From then on the two men were like brothers. They sat the same way in their chairs, the familiar bar slouch with their elbows on the table and their chests propped up against the edge. They talked the same and they laughed the same and they took the same dismissive attitude to Hayes’s questions. It stopped being an interview and started becoming a conversation. Hayes didn’t seem interested in the man’s accidents but in his war stories.
Then Hayes asked, “This one incident, about four months ago. Fella who got burned by the conduit. Remember that?”
“God, who wouldn’t,” said McClintock. “I remember. I never heard so much screaming. Everyone was shook up for weeks.”
“What the hell was that about? How does something like that happen?”
“Tricky job. They just happen. It’s part of it.”
“So there’s no specific reason?”
“People get tired. They go out one night, can’t sleep, come in, and don’t know what they’re doing. And they pay for it.”
“That’s how they all are?” asked Hayes. “Just honest mistakes?”
“Pretty much.”
Hayes watched him closely. His eyes took on a dreamy look, filmed over and sightless as if seeing someone else entirely. “What about that one with the hands?”
McClintock looked at him uneasily. “How’d you know about that?”
“Rumor mill,” said Hayes. “Something that vicious, well, you hear about it.”
“He got them caught in the cincher. It happens.”
“I can see one hand getting caught. But both? That’s a little odd.”
“It was odd. It was horrible, too.”
“Did you see it?”
“No. No, I didn’t see the accident. I saw them wheeling Tommy away, though. Belts around his wrists and cloth all over them. He’d passed out.”
“Who did see it?”
McClintock thought for a moment then and shook his head. “It’s the strangest thing.”
“What is?”
“I don’t know who saw.”
“You don’t?”
“No. Sometimes…” He tried to think again, but the words would not stop coming now. “Sometimes I can’t trust the boys who are down there. You know? They said it was an accident. I wasn’t there, I didn’t see. They said it was. But I couldn’t be sure. Tommy never said who did it. He died not long after. Infection. But he was scared when he was alive. And Tommy was never…”
“Never what?”
“Never liked so much.”
“Why not?”
“Some damn thing,” said McClintock. “I don’t know. Something about wages. They don’t talk to me about those things, you know? I’m their boss, not their friend.”
“I know. You’re right. But they should still trust you that much.”
“They should. They absolutely should. I’ve never done them wrong before. Not ever. I’ve fought for them time and time again, I’ve fought to keep jobs and shifts and wages. Things keep getting scarcer down there, moving labor around. But you look at them and they’re all looking right back at you and you can see it. Right there. They don’t trust you. They don’t trust anyone who’s not with them. Who’s not suffering same as them. But I was on the line way back and I suffered plenty. I just survived long enough to get up to where I am. You know?”
Hayes watched him silently, eyes still unfocused. Then he said, “They were for Mickey, and Tommy wasn’t.”
McClintock nodded. “They were. Tommy didn’t want to truck with it. Didn’t care for it.”
“Who were the ones involved?”
“I don’t know.”
“But who would be likely?”
“Naylor and Walton, I’m almost sure. Those bastards. The fucking bastards. And Evie’s always palling with them, too. The past few months I got no idea what’s going on with those boys.”
Hayes nodded. “I see,” he said. “All right.”
He asked more questions. Asked about the social life of McClintock’s team, about where they went to drink. Not professional stuff, just two boozers chatting and loafing. Sure, said McClintock, they hang at the Third Ring Pub, down where Southern meets the Shanties. Hayes asked about girls and McClintock said sure, they have a few, what working man doesn’t? Rumor had it John Evie had a few boys, but he couldn’t say for certain. Peggy had been Naylor’s girl, maybe still was, off and on. Little redheaded thing, he said, he’d seen her with him more than a few times. Got to be a good fuck, but any fuck’s a good fuck if you’ve been as dry as he had, and he prodded Hayes with an elbow and the two of them laughed. More names breezed by, just idle gossip being passed along. And in the corner of the room Samantha wrote them all down, every single one.
