Post by Beelzebibble on Sept 19, 2011 9:16:38 GMT -5
The Mole resumes over the weekend, but first, I'm close enough to finishing the latter sections of this story that I can go ahead and post the earlier ones. So begins a weeklong Yoonfic event. On each day, I'll post one of the five parts of the story, finishing on Friday. Let some familiar ORP characters as well as some new faces handle the deceit and treachery for a week, and then you guys can get back into it yourselves, huh?
* * *
Two years before the present day
Felice Potabile
A flickering, faintly humming lamp over a secluded table.
“Well, sir, I’d hate to think you might not have our own governor’s best interests at heart. It’s always a shame, isn’t it, around this time, when the very citizens who elected an official in the first place turn around and scrabble everywhere to pull the rug out from under his feet?”
The visitor, a man of gray hair and goatee, his heavy-set form obscured by a long coat, propped an elbow on the table. “‘Scuse me, I’m not trying to be rude,” he said, “but you think we could speed through the cutesy rhetorical stuff? It’s just, I already had to put up with that routine once tonight, and it didn’t get me anywhere.”
“From her, you mean.”
“Yeah. Not trying to be rude,” the visitor repeated, “I mean, like I said – but she lays it on pretty thick and I want to really just keep this to the point. And for the record,” he added, raising a flattened palm, “my employer didn’t vote for Northcutt and neither did I.”
“I understand completely,” said Franklin Gaussier.
He was a middle-aged man with sharp eyebrows, a cleft chin, and a thinned hairline, and if he took any offense at the visitor’s words, his face betrayed it not a bit. His intent-bordering-upon-eager smile didn’t waver in the least. “The darkest, most damning information I can divulge on Abraham Northcutt, and no sardonic commentary. Well, you’re in luck. It happens I’ve been sitting on a nice piece about Northcutt for quite some time now. Always knew someone would come in around this season and pick it up…” Gaussier scratched his cheek with a thumb. “I’ll part with it for two hundred dollars, if you’ve got that much on you.”
The visitor gave an only half-restrained sigh of relief. “Finally, someone talking sense!” he breathed. “Do you know, she was gonna charge me two thousand for what she had to say about him? That’s when I walked out on her. As if my employer’s funding me enough to sink two grand into an open question like that.”
“What this tells us,” said Gaussier, “is that you actually have an idea of how to dispense your money, for which congratulations, sir, because too few people in your position do. You’re the realists. The rest of them get taken in by myth and celebrity. They never wonder if in all these years an alternative hasn’t shown up. Well, I’m the alternative, and I happen to know what a competitive price is. Just let her go on thinking she’s got a monopoly as long as she likes! To those for whom her fees are too exorbitant, I offer…” He trailed off under the sound of paper sliding across the table. The double likeness of another Franklin stared up at him.
The visitor remarked: “I hope you were going to say you’ll offer my money’s worth.”
Gaussier folded the bills into his robust wallet and assured the visitor he would.
“Can I ask you a favor, though?” asked the visitor. “Will you give me the CliffsNotes version first and then lay the whole thing out? I want to know where you’re going with the, you know, the minutiae.”
“I don’t see any reason why not. Here it is, then. The darkest secret.” Gaussier glanced around the dingy, mostly vacant bar before muttering: “It’s been Governor Northcutt’s habit for the past several years to consort with a certain prostitute.”
The visitor’s eyes widened, but he maintained a cautious, deliberate tone with his next words; his crevassed cheeks held steady as his mouth formed: “On whose authority can you claim that?”
“On the… well, on the pimp’s, sir.”
“Excuse me?”
“You see, for a while now, I’ve been putting down top dollar for access to the kind of records kept in that part of town. Just about as long as I’ve been in the business, actually.” Gaussier tapped his fork on the tabletop, out of habit rather than as a discreet signal. “And the Governor’s name has been cropping up in their registers since long before then. Now—”
But the visitor cut him off.
“I think two hundred dollars earned me more than that. My contractor and I aren’t going to level this kind of accusation at Northcutt based on nothing more than the word of an informant – no offense. And as much as I’d like to just check the records myself, we don’t all have a backstage pass at the slums.” After letting this sink in for a beat, he added, “No offense, that, either, I guess.”
Franklin Gaussier’s lip curled downward just enough to reveal a light grimace. He cleared his throat.
