Robert Bennett - The Company Man

Hayes knew Garvey and that awful girl out front had been only partially right: the opium and exhaustion were definitely contributors to his shakes, but they weren’t the main cause. No, the strange quakes in his hands had started the moment he’d read the telegram early that morning and realized Evans might be calling him in to fire him for good.

He drooped in his chair as he thought about it, chest still crackling with breath. He had never exactly loved his job, but he had little else. He could not imagine what he would do, what could be done, if he had no work to fill his days.

The doors snapped open. Evans walked in, turned and carefully shut them, and then walked to his desk, never glancing at Hayes as he went. He was a plump little man, only slightly taller than Hayes, with wire-framed glasses and a graying mustache and a glaringly bald head. People often thought of him as an elderly uncle, forever confused by how this strange new world worked. Hayes was more fond of him than he’d ever admit, but he knew this wasn’t far off the mark. Evans had never really been cut out for this kind of work. He detested any hint of conflict, and often relegated any unpleasant duties to his small army of secretaries, whom he looked upon as his daughters regardless of their age. He was usually content to wander the upper floors, distributing duties with a vague, satisfied smile on his face before returning to the shelter of his enormous desk and evading meetings.

“You’re early,” said Evans as he sat.

Hayes nodded.

“That’s unusual,” said Evans.

“Well. Had to get up early.”

“Oh? Why was that, I wonder?”

“There was a body, actually,” said Hayes. “One of Garvey’s.”

“Why did he need you for that?” Evans asked.

“He thought it was one of ours.”

“And was it?”

Hayes shrugged.

“Hm,” said Evans, then cocked his head and thought.

“I’ve dried out,” Hayes said eagerly. “Haven’t had a drop. Not in a month or two.”

Evans raised his eyebrows. “A month? Really?”

“Thereabout, yeah.”

Evans studied Hayes’s face and clothes and watched him rock back and forth in his chair like a toy. “You don’t look well, though,” he said, concerned.

“I keep hearing that. It’s just the cold and the damp. It’s murdering me.”

“You aren’t sick from… from not drinking?”

“That couldn’t last. Not for a month. See?”

Evans sighed. “I suppose. I have been worried about you, Cyril. I admit it was a pretty curt way to end the affair.”

“Curt?” said Hayes. He laughed harshly. “I remember the telegram very clearly. ‘Abandon, stop. Return to your place of residence, stop. Await further orders, stop. Do not attempt contact, stop.’ Wasn’t quite poetry.”

“No,” Evans said. “But you had made a mess of it. A very big mess indeed.”

Hayes lowered his head a little. “I… I know.”

“Do you? The man’s suing us, you know. For his injuries.”

“Even though they were… self-inflicted?”

“Yes. Since now he knows how desperately we’d like to keep his dirty little trading a secret. That was the problem, you know. How public it was. We told you to look into him quietly.”

“Yes.”

“Very quietly,” he said sternly. “You’re supposed to be a scalpel, not a shotgun.”

“But we never know what they’ll do,” Hayes said. “When you lay out all their wrongs in front of them, you never know which way they’ll jump. I certainly didn’t think he’d… that he’d jump out a fucking window.”

“But we have you exactly because you’re supposed to know things like that,” said Evans, showing a rare flash of anger. “And we stressed beforehand, very clearly, use your kid gloves. This one is a public man, we said. He’s got family. He’s connected. Make sure this is all discreet. But you weren’t. You, drunk as a lord, grilled him like he was a war criminal. And he fell to pieces. And now you’ve cost us money and reputation. That was only the most recent in a string of sloppy jobs. So you understand that we’d be perfectly justified in dropping you. Correct?”

Hayes screwed up his mouth and kept his eyes fixed on the carpet at his feet. Then he nodded.

“Good,” said Evans. “But you’re not fired. I want you to know that.”

“I’m not?”

“No. You’re not. Not yet, at least. We’re keeping you, Hayes. We need you. Now, especially. We called you in to let you know there’s a way back. Back into the fold.” Evans pulled his coat off the back of his chair and settled it about his shoulders. He might have been the one person who detested the cold climate even more than Hayes. Then he pulled out a small pipe and suckled at it thoughtfully before saying, “Today, with Garvey. What did you talk about?”

“The murder he caught, mostly.”

“Besides that.”

“Well, the unions, of course. The Department’s been told to prioritize. He said he heard it was Brightly who gave the order. Any truth to that?”

Evans smiled wryly. “I’m sure you know I can’t say.”

“Can’t saying is often a yes.”

“Forget that. What did he have to say about the unions? Besides prioritizing?”

“Well. He mentioned a few cases. Three of them.”

“What sort of cases?” Evans asked quickly.

“Murder cases. Would that be it?”

“Yes. Yes, it’s about those. What did he say about them?”

“They were murders, like I said. Union murders. Two lefties and a buster. One at the docks. Another at the vagrants’ cemetery. He was junking them. Didn’t want them. They’d make the Department look bad, I’m sure.”

“And why was that?”

“Because there was no filing them. Solving them, I mean,” he added, seeing Evans’s confusion. “He was tossing them out.”

Evans let out a breath. “Good.”

“Good?”

“Yes, good.”

“And why’s that?”

Evans shifted awkwardly in his chair. “It would be best if the police left that particular matter alone.”

“Why? What’s going on with them? Why don’t you care?”

“Oh, quite the opposite. We care. We care a great deal. You see, Cyril, we’re all very worried about this… this union business.”

“Oh, are you,” said Hayes dryly.

“Yes. You may have heard that it’s going to be violent. Well, that’s wrong. It already is. We just wanted to be well informed. About the violence, at least.”

Hayes suddenly looked at Evans, studying his face. The old man took off his glasses and looked away, disturbed by the scrutiny. Then Hayes’s eyes lit up as if he’d been teasing at some hanging thread in his mind until the knot finally unraveled. “Which one was ours?” asked Hayes softly.

“I’m sorry?”

“Which one? Which of the union men was ours? The one at the docks or the one at Potter’s Field?”

Evans shuddered and kept his eyes averted from Hayes. He sucked on his lip for a moment and said, “The docks.”

“Right,” said Hayes, voice still soft. “Right.”

“Lord, I hate it when you do that.”

“This is pretty cloak-and-dagger stuff, Jim. Running turncoats? How bad is the union situation getting?”

“Very bad. At first it was just a rumor. Something minor we needed to weed out. Now it’s become… Well. It’s become something akin to war. One of our most important and productive factories is just south of here. It manufactures some of the most delicate parts necessary for creating the frame for the engines of our airships. Recently there was an altercation.”

“An altercation?”

“Yes. Specifically, someone tried to blow up one section of the manufacturing lines.”

Hayes whistled lowly.