I stared at Sal for a long time. He was a man I had trusted—that is, I’d trusted him as far as I could’ve thrown a two-hundred-and-fifty-pound tithead with a crooked sense of loyalty. On second thought, I hadn’t trusted him so much as I’d found my uses for him. But he had never let me down. Not in the old days. And he’d been living this double life of his for a long time. Long enough that I wanted him to keep on living it, in case there was ever anything else I needed him for.
“She made all those threats because you wanted to go back to your mundane life of law-loving and bootlickin’?” I said. “The nerve…”
“I’m glad I’m not the only one who thinks that sounds a little over the top,” Sal said.
“I’m not agreeing with you. I meant the nerve of you! How could you even entertain the idea of puckering up for the cheeks of justice?”
“I wasn’t always this way, you know. When I joined the Corps, I was a fresh, level-headed young lad with high hopes and big dreams.”
“Mutton-headed is more like it. You were suffering from a lifelong bout of insanity that only a good dose of hustling could cure. Once you heard the siren song of the criminal underworld, you came to your senses. I’m glad I never knew you before then, or we would never have become friends. I’d have karate-chopped you in the throat the second I saw you.”
Sal was in no mood to be teased. “I want out, Mull. You don’t know what it’s like, having to wake up and face your children every day, posing as this honorable man when you’re really a miserable degenerate.”
“I enjoy being a miserable degenerate. If you’re not having fun, you’re doing it wrong.”
“Don’t make light of this. I’m trying to make you understand where I’m coming from, but you can’t seem to. The pressure is just too much. It’s not worth it anymore.”
He was right—I couldn’t understand him. So I made my best attempt to raise his spirits. “Cheer up, Sal. This is just a phase. You’ll get through it, and you’ll realize it was worth the struggle.”
“I won’t. It’s true what they say; crime doesn’t pay.”
“Whoever said crime doesn’t pay wasn’t any good at it,” I said.
“There isn’t much that does pay unless you’re good at it.”
I thumbed over my shoulder. “Half your co-workers are evidence against that.”
Sal frowned. “In this case, I hope you’re right; maybe they missed something when they were searching the boat. Something you’d be able to find if you snuck over there and gave it a good look yourself.”
“I can only hope your cohorts are as inept as I’ve given them credit for. I’m willing to bet Sable and Dennel didn’t have a chance to hide all that gravstone before the Civs swarmed in. If I make it to the Galeskimmer, I’m shoving off. This might be my only chance to get her airborne again without a whole mess of law-lovers on board. I think you ought to tell me where that warehouse is now. Then take your car and meet me there.”
Sal wrinkled his mouth, deep in thought. “Well, I’ll have to draw them off you. But if you can shake them, I can duck out and head for the warehouse. They won’t miss me.”
“Don’t you worry about me, Sal-pal.”
“You know I hate that.”
I grinned.
Sal gave me directions and tipped me off about a few stations and lookout towers along the way so I’d know what to avoid. Then he brushed himself off, straightened the collar on his jacket, and took a deep breath. “Wish me luck.”
I nodded. “Wish it back to me.”
Sal strode away down the pier, aimed at diffusing his own trap, if he could manage it. If he couldn’t, the Galeskimmer and I were in for a good screwing. I clung to the shadows as I made my way to the boat, looking as suspicious as I possibly could. Not that I had any choice in the matter; I’ve always found mustaches to be characteristically suspicious.
Once on board, I already felt better about my prospects. The gravstone had to be somewhere around here, and I suspected the Civs had been too busy massaging each other’s egos to notice they’d overlooked it. However, after a quick search of the most likely places, and a more thorough search of the less obvious ones, I was beginning to think I was qualified to apply to the academy.
When I entered the captain’s quarters, I found that Sable had left something behind. Something the Civs had missed altogether. There, on the tall shelf next to the door, stood Nerimund. But it wasn’t Nerimund the way I knew him. It was a wooden statue that looked exactly like Nerimund, complete with knots and grain lines running over his skin.
I tapped the statue with a finger. Nothing happened. It seemed Nerimund had locked himself away in a dormant state of some kind. This wasn’t a mundane statue or a wood carving; I felt the warmth beneath the surface, flowing through the wood like water, and somehow I knew he was alright.
