by Pavel Kornev
I fitfully swallowed and managed to squeeze out only a none-too-intelligible:
"This is all some kind of misunderstanding..."
"I hope that’s true."
Von Nalz's cold tone scared me so bad I started hiccupping. But I still overcame my hesitation and asked a favor:
"Inspector general! Please don't tell my... relatives. I want to solve my own problems. On my own, do you see?"
"That merits respect," Friedrich von Nalz nodded. "I don't think there's any need to tell them. Her Majesty’s health leaves a lot to be desired. She certainly doesn't need any more reason to worry."
"I thank you," I caught my breath with untold relief.
The inspector general smiled.
"I hope, Leopold, that our next meeting will be under somewhat less disreputable circumstances."
I gave a short burst of quick nods. I was now ready to agree with the inspector general about anything, and I hurried to slip out into the reception. The adjunct, when he saw me, tore himself from the typing machine and asked:
"Should I call a constable?"
"No, I can find the exit," I refused. "Do I need any kind of pass?"
"Just go. I'll call the guard desk."
"Thank you!"
With a sense of unbelievable relief, I left the reception room and, first of all, pulled a handkerchief out of my jacket pocket, but it was all covered in black and blue ink blotches, so I couldn't wipe the sweat from my face. My heart was beating very unevenly so, on the second floor, acting on an old memory, I ducked into the men's lavatory, washed up and stared at my reflection in the blurry and cracked mirror over the sink.
My reflection looked haggard and fearful.
Curses! I looked squeezed out like a lemon and terrified, like a tiny shepherd boy sitting at a little dying fire surrounded by hungry wolves.
Bastian Moran would not back down. Devil! He would be certain to take the investigation to the end anddig up all the background information. And the problem wasn't a personal dislike or desire to restore justice–devil, I had killed the Thugees! –the senior inspector had some kind of personal interest in this case.
Maybe a promotion? Friedrich von Nalz was old, he couldn't stay in the post of inspector general for long, but how would my case help Moran move up the ranks? And also, why was he so driven to uncover a crime, if society was sure that the thugees had been shot by police?
I didn’t understand...
AT THE GUARD POST, no one even glanced at me. A shift change was underway. Some constables were hurrying to work, others were already on their way to the exit, all in civilian clothing. In all the helter-skelter, I calmly strolled out of the Newton-Markt.
But when I entered the colonnade-lined portico of the police administration's internal yard, I was surprised to discover a fairly large crowd on the stairs. It didn't look much like a demonstration: there was a thin chain of police easily holding back the large number of fancily-clad gentlemen, who were armed not with placards and sticks, but notepads, pencils and cameras.
"Newspapermen!" I realized, donning my derby cap. I was already on my way to a side arch when, from behind I heard:
"Lev! Lev, wait!"
I almost had a seizure! Mechanically, and not considering my actions, I stuck my hand into my jacket pocket. But, at the last moment, I came to my senses and turned around. A black-haired thin young man in an ill-fitting suit and a rumpled gray cap was hurrying after me.
"Lev, I really wasn't expecting to see you here!" laughed Thomas Eliot Smith, the investigator from the Pinkerton Detective Agency.
I unclenched my fingers from the handle of the Cerberus with relief and, removing my hand from my pocket, extended it to Smith.
"And I was not expecting to meet you, Thomas!" I smiled. We exchanged hand-shakes and, clipping my dark glasses on my nose, I asked: "After all, you were preparing to return to the New World, isn't that right? What winds blew you to the capital?"
"It's all blasted work!" the investigator told me with histrionic pity, stroking his black mustache in a habitual motion and asking: "And what led you to this bastion of law and order? Not more problems with the law I hope?"
"A small misunderstanding," I frowned. "Nothing serious."
"Can I help?"
"No, it's all been solved to the best effect."
Professional mistrust flickered in the investigator's dark eyes. I knew, however, that they only seemed dark because of colored glass lenses. Thomas Smith was illustrious but hid that fact very artfully.
