Steampunk Hearts

by Jordan Reece

  Her hair was dark blonde and pulled back with a clip. A pretty face but her smile was a grimace of bared teeth, and the deep blue of her eyes was also pretty yet the insincerity of her smile was matched with a flat gaze. She was examining Hasten Jibb with piercing intensity that he did not find intrusive, or even notice.

  Look at that horse!

  That was what Hasten was noticing. Parked in the driveway was a pale green carriage with a brilliant purple lily painted on the back. The autohorse was also purple, though paler than the lily, and not the one that Hasten had delivered. Hasten had never seen a purple autohorse before, and neither had Jesco. Nor had Hasten ever seen this carriage, and he came down this road all the time. She had a visitor.

  “I remember you!” the woman was saying. “Look, I’m having a terrible problem. My autohorse is at the mechanic, I’m having a party tonight, and I ran out of time to mail some packages to Chussup and Cantercaster. They must get there today, or tomorrow at the very latest. Do I absolutely have to go through your office, or can I offer you money to deliver them? There are twelve packages and I’ll pay you five dollars each.”

  Five dollars each! When he paused from surprise, she said, “Ten dollars. I must get these delivered!”

  “I’ll deliver them,” Hasten said. He had taken side jobs plenty of times and pocketed extra cash that way. He didn’t know why couriers got in trouble for that if Ragano & Wemill found out, but he never said anything and they had never caught him.

  Straddling his bicycle, he waited on the sidewalk while she ran into the house for the packages. It took some time for her to return since they had to be addressed, but he didn’t mind. He wheeled back a little to see if there were any new statues in the neighboring yard. There was! Under the broad leaves of a fern was a gingerbread cookie man with a bite out of his head. That was funny.

  The woman returned several minutes later with all of the packages in a basket. She looked anxious as he slipped them into his satchel. “I’ll get them where they need to go,” Hasten said reassuringly. “I can do the ones in Chussup tonight since I live there, and I’ll take the Cantercaster ones early in the morning.”

  “Thank you! It’s a load off my mind to get them out of here.”

  “Did you want to put on a return address in case they don’t get accepted?”

  “Oh, no. I’ve wasted enough of your time, and I know all of these people will accept them. I’ve mailed them little gifts many times.” She counted out his money, her earrings clacking as she nodded to herself, and the boy within him was dazzled. Golden Circle! He’d been lucky to get a penny tip in Iron, or a few pennies in Brass. Silver was where he started pulling in dollars, and Golden Circle was golden. That was a joke to him.

  “Hope your horse feels better!” he said as another joke when he put the money in his wallet.

  “I do, too,” the woman said, and waved as he prepared to ride away. He’d made more from this side job today than he had from his hourly pay! More than he would make all this week! After he delivered in Cantercaster in the morning, and he would have to leave at the crack of dawn to get it done, he would go to his favorite restaurant and splurge on the Royal Platter. Sausages and pancakes and eggs and cut fruit with whipped cream . . .

  The statues gathered in the next yard, mumbling mutinously and staring at him, and then they besieged the streets to chase after his bicycle. He knew that there was nothing actually there, but the furious stampede of one-legged flamingos, squat gnomes, sparkling fairies, and hopping toads made him soar. Added in the mix was a purple autohorse that breathed fire, Captain Mouse in his ship and the gingerbread cookie man brandishing a sword in fury since Hasten had taken a bite out of him. Chomp.

  They were gaining on him! He went too fast around a curve to get away. The front tire hit a rock and the handlebars jerked. Truly was he flying then . . .

  When the memories resumed, Hasten’s happy chase fantasy was gone. Rucaline! There was rucaline in the packages! Or at least there was in the one that had come apart in his fall. But the packages were all the same shape and the same weight. The only difference in them was the addresses. So he thought that they all contained little white cakes of rucaline.

