His eyes held mine for a moment, then he nodded. “So yes,” he said. “Sohwetti is finished, and rightly so, though his fall will please some a good deal more than the Mahweni he represented, and that is less good. He was not a great man. He had his weaknesses, but he served my people as well as himself, and his disgrace reflects badly upon us.”
“He will be replaced,” I said.
“Yes. In time. And after a good deal of squabbling, all of which will allow our political enemies to regroup and consolidate. Until then, the unrest will build. Bloodily. If we are forced into a war with the Grappoli over the stolen Beacon, men like me will have to play riot policeman to thousands of my people who do not want to fight and die for a mineral they could never afford to buy and are not allowed to touch. Then I will have to decide which way to turn my rifle, and that is not a day I look forward to. I am glad to see you well, Miss Sutonga, and I mean you no harm, but your appearance has not been good for me or my people.”
“I understand that,” I said.
Emtezu’s wife pushed a ceramic mug across the table toward me, then returned to the sink. The baby she was cradling in one hand was asleep. I sampled the drink. It was cool and fragrant, a sweet wine made from flowers.
“So what can I do for you, Miss Sutonga?” asked her husband. “I assumed matters were concluded, but your presence here suggests otherwise.”
“The missing Beacon has not yet been recovered,” I said. “And I don’t think the Grappoli have it.”
Emtezu just sat there, head tipped slightly on one side. When I matched his silence, he eventually shrugged. “I’m sorry,” he said, “are you accusing me of something?”
“No,” I said. “I’m trying to make a connection.”
“Between what?”
“Between the disappearance of the world’s largest piece of luxorite and the death of an old Mahweni in the Red Fort.”
He waited for more, then just shook his head. “I can’t help you,” he concluded.
“What do you know about Archibald Mandel?” I asked.
He sighed, then shrugged. “Not much more than you, I imagine,” he said. “His command was only nominal, particularly since he became a politician. I barely saw him.”
“So the running of the fort fell to…?”
“Sergeant Major Gritt,” he said.
He spoke the words carefully, without inflection, but I felt the sudden stillness of Emtezu’s wife. It was as if a cloud had crept across the sun.
“That’s the man with the cane,” I said. “The sword stick.”
He said nothing, but looked away for a second. His wife had still not moved a muscle.
“What are you driving at, Miss Sutonga?” he asked, unfolding his arms. “You come into my house with no authority—”
“Exactly,” I said. “I have no authority. Nothing you say to me has any legal weight. Everything is off the record.”
He stared at me, and there was doubt in his eyes.
“Have you heard the term ‘Tchanka’?” I asked.
The static charge in the room seemed to leap. Emtezu’s eyes widened, but he shook his head.
A lie.
“Tell her.”
His wife had not turned around. Not yet. But then she said it again, and this time she did.
“Tell her, Tsanwe,” she said.
“I don’t know what you—” the Corporal began.
“If you don’t, I will,” she cut in. “He is a monster. A tyrant to our people. A killer, and not only in war.”
“Hearsay,” said Emtezu. “Hearsay that could cost me a dishonorable discharge at very least.”
“This will not go to the papers,” I said. “Or, if I can help it, the police. I am a private investigator exploring a separate crime.”
There was a moment of silence, and the walls of the kitchen, so different from the extravagant opulence of the Sohwetti estate, felt like they were closing in like the jaws of a vise.
“What do you want to know?” asked Emtezu.
“Several days ago you went to a luxorite dealer’s shop on Crommerty Street,” I said.
Whatever he had been steeling himself for, it was not this. He looked utterly baffled. “Yes,” he said. “So? Gritt said he had something to collect.”
“His cane.”
“Yes.”
“Why did he need you to go with him?”
“There had been some minor disagreement over the price of a piece he had been looking at,” said Emtezu dismissively. “He didn’t want to make a fuss. Just take his cane and leave while I talked to the shopkeeper. He seemed to think that a black man in a luxorite shop would attract so much attention that he would be able to do what he wanted unnoticed. Thought it was funny. Why? What is this about?”
