Automatic Woman Read online

  I waded into the cacophony of machinery rattle. The secretaries were producing a night’s shift 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.”

  By effects, I meant my files, a replacement cobra, and the service revolver I brought back from the trouble in Afghanistan. Her face turned sour, or rather, it became more sour.

  “Mr. Fellows, Lord Barnes has specifically forbidden you from entering for any reason, up to and including retrieving your goods. Besides, they are no longer present in your office.”

  “Come again?”

  “The Metropolitans cleaned your office out yesterday. Even if you got to it, there’d be nothing for you but dust mites and what I assume are gin-addled memories.” She issued me another jab.

  “Take it easy, grandmother. I’ll be on my way.”

  I stepped lively out the door. Miss Walker is not one to be trifled with. I considered returning to my flat, but realized the futility of taking refuge in a place where all comforts had been smashed.

  I wandered down to the St. George & Dragon Public House, a place whose proximity to my work made me a regular. I substituted my lack of home comfort with the comfort of lager pints punctuated with shots of Yank whiskey. I contemplated getting pissed, but a better plan formed itself. When the clock struck one in the a.m., the public house was graced by one Orel Hersh, porter extraordinaire, St. George & Dragon regular, and business acquaintance to yours truly. He recognized me right away and approached. We’d been social on occasion and I once cold-cocked a blighter on his behalf. Some drunk geezer thought Orel was talking up his sweet. Things between Orel and myself were peachy. Better yet, he owed me a favor.

  “Oy, guv’nor. Give us some love!” I shook Orel’s wrist and gave him a weak slap on the face. He was a big man like me, only without the fat and hanging jowls.

  “I insist on paying for no less than one of your drinks,” he said with fake posh. It sounded like he’d been nipping the flask at work. Good old predictable Orel.

  “I’ll hear of no such thing, mate,” I replied. “You drink on my tab and my tab only. I’m a free man today; this is my freedom party.”

  I pushed a shot of whiskey to him and motioned for the barkeep to set up fresh rounds.

  Orel drank to my health. Then we drank to his health, then to freedom and liberty and Queen Victoria in all her homely glory.

  Here’s a secret. One shared by all men of weight. It’s bloody near impossible for me to get drunk. The only rational explanation is that fat filters alcohol and holds it away from the blood. I, and every fat bastard I’ve ever run across, can drink, and drink, and drink. Now you know. You’re welcome.

  We had ourselves a party. We drank after the pub regulars and codgers packed it in. We outlasted the young men and the very moon and stars themselves. We kept the libations flowing until the sky turned navy gray and the sun threatened to punch black both my eyeballs.

  I paid the tab and walked my new best friend out the front door into God’s accusatory light. Orel hung on my arm like drapes as I escorted us back to the home offices.

  “Whaaa?” he slurred. To say Orel was inebriated would be an understatement. I imagine Orel was in that place where he still had control of motor skills, but just barely. He was in a place where balance was tenuous and the memories of this moment may or may not have a future in his mind.

  “Back to the office, mate. I forgot my effects.”

  Orel stopped and thought for a minute.

  “But…”

  “Don’t be thick, Orel. I need your help. Take the fire ladder up to my room and bust out the window. Everything I need is in a lock box under the third floorboard.

  “Jolly?”

  I interrupted him with a good shake.

  “This is important! Listen closely. Third board from the door. Big, fuck-all lock box.”

  “But the guards?”

  I set Orel onto the fire escape and gave him a good shove up the ladder.

  “Don’t worry yourself with guards, mate. They know me. Lock box, third board. Repeat it back to me.”

  Orel shook his head and started up the ladder, leaving my instructions unrepeated. I’m sure I’ve had worse plans, though none come to mind. I’d lifted Orel’s flask while shoving him up the escape. I uncapped it and poured a good three fingers of bad Scotch down the front of my shirt.

