by Jaxon Reed
“There’s other cities. St. Louis, San Francisco, New York. Who knows? Maybe the Outfit will control them all!”
“That’s what I’m afraid of.”
Sleaghan lifted a finger and Capone froze in place. The cigar smoke hovered motionless above his head.
Sleaghan stood and wearily walked over to the mobster. He removed the thin bracelet from Capone’s wrist.
“This one is not for you, Al. That’s not part of the plan. Now, forget you ever had it.”
-+-
Booker trudged out of his office building, barely acknowledging the doorman’s hearty farewell. He stared at his feet and the sidewalk, making his way down the street.
Invisible beside him, Tiff felt a pang of sympathy. Booker had become thoroughly disillusioned, and it seemed obvious he felt all his work had been a sham. Which was certainly true. That Booker had not been as complicit as he made himself out to be did nothing to alleviate his concerns. Or his feelings of helplessness. He had confided the night before in the privacy of his room that there seemed no way to right the ship at this point.
The books were bad, and Booker felt it was all his fault.
“Tiff, Eliot Ness is in the car approaching to your left.”
Tiff looked where Cait mentally pointed and spied the government sedan squealing to a halt. The back door opened and two agents jumped out. One grabbed Booker’s right arm, the other his left.
“Come with us, Mr. Booker. The FBI would like a word.”
Booker’s eyes widened in shock, but he silently acquiesced and let the men guide him to the back seat of the car. Inside, wearing a dark three-piece suit, Eliot Ness stared at him from under a fedora.
Ness said, “Well, there you are. Darius Booker, famous accountant for the mob. We meet at last.”
The car entered the street’s traffic. Tiff cupped invisible hands over Booker’s ear so the other men couldn’t hear, and whispered, “Don’t let him rattle you, Darius. He’s just trying to feel you out. Act calm and rational.”
Booker snorted and said, “I wouldn’t call myself famous.”
Ness shrugged. “I understand Al Capone lauded you himself at that party we busted where the lights went out. Some say you were involved in the fireworks there. Of course, we never saw you afterwards. Very suspicious. I also have it on good authority you visit the Milk Farm on occasion as an honored guest.”
“Don’t admit to that,” Tiff whispered. “Brush it off and find out what he wants.”
“I wish I were as capable and esteemed as you’re making me out to be, Mr. Ness. Unfortunately, I quite literally do not know half of what’s going on in the Outfit. Whatever you’re investigating, I’m afraid I’m of little use to you.”
Ness said nothing for a moment, calmly appraising Booker with cold eyes that glinted like steel.
Finally he said, “Interesting choice of words. We are indeed investigating Capone’s Outfit. We’d like you to help us. In exchange, we won’t file any charges on you.”
Booker chuckled, and Ness raised a questioning eyebrow.
“I’m afraid you really have the wrong man, Mr. Ness. I recently discovered the books I work with are not the real ones. And I have no idea where the real ones are.”
The car glided to a stop. The driver looked in his mirror and said, “We’re here, sir.”
Ness’s eyes never left Booker’s. He nodded, as if dismissing him.
“We’ll be in touch Mr. Booker. I hope for your sake you’re not lying.”
An agent jumped out of the front and opened the back door. Booker looked at Ness, who nodded again as he climbed out.
The car sped off, and Booker found himself near the door to his tenement.
“I wonder what that was all about?”
Tiff said, “They’re probably about to raid the Outfit. On most alternates, the government gets Capone for tax evasion rather than more serious crimes.”
Booker frowned, and walked morosely up the steps to his door.
Later he picked at the food Ms. Brisbane made for supper, and avoided conversation with the other tenants. Then he walked up to his room, locked the door, and flopped down on the bed.
Tiff appeared, and even the sight of her attractive face did nothing to cheer him up.
She said, “You know, if you keep up the solemn act, even old Brisbane might start feeling sorry for you.”
