Automatic Woman Part 2

"From the firm. Like I give a b.l.o.o.d.y s.h.i.+te what Bobby is turning over my laundry," I snapped.

"Owens has your case," he said.

I sucked air through my teeth. Who had I p.i.s.sed off enough to get Owens as a safety net? The man couldn't find his own a.r.s.ehole with a map, a donkey, and two Sherpas. His odds of success landed squarely between not likely and no f.u.c.king way. Timothy Owens had joined the firm as some manager's cousin or nephew. A family hire. A tag-a-long relegated to group raids and jobs where numbers accounted for more than brainpower. I gave Silver my menace smile and leaned close, as close as I could. I reached up until the chains were taught and strained.

"Come on then, shake my hand."

Silver looked at my mitt. His face revealed thoughts like gypsy palms, first fear, then shame for being afraid, then a forward resolve to face his fear and grasp my extended hand, then the realization that fear or not I was going to hurt him and he'd be a fool to take my offered shake. I credited his complexity of mind and the fact that he didn't fall for my childish, petty trap.

"We'll be in contact, then," he said.

"I'm sure we will," I replied and lowered my hand. I wish I could say that was the last I saw of Mr. Silver aka Silverstein. Of course it's not, but aren't wishes such wonderful things?

I ran a list in my mind of who my second visitor could be. Work being accounted for, I couldn't imagine who would take enough of an interest to appear. My football squad? Perhaps Morris Benny, the owner of the public house I lived above, wondering why his place was surplus eight pints above quota and no one had hara.s.sed his intolerable cook, who was also his intolerable wife.

I should not have been surprised when Jacques Nouveau glided into my embarra.s.sing predicament. He'd played a small role in my debacle. Also, he was the only other man, excepting the poor dead doctor, who knew of the Swan Princess'capabilities.

Frenchy lit a cigarillo and sat on Silver's stool.

"We meet again, Mr. Fellows."

"Cut the niceties, Nouveau. What brings you to my happy domicile?"

Nouveau drew long on his cigarillo and let loose a bluish cloud. The guard outside the door suddenly realized that he had something better to do and left me and Nouveau by our lonesomes. Nouveau made no motion to the guard, no gesture to me. To him it was a non-event. To me, it was a reminder of who had the taffy and who had none.

"I saw that Mr. Abraham Silver just visited you."

"Yeah," I said. "Fellows checking up on fellows."

"I also know that Bow Street will not be posting your bond."

I let silence be my voice. Nouveau was showing off, making a point that was unnecessary to make. Sure he had contacts, he could sway guards, he knew my private business. So what? All those things are acquisitions of money, and I knew he had that well before his glamorous entrance.

"Get to the point, Jacques."

"Do you want me to post your bail?"

"Why?"

"It is impolite to answer a question with a question."

He regarded my face as I regarded his. His eyebrows were plucked and shaped. His fingers were slender and delicate, nails perfectly trimmed and shaped. Two of those dainty little sticks held his cigarillo away from his face. The smoke reminded me of Benny's public house, which reminded me that I was hungry and filthy and all around a pathetic creature of captivity. I let him win our little silent game.

"Yes," I said.

"Yes what?"

"Yes. I want you to post my bail."

Nouveau smiled. His teeth were straight and large and just a little green.

"What do you want from me?" I asked.

"Mr. Fellows, how can you put a price on liberty? For shame, John Locke would weep at your words."

"So I can go for nothing?"

"Well, one cannot get something for nothing. How about we say your freedom is yours to claim and that in exchange you will grant me an unrelated nominal request, a favor to a friend who has done you a favor."

"What sort of favor?"

Nouveau looked to the door. The guard had not returned. Regardless, Nouveau lowered his voice.

"You must steal the Swan Princess for me."

I looked at Nouveau for a moment, a pause. I let his words swim around in my mind. Maybe I had misunderstood, or maybe he didn't realize the implication of what he'd said.

"You want to run that by me again?"

"Steal the Swan Princess."

"You do realize that the Swan Princess, all of Saxon's automatons in fact, are in evidence storage?"

"Yes."

"That's under lock and key?"

"Yes."

"Those keys are held by guards?"

"Yes."

"Those guards are big f.u.c.k-all Metro blokes who maybe just maybe won't take a s.h.i.+ne to me carting out their charges."