I considered bluewaving Dennel, but I’d had a vision of them hiding in the dark of some storage closet while Yingler and the Civs pawed through laundry bins and shelves of cleaning supplies. I had no way of knowing whether the vision was something I’d dreamed or if it had been another one of the medallion’s strange manifestations, but I didn’t want to risk it. Until Dennel called back, I had no choice but to assume the worst.
Satisfied that I could find no sign of the gravstone anywhere on board, I circled the boat and unhitched all the mooring lines, then creaked up the steps to the quarterdeck and took the controls. I didn’t have a crew to rig the sails, and the turbines would make too much noise until I was far away, so I would have to rely on the clinkers to bear me aloft.
I flicked the switch and heard them whining softly into motion below. I touched my finger to the release button, bracing myself for the sudden gain in altitude. But when I pressed it, the ship jolted like a bad set of brakes and settled to rest on its haunches. Fantastic. I needed a major hiccup like this in the moment that would’ve been my glorious getaway. Thanks, Leridote.
I slammed the button with a fist. The deck shook and came to rest again. I grumbled to myself as I shut down the clinkers, jogged down the steps, and grabbed Sable’s toolbox.
A minute later I’d shimmied my way beneath the ship to inspect the cylinders and the two driftmetal side runners. Nothing became immediately apparent to me; everything seemed to be functioning as it should. But the noise had apparently attracted some attention.
“Need a hand?”
I poked my head out and found myself staring up into the crotch of a graying civilian dressed in coal miner’s denim and a herringbone flat cap. “No thanks,” I said, escaping the unpleasant view and resuming my work.
“Name’s Barnaby. Mine’s the biplane across the way there. Thought I heard a commotion over this way. I know a few things about boats and whatnot, so I just figured I’d drop in and take a gander—see if there was any way I could assist you.”
I stuck my head out again. “Thank you, Barnaby. No—” I stopped myself short. “Actually, yes. There is one thing you could do for me. Just hold your horses there, partner. I’ll be back in a jiffy.”
I finished checking the rest of the clinker arrays, cleaned up my tools, and tested the lift again, but the Galeskimmer only gave me more of the same troublesome trembling. Barnaby followed me around the whole time like a lost puppy, prattling on about how good he was at fixing things, sounding like a real know-it-all. I would’ve bet Sal’s entire family that my racket had woken the whole neighborhood by now. From time to time, I saw people peeking out of their windows and looking through their spyglasses at me from the decks of nearby ships.
Somewhere amid Barnaby’s rambling, I concentrated on trying to remember what Dennel had said over the bluewave earlier. I think it’s safe. We put it underneath. When I realized I’d checked the two side runners and not the middle one, I almost kicked myself. Of course. Dennel, you magnificent, ingenious son of a gun.
“Barnaby, stay on deck while I go below,” I told him. “I’ll come up in a minute.” Chisel in hand, I scrambled down the steps and threw myself onto the floor of the crew cabin. I jammed the chisel into the space between two planks and pried open the access hatch to reveal the cold, silvery runner below. When I stuck my hand into the cavity, I felt the rough touch of stone.
A long time ago, boatbuilders had discovered the perils of losing one runner in mid-air and having their whole streamboat swing sideways from the other one. As a countermeasure, they’d started adding a third runner—a thin strip that ran straight down the ship’s spine, just beneath the keel. I would never have thought to hide the gravstone along the third runner. Fortunately for me, it seemed my companions were cleverer than I was.
It took me some brute strength and a few precious moments to tear away the first few chunks of gravstone and set them on the cabin floor. Dennel and the others had managed to stow them down there in what must’ve been quite a hurry. It was almost as if they’d been meaning to hide them down there before we got into this predicament…
I’d said it myself when we first stole the gravstone from Gilfoyle’s warehouse: carrying gravstone on a ship that flies on driftmetal runners is a bad idea of the most monumental kind. This was the reason why; any direct contact between the gravstone and the runners could make for a complicated flight. But Sable and her crew—I didn’t know yet whose idea it had been—had used the disruptive magnetic properties of gravstone on driftmetal to hide the goods while simultaneously keeping the Civs from flying the boat away and impounding it. It was a delightful and dastardly scheme, and I was thoroughly impressed. Even more importantly, it had worked.
