John Shirley - BioShock - Rapture

“Taxes are theft, Eisley! What? No, no need—I fired her. I’ve got a new secretary starting today—I’m elevating someone in reception. Elaine something. No, I don’t want anyone from accounting, that’s the whole problem, people like that are too interested in my money, they have no discretion! Sometimes I wonder if there’s anyone I can trust. Well they’ll get not a penny out of me more than absolutely necessary, and if you can’t see to it I’ll find a lawyer who can!”

Ryan slammed the phone down—and Bill hurried on to the bathroom.

Bill found the toilet in place but not quite hooked up: an ordinary Standard toilet, no gold seat on it. Looked like it needed proper pipe fittings, mostly. Seemed a waste of time to send three men out for this, but these posh types liked everything done yesterday.

He was aware, as he worked, that Ryan was pacing back and forth in the room outside the hall to the bathroom, occasionally muttering to himself.

Bill was kneeling to one side of the toilet, using a spanner to tighten a pipe joint, when he became aware of a looming presence. He looked up to see Andrew Ryan standing near him.

“Didn’t intend to startle you.” Ryan flashed his teeth in the barest smile and went on, “Just curious how you’re getting along.”

Bill was surprised at this familiarity from a man so above him—and by the change in tone. Ryan had been blaring angrily into the phone but minutes before. Now he seemed calm, his eyes glittering with curiosity.

“Getting on with it, sir. Soon have it done.”

“Is that a brass fitting you’re putting in there? I think the other two were using tin.”

“Well, I’ll be sure they didn’t, sir,” said Bill, beginning not to care what impression he made. “Don’t want to be bailing out your loo once a fortnight. Tin’s not reliable, like. If it’s the price you’re worried about, I’ll pick up the cost of the brass, so not to worry, squire…”

“And why would you do that?”

“Well, Mr. Ryan, no man bails water out of privies built by Bill McDonagh.”

Ryan looked at him with narrowed eyes, rubbing his chin. Bill shrugged and focused on the pipes, feeling strangely disconcerted. He could almost feel the heat from the intensity of Ryan’s personality. He could smell his cologne, pricey and subtle.

“There you are,” Bill said, tightening with the wrench one last time for good luck. “Right as the mail. These pipes, anyhow.”

“Do you mean the job’s done?”

“I’ll see how the lads are getting on, but I’d guess it’s very nearly done, sir.”

He expected Ryan to wander back to his own work, but the tycoon remained, watching as Bill started the water flow, checked it for integrity, and cleaned up his tools and leftover materials. He took the receipt book from his pocket, scribbled out the cost. There’d been no time for an estimate, so he had a free hand. He wished he were the sort to pad the bill, since he gave a percentage to Chinowski and Ryan was rich, but he wasn’t made that way.

“Really!” Ryan said, looking at the bill, eyebrows raised.

Bill just waited. Strange that Andrew Ryan—one of the richest, most powerful men in America—was personally involved in dealing with a plumber, scrutinizing a minor bill. But Ryan stood there, looking first at the bill, then at him.

“This is quite reasonable,” Ryan said at last. “You might have stretched your time, inflated the bill. People assume they can take advantage of wealthy men.”

Bill was mildly insulted. “I believe in being paid, sir, even being paid well—but only for the work I do.”

Again that flicker of a smile, there and gone. The keen, searching gaze. “I can see I’ve struck a nerve,” Ryan said, “because you’re a man like me! A man of pride and capability who knows who he is.”

A long, appraising look. Then Ryan turned on his heel and strode out.

Bill shrugged, gathered up the rest of his things, and returned to the mural room, expecting to see some Ryan underling awaiting him with a check. But it was Ryan, holding the check out to him.

“Thank you, sir.” Bill took it, tucked it into a pocket, nodded to the man—was he mad, staring at him like that?—and started hastily for the front door.

He’d just gotten to the sitting room when Ryan called to him from the archway. “Mind if I ask you a question?”

Bill paused. Hoping it didn’t turn out that Andrew Ryan was a poof. He’d had enough of upper-class poofs trying to pick him up.

“Where do you think a man’s rights should end?” Ryan asked.

“His rights, sir?” A philosophical question asked of a plumbing contractor? The old toff really was mad. McDonagh humored him. “Rights are rights. That’s like asking which fingers a man should do without. I need all ten, me.”

“I like that. Now—just suppose you lose one or two fingers? What would you do? You’d think yourself unable to work, and you’d have a right to a handout, as it were, eh?”

Bill hefted the toolbox as he considered. “No. I’d find something to do, with eight fingers. Or four. Make my own way. I’d like to be able to use my talents more—that’s right enough. But I don’t take handouts.”

“And what talents are those? Not that I discount a gift for plumbing. But—is that what you mean?”

“No sir. Not as such. I’m by way of being an engineer. In a simple way, mind. Could be I’ll start me own… my own… building operation. Not so young anymore, but still—I see things in my mind I’d like to build…” He broke off, embarrassed at being so personal with this man. But there was something about Ryan that made you want to open up and talk.

“You’re British. Not one of the… the gentry types, certainly.”

“Right as rain, sir.” Bill wondered if he’d get the brush-off now. There was a touch of defensiveness when he added, “Grew up ’round Cheapside, like.”

Ryan chuckled dryly. “You’re touchy about your origins. I know the feeling. I too am an immigrant. I was very young when I came here from Russia. I have learned to control my speech—reinvented myself. A man must make of his life a ladder that he never ceases to climb—if you’re not rising, you are slipping down the rungs, my friend.

“But by ascending,” Ryan went on, shoving his hands in his jacket pockets and taking a pensive turn about the room, “one makes one’s own class, do you see? Eh? One classes oneself!”

Bill had been about to make his excuses and walk out—but that stopped him. Ryan had articulated something he fiercely believed.

“Couldn’t agree more, sir!” Bill blurted. “That’s why I’ve come to the USA. Anyone can rise up, here. Right to the top!”

Ryan grunted skeptically. “Yes, and no. There are some who don’t have the stuff. But it’s not the ‘class’ or race or creed that they were born into that decides it. It’s something inside a man. And that’s something you have. You’re a true mugwump, a real individual. We’ll talk again, you and I…”

Bill nodded good-bye, not believing for a second that they’d speak again. He figured a rich bloke took it into his mind to have a natter with “the little people,” patronizing a chap to prove to themselves how fair and kindly they could be.

He headed to check on Pablo and Roy before he made his way to the lobby and went about his business. This had been an interesting encounter—it’d be a story to tell in the pub, though no one would likely believe him. Andrew Ryan? Who else did you hobnob with—Howard Hughes? Yer ol’ pal William Randolph Hearst?

Bill McDonagh’s head was only moderately sore the next morning, and he answered his flat’s clangorous telephone readily enough, hoping for work. A good sweat always cleared his head.