stubble and beard irritated him all of a sudden, so he decided to shave. It took a moment to unlock the small bag he had chained to the bed frame and pull out his soap and shaving mirror.

  The mirror got set up on the mantle over the small fireplace. He poured a small amount of water in the basin on the table, and lathered up enough suds to cover his face. It wasn't as good as shaving cream, but it worked. Harold pulled the straight razor out of his pants pocket, opened it, and lightly thumbed the edge. Still sharp from the last time he had worked it over, so he walked over to the mantle and began to shave.