Authors: L.E. Modesitt Jr.

Tags: #Science Fiction, #Science Fiction & Fantasy, #Alternate History, #United States, #Literature & Fiction

Ghosts of Columbia (6 page)

BOOK: Ghosts of Columbia

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“How would one know?” Llysette pointed out reasonably. “If one had meant to meet Professor Miller …” She shrugged again.

“Then that person either killed Miranda or would be afraid to admit the meeting because of being accused of the murder.” I pulled up beside another Williams, this one a racing model that few in New Bruges could afford and fewer still would want.

“This is most kind of you, Johan,” she said as I helped her out of the Stanley. “You do not need to pack?”

“It’s a one-day trip, perhaps an overnight. Clients never like to pay extra, and I’m certainly not in the mood to pay federal city prices.” I offered my arm, which she took, and we crossed the brick-paved courtyard with the light wind flicking the faint odor of woodsmoke around us. I held the door for her.

“You have not a good opinion of your capital city?”

We stopped by the raised table where Angelo waited with his book and list of reservations.

“Not of its prices.” I nodded to Angelo. “Two, in the red room.” The red room was for nonsmokers.

“Doktor Eschbach, of course. I even have the table where you can see the river.” He bowed, and I nodded back.

“You would like some wine? Red or white?” I asked as we walked through the main room toward the small corner red room.

“White, I think.”

Angelo gestured to the table set in the bay window. A brass lamp cast a flickering light over the red tablecloth. He pulled out Llysette’s chair.

“A bottle of your house white, Angelo, if you would.”

“Of course, Doktor Eschbach.” He smiled, and gestured to the slate propped on the stand against the wall. “Tonight’s fare.”

In the flickering lamplight, we studied the slate.

“Fettucini alfredo again?”

Llysette pursed her lips. “I think the pasta primavera.”

“Then I will have the fettucini.”

Angelo returned with a green-tinted bottle. I did not recognize the label, but it was from California, and most of his wines were good. So I nodded, and waited for him to pour some into the glass. I sniffed, and then tasted. “Good.”

He filled both our glasses and set the bottle in the holder by my elbow.

I raised my glass, and Llysette followed. The rims of our glasses touched, and we drank from our glasses without speaking.

A waiter I did not know appeared. “Have you decided, sir and lady?”

“The pasta primavera, with the tomato rice soup,” said Llysette.

“I’ll have the fettucini alfredo with the barley soup. Two of the small salads with the house dressing.”

Llysette nodded in confirmation.

After the waiter left, I took another sip of the white. I liked it. So I looked at the label—San Merino. While I was looking, Llysette finished her glass, and I refilled it.

“I saw Miranda’s ghost,” I volunteered.

“This ghost you saw recently?”

“No. I meant the night she was killed.”

The waiter placed warm cranberry rolls on the butter plates and set our soups before us.

Llysette took another solid sip of the San Merino. “You did not tell the watch.” She lifted her soup spoon.

“I walked out of my office, and there she was. She mumbled some meaningless phrases, and then she was gone.” I tried the barley soup—hot and tangy with a hint of pepper and basil, an oddly pleasing combination.

“That woman, always was she talking meaningless phrases.”

“How is your soup?”

“Comme ci, comme ça.
Less of the tomato, I think, would be better. How do you find yours?”

“Quite good. Would you like a taste?”

She inclined her head, and I held the bowl so she could try the barley soup.

“Better than the tomato,” she confirmed. “You should see.”

I tried hers, and she was right. The barley soup was better, fuller. I broke off a corner of the cranberry roll, still almost steaming, then finished my soup.

“I really never knew Miranda,” I said, after the waiter removed the soup bowls. “Was she always talking nonsense?”

“Nonsense, I would not say. She always repeated the small … the trivial. One time, she spoke at a meeting four times about the need to revoice the concert Steinbach. And Doktor Geoffries, he had agreed to approach the dean for the necessary funds after she spoke the first time.” Llysette finished her second glass of the white. My glass remained about half full, but I refilled hers.