Wanting to distract the investigator from the reason for my visit to the Newton-Markt, I hurried to ask:
"I suppose something extreme must have shaken out, if you were sent across the Atlantic again."
"Lev, I did such a good job this summer, that they decided to have me stay in the Old World!" the investigator laughed. "Now, I am a mobile agent-consultant with a zone of responsibility encompassing half of Europe! Paris, London, Lisbon and Madrid. Where haven't I been this summer! Now something's afoot in New Babylon..."
I had the words "travelling salesman" turning on the tip of my tongue, but I didn’t want to offend the man. I also didn't fish out the details of his new assignment, instead pointing at the crowd.
"I don’t suppose you know what all this is about? What's going on? Yet another sabotage at a weapons factory or a flash anarchist operation?"
A barely visible grimace slid over Smith's face, as if the topic was unpleasant. Instead of answering, he slipped me the morning edition of the Capital Times with a yard-long headline reading:
"Bloody Ritual on Faraday Boulevard!"
"More gossip?" I clarified, skimming the article.
"No," the investigator shook his head. "I’m afraid it’s all real."
"Is that so?" I asked in surprise, because the headline was about a crime that was extreme even by the ghoulish standards of New Babylon. Murder was no rarity in our guest houses but, this time, the victim was a young unmarried lady of light scruples, and the murderer had pulled out her eyes and cut out her heart. The police were called by the apartment tenant a floor below after blood started dripping from his ceiling. A theory was put forward that malefics were mixed up in the case, but there wasn't any evidence of that. The police had announced a search for her procurer.
At that moment, two constables with red department-official bands of on their arms threw open the doors and, just to make sure, propped them with iron stoppers. The newspapermen moved forward, and the police had to expend a reasonable amount of force to hold them behind the perimeter at the columns.
"Is the inspector general going to make an announcement?" I guessed.
"That's right," Thomas Smith confirmed. "And here he is now..."
Friedrich von Nalz came out to the press conference in a ceremonial uniform; his adjunct had a folder in his hands and was following the head of the police at some distance. The constables straightened up and started pushing even harder on the now silent newspapermen, but they were holding dead tight on the steps. They only managed to reconquer the first two or three highest rows.
"I suppose I'll be going," I decided. "Glad to see you..."
Thomas Smith extended a hand to say farewell and, at that moment, a disheveled young man managed to jump past the perimeter.
"Die, bloodthirsty satrap!" he shouted and, before any of the policemen managed to get moving, caught off guard by the unexpected attack, he threw up his pistol. "Freedom to prisoners of conscience!"
He should have just shot but, for such individuals, political slogans always came first, so the anarchist first shouted, then fired. To be more accurate, he tried to fire, but didn't find much success: his pistol simply exploded.
Fragments of the weapon flew in all directions as red-hot shrapnel. Fortunately, no one was seriously hurt by that, and the unsuccessful murderer was instantly dog-piled on the ground by quick-moving constables. Now, he was no threat to anyone and, what was more, he needed emergency aid himself: blood was spurting out
of the stump of his mangled arm.
"Doctor!" one of the newspapermen began to wail, but the person who helped the anarchist was no police medic.
Von Nalz decisively pushed away the constables surrounding him and approached the wounded man. I sensed a burning echo of his illustrious talent, then the frightening wound hissed and instantly stopped bleeding. The wounded boy immediately stopped struggling and went limp in the constables' arms. Then, in a senseless state, he was carried inside the Newton-Markt.
"The press conference is postponed!" the inspector general’s chalk-white adjunct shouted.
Thomas Smith immediately realized how problematic it would be if we got stuck here and pulled me to the side exit.
"Let's go! Otherwise we'll be stranded here until evening!"
By some miracle, we managed to leave the yard of the Newton-Markt before the arch was blockedby quick-moving constables. Then, on the street, Thomas Smith immediately turned down a side passage where, in front of a grocer's shop, he was awaited by a self-propelled carriage–the very same Ford Model-T.
