Easy Money

by Rik Hunik

  "Do you remember what Aldwin had to eat the last time he was here?"

  "Oh yes. I believe he and some of the others had our special clam chowder."

  "Good. Bring me some." Odors have a strong memory link, so I thought maybe the smell of the food would help me get a better impression. He bowed and scurried off but I called him back. "With that I need a glass bowl of fresh water, a wooden spoon, a lit candle, some salt, and a silver spoon."

  He looked at me for several seconds waiting for me to explain such an unusual request. I volunteered nothing. He said, "Of course, sir. Right away."

  He scurried out and returned a few minutes later with the five items. "The chowder will be here in a minute," he explained, and stayed to watch. It didn't matter to me, as long as he kept quiet.

  One of the serving girls arrived with the chowder and I had her set the bowl down a couple of feet away from me. The smell made my mouth water and my stomach rumble but I concentrated on the task at hand, laying out the items in a circle, starting with the bowl of water in front of me. The Greek theory of four elements doesn't quite apply to magic so an ancient Chinese system commonly known as "The Theory of the Five Elements" is taught at R.I.M.. It's more a study of the movement of energy than a method for cataloging elements.

  I touched the water with my forefinger and transferred a few drops to the wooden spoon and said, "Wood is the child of water." I picked up the spoon and passed it through the candle flame. "Fire is the child of wood." I sprinkled a few grains of salt over the candle. "Earth is the child of fire." I put some salt into the silver spoon. "Metal is the child of earth." I dumped the spoonful of salt into the bowl of water. "Water is the child of metal."

  That's the creative cycle, a basic but very powerful spell for gathering and intensifying magic. It's the most I could do without special supplies and elaborate preparations. I silently repeated the incantation over and over until it spun around in my head while I sank into a deeper trance. With each breath I gathered energy into a ball in the center of my mind, more and more, compressing it, holding it while the pressure continued to increase.

  I focused my mind on Aldwin's last meal here, concentrating on Aldwin himself. Just before the pressure became too great I released my hold and the ball of suppressed energy expanded almost too fast to follow, filling the entire room and beyond. For that brief moment I clearly saw everything that had happened through the entire meeting, from beginning to end, but then it was only a fading memory I had to use the connection I had built up with Aldwin to hold onto the relevant images, pushing the rest away.

  Then came the backlash of that ball of energy, snapping back into my head, driving in the pain from every angle and leaving it there, reminding me why I always hate using that spell.

  But it worked and I retained a memory of the key points. After the meal, in the privacy of the room, Aldwin exchanged clothes with a man, and when the false beard the man wore was transferred to Aldwin's chin, the man looked more like Aldwin than Aldwin did.

  The double went out first and I deduced that he rode away in the coach toward the Hot Springs. I thought I might be able to track down the double if the need arose, but the hotter lead was the gray-haired woman the disguised Aldwin left with soon after. All I had to go on was a vague feeling they had returned to the city. I don't know if it was my talent operating or just common sense, but they were most likely somewhere in the city.

  Trying to ignore the pain in my skull that was fading too slowly, I questioned the proprietor about the gray-haired woman, but she hadn't been distinctive enough in any way for him to notice and remember her after so long. I had the impression she had done her best not to be noticed.

  My appetite had vanished with the onset of my headache so I regretfully left the food untouched. I purchased a small bottle of white wine and thanked the proprietor for all his help, then returned to Aldwin's coach. I had one more stop to make before I sent it back.

  # # #

  The Nahasa Furniture Factory is situated about half a mile north of Carina's place, across a shallow valley. By the time we reached it I had downed nearly half the bottle and become slightly tipsy, but my headache had subsided to the point where it no longer felt like I had just banged my head on a rock. If I had started drinking with the intention of getting drunk I'd be feeling really good by now, but under the circumstances I felt only a slight nausea.

