by William Ray
The grimy cloud thinned just beyond the factories, and though the smell still lingered, sunlight began to dapple through. Adjacent to the factories stood large brick buildings five or six stories tall, each painted with company insignias. Atop each of those adjacent structures was a forest of hanging laundry on improvised lines and hangars, and after a moment of contemplation, Gus realized they must be dormitories for the workers.
A few women wandered in and out on their own errands, as their other halves likely hewed within the adjacent factory. Children would occasionally sprint by, engaged in games amidst the grime of the streets with toys made from whatever garbage clever little hands could find. There was a definite flavor unique to the garbage of each dorm they passed, and Gus wondered if the children gathered to trade cast-offs from their specific factories, making treasure of the neighbors’ unusual trash.
Beyond the factory dormitories was a scattered assortment of warehouses and small businesses—shops of the sort more successful factory workers might frequent, physicians and the like. Next was a major rail hub farther down the line than Gus had ridden and far more utilitarian in design—the sort of thing intended more for cargo than passengers. Just beyond that hub stood the yards.
As they drew nearer to the yards, the stench struck like a physical blow, and Gus understood why the cabbie had refused to linger here. Whether the sooty chemical smell of the factories had faded away or he had just gotten used to it, once at the yards a curling, visceral stink gradually mixed in and soon overpowered all else.
Gus’s eyes watered, and his stomach struggled to hold on to its contents as every muscle in his body contracted in an urge to vomit. The air was so fouled by the odor of rancid offal, he barely noticed the hack draw to a stop, and the cabbie had to shout back for his fee twice before Gus collected himself enough to fish out his wallet and pay the man.
Outside the cab, animal noises mixed with the loud whines and whinnies of the machines adjacent to them. Yardmen shouted back and forth, driving pigs and cows and other livestock into various fenced-in areas where they would await slaughter. As soon as Gus stepped out, the cabbie leaned back to slam the door closed behind him and immediately set his horses back into motion.
Away from the Elven road, only mud tracks passed between wooden fences, porcine snouts pressing between the slats for relief from the crowding within. Circling the edges a bit, Gus eventually found the only path a man could follow without ruining his pants and concluded the distant structure it led to must house the business office. Following the track of paving stones, Gus passed through dozens of separated pens, the rows of which extended at least a mile.
Stepping inside, Gus found the stench only slightly abated. He expected to see a reception area but was instead greeted by a sawdust-covered floor surrounded by narrow mazes navigated by fattened cattle. There were occasional shouts from men working the chutes, accompanied by bovine screams of panic that arose above the general clamor.
His only likely lead to any sort of office was a rough wooden staircase that led upwards to a door. Climbing up, Gus opened the door, stepped inside, and suddenly found himself in the reception area he had expected below. It looked the same as nearly any office he had ever seen, aside from the large window that oversaw the slaughter. Many factory owners had similar overlooks from their offices, but the scene below was hardly one of orderly manufacture.
The receptionist asked his business, the man’s voice expertly raised above the muted din filtering through the windows. Gus gave a confident smile as he offered his name and told the man he needed a brief chat with Mister Thomas. He was asked to wait a moment, and the man rose from his desk and passed through a door that presumably led into Mister Thomas’s private office.
Watching herds pushed into lines and driven towards the grim-faced men awaiting them reminded Gus all too much of his time in the army, so he instead turned his attention to the art along the walls. Thomas’s collection in the reception area consisted entirely of maps. Railway maps sketched out the placement of tracks across Aelfua, with notations made for the distance to each point from Khanom. A broader map of the world stood alongside, also replete with cryptic abbreviations that likely only made sense to the meat-packing business.
Most engaging for Gus was an overview of the magnate’s stockyards, which gave a more complete vision of Thomas’s wealth than could be seen through the black wall that divided it from the city above. Apart from the yards, several of the adjacent factories were his as well, and his workers dwelt in the dormitories between. He seemed to own a small town of his own out here on the outskirts of Khanom, but nothing in the upper city was marked as his.
Judging by the map of his holdings in Khanom and the apparent commercial reach of his products, Gus suspected Thomas had to be one of the wealthiest men in the Empire.
Another round of shouts and lowing rattled the glass in the window and made Gus wonder why a man of Thomas’s standing would choose to spend his days here, of all places. To run everything labeled on the map would take thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of employees, most of whom must surely labor in more fragrant locales than this one.
After a few moments, the receptionist stepped back out and opened his mouth to speak but was cut off by Thomas’s loud snarl from the next room, “Come on in, Inspector.”
Thomas did not sound particularly happy to see him again, but as Gus recalled from their earlier encounter, he did not seem pleased with much. When Gus entered the man’s office, Thomas was busy jotting on various sheets of papers, growling at a few of them as if the page itself had disappointed him.
Like the reception area outside, Thomas’s office had a window from which its owner could look down over the action, and like the window in the room outside, it only slightly muted the awful din of it. The rest of the room was decorated only with corkboards covered in a fluttering array of paper. Thomas used some form of shorthand Gus did not recognize, so the notes may as well have been written in Tuls for all he could make of them.
