Grantville Gazette Volume 24

by Eric Flint

  When he finished eating he took his tray to the cleaning station like everyone else. He didn't make a fuss about the workers who were still eating. As long as they put in an honest day's work he didn't care how long they took. So far this studied disinterest was delivering the dividends in worker-employer harmony he'd promised when he proposed the policy to the company's directors.

  ***

  Ronald pushed open the door to his office and settled himself behind his desk. After dropping into his chair, he glared at the empty desk in the outer office. "Kathy!"

  Katherine poked her head out of the office kitchenette. "Two minutes."

  He sighed. With barely four hours sleep he desperately needed that first hit of caffeine.

  A couple of minutes later Katherine waved a mug of coffee under his nose. He grabbed it and inhaled the first couple of inches. Then, still sipping, he gently leaned back on his chair and looked up at his executive assistant. "You're a lifesaver, Kathy."

  She smiled modestly back. "Herr Knaust wishes you to contact him as soon as possible."

  "Any idea what he wants?" The question was a polite fiction. Katherine was a compulsive knower of everyone's business.

  "There may be delays in the Magdeburg Towers project."

  "What does that have to do with me? Aren't the Towers being built by Magdeburg Growth Holdings?" Ronald was pretty sure he was on firm ground here. He walked past the construction site nearly every day and you couldn't miss the billboards advertising the development. However, he didn't like the way Katherine was looking at him. It was sort of condescending, and she sure did condescending well. "What's my connection to Magdeburg Growth Holdings?"

  "You are Magdeburg Growth Holdings, Ronald. It's your personal front company."

  "I have a front company?" Ronald was surprised. "I thought it was only criminals and people with something to hide who had front companies?"

  "We set it up last year when you invested in the new bridge. You didn't think it would look good if a principal of a concrete company was a major shareholder in the new bridge." Katherine paused to glare at Ronald. "You signed the authorization yourself, remember?"

  Ronald tried his best to out-glare Katherine. He definitely remembered that conversation. He even remembered talking about building a skyscraper to profit from the booming demand for accommodation. What he didn't remember was asking her to do the paperwork to create a front company. Nor, for that matter, did he remember asking her to invest his hard earned money in the new bridge over the Elbe or an apartment block. He didn't doubt he had signed the authority, he just couldn't remember doing it. But then, last year he'd been so busy with the expansion of Magdeburg Concrete's production capacity that he hadn't had time to actually read every file that passed across his desk before signing off on them.

  Things had improved over the last six months, though. With the mad rush over he'd actually had time after the rest of the office staff left for the day to read the documents Katherine left in his in-basket. Heck, sometimes when he finished the contents of his in-basket he even helped Katherine by clearing the contents of her in-basket.

  His glare failed to make any impression on Katherine and she continued to stand in front of him, completely unaffected. "Okay, so I own an apartment block. What's gone wrong?"

  "Nothing has gone wrong. Construction is ahead of schedule and the Towers should be habitable three months early, on the first of October."

  Ronald had learned the hard way to be sensitive to words. He easily picked up on the important one. "Habitable?"

  "Yes. If you don't insist on the elevators running Herr Knaust is proposing a deal that can have everything else up and running by the end of September. However, if you want the elevators, it will now be April of next year at the earliest before they can be completed."

  "Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't the Towers supposed to be seven stories high?" Katherine nodded. "And aren't they supposed to be luxury apartments?" Again Katherine nodded. "Nobody willing to pay for luxury is going to pay to walk up stairs. Of course I want the elevators. What's the hold up?

  "Furttenbach and Parigi won the design competition for the new opera house complex and our elevator contractor wants to supply the elevators the design calls for. However, they can't meet the opera house's tight deadline and deliver your elevators on schedule. They want you to accept a delay of three months."

  "What the elevator contractor wants to do isn't our problem. Don't we have a contract?" Ronald asked.

