by William Ray
He haggled a bit with the waiting drivers, but either he looked like a steady mark or they were just disinterested in indulging the spirit of capitalism, and none would back down from their standard fare despite Gus’s insistence that it was a bit high for wherever 3rd Street was. Eventually he was obliged to submit to their recalcitrance and hire the foremost cab at what they insisted was the regulated fee.
The cab drove him through the center of town, passing along a large park at the city’s center lined with odd deciduous trees whose new spring leaves were just beginning to emerge. Their strangeness was not in any natural twist of flora but rather their exceedingly unnatural one-sided shape. Towards the road, they branched out like any other trees, kept neatly trimmed by the city. Towards the park, the trees were completely flat. No branches extended inwards, and all of them seemed perfectly aligned as if an invisible wall constrained their growth.
The park itself was a grassy field with an array of shrubbery and unblossomed flower beds. A few people strolled through it, enjoying a bit of air in the early evening. New buildings were rising alongside the park, presumably less tall than some of the highest towers but tall enough to hide them from view at street level. Their heights were unfinished, and some of the frontispieces were covered in curtained scaffolds to hide the work in progress, but their crisply unfinished state was testimony of bustling expansion.
At the end of the block, as utterly incongruous amid a human city as the white roads, Gus saw an Elven obelisk. It stood eight or nine feet tall, a diagonally cut cylinder sculpted of a white stone that matched the tiled Elven streets. It was a sculpted crescent, smooth along the outside but with foreign sigils inscribed along the inner surface.
So far as he knew, no one had ever been able to explain why, when the Elves left, they took all their people, their possessions, and even all their buildings, yet left behind roads and random monuments such as these. As the hack drove onwards, they passed a few more such obelisks scattered along the way. The people of Khanom had apparently respected the obelisks enough not to tear them down; three were perched prominently along the main thoroughfare spaces in the park.
Further into the city, he noticed two others tucked away in back alleys; or rather, the buildings had simply been built around them, transforming whatever empty byway the obelisk had stood upon into an alley between two modern towers. When he started looking for them, he realized there seemed to be at least one on every block.
Rondel’s sat several blocks southeast of the park, and the façade was an opulent affair that rivaled the Harrison in Gemmen, done in elaborate Modernist swirls around a colonnaded entrance. It looked far too expensive for the likes of a former army sergeant, but despite that there were no attendants at the door, and Gus made his way inside with his own bag.
When he stepped through the doors, he saw four employees in matched blue and yellow livery gathered around the front desk chatting casually with the clerk stationed there. A few patrons wandered through the spacious lobby but clearly nowhere near as many as had been planned for. At the sign of a new guest, the attendants were startled into action, and one hurried to relieve him of his bag while the rest scattered to other chores.
The attendant insisted on carrying Gus’s bag for the six steps remaining between the entrance and the front desk. The clerk smiled, and per the rail hub attendant’s advice, Gus haggled with them on the rate. Their promotional fliers, which the clerk was all too happy to refer Gus to, advertised it as a ‘mere’ twelve peis a night. After a bit of back and forth, they eventually arranged a second-floor room at a mere eight, of which Emily would begrudge him each penny.
Smiling with enough strained politeness that Gus felt he had won their engagement, the man at the desk handed him a key, and as Gus looked down at it, he saw a thin slot had been cut into the end of it. Apparently, the clerk had a way of making up for such shortfalls.
Gus pondered calling him out on the game, but then thought better of it—their scam could work in his favor. As he scooped back up his bag and turned to walk away, the clerk called after, “Do you have anything for the safe, sir?”
Gus grinned back at him and lifted up the bag, “Oh, no, I can’t risk letting this slip out of my sight.” The clerk nodded in understanding and failed to follow up with the usual comment about the hotel not being responsible for goods not in the safe. That meant management wasn’t likely in on it, or there would be more concern for those legal niceties.