Without looking up from his work, Thomas demanded, “What brings you out east, Inspector Baston?”
“Same case, I’m afraid. Still tracking down Doctor Phand. Haven’t seen him, I suppose?”
Thomas frowned and looked up at him, peering over a pair of spectacles he hadn’t worn in Gemmen. Removing them, he shook his head and replied, “No, of course not. I’ve barely been out of the office since I returned.” The sausage magnate rose to his feet with a wince and unsteady tremor that Gus sympathized with.
The man paused to peer suspiciously out his window over the dozen or so workers he could see there as if he half-expected to spot them cheating him somehow. Catching them at nothing that required his intervention, Thomas limped out from behind his desk and said, “Can I offer you a drink, Inspector?”
“I seldom turn one down, sir,” he replied with a grin, and Thomas moved towards a side table and poured out two glasses of something brown from a fancy crystal decanter that did not look to fit the man’s practical tastes in the least. “I must say, when we met in Gemmen, I had no idea you were the man behind the canned sausages. I’m a great admirer of them, eat them all the time.”
Thomas smirked and handed over a glass before downing his own in one quick toss. “Glad to hear it. Haven’t had one in years, myself. Wife says they’re bad for my digestion.” He looked Gus over for a moment as if reassessing him in a more critical light, knowing more about his appetites. “So what brings you to me? It’s a long trip just to tell me you like my product.”
It was the first time Gus had observed the man being even remotely companionable, and he wondered if the usual unpleasant demeanor was the result of travel fatigue or just a habitual result of working in this noisome facility. It was something of a relief since a Thomas at ease would probably share more than an antagonistic one.
While detecting-inspectors of the Crossing were often consulted for their expertise all over the Empire, they were technically
part of Gemmen’s police force. They needed more extensive approval to operate outside the city proper, but Gus didn’t know if Thomas knew that. Gus took a sip of whatever the drink was; it was surprisingly unfamiliar but definitely alcoholic, cloyingly sweet, and very rough.
Forcing a friendly chuckle, Gus tried to make himself sound casual as he said, “Just looking into Phand’s business associates—the usual stuff in this sort of case.” Thomas nodded, apparently buying into the idea of his second interview as proper procedure. “When the Exposition Council originally voted on Phand’s tower, you approved it, but then you changed your mind and tried to stop it from being built with the finance vote. Can you tell me why?”
With a roll of his eyes, the potted-meat king gave a snort and pushed a stack of papers aside, so he could lift up a small frame he kept on his desk. Thomas turned it around, and Gus leaned in for a better look. The frame held an old daguerreotype of a smiling young woman wearing a wide floral bonnet.
“Missus Thomas. We would meet in that park when we were courting. There wasn’t much else to see up there at the time, but we walked through it quite a bit. Haven’t been there in years, but apparently, she’s still fond of the idea of the place. When the tower was announced in the paper, she was livid.” He poured himself another drink, “I’ve been trying to kill the thing ever since.” Looking back to Gus, he caught himself on the phrasing and quickly amended, “The tower project, I mean. Nothing to do with Phand.”
Gus gave an understanding nod. Despite the slightly unpleasant initial experience, he found Thomas’s beverage of choice had a much nicer aftertaste and left him feeling pleasantly warm. He took another sip and asked, “Can you think of anyone else who might object to the tower?”
Mister Thomas shook his head, tossing back a second drink. “Plenty of people don’t like it, artists and such, but no one serious, and you said you’re looking into his business associates, right? Since you know how I voted, I assume you know Sandal Ulm switched his vote too. He fought me all the way to keep the project when I reversed but then suddenly threw his lot in with me when I thought up shorting the finances. Did you talk to him?”
“Not yet. Can you tell me about him? What’s his line?” Gus asked as he drained the last of the unfamiliar beverage. By the finish he was quite enjoying it, and he’d have asked for the name if he imagined he could afford it. Thomas probably had to pay a stiff price to import it from wherever it originated.
“Furniture, maybe? He’s inconstant—one of those aggressive up-and-coming types with fingers in everything. His kind never last long. He even has an office full of women, like a Sakloch harem.” Thomas shook his head, pulling a silver-headed cane from where it leaned on the wall and hobbling towards the door. “Never told me what changed his mind, just flipped from praising the spectacle of it to claiming it was totally inappropriate for the heart of our city.”
Gus envied the cane, but then Thomas was older, married, and far more successful, so could afford to be seen using one. Something about his remark struck a chord, and Gus asked, “It is the heart of the city, isn’t it? Why hasn’t anyone built there already?”
“Politics,” was the heavy-breathed reply as the man hobbled towards the door. Clearly not a man with much fondness for politics, Thomas snarled out, “When we first settled here, it was all park. You’ve got to have permits to build up top, and it was such a good spot, people fought hard to keep each other from taking it, each imagining that they’d be the ones to build something there later.
“Plus, Miss Aliyah Gale’s fought to keep them as parks for the past decade or so. Women love parks.” He paused, taking a deep breath before attempting to open the door, so Gus quickly leaned over to open it for him.
“She’s on the Council too, isn’t she? And against the tower?”