I crawled through the access hatch and into the tiny space beneath the cabin floor. The rest of the gravstone was anchored to the runner, chunks lined up like soldiers marching double-file. I began to pry them off and lift them into the cabin, one by one. I was most of the way done and I’d worked up a decent sweat by the time I remembered Barnaby and my plans for him.
I went above and explained my predicament—that is, an alternate version of my predicament, unburdened by the bothersome limitations of the truth. Barnaby eagerly accepted the task I gave him, and I watched him amble down the pier and out of sight. He was a good fella, Barnaby was.
I went below and resumed my work. I’d just finished removing the last chunk of gravstone from the runner when I heard footsteps on the deck above. I closed the hatch, then drew Rindhi’s pulser and began to creep up the stairs. When I saw that Barnaby had returned with the constable I’d sent him to retrieve, I shot them both. I had been hoping my little ruse would work; turned out Barnaby was as gullible as I’d pegged him for.
I bound both men; hands and feet with rigging lines, mouths with handkerchief gags. Now that I had the hostages I needed, I could get going. The Civs had a distinct disadvantage when it came to dealing with the likes of me: they played by the rules. No self-respecting law-lover is going to open fire on a ship holding one of their own—let alone one with an innocent civilian on board.
The bobby squirming around on deck was one of the men I’d seen onboard earlier, so it seemed Sal had been unsuccessful in convincing his cohorts to abandon their stakeout—or else he hadn’t even tried. Since there was no other way around it, it was time to spring their trap.
When the Galeskimmer took off from the dock, I heard the constable squeal through the thick knot of fabric in his mouth. It was a terrified sound, and it gave me a thrill, the way that first bite of food does after you haven’t eaten all day. Rocketing upward through the nighttime sky, I cranked the turbines and set the clinkers. We leveled out and started sliding forward through the low-hanging clouds.
Almost immediately, the familiar flashing beacons of the Civs’ boats began to awaken below. They rose out of nowhere, drifting up from rooftops and alleyways, homing in on the Galeskimmer as if they’d known it was coming. I kept to my planned route regardless, avoiding all the Civvy hideaways Sal had warned me about.
Then my bluewave comm rang. I picked up. “You had to wait until now to call? I’m a little busy at the moment.”
“What’s going on over there?” It was Sable.
“I’m enjoying a nice sunny day at the carnival. How about you?”
“They got us, Mull. Yingler and the Civs found us in Rindhi’s hospital room and took us into custody. They asked me to call and talk you out of doing anything stupid.”
“So far, so good. Are Yingler and the Civs around? Are they listening in?”
Silence on the line. “Yes.”
“Tell them something for me, will you?”
More silence. “Okay…”
“Tell the Civs I’ve got a gentleman called Sergeant Cole on board. A gentleman whose family and fellow citizens might be awfully sad if something happened to him. Tell them that if they call off their boats and give up the chase, I’ll return him safely to land. If not, I’ll find another way to return him.”
Sable didn’t respond. After a few seconds, the fleet of boats trailing behind me began to shut off their beacons and disband.
“That’s better,” I said, the Galeskimmer’s wheel in one hand and my comm in the other. “Following the rules like good little law-lovers. Now, on to Mr. Yingler. Is he there as well?”
“I’m here, Mr. Jakes.”
“Ah, Vilaris! It’s so nice to hear your voice again after all this time. Now shut up and listen to me. I assume the Civs already know what an indecent butt-wedge you are. But just in case, they ought to know you’ve been living under a false identity in a grav city called Pyras for the last seven years. A city full of primitives, whom you tricked into letting you handle their gravstone. That includes the gravstone on board this boat, which you’ve already been paid for and were planning to steal back from Alastair Gilfoyle. That is, before we got there and stole it first. You’re a liar and a con-man, Yingler. You’re sending thousands of primitives to their deaths by starving them of the resource they trusted you to handle.”
“Well… if this isn’t a case of the pot calling the kettle black,” said Yingler. “Hidden identities? Stolen property? Murder? It’s like a day in the life of Muller Jakes. Who are you to pass sentence on me, Mr. Jakes?”
