“I am unarmed.” Ixtli spread his arms.
Gordon slapped the loom card on the table. “Then we visit the makers of this. And tonight we’ll switch you to a new hotel.”
The giant brick building near the docks of New Amsterdam, chimneys looming overhead, was called the HOLLERITH MACHINE COMPANY. A Mr. Jason Finesson waited for them, resplendent in tails and a tall hat, spectacles clamped down over his nose hard enough to leave a welt.
“Detective.” He shook Gordon’s hand, and then turned to Ixtli. “And sir.”
Ixtli gave a nod of the head and turned to Gordon, who pulled out the offending card. Ixtli wasn’t sure why they were at a machining company, but he declined to say anything out loud. If a card could control a loom for weavers, maybe it could control other kinds of machines.
“Ah.” Mr. Finesson looked at the card. “A punch card. Your message; you do say you found it at a crime scene?”
Gordon nodded. “Yes.”
“How curious.” Finesson held it up to the gaslight in the corner of the room. A bored-looking secretary with perfectly slicked back hair in a black suit sat poring over a ledger laid out across his desk by the entrance. “Well, I Can tell you the very machine it was made on.”
“Excellent.” Gordon looked elated. The thrill of the hunt.
“But that won’t help you much,” Finesson continued. “Our customers use these in bulk for all sorts of things. I couldn’t tell you which customer this comes from.”
Ixtli had been staring at the man. He looked assured, confident, as if he were telling the truth. “You are the manager here?”
“Yes.”
“What exactly do your customers use these things for?”
“Ah, let me show you.”
Finesson escorted them back through the dim hallways of the building into a large room several stories high that looked like it was the lovechild of a Swiss watchmaker and a train engineer. Massive gears and wheels strained, clicking away on bearings the size of a man. All throughout pulleys and shafts spun, and a massive steam boiler, fit to power a trans-Atlantic ship, squatted in the center of the room, steam hissing lazily out the pipes connected to it.
“Last summer we were commissioned to count the census of the colonies, sirs. Since then we’ve processed merchant accounts, calculated the mysteries of the universe for leading scientists, and been available for engineers.”
“That’s a mechanical adding machine,” Ixtli said. “I’ve heard of these.”
Finesson pranced around the entryway like a circus grandmaster. “Oh, but it’s so much more. Complex maths, instructions, this is a computing machine, gentleman. One of only four or five like it in the world! I’ll wager you, sirs, that if you could take the mathematics of policing, and reduce it to calculations and variables and insert it into this machine, we could run your police force.”
“Another child of the enlightenment I presume,” Gordon said out of the side of his mouth to Ixtli, who was still gaping at the machine.
“Even better,” said Finesson. “I’ve talked to your counterparts, the Dutch constabulary here in New Amsterdam. Yes the British do an excellent job of co-ruling this tiny island, but why be so reactive? You know the study of physiognomy, wherein you can determine a person’s character merely by studying their unique facial characteristics?”
Both Ixtli and Gordon nodded.
“Indeed, well I suggested to his Excellency Mr. Van Ostrand that, were we to take sketches of all the criminals encountered by his forces, load them into our device to find points of similarity, and then begin sketching in all manner of our population to load into our machine, we could find criminals before they commit their crimes. It would revolutionize your jobs, men.”
Gordon and Ixtli glanced at each other. Ixtli spoke first. “And what if you were fingered by the device?”
“What? I’m no criminal,” Finesson said. “How dare you! I have nothing to fear.”
“I take it the Dutch have not invested in this idea?” Gordon changed the subject quickly.
“No,” Finesson looked down at his shoe. “More’s the pity.”
“Indeed.” Ixtli picked up a stray punch card and looked at it. It made no apparent sense to him, hundreds and hundreds of tiny pockmarks.
A man sitting behind the table on which the punchcards were stacked leaned forward and snatched the card back from Ixtli. “Please don’t disturb the cards. The order in which we feed them into the machine is important, it tells them what to do.”
