That wasn’t all Liutt controlled, however. MacCallard’s red-brown beard was cut in the same fashion as every other man in town. It was as if I had stepped out of the real world and into some kind of make-believe fantasy, a twisted dream inside a Magnate’s head. I unfolded the company script in my pocket, half expecting it to read In Liutt We Trust.
When I glanced up I saw that MacCallard was staring at me from beneath his wiry red eyebrows. “The situation is dire, Mr. Schist.”
“Them big-money supervisors expect us to work with the nig—darkies!” Roy put in. Several lieutenants nodded in agreement.
MacCallard silenced him with a look. Clearly, the two men had different opinions on the place of black men in society. I expected this much from Roy. MacCallard’s cool disapproval, however, was surprising. Few men—North or South—stuck up for negroes.
“The owner has lowered our wages twice this year. Last month he began firing factory workers and telling them they could work the mines,” MacCallard said.
The hillbilly spat. “The posh fucker calls it ‘shifting labor.’ It’s a nice damn term for sticking us in the dark with those soot-faced bastards.”
“The miners are our brothers,” MacCallard said calmly, his eyes on Roy. “They do honest toil.”
Roy said nothing.
MacCallard turned back to me. “My associate’s discomfit is not unwarranted, though. People came to the factory for good wages and safe working conditions.”
I tried not to laugh when he said safe working conditions. “That’s a pretty little bait-and-switch,” I said instead. Next to mining, factories were downright cozy.
“There is always going to be disagreement between labor and management. That’s natural, just like a shopper haggles with a street vendor.”
Phoebe was listening eagerly. I could see she was as impressed by MacCallard as I was. What’s more, she appeared to be lapping up his reasonable-sounding union-speak, rethinking everything she’d ever heard about unionizers.
I knew better than to believe him just because he sounded reasonable. The Magnates had perfectly reasonable arguments for everything they did, too, even when they sent five-year-olds to clean the rolling gears inside a power loom.
“Let me guess—the argument has swung too strongly in Mr. Liutt’s favor.” It was an old story. If the argument between worker and owner was fair, we wouldn’t call them robber barons, would we?
“He’s cut half the night shift!” Roy shouted.
“How’s that possible? I saw smoke coming out the stacks tonight. The factory’s running fine—despite the fire.” I was careful to watch MacCallard’s face when I mentioned the conflagration.
He must have been one helluva poker player, because I saw nothing. “That’s just it, Mr. Schist—it seems that Mr. Liutt has found new labor. He’s using them in D Wing. We’ve got no men in there, so we can’t confirm who they are.”
“Scabs,” Roy added helpfully from this corner.
Several men spat or added even less pleasant terms, forgetting that Miss Mosey was present.
Phoebe blushed at the new words she was learning. I’m sure they had swearing where she came from, but not like factory workers. Men like this elevated it to an art form.
“We’re not sure how he’s bringing them in,” MacCallard said.
“Is that why you set the river on fire? To stop the trains and look for scabs?”
MacCallard was silent.
Roy answered for him. “It weren’t us that started that—it was Liutt, to make us look bad.”
I stepped back from the table. “What am I supposed to do? Find out how these scabs are getting in?”
“We’ve had men trying to do just that.”
Your union thugs, I wanted to add. “But you want a genuine detective.”
MacCallard nodded. “We could use a fresh pair of eyes.”
I rubbed my jaw. “I don’t really want to get involved...”
“Course not.” Roy laughed hard.
“This is an internal union matter,” MacCallard said. “You’re not working against the company, you’re just gathering a bit of information for us.”
I rubbed my jaw and thought it over. The problem intrigued me. “It can’t be easy...getting in half a night shift unnoticed. You think they know when to move people without you seeing?”
“They’re one step ahead of us. When we made overtures to our mining friends, we discovered that the routes to Liuttsville were guarded by hired guns. They’re limiting traffic between the two towns.”
“You suspect a mole.” I didn’t really want to say it, but the issue was unavoidable now.
It was Roy who answered. “We suspect a goddamn rat.”
MacCallard just stared, as if he could sense my unease.
It wasn’t a thief they wanted me to find, but a spy. Maybe that spy took money because he was a rat bastard who stabbed people in the back. But maybe it was that the spy was taking money because he couldn’t afford to feed his kids. Or maybe he did it because he didn’t like how the union did business. The Pinkertons weren’t the only ones who could break a kneecap. Violence and intimidation were as much a part of the union toolkit as the Magnate’s.
Hunting this mole meant I was taking a side. If I took their money, I was squarely in the union camp, which was a nasty place to be. This Liutt fellow sounded like a first-rate son of a bitch, which was all the more reason not to cross him.
I put the wad of company script on the table. “This is a bad idea. You want someone else. I’ve got the girl to think of.” I motioned to Phoebe. “Not to mention the fact I stick out like a sore thumb in this town.” I pointed at my mustache. “Anyone who sees me will know me for an outsider.”