“It’s a kind of catch-22, honestly, this question of how to divulge,” he said cryptically. “Of course, as you said, the customer’s patience is easily tried by a methodical account, which begins with the innocuous details and only gradually builds toward the key information. But how am I really any better off in giving away the bottom line first? After that, you see, the customer loses interest in the founding details. They’ve judged the value of the answer based solely on its most atomic phrasing.”
“You’re sounding a lot more like her than I think I requested,” observed the visitor.
“Well, I’m sorry, sir,” said Gaussier, “but I wouldn’t write off the ‘minutiae’ too quickly if I were you. Some of the finer details might be quite helpful to you. For instance, how about the name of the prostitute in question?”
The visitor hesitated before asking, “Is that covered in the two hundred?”
“Certainly.” When the visitor nodded and gestured for Gaussier to continue, he did so: “Her name is Trixie Cinnamon.”
An exasperated tone. “Her hooker name?”
“Isn’t that useful to you?”
“How?” the visitor demanded. “You expect me to call them and corroborate this information? You expect the pimp to say ‘Oh, Trixie, that’s right, Northcutt’s shacked up with her plenty of times’?”
Gaussier shrugged. “I wouldn’t say I expect it to work like that. To be honest, I’d be impressed with anyone who could get halfway to the topic of Northcutt over the phone with Trixie’s supervisor. All I was thinking was that if you have any doubts about my information so far, you could at least call the man just to confirm there is a Trixie Cinnamon under his employ.”
The visitor regarded him for a long moment, allowing the hum of the lamp to take prominence.
“Or,” he eventually said, “we could say I trust you’re not lying, because what else can you possibly trust an info broker about, and you could go on right here and now.”
“That’s what I like to hear!” Gaussier grinned. “But for what I want to share with you next, there’ll have to be an extra charge. This is the clincher, sir.”
The visitor snorted. “Of course. There’s always the clincher.”
“Well, let me give you a general idea. What say we skip the middle man? Forget the pimp, forget the phone number, and I’ll get you direct to Trixie herself.” In a hush: “You see, I also know her real name.”
“What is it?” the visitor asked at once.
“Just fifty more dollars. I’ve got fees of my own, you know.” The visitor stifled a betrayed look and pulled from his wallet two twenties and a ten, which were once again swallowed by Gaussier’s own. The informant responded by tearing a sheet of paper from his pocket notebook and writing down a name. He pushed the paper across the table to the visitor, jerking his head to indicate the arrival of a new customer uncomfortably close to their own table, a young man. Lester the barkeep mercifully caught the new customer’s attention with a shouted question from behind the counter while Gaussier’s client read the name aloud.
“I hope that’s a bit more satisfactory?” said Gaussier.
“Much more,” the visitor answered. “You don’t know her number, though, or…?”
“No, but I can’t imagine she won’t be in the phonebook under that name. You should be able to get ahold of her quite easily. Just ask your employer to extend her a nice substantial offer and she’ll be on your side in no time. What more decisive accusation could you need than the prostitute herself going public?”
The visitor groaned. “More expenses.”
“Yes, but Trixie’s the one to whom your employer’s money should really be going. She’s the one you need to win over. Myself, I’m just the facilitator.” Gaussier grinned and levelled a finger at the visitor. “And that’s why you did so well to choose me instead of Miss Mangjeol. You’ve prioritized your resources just right.”
“No, yeah, I get it.” The visitor shifted his weight to one side and cast a furtive glance around the room. “Put a nice little bribe together. See if we can’t get her to talk. Well, what else’ve I earned?”
“That’s all of the salient material, really,” said Gaussier. “Being already a stone’s throw from deposing our friend, I’m not sure what else you need to know. Although since you’re quite rightly intent upon getting your money’s worth, I can probably throw in an additional detail that’s persisted in my memory… Can I interest you, as part of the package already acquired, in the number of times the Governor’s taken up with Miss Cinnamon?” When the visitor nodded, Gaussier scribbled again, briefly, upon the loose sheet of paper.
On reading it the visitor’s bushy eyebrows jumped an inch up his forehead.
“Poor Abraham’s wife and children won’t take this very well,” the broker observed in a tone of faux mourning.
“He could’ve considered their best interests a long time ago,” was all the visitor had to say on that matter. He took the sheet of paper and stood up. He shook Gaussier’s hand. “I’d like to say you’ve been a huge help,” the visitor continued, “so I’ll be sure to say that once everything you’ve told me proves true.”