At the end of the three hours Hayes and McClintock both wobbled to their feet and helped one another to the door, laughing and stumbling. They went to the hallway to chat and left Samantha to finish up her notes. When she was done Hayes returned, sober and distracted again, hardly drunk at all.
“Who’s Mickey?” she asked. “I don’t have any record of a Mickey in here.”
“Mickey Tazz is the union man,” said Hayes as he sat. “He’s the boy Evans painted the target on, whether he knows it or not.”
“How’d you know that?”
“Rumor mill.”
“Would that be the same place you heard about the hands?”
“Sort of. We have ten minutes ’til our next interview, right?”
“We do.”
“Right,” he said, and put his feet up and fell genuinely asleep this time.
There were three others that day: Mueller, Ferdig, and Andersson. Each time Hayes waited in the broom closet next door, and each time when he emerged he began an interviewer and ended a friend. Always there with a sympathetic ear, always smiling sadly or nodding in concern. For Mueller, who oversaw the booking office in the detailing facility, he was stiff and cordial, the consummate bureaucrat, asking detailed questions and receiving detailed answers. Lovers of due process, the both of them. For Andersson, who was so big and dour and blond, Hayes was a comrade, a fellow soldier, another hard worker who was paid for his efforts with more problems, more bullshit, more lazy coworkers. The more advanced the world gets the less everyone gives a shit, they both agreed. And for Ferdig he was a coconspirator, the two men finding some neighborhood link in their histories, some district or corner they both used to frequent, and they traded rumors and cigarettes like old thieves.
Each one had names. None quite so many as McClintock, but names nonetheless. And each had heard of Mickey Tazz, the shining hope of the Shanties. A clean, smart man supported by a nasty crowd, there was no doubt. He was riding the lightning, wasn’t he? Some days he seemed like Christ himself.
Andersson seemed to almost support the man. “He is not a criminal,” he told Hayes. “He is not dangerous. These are just dangerous times. He is just voice. Speaking of unhappiness, yes?” Hayes nodded, understanding. He worked his way close to the melancholy Swede, the two of them frowning and sharing small scraps of their days, Hayes as a simple paper-pusher, Andersson as a spot-welder for the Tramlines. Hayes professed some admiration for Andersson’s admittedly dangerous job, and the man took pride in that. When he left Hayes walked him all the way out of the building, sharing oaths and gloomy head-shakes along the way, and Hayes returned with a small bevy of information about the union leader.
Mickey Tazz, born Michael Tazarian, half-Irish, half-Czech. Came from the Shanties, worked on the dock and rose up to foreman damn quick. When the Chinese and the blacks started eating up wages he tried to fence them out and put a freeze on the wage levels. Started his own little band of stevedores, they say, but wasn’t a thug about it. He was a political animal, right from the start. Wanted to talk to the big boys. Full of high ideas about the rights of man. Naturally, things got ugly and a bunch of them got arrested, including Tazz. He wound up spending a nickel spot in Savron Hill, but on getting out he started to organize, looking to band everyone togethe
r under one big banner. If Evesden was the city of the future, then Mickey Tazz was the man who would make it a future where everyone lived in peace. Tomorrow is coming, he told everyone. We just have to make it the tomorrow we want.
“That’s a charming little picture,” said Samantha at the end.
“Yes,” said Hayes. “It is.” And he sat down and waited for the end of the long day.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The next three weeks passed in nearly the same way. Each day a new list of names. Each morning a new set of blank little rooms with blank men. And at the end of each day they had a new list of their own to deliver to Evans, who would then presumably deliver it to Brightly, or at least someone higher up on the Security chain.
However, what happened after that was never made known to them. Hayes was not sure if there were arrests made, or inquiries, or if other investigators were following up on the allegations brought to light by their interviews. Samantha once asked him about it, wondering if this was procedure, but Hayes could do no more than shrug. This union angle was completely new to him, he admitted. He’d no idea what the procedure was, or even if there was any.
