The Children of the Company (19 page)

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Authors: Kage Baker

Tags: #General, #Fiction, #Science Fiction, #C429, #Extratorrents, #Kat

BOOK: The Children of the Company
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“He’s not here,” Lisette informed me, wringing her hands. “He, uh, apparently took Latif out to build a snowman.”
“Mortal servants!” Sixteen Turtle shook his head, sounding tolerantly amused. “We have similar troubles with ours.”
“At least yours don’t sneak out to build snowmen, not in South America,” I grumbled, and Lisette took that opportunity to vanish discreetly.
“Oh, we have snow in the mountains,” Smythe assured me.
Though not in the plantations of Theobroma cacao. And that, madam, brings us to the point.
Really?
Yes
. Sixteen Turtle lifted his gin and held it under that aristocratic nose of his to inhale the bouquet.
We’re quite prepared to tolerate the existence of a rival operation. It’s not as though we haven’t got an adequate market on the Pacific Rim already, and to be frank, we can’t see our operation expanding any further.
He lowered the glass and fixed me with a cold dead stare.
What we’re not prepared to tolerate, however, is gross mismanagement to the extent that the Company is alerted, not only to the existence of your operation, but ours as well.
At least now I knew why we weren’t talking out loud.
“Funny, you know, but I just can’t imagine snow that close to the equator,” I said cheerily, but now I was looking daggers right back at them.
You’re black marketeers, aren’t you? And you deal in Theobromos!
Did you think you were the only one to have conceived of this idea?
demanded Smythe, but Sixteen Turtle was realizing I really hadn’t known what was going on. He lifted his head, peering up our staircase and inhaling deeply, and I did, too, and suddenly singled out the fragrance that had been driving us all subliminally crazy lately, masked as it was by nutmeg and cloves: Theobromos.
My shock was enough to get through to Smythe, too, and she and Sixteen Turtle looked horrified. They’d just as good as confessed to an Executive Facilitator that they ran a Theobromos racket, and moreover brought her attention to one being run out of her own HQ! Not that I think there’s anything wrong with the black market, mind you, since Dr. Zeus never stocks enough Theobromos in the Company bases. But it is against Company regulations, and any operative caught at it faces disciplinary measures.
Sixteen Turtle recovered himself first. He smiled broadly and put his fingertips together.
“Ah, but I can certainly imagine your beautiful country ablaze with tulips,” he said.
Dear me, I can’t imagine this will reflect favorably on your record,
he transmitted
. One of the operatives under your command dealing in contraband Theobromos? And not very well, I might add.
How not very well? I
demanded.
You thought it was my operation, didn’t you? You may as well tell me all the details. Has somebody been using my codes to buy the stuff?
Would it be in our best interests to tell you?
Smythe replied, looking as though cocoa butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth.
Yes, it would
, I told her grimly.
She and Sixteen Turtle looked at each other before he transmitted.
Well, madam, it appears that someone with much audacity but little expertise has recently purchased a great deal of a certain commodity in your name, apparently with the intent of cornering the European black market on that commodity. Nothing to distress anyone in that; as I believe I pointed out, the global market can bear more than one player in this game. However, the player in question has offered the commodity at such absurdly low prices that he or she is certain to arouse suspicion. Moreover, by our calculations, your culprit can’t possibly turn a profit! And such practices are not only likely to ruin the individual dealer, they’re bad for business generally. This was why we felt obliged to warn you, for your own good
—
I remembered my nonexistent budget balance.
I see,
I transmitted. I didn’t, yet, though. Just at that moment another transmission crackled through the ether, slightly distorted by snow and panic, and unfortunately on a wide enough band so my visitors heard it, too:
Van Drouten! Very angry mortal looking for you! I’m trying to head him off, but—
It was Kalugin, sounding as though he were running along through the frozen streets.