He didn’t reply, but kept staring at the ceiling.
“Come on, Darius, cheer up.”
But Booker remained despondent until they both fell asleep later that night.
-+-
In her dream, Tiff felt herself dancing again at Versailles. She weaved in and out among others on the ballroom floor in a complicated swirl of poetic motion.
Eb had provided her practice sessions in the library with simulated dancers, and she knew all the steps. But now she was dancing with real people! In France, no less. She could not stop smiling.
In the three weeks since her arrival she had spent time as a serving wench, a young country wife (with no husband, but she thought she played the part rather well), and now as the daughter of a vague, unspecified aristocrat from somewhere in the south of France.
She touched palms with an older gentleman, turned and placed her hands on her knees and bowed slightly to his wife, danced two steps, turned again and touched palms with a tall, dark, and handsome fellow.
“That is the one,” Cait said in her ear.
“Are you sure?”
Tiff subvocalized her responses, taking care not to move her lips. The sound of the music and the footsteps kept anyone from hearing.
“There is a 98.5 percent probability his skin is not human.”
Tiff nodded to herself. That was as close to certain as the computer could get. She continued the dance, but now her mind wandered away from the gala even as she found herself drawing closer to the royal dais where Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI were seated.
The music ended and the crowd melted to the sides of the large hall. Louis stood and began a short speech. Tiff nudged another young lady and surreptitiously pointed at the fae.
“Who is the tall gentleman over there?”
“That is Monsieur Lendor, the finance minister. He’s very handsome.”
“There’s a high probability his name is a play on words,” Cait said in her ear. “He’s likely referencing the Witch of Endor in the Old Testament, along with the word ‘lend.’”
“I get it. But why even bother? Nobody else here will get it. We’re in France. Everybody speaks French.”
“Unknown. It seems he is taking the role of Jacques Necker, the comptroller-general in Original Earth’s French Revolution.”
“What happened to the Jacques Necker on this alternate?”
“From what I can tell, he has been prematurely killed.”
“Necker was a foreigner who caused considerable disgruntlement with France’s pre-revolutionary taxes and financial policies. If Lendor has replaced Necker in this alternate, he must be planning something similar,” Tiff mused.
“I agree. Your conjectures appear probable. I would also add things will probably be worse here with fae intervention. A logical ‘if-then’ statement would be: If Necker caused problems on Original Earth, and Lendor has replaced Necker here, then his intentions revolve around making things worse than they would be otherwise.”
Tiff nodded to herself, silently agreeing with the computer’s analysis. Meanwhile, the king wrapped up his flowery speech as Lendor approached the dais.
The fae made a stately bow toward Louis, another toward Marie, and took a red velvet pillow from a servant standing nearby. Removing a purple silk cloth from atop the pillow with a flourish, he gracefully extended his arms and the object up to Louis.
The king’s eyes shone with delight. He lifted the pillow high so everyone could see the golden bracelet resting on it, glinting in the light. He took the bracelet and placed it carefully on his left wrist. It had spikes all around it that faced up
and outward toward his hand. He showed his adornment to the crowd. Everyone applauded politely.
“Thank you, Lendor. I will wear this with pride! And don’t tell me how much you had to tax the peasants in order to pay for it.”
Nervous chuckles filled the room.
Tiff’s brows furrowed. She said to Cait, “What is that thing?”
“That is a fae artifact, Tiff. Your mission is now clear. Retrieve that bracelet, and take out Lendor.”
-+-
The next day, alone in his office except for the invisible Cait, Booker heard a commotion. He opened the door and popped his head out for a look.
Somebody shouted, “This is the FBI! Nobody move! Everybody stay where we can see you!”
Pushing his way through the bustle of people, Eliot Ness headed straight for Booker’s office, followed by half a dozen agents carrying large empty boxes.
“Good morning, Mr. Booker. Step aside, please. We’re taking your files.”