“Then I won’t have long to wait,” Franklin Gaussier smiled. “Really, though, there’s only one way you need to thank me, sir, and that’s by spreading the word. If anyone in your line of work is looking for answers, just… point them my way, would you?” A shade of weariness, whether genuine or calculated, overtook his smile. “To be honest with you, there’s no thing as too much publicity where I sit. When I said that most customers get taken in by myth and celebrity, I wish I could have been exaggerating.”
The visitor nodded.
“Understood. Well, until next time.”
“A pleasure,” said Gaussier, and the visitor, having made the sheet of paper disappear somewhere upon his person, left the table. His direct stride toward the door brushed him past the young bespectacled man’s table, and Gaussier fully expected the youth to blink up at Abraham Northcutt’s detractor, notice the empty seat at the table, and shuffle awkwardly over; but the fellow was tapping upon his phone with an expression of such taut concentration that he possibly would not have noticed the passage of Trixie Cinnamon herself in her scantest attire.
The next to fill the void opposite Gaussier was no client at all, in fact. He hadn’t noticed her entry, but then this wasn’t surprising: she had such a knack for appearing out of, and disappearing into, thin air as to shame the invisibility power of any “lurker” in the Archipelago. Ordinary humans had their talents, too.
“What’s the news, Debbie?” he asked as she slid down into the seat, sinking slightly between the cushions. “Is the Pellegrin deal moving forward?”
The woman shook her head. “It’s still not out the door yet. Latest word is that Kemper & Farrow are thinking of backing down. They’re worried about the PR consequences if this comes to light.”
Gaussier sighed and wiped his brow. “Well, obviously. Fine time to be worrying about that, isn’t it? I just want everyone to get moving on this,” he said. “Still. Not my place to decide. What else?”
Debbie Schoen took out her own pocket notebook and consulted it. “Rumor of another Victor Saybolt spotting. Up north, this time. Also, someone’s taken out a bounty on Wakeling, I couldn’t pry out who. Plus she was trying to interest me in some more bits and pieces on the Butterfly, but I figured, not worth it. Those’re a dime a dozen...” Gaussier nodded in approval. “And my fees.” She tore a page out of the notebook and passed it to him.
“Well, this should tide you over for the moment,” he said, and passed a hundred-dollar bill her way. Schoen gaped.
“What’d you land?” she asked at once.
“Northcutt’s out,” he announced proudly. “Finally got a guy looking into it. I was starting to worry we’d go all the way to elections without any takers!”
As Schoen nestled the bill away, Gaussier leaned back. The nape of his neck met the cool wooden paneling beyond his seat. “No need to fret, really,” he continued, his intent leer relaxing into an idle grin. “Just me getting antsy. Should have trusted in the people. They wouldn’t let me down, not during muddy season. Not when Mother Theresa couldn’t run for office in Winstone without someone trying to smear her blessed name.”
“How much did you get for it?”
“Two fifty.”
Schoen frowned. “Only that?”
“Debbie,” said Gaussier at once; whenever she touched a nerve it was by going down this path. “You should’ve seen this guy. Was I going to stiff him? This wasn’t Junior hiked down from Watermunt Hill looking for his lost kitty-cat. This was an industry man.”
Even though the frown hadn’t entirely or even nearly lifted off her face, Schoen cocked her head to the side briefly in the shadow of an understanding shrug. He knew he did not have to explain further. There was, after all, only one industry he could mean – only one of relevance. “The industry” was name enough for every enterprise he had in mind: every trust, corporation and syndicate with its tendrils straining below, loosing down gray-haired men in long coats to run their course in this moonlit maze of gutters. To meet, to buy, to sell, to bribe, to plead, to threaten, perhaps to kill. The industry. Kemper & Farrow. The Giarrettieras. Obsidian Hearts. Saeptum. Joyeuse. Quitters, Inc. You didn’t stiff an industry man. It was not simply a matter of safety – though that, too, of course, and always. When you met an industry man, you smiled and listened carefully and cut him half the deal you’d cut with a fellow from over the top, and why? Repeat business. Junior’s daddy sits at the table just once, to find out whether mommy has indeed been covertly boinking her aerobics instructor (a conclusion passed down to you by the bellhop from said instructor’s apartment complex), pays, leaves, and that is the last you ever see of the happy family. But you shake hands with Mr. Suit and you’ve got a connection. By next week you’ve met two of his friends. Talk in the industry is not cheap: it is a precious commodity. But what words pass are hindered by little of the shame that silences the folk overhead. Down here, paying a visit to the info broker is no different from stopping in at the bank… better, the gas station.