  "Yes, but Herr Knaust believes he can get the contractor to lower his price and as they need the elevators delivered on a very tight schedule, Kelly Construction has suggested that they could connect the Towers to the opera house power plant. That would give the Towers steam for heating and electricity at a much lower cost than if you had your own steam plant and generators. As it only adds three months to the existing schedule and you can still let the apartments-even if at reduced rates-two months early, Herr Knaust considers it a win-win situation."

  "What about the boiler and generator that were supposed to go into the Towers?" Ronald asked.

  "They aren't installed yet, and Herr Knaust is confident they can easily be sold to another developer."

  Ronald chewed over the information. Here and now a steam plant, even for something as small as Magdeburg Towers, was a pretty significant capital investment. And, as for running costs, if the plant at Magdeburg Concrete was anything to go by, he was sure they'd be high. "Okay. Tell Herr Knaust to get the best deal he can."

  "I'll just go and type up instructions for Herr Knaust for you to sign."

  Ronald knew Katherine well enough to be sure she had already typed up instructions based on what she thought he should do. The time it took before she came back would tell him how well his decision matched what she thought should be done. He waited until she was at the door before calling. "Are you sure you don't already have instructions typed out ready for me to sign?"

  Katherine hauled open the office door and, as if the thought had never crossed her mind, turned and glared at him. Then she stepped right into William Roberts, the other up-time senior executive of Magdeburg Concrete, who had just stepped through the door.

  There was an exchange of stilted apologies full of "Fraulein Franzius" and "Herr Roberts" before Katherine escaped, shutting the door after her.

  Bill Roberts looked from the closed door to Ronald. "You done something to upset your secretary?"

  Ronald shook his head and leaned his chair back on its back legs. "Kathy'll get over it easily enough."

  "I hope you're right, because Debbie's dumped another charity event on my lap. The Arts Council ball, and I don't see why I should be the only one to suffer. Unless you've got someone I haven't heard about tucked away, you'll have to ask your secretary to save you from the ravaging hordes again. Is she likely to be agreeable?"

  Ronald grimaced. At any social event he attended he faced having the down-time partners of Magdeburg Concrete introducing him to their daughters and grand-daughters, all the time suggesting that it was time he thought about marrying. It had gotten so bad lately that he'd been driven to begging Katherine to accompany him in an attempt to deflect some of the attention. It was enough to put a guy off marriage completely.

  Katherine poked her head into the room and nodded vigorously. "And I'm Ronald's executive assistant. Not his secretary."

  The door shut as quickly as it had opened and Ronald and Bill were left alone in the office. Ronald glanced over to Bill. "We'll be there."

  "She listens through the door?"

  "Kathy assures me it's an essential part of being a successful executive assistant. It means she doesn't have to rely on me to tell her things she needs to know to make my life easier."

  "Jeez. And you let her get away with that?"

  "Bill, it works for us. As you're always telling me, if it's not broke…"

  "Don't fix it. Okay, if you're happy, I'll stay out of it. But it wouldn't work for me."

  "
Yeah, well, you're not me. If you can get the invitations to Kathy, she'll make sure we turn up."

  "You know, your secretary just about runs your life as it is. Why not marry her and let her run the rest of your life?"

  ***

  Bill had only been gone a few minutes when Katherine came in with the authority for Herr Knaust. She sniffed delicately. "I wouldn't marry you even if you asked me."

  Ronald signed the letter and handed it back. "I know. I'm not mature or sophisticated enough for you."

  The pair exchanged smiles of mutual understanding.

  "Partnering me to the Arts Council ball isn't going to interfere with your love life is it?" Ronald asked.

  Katherine shook her head. "No. Joachim is busy that evening."

  "He must be a real understanding guy if he doesn't mind you going out with your boss."

  "Joachim understands that the duties of an executive assistant are many and varied, and that I get paid triple time after midnight."

  "Yeah, I love you too." He shook his head. "Debbie's going to have to cut down on her charity events. They're costing me a fortune."

