by William Ray
On his own, Gus would have asked much less up front and then pressed her for more in expenses on the back end, dickering back and forth and, if she were any good, ending up at less than two hundred for the whole affair. He doubted Emily would have done much better. Restraining himself from acting giddy at his windfall from Missus Phand’s impatience, Gus smiled pleasantly and replied, “I think that should be acceptable, under the circumstances.”
Missus Phand nodded once and spun on her heel, marching out of the room in a manner he would have admired as a colour sergeant. As Missus Phand pushed past her, Emily gave a few awkward goodbyes that were totally ignored, then looked back and frowned at the money on the table. She hurried across the room, quickly scooped up the cash, and counted it a few times, murmuring petulantly, “She didn’t sign the contract.”
“It’s fine. Woman like that? She’ll pay the rest. If she doesn’t we just won’t tell her what we find, and we’ll still have the first hundred.”
“‘Women can tell.’ Ha. Not as often as they think, or I’d have been in a lot more trouble.” Emily cleared away the untouched tea, which Gus had no doubt was another strike against Missus Phand in her book. “She was putting on airs. I don’t trust her.”
Gus shrugged and looked around for his coat, saying, “Well, you don’t have to. It’s a quick tail and report, and I won’t need you to do anything. Besides, you weren’t expecting me to do any work this week, and yet we’re already well paid up front!”
“You were the one not expecting to do any work! I was still hoping you would! Do you even know where you’re going?”
He grinned at her and said, “Phand and someone, right?”
Emily looked surprised and replied, “Saucier. I didn’t think you’d remember them.”
“I didn’t, but if he’s a prominent engineer, he’s part of some firm with his name and someone else’s, right? I’m sure Louis will know where they are.” Somehow his coat had ended up crumpled beneath his desk, and Gus kept his left leg stiff as he awkwardly bent down to retrieve it. “I’m surprised you remember it though. That must be some bridge.”
She shook her head, looking baffled at his ignorance. “It is. I can’t believe you don’t know it; you’re from Oulm!” He just shrugged; he supposed he had lost whatever vestiges of civic pride he might have had after joining the army. She frowned at him in frustration and added, “They even mentioned it in the paper again this week! Apparently Doctor Phand has some new big building under consideration for the upcoming exposition in Khanom, but people are protesting it.”
“What for?”
She shrugged and said, “They think it’s ugly, I guess.”
“No, I mean why are they building things like that for an exposition in Khanom?” Expositions were usually a Garren thing, an excuse to demand everyone come to some distant city to see their latest display of national pride as if they hadn’t needed Verin to save them in Aelfua. Khanom was in Verin’s section of Aelfua, which seemed remote enough that Gus had a hard time imagining what they could be so proud of.
Emily stared at him a long moment as if trying to decide if he were serious, then said, “The Aelfua Exposition? It’s to celebrate forty years since we defeated the Elves.”
“Forty? Aren’t these things usually at fives?”
“I suppose they didn’t feel like waiting another decade. They’ve been discussing it for the past year—as the biggest city in Verin Aelfua, Khanom is going to host it. Don’t you ever read the paper?”
“Of course I do, just not every section.” Emily rolled her eyes at that, and Gus limped towards the door, slowly working some of the stiffness out of his leg. He stepped out into the foyer and plucked his hat from the rack, somewhat relieved to discover it had made it here through his evening’s revels. He turned back to Emily, tried to conjure his most charming smile even though that seldom seemed to work on her, and said, “Relax. This will be easy money.”
~
“Tuls Ship Found Adrift”
Garren sailors aboard the OMV Fuquare have reported sighting a Tuls ship adrift along the western waters of the Aelfuan Strait. The vessel’s name remains unknown as none aboard were able to read Tuls, but all witnesses agree it was an older mercantile vessel. Although the ship was under sail when sighted, no crew was visible abovedeck.