An industry fueled by secrets.
“It’s an investment.”
“Whatever you say, daddy-o,” was her sing-song reply, which managed to make her sound a good fifteen years younger at one stroke. Fifteen years whinier, at that. She made to stand from the table. “End of an era for Northcutt, huh?”
“Oh, I wouldn’t call it that,” said Gaussier with his best Yoon Mangjeol titter. “Better surely to look upon this as the beginning of a grand and exciting new–”
“Can it,” Schoen muttered with a grin, and slung her purse over her shoulder. “I’m going home. Rich’ll still be up.”
Gaussier, who knew full well that Rich would probably be happier to hear that she’d arrived at Felice Potabile to find the informant keeled over at his table soaking the placemats through from the hole in his cerebellum, said, “Give him my regards.”
Schoen, who knew it too, waved and walked away. Gaussier noticed the young man’s eyes flicker up from his wineglass for the fleetest moment to register her passing. Fair enough, even if the good dame was no Trixie Cinnamon. Then the youth’s cell phone lit up and buzzed, and pulled his attention back down into his own private world.
Franklin Gaussier rubbed his eyes and yawned, suddenly aware of the effect his own last Yuengling had brought about: his head, though still clear for the most part, was beginning to cry out for a proper pillow. The thrill of the meeting with the gray-haired man in the long coat, and that months-awaited revelation, had run its course. A curious but not entirely unfamiliar feeling akin to post-Christmas letdown had crept in. “What’s it matter?” he whispered almost inaudibly, more to test the sentiment than to commit to it. So Northcutt’s wife hadn’t been good enough (or easy enough) to scratch the itch. Why make a fuss? What real difference between the governor and Junior’s mommy? In the grand scheme of things, who actually gave a shit?
But of course it did matter, and there were many people out there who were prepared to give some profound shits regarding the subject, and Gaussier supposed the feeling would pass as soon as word started to filter back in about the consequences. Two days, maybe four. Let it take its time if it needed. Right now his bed was the only thing Gaussier was looking forward to.
The watch showed one twelve, and the words spoken by the figure whom he now looked up to see standing at the table poised like a butler, the young bespectacled man with dark curly hair, narrow features, and pale skin tinged a faint olive, echoed the informant’s own thoughts precisely:
“Closing time, isn’t it, Mr. Gaussier?”
* * *
Two years before the present day
Felice Potabile
A flickering, faintly humming lamp over a secluded table.
“Well, sir, I’d hate to think you might not have our own governor’s best interests at heart. It’s always a shame, isn’t it, around this time, when the very citizens who elected an official in the first place turn around and scrabble everywhere to pull the rug out from under his feet?”
The visitor, a man of gray hair and goatee, his heavy-set form obscured by a long coat, propped an elbow on the table. “‘Scuse me, I’m not trying to be rude,” he said, “but you think we could speed through the cutesy rhetorical stuff? It’s just, I already had to put up with that routine once tonight, and it didn’t get me anywhere.”
“From her, you mean.”
“Yeah. Not trying to be rude,” the visitor repeated, “I mean, like I said – but she lays it on pretty thick and I want to really just keep this to the point. And for the record,” he added, raising a flattened palm, “my employer didn’t vote for Northcutt and neither did I.”
“I understand completely,” said Franklin Gaussier.
He was a middle-aged man with sharp eyebrows, a cleft chin, and a thinned hairline, and if he took any offense at the visitor’s words, his face betrayed it not a bit. His intent-bordering-upon-eager smile didn’t waver in the least. “The darkest, most damning information I can divulge on Abraham Northcutt, and no sardonic commentary. Well, you’re in luck. It happens I’ve been sitting on a nice piece about Northcutt for quite some time now. Always knew someone would come in around this season and pick it up…” Gaussier scratched his cheek with a thumb. “I’ll part with it for two hundred dollars, if you’ve got that much on you.”
The visitor gave an only half-restrained sigh of relief. “Finally, someone talking sense!” he breathed. “Do you know, she was gonna charge me two thousand for what she had to say about him? That’s when I walked out on her. As if my employer’s funding me enough to sink two grand into an open question like that.”
