The Translated Man and Other Stories - Chris Braak [54]
There was a faint rap at the door, and Wolfgang’s secretary put his head in. “Sir…”
Wolfgang nodded. “Send him in.”
The secretary nodded. Moments later, Edgar Wyndham-Vie swaggered into the room, slammed the door shut, and flopped into a seat opposite Wolfgang’s desk. He had not waited for an invitation. Wolfgang was willing to chalk that up to the impetuosity of youth. “Well?”
Wyndham-Vie shrugged. “Stitch got Beckett out. There was nothing I could do. But he’s out bad…” the young man tapped a finger on his temple. “…delirious. I don’t think he’ll be investigating anything for a while.”
The older man grunted. “And?”
“And nothing. Beckett’s the only danger. His man is incompetent. I’ve sent a few gendarmes out to take him in.”
Wolfgang groaned and rubbed his eyes. “You haven’t got the authority to keep arresting people, Edgar.”
“I had to. He was going after the log at Corimander Street.”
There was a long silence, then, and Edgar began to fidget nervously.
“Why was he at Corimander Street?”
Edgar shrugged, but he still seemed nervous. “I don’t know. I assume…Beckett must have said something to him. He . . . spoke to him. In the cell for a few minutes. I thought Beckett was delirious, but…” Wyndham-Vie tapped his fingers on his knee. “Maybe he told him the address. It doesn’t matter. The log wasn’t there. Robbie didn’t say anything. There’s nothing to connect you…” he trailed off.
Wolfgang had stood, and for a moment, the shadow of his fire-eyed brother was visible in the old man’s paunchy face. “They are too close to this. The Coroners have been practically breathing down our necks…” he seized Edgar by the front of his shirt. “Do you understand that if we’re exposed, we could all hang? That’s if Beckett doesn’t execute us on the spot. Do you understand that?”
Trying vainly to slither out of Wolfgang’s grasp, Edgar replied, “I do. I understand. And I’m in this as deep as you are, so don’t think I’m not trying to keep it all under wraps. And it is under wraps. The gendarmes will pick up Valentine for interfering with a Committee Investigation. Beckett’s out of his mind on fang…” Wolfgang let the young man go, straightened his own coat, and went over to his window.
There was a psychestorm brewing above the forest of stone towers and bronze chimney pots; verdant green lightning played across dark, gray-green clouds that grew black as the hidden sun set. Already, people were closing up their doors and windows as tight as they could, to protect themselves from the dementia-inducing winds.
Edgar watched the old man, bitterness roiling in the back of his throat. It’s not like he didn’t know the danger they were in. The danger that they were all in, and that Wolfgang Rowan-Czarnecki was responsible for. The Wyndham-Vies, Edgar spat to himself, had been serving the Empire for decades before Wolfgang’s upstart family had risen to prominence. Hadn’t it been Harcourt Wyndham that had advised Owen I Gorgon? Hadn’t it been Dikaios Vie that had served Agon Diethes before the Second Reconciliation? Edgar Wyndham-Vie had half a mind to tell the old fart off once and for all, let him know where the real power in this situation lay.
Instead, he said, “What about the pilot?”
Wolfgang shook his head. “Lightman. It’ll go after Lightman, next. Then . . . then everyone it knows will be dead.” Just another bit of nastiness crawling around the city.
“You’re not going out,” Valentine insisted. “The storm’s almost started. You wouldn’t get farther than Red Lanes.”
“There’s enough copper in the coach…” Skinner insisted.
“To protect you, yes. And Harry? Going to give him a copper top-hat, or something?