  When the coach rolled to a stop I corked the bottle, set it on the floor and got out. Shading my eyes with my hand I picked out Carina's house from the other buildings on the opposite slope, then turned to take a look at the factory. A row of tall stacks poked up in the back, belching out smoke and steam from the huge, noisy engines that powered the plant. There was more steam than smoke, and the smoke from burning high-grade coal was relatively clean, unlike a lot of the foul emissions from factories further out. It made me glad no heavy industry is allowed inside the city limits because we have more than enough smoke and smells already.

  The factory was built in the blocky modern style, the entire front of the building an unadorned expanse of gray concrete, twenty-five feet high and a couple of hundred feet long, with two rows of tall, narrow rectangular windows. A small, square porch sat dead center in the front. I went through it into the bustling front office. The smell of sawdust and paint, which I had noticed outside, got a lot stronger and I imagined it would be nearly overpowering out on the floor. The steady thump of the steam engines carried through my feet.

  Everybody had to walk past a plump, faded, blonde woman seated behind a big wooden desk and a bright smile. "How may I help you?"

  "I need to have a word with Cal Nahasa."

  "You will have to speak to his personal secretary, Zena, right over there, three desks down." Her smile never dimmed as she pointed to her left at a young woman at another desk the same as hers.

  I went to her. "Hello Zena. What's a pretty woman like you doing in a place like this?" She was by far the prettiest woman, and one of the youngest, of all those I could see in that sea of desks.

  "That line was old when my father was young." But she smiled.

  I shrugged. "So I'm fond of the classics. But you didn't answer my question."

  "I work here." Her eyes flicked to her boss's door and her smile faded. "What can I do for you?"

  "I need to have a few words with Cal Nahasa."

  "Who should I say is calling?" She turned large, blue eyes up at me.

  I stared for too long into those eyes, admiring the way they contrasted with her wavy, black hair, and the way that hair fell over her shoulders. After a couple of seconds I caught myself and brought out a pasteboard card, about two inches by three inches, on which were printed my business name, my slogan, including the new line, and the address of my office.

  Zena took it from me, her graceful fingers barely brushing mine, and read it quickly, turning it over to glance at the back. "I'll see if he's busy." She got up, tapped on the door behind her, opened it and poked her head inside. A few moments later she pulled the rest of herself through and closed the door.

  In less than a minute she was back. "He will see you now," she said and ushered me in.

  Cal Nahasa sat behind a large desk, directing his hard blue eyes at me while fingering my business card. He was clean shaven and his hair, cropped short in the new, no-nonsense business style, made him look tough, but I met his gaze without flinching. He tossed my card across his desk. "Why are you here? We haven't lost anything. We don't need your service."

  I advanced to within a foot of the desk and picked up my card. I remained standing. "Your mother hired me. I'm investigating the disappearance of your father."

  Cal leaned back and folded his arms on his chest. "I'm afraid I can't be of much help to you there. When he retired last year I took over the company. After that I seldom saw or spoke to him."

  "I see," I said, deadpan. "Do you have any thoughts about his disappearance?"

  "Whatever happened must have happened to him while he
was up at the Hot Springs."

  "Do you know that for a fact?" I asked, just to goad him. He simply glared at me. I smiled politely. "Thank you for your time. If you should think of anything that might help, don't hesitate to contact me." I turned away and let myself out of his office.

  Zena watched me come out but I closed the door behind me before I smiled at her. She smiled back and said, "That was brief."

  "Yes, Mr. Nahasa is a busy man. Unfortunately he was unable to help me as much as I had anticipated." I leaned on her desk. "Perhaps you could be of some assistance."

  She met my gaze calmly, without flinching or leaning back. "Perhaps. What is it you need?"

  "I'm investigating the disappearance of Aldwin Nahasa."

  Zena laughed, then cut it short with a hand to her mouth to avoid calling attention to herself. She lowered her voice. "No wonder Cal didn't want to be helpful."

  I lowered my voice too and leaned a little closer. "What do you mean?"