Then one day on one of their rare free mornings Hayes swung down to Payroll and checked on a few suspicions he’d been nursing. He frowned when he heard the answers to his queries, and then took the elevator up to the Communications Office for Securities and sent off a telegram directly to Brightly, asking to meet. Then he sat in the waiting room of the office and watched the gray clouds drifting by outside.
It was extraordinarily difficult to get a meeting with Brightly. The man moved constantly. As far as Hayes was aware he didn’t even have an office. There was a rumor that the short, red airship that they saw hovering near the McNaughton cradle so often was his own personal vessel, ready to swoop him up and drop him down wherever and whenever he needed it. Hayes felt sure this was a lie. Brightly wasn’t one for flash and style. Whatever he was, he was far from Father Christmas.
Suddenly the telegraph came to life, rattling and clacking, and the clerk ripped the reply message from the machine’s teeth: CURRENTLY IN ENG SUMMIT STOP COME TC OFF 1100 HRS STOP USE BCK ENTR STOP -B
Hayes was surprised. He’d hardly expected a response, let alone one so quick. He thanked the clerk and then headed out to the street to catch a cab over to the Telecommunications Office.
He arrived early and waited across the street from the dull gray building. It had none of the flair of any of the other McNaughton structures, but then like most McNaughton buildings much of the work was done in the spacious basements and offices underground. At ten-thirty a crowd of men in cheap suits and shirtsleeves threaded out, talking and babbling to each other. Engineers, he guessed, from whatever meeting they were holding. No doubt Brightly had wanted Hayes to steer well clear of them.
Finally at eleven Hayes sauntered around to the alley behind the office and found the back door. Although it was made of wood and iron a light key slot was set into the side. Hayes took out his own light key and slid it in. There was the familiar whir and clunk and he pulled the door open. He hadn’t been positive it’d work; his light key was accepted by most McNaughton doors, but some areas, like the Records floor and some labs and engineering bays, were specifically off-limits to him.
He entered a long, empty corridor. The lights were mostly off, and as he walked in he felt wary for some reason. Then as he passed two swinging doors he looked through their windows to see Brightly lounging at the front of what looked like a large teaching auditorium. Arced desks descended down to the front stage in concentric circles, and most of the lights were off. The desktops were covered in papers and pencils and all sorts of clerical rubbish. At the front of the room was a large blackboard and many graphs and charts, and before them sat what looked like a large iron lamp on a pedestal.
Hayes pushed open the door. Brightly looked back, surprised, and then stood. An easy smile played across his face, but his right hand quickly reached into his pocket to pull out his pocket watch. He glanced at it, then called up, “Good morning, Hayes. You’re early. Or, actually, on time.”
Hayes grimly reminded himself that Brightly wasn’t checking his watch to see if he was early. “Yes,” he said, walking down. “Had some minutes to spare. Thought I’d skip over early. Who were those boys leaving just now? Pale, unwashed-looking chaps. I guessed they were your scientists. That so?”
“Yes.”
“I suppose you had me come in after so I didn’t hear what they were saying?”
“I didn’t want any interruptions,” said Brightly, his voice fruity and jovial as though they were discussing news at the club.
“Or perhaps so I wouldn’t hear what they were thinking?” asked Hayes.
Brightly’s easy smile didn’t twitch a bit. But then, however much Hayes needled, it almost never did. Brightly was an impenetrable wall of a man, physically and spiritually. He was six feet tall with bulky shoulders and the build of a powerful man happily gone to seed. He was somewhere in his early fifties, but his head was crowned with leonine, prematurely white hair. He always had the smile of a boy just leaving grade school, wickedly delighted at the way the world was perpetually coming to his favor, which perhaps for Brightly it was. Hayes knew very little about him, but he’d heard he’d cut his teeth in Africa during the Boer Wars, when his salesmanship to the Boer Republics had pushed the war in their favor. At least until Britain put up a better bid, and it all went to pieces for them. It was supposedly after Britain annexed the Republics that Brightly orchestrated McNaughton’s unspoken alliance with the British Empire. After all, it was said, since McNaughton was clearly going to be the dominant empire of the coming years, they might as well learn a few tricks from an old hand. Some even said Brightly had sold arms to the Boers just to get Her Majesty’s attention and attract a bid.
