Chapter Nine

“Makes a habit of walking out only with ugly men,” Brendan Fagan repeated in a mutter as he stalked away from Virginia Landry’s house and off down Linwood. “What in hell is that supposed to mean?” What kind of woman preferred an ugly man?

He didn’t consider himself handsome; that would be conceited. But he knew he’d been blessed in several ways: with a good brain, a strong body, and a face that most women seemed to find pleasing. Why should Virginia Landry be any different?

Because she was. His mind told him so, and his heart acknowledged it as truth; he’d sensed that from the first he laid eyes on her. She possessed an indefinable something that had made him overstep his own good judgment and suggest they see each other socially.

Just as well she’d turned him down, then. He didn’t need the complication.

But he needed to kiss her, and soon.

Better get that right out of his head. Life held enough hurdles without erecting more. And given the identity of her mother and the current mood in the city, she was a problem just waiting to happen.

Ah, but hadn’t it been worth it all, just to introduce her to Pat Kelly? A sudden smile broke over his face. She’d had no idea Pat was an automaton. Didn’t she have any idea what her mother was doing before she died, what an automaton, taken to the limits, could be?

Captain Addelforce called him into the office as soon as he reached the station.

“Sergeant, I’m sorry to say there’s been two more.”

“Beg pardon?”

“Two more murders. The calls just came in.”

Brendan’s heart sank. “Two, sir? Where?”

“One at a private residence over on Porter Avenue. A businessman grew concerned when his colleague failed to show up at their office. He went to the man’s home, only to find his body and signs of an apparent struggle.”

Brendan blew out a breath. “Intruder, do you think?”

Addelforce shook his head. “A damaged steam unit lay nearby. Looked like the man tried to fight it off. His other steam servants are missing.”

“No one else in the home?”

“The man’s wife is away visiting relations, according to the neighbors. The other case is even uglier. A pit on the lower east side.”

“A fighting pit, you mean? Dogs?” Brendan hated those places.

“You ever heard of a man called Deke Cooper?”

“We’ve shut him down any number of times.”

“Well, you won’t be shutting him down again. Seems he’s been running a new game—pitting steam units against one another. Details aren’t too clear. I want you to get over there and take a full report.”

“Aye, sir.”

“Take someone with you, maybe a member of the Irish Squad if one’s available.”

“I was just on a call with Pat Kelly. I wouldn’t mind taking him.”

“Everybody wants Kelly, but I sent him on another call just before you got back. Choose someone else.”

“Aye, sir.”

“And for God’s sake be careful. The last thing we need is more trouble.”

“Has Cooper’s body been collected?”

“At the morgue.”

“Manner of death, sir?”

“Bludgeoned. That’s all we know so far.”

Brendan collected Terry Greely on his way back out. Greely, big and fair-haired, didn’t tend to offer a lot in the way of conversation, unlike Pat. As they tramped their way to William Street, though, Brendan made the effort.

“So, Terry lad, how’s the wife?”

Greely’s new wife, Chastity—one of the hybrid units Virginia Landry’s mother created—had once been forced to serve as a prostitute before all hell broke loose at the Crystal Palace. Terry and Chastity had numbered among the automatons joined in wedlock at the mass ceremony near Hoyt Lake the month before last. To Brendan’s knowledge, the ceremony had been the first of its kind anywhere.

Terry’s handsome face broke into a rare smile. “Mrs. Greely is doing most excellently, thank you, Sergeant Fagan. We are very happy together.”

“Glad to hear it.”

“I am no longer lonely in the house I bought.”

Brendan gave Terry a sharp look. He’d never considered the notion of an automaton feeling lonely. He supposed he should be ashamed of that oversight.

“That’s good.”

“We are thinking of adopting a child.”

Brendan’s step faltered. “What?”

“We have learned there are many children in the city who are institutionalized for lack of willing adopters. Chastity’s good friend Lily and her husband, Reynold Michaels, are looking into the adoption procedure. We thought we might follow.”

“I see. Most admirable, Terry. But would—ah—such an adoption be permitted?”

“We are investigating that also. The situation for Reynold and Lily is a bit different, given that Reynold is human. But Chastity has discovered the plight of Negro orphans is particularly bad. We are hoping the authorities see fit to place one of them with us.”

Hope. Just months ago most folk would have declared automatons incapable of it. “Well, I wish you luck.”

“Thank you.”

“Your wife is a right clever lady. I’m sure she’ll come up with a way of achieving this.”