  "Do you know what you need, Herr Chapman?"

  Ronald lowered his chair onto all four legs. When Katherine called him Herr Chapman, he knew he wasn't going to like what she had to say. "No, Fraulein Franzius, I don't know what I need."

  "You need a wife."

  He was glad he wasn't still leaning back on his chair. That suggestion coming from Katherine would have had him rearing right back and tipping over. "Not you, too? I thought you were on my side."

  "I am. You don't have to marry one of your partners' daughters or grand-daughters, though. Any suitable woman would do. Think of the money you'd save. Besides, you're lonely. You need a companion."

  "If I want a companion, I'll get myself a dog."

  "And where would you keep it? You live in a one-room apartment on the third floor of a residential hotel. At least a wife can clean up after herself, and exercising her would be much more fun."

  Ronald glared at Katherine. It was so long since he last had a woman the idea of a wife was almost attractive. It wasn't that women, even prostitutes, weren't available. The big problem was that he was scared. Syphilis and other sexually transmitted diseases were endemic and the antibiotics to treat them were sadly lacking. Sure, they had condoms here and now, but he'd heard they had to be made to measure out of sheep intestine. Just trying to picture being fitted for one was enough to put him off.

  Suddenly he remembered the letter from his landlord. He passed it over to Katherine. "Can you find me somewhere else to live?"

  "I can investigate what's available, but what about Magdeburg Towers? You could move in to the penthouse with your new wife."

  "I don't need a wife, Kathy. I'm not even looking for one," Ronald protested.

  "That's because you've forgotten what you're missing and you work too hard to meet anybody but the simpering girls your partners push under your nose. But don't worry, a good executive assistant is always ready to provide her boss with everything he needs."

  "I am not going to some tacky singles bar, and I don't do blind dates." Hopefully that would stymie Katherine. Without his cooperation there was no way she could find him a wife. Although the way she smiled just before she waltzed out of the office didn't look good. Ronald leaned his chair back on its rear legs again and mulled over his conversation with his executive assistant. Surely he'd covered all the bases?

  August, Arendsee

  "Stick out your tits, love. The customers like to see what you've got to offer."

  Christine swallowed her temper and stuck out her chest as directed so the photographer from Wives of Distinction could take his photograph. She didn't approve of having her photograph taken, but Frau Saling, the agent from Wives of Distinction, had insisted that men responded more often to listings if they knew what a woman looked like.

  "Right, love, you can relax now." The photographer removed the double-dark from the back of the camera and handed it over to Christine. "Take that over to my assistant and wait."

  Christine took the flat wooden cassette gingerly in her hands and hurried over to the photographer's tent. Behind her she could hear the photographer calling out instructions to the next girl in line.

  "Name?" The photographer's assistant asked.

  "Christine Niemand." She watched the assistant write her name in chalk on a blackboard. He pointed to a bench. "Wait over there. In this light, it'll be half an hour before your prints are ready."

  Christine walked over to the bench and sat down. She felt as if she was selling her body for a wedding ring and security for her family, but in the last couple of weeks her situation had deteriorated significantly. Frau Cratzmann had discovered that her precious son, Fritz Winkler, was pursuing Christine. Unfortunately, she held Christine responsible for his behavior, and as her husband was Christine's village-appointed legal guardian things weren't looking good for Christine keeping her family together.

  "Niemand, Christine."

  Christine jerked up, saw Frau Saling and hurried over to her. She was examining a couple of pictures. It took a moment for Christine to realize they were her pictures.

  "These are good enough. There's no need to take new ones, so you're free to go. I wish you success in your hunt for a husband."

  It was a few seconds after Frau Saling walked away before Christine realized it was all over. She was going to be listed with Wives of Distinction. She looked around. Some of the other girls were milling around talking to each other, but for Christine time away from her spinning and carding was time she wasn't earning. She started running for Margarethe's.

