by Chloe Garner
“It’s been in my family for as long as the town has had a name,” Jimmy said. “There’s no one alive who would challenge me.”
Maxim stood.
“I’ll think about it,” he said, offering his hand to Jimmy. After they shook, the oily man turned to Sarah.
“And how long will you be in town?”
“Three days,” she said, “then we move on to our next city and our next set of potential clients.”
He was looking at her hands again. She put them up, crossing them at the wrists.
“This is what you’re imagining, isn’t it?” she asked.
“Do you play?” he responded.
“I’ve known players,” she said, “but I would only split a drink with them if it came in separate glasses.”
He grinned, greasy and greedy, then put an arm out.
“That’s a shame. You look like you’re strong enough for it.”
“Strong enough to make most men think twice before saying that kind of thing to me,” she said with another cold smile. “Think about the proposal. I hope we see you in Lawrence for the auction.”
He gave her a little bow and she followed Jimmy back out into the reception area. He reached over to tuck her hand back through his arm again.
“Glad I didn’t have to pry you off of him,” he said.
“You think he’s the first one to make an advance at me?” Sarah asked. “There have been a lot of years that I haven’t been your girl. Men get ideas.”
“I would have thought more of them were smarter than that,” he said.
“Why? Because even after you leave, they’re still supposed to be afraid of you?” Sarah asked.
“No,” Jimmy said without looking at her. “Of you.”
––—
They saw two more men that day, one of whom was a very dry businessman who made very few comments, took Sarah’s data and her invitation card, and thanked them for coming, and the other who talked nonsense the entire time.
“He’s batty,” Sarah said as they left his office near the end of the day.
“Not as much as you’d think,” Jimmy said. She knew that he wouldn’t have wasted their time by coming to see a man with no sense at all, but she couldn’t help but wonder.
“I was under the impression that you had more contacts on the gray side of the business world,” she said.
“I do,” he told her, taking her elbow and guiding her onto the sidewalk outside of the building. “They just aren’t as useful when you want someone to expand their operations into Lawrence. They have turf, and if it isn’t on their turf, they aren’t interested.”
Sarah nodded. That fit her impression of the people the Lawsons belonged with.
“So how did a bunch of gun slingers end up married to society to women?” Sarah asked, watching the people on the sidewalk as they passed. Her sharp appearance and sharp expression kept anyone from returning the glance, giving her free reign to inspect most anyone she wanted.
“Money,” Jimmy answered simply.
“None of them seem as useful as I would have expected,” Sarah said. “Kayla is the only one with a discernible skill, and that’s not one I’d really be excited to trade on.”
She found Jimmy was smiling his real smile, the one that no one else saw.
“I can see how that’s how you’d see it,” he said. “That a wife is just an asset.”
“No,” she said. “That’s not it at all. But to marry women who aren’t assets at all...”
“When everyone wants them, winning one of them becomes a goal that a lot of men have a hard time seeing around,” Jimmy said. “All three of those women were major victories, even if it might not look like it in Lawrence.”
“Which is where you dragged them away to,” Sarah said. “You’ve destroyed any value they might have ever had.”
“That’s not fair,” Jimmy said playfully. “Kayla is going to be a wonderful dressmaker.”
Sarah shook her head.
“You think we hooked any, today?”
“All three,” he said.
“Really?”
“Oh, yeah. As fast as that report leaked, the auction is going to be the best-kept secret on the entire coast. No one is going to want to have more people there competing with him than he has to.”
“And every one of them thinks he’s going to get Pete’s claim,” Sarah said.
“Save it to last, let them pick up the other ones as they think they’re worth it...” Jimmy said, nodding. “Yeah. We should pull in a huge pile of cash just from the auction. Then if you’re actually worth your keep...”
She nodded.
She’d get half of the auction returns, regardless of whether she’d found any absenta at all. She knew Jimmy would go along with it at least that far. If she hadn’t figured out Pete’s method and they ended up auctioning off a bunch of gold-panning quality claims, it was hard to guess what would happen next, but it wouldn’t be pretty.
The one upside was that if she failed, it would be spectacularly public. Lawrence had a chance of surviving, in the end, if everyone knew that the absenta was limited to a single claim and that no one had figured out how to replicate the stunning success of that claim. It would probably generate enough revenue to protect the absenta all the way back to Jeremiah, but not a lot more. The parasites would be thick on the shipments, but at least they’d avoid the rush of new parasites.
“If it goes bad,” Jimmy said, then shook his head. “No. We have too many people to sell on this to talk like that, yet. We’ll worry about that later.”
The turned into a crowded restaurant and Jimmy paid the attendant before asking about a reservation.
“This way, sir,” the man said, skittering away in front of them. Sarah found herself on the edge of a dining space that was dimly lit and opulently decorated. The floor was carpeted thick, such that the sound in the room was distant and unobtrusive, and the wait staff were almost silent in their navigation around the restaurant and their interaction with the patrons. There were no menus.
“You’ve been here before,” Sarah observed.