He took the bag with him over to the small bar area towards the back of the lobby and ordered several stiff drinks while he waited to spot the clerk’s partner in crime. One of the hotel’s attendants brought him some bread and cheese that were kept out for the patrons, and since there were so few others about, Gus shamelessly gorged himself on the stuff. He was halfway through his second drink before a fellow settled down next to him and ordered a tonic.
“Nice hotel, eh? Better deal than you’d get elsewhere, I think. At least until the Exposition opens,” rambled the newcomer, and Gus glanced him over skeptically and sipped at his own drink. The man was unremarkably dressed and attired like a man of business rather than leisure. A lonely traveler might chat up a stranger, but the man wasn’t rumpled from travel, which meant he had been around at least long enough to settle in and change clothes. If that were the case, why was he drinking here rather than at some proper club or public house?
“Yeah, got a deal on it,” Gus gushed, leaning unsteadily towards him with a too-big grin as he spoke breathily to let the stranger get a whiff of the alcohol. Extending a hand, he said, “Baston. Here on business. You?”
“Oh, yes, business as well. My name’s Sharpe,” was the reply, accompanied by a firm handshake. A convincing performance, with the handshake and all, but a real man of commerce would also have gone for his card and immediately inquired about Gus’s line. A rookie mistake, but not unexpected in a settlement town like Khanom, where the criminals would be less sophisticated.
Gus grinned at him, and they chatted about the weather and the town’s scenery for a time. Any doubts he had that Sharpe was a local evaporated when the man raved over the city’s latest architecture while seeming comparatively blasé about the odd trees in the park and the mysterious white obelisks scattered about. Sharpe even bought Gus another drink, to make sure his mark was good and sloshed.
After enjoying the free drink, Gus proclaimed himself too tired to continue, wobbled to his feet and collected his bag. Mister Sharpe rose with him and gripped Gus’s elbow to help steady him. He gently pried the bag from Gus’s grip before guiding him into the elevator and then on towards Gus’s room.
Despite their amateurish obviousness, Gus admired that part of their setup—if confronted later, Sharpe could swear that, were he the thief, then surely he could have simply walked off with the bag while Gus was drunk. Instead, per the plan, Sharpe helped his mark into the room, set the bag down, and before he bid Gus goodnight, made a point of mentioning, several times, that he was leaving the bag right by the door.
As soon as Sharpe was gone, Gus pushed back to his feet, groaning a bit at the discomfort the inebriate act always gave his injured leg. In truth, he was only a bit tipsy, but as he had not had a good night’s sleep in two days, he really was exhausted. He hoped Sharpe wouldn’t take too long with the next step.
For eight peis a night, the room was quite nice, the gas lamps softly hissing and keeping it far more illumined than he would have ever been willing to pay for at his own flat back home. Had he known about all the lights earlier, Gus would have offered to put out about half of them to make a go at it for six peis a night.
Gus opened his bag and pulled out his pistol, checking over it carefully several times to make sure he would not fumble with it in his sleepy state. He locked the door with the slotted key, wondering if they had actually done this before or if this was the first real attempt. It was an old scam, but in a hotel so new, he might have the honor of being their inaugural.
> With so much cash on hand, and so many distractions, travelers were ideal marks, and unless they were robbed on the way in, no one would ever have as much cash on hand as they did upon arrival. He’d handled a lot of these cases until Drake’s swooped in with their price lists and name recognition among out-of-town visitors.
A well-stuffed chair was off to one side, and Gus pulled it over to face the door and settled down. He dozed off several times, on the last of which he was startled awake by the sound of the door’s lock turning over.
Most people left their key in the door after locking it, to speed their exit in the event of fire. Not wanting to spoil Sharpe’s plan, Gus had done the same. With a slotted key in the lock, the prospective thief could approach the marked room, slip an ordinary screwdriver into the lock, and use it to turn the key from the other side, engaging the tumblers and opening the door.