“Well Mr. Finesson, we would like your customers records.”
“And do you have a writ?”
Ixtli glanced at Gordon, who shook his head. “Not yet, sir.”
“If my customers found out I turned over my books so easily, I could lose a great deal of business. There are forms and numbers and calculations being done by businesses here that would not want their information spread about the city.”
“I understand.”
And with that, a frustrated Gordon and Ixtli were back out, headed back to the hotel.
“That was a waste,” Gordon said, stuffing a new pipe and looking annoyed. “Physiognomy...”
“Maybe that isn’t so.” Ixtli held a mirror in his hand, as if checking the makeup on his face. Behind them dashed an urchin, doing his best to keep up. In these crowded streets it was feasible. He rapped the roof to get the driver’s attention and handed him paper money. “Stop here. I need you to wander off to one of these stores and purchase something. Take your time.”
“Yessir.” The driver’s large sideburns rippled in the wind as he leapt out and strode past them.
“What on earth is this about?” Gordon
“Observation, Mr. Doyle. There is an urchin following us, and that very same creature was outside the Colonial Museum when we last left it. Is it coincidence that the very same urchin following us now, and that the previous time I saw him, seemed to have one of these punch cards on his person?”
“I would think not,” muttered Gordon.
“Me neither.”
Gordon looked around. “This is not a part of New Amsterdam for strangers to tarry in. Particularly ones in colorful capes such as yourself.”
“Exactly the reason I chose it,” Ixtli said, scanning the crowds pushing against street vendors, people dodging carriages. A tram thundered by, ringing its bell furiously. He pointed a young man out to Gordon. “Call that one over. The one selling those rotten-looking apples.”
“Boy!”
The boy in question jogged over with the box of apples in front of his stomach, suspicion embedded in his glare. “What you want?”
Gordon showed his badge and grabbed the boy before he could turn and run.
Ixtli handed the boy a thick wad of paper money. “We have a job for you. That’s half what you’ll get if you succeed.”
“It’d beat selling dodgy apples, you’ll make a couple of weeks’ worth from us,” Gordon said, catching on. “And you don’t want me asking where you got them from, now do you?”
The struggling ceased. “What you wanting then?”
“There’s a mangy sort following this vehicle, no don’t look, and we want you to follow him in turn. No doubt he’ll spring off to inform someone of where we are when we reach our hotel. Follow him, but don’t let him see you. Find us back at the Waldorf Hotel. Ask for Doyle.”
The boy tugged on his cap. “Yessir.”
“And here is our driver,” Ixtli said. “Take the apples so the urchin suspects nothing.”
Gordon did, and the driver, taking it all in his stride, just asked, “Shall I restart the cab, sirs?”
“Yes, let’s move on.”
The driver disappeared behind them. The cab shook as he climbed into his perch looking over the cab, and then the hansom jerked into motion. Ixtli settled back in.
“Clever,” said Gordon.
“If it works.” Ixtli looked down at the rotten apples. He was going to gibe Gordon about the hungry on the streets of New
Amsterdam, and then decided to leave the man alone.
“So now we retire to the hotel and wait.”
“You told me this was a pursuit for the moderate and patient.”
Gordon sighed.
Their urchin showed up outside the hotel as they were just setting in to dine. Ixtli spotted the hotel staff confronting the young boy as he maintained his need to see them right away.
Ixtli and Gordon walked out to the street. “What do you have for us?”
“I know where the boy went.” The boy was still out of breath from his run.
“Take us there!”
“What about my money?”
Ixtli felt around in his cape, pulled out enough for the cab fare, and looked at Gordon, who patted his pockets. “I left what I had on the table for the meal.”
“We’ll get to a bank, but after you show us where the boy went.”
“Dammit, I knew you was going to gyp me.”
“Look at us, do we look like the sort to play games like that?” Gordon yelled.