“Nonsense,” said Brightly. “Our secrets are, naturally, your secrets. You’re company, after all. So what can I do for you?” As Hayes came before him, Brightly checked his watch once more.
“I want to know what we’re doing with the unions,” said Hayes.
“With the unions?” said Brightly, faintly confused. “That’s obvious. We’re investigating sabotage and propaganda.”
“Yes, yes,” said Hayes. “But we’re not arresting any of them. I went to Payroll today. All of the men we identified as saboteurs are still working. Still coming in for their shifts. We’re still paying them, for God’s sake. Doesn’t seem to add up.”
“That assumes we’re doing simple addition,” said Brightly. “You’re thinking too small.”
“Am I? Then please, broaden my mind.”
“Hm. How far would you say the union infiltration goes, Hayes?” asked Brightly cheerily. “How far do you know, for sure?”
Hayes shrugged.
“Exactly,” said Brightly. “We don’t know. Or at least we don’t know much. You just have a few thugs.”
“A few killers.”
“Killers, yes, but thugs all the same. They’re superficial, low-level. So why flush them out so early, when we know so little, and our product so far is so meager? Why startle them by arresting just a few violent brutes, when we’d much rather have bigger fish on the line?”
Hayes thinned his eyes. “You’re talking about Tazz.”
“Time!” called Brightly, still smiling. Then he abruptly turned and walked away from Hayes to the far corner of the room without saying another word. He stood there with his back to him, silently looking at his watch in the palm of one hand.
Hayes did not follow. Instead he grimaced, and then silently counted off a full minute while Brightly did the same. Once it was done Hayes followed him to the corner of the room.
“So we’re not making any arrests until we’ve got Mickey Tazz, is that it?” he asked.
“Tazz, or whoever,” said Brightly. He checked his watch again. “We just don’t know. And until we know, we won’t make arrests, now will we?”
“It’s still not saf
e,” said Hayes. “Leaving saboteurs working at your plants. They’ve killed, you know.”
“I’m aware,” said Brightly mildly.
“They may kill again.”
“Precautions have been taken,” said Brightly. “We’re keeping our eyes on them. They won’t be doing any more damage.”
“You’re keeping your eyes on them, but not too close because you don’t want them spooked?” said Hayes. “Christ. You know that’ll never work.”
Brightly smiled placidly. “I think I’ll judge what works and what doesn’t. We need to know everything we can. There may be other groups of them, committing crimes we can’t see. Hidden pockets in other plants. If we eliminate one, we leave others still functioning. Or maybe doing worse damage, since they’d know we’re onto them.”
“If you want me to find out if there are any others, let me grill the ones we’ve identified. I can work them over and find out everything they know. You haven’t even let us bring in Naylor or anyone else connected.”
“That’s assuming they know anything,” said Brightly sternly. “And you know we’re not going to let you do that. Not after Ferguson.” He sighed a little as though disappointed. “You know, this is not normal procedure. You honestly shouldn’t be going above Evans’s head on this.”
“Evans doesn’t know what you’re doing either,” said Hayes. “And Evans can’t give me what I want.”
“And what’s that?”
“To go after Tazz directly, on my own,” said Hayes.
“Time!” said Brightly, snapping his watch shut. Then he lumbered away back down to the front of the room.
Hayes opened his mouth to say something, but refrained. He stared at the ground at his feet as Brightly took the steps up to stand on the edge of the stage, humming to himself with his back to Hayes. Hayes counted off another sixty seconds, then crossed the auditorium and followed him up the steps.
Brightly turned to face him as he approached. “Now, Hayes, you know we can’t let you do that.”
“Why not? It’s Tazz you’re after, that’s obvious enough.”
The Company Man Page 8