  Patrolmen had arrested three people who lived across the street back in his Iron days. He remembered them standing in the front yard, their hands cuffed behind their backs, their heads hanging, and Mama said, “Look at them! Look at them in their shame!” They had gotten in trouble for buying rucaline, and one was in even more trouble because he had given some of it to his friend, and she’d lost her mind on it. Once Mama went into the house, Hasten crossed the street. He had gone to school with one of the patrolmen. That was Levi Linski, a friend of Dochi’s when Dochi was alive, and he explained all about rucaline to Hasten.

  If Hasten delivered these packages, he could be arrested. Then he was giving it to people who could lose their minds on it like that woman had. The police would take away his bicycle and his job in Golden Circle and he would go to prison and not feel the sea winds in his hair ever again.

  Go to the police, Jesco thought to the man in turmoil wheeling home. But still alive within this man was a child, a very frightened child who did not know what to do. He was going to get in trouble, and he gripped the handlebars more tightly so no one could take his bicycle away. It never occurred to him to tell his mother, or to go to the office and hand over the packages to his boss. It never occurred to him that he was carrying a treasure trove in drugs that he could sell on his own. Rucaline was a drug and drugs were bad, so he had to get away from drugs.

  The memory stopped, and the next one began. It had come clear to him in his room. In his mind’s eye was Dochi, and Dochi was telling him to take those packages back to the woman. Yes! He would give them all back, including the one that had gotten smashed, and the money on top of it, and say no thanks. She could find another courier to deliver those, or wait for her autohorse to come back from the mechanic. She could even borrow her visitor’s carriage and purple horse to do it. Hasten would not. He didn’t want to go to jail.

  A boy. Angels above, a boy.

  He swept through the darkening roads and arrived at the house. It was early night. There were carriages parked carelessly up and down the sidewalks, autohorses waiting patiently. Some of the carriages jutted out into the road and others had a wheel or two propped up on the sidewalks. All of the lights in the house were blazing behind the sheer curtains. That was right! She had said that she was having a party. The driveway was full of carriages, too. Black and tan and parked haphazardly so no one could get out.

  He would have parked his bicycle on the sidewalk, but a stray horse was clopping up it. Dismounting, Hasten walked the bicycle through the garden. Everything had been tidy when he was here in the afternoon, but now it was a mess. There were cups on the ground, flowers ripped up and tossed aside, and someone had balanced a bicycle atop the fountain. Water coursed down the bars and dripped from the wheels. The air smelled of urine and ale.

  There was laughter and shouting from the first floor of the house. More cups and puddles were on the porch, so he turned at the hedges and parked his bicycle there. He was going to knock on the door and ask to see her-

  -he was-

  -he was-

  -she was-

  She reeled over her own two feet and tripped on a bicycle, knocking it over and falling on top of it. Stoman shouted the carriage is this way, Lyza, you damn drunk, and she clambered out of the bushes and off the bicycle to tell him what she thought of him . . .

  -she was-

  -she was-

  Such a pretty color! But it was big, a grown-up’s bicycle, and it was sticky!

  The lady smiled at Patty. She had a lot of teeth like a shark, and she smelled. It was an ale smell when a shark should have smelled like fish, and a shark didn’t wear hoop earrings with diamonds either, or any kind of earrings at all.

  “Fun, fun, fun! You can ride it everywhere!” the woman said. Her smile was a shark smi
le, all teeth and no lips. Patty looked up to Molly, who did not want the sticky bicycle, and could not take it with both hands. She was holding the flamingo statue so Patty was helping to keep it steady . . .

  Jesco took his hand off the bicycle. Tammie and Scoth helped him down to the sofa, where he told them everything he had seen with Scoth writing it in his pad of paper. A dull throb was in Jesco’s stomach. “We still don’t know anything for sure,” he said when he finished.

  “We know so much more than we did,” Scoth said. “We can place Jibb for certain at Grance Dolgange’s home in Melekei within minutes to a couple of hours of when he was murdered. We’ve got proof that she’s involved in the distribution of rucaline!”