  She glanced around the office and I did too. Nobody was paying much attention to us but she kept her voice low. "I can't talk about it here. Why don't you take me out for dinner tonight?"

  That was an offer I couldn't refuse. "I'd love to." I had just made arrangements to meet her later when Cal called her into his office and I took my leave.

  As I rode away in Aldwin's coach I found myself looking forward to the date, and not just because of any bearing it might have on the case. Puffs of white cloud dotted the western sky but the sun shone down unimpeded from the zenith, so I told the driver to take me back to my office for lunch.

  I directed him to take me down Rome Street so I could admire the colonnades and ride through the Triumph of Germanicus, a monument of masonry and stone that rose a hundred and fifty feet above the plaza. A ninety-foot-high arch spanned four lanes of traffic and in an alcove above that stood a thirty-five-foot tall statue of Germanicus.

  Built to honor the five hundredth anniversary of the New Roman Republic, the magnificence of the structure was in no way diluted by the fact that four identical monuments stood in other cities. It had been refurbished for the one thousandth anniversary and the edges still looked sharp. I always felt proud when I saw it from a distance, humbled when I rode beneath it, and exhilarated when I stood on top of it.

  Chapter 5

  My mother prepares dishes out of plants I've never heard of, and I'm sure most people would never even consider them as a source of food, so I usually prefer to go hungry rather than eat lunch at her place. Give me salami over asparagus any day, and don't try to feed me anything I can't identify.

  When I got back to my office I was eager for lunch but before I could even get my key out to unlock my door I was accosted by another woman. For a change this one wasn't blonde. She wore a shabby, faded brown dress, and a scowl to let me know she was in a foul mood. Without wasting time on pleasantries, such as greetings or introductions, she launched right into a verbal assault. "This is no way to run a business. Don't you know I've been waiting around here for over an hour. How do you expect to get any new clients if you never bother to show up in your office?"

  I shrugged, appearing as unconcerned as I could. "I have three clients already today, I'm busy, I don't have time for new clients now. When I'm not busy, then I'll be in my office to greet my new clients."

  "Hmph. A philosopher, huh?"

  Standing tall, I loaded my reply with as much mock self-importance as I could pile on it, even elevating my nose a few degrees. "Yes, I did study the masters in university." I relaxed into my regular posture, unlocked my door and pushed it open. In a normal, but somewhat irritated voice, I asked, "Are you going to come in and talk business or did you just come here to shout at me?"

  She fell silent and her scowl deepened but she went in. I propped myself on the edge of my desk and waited for her to talk. She took several seconds to compose herself, then said, "Lucina told me you were looking for her little girl."

  It took me several seconds to process that. It helped when I remembered that Lucina was Belita's mother, but Belita was hardly a little girl. Not to mention, I hadn't even started looking for Belita yet, but I nodded for her to continue.

  "My daughter, Laura, has been missing for a week. The police say they're looking, but I don't believe they're looking very hard." Anger tinged her voice but this time it wasn't directed at me.

  My stomach rumbled, my head still ached, and this woman had been irritating from the start, but she was a potential client and she did have a good reason to be distraught. I sighed. "What do you expect me to do?"

  She looked at me like I was stupid. "Find her, of course."

  Of course she expected that. I smiled weakly at her and said, "The trail is already a week old and you have no idea where she is. It might not be easy to find her and I charge twenty talents an hour."

  She gaped at me. "That's a small fortune."

  I shrugged. "Look, I'm in business and I'm busy. I can't take on a string of charity cases."

  She glared at me. "You're just as bad as the rest of them. Always favoring the rich, never caring what happens to the poor."

  "I'm not so far from poor myself."

  She scowled at me but dug around in her handbag until she came out with a tightly folded, ten-talent banknote which she carefully unfolded and tried to smooth out against her thigh. "This is all I have." She extended it to me and held that position, looking at me.

  I looked into her eyes and behind the mask of anger I saw a frightened mother looking out, pleading with me to help her find her missing daughter.