"Yes."

"There's got to be someone better suited."

Nouveau's laugh was augmented by blue smoke.

"I disagree, Mr. Fellows. Anyway, I don't want the other dancers, I just want the Swan. You know the Swan. You know what she is. You know how important it is that I receive all of her parts."

"How do you suppose I get the Swan?"

Nouveau waved his fingers. "The trivialities I leave to you. Do whatever you like, as long as she is in my possession within fourteen days."

"What happens in fourteen days?

"You go on trial for murder."

The date hadn't been announced to me. Again Nouveau was a step ahead of me and playing puppeteer to my marionette.

"You're missing a piece, Frenchman. The Swan paid the Doctor's butcher bill. She's the only proof I didn't kill Saxon. If I give her to you, no proof for me."

Nouveau drew on his cigarillo and spit a flake of tobacco from his tongue.

"She is of no use to you, broken or otherwise." Nouveau looked tired, exhausted in fact. "Your problem is not that she is your only proof; it is that you have no proof at all. To convince twelve of your peers that the Swan squeezed the blood and anima from Dr. Saxon is too great a task. You may as well blame the death on sprites or will-o-wisps. It's no more far-fetched then an automaton going psychotic. Your defense is magic. Magic doesn't win cases, even in London."

He was right. It was an obvious fallacy that I hadn't let my mind dwell on. I had a fools' defense. My chest burned with a thousand p.r.i.c.ks of anxiety.

"You look so piqued, Mr. Fellows. Do not fear, all is not lost. Bring me the Swan and all of her parts. Every last sc.r.a.p you pulled from her in your barbaric little struggle. I'll figure her out. I'll find out what the doctor died with in his beautiful brain. If I have his secrets I can fix her. A fixed woman will move. A fixed Swan will show nicely to your jurors. Magic will turn to science and your life will be spared."

"How will I explain the theft to the court?"

"You won't hang for theft, Mr. Fellows. Explain it any way you like, just don't mention my name."

"Can you post my bond today?"

"I already have."

My eyebrows lifted a bit at that. The magistrate had set my a.s.surity at ten thousand pounds; an impossible fortune. Nouveau had money, but not in that bulk and availability. The scale of this matter increased. Nouveau was no longer the top of the ladder. The money had to come from another source. Who?

Nouveau stood and let his cigarillo fall to the floor. He didn't bother crus.h.i.+ng it. I imagine the ashes would have devalued his silk j.a.panese slippers. He extended those little fingers. I cataloged all the ways I could hurt what he offered, but resolved to meet his fish shake; soft, limp, without an ounce of man in it.

"Do we have an accord?"

"We're in business."

"Of course we are."

Nouveau left. Portsmith returned and unchained me from the stool. Instead of my cell, Portsmith walked me to central booking, unlocked my manacles, and had me sign a standard bond contract and promissory note to appear in court fourteen days hence. After that, I was directed to the front door and set loose.

I sucked in two nostrils of free, London air. It smelled less of p.i.s.s than the jail air. Also, I noted hints of sulphur and stale lager. G.o.d I love this town. I'd only been inside for two days, but the world outside had the rose-colored beauty of a home not seen in decades. I stopped at the first public I crossed and tucked into a pint of dark and a plate of bangers. I wasn't hungry but I needed to wash the taste of jail out of my mouth. Also, a drink never hurt a bloke. Neither did two, or three. Four maybe, but I took my odds and returned to my flat a braver man if not a smarter one.

Of course my place had been turned over. Fortune smiles at a man on occasion, but misfortune rains down from on high with fury and volume. My dad used to say that.

Turned over was an understatement. I had served in Her Majesty's Excursionary forces in my younger years. I've marched hard through Afghanistan, India, Persia. The imperialists out there, the foreign mining crews, wouldn't just dig into a mountain. They would dynamite it, wipe it off the map, and pull goods from the rubble. Called it strip mining. It would appear that whoever went through my home was a strip mining enthusiast, or maybe just a s.h.i.+te investigator. I once had a respectable sitting room, three chairs, a cozy table. All of it was broken to sticks and piled high in the center of the room. On top of the stick pile lay my book shelf in two pieces, and the shredded remains of a Persian rug that I'd bought in Palestine. My books were also gone, though I can't fathom why the burglar would want to take my pulp books.