The boy looked him up and down. “I guess not,” he conceded. “But I’m going to get my money.” On that he was dead certain.
They hailed a hansom. “East River Waterfront,” the boy said. They piled in, squeezing the boy between them. He reeked of sweat and body odor, and he grumbled about their lack of payment all the way.
As the great East River Bridge loomed and they slowed, the boy crawled up to poke his head around to the back and guide the cabbie toward a set of large brick warehouses.
HOLLERITH WAREHOUSING.
“Hah,” Gordon said. “Nothing to fear from physiognomy indeed.”
“Finesson could be innocent and unaware.” Ixtli jumped out of the hansom and paid the cabbie.
Gordon agreed, and handed the driver a card he’d scribbled something on. “The constabulary will triple your usual if you hang around at the ready.”
The driver nodded and accepted the promise of payment.
“Look,” the boy said. “Be careful. The boys I followed was Constitutionalists. You don’t want to tangle with that lot.”
“Thank you,” Ixtli patted him on the shoulder. “If we’re not back in fifteen minutes, call the police.”
“Like hell,” the boy said.
“They’ll pay you,” Gordon said.
“I’ll consider it.”
And then he was gone, watching them from the shadows. No doubt ready to rabbit off at a moment’s notice, but held there by the desire for his money to come back.
“So what are we looking for?” Gordon asked as they circled the building.
“An easy opening,” Ixtli replied. There was a rumbling that seemed to permeate through the ground all around.
“We don’t have a writ to enter.”
“But I have diplomatic immunity.” Ixtli found a window that was loose, and with some persuading, forced it open. “Care to accompany me lest my life be threatened and an incident between our respective countries occurs?”
Gordon licked his lips. “Damned if I do...”
Ixtli waited for the second part of the sentence. None came, so he pulled himself up and over into the warehouse.
Gordon scrabbled up and in after him. The warehouse was dark, shadows of pallets and crates loomed all around them. Gordon took out an electric torch and clicked it on.
The entire warehouse lit up, gas lamps all throughout springing up to full flame. A crowd of very serious-looking childlike faces stared at them, and at their head, a giant of a man, a dockworker, held a long coil of loop in his large hands.
“Welcome to the United Peoples,” he growled. Ixtli stared at the long tattoo of a chopped-up snake on his left forearm. Don’t tread on me, it said.
Ixtli doubted anyone would be able to, not with all that muscle.
Three more dockworkers stepped forward, surrounding them.
In short order both men were tied up, Gordon handcuffed with his own cuffs despite both giving a brief struggle.
“May I ask why we’re being detained?” Gordon asked. He had a purple bruise over his left eye, and Ixtli admired his cool under the situation. Ixtli himself considered a prayer to the gods.
“You damn well know you was trespassing,” the giant of a man growled. “Don’t play coy, eh?”
“Okay. So what are we waiting for?”
“Who.”
The three men melted aside, giving way to a man in a stovepipe hat and long tails. A craggy face regarded them both. This was interesting. They weren’t dead yet.
“Mr. Hollerith?” Ixtli asked.
The man removed his hat and handed it over to an urchin. A stool was presented for him to sit on. “Justin Hollerith. Are you here to assassinate me?”
“Here to find the killer of that boy at the Colonial Museum,” Gordon said.
“Well huzzah,” Hollerith said. “You have found the killer.”
Gordon tensed in his chair. “You?”
Hollerith shook his head. He snapped his fingers and the mass of urchins shifted. A massive curtain slowly rolled aside to reveal a machine that made the one at Hollerith’s offices look like a toy.
The entire warehouse was filled with rotating shafts that went on and on, and thousands of gears. Young boys ran from station to station with armloads of punch cards.
That explained the vibrating floors and roads outside. Ixtli glanced around, wondering how it would be explained to his family that he had died, strapped to a chair in some dirty city up north.
No honor in this, he thought. None at all.
“Here is your killer,” Hollerith said. “How do you plan on bringing it to justice?”