The poor saps asleep in the room would never know how they were robbed. The hotel manager would tut and remind them that they had been offered use of the hotel’s safe.
The usual problem was that a person who already knew about that sort of scam would always check their key and refuse a slotted one. There, of course, that savvy traveler made a mistake since this only told the thieves to be more careful and gave them a chance come at their mark from another angle. With no crime yet committed, the traveler’s only options were to complain to potentially complicit managers or else find alternate accommodations with an entirely new set of thieves.
If there were plenty of guests in residence, Sharpe might just strike other rooms, but with so few marks to be had, Gus needed to discourage them from any subsequent attempts. He’d purposefully kept everything out of the hotel safe to encourage them to act quickly and played at being tippled to make it as soon as possible tonight.
Mister Sharpe swung the door silently open, already half-crouched as he prepared to creep inside with a false beard in his left hand and the screwdriver in his right. Sharpe’s eyes widened as he saw his mark markedly less insensate than hoped.
Gus grinned at him from his throne before the door and gestured with the pistol, “Hold it right there.”
“Oh! I’m so sorry! I thought this was my room! Terribly sorry to wake you. Have a nice evening,” Sharpe said as he quickly stuffed the false beard into his pocket.
At least he was smart enough for that. Some fools tried this with the false beard already on their faces as the door opened, which was as good as declaring yourself guilty of something from the outset. The beards might fool a sleepy mark who woke mid-robbery but were never good enough for direct scrutiny, and by wearing one in the doorway, you might as well mask yourself with a bandanna like one of Gentleman Jim’s highwaymen.
Gus gave a sober chuckle and raised his pistol up. “I said hold it, Mister Sharpe. I’ve a message for you and your buddy at the front desk.” He leaned back in the cushioned chair, making a show of getting comfortable as he waved the pistol about in the thief’s direction.
Enjoying his control of the conversation, Gus reversed his earlier trick, now trying to play far less tipsy than he was. “The slotted key is a good trick, but you boys are out of your depth here, and I don’t have much to steal. If I find anything missing, however, now I’ll know where it’s gone, won’t I? I’ll make it easy for you. This pistol’s the most valuable thing I have with me, so if anything of mine goes missing, for your sake it better be this because otherwise I’m going to use it to shoot you and the clerk who gave me the key.”
Sharpe paled at the threat, shaking his head. He edged backward as Gus rose to his feet and shut the door firmly in Sharpe’s face, turning the lock again with a loud click. Behind the door, he could hear the man scuttling away, no doubt off to inform his confederate of their evening’s failed robbery.
Sharpe’s breed of criminal was very territorial by necessity since another thief operating in the same area would draw attention and make profitable marks more cautious. They would already be on the lookout for anyone else who might work the hotel and would now be particularly motivated to keep them away from Gus’s room, which meant Gus could sleep in relative security.
Finally able to relax, he pulled out his flask of lahvu, draining the last of it and settling back in the bed as he felt the intensifying light-headed tingle blur his thoughts. If Sharpe were indicative of the quality of the local criminals Phand’s abductor would need to conspire with, then a week might be plenty of time to find the kidnapped engineer. With a sigh, Gus set the gun on the nightstand and drifted off into the warm blackness of a sound, dreamless sleep.
~
“Rakhasin Explorers Convene”
At a meeting of the Royal Geographical Society in Gemmen, Lord Alderde presiding, a paper was read on the Geskhan Meadow by Commander Whitacre. The Commander described his excursions across the Meadow in the neighbourhood of Karhass, from Dessis, which serves as Muz’eraine’s current capital, and along the Meryl. Journeying overland to the Upscot river, he visited the famed gemstone shores along its banks and observed the ever-expanding operations still being carried on there, even amidst the current difficulties.
Nathaniel Abiel, current Royal Governor of Rakhasin, and others took part in the discussion, and the Chairman announced that the Society had determined to send an expedition next year in order to further explore unclaimed lands south of Rejju’s wall. On the motion of Lord Alderde, a vote of thanks to the lecturer was accorded, and the meeting adjourned to Bel. 19.
