Eric Flint: Grantville Gazette. Volume 21

"That's right. I found it." He stood up. "Nobody else" he shouted. The glares returned. He returned them in kind. "Sonofabitch. Ha!" He checked for his chair, and sat.

Greta leaned across the table toward Staunton. "You shouldn't talk about work that way, Mr. Bell. Not that loud. You can get us all in trouble. You know we're not allowed-"

"That guy's just another Jew bastard who thinks he can hide his shit from me. I tell you they're all the same. They're all like that." He waved his arm clumsily. "Can't trust them to a man. Just like back up-time. Same shit. When I did taxes up-time-"

"Mr. Bell! You shouldn't say such things." Greta eyed Staunton from across the table. She had a good twenty pounds on the man. She figured she could drag him out of the Gardens if she had to. "We're supposed to be professional. We're auditors. And auditors don't do this, at least in public."

"Professional? Professional? Th-that is ridiculous." He belched loudly. "I have an antique computer that can barely run the software we use, and I use quill nib pens. With a friggin' inkwell, fer chrissakes. Some professional organization that is. Where the hell is my beer?"

LaDonna added her support. "God, I'm shitfaced. I haven't drank like this for a while." She looked around the table, smiled, and then unexpectedly turned green. "Uh-oh. Sh-shouldn't have eaten that-that sausage and ch-cheese. Excuse me pl-" She ran off, unsteady.

Greta looked at Katarina and rolled her eyes. "Up-timers can't hold their beer. My husband told me, but I didn't think it was this bad."

Katarina rolled her eyes too. "My husband said the same thing. I didn't believe him at first…"

Staunton looked like he was winding up yet again. "I bet Tony will take the credit for this. I know he will. I find out how the Jew is paying his spies, including some of his relatives, which is illegal as hell. At least it was." He shook his head to clear the fog. "Tony will take the credit. I know it. That's the sort of thing that just pisses me off."

At least he wasn't shouting this time, thought Greta. The waitress put another round on the table.

Staunton turned to her. "About time, bitch."

Greta watched as the down-time waitress looked at the two beefy down-timer women and then looked at the ferret-like man. "This idiot a friend of yours?"

They both looked at Staunton, and then back at the waitress a little sheepishly. "We just work with him," replied Greta, "He's our boss."

"I'm sorry for you." She turned and walked away.

"See if she gets a tip," growled Staunton. "Bitch."

"Watch it, Bucko. You keep talking like that and I'll kick your ass." LaDonna had returned. "She better get a tip."

He glowered at her as she sat down, and they all started drinking again. The girls talked quietly for a few moments about their families, Katarina's husband's job in the mine, anything but the office. Finally, it appeared to Greta that Staunton could contain himself no longer. "Did I tell you how I found the first one?" He started much too loud. "Nasi wrote him a friggin' bank draft. A bank draft! I can't believe the guy is that stupid! Once I had the account, then it was pretty easy to find another. From there, it really took off." He sat back into his chair and folded his arms. "Damn, I'm good."

"I suggest you be quiet, Staunton." Greta was startled by the calm and direct voice of Dennis Grady. She looked at his powerfully built body, and recalled hearing before he came to their Department of Economic Affairs, he had been a police officer. At the office it was not noticeable. But right now, well, Greta was glad she had been quiet. She turned to Staunton, who she expected to shut up. Greta felt her eyes go wide when the little man stood. Defiantly.

"I don't work for you, Grady. I don't have to listen to you. And we are not at the office. So just fuckoff." Staunton rolled his shoulders as if flexing to fight.

"Sit down, Staunton." Grady's voice was low. "Now."

"What if I don't, what are you going to do about it?"

Grady just looked at him with no change of expression. "Whatever I have to."

Greta did not fall off of the turnip wagon just the other day. She had been around more than one drinking establishment in her thirty-nine years. She slowly moved her chair back, in case things got messy. She sensed the rest of the bar feeling the same way.

"You're an asshole Grady. I'm the only real accountant your 'auditors' have." He snorted. " Professional Department of Economic Resources, what bullshit. None of you could find your ass with both hands if I wasn't there."

Greta inched back a little more.

"I'm the one who found the Nasi files-"

Greta really didn't see the punch from Grady. She was already ducking. She sort of felt it go by, and then sensed Grady straightening. When she opened her eyes, Staunton Bell was just starting to bleed in the area where his nose formerly protruded from his face. It was now turned to the side. His eyes were glazed. He teetered for a moment, and then fell like a stone to the floor, his head catching the edge of his chair on the way down, and laying open his scalp.

"Sonaofabitch," exclaimed LaDonna.

"Ha," added the waitress.

May, 1635, Grantville, High Street Mansion, SoTF Government Building

"Hello, Ursula." The up-time woman smiled from her office, as she had done for nearly every afternoon for the last two years.

Ursula Volz dropped her plain eyes to the worn wooden floor, nodded her head imperceptibly, and mumbled a quiet, "Good afternoon, Mrs. Carstairs," as she came into the back hall.

Ursula rapidly stepped by the lady in her office, past a large kitchen, and then threaded her way through a narrow hallway, arriving at the front foyer of the old mansion.

There was a guard station in what used to be the front hall. The regular night guard, Marcus Sauber, was sitting in a chair behind the desk. He was positioned facing the front of the building, where the public would normally enter. Ursula had entered by the employee and service entrance, at the back of the house.

The guard turned in his chair. "Hello, Ursula."

"Good evening, Herr Sauber."

"Right on time as always. Here is the note from the office manager, she tells me someone spilled coffee in the second floor hallway, and it needs to be cleaned up tonight." He handed her a note. "It's always something, isn't it? Spills or messes to be cleaned up. Night janitor is never a fun job, right, Ursula?"

"I don't mind it, Herr Sauber." She paused at the desk and signed in on the log book which Marcus Sauber kept.

"Good afternoon, Herr Sauber." Keeping her eyes turned to the floor, she turned to the staircase to the left of the desk, and headed toward the back stairs leading to the basement, taking a candle from the side table and lighting it as she went. There were no offices in the basement, because there were almost no windows. She went down the gloomy and musty stairs, and looked around. Something about being in a cellar always bothered her. The only things down here were storage for files and the cleaning supply closet, which was near the stairs.

Ursula gathered up her things from the supply closet, and trudged up the stairs. She usually started on the first floor, in the public spaces, and then moved to the offices in the later afternoon and evening. She began her work in the Lobby, by the guard station. It had rained during the day, and people had tracked mud into the hallway. With a mop and bucket, she started to scrub.

It was a good job, and Ursula liked it. It was quiet, especially later in the evening when everyone went home. It was interesting working at the High Street Mansion. It was built back when Grantville was a "boom town," owned by a man and his family who made toilets. When Ursula had seen it for the first time, she could not believe it was only for one man and his family. It took her almost a week to learn all the rooms. It was broken up into even smaller areas for more offices and rooms. The home was mostly empty when it came through the Ring of Fire, no one living there, and most of the contents had been auctioned off. Since it was big, and had plenty of light and windows, it was appropriated by the government as offices. Nobody bothered her much at this job, and she liked that too. The only thing a little bit irritating was-