I selected an intact chair leg and gripped it in two hands, hoping to G.o.d almighty that the culprit was still present and unawares. I searched my kitchen, found broken plates and a b.l.o.o.d.y huge crack in the porcelain sink. I searched my bedroom; I found the bed frame broken, mattress cut down the center with goose down layering everything like snow drifts, and my best hat gone. The job was such a haphazard mess I wasn't sure if they were looking for something or just trying to make me mad.

Someone knocked on my door. I gripped my stick tighter and prayed to G.o.d it was someone worth braining, because violence felt like an inevitability at this juncture. The knock sounded again. Not the polite or inquisitive knock of a neighbor or land lord, this knock was loud and insistent. An official knock.

I opened the door to find Owens' open-mouthed gob. His hand was raised for a third dash and did not lower at his discovery.

"Evening, Owens," I said.

Owens closed his mouth but kept his fist hovering in the air.

"Evening, Jolly."

"Something I can do for you?" I raised the chair leg to my shoulder real casual like. Owens furrowed his brows.

"I'm looking into your troubles for the firm. Thought I'd stop by and see what's what. I didn't know you got out."

"You were going to break into my flat?"

Owens moved his already raised fist to his balding scalp and gave it a good scratch. He opened his mouth, almost let the lie escape but then closed his mouth in silence. He tried again.

"Yes?"

I'm sucker for blunt honesty. Maybe Owens wasn't such a bad chap, if a bit dim.

"Come in, then." I stepped aside and Owens joined me in the remains of my living room.

"Did you do this?" He pointed to pile of what was once furniture.

"Sure, mate. I loathe my chairs, figured now was as good a time as any for payback."

Owens stood there. His mouth opened and closed again. s.h.i.+te!

"Come on, mate! Close the circuit. You're not the only one up my b.u.g.g.e.ring line."

"Who did this?" Now he was playing detective. Who the h.e.l.l did I p.i.s.s off in the firm to get this? Owens poked his hand into the rubbish pile and pushed over half of a book shelf.

"I don't know. I seem to have made new friends in the not too distant past. How are you getting back to the firm?"

"I've a carriage waiting."

"Give me a lift?"

I watched the cogs spin in his head. Obviously, I was not the first choice of people he wanted to be seen with at the home office, but he could find no diplomatic way to say so. I insisted, and off we went.

The Bow Street Firm occupied a three-story structure. A converted tenement chosen strictly for its menacing gargoyles, voluminous storage, and the fact that it was situated on Bow Street, home of the original English thief catchers from whom we took our name. Inside people get the impression that they've entered a textile mill or b.u.t.ton factory. The click, click, clicking of typewriters and Bouchon punchers competes only with the whirring of the Jacquard loom and the occasional swis.h.i.+ng of pneumatic tube deliveries. A legion of secretaries and clerks sit in cubicles clacking away at their trade machines. The whole first floor is theirs. They are the gate-keepers. Floor two belongs to the field operatives and information a.n.a.lysts. Floor three is management and duffers, a.s.suming a bloke can tell one from the other. We have two rooms in the bas.e.m.e.nt, one we can talk about, storage, and the other we can't talk about, non-storage.

I waded into the cacophony of machinery rattle. The secretaries were producing a night's s.h.i.+ft of reports for Central Bureaucracy, our internal auditors, and our third floor taskmasters. Written reports were transcribed. Transcriptions were duplicated into punch cards through Bouchon processors. As the old saying goes, "Words for my boss, cards for the Queen." A couple of porters gathered finished products, collated, signed, had the secretaries sign, separated, and sent via pneumatic tubes the reports and cards. Reports in one tube, cards in the other. Low was the fate of the porter who switched a cards tube and a reports tube.

The lead secretary, Miss Walker, rose upon my entry. She was a serious gray bird, old as time and twice as devastating.

"Mr. Fellows, you are not allowed here!"

Owens strolled past and gave me a two-fingered salute, leaving me as Billy No-mates. Miss Walker stepped to and gave me a firm jab in the chest.

"Turn around! Be on your way!"

I tried to soften my face, tried to get my gob to smile nicely. I've been told the result of this is hideous.

"Miss Walker, love. I just need my effects."