“A few times,” Jimmy said. “When we were celebrating.”
“I’m not dressed for this,” she said, looking at how the rest of the women were dressed. Her strict business attire didn’t stand out, since it was designed not to stand out anywhere, but the rest of the women flaunted bright colors and diverse textures, some even having plumes that came up from their collars and framed their heads like great birds.
“Didn’t think you’d care,” Jimmy said.
“I don’t,” Sarah said. “Thought you would.”
He shrugged.
“I don’t expect that from you. We both know who you are.”
She nodded. A waiter came and poured them drinks, and Sarah smelled hers.
“Is this...”
He sipped his carefully, then set it back on the velvet tabletop.
“Wine, yes,” he said. “There’s a grove up outside of Intec with real Earth grapes. They make a few barrels of wine every year, and this place buys nearly all of them.”
“How did you tell them that you wanted it?” Sarah asked. He shook his head.
“That’s not how it works here,” he said. “The head of the staff decides what you want to eat and they bring it to you.”
She tipped her head down, disbelief. The corner of his mouth jagged up.
“Yeah, he’s a legend. Everyone comes here because, well, because it’s the place to be seen, but also because they want to see what he’s going to pick out for them.”
She sipped at her wine, looking to be impressed but not finding it. Better than gremlin, certainly, but that wasn’t a high bar.
“This must be expensive,” she said. Jimmy nodded.
“The bill is real,” he said. “If you are worried that they might serve you something you can’t afford, you can’t afford to eat here.”
Now there’s a business model for you, Sarah thought. Relied on th
e guy picking the dishes to either have exquisite taste, or simply be such a snob that no one had the guts to disagree with him.
“So what should we drink to?” Jimmy asked, lifting his glass again.
She thought, then gave him a wicked smile.
“To guns and money,” she said. He nodded.
“Good. To guns and money and all the things we’re going to get with them.”
They touched glasses and their waiter returned with a small plate of what looked like crackers.
“Mr. Lawson, I’m very sorry to interrupt your meal, but the manager has asked for just a moment of your time once you have finished eating. He’s asked me to bring your response.”
“Of course,” Jimmy said. “Of course.”
The waiter nodded and left. Sarah looked at Jimmy skeptically.
“What’s that?”
“That?” he asked with a smug little smile. “That means we’re making a splash.”
She glowered and he smiled a little more.
“If Delphus has heard that we’re here and has gotten wind of what we’re here for, he’ll do whatever he can to get a finger in the action.”
“The manager at a snooty restaurant wants a piece of the mining business?” Sarah asked, even more skeptical. Jimmy shook his head.
“No. But he wants the mining business to gentrify here, not somewhere else.”
She waited, letting that sink in.
“He wants us to meet here?” she asked.
“I’ll bet you dinner that’s what he wants,” Jimmy said.
“No deal,” she said. “Odds are way too far in your favor.”
“Fair enough. I’ll still buy dinner, but I’ll bet you the window seat on the train ride home that that’s what he wants.”
She wasn’t that partial to watching the country roll by for the next two weeks. She shrugged.
“That one I’ll take.”
He nodded, holding his hand palm up over the plate, offering her the first bite.
She didn’t like her food to be an adventure, as a rule, but she tried it anyway.
It was fishy and light, maybe a little buttery.
“What is it?” she asked. Jimmy tried it.
“Castlerock fish,” he said. “It’s from most of the way around the planet, and it’s served raw.”
She nodded.
“I see. So the feat is getting it here before it goes bad.”
“The feat is getting it here alive,” Jimmy said. “It’s butchered on site.”
“It’s dry,” Sarah said. Jimmy nodded.
“It may be a fish, but surprisingly it has almost no water in it. You press it, to prepare it, and it turns into this. Poisonous, too, if you don’t know what you’re doing.”
“You’re making that up,” she said. “No way you know that.”
“I’ve had it here before,” Jimmy said. “Used to come here every once in a while with a man who took it way too seriously. He went on about this stuff.”
She took another piece.
It wasn’t bad.
Wasn’t worth what they were going to pay for it, but it wasn’t bad.
“Better than jerky,” she finally said. Jimmy grinned.
“Don’t you let anyone hear you say that,” he said. “We will get kicked out, I promise you that.”
She gave him a little shrug and he ducked his head.
“Petey always wanted to be taken seriously, here. He’d do all the big stuff with sampling the food and talking about it like he knew what it was.”
“Lise probably does know what she’s talking about,” Sarah said.
“He hadn’t met her yet. Was dating a woman named Celine at the time, who also knew what she was talking about. Lise is only about four years back, now, that they met.”
“I suppose you’ve got to take your time and play the field, while you’ve got the chance,” Sarah said, sipping the wine again.
“Oh, he’d have married Celine if he could have gotten her to agree to it,” Jimmy said. “She just had better offers.”
“And Lise didn’t?” Sarah asked.
“By the time he met her, no, she didn’t,” Jimmy said. “We’ve moved up in the world since then.”