"What was that, devil take me?!" the investigator turned to me, firing up the steam boiler. "Lev, do you have any idea?"
"What's to understand?" I snorted. "That was either an anarchist, or a gunman from yet another underground socialist cell. Perhaps he was also a Christian, but that is hardly likely. They tend to use different slogans."
"Not that!" Smith turned sharply. "Why did the pistol blow up?!"
"The inspector general is illustrious. He has a very... inflammatory talent."
"Ah, so that was it!" the investigator drew out his words, pulled on his driving gloves and asked: "Do you need a ride?"
I considered it for a moment, then clarified:
"Can you drop me off on Mendeleev Avenue?"
"Where is that?"
"Not far. I'll show you."
"You'll show me? Then let's go!"
I sat down next to Thomas and the self-propelled carriage started off, bouncing on the uneven paving stones of the alleyway. Then, a few minutes later, we came out at the service door of the nearest underground station.
"Take a right here," I said at an intersection, and he turned the wheel sharply, nearly hitting an old lady standing on the sidewalk.
Curses followed after us, but Smith didn't even cock an ear. He increased his speed, drove around a cart and jumped before the very nose of a police armored vehicle. Then, he pulled out onto Mendeleev Avenue with such confidence it seemed he had been driving a self-propelled carriage down the confusing alleyways of New Babylon his whole life.
However, success soon left him. Not risking flying over the rails at full speed, Thomas slowed to a crawl, then the Ford Model-T cut into a dense traffic jam and, from there, we had to dawdle at a turtle's pace.
There was no wind. The streets were filled with smog. The unpleasant aroma caused a tickling in my throat. My dark glasses did a piss-poor job of protecting my eyes from dust, so I was plainly envious of the investigator, who had clip-on goggles that held tight against his face.
"This is my first day in the capital," Thomas Smith told me. "You wouldn’t happen to know a quiet and calm hotel near the Central Train Station, would you? Just so I don’t get caught with my pants down."
"I’m afraid I don't."
"I was recommended the Heinrich Hertz."
"I'm sorry, I've never heard of it."
At an intersection, a cart laden with empty barrels had lost a wheel, and it was blocking off half the street. The driver and a few volunteers were trying to either smooth out the situation or clear the roadway, but they weren't making any progress. There was a long file of coaches, carts and self-propelled carriages waiting to pass through the still-open lanes and, as is usual in such situations, the cabbies and drivers were whistling cursing and promising to tear off one another's heads, if they weren't immediately allowed to pass. Two constables were observing the pandemonium from the sidewalk with the calm of philosophers, in no hurry to do anything.
Thomas Smith didn't waste his nerves on empty cursing, pulling a map of New Babylon out of a map case, unfolding it and asking me to show him where we were.
"Aha," the investigator lit up. "Lev, if I let you out near Brown Bridge, would that be alright? I'm thinking of taking it to the other side of the Yarden."
I gave a cursory glance at the map and agreed.
"Alright."
And here, my attention was drawn by a pencil mark at the very border of the Old City. Just a fat dot on one of the residential neighborhoods, but that was enough.
"Were you on Faraday Boulevard?" I guessed.
Thomas Smith started folding up the map with a rustling sound.
"Where'd you get that from?" he asked, looking at me sidelong.
"Just a guess. Is the agency looking into that case?"
Just then, the cart was finally rolled off the roadway, and traffic started flowing. I decided that I wouldn't be getting an answer to that question now, but the investigator eventually satisfied my curiosity.
"Yes, you're right. I was assigned this investigation," he said with a sigh after a theatrical pause. "But don't go blabbing about that, alright? The agency doesn't bear windbags. It could give me problems."
"Well, you know I'm not a big talker," I answered with no false modesty.