Thomas nodded, and said, “Voted against it from the start. She’s got deep roots in this city. Lot of power for a woman on her own, which is why she’s so involved in politics. Always trouble, women in politics.” He waved at his receptionist through the door, and the man dashed off down the stairs, apparently well acquainted with whatever Thomas wanted.
Gus grinned at the comment about women in politics and, thinking of a headline he had seen recently, he remarked, “It’s a new age. There’s even a lady sheriff down in Rakhasin now.” That only elicited a derisive snort from Thomas, so Gus shrugged and then asked, “With so much influence, how did Miss Aliyah Gale lose the first vote?”
“Numbers,” was the gruff reply. The receptionist came back up, hovering nearby with the air of a man impatient to interrupt them but one who had been growled at for that sort of thing before. Thomas looked up at him and pronounced, “I have things to attend, Inspector. If you need something more, either write it out, schedule an appointment, or talk with my petitioner.”
Gus nodded and thanked him for his time, not wanting to wait to watch Mister Thomas awkwardly scale down the stair. Stepping outside, Gus saw that a private coach sat open, awaiting the slow descent of its owner. There were no cabs anywhere in sight, so Gus began his trudge out of the yards, grimly looking forward to exchanging the stench of the muck for the soot-choked air of the slums.
Louis would have waited for him, even here.
~
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~
- CHAPTER 17 -
After the Gedlund hearings, Gus had briefly travelled far enough up the social ladder to discover that established power felt little need to advertise. The fanciest dinner clubs had the smallest signs. Major players well settled in commerce would put their firms on a building’s directory but never bother with a plaque outside.
Experience taught him that an influential up-and-comer like Ulm would want to plaster his name on the outside of a big tower, so Gus was surprised to find Ulm merely one of many tenants in the building on 12th and Queen’s. The map of Thomas’s vast holdings had made Gus imagine Khanom’s real estate came cheaply, but if a city leader like Ulm lacked a building of his own, then it seemed possible Gus had just been overpaying for sausages.
Nevertheless, it was still an impressive building, and according to the directory by the door, Ulm’s offices took up the fourteenth and fifteenth floors at the top. The outside of the building was decorated with a collection of strict geometries, but inside the lobby, there was a sculpted mural depicting faceless, angular brutes hard at work on abstract machinery. Gus wondered who it was that sculpted all this industrialist décor and if it paid well. Although he’d never tried his hand at sculpting, faceless people and gears seemed like a pretty easy bit to do.
The elevator attendant opened the gate on the fifteenth floor, and there was no question this was the place as they were immediately faced with an enormous sign that read ULM & ASSOC. Gus supposed he was trying to make up for its absence outside.
Despite Thomas’s description of Ulm’s operation, Gus was still surprised to discover a woman sitting at the front desk playing receptionist. Emily greeted people at the door to his own office, so it was perhaps a bit hypocritical, but it seemed to him that if Ulm could afford offices this fancy, he could have afforded a real receptionist to go with them.
Cheap labor might be good business sense, but it was hardly the sort of image one usually wanted to project to visitors. There was something pleasant about being greeted by the prim redhead when he stepped inside though, and as she sashayed away to inform her boss of the visitor, Gus could not help but wonder if perhaps he was underesti
mating her contribution to the establishment.
Moments later, Ulm came bursting into the reception area with the receptionist on his heels. He smiled broadly, grabbing Gus’s hand in his and pumping it firmly, “Mister Baston! Welcome, welcome! Lana tells me you’re from Phand & Saucier. What can I do for you?” Gus shook his hand in turn, having trouble matching Ulm’s intense enthusiasm as his attention was drawn back to the receptionist returning to her desk.
“From? No, I’m just here about them, I’m afraid. Doctor Phand, actually. Do you have a moment to chat?”
Ulm’s head bobbed up and down several times, his face going from a clownishly broad smile into an almost mocking look of deep concern as he replied, “Of course, of course. Back to my office then? Follow me.” Gus studied the man’s face carefully, but his exaggerated expressions were so artificial they would be of little help in reading the man’s true reactions.
Ulm gave a decisive nod, then spun on his heel to return the way he came, pausing only for a quick wink to the receptionist, who replied with a gamely coy grin. As they passed deeper into the Ulm’s operation, Gus couldn’t help but notice the man had stationed his all-female typing pool on the upper floor outside his office.
Such utilitarian work would normally end up stationed on the floor below, leaving more space for Ulm’s fellow corporate officers, but instead there were rows of desk machines operated by women. They all wore the usual long, dark blue skirts and white blouses, but here and there a few had flowers pinned to their tops. Some even had similar decorative little touches on their desks, giving the whole place a more feminine atmosphere.
The women looked up and smiled pleasantly as Ulm strode by with Gus in tow, and given the relaxed atmosphere of the office, Gus could see why a man like Thomas disapproved. Noticing his gaze, Ulm offered in a paternal tone, “I had the ladies stationed up here to reduce the chances of any unpleasantness with the gentlemen in my employ. This way, they always know I’m keeping an eye on things. Keeps everyone civil.”