With reports that spreading disease is being left unchecked by the newly empowered Workers’ Revolutionary Committee and foul health running rampant in Tulsmonia, fear of contamination prevented further investigation by the Fuquare’s crew. Sailors interviewed claimed no warning flags were flown by the Tuls vessel to indicate plague aboard, but the second mate speculated that inexperienced sailors fleeing the chaos in that country might not have thought to raise one.
– Gemmen Herald, 6 Tal. 389
~
- CHAPTER 3 -
The chill of winter had been slow to fade into the pleasant cool of spring, but the warmth of the morning sun and the leavings of traffic had already thawed much of Gemmen’s stench. The war in Gedlund had taught Gus to hate snow, but in Gemmen a light dusting worked wonders for the nose. Unfortunately, that seasonal mercy had already been replaced by a continuous cold drizzle that only worked half so well. Come summer, that would dry up a bit, forcing anyone with means to leave the city and escape the fetid mix of horse, horse droppings, soot, and whatever refuse lay rotting nearby.
Gus made his way from the office towards the nearest taxi stand and paused at the corner to toss down a couple of bits, so he could take a paper from the boy stationed there. It was usually the Gemmen Standard, but some days the boy from the Gemmen Herald managed to seize control of the corner.
One paper was as good as another as far as Gus was concerned, and he didn’t pay attention to which it was. As he scooped up the latest edition, however, he relished in proving her wrong once again. Of course he read the paper. Half of his job was standing around and holding up a newspaper, so he would look inconspicuous. That didn’t mean he should be expected to remember every article.
Paper in hand, Gus decided to cut through an alleyway running parallel, rather than risk his pants to a splatter of muck from the roads. The alleyway was full of garbage, including a slowly decaying mutt that had died there sometime last month, but in the shadows between the buildings, frost still clung through morning, muting the usual reek. In summer, the alley was untenable, but in spring, it was the only route safe from the foul slurry tossed up by passing traffic.
Keeping to shallow breaths, he made his way behind the buildings and then back onto the street at the end of the block where the taxis usually loitered. He approached the nearby taxi stand but bypassed the first two hacks, ignoring the drivers as they touted their services. Their rates were regulated, and passengers were supposed to go with the first cab in line, but fares here weren’t so plentiful as to let that stifle competition.
In this part of the city, taxis were required to charge based on the number of intersections passed through along the way, so they competed to lure passengers from each other by shouting out popular landmarks and claiming how few intersections it would take them to get there. In practice, the intersection count was often conveniently forgotten, and then they would dicker with passengers over the proper rate at the other end.
Louis sat in the third spot in line, ignoring the competition and reading a paper of his own, although he set it aside and grinned down as Gus approached. The other two cabs were open top, but Louis had an enclosed taxi with windows, which on a tail made it a little less likely Gus would be spotted and recognized while following. It was also one of the nicer cabs in this district, which meant it could blend in with those in more upscale neighborhoods, but it wasn’t so nice that it would seem out of place here either.
The drivers ahead in line shouted angrily as Gus hopped into Louis’s hack instead of theirs, spitting out colorful curses that Louis merely waved off with his coachwhip as he urged his horses out into traffic.
A
lbeit a few months late, the city had finally cast more sand over the roadway, which made it safer for the horses, but in the weeks that followed new sand, vehicles rolling over the granular slurry made an awful grinding sound. The presence of the new noise required drivers to shout their imprecations at one another more loudly, and the horses, picking up on the commotion, seemed to adjust their various musings to match.
Over the clatter of the streets, Louis called back through the small open window behind the driver’s perch, “What are we after today, sir?”
“An engineer. You ever heard of Phand & Saucier?” It was an absurd question, really; Gemmen held thousands of businesses, most of which were firms named someone and someone else.
The cabbie thought for a moment as he drove forwards, then called back, “That’s downtown, isn’t it? Same building where George Lupo’s got his firm.”