That was exactly what he was doing, too, because a moment later there was a commotion on the front stoop and we could hear Kalugin saying: “Sir, I implore you! Whatever your grievances against the man, the City Watch will look dimly on stabbing him in this good lady’s parlor—”
“Excuse me, won’t you?” I said, leaping up to answer the pounding on my door. When I opened it I beheld Kalugin, or rather his broad back, because he had got in front of my visitor and was holding his hands up in a placatory gesture. The visitor was a diminutive mortal gentleman who was glaring around Kalugin at me with an expression of such venom it made my hair curl.
“Where is the Jew Eliphal?” he demanded.
“Uh—Madam Van Drouten, this gentleman was a passenger on my ship, and he seems to have some grievance against one of your tenants—” Kalugin explained hastily, turning around. The mortal used this opportunity to push under Kalugin’s arm and slip past me into the hall, and from there into the parlor.
“Where is the diamond cutter?” he shouted, flinging his cloak back over one shoulder and revealing a box he was clutching, also the sword and matching dagger on his hip. Kalugin and I were both beside him at this point, but unfortunately Eliphal had heard all the commotion and come running downstairs.
“What is it? Who wants to see me?” he asked. The mortal singled him out with a deadly look and hurled the box down so that it bounced open at Eliphal’s feet, spilling out three or four bricks of something wrapped in oiled paper. A fragrance rose up from the broken box like, well, like paradise. Something tropical and exotic and yet evocative of cozy winter kitchens where you could curl up by the stove with a nice hot cup of …
Theobromos. Not the ordinary stuff mortals bought and sold, either, but the high-powered Company cultivar with a kick like a mule. Every immortal in my increasingly crowded parlor leaned forward involuntarily, including me.
“Where the hell are my emeralds?” the mortal snarled, drawing steel.
Eliphal looked up openmouthed from his contemplation of the spilled delight.
“What emeralds?” he replied. “Who are you, sir?”
“Sanpietro del Vaglio,” the mortal replied, as though it was terribly obvious. “And I tell you to your face you are a liar and a thief and the son of Barbary apes!”
“How dare you? I’ve never heard of you in my life,” Eliphal shouted, drawing himself up, and I winced because he takes his character very seriously, but before the mortal could lunge forward with his sword there was yet another clatter of feet on the stoop and in came Joost and Latif, all dusted with snow as though they’d just stepped out of a toy globe. They halted and stared at the scene, astonished.
“Do you dare to deny you offered me six Peruvian emeralds of the finest grade, and sent me
this
instead?” screamed del Vaglio. “What do you think I am, a confectioner?”
Joost’s eyes went wide with horror, and so did Latif’s. They exchanged a glance. Everybody in the room knew right then, except for the mortal, whose back was turned to them.
“Yes, I deny it,” Eliphal retorted. “Somebody has been using my name to do business!”
And he turned an accusing stare of terribly righteous wrath on Latif.
Latif met his stare and backed up a pace, unblinking; then he turned and buried his face in my apron, and burst into very, very loud sobs.
Sixteen Turtle and Smythe smirked at each other.
“Mistress, it wasn’t his fault,” Joost cried. “I must have sent the parcels to the wrong addresses!”
Latif sobbed even more loudly.
“You mean you were supposed to send emeralds to this man and chocolate to somebody else?” I asked Joost. Del Vaglio had turned to stare at us in incomprehension; Eliphal folded his arms in indignant triumph.
Joost looked abashed. “Yes, mistress. But—”
“Where did you get six Peruvian emeralds of the finest grade, Latif?” I inquired, so dazed the minute details were holding my attention. Latif’s sobbing went up a decibel.
“You’re that little brat who was training with Houbert, aren’t you?” remarked Smythe suddenly, leaning forward to stare at him, or at least at the back of his head. “Ha! You put your tour of duty in New World One to good use, I must say.”
“You mean—” I began, meaning to ask if the child had spent all his free time making smuggling connections, but at that moment somebody else came slinking up on the stoop and peered in through the door, which was still open and in fact letting in floating snow.
