Tom paused to get up and help Ian, who was so drunk he couldn’t properly fix his tie. He still hadn’t learned how to do it on his own yet.
“I’m just thinking we won’t be the same people we are right now as we will in the future,” Tom said as he sat down. “What do you think we’ll be like five, eight years from now?”
“Speaking strictly for myself, I won’t be any different,” Carl replied. “Life will probably have taught me a few things, but will I want things to be different from what we got right now? No way! Are the women going to disappear? We’ve got our people and the Cascadian and everything, what more do we need?”
“I don’t know,” Tom said uncertainly. “Sometimes a man wants more.”
“Whatever. You have all the kids you want. If you find a woman who wants to settle down herself and raise a family, I’ll be happy for you. But I don’t think that kind of woman is going to want to have anything to do with men like us. We’re not respectable, and that’s what they want, respectability.”
Eying a cute woman who entered the pub just then, Carl ended conversation as he got up and meandered toward her. Two backhanded compliments later, he had the girl playfully punching him in the arm.
He winked to Tom as he softly placed her hand on the girl’s hip. She moved closer to him.
“Don’t wait up for me,” he said.
Chapter Eleven
It was less than an hour until deadline. Carl worked frantically to churn out a final draft of his story on the Pike Place Market after receiving a confirmation call from Usher.
The market association had approved their bylaws less than an hour ago, after a year of negotiations. They had also completed the marketplace renovations, and vendors were already filling up the empty storefronts and the underground corridor where more controversial items were sold.
After reworking the last sentence, he tossed the story in the copyeditor bin, glancing over at Fred’s desk. It was empty and had been that way for hours. The absence was unusual. Most of Fred’s work didn’t take him out of the newsroom. He mostly relied on the teletype and some radio chatter to get what he needed for his friend in D.C.
It only added to Carl’s growing worries.
Fred had acted strangely lately. They all drank, but he did so until he was stumbling out of the Fighting Sailor every night. Sometimes he even passed out and was left to sleep it off in one of the booths. Girls were an unlikely source of his problem. He hardly took one home, if ever.
Childs came out of his office and ambled across the room. He bent down over the teletype as it started punching out words.
He scanned the first sentence and then called out for Fred. “Where is he?”
“No idea,” Duong said. “He left here two hours ago.”
“Did he say where?”
“Nope.”
“Damn it! We need this story done now!”
Running back to his office without closing the door behind him, Childs called up Norton on the internal line. The response caused Childs to suddenly calm down.
“I’ll assign it to someone else if I can,” he said. Slamming the phone down, he called out into the room.
“I need someone to write up this brief,” he said. “Shouldn’t take more than a few minutes. Anyone familiar with Fred’s beat?”
“I am,” Carl said.
“Good. Then get it done.”
As Carl was heading to the teletype, an unfamiliar face entered the room and swiped his story from the bin and began collecting the others as well. Carl stopped and asked him what he was doing there.
“I’m the new copyeditor,” he said, extending his hand. “The name’s Steve.”
Carl accepted the gesture. “Nice. But someone else likes to get my stories.”
“Oh, you mean that one girl? I don’t remember her name, but she doesn’t work here anymore.”
“What?”
“Farrington!” Childs yelled from his office. “Stop gossiping like a high schooler and get to it!”
“Yes, sir!”
The copyeditor left without further explanation, while Carl worked off the teletype message they had received. He knew Fred’s beat well enough to finish the brief in minutes. When he was done, he took it himself over to the copyeditor’s room and located the new guy in the back.
“You know where the girl went?” he asked as he handed him the paper.
“Nope. They didn’t tell me much. Just that she didn’t want to work here. Got another job, I guess.”
Carl got back to the newsroom when Childs emerged from his office once more, this time pointing at him. His tone brooked no tolerance for dissent.
“Get your coat and hat,” he said. “Just you.”
He donned his hat and outerwear and followed Childs to the elevator.
“Where we going?” Carl asked when they reached the lobby.
“Wait.”
Childs stepped out into the entrance and hailed a car driving out of the lot. They got inside quickly to avoid the light rain. As they drove away Carl chuckled, seeing some of the men pulling out umbrellas.
“They’re clearly not from here,” Childs said.
“Where are we going?”
His editor allowed a smile on his stern face “Norton wanted you to be there when it actually opens for the first time.”
“What opens?”
“The new library.”
Carl’s confusion intensified when they didn’t make the necessary turn to get the library. He tried to argue with the driver, then with Childs, but his editor told him to shut his trap and just enjoy the ride. He sat back and tried to get more from Childs by offering a cigarette, but the man’s eyes failed to glimmer as he sniffed at the tobacco leaves.
“I don’t smoke that shit,” he said. “Some of you boys even go for Mary Jane.”
“Norton doesn’t like it. Says it makes us lazy.”
“Clearly he hasn’t tried the right leaf,” the driver cackled. “One of them is like an energy drink.”