I frowned. “Did she keep confidences?”

“Confidences?”

“Secrets. If you asked her not to repeat something …”

“Mais non
. A tale she knew, everyone knew.”

“Still, it is very sad.”

“Very sad,” Llysette agreed.

The waiter arrived with our pasta, and another cranberry roll for me. Llysette had scarcely touched her roll.

The fettucini alfredo, especially with the fresh-ground Parmesan, had that slight tang that subtly lifted it above the mere combination of cheese, cream, garlic, and pasta.

“How is the primavera?”

“It is good. You would like a little?”

“If you could spare it.”

“I eat all of this, and into no recital gown will I fit.”

I didn’t have a witty response. Instead I leaned over and tasted some of her dinner. The primavera was as good as the fettucini, but you expected that when you paid Angelo’s prices.

“It is good,” I said. “Would you like some of the alfredo?”

“Non
. I will not finish what I have.”

Several minutes passed before Llysette wiped her mouth on the red linen napkin and took a swallow of her wine. Then, glass still in her hand, she asked, “Johan, what was it—did you miss something the most when you left the capital?” Her eyes were thoughtful.

I finished a small sip of my own wine before answering. “Most times, when you leave a place, you do miss things, especially at first. I thought I might miss things like the museums, or that something was always happening. At first, I missed the
newspapers. I missed the up-to-date radio and even the stuffy television news. But I noticed something after a while. I started missing items in the news, and nothing changed. I mean, the names change, but the problems continue, and they go on and on.” I shrugged. “What do you miss about France?” I grinned. “The food?”

“Ah, yes, the food I miss.” Her eyes clouded for a moment, and she swallowed more wine.

“Or the singing, the culture?” I prodded gently.

“Johan, you understand … and still … you are here. She shook her head.”That I do not understand.”

“There is little more culture in the Federal District of Columbia than here in Vanderbraak Centre. The most popular play at Ford’s Theatre is the updated revival of
The Importance of Being Earnest
. The most popular classical music is either Beethoven’s Ninth or the
1812 Overture.
Yes, there is more to choose from, but given the choice …” I let the words drop off.

She finished her wine, and I poured the last of the San Merino into her glass.

“You sing better work than often appears in Columbia.”

“And yet, I am here, forced to teach spoiled Dutch burghers who believe one note is much the same as another.”

After looking at the remainder of the fettucini, I nodded to the waiter, who removed both plates.

“Some coffee?”

Llysette shook her head.

“Perhaps a brandy?” I asked.

“Not this evening, Johan. Perhaps we should go. You must rise early.”

“The check, please?” I beckoned, and the waiter nodded. He returned as Llysette drained the last of the wine.

I left a twenty and a five, and we walked to the front, past a scattering of couples in the main room.

“How was the dinner?” Angelo stood by the door as we left.

“Very good, as usual. The barley soup—I’d like to see that more often. And,” I winked at Llysette, “perhaps a shade less tomato in the tomato rice potage.”

“What can I say, Doktor? Your taste in wine, women, and food is impeccable.”

“The lady is even more discriminating in wine and food, but more tolerant in men, thankfully.” I nodded.

Angelo bowed to Llysette.

Once we were in the courtyard, Llysette glanced back toward the restaurant, and then toward me. “Here, no one believes a woman has taste—except you.”

“That’s because few men or women have taste.”

“Johan, sometimes you are more jaded than I.”

“Only sometimes?” I helped her into the steamer.

A light rain began to patter on the roof of the Stanley as I drove back out the
old Hebron Road to Llysette’s cottage. Her tiny Reo runabout was still parked in front of the porch, and her trousers got damp when we scurried up to the front door, despite my trying to keep the umbrella over her.

“Thank you for the evening, Johan.”

“Thank you.”

