Cruel Numbers

by Christopher Beats

  I wasn’t sure about that last part—maybe this behavior was all too common—but at least we hadn’t heard about it.

  She bit her lip and glanced at her savior, pierced in the side by a lance.

  I couldn’t have chosen a better place. “Can you get me in? Past his security? Just for a minute? All I need is a minute of his time…”

  She shook her head. “You don’t understand. There’s no way. He’s got secretaries and assistants all about him. They’d cut you off before you said two words.” She bent her head. “We should pray on it.”

  I tried not to laugh while she produced a string of crimson beads. They hung like drops of blood attached to a silver crucifix, complete with the requisite gruesome figure, a withered scarecrow writhing in agony at their end.

  Her black eyes shot open and she paused in mid-genuflection. “Prayer!” She turned with a grin. “His secretaries and assistants…they leave him alone when he goes to church.”

  “Holy hell!” I exclaimed, ignoring the glares. “Your boss goes to church?”

  “Sort of,” she said, wilting a little at the attention. “Not like our church. He’s Baptist.”

  Maggie’s opinion of Baptists notwithstanding, I had always figured the Magnates for nihilists.

  “That won’t do. There’ll be a lot of people around. Some might prevent me from reaching him.”

  She nodded. “I know. I wasn’t thinking of the service, though.” She then described to me her plan and I was even more shocked than before.

  When she had finished, I told her to visit the rectory, check on Moira and then stop by the rectory’s kitchen. I was still unarmed, after all, and needed a little something to protect myself.

  Her employer often came to New York, the most powerful city of the Magnocracy and the de facto capital, so he had a local church he frequented. As luck would have it, he was there that very day, conducting business I had never thought him capable of.

  Before we got there, though, I stopped her. Reaching into my pocket, I withdrew a considerable wad of greenbacks. “Give this to Moira.”

  My cousin shook her head firmly. “I’ll not have it. You bring it to her, and stay with her to boot. You can’t abandon her like this, Donovan.”

  I thrust the cash into her black-gloved hands. “I could very well die today, Maggie. You make sure she gets this if I do.”

  The word die caught her protest in her throat. I was about to barge in on a Magnate at a most private of moments. Police might be called. I could be carried away in manacles. Or, if things went really bad, the police would not be called, just his private security goons. Then I would be taken away in a bag.

  Not surprisingly, his church was in the financial district. A lot of the nicer ones were, which goes to show even God kept His money on Wall Street. In the winter, it was hard to tell when you left the industrial wards and entered the nice end of town. That was because the same shit-nasty snow fell on rich and poor alike, gray and pregnant with factory soot.

  Maggie knew one of the guards, so the plan was for her to walk up and begin chatting with him. I waited at a perpendicular alley, watching her approach, skirt brushing the concrete with a determined swish-swish as she walked.

  She was a pert and pretty one, my coz. Her friend lightened up immediately when he saw her, talking amiably of shared acquaintances and upcoming holiday plans.

  The other one wasn’t as interested though. He was a lean, hungry-looking fellow, like a wolf. He glanced at Maggie appreciatively but then was back to his job watching the alley.

  I waited until he was looking to his left and ran along the wall to his right. The man with Maggie was talking animatedly, so he didn’t notice. I bolted around the corner to the nearest window and tried it.

  Locked.

  The minute I heard Maggie’s laughter, I gave the glass an expert jab of my elbow. I didn’t have a knife, so star-glazing wasn’t an option. Maggie had deliberately pitched her voice rather high, but evidently it wasn’t high enough, because I heard footsteps and a grunt.

  Hastily, I reached through the crack I’d made and unlatched it.

  Inside was an office. Before I could fully take in my surroundings, the window behind me was darkened by a silhouette.

  The lean bodyguard was there. Luckily, he wasn’t armed yet. He instead put his head through the hole and looked around.

  I turned and planted a boot on his forehead and pushed. He flew onto the pavement. I could hear two additional sets of footfalls approaching outside.

  “Who would do that?” Maggie exclaimed. I suspect she was serious. I guess she really believed me when I said there would probably be an unlocked window. Poor girl didn’t think God wanted people breaking church windows, even Baptist Congregational ones. She’d be in the confessional tonight for sure.

  The other man didn’t bother to answer. Instead he reached into his pocket and drew a piece. It looked like a custom-made revolver with a special scope.

  Without a better plan, I dropped the valise and hoisted a desk up against the window. Countless piles of stationery, pens and desktop trinkets clattered unceremoniously to the floor. I had to grit my teeth in agony and use both hands.

  The wounded one throbbed as if an elephant had stepped on it, but I managed to block the window. I heard them pushing against the desk for a moment before they gave up and ran for the door.

  I burst into the hallway, clutching the valise. There were several doors on either side and a large door at each end. I knew it wasn’t the large doors—one led to the alley and the other into the common area for prayer. It had to be one of these small offices, but there were five more doors besides the one I came out of.

  Jumping to the door across the hall, I tried it and found it locked. No light was coming from underneath, so I took it for a storage room and tried the next.