  Late August, Magdeburg

  Ronald and Katherine's footsteps echoed throughout the penthouse. The space was enormous, especially when he compared it to the hotel room he'd been living in the last couple of years.

  "Master with full en suite. You'll be needing a bed, linen, a dresser and a chest of drawers." Katherine stood in the middle of the room taking notes.

  Ronald looked into the en suite. There was a sunken tub big enough for two, twin shower, and twin hand-basins. He could fit his current apartment in one corner and still have plenty of room. "I don't think I'll be moving in here. I'd get lost."

  "Nonsense. A few weeks and you'll be wondering how you survived in your poky little room."

  "This whole apartment is way too big for one person."

  Katherine smiled at Ronald. "There's an easy solution for that."

  He glared back at her. He'd hoped she'd forgotten her silly idea of finding him a wife. She'd certainly been quiet on the subject lately.

  "Anyway, if you remember, your landlord is kicking you out shortly. You need somewhere to live before the end of the month. As you own the Towers, it'd be foolish for you not to live there."

  "But the penthouse? Why not a nice little studio apartment on the second floor?"

  "Because until the elevators are installed the closer to the ground an apartment is, the higher the rent it commands, and you need all the income you can get to service your mortgage," Katherine answered.

  "Surely the rent for the penthouse would be more than the rent for a studio apartment lower down?"

  Katherine shook her head. "You know better than that, Ronald. Nobody who could afford the rent for this much space is interested in climbing seven flights of stairs."

  "So I get stuck with it," Ronald grumbled.

  "You and your family."

  Ronald suddenly had a horrifying thought. "Hell, with this much space they'll expect me to put them up whenever they visit."

  "All the more reason to start your own family," Katherine answered.

  "Will you stop that? I am not looking for a wife."

  "How will you feel when you're a lonely old man with no family to comfort you?"

  Ronald snorted his contempt for that idea. "A hell of a lot better than my big brother will feel with his mob of bloodsucking leeches hanging around."

&
nbsp; Katherine glared and stamped off into the distant bowels of the penthouse apartment. Left, for once, triumphant, Ronald celebrated his victory over his executive assistant by investigating his new home.

  ***

  Katherine had met Ronald's brother and his children. Calling them bloodsucking leeches was probably an exaggeration, but there was sufficient truth in the comment for her to feel Ronald had won that argument. Losing wasn't something Katherine condoned, especially not losing to Ronald. Recovery from such a serious blow to her self-esteem was going to take serious therapy, and when a woman needed serious therapy there was only one kind worth bothering with-retail therapy.

  She tried a few of her regular shops, but nothing called out to her. So she drifted a little further afield. That's how she came across the tiny office of Wives of Distinction. A brief perusal of the exterior advertising perked up her spirits. A marriage agency! Why hadn't she thought of that?

  The gentle tinkling of the door bell attracted the attention of the woman seated at a desk. She looked up from what she was reading. "May I help you?"

  "I was just passing when I saw your sign. You find husbands for single women, don't you?"

  "Yes, we do. Are you looking for a life partner?"

  Katherine shook her head. "Not for me, for a friend." She saw the knowing look in the woman's eyes and hastened to correct her. "Truly, a friend of mine is looking for a wife."

  "Ah, Then you've come to the right place. What kind of wife is your friend looking for?"

  "Young, healthy, intelligent…" Katherine hunted in her mind for other qualities Ronald might like. "Not too plump. Actually, skinny would better describe his taste."

  The woman opened an index card box and collected several lengths of wire from a drawer. "How young?" she asked, a wire ready to thread through one of the holes punched along the edge of the cards.

  "How young do they get?" Katherine asked.

  "I've recently added a seventeen-year-old, but most of my clients are in their mid-twenties or older."

  Katherine was surprised. Most people waited until they were in their twenties before marrying. It tended to take that long before they could afford to do so. "Why would a seventeen-year-old be looking for marriage?"