Richard Kadrey - The Grand Dark

“No. I’ve seen them in the Triumphal Square and some of the business districts, but not where I live.”

“You’re a lucky young man,” said Frau Heller. When she turned back to Largo her radiant smile faltered for a second, then recomposed itself. “What an interesting jacket,” she said. “Wool, is it?”

Largo was tired of clients commenting on how he looked, but he smiled back at the woman. “Yes, madam. Very comfortable on cool, gray days like this.”

“You have a lighter one for the summer, then?”

“Well, no, but with my new position—”

“Silk,” she said, cutting him off. “You’d look much better in silk than wool.”

“I’m not sure I can afford silk, madam. But thank you for the suggestion.”

“Try one of the secondhand shops along Tin and Pinchbeck. Some of the servants’ families sell their clothes when a family member dies. I’m told there are some wonderful bargains.”

Largo looked at Frau Heller, trying to grasp her meaning. At least in the Green he knew when he was being tested, but here he wasn’t sure if he was being mocked or given what this woman thought was truly useful advice. However, it wasn’t his place to ask or be offended by anything a client said, so he replied, “That’s most helpful of you. I’ll be sure to stop by very soon.”

“Here, this might get you started on your way to manly splendor,” said Frau Heller. She plucked the envelope from his hand and laid a gold Saint Valda coin on his palm, equal to almost a week’s wages.

“Madam, I couldn’t,” he said.

“Of course you can and you will. What’s your name?”

“Largo. Largo Moorden.”

She looked him up and down and smiled. “You’re a handsome young man, but I don’t want to see you here in wool again, Largo. You’ll frighten the neighbors.” She laughed as she signed his receipt book. Once she’d handed it back, her eyes shifted to a place over Largo’s shoulder and she frowned. “Oh dear.”

He turned to look and saw a small group of Iron Dandies in the street. They often followed the patriotic juggernauts, carrying small flags and begging.

Frau Heller called one of them forward and handed him a few coins, though they totaled less than she’d given Largo.

“Thank you, lovely lady,” said the man in a grating, tinny voice through a small speaker embedded in his scarred throat.

“You’re very welcome,” said Frau Heller. “God bless you for your service.”

She watched as the ragged procession of wounded soldiers continued on, limping and swaying on crutches behind the juggernaut. Without looking at him she said, “Were you in the war, Herr Moorden?”

Largo wasn’t used to being addressed so formally. However, he had a lie prepared for just such occasions. “I’m afraid not. You see, my elderly mother was quite sick at the time—”

“Ah. Your mother. Quite understandable,” said Frau Heller, cutting him off again. “I only ask because my husband is one of the heads of the armaments company, and I wondered if you might have used one of his creations.”

Largo became nervous. Most people stopped asking questions after he mentioned his mother, and he didn’t have many lies prepared to follow up. “No, I’m afraid I didn’t have the honor in this war.”

Frau Heller laughed lightly. “Perhaps you will in the next one, then.”

The next one?

Largo felt a little jolt of panic. There were always rumors of war in the north, but did Frau Heller know something? He ached to ask her, but knew to keep his mouth shut.

“Don’t be a stranger, Herr Moorden,” said Frau Heller, and she gave him a wink.

Not quite sure how to respond, Largo smiled and put the Valda in his jacket pocket with the other gold coins. He wasn’t sure exactly what had just happened, whether Frau Heller had flirted with him or insulted him. However, he now knew he had a price for any similar future encounters.

One gold Valda and you can say anything you like .

As he got on his bicycle he laughed, thinking how odd the wealthy were, understandable only to themselves and others of their particular species.

Riding out of Kromium, he turned and pedaled past the secondhand shops at Tin Fahrspur. The encounter with Madam Heller had been interesting, but not enough to convince him to spend his newfound wealth on a coat to please a woman he’d probably never see again.

The sky darkened and a light rain fell on his way back to the office. Along Great Granate, one of the city’s new automaton trams slid by silently, guided by magnetic rails laid beneath the paving stones. Largo grabbed a protruding light fixture on the rear of the tram and let it pull him all the way to the Great Triumphal Square. There, Largo used some of his remaining silver coins to buy a steak pie from the bakery he’d passed earlier that day. None of the other couriers ate lunch in this part of the plaza and that was fine by him. His new deliveries had put him in a peculiar mood.

He ate his steak pie, wondering if his parents had ever tasted steak in their whole lives.

When he’d been a boy riding in the crate in the scrap wagon, his father had sometimes told him about his adventures scavenging the city for goods to sell. One story that always amused Largo was that he would sometimes steal scrap from one foundry, drive it across town to sell to another, then steal it back in the night and resell it to the first. His father always laughed when he talked about it, and, in his little box, Largo laughed too.

What Largo’s father never talked about were his special deliveries. They could happen any time of the day or night and anywhere in Lower Proszawa. Over his mother’s objections, his father insisted that Largo come with him on the special trips because, he said, “The city at night and the city during the day are different beasts and you need to make friends with them both.” There was one particular delivery that Largo never forgot, no matter how much he drank or how much morphia he took.

It had been late afternoon along Jubiläum, a long way up the stinking canal. There was a small crowd buying fish and meat from the moored boats. Soon after they arrived, Largo’s father had handed an envelope—not unlike the one Largo had just given to Frau Heller—to a man dressed in much finer clothes than Largo normally saw in the district. Once his father had turned over the envelope, though, he and the well-dressed man got into an argument. His father shouted something about being cheated out of his payment and when he grabbed the envelope back, a group of other men, who had been lounging on cargo crates nearby, rushed him. A scuffle broke out. Unlike scrawny Largo, his father had been tall and strong and he knocked two of the men down without any trouble. But three others were on him like a pack of dogs. Before Largo understood what was happening, he saw a flash of silver. The men ran away and his father lay on the ground bleeding from a knife wound in his side. Largo cried for help, but the people in the crowd just stood and stared before going about their business.

Later, Largo’s friend Heinrich said that the knife had probably pierced his father’s lung. It took what seemed like hours for him to die, and the whole time he wheezed and gasped like a fish suffocating on the banks of the canal at low tide.

No one called the police because that wasn’t done in the Green. People brought his mother back from the market and she took Largo home to their squat. Neighbors buried his father in the garden of a stately home that was once one of Lower Proszawa’s more elegant brothels, but that was the end of the community’s involvement.

His mother seldom let him out of her sight after that. She taught him to keep quiet and not upset people. At first, Largo, who’d felt so free by his father’s side, fought with his mother about being locked in the house. He felt more confined there than he’d ever felt in the small crate on the wagon. One afternoon, while his mother was at the market, he’d sneaked out of the house.