“What this tells us,” said Gaussier, “is that you actually have an idea of how to dispense your money, for which congratulations, sir, because too few people in your position do. You’re the realists. The rest of them get taken in by myth and celebrity. They never wonder if in all these years an alternative hasn’t shown up. Well, I’m the alternative, and I happen to know what a competitive price is. Just let her go on thinking she’s got a monopoly as long as she likes! To those for whom her fees are too exorbitant, I offer…” He trailed off under the sound of paper sliding across the table. The double likeness of another Franklin stared up at him.
The visitor remarked: “I hope you were going to say you’ll offer my money’s worth.”
Gaussier folded the bills into his robust wallet and assured the visitor he would.
“Can I ask you a favor, though?” asked the visitor. “Will you give me the CliffsNotes version first and then lay the whole thing out? I want to know where you’re going with the, you know, the minutiae.”
“I don’t see any reason why not. Here it is, then. The darkest secret.” Gaussier glanced around the dingy, mostly vacant bar before muttering: “It’s been Governor Northcutt’s habit for the past several years to consort with a certain prostitute.”
The visitor’s eyes widened, but he maintained a cautious, deliberate tone with his next words; his crevassed cheeks held steady as his mouth formed: “On whose authority can you claim that?”
“On the… well, on the pimp’s, sir.”
“Excuse me?”
“You see, for a while now, I’ve been putting down top dollar for access to the kind of records kept in that part of town. Just about as long as I’ve been in the business, actually.” Gaussier tapped his fork on the tabletop, out of habit rather than as a discreet signal. “And the Governor’s name has been cropping up in their registers since long before then. Now—”
But the visitor cut him off.
“I think two hundred dollars earned me more than that. My contractor and I aren’t going to level this kind of accusation at Northcutt based on nothing more than the word of an informant – no offense. And as much as I’d like to just check the records myself, we don’t all have a backstage pass at the slums.” After letting this sink in for a beat, he added, “No offense, that, either, I guess.”
Franklin Gaussier’s lip curled downward just enough to reveal a light grimace. He cleared his throat.
“It’s a kind of catch-22, honestly, this question of how to divulge,” he said cryptically. “Of course, as you said, the customer’s patience is easily tried by a methodical account, which begins with the innocuous details and only gradually builds toward the key information. But how am I really any better off in giving away the bottom line first? After that, you see, the customer loses interest in the founding details. They’ve judged the value of the answer based solely on its most atomic phrasing.”
“You’re sounding a lot more like her than I think I requested,” observed the visitor.
“Well, I’m sorry, sir,” said Gaussier, “but I wouldn’t write off the ‘minutiae’ too quickly if I were you. Some of the finer details might be quite helpful to you. For instance, how about the name of the prostitute in question?”
The visitor hesitated before asking, “Is that covered in the two hundred?”
“Certainly.” When the visitor nodded and gestured for Gaussier to continue, he did so: “Her name is Trixie Cinnamon.”
An exasperated tone. “Her hooker name?”
“Isn’t that useful to you?”
“How?” the visitor demanded. “You expect me to call them and corroborate this information? You expect the pimp to say ‘Oh, Trixie, that’s right, Northcutt’s shacked up with her plenty of times’?”
Gaussier shrugged. “I wouldn’t say I expect it to work like that. To be honest, I’d be impressed with anyone who could get halfway to the topic of Northcutt over the phone with Trixie’s supervisor. All I was thinking was that if you have any doubts about my information so far, you could at least call the man just to confirm there is a Trixie Cinnamon under his employ.”
The visitor regarded him for a long moment, allowing the hum of the lamp to take prominence.
“Or,” he eventually said, “we could say I trust you’re not lying, because what else can you possibly trust an info broker about, and you could go on right here and now.”
“That’s what I like to hear!” Gaussier grinned. “But for what I want to share with you next, there’ll have to be an extra charge. This is the clincher, sir.”
The visitor snorted. “Of course. There’s always the clincher.”
“Well, let me give you a general idea. What say we skip the middle man? Forget the pimp, forget the phone number, and I’ll get you direct to Trixie herself.” In a hush: “You see, I also know her real name.”
“What is it?” the visitor asked at once.
“Just fifty more dollars. I’ve got fees of my own, you know.” The visitor stifled a betrayed look and pulled from his wallet two twenties and a ten, which were once again swallowed by Gaussier’s own. The informant responded by tearing a sheet of paper from his pocket notebook and writing down a name. He pushed the paper across the table to the visitor, jerking his head to indicate the arrival of a new customer uncomfortably close to their own table, a young man. Lester the barkeep mercifully caught the new customer’s attention with a shouted question from behind the counter while Gaussier’s client read the name aloud.