“You didn’t think that strange?”
“Gritt sometimes…” He sought for the words.
His wife supplied them. “The sergeant major thinks his corporal is his personal servant,” she said. “The man uses his authority to make my husband, a good man, a strong man, run errands like a child, a slave.” Her face was hot, her eyes wide.
Emtezu bowed his head and, feeling his weary humiliation, I tried to refocus the conversation.
“You are sure it was his cane?” I asked.
“Absolutely,” said the Corporal. “He’s had it for years. It was a gift from the prime minister himself when he left the regiment.”
“Benjamin Tavestock gave him the cane?” I repeated.
“Yes. So?”
“And how did it come to be in the shop?”
“It had been stolen a few nights before,” said Emtezu. “These things sometimes show up in pawnbrokers’ very quickly.”
“Ansveld’s shop isn’t a pawnbroker’s,” I said. “Luxorite only. Other shops on the street are less singular in their focus. Macinnes’s, for instance. Does that name mean anything to you?”
Emtezu shook his head.
“Did Gritt know a Lani gang leader called Morlak? Big man, wears his hair long and tied back.”
“If he does, I’ve never seen them together,” he said.
“Do you think him capable of torturing a man to death?” I asked.
There was a long, loaded pause. Under the hard stare of his wife, Emtezu finally nodded.
“He’s done it before?” I asked.
“During the food riots, we took Mahweni prisoners,” said Emtezu. “They were locked up in the tower and interrogated. Some of them were there for days, and the black soldiers—my company—were kept at a distance, sent on maneuvers, patrols, or crowd control.”
I thought of Sarah’s uncle, who had died of his wounds after one of those riots.
“One day when we came back, the cells were empty,” said Emtezu. “They had been rinsed out, but you could still smell the blood and filth, so my men were ordered to scrub them clean.” He said the last words as if they were barbed and tore his throat on the way out.
“And the prisoners?”
“Never heard from them again,” said Emtezu. “At least a couple wandered home a day or two later, barely able to stand and reeking of alcohol. Getting people drunk was one of Gritt’s favorite methods of making them talk, but it also makes sure no one believes them if they tell tales of imprisonment and torture. One man’s body was found not far from the fort, killed, it was said, by weancats or hyenas. Two others were never found. An internal investigation found no evidence of wrongdoing against anyone stationed at the Red Fort.”
I nodded. There was a finality in his voice that said quite clearly what he thought would come of any poking around on my part. The likes of Gritt were immune to prosecution, and any attempt to bring them to justice would probably result only in collateral damage.
“Is this why you were going through the archive in the library?” I asked. “Searching for evidence of Gritt’s activities that you could feed to Sohwetti?”
He smiled sadly. “You are very clever,” he said. “But I found nothing. And with Sohwetti hu
miliated…” He shrugged. “I’m sorry I can’t help.”
“You have,” I said. “And I’m grateful.” I turned to his wife. “And for the wine. It was delicious. I hope…” I faltered, unsure of what to say. “I hope tomorrow is a better day.”
“We all do,” she answered, showing me out. “Every day. These are bad days in which to raise children.”
I nodded, thinking of Kalla so that my eyes fell on her infant and my heart was suddenly filled with sadness and regret.
“Miss Sutonga,” added Emtezu.
I turned and found him brooding, watching me. “Yes?”
“Do not go near Claus Gritt,” he said. “He may not actually be the devil the Mahweni think him, but he is close to it. Very close indeed.”
CHAPTER
32
SARAH WAS CARRYING A bundle of newspapers to sell, but her entire demeanor had changed. She seemed taller, more buoyant, as if success had inflated something within her. Possibility, perhaps.
“Still selling papers?” I remarked. “I thought you’d be editor in chief by now.”
“As of next week,” she said, unable to keep the furious joy out of her eyes, “I’m going to be an apprentice reporter.”