Booker spent the rest of the day in an interrogation room at FBI headquarters. He was questioned by several agents, and by Ness himself, over several hours.
On occasion, Tiffany Valor whispered in his ear. He did not respond. She warned him his every word was monitored by men behind a one-way mirror covering one of the walls in the room.
He couldn’t talk back to her, and had nothing to do during the long intervals between questioning other than dwell on his own thoughts and emotions.
The government men’s questions were repeated over and over, for several hours. They were asked in slightly different ways, and Ms. Valor told him they were trying to trip him up. On occasion she would remind him how to answer in order to remain consistent. Toward the end of the day she let him know the men behind the mirror were growing frustrated since he had not made a mistake. That brought him the first ray of happiness he had felt in days.
Later in the afternoon, the door opened and an attorney dressed in an expensive London suit interrupted the man questioning Booker.
He handed a sheet of paper to the agent and said, “My client will be leaving now.”
The agent frowned, but after reviewing the paperwork he allowed Booker to leave with the lawyer. Outside the FBI building, the lawyer hailed Booker a cab so he could get home.
“Keep your nose clean, kid. Don’t take any wooden nickels, and don’t talk to no cops.”
10
In her dream, Tiff felt herself pushed along with a large crowd of women. She knew, vaguely, she must be in this alternate’s version of the Women’s March on Versailles. But Lendor had done much to change the flow of history here. And things were far worse than they would have been without him. She knew the outcome of the march was likely to be different this time.
Several thousand women angrily approached Versailles. They dragged cannon along, and carried muskets, swords, chair legs, broken bottles, and anything else that could be used as weapons.
Tiff knew the original Women’s March convinced Louis to move the monarchy back to Paris, and the National Assembly was legitimized thanks in large part to the effort. But the women in this crowd were driven by an unnatural bloodlust stirred up by fae magic. They were reckless, and dangerously out of control.
She saw Lendor as the throng approached Versailles, wildly gesticulating from a safe position behind the soldiers, encouraging royal troops to attack the women.
The first shots fired out. Cannon boomed. Grapeshot sliced through the crowd, sending blood and chunks of flesh flying. Women screamed in anger and pain.
“Stand firm!” Tiff yelled. “Fight back! We have them in numbers!”
The cry went up: “We have them! We have them in numbers!”
Several women scrambled to position their cannon, helped by a few men picked up along the way. Soon they pounded Versailles with artillery fire, the mass of commoners aligning themselves into the rough semblance of an organized fighting force.
The throng rushed forward, slicing, shooting, and killing.
Tiff fought her way to the front, carrying a flintlock pistol plucked from a soldier’s corpse. She found an opening, and raced after Lendor. She squeezed the trigger and waited half a second for the flint to spark.
KABLOOM!
A musket ball thwacked into the fleeing fae’s shoulder. He screamed in pain but kept running.
“Lead will not be sufficient, Tiff,” Cait said. “You need iron. Use a sword.”
She tossed aside the pistol, bent and retrieved a sword from a peasant girl lying in a pool of blood, and ran after Lendor.
He threw open a door and rushed inside the palace. Tiff followed, hot on his heels, the tip of the sword moving in rhythm to her feet.
She ran down a hall, just in time to see the frock of his coat disappear around a corner up ahead.
She rounded the corner and skidded to a stop in front of a dozen soldiers, their muskets pointed at her. Lendor stood behind the men, a satisfied, contemptuous smile on his face.
“This is one of the ringleaders. Take her!”
-+-
Booker chewed his food slowly while eyeing the other two dozen or so dinner guests at Capone’s mansion. He recognized various higher-ups in the Outfit. A few he had not met before. But the biggest surprise of the evening was to find Sleaghan seated at the place of honor.
The fae greeted everyone warmly, but occasionally glanced over at Booker with an unpleasant gleam in his eye.
After dessert, over snifters of brandy and fine cigars, conversation turned to how the Outfit would respond to this new aggressive investigation by the FBI.