“I’m not pleading my innocence, Yingler. But I am wondering how the Civs have managed to overlook your crimes while they seem so intent to punish me for mine. That’s all. Personally, I think you’ve used your ill-gotten fortune to bribe the Civs and keep yourself out of jail.”
“Seriously now, Muller. I’m surprised at you. I thought you were more astute than that. Haven’t you put the pieces together yet? Who do you think sent me to Pyras in the first place? The Regency has no love of primitives, but it’s far from illegal to be one. What is illegal, however, is avoiding Regency regulation. I’m a private consultant, Mr. Jakes. I’ve been working on the Regency’s behalf to bring the city of Pyras to justice. The city has been neglecting to pay its taxes, sheltering its financial activities, and existing outside the law. I’m not the one keeping the Regency under my thumb. They are the ones who hired me.”
“What? You were going to take the gravstone back from Gilfoyle. Keep it for yourself.”
“Take it back, yes. Keep it for myself… well, I’m quite sure I never said any such thing. You’re jumping to conclusions, Muller. Gilfoyle is just as culpable as the city of Pyras in all this. He was buying gravstone under the table, without the Regency being made privy to it. My only intention was to confiscate the goods in question in the name of justice.”
“So you’re a closet law-lover, is what you’re telling me.”
“Precisely.”
“Then there’s something I need you to understand, Yingler. I know where you’re from. I know the town you grew up in. It isn’t far from here, actually. I know the Yingler Delicatessen, and I know Cierra Yingler, your little sister. I’ve even met your mom. Since you’re keen on patronizing me for failing to put the pieces together, I have a puzzle of my own for you to figure out. There’s a reason I’m telling you all this, and if you don’t do exactly as I tell you, you’re going to solve that puzzle pretty quick.”
“Don’t throw your weight around, Muller,” Yingler said. “You’re not in a position to do that.”
“I promise you, I am. And if you value that little sister of yours at all, you’ll meet my demands.”
“Aren’t you forgetting that we’ve arrested your accomplices? They can’t help you now. You’re all alone out there. Things will go better for you if you just give up.”
“You made a mistake by telling me you work for the Civs. Now I know your hands are tied. You’re working within the constraints of the law. You can’t do a thing but lock them up. If you do that, I’ll find them. But you won’t, will you? You’ll do what I tell you. Because you don’t want your sweet innocent sister to get hurt.”
“You’re trying to pull one over on me, Muller.”
“Test me, Vilaris,” I told Yingler. “See what happens.”
There was another long pause, followed by some shuffling.
“Mr. Jakes?”
“Yeah, Thomas.”
“Eh… this is Thomas Smedley.”
“So I gathered.”
“Are you really the Mulroney Jakes?”
“I do bear that most fortunate of distinctions, yes.”
“Beg pardon?”
“Yes, I’m the Muller Jakes.”
“Dear me… and to think, all this time I never had the insight to realize I was in the presence of the very same notorious thief and murderer all the papers have been talking about.”
“Lucky you,” I said.
“In any event, I thought I might try my hand at speaking some sense into you. The constables here refuse to negotiate with an enemy to the Regency. However, I’ve told them of your bravery and selflessness in rescuing Rindhi and I from the hands of the ridgebacks, and of your key role in rescuing the refugees from Clokesby. As it pertains to my position in the household of the Archduke, the officers here have agreed that if Lord Wilshire can be convinced to offer you a royal pardon, they will turn you over to his jurisdiction and allow you and your crew a small reprieve from the consequences, so long as you return what you’ve stolen in full to Mr. Gilfoyle.”
“Screw that,” I said. “A reprieve means a temporary delay in sentencing. That’s pretty much the same thing as agreeing to go to prison later.”
“A comfy prison on Finustria, rather than a cold, hard Regency prison on Roathea. And with your complete cooperation, it would mean a vastly-reduced sentence.”
“Cooperation… that’s another word that sounds pretty on the outside, but means something despicable. ‘Complete cooperation’ would mean snitching on everyone I’ve ever smelled committing a crime.”
“And yet, if it lessens your punishment…”
“It still isn’t worth it. You see, I know all about these little nuances the Civs use to make things seem better than they are. The only thing that could make me give up a fortune would be a full and unconditional pardon.”