“Congratulations, Sarah,” I said. “And thanks. That story may have saved my life.”
“You’re welcome,” she said. “And it’s Sureyna from now on.”
I hesitated for only a second. “Your birth name?” I said.
She nodded. “Now would seem to be the time,” she said, caught between pride and embarrassment. “Did you see this?” She thrust a newspaper into my hands and indicated a block of text.
The Right Honorable Thomas DeKlepp, Secretary of National Security, responding to recent Mahweni protests said, “It is unfortunate that elements of the black community do not show an appropriate level of patriotism. It makes one wonder where their true loyalties lie.” When pressed as to whether he thought Mahweni elements may have been involved in the theft of the Beacon and may be in league with the Grappoli, the secretary said that he could not comment at present but that investigations were ongoing and that “nothing would surprise” him, particularly given the recent “failures of leadership within the black community.”
I winced.
“I don’t know what you are doing exactly,” said Sureyna, “but whatever it is, do it well and do it fast. You don’t have very long. None of us do.” As she spoke, she fished something from her pocket. “I hope this helps.”
She handed me a scrap of paper penciled in Tanish’s untidy scrawl.
Morlak handing off box tonite. Pier 7, Ware house 3. Midnite. Westsiders will be there too.
I stared at the note.
Finally, I thought.
This was where we took a step back from the brink.
“What’s in the box?” asked Sureyna.
“Not sure,” I said.
“But you suspect.”
“I suspect,” I agreed, my eyes wandering up and over the rooftops to where, not so many days ago, the Beacon had once blazed for all to see. “Can you meet me before you start work tomorrow?”
“Where?”
“Here,” I said. “First light. I will have something for the apprentice reporter. Something special.”
* * *
“THAT PART OF THE docks serves ships using the Cape shipping lanes,” said Willinghouse, considering Tanish’s note.
He was sitting beside me in the police carriage. Von Strahden was next to Andrews.
For a moment, as the full implication of this settled upon us, no one spoke.
“The Grappoli,” said Andrews.
“That seems likely, yes,” said Willinghouse.
“Then we’re going to war,” said Andrews, “unless we recover the Beacon and find a way for the Grappoli to save face.”
“How?” asked Von Strahden. “If anyone finds out, and I mean anyone—”
“If we recover it, it’s a victory,” said Willinghouse. “We can make the rest go away. We may even emerge with some bargaining power against the Grappoli.”
Von Strahden conceded the point. “We’ll have to time our entrance very carefully,” he said. “We need to catch them in the act of the handoff.”
“My men are ready,” said Andrews, taking a revolver from his pocket and slotting bullets into its cylinder. I had loaded mine too, helping myself to ammunition from a supply bin back at the station when no one was looking, but Andrews didn’t know I was armed.
“The Westsiders,” said Willinghouse, rereading Tanish’s note. “Who are they?”
“A minor gang who work the south-bank docks,” said Andrews. “Led by a man called Deveril.”
“Wears a top hat,” I added. “They’ve been dealing with the Seventh Street gang for weeks, swapping merchandise, even personnel.”
Berrit another commodity to be traded, this one disposable.
There was a thoughtful silence. I could smell the tang of the sea through the city’s constant eddies of sulfurous industrial fog. In the distance, I could hear chanting. One of the protests downtown was going late. I wondered if troops had been sent in yet.
“Well,” said Von Strahden to break the tension, “this is all jolly exciting!”
“Makes a change from dispatching survey crews and reading reports, I imagine,” I agreed, remembering the day he had driven me into town with Dahria.
“Survey crews?” said Willinghouse blankly.
“She just means government work,” said Von Strahden heartily. “Oh yes, this is much more thrilling.”
Willinghouse still looked fogged, but Andrews cut them off with a sober look.
“When we get to Dock Street,” he said, “I want you three well clear. This is a police operation. I want no civilian casualties, and I sure as hell don’t want amateurs messing things up. The department is being watched very closely on this one. I have to report to the prime minister’s personal secretary before returning home tonight.”