I bent down and kissed her. Her lips were warm, welcoming, but not quite yielding. I did not even suggest I should come in. The next morning, I knew, would come all too early, and I had an hour-and-a-half drive westward to the Blauwasser River to catch the train in Lebanon.

“Good night, dear lady.”

“Good night, Johan.”

I stepped back into the rain, and to the Stanley, but I waited until she was inside before I pulled out of the graveled drive and onto the road back to Vanderbraak Centre.

CHAPTER EIGHT

I
caught the early-morning Quebec Express in Lebanon and took it into New

Amsterdam, and then the Columbia Special from there to the capital—the Baltimore and Potomac station just off the new Mall. Even with stops, it took only a bit over six hours, and the sun was still high in the autumn sky when I stepped into the heat and looked toward the marble obelisk on the edge of the Potomac.

I still couldn’t believe that they’d finally finished the Washington Monument after more than a century of dithering. Now they were talking about a memorial to Jefferson, but the Negroes were protesting, especially Senator Beltonson, because they said Jefferson had been a slave owner, not that there had really been that many slaves after the horrors of the
Sally Wright
incident. Speaker Calhoun’s compromise had effectively led the way to civil rights for the Negroes, and Senator Lincoln’s Codification of the Rights of Man had set an amended compromise in solid law. Personally, I still thought Jefferson had been a great man. You have to judge people by the times they lived in, not the times you live in.

The same drizzle that had enveloped New Bruges the day before had reached the Federal District of Columbia, except it was warmer, steamier, unseasonably hot, even in the former swamp that was the Republic’s capital.

I wiped my forehead on the cotton handkerchief, sweating more than I would have liked. At least I didn’t have to go to the congressional offices. Electric fans
were their sole official source of cooling; only the White House was fully air-conditioned. That had been one of Speaker Roosevelt’s decisions—that air conditioning would only make the Congress want to spend more time than was wise in Columbia.

As ceremonial head of state, of course, the president was obliged to stay whether he liked it or not. So he got the air conditioning, and so did the rococo monstrosity that housed his budget examiners. His budget reviews and public criticisms were about the only real substantive powers the president had. I had seen a lot done with budget reviews, and members of Congress didn’t like to seem ridiculous.

As for the heat, the Congress made do with fans or left Washington, and the civil servants sweated. Of course, ministers did find ways to cool their individual offices, but no one talked much about it, so long as they spent their own money. In the 1930s, Speaker Roosevelt had also insisted that the growth of the various ministries would be restricted by the heat. I hadn’t seen that—only a lot of sweating civil servants. Anyway, how could one imagine a government much larger than the half million or so on the federals’ dole?

I hailed an electrocab outside the station. “A dollar extra for a single ride.”

“The single is yours, sir.” The driver opened the door. “Where to?”

“The Ministry of Natural Resources, Sixteenth Street door, north end.”

We passed the new Smithsonian Gallery—Dutch Masters—built to contain the collection of Hendrik, the Grand Duke of Holland. At least he had been Grand Duke until Ferdinand VI’s armies had swept across the Low Countries.

Columbian Dutch, the oil people, had paid for the building. The Congress had approved it over my objections to the design—heavy—walled marble, stolid and apparently strong enough to withstand the newest Krupp tanks, even the kinds the Congress had shipped to the Brits and the Irish to discourage Ferdinand from attempting some sort of cross-channel adventure. Not that a gross of metal monsters had ever stopped any would-be conqueror.

Besides, Ferdinand was through with conquests. The Austro-Hungarian empire was nothing if not patient. England would not fall until Ferdinand VII took the throne. By then, most of the ghosts in France would have departed, and the remaining French would be dutiful citizens of the Empire, happy with their taxes and the longest period of peace and prosperity in their history—bought only at the cost of thirty percent of their former population.