  “Horrible and no two ways about it,” Tammie said, having gone to the kitchen for a drink and flopping into the armchair. Liquid spilled over her fingers. Wiping off her hand, she said, “A real adult in his head and he wouldn’t have gone back. He would have gone anywhere but back. Any of us would have told him that. He could blow her whole operation, to her way of thinking, if he opened his mouth to someone. He could have demanded she pay him to keep his silence. That’s what she would have considered when he showed up on her porch. He’s going to want money to shut up, or to be let in on the business, or he’s got principles that will land her in hot water. She couldn’t see into his head that he just wanted to hand back those packages with the money and go home on his bicycle.”

  Scoth spoke as he wrote. “She wanted to get that rucaline out of her house before the party, a party that has before damaged or flat-out destroyed portions of her property. Maybe she was worried that her friends would find it. With all the cakes that were in those twelve packages . . . that had to be a million dollars in rucaline. If she were ratted out for it, she’d spend the rest of her life in prison.”

  “There had to be somewhere safe in that big house of hers to stow it,” Tammie protested.

  “But I can see her being nervous about it. What if it was destroyed or stolen, and even more worrisome, what if a person found it and took some? Had a bad reaction and had to be taken to the hospital? That would gain the interest of the Drug Administration, whether she was involved or not, and there would be agents dispatched to speak with her. They’d start digging around in her life and her friends’ lives. Also, the neighbors had already complained to the police about her parties and what if they stopped by? It’s understandable she wanted that rucaline gone, and saw an opportunity when a courier went past her house. Also, the unusual carriage and autohorse that Jibb saw on his first stop there! Yvod Kodolli was described in a rag as owning a purple autohorse. But it doesn’t sound like that carriage was still there on Jibb’s second visit. Was it, Jesco?”

  “If it was, it had been moved. Or else he left,” Jesco said. “There wasn’t anything special about the rest of the carriages. They were quality, but regular colors and styles.”

  “You think the body got dumped in that carriage, Scoth?” Tammie asked.

  “That’s quite a conspicuous carriage to take around for someone doing something he or she wants to stay hidden,” Scoth said. “We canvassed the streets of Wattling immediately after the murder-”

  “I was part of it, remember?”

  “And not one person reported seeing a horse and carriage like that. Those are details that would stick out, especially so soon afterwards. That couldn’t have been the vehicle that got the body to Poisoners’ Lane.”

  “Can’t assume he was dead then. He could have died in the carriage on the way, whatever carriage they took.”

  “If only that bicycle had had eyes,” Scoth said. “But still, we’ve got him at that house now. He had the intention of walking up to the door and knocking on it. Who answered, and what happened then?”

  “He got himself poked, that’s what,” Tammie said. “And not one of those loads of people thought to take themselves to the Melekei police and report it. Nice lot of friends she has. And one of them knew enough about seers to strip him naked.”

  Jesco shifted to see what parts of his body worked and what didn’t. He was weakened but functional, and the dull throb was gone. “And burn his clothes and all of his belongings so no seer could ever lay a finger on them,” he added. “They could all be in the rucaline trade with her, those friends at the party. They wouldn’t have gone to the police then. They were protecting their business.”

  “If they were all in it with her, then she wouldn’t have been so desperate to send it away with a courier,” Scoth said. “So Jibb takes it, but he’s back within hours when she has a house full of guests and there’s the rucaline.”

  “Bet it comes to her from the Sarasasta Islands where she’s got her summer home and her grandmother lives,” Tammie said. “That’s where they grow it, hidden in the wild places where no one lives. Maybe she grows it herself on her property. Then it gets sent to her in Melekei, and she mails it on to people in Chussup and Cantercaster who will sell it in those places or take it elsewhere. But she’s already gone, the neighbors told you? It’s a little early to leave for summer yet.”

  “She might find it in her best interest to be gone if she learned a homicide detective and a seer showed up at her grandfather’s office in Somentra with questions about Hasten Jibb.” Scoth looked from Jesco to the bicycle, which was still parked in the living room. “The Sarasasta Islands have a different idea of law enforcement. If she’s gone there, it will be difficult to have her extradited back to Ainscote.”