“Exactly,” MacCallard said. “No one’s going to suspect a man with a young girl accompanying him. As far as anyone knows, you’re stranded like the other travelers.”
“How much longer till the trains move again?” I looked significantly at the leader.
“Impossible to say. Have you ever seen a river burn?”
I hadn’t, of course. The thought made me queasy. How long could the fire go on? Liutt’s factory had been dumping garbage for half a decade at least, and it wasn’t alone. There was a lot of industry in this part of the state. Rockefeller’s oil derricks were mercilessly sucking the ground everywhere, plus all the coal mines and foundries. This stretch of river probably got waste in it from factories as far north as Buffalo. It was a wick in an endless supply of kerosene. Unless someone was going to go north and politely ask every plant, mine and factory to cut their discharge, it might rage forever.
“I wonder if they’ll have to change the maps,” I said.
MacCallard’s measured façade broke into a grin. “They might have to.”
“Moles aren’t my business. Let’s say I poke around—I’m cooling my heels here anyway—and if I find who works the graveyard on D Wing, I let you know.”
“That seems acceptable.”
His advisors didn’t look so sure.
“The mole?” Roy asked.
“Keep your own house in order.” I’d seen enough infighting, first as a grunt in the War of Southern Secession and then as a scrag for the Eyes.
“That’s fair.” The union boss was unperturbed. Maybe he knew that nothing occurred in a vacuum. It would be damned hard, if not impossible, to solve the one without looking into the other.
I stared hard at
the company script. “I’ll take this for an advance, but my payment needs to be greenbacks.”
Roy gave a triumphant laugh. MacCallard nodded his agreement.
Chapter Six
MacCallard’s toughs walked us to the back door of the hotel. I would have preferred to keep some of them around. With Stanislaus after us, I’d take all the firepower I could get. Some folks might call me a coward for that—I’m sure Roy would—but then, some folks haven’t seen the bodies they fish outta the East River. Once you’ve seen Stanny’s bloated handiwork, courage goes out the window.
With that in mind, I drew my .22 and checked the chambers before I went in. I had all of ’em loaded now, in case the rat-faced scrag and his henchmen were playing viper-in-the-grass. I went up first, with Phoebe firmly attached to my elbow.
Our room door wasn’t forced, which made me feel a little better. Stanny’s guys weren’t known for subtlety. To men like that, your boot is the only lock pick you’ll ever need.
I breathed a little easier but kept my gun out. I unlocked the door with my left hand and pushed it gently open.
Adrenaline exploded in my gut like a mortar. My limbs loosened and started moving before I knew what I was doing. My brain reeled—I was under attack. Somehow, Phoebe and I had been transported back to Gettysburg.
Later, I was able to piece together what happened.
When I opened the door, I found four fucking hardheads in my room, the river fire glinting off the big round lenses of their filterhelms. They wore long black infantry coats that swept the floor beside square-toed boots. Their enormous black gloves gripped mechano-fed shotguns, the nasty kind for close-in murder, with sawed-off barrels and pistol-grips.
Those were the details, but all I saw at the time was murder.
The revolver bellowed in my hand. I shoved Phoebe roughly to the ground. I think she began screaming. I couldn’t tell because I was screaming.
Bullets smote their chests and upper arms. I surprised them so well that I got off all six cartridges before they even squeezed a trigger.
When the counterattack came, I was gone. I ducked to the side and grabbed Phoebe by the shoulders, dragging her away from the door as a barrage of shells began shredding the hallway. In the grim red light I could see the telltale shimmer of steel in the wood—they were using flechette rounds instead of pellets. Flechettes were nasty pieces of work that cut and tore instead of piercing. The air buzzed with them.
The soldiers paused to regroup before coming through the door, which was a mistake. Truth is they should’ve kept shooting until they saw all my blood drip out through the panels.
Phoebe was screaming to stop, but I didn’t hear her. It was the trenches all over again—right down to the acrid smoke in the air. These were limey heavy troopers I was dealing with. Prussian military observers who saw them in the Crimea called them sturmtruppen, or storm troopers. When we met ’em at Gettysburg, though, we had a different name: hardheads.
Once the dry ironclads rumbled through our fortifications, swarms of these black-coated murderers would pour in, glassy eyes flashing yellow every time a shell went off, their fat-muzzled iron masks reminding us of bugs. It wasn’t like fighting men at all—it was like fighting giant steel insects.
When the first limey fuck came out the door of our room, I was ready. I drew Verhalen’s truncheon from my pocket. It was collapsible, so I could take it anywhere now. With a simple pull and a twist, it converted to a nasty baton as long as my forearm.
The moron in the gasmask pulled a rookie mistake. That should’ve been my first hint he wasn’t a British storm trooper, since those guys were pros. He came into the hallway weapon-first. I knocked the barrel of his gun toward the floor and proceeded to mercilessly batter his face.