“In a few hours, you will be able to hand him the Beacon personally,” I said.
Von Strahden gave me an encouraging smile, but Andrews merely frowned.
* * *
WE CROSSED THE RIVER by the fish wharf and reached the Warehouse District an hour early. Pier 7 was on the outer edge of the south-side harbor: strictly cargo served by a single railway siding. Even in daylight it was unsavory, its corridors of stacked containers, squalid shipping offices, and looming, faceless warehouses permanently hung with the stench of the river and the engines that worked it. The worst slums in the city were on this side of the river, and after dark, only those who truly had to go there walked the streets.
The police presence numbered a dozen, not including Andrews, and they bristled with shotguns and breech-loading carbines. I had never seen such firepower outside the dragoons and it made me uneasy.
Andrews arranged his men around the perimeter of the warehouse, dispatching Willinghouse and Von Strahden to a storage facility some distance away. I was supposed to go with them, but I slipped away as soon as we got there, working my way back to Warehouse 3 by way of the corrugated roofs, service gantries, and freight cranes that made it possible to cover almost the entire distance without ever touching the ground.
A series of long ventilation shutters ran along the warehouse’s ridgeline, and I was able to jimmy one open and squeeze through, dropping silently onto a maintenance catwalk. It ran to a shuttered observation booth suspended from the roof, but otherwise, there was nothing up there. Below, the warehouse was spread out; a mass of heaped crates, pallets, and sacks lost in shadow save where a single gas lamp glowed. The place smelled of the sea, rusting metal, and the warm, dry pine of the crates. I lay on my back, trying to get glimpses of the stars through the vents, listening.
It was nearly done. In an hour, we would have the Beacon, answers, and—shortly thereafter—peace. It was about time.
For a long while, nothing stirred in the warehouse, and some of my excitement began to drain aw
ay as I put all my effort into keeping still. When a door somewhere finally creaked open, it did so loudly, clumsily, and with it came the sound of conversation and a bark of laughter. They were either very confident or out of their depth.
I rolled slowly onto my stomach, feeling the slight sway of the catwalk as I shifted, staring through the welded footplates to the little pool of bluish light below. I recognized Fevel, the black man who had chased me the night I was taken to Willinghouse’s place, and two others whose faces I couldn’t see from above.
It was those two who were carrying the crate. When they set it down, Fevel sat on it, as if to prove his nonchalance, and lit a cigar. I saw the yellow flare of his match, and the tiny red glow as he drew on it. My mouth was dry. Fevel had sentenced me to die in the tower and was prepared to finish the job when I’d survived.
I felt the weight of the loaded revolver in my satchel, as I watched him from above like a perching eagle. He was no more than fifty or sixty feet away, and after a few moments, I could smell the smoke from his cigar, but I was invisible to him in the shadows of the roof. I thought of the Lani myth of the angel of death, who swoops unseen to carry off the departed, then of Gritt, the devil-man the Mahweni called Tchanka. Would he make an appearance tonight? It would be tidy if he did, and would make his conviction easier, but I had no desire to see him. The man’s reputation had worked itself into the dark places of my head.
I thought of the tap of the cane between the footsteps in the fog the night Billy had died. Had that been him, or Morlak? I was as sure as I could be that it hadn’t been Mnenga, and that was a bigger relief than I had expected.
On the warehouse floor, the big Mahweni had a shotgun, which he cracked and checked. Fevel produced a pistol and toyed with it. The other boys had crowbars and knives, and they fidgeted with them, putting on a show of strength they didn’t quite believe.
The Westsiders arrived five minutes later, led by Deveril himself, complete with his feathered top hat. He had another four with him, big men armed with rifles and boat hooks. They looked to be Lani, and they moved with the splayed, rolling gait of men used to being onboard ship. Fevel and the boys instinctively clustered, outgunned and outmanned in every sense of the term.
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