"I'm very much counting on that," the investigator sighed and turned toward the sidewalk in hopes of driving around a cart, which was dragging along uncommonly slowly. He didn't gain anything with that maneuver, though, because there was a sluggish steam truck in the far lane.
At this rate, it would take us at least ten minutes to get to Brown Bridge, and I decided to continue my line of questioning.
"So then, if you were brought in, this was no simple murder. Either this involves a malefic known to the Pinkerton Agency, or..."
"Or," the investigator interrupted me. "You've got the right idea."
I whistled. Aztec priests were known for the lovely habit of cutting out their victims’ hearts. But only truly extreme circumstances could drive such savages this far from their homeland.
"Is this the start of something serious?" I asked.
"I don't know," Smith answered. "No one does."
"But you're here. And you came to the capital before it all started."
"You know how it normally goes," Thomas snorted. "Someone spilled the beans to someone else, but the ends cannot be found, so I was sent to figure it all out. It's business as usual. This time, though, the rumors were confirmed. There really are Aztecs in the city."
I nodded, totally allowing that the investigator was being completely open with me. Any policeman knew perfectly well just how difficult it could be to track a rumor to its source.
Just then, Brown Bridge came into view before us; Thomas Smith turned onto it and stopped the self-propelled carriage, letting me out onto the sidewalk.
"Thank you!" I said, giving the investigator a salute.
He threw his hand up over his head in a parting gesture, and the Model-T rolled away.
I didn't tarry on the bridge either, running across the street and jumping onto the back of a steam tram crawling slowly up the hill. I rode it to the nearest underground station, transferred and headed to the factory outskirts. I needed to immediately have a discussion with Ramon Miro and figure out what exactly he had done with the rest of the stolen pistols. There was too much riding on this horse to just let the chips fall or trust a telephone call...
4
IT WAS SURPRISINGLY empty in the underground. The train that came into the station didn’t have any first-class cars but, unlike normal, there was a huge number of empty seats on the benches running down the sides of the second-class ones.
And most surprisingly, just three other people left the train with me at the Markhoff Steel Factory, even though nearly half the passengers normally got off here.
As soon as I got up into the station vestibule, though, the reason for the strange order of things was e
xplained. On the street, I could see a large crowd shouting in unison.
"Elections! Time off! Dignified wages!"
"No lay-offs!"
And again:
"Elections! Time off! Dignified wages!"
"No lay-offs!"
"Elections! Time off! Dignified wages!"
It was a strike.
I cursed out soundlessly and, feeling a bit of dread, walked over to the vestibule doors, where the station manager was pacing in terror, wearing a uniform pea-coat with railroad patches and a high peaked cap with a gilded insignia.
However, it wasn't all that bad: the workers jamming up the square before the factory administration were being held back by a squadron of constables in formation with shields and clubs in their hands. There was a police armored car not far away from the underground station, and the machine-gun barrel on its tower was swiveling nervously from side to side, keeping watch over the square. Nearby, there stood a few police trucks, in the back of which gunmen awaited their hour with combat-ready semi-automatic rifles.
A sharp whistle sounded out unexpectedly, and a half dozen constables cut into the crowd of protesters with a brisk spurt. The electric charge of their clubs sparked, some shouted in pain, some cried holy curses. A moment later, the police took a step back, dragging desperately wailing agitators, their faces bloodied.
The workers advanced to help their comrades, but the constables closed ranks and stifled the onslaught, meeting it with shields before them. Bottles, cobbles broken from the causeway, iron bars and fragments of tile flew from the crowd. One of the stones hit a constable in the face, and the poor bastard collapsed onto the paving stones with a prolonged groan. His colleagues brought him away to the first-aid coach parked near the trucks.
"Free our brothers!" the crowd let out a unified scream. The workers increased pressure, and the police had to retreat but soon, reinforcements hurried in and the situation smoothed out.
But was it for long? From the high stoop of the station, it was perfectly clear that the protesters filled not only the square in front of the factory administration, but also the streets next to it.