  A woman in mourning black stared up at me. She had been weeping in the arms of her pastor. I blanched and closed the door. The reverend’s consoling hands had been a little low.

  The next door was another office. That left two.

  As I walked to the next, I heard the telltale flush of a crapper and knew which one was the water closet. I was at the final door when a voice barked, “Halt!”

  I didn’t bother to look. I could feel that large steel barrel pointed at my head. I imagine he would’ve shot me then and there, had we not been in a church. He was a bodyguard for a Magnate. Those guys aren’t known for asking questions.

  “Salutations,” I said, putting the valise down and turning slowly. I surreptitiously reached for the “weapon” I had Maggie gather from the rectory kitchen. It was concealed in my sleeve, so he didn’t notice. Problem was, it was small and shit for range.

  “Come back here,” the guard said slowly, revolver trained on my skull. He was maybe twenty paces away, just inside the doorway. It was the rangy fellow. He didn’t look angry at all, though I’d kicked his head. These guys were professionals.

  His partner stepped in and eased flat along one wall, leaving a clear field of fire. “What were you trying to pull?” he asked as he came at me.

  “I have something very important for your employer.” I nodded at the valise.

  The partner was nearly on me, manacles in hand.

  “Yeah, everyone’s got something to say…” the rangy fellow said. “Everyone has a damn request, as if he ain’t busy enough.”

  “You shouldn’t curse in a church!” Maggie scolded, stepping into the hallway.

  The wolflike fellow was too clearheaded to turn and look at her. His hand didn’t waver from his target.

  “Is that really necessary?” she asked, pointing at the gun.

  At that exact moment, the person who had flushed the crapper chose to exit the washroom. It was a ten-year-old girl in a light blue dress and pigtails.

&
nbsp; I’ll never know if my cousin was thinking of me or the girl, but she thrust one of her small black-gloved hands into the fellow’s elbow and pushed the gun into the wall with a gasp.

  The man backhanded her, eliciting shock from all parties.

  His partner, meanwhile, lunged at me with the manacles, but I brought up my fist and blew into my palm. A great black burning cloud of pepper flew in his eyes.

  He roared in pain, swatting his face like a bear in a beehive.

  I threw the door open and dragged in both girl and valise as the revolver boomed.

  The bullet cut the air near my head, so the weapon was pointed my way, not Maggie’s.

  I shut the door and stood before a stunned group of children in their Sunday best. The boys had starched collars and combed heads. The girls wore pleated skirts and ribbons in their hair. The most powerful man in the country and quite possibly the richest man in the world had been gently teaching them about parables and whatnot.

  Right now, of course, he wasn’t teaching at all but glaring at this bizarre intruder. This was perhaps the most important three minutes of my life. Cabot might get his. Or they might find me belly-up in that oil-slick they call a river.

  I was painfully conscious of the children’s attention. I never do well with children. With a pang, my conscience realized that “interrupting Sunday school” could now be added to my list of sins.

  “I must humbly apologize,” I began. “But this package is for your teacher. He is, as you know, a very important man, which isn’t to say that your lesson is less important, just that this is rather urgent.” I took off my bowler respectfully.

  When I looked up, the Magnate’s eyes had softened a little, though it was hard to tell whether he frowned or smiled, since he had a great mustache that hid his mouth.

  “This will be quick, sir,” I promised.

  He gave me a brusque nod and put down the Bible he was holding.

  Just then, the door opened and the rangy bodyguard stuck his head in. I could imagine the revolver’s barrel thrust against wood, just behind my back.

  “We heard something loud a moment ago.” The Magnate’s eye cocked up in displeasure. “We’ll talk later.”

  The guard wilted back out.

  I approached the desk and opened the valise. “You are aware of the recent sales of helium to Mr. J. D. Cabot by Standard?” I didn’t wait for an affirmative. “I believe Mr. Cabot may have…done something you would not approve of.”

  Despite my injured hand, the robber baron made no movement to help me. A lanky boy with brown hair and freckles noticed, though. He stood up and helped me.

  I thanked him and handed several of the papers to the robber baron. The Magnate’s eye rested on my broken hand as he took them. It had grown to the size of a grapefruit.

  His brow furrowed slightly as he read the documents, like someone perusing a distasteful newspaper. He paused on the sheet of formulas which affixed a monetary value to the lives of dirigible passengers.

  “What cruel numbers,” he murmured.

  He didn’t ask about authenticity. The stock transactions were public record. The use of the analytical machines in the Carnegium were logged. There was plenty of independent verification available, once a man knew where to look. His sources could corroborate it if he gave the order.

  But would he?

  “Did I come to the right person?” I asked him slowly. Part of me hated him. The other part prayed he was a better man than I thought he was.

  His weighty stare settled on me.

  Without quivering, I met it.

  “Yes. You can expect this to be…settled.”

  I often wonder why he didn’t have his goons eject me with a beating or hand me over to Cabot. Maybe it was the place of innocence we were in. Or perhaps even Magnates have hearts.

  “I’ll let you get back to your lesson.” I tried to give the children a brave smile, despite the throbbing in my hand.