Gordon shook his head. “I don’t understand.”
Hollerith spread his arms wide to indicate the sheer presence of the machine. “You, Aztec, should know what we are going through right now.”
“Indeed?” Ixtli perked up. The man was still talking, waiting for something, eager to prove... something. If they could keep him talking, then maybe there would be time for the boy outside to go for the police.
If he did ever go. That was a gamble.
“The tyrants and occupiers of our lands.” Hollerith got up and Ixtli tensed. “The colonies tried to rise once, to be crushed on their boots.”
“You’re a dissident,” Gordon hissed.
“Revolutionaries! Visionaries!” Hollerith stood up. “Gentleman, what you see before you is the engine of a new future. The British boot will be forced back. This machine is the constitution of the new United States of America.”
“The what?” Ixtli remembered that the boy had called these people constitutionalists.
Now Hollerith paced in front of them. “A set of rules for governing us--fair, impartial, and written by the people. The tyrants refused to let man rule himself, and so we’ve had to go underground. Slowly, building our ranks. We have citizens all throughout the thirteen colonies, waiting for their moment to rise up.”
One of the dockworkers took out a punch card from the end of a station. “Mister Hollerith.” He handed it over.
Hollerith glanced at the card. He blinked. “I hold here your future, gentlemen.”
Ixtli looked at the complex pattern of holes. “Really? The machine dictates your actions?”
“What is government but a set of programmed instructions we all agree upon? And in a democracy, it is blind, and her instructions carried out by men. This is no different.
“The things that happen to us, we feed them into the computer, and it sorts its responses and hands them back to us on our cards, telling us how to serve it best. Judgments, foreign policies, and now... war. It is our destiny, it always has been, to spill out throughout this country and claim it for ourselves. To spread from sea to sea. Already telegraph operators string throughout the thirteen, even through the Indian lands between us and the west coast, passing on and coordinating instructions with other constitutional machines running in parallel all throughout the land. The US will rise again.”
“Manifest destiny, embodied within the unflinching intelligence of a computing machine,” Ixtli said.
“You’ve heard of the theory? The machine decided that a diplomatic incident would be what we needed. It said to look out for anything resembling one, so that we could use that to gain recruits, and worry people about the threat of foreign murderers here in our city.”
“The theory is that your race is somehow owed it all: the lands of the Mexica, the Indians, and what the British rule already. Yes, I’ve heard this before. In Texcaco, yes, in the Mexica-Americas war. Many of your border men, out of the reach of the British, were prodded on by the Louisiana French by having that belief dangled before them. An ugly scene.”
“This will be different.” Hollerith looked at the punch card. “I’m sorry, but as enemies of the state, you will not have a trial. You will be executed as spies. So says the Constitution.”
“So says the Constitution,” murmured the hundreds in the warehouse.
“You’ll be taken to a room, where ten blindfolded men with rifles will fire. The Constitution will randomly load a pair of guns. Take them away.”
Gordon struggled again, but Ixtli remained calm. “Now you are killing harmless public servants in the name of your cause, just like any other group of dissidents.”
Hollerith refused the bait. “I have sworn to protect the Constitution, gentlemen, from all its enemies. Your rhetoric will have little impact on me.”
The three dockworkers moved in, and Ixtli walked with them through the rows of furiously spinning clockwork and blank government officials’ faces.
They were forced into a tiny closet, and the door was barred shut.
“Thanks for delaying them,” Gordon said, leaning against the wall.
“I did what I could.” Ixtli moved around in the dark, trying to find out if there was anything useful, but it had been emptied.
“When they find us dead, I imagine my heart will be cut out,” Gordon said. “And you will be dead nearby of a gunshot, maybe?”
“It will stir up enmity, feed unity and a sense that they need to cohere against an outside force.”
It wasn’t just his death, but the betrayal of his country. Ixtli kicked at the door in frustration.
Sideways In Crime Page 36