Gus laughed and shook his head ruefully as if Louis had beaten him at another attempt to stump him. Truthfully, he had no idea who George Lupo was, much less where his office sat, but it helped for an inquiry agent to have a knowledgeable mystique. Taking the laugh as his answer, Louis nodded to himself and begun to whistle a bright little ditty as they rolled along.
With any other cabbie, Gus would have had to look up more information before hopping in, but besides owning a hack and a pair of horses to pull it, Louis was notable for never forgetting a song and being able to find just about any place in town. On numerous occasions, Gus had tried to stump him on both counts, and had yet to be successful at either.
Emily criticized him for spending too much on the cabbie, but if Louis hadn’t been here waiting for a fare, Gus would have had to taxi all the way to the library or else drop by the Register of Deeds and been out the cost of a bribe for a peek at the index. Even better, Louis would usually work on credit, only making Gus pay up once the client paid him for the job.
As much as he wanted to listen in, to try and guess at whatever song the cabbie was whistling, Gus imagined the famous husband of a plummy younger woman like Alice Phand would likely work in a nicer part of town, so he sank away from the cab’s front window as they neared the rail bridge. Various rail lines divided the city into sections, and since the tracks were kept elevated to avoid disruption to traffic, passage from one section of the city to the next meant braving a rain of soot falling from overhead.
As the soot fell past the windows, Gus laughed, suddenly realizing that Louis’s tune was ‘White Parasol’, a popular club ditty from last season. It was about a man trying to court a girl above his station, who was so rich that she never had to step beyond the nicest parts of town, thus her perfectly unsullied white parasol. Amused by the cabbie’s choice of selection as they passed below the tracks, Gus hummed it for a bit himself.
Louis drove them towards the richer districts of the city’s center, where the girl of White Parasol supposedly lived. Massive digging was underway there. In a few years, the city’s rail systems would be underground to reduce congestion and free up valuable real estate. Hurtling through dark tunnels choked with smog didn’t strike Gus as much of an improvement, but he imagined the White Parasol girl would never be pressed into crowded trains anyway. Once completed, the train tunnels would probably be like the hidden passages for the servants in her home—there for her benefit, but not a place she need ever deign visit herself.
As they drew into the heart of downtown, the buildings were a pristine white, although most had a band of brown occasionally visible through the bustle of the sidewalk, stained where legions of job seekers habitually leaned against the buildings while they idled the day away. Some could find work on the train tunnels, but those who weren’t chosen that day would linger, standing about in the hope that some wealthy benefactor native to these districts might need an errand run.
After the war in Gedlund, there had been a temporary burst of prosperity when passage through the Aelfuan Strait was finally open to commercial traffic. Trade with the distant east had brought new goods and new money, but only briefly, leaving the city crowded with hopefuls seeking opportunities that had quickly evaporated. Somehow either the eastern merchants were getting the better of their Verin counterparts, or the people at the top were keeping it all.
The initial flourish of trade had managed to mint many new millionaires, but when the money never quite materialized, the ensuing market panic impoverished the whole nation. Most of those now leaning against the buildings hadn’t even been playing at stocks, but somehow they were all now paying for it. For an inquiry agent trailing a mark, however, rampant unemployment had been a great boon; men loitering around and looking through the paper were now such a common sight that he was practically invisible.
Louis eventually pulled to a stop in front of an unassuming building near the center of town. The streets here were always a bustle of activity during the day, with busy people hurrying about on various errands. Hopping out of the cab, Gus gestured towards the entrance, and Louis nodded to confirm that was the place.
The roads in this part of town had been widened for traffic by cutting down the width of the sidewalks. There was enough room for two people to pass one another, but with the usual assortment of loiterers leaning up against the wall reading a paper, having a smoke, or just staring with dismal hopelessness out at passing traffic, there was barely enough room for a single-file of foot traffic. Gus shouldered his way into the crowd and made towards the nearest entrance.