  The firm was shut to the world in the early morning hours, but we employ a couple of inside guards to stop the very thing I was having poor Orel do on my behalf. I hefted a dustbin and threw it overhand against the barred entrance gate. The can rebounded with a terrific crash. Just to be sure, I threw the bin a second time with the same rattling, terrifying results. Neighborhood dogs barked, newly awakened blokes looked out windows. I was a regular spectacle.

  “Oy, you fuckers!” I yelled at the gate. “Let me inside!”

  Both guards came out. I knew them. Blaine, the taller, was a religious chap. Aaron, the shorter, was a dirty joke enthusiast. Both were decked in suits and holding extended cobras. Blaine looked relieved to see me.

  “Jolly, what are you up to?”

  “I’m up to punching your smug face if you don’t let me inside.” I put up my mitts and exaggerated a drunken sway. I should have been an actor.

  “You know we can’t do that, Jolly. You’re not allowed here while your suspension stands.”

  “If you Nancies want to keep me out, you’d better call some friends.”

  I strode to the door in my best tough guy strut, all legs and arms. To his credit, Blaine stepped first and poked his cobra into my chest.

  “That’s it, Jolly. Go home and sleep it off. No need to do something to apologize for later.”

  In the far distance I heard the crash of glass and knew Orel had made it in. The bloke just needed more time. I grabbed Blaine’s baton.

  “You’re not the boss of me, Jack. Step south or I’ll let you have my best.”

  “Um, Jolly. Come on, let’s talk this out,” said Aaron. The shake in his voice told me he was all mouth and no trousers.

  “I’ll talk your face in!”

  Suddenly, there was a terrific crash in the alley. By the sound of it, Orel had just dropped my box into a dustbin from two stories up. Drunken bastard.

  Blaine and Aaron turned their heads and I knew swift action was the only action that wouldn’t get me and poor Orel nicked. I wrapped my arms around the distracted Blaine and lifted him off the ground.

  “I want my things!” I shouted and shook the besieged guard left to right.

  “Put him down, Jolly or I’ll…” Aaron waved his club but took no step forward. I was roaring like a mammoth and Blaine was wiggling like a wee baby in my arms. A scared, pissed-off baby.

  I dropped the man into a heap on the dirt road. Blaine found his legs, sprang up, and walloped me across the face with his cobra.

  I blinked once or twice, not sure exactly what had happened. The skin on my face grew taught and uncomfortable and the world went topsy. I suddenly found myself on han
ds and knees staining the earth with blood and tears.

  All the circuits connected in my head and registered pain, pain, good God almighty so much pain. I cried out and rolled to my back. Blood ran with gravity and streaked my face like war paint. My nose was definitely broken. My forehead was gashed and under the gash grew a sizable goose egg. My compliments to Blaine’s swinging arm.

  To his good credit, Blaine put a hand on my shoulder.

  “You alright, Jolly?”

  I ran a hand down my face, taking assessment of the damages. I let the tears in my eyes get into my voice and continued the role of the drunken sod.

  “I just want my things.”

  Aaron turned away. I guess he had no stomach for fighting or watching a grown man cry.

  “Just let me get my things.”

  Blaine gave me a hand up. My legs wobbled like a baby horse. Blaine guided me to the gate and let me lean up to it.

  “Listen, Jolly. You can’t come in. The big man says so. That’s the way it is. Listen to me, mate. Go home, get some sleep. Your job will be waiting after we clear up all this murder rubbish.”

  He was using his dad tone. In the alley, Orel was stumbling and clobbering rubbish cans, so I cried even harder, making a regular spectacle of myself. If possible, the crying made my face hurt worse, which caused my eyes to tear up even more. I was caught in some weird drunken pain grief cycle and everyone involved was deeply discomforted by the event. I made like I was going to try for the gate and both Blaine and Aaron put hands on me.

  “Go home, Jolly. Sleep it off.”

  They walked me to the center of the street. Blaine pressed his handkerchief to my gushing nose.

  “‘Kay, Blaine. I’m sorry,” I blubbered.