“Er—excuse me,” she murmured, or at least that’s what I think she said because she was so muffled up in scarves and fur. “I’m looking for Facilitator Van Drouten … ?”
“Well, come in and shut the door after you,” I said wearily, but she drew back.
“Er … no, I—” Her gaze riveted on the broken box and its fragrant contents.
“Oh.” Light dawned on me. “You got something you didn’t expect in the mail, huh?”
She looked as though she was about to turn and run, but Kalugin stepped close and took her arm firmly. He led her outside and they had a whispered conversation. A moment later he returned, bearing a small wooden box remarkably like the one del Vaglio had brought.
“I believe this is yours, sir,” Kalugin said, offering it to him. Del Vaglio sheathed his sword and took it doubtfully, and Kalugin bent down and swept up the broken box and its contents. “Excuse me a moment, won’t you?”
Kalugin took the Theobromos outside and a second later we could hear the immortal, whoever she was, running away as if for dear life. Del Vaglio, meanwhile, had opened the new box and carried it over to the window to inspect its contents. He took out a lens in an eyepiece and examined whatever was in there—six Peruvian emeralds of the finest grade?—pretty carefully before closing the box with a snap and tucking it under his arm in a possessive kind of way.
“Acceptable,” he said, and swinging his cloak around him he strode to the door.
“Grazie,
Captain Kalugin. Under the circumstances I will seek no further redress for this insult.”
“What about the insult to me, you pig?” roared Eliphal, but del Vaglio exited regally, if hurriedly. At least he shut the door after himself. But the room was no less crowded, because here came Lisette down the steps again at a run, crying out: “Joost! You’d better go see Margarite right away.”
“Is she all right?” He looked alarmed. Lisette scowled at the rest of us and came and whispered in his ear. The alarm in his face vanished; he lit up like a chandelier.
“Lord God,” he whooped. “It worked!” He rushed at Latif to hug him, but Latif was stuck to my apron like a limpet, still sobbing, so he contented himself with kissing the top of his head and yelling: “God bless you, little master, it’ll be a son for sure.” He turned and ran away upstairs, and we could hear his feet thundering all the way to the fourth floor.
“So … you’ve been slipping Margarite hormones or something, too?” I guessed. Latif was still too wracked with sobs to reply, which was answer enough. Well! Guess who was going to be lighting the fires and sweeping the stoop for the next few months? Not Margarite, huh? “And I’ll bet you got Johan transferred, didn’t you?”
Sixteen Turtle and Smythe rose to their feet.
“Perhaps we’d best depart,” said Sixteen Turtle in a voice like silk. As he was pulling on his furs, his eyes glinted with malevolent humor.
Unless the young gentleman wishes us to take his remaining stock off his hands? Though I’m afraid we couldn’t possibly offer more than fifty percent.
Latif’s sobs kept going, but his little fists clenched in the folds of my apron.
“How much
… merchandise is upstairs, Latif?” I asked him.
“Five hundredweight chests,” he paused in his sobbing long enough to say distinctly.
Kalugin and Eliphal reeled. Well, that just about accounted for the hole in my budget. Joost and Latif must have had it brought in by canal barge and lifted it up with the warehouse block and tackle, possibly while I was out shopping. I don’t know where I found the presence of mind to look Sixteen Turtle in the eye and transmit to him:
Nothing doing. I’m confiscating his entire stock. You can deal with me now! And you’ll either pay me full retail value or—
and I really don’t know where I found the nerve to say this—
or maybe I’ll go
into business for myself. You said you wouldn’t mind a little competition. Hmm! This close to Belgium, I’ll bet I could cut into your markets with a vengeance.
I must have expressed myself badly,
replied Sixteen Turtle without batting an eyelash.
Naturally we’d pay full retail value for an order that size. Five hundred-weights? Let me think, we could offer …

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