“I don’t do it either way,” Childs said. “Every man has his vice. You got yours, I got mine. I don’t tell others what to do when it comes to their own affairs. If you get the job done, I don’t care.”
“So where are we going?”
“We’ll get there when we get there!”
The rest of the drive was less than five minutes, taking them farther south. The driver eased off the gas pedal and brought them to a stop outside of a small one-story building. Childs told him to get out and paid the driver, checking his pocket watch before shoving it back into his waistcoat.
“My vice are watches,” he explained. “I just need one, but I have over 30 and keep buying more. Don’t ask why. I like to know what time it is, and it’s a bit classier than when I used to find out by checking my phone.”
Childs knocked on the front door to the building, then opened it with a key from his waistcoat pocket. The inside was deplorable. The walls were stripped bare down to the frames. Water dripped in half a dozen spots in the room, buckets half-filled underneath the cracks in the ceiling.
“Swell library you got here,” Carl laughed.
“This ain’t it.”
Childs led him to the back room where an old bookshelf leaned against the wall. He pushed it to the side, a trapdoor hidden underneath it. With the same key, he unlocked the latch and opened it, waving Carl down the steps.
A strong whiff of frigid air left his hairs standing up as he descended into the corridor, the darkness vanishing when he turned on his small finger-size flashlight.
“Don’t bother,” Childs said as he dropped down and flicked a switch on the wall.
The corridor lit up instantly, tiny lights flickering to life above their heads. The interior was of an unknown brown substance.
“Let’s go,” Childs said.
“Where is this?”
“Part of the old underground city.”
They walked to a T-shaped intersection, where the walls noticeably changed
color. Childs explained as they moved on that they had discovered the route and used the building as a front to access the tunnel without taking the official entrances and exits.
“Never know who’s there or controls it,” he said. “Plus, parts of it collapsed during the earthquake. We know this part is stable and had some of our people reinforce it with beams.”
His claim was proven true as they came across steel pillars erected in the center of the corridor. The ceiling trembled slightly as a vehicle passed over them. Carl instinctively jumped back, but resumed his pace when Childs mocked him for it.
“You’re not afraid?” Carl asked.
“I’m afraid when I should be.”
They came to the end of the tunnel and found a heavy wooden door. Taking out a separate key this time, Childs unlocked it and pulled it back with some difficulty.
On the other side, the air suddenly became warmer. It even smelled sweet. Was that perfume or candles?
He sniffed carefully until Childs barked at him to keep moving. “We don’t want to be late,” he said.
“The books can wait for us.”
“Not that kind of a library.”
“What kind is it, then?”
“You’ll find out when we get there.”
The condition of the hallway suddenly transformed as they turned a corner. The bare-bone infrastructure transformed into a scene of lush red carpet, elaborate blue wall paint, and framed pictures of the city prior to the earthquake. Between them and the door at the very end the hallway were sofas, chairs, and desks.
Norton came out from behind the door in front of them. Dressed in a white tuxedo, he had an air of refinement and gravitas.
“So glad you’re on time,” he said. “Deadline wasn’t any trouble without Fred, was it?”
“No. Farrington took over.”
“Excellent.” He grinned at Carl. “I’m also glad you could be here to see this moment. I’m sure you’re puzzled by my chosen attire.”
Knowing he wouldn’t get his answer with words, but by seeing it with his own eyes, Carl said nothing.
Norton peeked back through the door, speaking to someone there. His smile got bigger as he pulled the door open wide. The room beyond him was still dark.
“Come in,” he said.
The air cooled and hinted of a vast space, like the feeling during their initiation ceremony. However, Carl knew from their trip that it wasn’t the same place.
Standing by his side, Norton called out. “Let there be light.”
He could hear the switch being flipped. A surge of electricity flowed through unknown circuits throughout the room, and one by one the dozens of chandeliers dangling from the ceiling ten feet above them radiated brightly. Carl looked around him and in a rare moment found himself dazed.
Norton smiled. “Beautiful, is it not?”
Carl couldn’t argue. To his right was an extended bar stretching the full length of the wall, at least two hundred bottles of liquor stashed in the top shelves. The three men dressed in white suits stood amid an assortment of tables. In the center of the room, a depression in the floor led to more tables facing a theatre-style stage concealed by thick red curtains. Instruments were already on the stage, some of them open and on seats, others locked up in their cases.
Something was still missing. Books.
Carl saw a clever look in his Norton’s eye as put a finger to his lips. He then waved to the men. They opened the doors around the room. More staff appeared, attending to their respective duties. A bartender took out the cocktail mixer and men dressed in black tuxedos set the tables and musicians went onto the stage and a host, a tall lanky man in a long dinner jacket, appeared by a podium near the door, grinning from ear to ear. He introduced himself to them as Neil.
“Do you own this place?” Carl asked.
Neil wanted to laugh, but instead shook his head. “The owner is anonymous.”