“What about the fate of your friends? Isn’t that enough?”
I pictured them all huddled around the comm, waiting on my answer—Dennel and Thorley and Eliza, Rindhi in his hospital bed, and Sable. Dear Sable, who had put up with more of my mischief and mayhem than any of them. Their futures were all in my hands now. For the first time, it mattered whether I decided to keep being careless or stand up and do the responsible thing. To my chagrin, it seemed that Sable and the Galeskimmer’s crew meant more to me than Yingler’s own family did to him. And when it came down to it, I wasn’t going to kill a couple of innocent women in a deli somewhere just to prove a point. “Thank you, Thomas. You’ve made me see the light. Put Yingler on.”
More shuffling. “Come to your senses, have you?”
“Yeah,” I said. “This whole thing is my fault. I’ll take all the blame for it. But if I turn myself in, you have to let them go.”
“I trust this isn’t another one of your tricks,” said Yingler.
“First promise me you’ll let them go and put all their charges on me. The robbery wasn’t their idea anyway. I forced them to help me. They’re innocents in all this. Promise me, Yingler.”
“Agreed. You have my word.”
“As little as that means to me, I’m going to choose to believe you. I’m bringing the Galeskimmer to the hospital. Tell your law-loving buddies to be ready for me.”
I hung up.
I found Trudy’s warehouse, a long, low cinderblock structure near the edge of town. I landed the Galeskimmer on its flat roof and shut her down, then cut the ropes on my hostages’ feet and prodded them down the stairs to the crew cabin. There I grabbed a spare blanket and spread it out over the floor. “Start loading up,” I said, pointing from the pile of gravstone to the blanket.
My prisoners obeyed, moving the stones one or two at a time from floor to blanket.
“Careful with those,” I said, wincing as Barnaby tossed one stone carelessly onto another. “For every rock you break, I break one of your fingers.”
Their job done, I encouraged the two men to their feet and instructed them to take one end of the blanket each. They hauled the whole mess up the stairs, struggling with every step, both acutely aware of the hand pulser I was pointing at them. Being the villain one last time before I went to prison for the rest of my life felt so good I almost shed a tear. Then I told my tears to shut up and get back inside, and they listened, because I was the one with the gun.
I tied my hostages to the mast and climbed down an access ladder to the ground. As I strolled through the broad loading doorway and into the warehouse, I found no fewer than five men waiting for me. There were more than five, of course; the others just didn’t want to be seen. The medallion twisted my insides into beautiful knots of anticipation and tension and despair. This deal would be my swan song—my last great caper before I gave up.
“Hey guys,” I said. “I’m Hal Nordstrom. I’m here to drop off a few things for Trudy.”
Henderson, Trudy’s most gravitationally-accomplished bodyguard, stepped into the light and asked, “Where’s Sal?”
“He hasn’t shown up?” I tried not to gulp, but the lump in my throat made that difficult.
“The guys have been here all night. Haven’t seen him. What’s going on? Weren’t you two supposed to show up together?”
“Something came up,” I said.
“Like what? You expecting us to wait around all night?”
I don’t have all night. “Sal will be here,” I said. I didn’t know if that was true, and now that I knew he’d been trying to go straight, I didn’t exactly have a lot of faith in the guy.
“He has twenty minutes,” said Henderson. “Then we gotta close up shop, and you can go beg Trudy for forgiveness. She ain’t the most forgiving person, you know.”
“Let me bluewave him. Just a second.”
I paced across the asphalt lot outside the warehouse as I waited for him to pick up, watching Trudy’s associates with one eye and the Galeskimmer on the roof above them with the other. Sal, don’t you pull this on me right now. In the darkest recesses of my mind, Sal was at home packing up his family, getting ready to leave town. I knew he had better sense than to do that, but when you don’t hear from someone, your imagination can bring out the worst in you.
“Hello?”
“Sal. It’s me. Where the hell are you?”
“I got tied up. I’m sorry, I just can’t make it there right now. They called me in to the hospital.”