  I held out my hand and he gave it a good shake. I didn’t bother with Aaron. The instinct to hurt him was too strong and my act was almost concluded. The guards returned to their gate, watched me stumble on my way, and then went back into the building, to their actual posts. I took a few more unsteady steps and looked back to the firm. When I was sure Blaine and Aaron were gone-gone, I strolled to the alley.

  Orel ran up with a smug look on his visage, like a man who’s done well and deserves a biscuit. One look at my misshapen melon face and Orel vomited copiously down his front. He fell to his hands and knees, much like I had when Blaine laid into my face. Orel took three deep breaths and then let loose the Red Sea all down the alley cobbles. I continued to mop blood off of my face with Blaine’s now-saturated handkerchief. No point in returning it I guess.

  Somewhere among the pukes and heaves, Orel had the good sense to pass out. Guess who caught the burden of taking him home?

  Lucky for me, Orel’s flat was not too far. I fireman-carried him so as to have a free hand for my lock box. His wife, Emily, opened the door and I got to watch her face change from rage to shock to concern and then back to rage as she regarded my busted face and the comatose sack of her husband over my shoulder.

  “Go easy, love. We’ve had a night.”

  I dropped Orel arse-first into a rocking chair and straightened the crick he’d put in my back.

  “And where were yoo?” She was mad enough for me to hear the brogue in her voice. You’d think an emerald lass like Emily wouldn’t have taken offense to a drunken husband. Part of the culture and all. I approached her with honesty.

  “Your husband was helping me. I’ve been charged with murder and I needed him to get my investigative tools.”

  I don’t know where her hand came from, but it moved with blinding speed as she slapped my miserable face. My eyes filled with little lights and everything went topsy again. My hands balled to fists and by some grace of God I didn’t lash and put both through her sodding gob. Maybe I’m a gentleman after all.

  “How dare you come in here half-pissed with some story! The next time you and Orel stay out, you might as well take him home with ya!”

  I rubbed a hand down my cheek. I could feel my pulse through my skin.

  “Yes, mum,” I said. “Sorry about the story. I’ll be on my way then?”

  “Aye.”

  No use explaining the reality of things. A wiser man than I once said that men and women live in different worlds. The man’s world is one of harsh realities while a women’s world is one based on rosy dreams. That bloke, Conrad, was half right. Yes to different worlds. To be sure men and women exist in places wholly different, one from the other. But a woman’s world, as best as I can figure, is not necessarily one of rosy dreams. A woman’s life is filled with harsh realities all its own. A man’s harsh reality is crushing labor and living with the fact that he’ll never be as strong or as smart or as capable as he was in his twenties. This is true for all men, it’s our shite. A woman’s harsh reality is dealing with the fact that she will never be as clever or charming or beautiful as she was in her twenties. That’s their shite. Also, they have to put up with our shite.

  By the time I reached my flat, the sun was showing mid-morning. I gave no thought to breakfast, just securing my box under a pile of shredded coats in my big closet and getting some sleep. The imprisonment of yesterday felt like a faraway dream, like it had happened to some other bloke in some foreign and distant story. At least I had my box. If this thing was to be done, if I was going to retrieve the remains of the Swan Princess for Jacques Nouveau, the contents of my box were the key.

  I lay down in a pool of feathers, in the remains of my bed. The sleep that came was instant and blissfully deep.

  Three

  Thirteen Days Until Sunset

  I woke the next day covered in feathers like snowfall. My body was holding a pain competition. The clear winner was my face with its broken potato nose and twin black eyes. Second prize went to my skull, which throbbed with equal parts hangover and concussion. Honorable mentions were taken by my sore back and dried out tongue.

  I put a kettle on the fire. Whoever dismantled my flat at least had the decency to leave my kettle and hot plate alone. Man without tea is a beast. Someone said that once.