The glass lens cracked and the filtration unit turned sideways. He stumbled onto his ass and dropped his gun. I turned to the others, ready to die in a swinging fury when I realized that someone was screaming my name.
“Donovan!” he yelled, over and over again, like a mantra. It was too deep, too muffled, to be Phoebe. It was one of the soldiers. One of the soldiers knew me. He tore his mask off and interposed himself between me and the trooper. “Donovan!” he repeated.
The voice was familiar. The face was not. I poised, truncheon up, and stared into his green-brown eyes.
“It’s okay! It’s okay!” the man kept saying.
“The hell it is,” someone objected. “He shot at us!”
“Nobody’s hurt,” the man said. His face was as clean-shaven as a paper boy’s.
The man on the ground groaned in disagreement. I’d done a number on his head.
I was poised, teeth bared, ready to strike.
“Donovan. It’s me, Kober. You used to call me Koberman, like the dog but with a K.”
I blinked. “Kober?”
Dim recollections floated into my feverish head. He’d watched my back once. We’d shared drinks and commiserated about how rotten the world was. This man had stood shoulder-to-shoulder with me against the unions. He’d been a colleague. Never a friend, though—I had no friends in the Pinkertons.
I lowered the truncheon and moved to the chair, hands shaking like a palsy victim. What had just happened to me?
The soldiers slowly took their helmets off.
Kober helped me as if I were an old man. The world reeled around me. Stimuli came pouring in torrents into my feverish skull. I could see all the pores on Kober’s cheeks and the yellow tobacco-stains on his friend’s teeth. I could hear Phoebe’s panicked breathing through the thin partition.
“Jesus, Donovan—I never knew how scary it is to fight you.”
It wasn’t a compliment, not to me. That’s what makes me different from men like Stanislaus.
“I—I thought I was back in the war,” I said numbly. It was oppressive, almost painful, the things I was sensing. Worst of all, though, was the feeling in my chest, as if my heart were going to explode. All the deep breaths in the world couldn’t seem to calm me.
“I know, man.” He looked around at the other soldiers. The one on the floor got to his feet, shaking his head. Thankfully, when he pulled off the gasmask, none of the glass shards were in his eye.
“What’s going on?” I collapsed the truncheon and noticed my eyes were dry. Had I forgotten to blink?
Now that I wasn’t shooting at them, I could see that although these were English greatcoats and helmets, they were not wearing Her Majesty’s colors. There were no unit insignia to mark their battalion. Their shoulders were bare.
“This was all a misunderstanding,” Kober said, more to them than to me. “Donovan fought at Gettysburg. He watched his friends get killed by people wearing these uniforms.”
One of the hardheads nodded as if he understood. The others just glared.
The logical part of my mind was waking up. It forced the animal down and imposed order on reality. “There’s a girl around the corner...”
Phoebe came in. She hugged herself and looked around at the soldiers.
“What are you doing in Liuttsburg, Schist? I heard you went indie.”
“I did. You get an offer from Harriman?”
“Ayep. I left the Eyes a while back. I’ve been a Hound now for six months at least.”
I studied his face. “No wonder I didn’t recognize you. Where’s your mustache, man?”
He ran a gloved hand across his bare cheek. “Gone. You need a good tight seal for the filterhelm. A baby fa
ce helps with that.”
“You look like a teenager.” I frowned. “It doesn’t suit you.”
The detective laughed. “The money suits me, though.”
“I bet it does.” I tried not to sound disgusted. I’d left the Pinkertons because of what they made me do. By taking a job with Harriman, Kober proved that if anything, he wanted more violence, not less.
“It was a surprise to everyone when you left,” he went on, oblivious to my disdain. “You can’t be making much money on your own.”
I shrugged “It’s better hours. Plus I don’t have a boss breathing down my neck...” I avoided his eyes.
“Must be nice,” he said without enthusiasm. Kober was one of those people who didn’t understand anything but a fat paycheck. He turned for a moment to check his men. No one was grievously hurt, though I’d left more than a few bruises.
“You guys are loaded for bear,” I said, looking them over.
They were carrying shotguns to a man, the fancy kind with a spring-loaded feed. The short barrels and pistol-grips made them easy to handle and carry, though the recoil was probably murder.
I glanced at the wall they shot up. I could see the bed in the next room.
“These unionists aren’t playing around,” Kober said, turning back. “They gunned down several of our guys last week and set the damn river on fire.”
No detective was above lying, but from the smooth way he spoke, he must’ve believed it. That didn’t mean Harriman wasn’t behind the fire, though. It just meant that Kober didn’t know if he was. The Hounds were all wearing state-of-the-art filterhelms while the unionists were coughing their lungs up behind handkerchiefs. The fire gave the detectives a real advantage.
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