“To do what, investigate a bedpan?” I understood that he didn’t want to skip out on work to make time for his illicit activities, but if he was going to clean up his act after this one, why couldn’t he make one last exception? I would’ve said as much, but I refrained in case the Civs were listening.
“They’ve picked up a group of suspected larcenists.”
“Yeah, I know. I just heard.”
“Oh… those are—”
“Yes, they are.”
“I’m sorry about all this. There’s a lot going on down here, what with the collision and all. I’ve done all I can do.”
“No, you haven’t. You’re just too much of a law-lovin’ wimp to stick out your neck for a friend.”
Sal’s voice broke. “Muller, come on…”
“What happened to ‘my family’s gonna die,’ and all that?”
“I’m coming clean, Mull. I’m sending my family into protective custody first thing in the morning, and then I’m taking down Trudy and her whole ring.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “You backstabbing prick. You could’ve done this whenever you wanted, but you decide to wait ‘til the moment I come back into town and ask you for help? I never would’ve called you earlier today if I’d known what a no-good weasel you’ve turned into.”
“Mull—”
I hung up. I spun to face the warehouse and marched inside with a smile on my face. “Sal had to work. They called him in because of the disaster over in Clokesby and there was nothing he could do to get out of it. He’s going to take his cut later. The deal’s still on, and I’m making full delivery tonight.”
Henderson spread his hands, his eyes darting across the ground. “I don’t see anything.”
“I don’t see any chips, either. Show me you’ve got ‘em and I’ll bring the stone.”
Henderson gestured. One of the other men brought forth a wooden chest and opened it.
“Wow,” I said. “That’s fancy. I feel like a real pirate now.”
“Two million chips don’t exactly fit in a pocketbook,” Henderson said.
“Right. I’ll be back in a minute.”
I stowed Barnaby and Sergeant Cole belowdecks so as not to raise any suspicion—Trudy’s henchmen had me pegged for a shady fellow already—and managed to guide the Galeskimmer down onto the asphalt lot. The space between the warehouse and the fence was barely large enough to fit her sideways, but I was getting used to the way she handled, so I put her down without a scratch.
“It’s wrapped in a blanket on the deck,” I told Henderson when I’d returned to the warehouse. “Too heavy for me to move alone. You probably want to send a couple of your strongest guys to grab it.”
Apparently, Henderson’s two strongest guys knew who they were. They followed me up onto the deck, wary of me, though I couldn’t imagine why. That was when I became aware of the others hiding in the shadows. Not because my eyes saw them, so much as because I got a deep sense of where they were positioned around the complex. Again, I questioned the line between my own mind and the medallion’s influence. I felt it growing on me like a vine creeping up a tree trunk, too slow and subtle and pervasive for me to fully realize it was happening.
The men took the gravstone, and I followed them back, subtly aware that I might soon find a bullet or a pulser round with my name on it. But there was no shot. Not in that first long walk from the ship back to the hangar.
Henderson nudged the wooden chest toward me with his foot. “Count it, if you like. It’s all there. Two million even. You might as well; you’ll have to wait here while we weigh this, anyway.”
I almost told him I didn’t mind; that I’d know where to find Trudy if it wasn’t the right amount. But if Sal turned on her like he’d said he was going to, I figured I might have better luck finding her after she and I were both in prison. So instead, I knelt beside the chest and began to count.
It was a treasure, alright, glittering heavy and real in my hands. I’d been dreaming of this moment ever since I first heard about Gilfoyle’s mining operation, and the uncanny amounts of gravstone they said he’d been pulling out of the Churn. I had known the caper would make me rich if I could pull it off, but now that it was right in front of me I almost didn’t believe it. Stacks of one-hundred-piece chips, fifty coins to a stack, laid out in a sixteen-by-twenty-five grid. I only had to count one of the stacks and do the math to know it was all there.
I closed the chest and heaved it up onto my shoulder when I saw Henderson and his thugs coming back from the scale. He had a funny look on his face, as if he’d just been laughing at a joke I wasn’t in on.
“It weighs out fine,” he said, “but I don’t know why you think you’re leaving.”
“I’m leaving because we’re all done here,” I said. “You’ve got yours and I’ve got mine. Everyone’s happy.”
“There’s just one problem,” said Henderson. “You didn’t tell us you were a Civvy.”