Ghosting worked both ways—but basically too many ghosts hurt the locale where they were created. That was why ghosts almost stopped William the Unfortunate’s conquest of England, but not the Vikings or the early Mongols. They also stopped a lot of murders and slowed early population growth—second wives didn’t take too well to a weeping female ghost who had died in childbirth.

I was probably being too cautious, but strange wire messages recalling former agents to duty and promising stranger assignments have a tendency to reintroduce
occupational paranoia all too quickly. I could feel my chest tighten even as I thought about it.

“Here you be, sir.”

I nodded and handed him two dollars and a silver half-dollar.

“Thank
you,
sir.”

After offering my identification card to the guard—I’d never surrendered it—I walked to the corner of the building and took the steps to the basement, and then those to the subbasement. A guard sat at the usual desk around the bend in the tunnel.

“Your business, sir?”

He wasn’t a problem, but the armed sentry in the box behind him was.

“Doktor Eschbach. I’m here to see Subminister vanBecton.”

He picked up the handset, and I waited.

“You are expected, Doktor.”

I nodded again and walked down the tunnel under Sixteenth Street until I came out in the subbasement of the Spazi building. Another set of guards studied me flatly, but I just nodded. They were there to keep people from leaving, not entering. Officially, it was called the Security Service building, but it was still the Spazi building, with the flat gray ceramic tiles and light-blond wood paneling designed to hide the darkness behind each door. The smell of disinfectant was particularly strong in the subbasement.

VanBecton’s office was on the fourth floor. I walked up, in keeping with my recent resolve to improve my conditioning, but I was still panting, and stopped a moment on the landing to catch my breath. Even on the fourth floor I could smell disinfectant, common to jails and security services the world over.

The disinfectant odor vanished when I opened the landing door and stepped onto the dark rust carpet on the corridor leading to his office in the middle of the floor. Corner offices, for all their vaunted views, are too exposed.

His clerk, though young, had a narrow pinched face under wire-rimmed glasses, and presided over a large wireline console. “Might I help you?” Her eyes flickered to the bearded man in the loud brown tweeds perched on one end of the leather settee. The bearded man glanced at me impassively.

I extended a card to the clerk. There was no sense in announcing my name unnecessarily. “Minister vanBecton invited me for a meeting.”

“Yes, Doktor.” She picked up one of the handsets and dialed. “The doktor has arrived.” She listened for a moment, then added, “Yes, sir.”

I smiled pleasantly as she turned toward the bearded man. “Your meeting may be delayed slightly, sir.”

The other’s eyes narrowed slightly, but he nodded. I returned the nod.

“Doktor, it may be a moment. If you would be so kind …”

“Thank you.” I took the straight-backed chair in front of the dark mahogany bookcases. I picked up the Friday
Columbia Post-Dispatch,
since the fellow in brown
English tweeds clearly had either read it or had no interest in doing so. There was another story on religious protests against psychic research, and more speculation about the full extent of Defense Ministry funding of such projects. I also enjoyed the story which speculated that Senator Hartpence’s private office in the Capitol had seen some very private uses, and which suggested that, improper as such uses might have been, a politician’s private life remained his own. How could it not be? Then again, perhaps even the mention of the incident might be a disturbing trend. Would the masses decide that they would buy more newspapers if such tidbits were more frequent?

“Doktor? Minister vanBecton will see you.”

She opened the door in the blond-paneled wall to her left, but did not enter, and closed it behind me.

The office was almost the same, except that vanBecton had added an Escher oil in place of the copy of the
Night Watch.
It looked like an original, not that it surprised me much.

“Good afternoon, Doktor Eschbach.” The man standing behind the wide, dark English oak desk gave me a half-bow.

“Good afternoon, Minister vanBecton.” I returned the bow, and he gestured to the straight-backed leather chair facing the desk. I slipped into it, and he sat back down in the slightly overpadded burgundy leather swivel chair. The office was still that combination of Dutch and English—dark Dutch furnishings and English lack of spark—that created an impression of bureaucratic inertia. The windowsills were dark wood, not dusted frequently enough, reflecting the less astringent standards of the English-settled south.