“I hope that’s a bit more satisfactory?” said Gaussier.
“Much more,” the visitor answered. “You don’t know her number, though, or…?”
“No, but I can’t imagine she won’t be in the phonebook under that name. You should be able to get ahold of her quite easily. Just ask your employer to extend her a nice substantial offer and she’ll be on your side in no time. What more decisive accusation could you need than the prostitute herself going public?”
The visitor groaned. “More expenses.”
“Yes, but Trixie’s the one to whom your employer’s money should really be going. She’s the one you need to win over. Myself, I’m just the facilitator.” Gaussier grinned and levelled a finger at the visitor. “And that’s why you did so well to choose me instead of Miss Mangjeol. You’ve prioritized your resources just right.”
“No, yeah, I get it.” The visitor shifted his weight to one side and cast a furtive glance around the room. “Put a nice little bribe together. See if we can’t get her to talk. Well, what else’ve I earned?”
“That’s all of the salient material, really,” said Gaussier. “Being already a stone’s throw from deposing our friend, I’m not sure what else you need to know. Although since you’re quite rightly intent upon getting your money’s worth, I can probably throw in an additional detail that’s persisted in my memory… Can I interest you, as part of the package already acquired, in the number of times the Governor’s taken up with Miss Cinnamon?” When the visitor nodded, Gaussier scribbled again, briefly, upon the loose sheet of paper.
On reading it the visitor’s bushy eyebrows jumped an inch up his forehead.
“Poor Abraham’s wife and children won’t take this very well,” the broker observed in a tone of faux mourning.
“He could’ve considered their best interests a long time ago,” was all the visitor had to say on that matter. He took the sheet of paper and stood up. He shook Gaussier’s hand. “I’d like to say you’ve been a huge help,” the visitor continued, “so I’ll be sure to say that once everything you’ve told me proves true.”
“Then I won’t have long to wait,” Franklin Gaussier smiled. “Really, though, there’s only one way you need to thank me, sir, and that’s by spreading the word. If anyone in your line of work is looking for answers, just… point them my way, would you?” A shade of weariness, whether genuine or calculated, overtook his smile. “To be honest with you, there’s no thing as too much publicity where I sit. When I said that most customers get taken in by myth and celebrity, I wish I could have been exaggerating.”
The visitor nodded.
“Understood. Well, until next time.”
“A pleasure,” said Gaussier, and the visitor, having made the sheet of paper disappear somewhere upon his person, left the table. His direct stride toward the door brushed him past the young bespectacled man’s table, and Gaussier fully expected the youth to blink up at Abraham Northcutt’s detractor, notice the empty seat at the table, and shuffle awkwardly over; but the fellow was tapping upon his phone with an expression of such taut concentration that he possibly would not have noticed the passage of Trixie Cinnamon herself in her scantest attire.
The next to fill the void opposite Gaussier was no client at all, in fact. He hadn’t noticed her entry, but then this wasn’t surprising: she had such a knack for appearing out of, and disappearing into, thin air as to shame the invisibility power of any “lurker” in the Archipelago. Ordinary humans had their talents, too.
“What’s the news, Debbie?” he asked as she slid down into the seat, sinking slightly between the cushions. “Is the Pellegrin deal moving forward?”
The woman shook her head. “It’s still not out the door yet. Latest word is that Kemper & Farrow are thinking of backing down. They’re worried about the PR consequences if this comes to light.”
Gaussier sighed and wiped his brow. “Well, obviously. Fine time to be worrying about that, isn’t it? I just want everyone to get moving on this,” he said. “Still. Not my place to decide. What else?”
Debbie Schoen took out her own pocket notebook and consulted it. “Rumor of another Victor Saybolt spotting. Up north, this time. Also, someone’s taken out a bounty on Wakeling, I couldn’t pry out who. Plus she was trying to interest me in some more bits and pieces on the Butterfly, but I figured, not worth it. Those’re a dime a dozen...” Gaussier nodded in approval. “And my fees.” She tore a page out of the notebook and passed it to him.
“Well, this should tide you over for the moment,” he said, and passed a hundred-dollar bill her way. Schoen gaped.
“What’d you land?” she asked at once.
“Northcutt’s out,” he announced proudly. “Finally got a guy looking into it. I was starting to worry we’d go all the way to elections without any takers!”