  He didn’t ask my name. In fact, he did not say another word about it, handing the papers to the little freckled boy. The freckled boy packed them away and the lesson resumed.

  I paused in the doorway, perhaps in hopes of a thanks or some sort of gratis. None came.

  The two guards and Maggie were waiting outside.

  “Sorry, friends,” I said. “It was terribly important.”

  They glared at me as I went past, collecting Maggie on my arm.

  “You need to see a doctor,” she said once we were in the brisk December air again.

  I nodded. “I will. Go back to Moira now and give her that money. I would…except I need to see a doctor.”

  Her lips were tight, but she caved. We went our separate ways. She to the church, I to the depot. They have doctors in California, right?

  I bought my ticket and tried to find a quiet place to convalesce. My hand was killing me, but the pain was good. Laudanum would have dulled my reflexes more than agony. I was unarmed, without even a handful of pepper. My only bet was flight. I had to detect pursuit before they detected me. That was vital.

  And I failed.

  Despite the clamor of so many feet on tile, the rattle of luggage and the screech of the locomotives, I somehow fell asleep on that hard bench. I snapped awake when I heard a familiar voice yelling, “He’s over here!”

  My heart beat painfully. It was Father Dempsey, in a wide-brimmed black hat and a scarf, pointing at me as if I were an escaped criminal.

  I jumped to my feet and ran for the platform. They might have guessed which train I was taking, but it was a big one. If I could dodge them, I could easily hide in a sleeper car until it pulled out and started roaring west for San Francisco under double-engine power.

  I could not have asked for a better place to hide. The depot was swarming with warmly dressed travelers amid rolling clouds of steam which refused to dissipate in the cool evening air. There were at least a hundred other men wearing the same gray bowler and black greatcoat as me.

  My name cut through the din and I turned. A shapely woman in a pleated box skirt and a blue shawl pushed through the crowd toward me. Curls of red hair so dark they were black framed her narrow face.

  My heart careened like a man on a precipice.

  She screamed my name again and tried to push harder, but it was useless. The callous porters and passengers didn’t care how badly she wanted by. They went their way, an immovable tide of humanity between us.

  I checked the clock. The Bicoastal had screamed in a half hour ago and was completely disgorged. They’d let me board any minute. Sooner if I bribed someone.

  I started toward the train but stopped and looked back at the screaming woman. It could have been Moira. It could have been someone else. It was too loud to tell and there were so many people between us.

  What was certain is that she gave up. She collapsed onto a bench and put her face in her blue gloves. I caught glimpses through the crowd of her shoulders heaving with sobs.

  No one noticed her. She was one more woman alone in the city, sobbing at the train station. People breezed by her as though she were a carpetbag or a bench.

  It was a cold place to leave someone.

  A sense of déjà vu settled over me like ash from a smokestack. This wasn’t the first time I watched a woman weeping on a bench.

  Once, years back, I had gone to the ferry terminal with my cousin Maggie. I had a portrait of a young Irish girl in my pocket, a girl from the Old Country my mother wanted me to marry. We had exchanged letters, she and I, and she made a handsome subject for the picture, but I wasn’t sure about marriage. Her writing had been a little childish, which might have been endearing but I had lost all patience during the war.

  Maggie insisted that this Irish girl was probably much more attractive in person and that, if she were to speak in Gaeli
c instead of writing in English, she would probably acquit herself much more to my liking.

  But the ferry terminal was crowded and the Irish girl was nowhere to be found. Her ship had been delayed by storms and the processing at Ellis Island was never quick. Maggie and I split up to look for her. From her portrait, I knew her for a straight-backed girl with dark hair and a proud face.

  As I combed the crowd for her, hour after hour, I didn’t find that girl. None of her family could make it. Each of her kin had to work that day. Greeting a relative wasn’t a valid reason to miss a shift. Truth be told, there was never a valid reason to miss a shift, except maybe death. So it was up to Maggie and me to find her, two people who didn’t know her from Eve.

  It exhausted me to navigate the crowd, so I made for a bench. As it happened, there was a girl there, crying. Like most New Yorkers, I ignored people who wept in public out of principle. But somehow I recalled that this person was a newcomer, perhaps worthy of pity. What was more, the window behind the bench was backlighting her hair so it shone like a brilliant red nimbus around her.

  I sat down and cleared my throat. “Need a fresh handkerchief?” I asked this lone woman, ignoring propriety.

  The red locks nodded an affirmative. The one in her hand was thoroughly soaked with tears and snot.

  This was about as far as my chivalric plan went. I wasn’t really sure what to do next, so I sat there quietly. “I’m looking for my fiancée,” I finally said. “She’s just arrived from the Old Country.”

  She stopped sniffling long enough to look at my face through a tangled bit of hair.

  I withdrew the portrait from my breast pocket and offered it to her. “Perhaps you’ve seen her.” I scanned the crowd as she examined it.

  The girl suddenly began laughing.

  I glanced at her quizzically and tried to think of a polite way to get my picture back and escape.