The building did not seem like the sort of grand edifice that would contain a firm famous for engineering marvelous things, but Gus supposed they had to buy their office space before they could start making designs of their own. Seeing he was a bit better dressed than the loitering workmen, a bored looking footman swung open the door for Gus as he approached. He stepped into a palatial foyer of white marble and glittering gilt, a bit startled by the ostentatious display inside a building with such drab exterior.
Gus looked around for some sort of directory at the entrance, but apparently no one had considered that here. Without any other clues as to which office would be theirs, he eventually had to accost a well-dressed young man descending the stairwell from the levels above. Putting on a sheepish grin, Gus asked, “Excuse me sir, but I’m looking for Edward Phand. Is he in this building?”
The young man smiled warmly, “Oh, yes! We’re up on twelve!” Gus murmured his thanks and started past, but then the gentleman called after, “If you’re seeking Doctor Phand, however, I’m afraid he’s on his way out just now.” The helpful stranger gestured towards a heavyset older man with curly black hair and a distinctive square-cut beard who was making his way out the doors. Gus called his thanks back and hurried out after his quarry.
In front of the building, Louis was engaged in an argument with some Gemmen businessman who was apparently vigorously haggling over the cost of a ride. Judging by his clothes, as cheap as he was about the cost of a cab, the man probably had more money than Gus and Louis put together. Seeing Gus’s approach, Louis reached down with his foot and gave the businessman a shove to the shoulder, “Off! My fare’s here. Beat it!”
From the look of annoyance on Louis’s face, Gus wondered if he’d have given the man a ride even if they weren’t already engaged. Fortunately, Louis was loyal enough to keep his end of the bargain rather than go after higher-paying fares; otherwise, a flashier offer might leave Gus without means to follow Phand. A good cabbie was an important tool for any inquiry agent. Gus climbed up into the cab, scanning the street and trying to figure out where the engineer could have gone in the brief moment he was out of sight.
There were a few cabs on the road, but none were just now pulling out, and Gus doubted the tubby, well-dressed older man had stepped into the filth of the roadway to hop into a cab amid traffic. Turning his eyes back towards the sidewalks, Gus quickly scanned past the shabby loiterers and spotted Doctor Phand as he emerged out of an alleyway, pushing along a safety bicycle of all things.
After making a co
mically awkward climb aboard the contraption, he began to wobble out into the street. Bicycles were all the rage when he made it back from Gedlund, and Adelaide had even talked him into trying one out. But balancing precariously atop a giant wheel had proven awkward when his leg wasn’t bothering him and disastrous when it did. The fad had died down, but the papers claimed the new safety bicycles like Phand rode were rapidly gaining popularity.
With both wheels the same size, and the whole contraption much closer to the ground than the earlier model Gus had repeatedly fallen down from, messenger companies had adopted the new bicycles almost immediately. Apparently, they were popular with overweight engineers as well. Watching Phand wobble along lanes crowded with horses that towered over him, Gus found the sight of the man dodging his two-wheeled conveyance around the larger piles of manure left in the road entirely hilarious.
The engineer hadn’t even dressed for the exercise and was wearing the sort of dark suit and clean bowler he would put on for a day at the office. Doctor Phand’s shoes and pants would be liberally splattered with muck by the time he got anyplace, and every time he swerved around a pothole or pile of dung, he had to grab his hat to keep it from falling askew.
Phand’s uneven pedaling might have been moving him faster than he could have managed on foot, but the overweight engineer still couldn’t keep pace with the horses trotting past. Gus let him work out a slight lead and then leaned up to Louis and called out, “Follow that fat man on the bicycle!”
This job was not only easy money, but also turning out to be fun. He worried they were making a spectacle of themselves as the other hack drivers cursed over at Louis for moving so slowly, but they had to avoid overtaking their man as he made his way down towards the nearest train hub. Huffing away as he furiously pedaled his way down the lane, Phand seemed not to notice them.