  I took a deep breath, reached out and took the banknote from her fingers. So much for easy money. "I'll see what I can do, but don't expect much." I took down her name, Stella, and her address, which was close to Lucina's, and told her I'd drop by in the afternoon to start my search. She thanked me profusely, I gently urged her out the door and then got down to the serious business of eating my lunch.

  # # #

  After lunch I walked around the end of Old Harbor and about half a mile roughly south into the Southwest Quadrant, to my mother's house near the edge of the old Greek section. It's a small house, left to her by my father. She lives there with one loyal servant, a chubby maid my age who always made bedroom eyes at me, but she was too close to my mother for me to ever consider doing anything with her, even if I was attracted to her, which I wasn't.

  As I approached my eyes were drawn to the oak wreath carved in the stone above the door, a significant honor bestowed on him by the officials for his prominent deeds of bravery, both as a military officer and later, as a bodyguard. His bravest act had cost him his life.

  I knocked on the door and entered without waiting for a reply. I walked through the atrium to the dining room at the back, nodding to the bust of my father before I acknowledged my mother.

  "You're late," she accused me. "You said you would join me for lunch."

  In truth I had said no such thing, I simply hadn't disillusioned her when she said she would be expecting me, but I didn't argue the point. "I was too busy. I had to go all the way out to Gray's Roadhouse this morning so I ordered some food there, and I picked up two other clients already today. The last one showed up just as I was about to come here, so if you want to blame anybody for me being late, blame her."

  She looked like she didn't quite believe me. I kept my face impassive, wondering how she could know I was stretching the truth.

  "You can at least sit down for dessert. You didn't eat dessert, did you?"

  I smiled and shook my head. Before I finished sitting her maid she had a plate and a glass on the table in front of me. I responded politely to her small talk while I devoured the quarter of a peach pie on the plate and downed the water in the glass, concentrating more on the delicious pie than on what she was saying. She let on that she was seeing another man but didn't go into any details, which was fine with me. I don't know why she always wants to tell me, or why it bothers me as much as it does.

  My father, the
captain of the guard of a prominent Senator, was one of the highest ranking soldiers in Agrippina. When he died in the course of his duty five or six years ago he left my mother with the house and a substantial pension. There are a lot of predators that feed on rich widows but so far she has come out unscathed, so I don't try to babysit her. Ever since one heated argument with my mother soon after my father died I made it a point never to say anything about the men my mother chose to associate with, and in return she's kept quiet about the women I associated with, though I always seem to have a lot more not to say than she does.

  I refused a second piece of pie even though I was tempted. "I better get to work. I still have two more cases I need to work on today," I reminded her.

  She let me into her bedroom and I went straight to her jewelry case, a large, black and red lacquered box from China. The necklace in question was a thick, braided gold chain, with an elaborate gold pendant, inset with a single large ruby surrounded by a dozen diamonds. My father had taken it as plunder in a far-off campaign and it was her most prized possession. I don't know why she didn't keep it more secure. The jewelry case wasn't even locked.

  There were actually several items missing from the box and they all caused interference, making it harder to get a good impression of the necklace I wanted to know about. Subconsciously my mind automatically located the missing items that were nearby and I went around the house picking up a pair of earrings from under the bed, some more earrings, a ring and a couple of bracelets from other rooms. My mother knew how I worked so she didn't interfere, she just thanked me for the jewelry and let me carry on.

  I detected nothing malignant in the vicinity so I went into my trance and focused on the necklace. Getting an impression is something any magician can do to a certain extent, and the training at RIM enhances it. My talent for finding things is an aspect of that but it's a rare specialty that functions at a subconscious level. It's powerful but subtle. Sometimes it can be rather vague and occasionally it doesn't function at all, in which case I need to try a different tack. In this case I knew instantly that the necklace was somewhere near the sea, but that's all I could tell about its current location. If it stayed in one place for a longer period, or if I got closer to it, I might be able to get a better fix on it.