As Schoen nestled the bill away, Gaussier leaned back. The nape of his neck met the cool wooden paneling beyond his seat. “No need to fret, really,” he continued, his intent leer relaxing into an idle grin. “Just me getting antsy. Should have trusted in the people. They wouldn’t let me down, not during muddy season. Not when Mother Theresa couldn’t run for office in Winstone without someone trying to smear her blessed name.”
“How much did you get for it?”
“Two fifty.”
Schoen frowned. “Only that?”
“Debbie,” said Gaussier at once; whenever she touched a nerve it was by going down this path. “You should’ve seen this guy. Was I going to stiff him? This wasn’t Junior hiked down from Watermunt Hill looking for his lost kitty-cat. This was an industry man.”
Even though the frown hadn’t entirely or even nearly lifted off her face, Schoen cocked her head to the side briefly in the shadow of an understanding shrug. He knew he did not have to explain further. There was, after all, only one industry he could mean – only one of relevance. “The industry” was name enough for every enterprise he had in mind: every trust, corporation and syndicate with its tendrils straining below, loosing down gray-haired men in long coats to run their course in this moonlit maze of gutters. To meet, to buy, to sell, to bribe, to plead, to threaten, perhaps to kill. The industry. Kemper & Farrow. The Giarrettieras. Obsidian Hearts. Saeptum. Joyeuse. Quitters, Inc. You didn’t stiff an industry man. It was not simply a matter of safety – though that, too, of course, and always. When you met an industry man, you smiled and listened carefully and cut him half the deal you’d cut with a fellow from over the top, and why? Repeat business. Junior’s daddy sits at the table just once, to find out whether mommy has indeed been covertly boinking her aerobics instructor (a conclusion passed down to you by the bellhop from said instructor’s apartment complex), pays, leaves, and that is the last you ever see of the happy family. But you shake hands with Mr. Suit and you’ve got a connection. By next week you’ve met two of his friends. Talk in the industry is not cheap: it is a precious commodity. But what words pass are hindered by little of the shame that silences the folk overhead. Down here, paying a visit to the info broker is no different from stopping in at the bank… better, the gas station.
An industry fueled by secrets.
“It’s an investment.”
“Whatever you say, daddy-o,” was her sing-song reply, which managed to make her sound a good fifteen years younger at one stroke. Fifteen years whinier, at that. She made to stand from the table. “End of an era for Northcutt, huh?”
“Oh, I wouldn’t call it that,” said Gaussier with his best Yoon Mangjeol titter. “Better surely to look upon this as the beginning of a grand and exciting new–”
“Can it,” Schoen muttered with a grin, and slung her purse over her shoulder. “I’m going home. Rich’ll still be up.”
Gaussier, who knew full well that Rich would probably be happier to hear that she’d arrived at Felice Potabile to find the informant keeled over at his table soaking the placemats through from the hole in his cerebellum, said, “Give him my regards.”
Schoen, who knew it too, waved and walked away. Gaussier noticed the young man’s eyes flicker up from his wineglass for the fleetest moment to register her passing. Fair enough, even if the good dame was no Trixie Cinnamon. Then the youth’s cell phone lit up and buzzed, and pulled his attention back down into his own private world.
Franklin Gaussier rubbed his eyes and yawned, suddenly aware of the effect his own last Yuengling had brought about: his head, though still clear for the most part, was beginning to cry out for a proper pillow. The thrill of the meeting with the gray-haired man in the long coat, and that months-awaited revelation, had run its course. A curious but not entirely unfamiliar feeling akin to post-Christmas letdown had crept in. “What’s it matter?” he whispered almost inaudibly, more to test the sentiment than to commit to it. So Northcutt’s wife hadn’t been good enough (or easy enough) to scratch the itch. Why make a fuss? What real difference between the governor and Junior’s mommy? In the grand scheme of things, who actually gave a shit?
But of course it did matter, and there were many people out there who were prepared to give some profound shits regarding the subject, and Gaussier supposed the feeling would pass as soon as word started to filter back in about the consequences. Two days, maybe four. Let it take its time if it needed. Right now his bed was the only thing Gaussier was looking forward to.
The watch showed one twelve, and the words spoken by the figure whom he now looked up to see standing at the table poised like a butler, the young bespectacled man with dark curly hair, narrow features, and pale skin tinged a faint olive, echoed the informant’s own thoughts precisely:
“Closing time, isn’t it, Mr. Gaussier?”