  “But we never would have gotten this far without the timepiece,” Jesco argued. “We would have found a naked man and nothing for us to go on. It was the timepiece that led us to Naphates, and then to Quay’s girlfriend who led us to Kodolli.”

  “Basically we’re moving ahead in the case,” Tammie said, “yet still have no idea what’s going on. You’ve got to contact all the stations, Scoth, let them know to be on the lookout for Grance Dolgange. She could have joined her husband in Deleven, what with his sick relative, if not the Sarasasta Islands. And maybe there should be a lookout for the brother. He’s six kinds of trouble. Isn’t so far to think that rucaline might be the seventh in his pocketbook of general mayhem and menace.” Scoth was already standing to take his leave of them.

  Lifting a leg, Jesco stretched it out back and forth. Just a cane would see him around for the rest of the day. Tammie shook her head in amazement at him. “What you see, Jesco! I felt like I was right there with Hasten on his bicycle when he was riding around, and like a child again with a problem too big for my brain. Did he notice any of those names and addresses on the packages so that you know them?”

  Three-quarters of them had gone into the satchel without any more examination than Chussup or Cantercaster. “There was a P. Delgoda, Box 54 in Cantercaster Post Building Twelve. And two for Chussup: Submissions c/o Shaune Shaver, Last Times Print, and O. Levec, Enterprise, 5th Floor, Statesbury Lane.”

  “Those aren’t home addresses. She was mailing them to post boxes and people’s place of employment. I guess if I were receiving something like rucaline, I wouldn’t want it going to my home either. Nattia opened my mail in addition to helping herself to my food. I would take out a post box and never bring it here. And Last Times Print!”

  “Never heard of it,” Jesco said.

  “That’s a religious newsletter, that is. I’ve seen them handing it out for free on street corners, pages full of nonsense about demon armies planning an attack and we’ve all got to pray hard and send money to keep them back.”

  “And no return address, so it couldn’t be traced back to Grance Dolgange,” Jesco mused.

  “Wonder how she did it on the regular. Something went wrong that day she gave all those packages to Hasten. Maybe her usual gig was to give them to a different courier in on it who didn’t show up for his side job, or else she delivered them in person on her autohorse that broke. But she’s too sly for that. She doesn’t want them associated with her. Maybe she drops them in the normal post and lets them fly that w
ay. You can do that with small packages that aren’t too heavy; you don’t have to take them in and see someone personal at the counter to have them weighed. Or else she works with a courier company like Ragano & Wemill, but she couldn’t take them in for delivery without her horse and when she’s busy trying to set up for a party. And she recognized the green jacket when poor Hasten was going past her house. Good courier for a reputable company; he’s most likely Silver or Golden Circle if he’s in Melekei so she felt confident that he wasn’t going to open the packages or steal anything. Scarce jobs for Iron or Brass in that area.”

  “He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  Tammie whistled. “Can you arrest a person for being intended to receive rucaline when the delivery was intercepted? I suppose not. They can just play dumb, say someone crazy must have done it. But the police should investigate all three of those people. Are you hungry for dinner, Jesco? I’ll cook for you in this instance; you look wrung out as a dishrag.”

  Scoth returned during their meal and joined them at the table to eat. “Every station in Ainscote is being notified to be on the lookout for Grance Dolgange, Dircus Dolgange, and Yvod Kodolli. Hopefully the news will reach the port before she sets sail, if she’s trying. The time of year might be to our benefit. The sea will still be a little too tempestuous for a trip to the Sarasasta Islands. The heavier freight ships will set out around now, but the recreational cruises won’t start for another few weeks.”

  There was nothing more to be done with the case for the night, but Scoth’s mental list grew through the meal and continued to grow ever longer when they were side by side in bed. “We’ll get a warrant in the morning to search the Melekei property. I’ll order the station’s background investigator to pull up everything on the Dolganges and the Kodollis as well. I’ll contact the Drug Administration, so I can talk to their agents who work on rucaline eradication. Will you be able to go?”