“Ah.”
He nodded.
“Not to brag or anything.”
“No, of course not.”
They finished the plate of fish and the waiter whisked it away, replacing it with bread.
She tried that.
Found nothing remarkable about it.
“Sometimes bread is just bread,” Jimmy observed, “though I’m sure I’m missing out on some reason that this bread is the best you’re ever going to have.”
“It’s fine,” Sarah said. “Food just isn’t that special.”
He nodded.
“They do take it a lot more seriously than seems reasonable.”
“But you didn’t come here to eat,” she said.
“No.”
“You came here to be seen.”
He nodded.
“The more talk we stir up, the more those invitations are going to be worth, and the more people are going to show up at the auction.”
She could see the conclusion of that one. Flooding Lawrence with money. Big, rich, fat, greasy money. And she would take half and Jimmy would take half.
They ate their way through the expensive meal, then Jimmy left a stack of large bills on the table and they followed their waiter across the restaurant and up a set of stairs, through a set of black double doors and into a small but tasteful office.
“Delphus,” Jimmy said, extending a hand for a firm handshake. “It’s good to see you again.”
“And you, my friend,” the man said.
“Let me introduce my business partner, Sarah Todd,” Jimmy said. “Sarah, this is Delphus Tride, the manager of the Golem.”
“I had quite an experience tonight,” Sarah said. The man smiled, then looked at Jimmy.
“I’ve heard that you might be doing business around here a bit more often again.”
“I might,” Jimmy said.
“I expect any number of your business partners routinely dine with us,” Delphus said.
“Any number of them,” Jimmy said. Delphus nodded.
“I think the Golem would be an ideal place for you to meet, if you’re looking for a more... intimate setting... than you get in the average office.”
“None of them have average offices, Delphus,” Jimmy said. “But we do all enjoy spending time here. We would need a space away from prying ears, of course.”
“Of course, of course,” Delphus said. “You know that we have business booths?”
“I didn’t,” Jimmy said. Sarah couldn’t tell if he was lying or not. Delphus nodded expansively.
“Of course. We keep them quiet, for obvious reasons, but I’d be happy to offer you one, if you were able to give me, say, six hours’ notice before your important meetings?”
“Two,” Jimmy said. “I can’t do better than that.”
Delphus nodded slowly.
“I understand that an important man like you needs to be flexible with his commitments, but you need to recognize that we have many important men here.”
“Of course,” Jimmy said. “And most of the men I meet with will have offices with nice conference rooms and pretty secretaries to bring us food and drinks.”
“Of course,” Delphus said. “Two hours will probably suffice. We will make space for you, because of our important, special relationship.”
Jimmy nodded and extended his hand to Delphus again.
“Thank you, my friend. I’ll be in touch.”
Delphus shook his hand, then gave Sarah another look of acknowledgment before returning to his desk and his documents. Sarah raised her eyebrows at Jimmy as they left the office and made their way down the very dark stairway.
“Six hours is a long time to know about critical business meetings,” Sarah said. “You really just believe it’s reservations he’s ta
king?”
Jimmy gave her the phantom smile.
“Oh, no, he’s getting a share off of it, on top, I’m certain. Knowing what’s going on in critical businesses is lucrative.”
“And you’re okay with that?” Sarah asked, waiting for a waiter to go by then starting back across the dining floor.
“I’m okay with it, so long as he keeps it to himself. Enough rumors flying around right now, we’d never know, but it will get to the point that the only place information could be coming from is here, and then, if he leaks, I take him out back. Same with a dozen other groups around town. He hosts them all. If anyone’s got a reason to be discrete with what he knows, it’s Delphus.”
“And in exchange, you get to pay for an extortionist meal?” Sarah asked.
“Oh, he comps the meal,” Jimmy said. “We bring in enough business by being here reliably.”
“Even though no one knows you’re here?”
He laughed.
“Everyone knows we’re here,” he said. “The worker bees all show up here to try to get in close to the real money, especially since a lot of that money is dangerous.”
“You make the restaurant sexy, they make you sexy,” Sarah said. “Is this like competing for the society woman? Everyone wants her so she must be worthwhile?”
“It is if you aren’t marrying her,” Jimmy said. “The minute Golem is out, we’ll find a new place to do business. It’s not like I’m going to move the place back to Lawrence and ask it to raise my children.”
She pursed her lips and paused to let him open the door for her.
“Just a fling then?” she asked.
“Something like that,” he answered with a smile. “You have anything else you want to do tonight?”
“Like what?” she asked. “Go out drinking? Dancing? We have a shuttle to catch in the morning. May as well just go back to the hotel and sleep.”
If she wasn’t mistaken, that was disappointment on his face. What had he been hoping for?
“Only get to come into the city so often,” he said. She nodded.
“I lived here, same as you,” she answered. “Lost its glitter pretty quick, I’ll say.”
“You want to just walk back, then?” he asked. She wasn’t certain where they were, or how long a walk it would be, but she shrugged.