  While my tea steeped I retrieved the lockbox. It was my bug-out kit, a worst-case-scenario box I put together for an early retirement or ugly circumstances. In it lay a shoe box half full of Boschon punch cards, an envelope with two hundred quid, a loaded Engholm four-barreled revolver, and a bottle of Creger’s Reserve Scotch Whiskey. The cards represented a salt-the-earth defense. Over the decades of its existence, the Bow Street Firm had acquired a copious amount of personal files on every man, woman, and child involved in our investigations, our thousands of investigations. The reports were thorough, objective, and filled to the brim with dark little bits of information on a whole gamut of London society. Bow Street had taps on the filthiest of filthy beggars all the way on up to the highest and freshest smelling circles of nobility. I had taps on the taps.

  I shuffled through the cards. Cobblers, priests, politicians, merchants, traders, pimps, and prostitutes. Each bit of information tagged and filed for some unsavory implication, some juicy rumor to be used or sold by the managers, specifically Lord Barnes. The very existence of these files was what made Bow Street so feared and untouchable; it was a profitable combination.

  My cards are not originals. Years ago, I discovered the source of Lord Barnes’ power. Nothing to it, it was a poorly kept secret that the agents often whispered about over pints and evenings. Not content with whispering, I took matters a step further. I turned over a good deal of my salary to a young Miss Christine Wallace, secretary, widower, profiteer, transcriber and copier of Boschon cards. Anything she found interesting she’d run a second time. I paid a pound a duplicate. The cost was tremendous but I always considered it an investment for retirement.

  I was biding my time for the perfect card. One day I would find someone crooked enough, dark enough, and rich enough to lean on. Blackmail is not the right word. Blackmail is for black guards. To squeeze a villain is more like a tax on amorality.

  Unfortunately, the perfect card never came. They were
either too poor, or regular folk caught in circumstances. Nothing matched the image in my mind of the modern pirate hoarding treasures. Miss Wallace was eventually released from her employment for suspicion of lewd acts. And here I sit with my persuasion box, just a little sample of Lord Barnes’ collection. I shouldn’t use it. To use it is to alert the underworld that such a thing exists, and I have it, and Lord Barnes has it. To use a thing like this is to paint yourself a bull’s eye. I shouldn’t use it, but I will. A bull’s eye is preferable to the hangman’s knot. At least I hope it is.

  Every card is labeled with a name, an occupation, and a short summary of the subject’s wrong doing. My cards were in no particular order. I flipped through them, absorbing random details.

  Ernst Q. Baker: Textile Merchant: Sexual Pervert

  Emily Schneider: Domestic: Morphine Addict

  Paul E. Gettlow: Pawn Broker: Murder Suspect

  Byrce H. Carry: Unemployed: Opium Addict

  Mary Shena O’Reilly: Prostitute: Prostitution

  Matthew Forest McGraw: Police Officer: Conspiracy Theft

  Matthew’s card caught my eye. I remembered the case. I was on the investigative team. A shipment of uncut diamonds had lost their way somewhere between Antioch and London. The wronged merchants paid a premium to the firm and we shook the London underworld. I personally beat two blokes senseless over the affair. We turned over all rocks and tips and hints and suddenly “poof.” Like magic a patrolling Metro uncovered the box in the back of an abandoned horse wagon. That patrolling Metro was Officer Matthew Forest McGraw.

  Officer McGraw got himself a promotion and a modest cash reward for the recovery. The merchants made good on their fee to the firm, but there was much grumbling as to the necessity of thief catchers when London employed such bright and shiny coppers. Our team leader, an analyst by the name of George Craig, put together the wrap-up report. By some astronomical coincidence, one of the diamond shipping guards, a man found with a dagger in his neck at the start of the case, just so happened to be the second maternal cousin of… Officer McGraw. Now Sergeant McGraw. Not the kind of evidence you take to a magistrate to steamroll a hero Met in a resolved case. Hero coppers are protected like vicars in this town. Not a report for the magistrate, but still something to shake a man’s confidence, get him to question his safety, to make free and loose with favors.