Norton took a seat at one of the tables, inviting Childs and Carl to join them. Ordering brandy for all, he unbuttoned his jacket and set his cigarette case near the ashtray. The brandy arrived, and Carl took respectful sips, still awaiting further details.
He looked over his shoulder and saw his colleagues waving at him as they arrived.
“So, when do we start reading?” Carl asked Norton.
A waiter appeared at the table, his hands clasped together in front of him. By the stage, the band had fully arrived and was starting off with a soft but fast paced song.
“So, gentlemen,” he said, “which paper of choice would you like for starters?”
***
Carl put down the New York Tribune. The issue was days old, the downside to their preferred means of publishing. The only way to get copies were from smugglers, by plane he presumed.
But the paper didn’t deal in just breaking news, its business section detailing the backroom deals being made and the financial losses and the speculation and the clash between investors and regulators. All written in such a manner no ISA officer would tolerate.
At the stage, the band was playing a slow, welcoming tune as more and more people entered. The women wore luscious evening gowns and dresses, the men in their preferred monkey suit. Some of them ordered light meals to go with their drinks, but for the majority their intent was to read what their government was so determined to keep them from ever seeing that they had declared the mere sight of it a heinous crime.
The Cascadian reporters took over several tables in a cluster and were swapping papers with each other, though their chief interest was to admire the women as they strutted around.
“What do you think?” Norton asked him.
“Well, I think the Tribune has a good staff. I like their stories. Do you own this place?”
“No, but I know the owner. That’s why we were allowed in here first.”
“Can’t the police arrest us here?”
“Not if the police get their percentage,” Norton replied with a grin.
Carl went back to reread the Tribune. Norton grabbed it and tossed it to one of the waiters, then slide one of his personal cigarettes over to Carl.
Childs produced his lighter for them but declined to participate.
Norton turned to Carl. “Let me ask you something; do you ever wonder why people pay for our newspaper?”
“They want the truth?”
“Ha! You’ll forgive my cynicism, but they don’t want the truth. Oh, they want it when it conforms to their perception of reality, but that’s not what they want. It’s about more than the fact that we can successfully defy the will of the most powerful people on the planet. That’s why we’re loved and hated, loved for our ability to do so and hated because of what it represents. When people purchase a newspaper, they’re financially supporting a rebellion against the government. It’s more effective than getting into a voting booth and casting a ballot for someone they know won’t have any impact on the law even if they get elected.”
“Is that why you got involved in the first place?”
“I got involved to make money. That I get to make a political statement makes it more rewarding.”
“What about the library?” Carl inquired.
“Ah, yes. This is what I mean. This is proof that they are here for more than that. They are willing to pay a pretty price just to read what years ago would have been dropped outside their doorstep for free. They get dressed up and are willing to pay to come to a place where they can rebel. They love it. They want it so much they are willing to go through all this to get it. That, my dear boy, is what I mean. They don’t’ want the truth, but they do want to be feel free.”
He turned pointed at the tables around them. “This is just the beginning. Soon, others will appear everywhere in this city, and once word spreads you will see libraries all over the country, in Boston and New York and Philadelphia and Houston. Everywhere and anywhere there is a newspaper to be read.”
Neil approached Norton, who stood and shook his head.
“Tell your supervisor that it was a splendid evening,” Norton said.
“You’re leaving? “Childs asked. “Who will man the door?”
“I was only able to be here for a few hours this one night. My replacement will be here soon, and I’m sure she will take care of your needs from here on out.”
“She?” Carl asked.
“Yes.” Neil turned to the door. “Ah! Here she is!”
Carl didn’t look at first, ready to resume his conversation with Norton, but he too was gazing at the entrance. He took a short glance, then did a double-take.
Kaylyn stood by the podium. A sapphire blue evening gown fell to her feet, covering all but the tips of her white shoes. Like all her other dresses, it revealed nothing and yet the modesty just enhanced the imagination of the men gawking at her. She had her hair neatly arranged with a pin, a sparkling pearl dangling below her neck. She held her hands together nervously as she spoke with Neil, who touched her arm reassuringly before he left.
She took the guestbook and began checking it as more guests arrived.
When Carl returned to the table, Norton was smirking. “Beautiful, is it not?”
***
Later that evening the music simmered down into a soft lullaby-like melody as patrons departed in assorted states of inebriation. He turned down offers from several girls to venture out to other pubs, as well as his friends’ invitation to go back to the Fighting Sailor.
He kept himself near a corner where the light didn’t touch, and he would be hidden from sight, observing Kaylyn as she entertained and humored and laughed and gracefully evaded propositions, maintaining a continuous smile that evaporated the negative emotions in people as they passed by her. Several men, mostly drunk, attempted to take her with them, and she easily escaped their mangled efforts with an agile duck or sidestep.
Carl slipped out into the hallway when she was speaking to one of the waiters and stood against the wall by one of the desks like a statue. Sometime later she came out wearing a coat.
She frowned when she saw Carl. “What do you want?”
The Redeemers Page 17