– Khanom Daily Converser, 13 Tal. 389
~
- CHAPTER 15 -
The peak loomed over Khanom and stretched morning’s gloom several hours, which suited Gus just fine. Pleased he had slept the night through without being robbed, he wandered outside to watch the closing antics of the city’s morning commute. It was far less pell-mell than he was accustomed to, but given the usual neighborhoods he occupied, he thought it might simply be a matter of being in a part of the city occupied by a wealthy elite that had little need to rush to and fro so early.
A pair of such met on the corner, exchanging greetings Gus could not hear, so he supplied their dialog himself: “Oh, I say, old chap, shall we put off work a bit longer and go get a coffee?” “A coffee? Don’t be ridiculous. A man of my station could never fetch his own coffee!” They laughed right on cue.
Their imaginary discussion of coffee put Gus in the mind for some; Rondel’s had managed to burn their coffee, and while it worked, it had tasted terrible. He hobbled past several cafés he had seen near the hotel, but not a one of them was open. Apparently, people in Khanom skipped breakfast or perhaps simply had it at home before coming into the heart of the city.
Looking around, he wondered if anyone might have hauled their bedroom furniture up all the flights of stairs necessary to dwell in these tall buildings. If not, then where did all these well-to-do up-toppers live when they weren’t meandering casually in to work?
Given Phand’s association with the Exposition, he supposed checking at their offices should be his first stop. Flagging down a cab, he tried to negotiate again but found the man as intractable on the price as his fellows at the hub the evening before.
Steering the argument towards how far it was, he managed to get the driver to argue that it was five, nearly six, blocks down Armistice Boulevard, which Gus remembered seeing along the way to Rondel’s. Unfortunately, he realized the game when Gus tried to figure out if that was north or south along Armistice. Eventually they reached a mutually satisfying accord, and Gus strolled down the pristine streets to his destination having spent only a single cigarette for directions.
Emily would have been proud, although she would probably have been put out with him over the coffee on his breath this morning. He had also skipped breakfast, which some quack had convinced her was medically unsound, but Gus had learned never to admit to that particular omission.
That line of thought reminded him that he needed to wire in his arrival. After spotting a nearby
office, he wrestled out a suitably legible abbreviation to update Emily for a mere sixteen pennies: KHANOM RONDEL’S, G
Khanom’s civic center was only a few blocks beyond the telegraph office, and it was every bit as overstated as one might imagine for a young city desperately hoping to impress visitors. An elaborate frontispiece decorated the outside, depicting small men at work in mines and factories, and above them, towering captains of industry looked down like the gods in heaven, smiling beneficently as they directed the workings below, presumably with wisdom and compassion, although the fact that the city’s labors was merely for the profit of their towering masters seemed to have been glossed over.
Gus supposed that with a change in facial expression, the same work could easily be a propaganda piece for revolutionaries like the ones in Tulsmonia. Perhaps if the workers in Khanom’s factories ever came charging up through the gray, they might do just that. The destruction in the wake of the uprising in Tulsmonia hadn’t been that carefully measured, but then, they were only Tuls, and Gus liked to imagine a Verin uprising would go more smoothly.
Once inside the civic building, a bored clerk at a desk in the lobby directed him to the Exposition’s offices, which were tucked away a floor below street level. Even with all the excitement of the city’s leaders Gus had witnessed in Gemmen, it seemed like none of the bureaucrats wanted to give up better office space to whoever had been assigned to work out the various particulars.
Making his way down the stairs, Gus was surprised to see that the basement actually made a serviceable showroom. Several gas lamps around the room were lit despite plenty of daylight coming in from narrow street-level windows overhead. There was a large central space where a handful of offices were set up along one wall, with a surprising clutter of old paintings hung over every available spot on the walls. The large central space was filled by two tables, each bearing a model city.