Somebody suggested Eliot Ness be “relocated,” which Booker suspected really meant “murdered.” Sleaghan shook his head at this proposal.
“All that will accomplish is to grab the attention of their boys in D.C. Hoover would replace him with five more, even worse than Ness.”
Booker fidgeted, unused to sitting in on these high level discussions. He excused himself to go to the bathroom. In reality he wanted some fresh air. The thick cigar smoke irritated his lungs.
Ms. Tiffany Valor appeared when he reached the hallway.
His eyebrows shot up. He said, “You haven’t spoken to me all night.”
“Cait told me to be extra careful. Sleaghan seems to have figured out a spell that can detect me. I’ve been eavesdropping on the conversation from the other room, though. Darius, they’re pulling you into their web. Capone trusts you, especially since you bonded with him and his brother before Ralph died. But you’re on very thin ice. The closer you get, the more danger you’re in.”
“I’m not that close. He still hasn’t shown me the real books.”
“Cait says there’s a strong probability a second set of books are here in the house. A ‘ledger key,’ of some sort. She suggests we look in his study upstairs. There’s a safe up there and she thinks it’s worth investigating. Al Capones on other alternates have used a similar location.”
Booker followed Ms. Valor up the servant’s stairway to the second floor, then down the hall and into a luxurious room with bookshelves on three walls, a George Washington desk and an Impressionist painting of a landscape on the fourth wall.
“She says there’s a safe behind the Renoir.”
Booker wondered, briefly, where Capone had obtained the painting and how much it had cost him. He took the frame off the wall, revealing a small safe. Then he wondered if Capone had hidden the price of the painting as a business expense in the books somewhere.
Tiffany quickly twirled the dial. Booker suspected Cait must have learned the combination somehow and transmitted the knowledge to her.
She turned the handle and opened the door. Piles of cash filled the inside of the safe. Tiffany ignored them, reached in the back and pulled out a single bound ledger. She handed it to Booker.
He thumbed through it, stopping in the middle.
She said, “Well?”
“It’s a series of notations. It looks like codes, followed by different numbers.”
“The real numbers?”
Booker grinned and said, “It must be. Why would he keep it locked up otherwise? But I’ll need time to look it over and match things up.”
Tiffany shut the safe and set the dial back on its previous number, then put the painting back in place. She held out her hand and he gave her the ledger.
“We need to get this to Eliot Ness. I’ll take it and meet you after they drop you off at home. In the morning you can pay Ness a visit and deliver it to him. This is a very typical way Capone goes down in most of the alternates.”
Booker nodded. He felt distressed at the thought of her leaving again, but he resolved to carry forward. She disappeared as he walked out the door and headed to the stairs.
Back in the dining room, he coughed in the smoke while making his way to his seat. The men were laughing at some little joke Sleaghan had made.
“There he is!” Sleaghan said. “You know, Al, a little bird told me our friend Booker here visited with the FBI the other day.”
All talk and laughter stopped. Everyone stared at Booker.
He gulped and said, “That’s right. Agent Ness picked me up on the way home before the raid. Tried to make me talk. I told him my books were straight, and he wouldn’t find anything there.”
Silence filled the room while Booker met Capone’s eyes.
Capone finally broke it and said, “The Book’s right. There ain’t nothin’ in those books.”
The tension seemed to ease in the room. Feet shuffled. Crystal snifters clinked on the table. Ashtrays were pulled closer or pushed away.
Capone said, “Still . . .”
Silence filled the room again.
“Y’ shoulda told me about that, Book. And ya didn’t. Grab ’im boys.”
The two men nearest Booker stood and grasped his arms, pulling him roughly out of the chair.
“But Mr. Capone! You said yourself there’s nothing wrong with the books! I didn’t tell them anything!”
“And you never will. Put ’im in the trunk of my car, boys.”