“She is, Brendan. I believe her capable of most anything.”

Like beating her creator, Candace Landry, to death. Chastity had been among the automatons who’d done just that. Would the authorities really hand an innocent child over to her?

And what would the child in question think? Of course, Brendan had seen the inside of those orphanages a time or two. He wouldn’t leave a cat there if he could help it.

But cats were cats, and it didn’t answer the question of what folk in this city would say if human children got adopted out to automaton parents. The good citizens might not want those wains, but all such considerations would go out the window in the face of ill feeling.

He changed the subject. “What do you know about Deke Cooper?”

“Only what I have been told. The last time James Kilter and some of our officers shut him down, he swore he’d get round the law. The next we heard, he was pitting automatons against one another.”

“Let me ask you a question: What do you think of that?”

“Well, Brendan, it might be argued by those who are not automatons it is better than abusing living, feeling creatures.” Terry looked at Brendan. “Only, being an automaton, I know we are living, feeling beings. It is remarkably like the situation with Chastity and the other Ladies. It was considered better to have them serve life sentences as prostitutes than to expose human women to that life.”

And see how that ended up, Brendan thought. He wondered what Virginia Landry thought about her mother having been beaten to death by her own machines. Yet she kept a few of the things around her.

He should have warned her. He didn’t want to answer one of these calls only to find her lying dead.

“What’s going on in this city, Terry, eh?” he mused.

“Change, Brendan. Great and important change.”

****

The scene at Deke Cooper’s establishment proved ugly in the extreme. Little more than a large shanty ringed by smaller outbuildings, the place consisted of the pit surrounded by benches, a poor excuse for an office, and a tiny area fitted with a cot. It appeared, from the extensive amount of blood trail, Cooper had been pulled from that place into the pit itself, where he had died.

Disturbingly, a number of steamies in various conditions remained on the premises. That was the problem with these crimes—steam units couldn’t be arrested, and no one seemed sure what else to do with them.

Could they be put on trial for murder? If found guilty, should they be decommissioned?

These units appeared battered, oft repaired, and scabbed together. All made from molded silver, none hybrid, many bore splashes of what could only be Cooper’s blood.

“You interview half of them,” Brendan told Terry, “and I’ll take the other half.”

The first unit Brendan interviewed had damage to its voice box and could barely speak. It denied all knowledge of Cooper’s murder, even though its shins were splashed with blood.

The second, which looked like it had been put together from two separate units, admitted it had heard nothing because it and the other units had been on standby.

“We found Master Cooper in the pit when we came in to clean for tonight’s session. We tried to move him, and there was a lot of blood.”

“I see. Why would you need to clean?”

“We are ordered to do so.”

“What’s in the pit that needs cleaning?”

“Nuts. Bolts. Metal fragments. Spilled coal.”

“He’s been pitting you against each other, then?”

“Yes, Officer.”

“Against your will?”

For the first time the unit failed to answer readily.

“Why do you—did you—fight for him if you don’t want to?”

“We follow orders, Officer. We were created to follow orders.”

Not until all the interviews had been conducted and Brendan rejoined Greely did they compare notes.

Terry reported, “None of them admitted to killing Master Cooper—even though all of them described him as cruel.”

“That’s the result I got, too, Terry.”

“They say they discovered and attempted to revive him, thus acquiring the blood they show.”

“And who’s to say differently, eh?”

“Cooper had collected a stable of units for fighting. The others have absconded.” Terry’s eyes met Brendan’s. “One unit also told me there are dogs in a kennel out back.”

“Oh, hell. I suppose we’d better take a look.”

They heard the dogs before they saw them—not barking but whimpering. The conditions inside proved so appalling Brendan took one look and decided Cooper had got precisely what he deserved—not that he could take that line, officially.

“We’ll call in Jamie Kilter,” he told Terry. “By God, some of these poor creatures are in dire shape.”

Terry lowered his voice. “Brendan, one of the units confided to me that Cooper had been pitting some of the dogs against steamies. He did not like to say it, but confessed Cooper had been charging extra for those matches.”

Brendan didn’t know which was worse—Cooper or the patrons who came to watch. “Bloodthirsty bastards.”

“Aye.”

“Sometimes, Terry, I hate this job. But why did the unit want to keep it a secret?”

“I believe he was ashamed of following orders when it meant injuring a dog.”

Well, Brendan thought, and they say steamies have no conscience.