Gillaume vanBecton was a particular type of man raised from money and boarding schools. They are the ones who wear tailored gray pinstripes, their cravats accented in red, their graying hair trimmed weekly, their gray goatees shaped with that squarish Dutch cut to imply total integrity, and their guts almost as trim as when they once jumped over those lawn tennis nets they now only reach across in congratulating their always vanquished opponents. As they get older, they take up lawn bowling with the same grace as tennis, and the same results.

I’ve always distrusted the vanBectons of the world. I hadn’t liked Hornsby Rogers, either, when he’d been seated behind vanBecton’s desk.

If he had actually done a tenth of what he’d probably ordered, Gillaume vanBecton would have been a bright-eyed, ex-ghosted shadow—a zombie cheerfully pushing a broom for the city or hand-sorting glass for the recycling bins. Instead, he was the honorable Gillaume vanBecton, Deputy Minister for Internal Security of the Sedition Prevention and Security Service, in short, the number-two Spazi, the one responsible for all the dirty work.

“I am at your disposal.”

“I am pleased that you recognize that.” VanBecton smiled briefly.

“I try to be a realist.”

“Good.”

“What is this ‘consulting’ assignment, if I might ask?”

“It has to do with your Fräulein duBoise—”

“Doktor duBoise?”

“We have some concerns about who she really is.”

“You don’t know? Perhaps I can help you. Her name is Llysette Marie duBoise. After obtaining her degrees, she apprenticed at the Académie Royale, then premiered in Marseilles, where she eventually sang and bedded her way into the roles she deserved and needed to support her family. Her mother died, and later her father was killed by Ferdinand’s troops. Because she had some stature, and because of some intervention by the Japanese ambassador, who had heard her sing, she was allowed to leave France—although not without, shall we say, some detailed interrogation.” I inclined my head politely.

“How detailed, Doktor Eschbach?” VanBecton’s voice remained smooth, and he leaned back in the heavy swivel chair.

“Enough to leave scars where they are not normally visible.”

The subminister leaned forward again, but his eyes did not hold the smile of his mouth. “That would certainly seem to provide some indication that she has no love of Ferdinand. But … how do you know she isn’t an agent of New France? Maximilian VI—”

“He’s a fifteen-year-old boy. We both know Marshal de-Gaulle runs New France.” I shrugged. “These days anyone can be working for anyone else. But, even assuming Doktor duBoise were an agent of New France, why on earth would she be in New Bruges?”

“At first glance, that would seem odd.” VanBecton continued to smile. “Although Maurice-Huizenga has been known to recruit other … refugees.” He covered his mouth and coughed, and his hand brushed the top drawer. That was where Rogers had kept his gun, and probably where vanBecton kept his. Stupid of him, since, if murder had been anyone’s objective, including mine, vanBecton would have been dead before he could reach the weapon.

“At first glance?” I decided to oblige him.

“Don’t you think this whole business is rather odd, at least from the federals’ position? A former New Tory subminister returns to teach at a mere state university in a small town in New Bruges where he once spent summers. All very innocent until we consider that his position as a subminister was essentially to fatten his pension for his previous services to his country and to provide some consolation for the personal trials occasioned by his service. Then a refugee from the fall of France appears, a lovely and highly talented … lady, and she immediately becomes close to this widower, a man possibly—shall we say—vulnerable … Then another academic with a past better left not too closely inspected is murdered for no apparent reason.”

“And might you tell me why Professor Miller’s past is better left not too closely inspected? Was she an agent of Ferdinand? Or perhaps of Takaynishu?”

VanBecton smiled politely. “We actually are not sure, only that she was receiving laundered funds and instructions.”

“What instructions? I’d rather not get in the way of a murderer trying to find out what you already know.”

“She was instructed to find out what you were doing and to try to compromise you in a way to cast discredit upon the government.”

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