Making Money (7 page)

The chairman’s office was large, and simply furnished with very expensive things. Bronze and brass were much in evidence. Probably the last remaining tree of some rare, exotic species had been hewn to make the chairman’s desk, which was an object of desire and big enough to bury people in. It gleamed a deep, deep green, and spoke of power and probity. Moist assumed, as a matter of course, that it was lying.

There was a very small dog sitting in a brass in tray, but it was not until Bent said “Mr. Lipwig, madam chairman” that Moist realized that the desk also had a human occupant. The head of a very small, very elderly, gray-haired woman was peering over the top of it at him. Resting on the desk on either side of her, gleaming silver steel in this world of gold-colored things, were two loaded crossbows, fixed on little swivels. The lady’s thin little hands were just drawing back from the stocks.

“Oh yes, how nice,” she trilled. “I am Mrs. Lavish. Do take a seat, Mr. Lipwig.”

He did so, as much out of the current field of the bows as possible, and the dog leaped down from the desk and onto his lap with happy, scrotum-crushing enthusiasm.

It was the smallest and ugliest dog Moist had ever seen. It resembled those goldfish with the huge bulging eyes that looked as though they were about to explode. Its nose, on the other hand, looked stoved in. It wheezed, and its legs were so bandy that it must sometimes trip over its own feet.

“That’s Mr. Fusspot,” said the old woman. “He doesn’t normally take to people, Mr. Lipwig. I am impressed.”

“Hello, Mr. Fusspot,” said Moist. The dog gave a little yappy bark and then covered Moist’s face in all that was best in dog slobber.

“He likes you, Mr. Lipwig,” said Mrs. Lavish approvingly. “Can you guess at the breed?”

Moist had grown up with dogs and was pretty good at breeds, but with Mr. Fusspot there was no place to start. He plumped for honesty.

“All of them?” he suggested.

Mrs. Lavish laughed, and the laugh sounded at least sixty years younger than she was.

“Quite right! His mother was a spoon hound, very popular in royal palaces in the olden days. But she got out one night and there was an awful lot of barking and I fear Mr. Fusspot is the son of many fathers, poor thing.”

Mr. Fusspot turned two soulful eyes on Moist, and his expression began to become a little strained.

“Bent, Mr. Fusspot is looking rather uncomfortable,” said Mrs. Lavish. “Please take him for his little walk in the garden, will you? I really don’t think the young clerks give him enough time.”

A brief spell of thundery weather passed across the chief cashier’s face, but he obediently took a red leash from a hook.

The little dog began to growl.

Bent also took down a pair of heavy leather gloves and deftly put them on. As the growling increased, he picked up the dog very carefully and held it under one arm. Without uttering a word, he left the room.

“Ah, so you are the famous postmaster general,” said Mrs. Lavish. The man in the golden suit, no less. But not this morning, I note. Come here, dear boy. Let me look at you in the light.”

Moist advanced, and the old lady got awkwardly to her feet by means of a pair of ivory-handled walking sticks. Then she dropped one and grabbed Moist’s chin. She stared intently at him, turning his head this way and that.

“Hmm,” she said, stepping back. “It’s as I thought…” The remaining walking stick caught Moist a whack across the back of the legs, scything him over like a straw. As he lay stunned on the thick carpet, Mrs. Lavish went on, triumphantly: “You’re a thief, a trickster, a charlie artful, and an all-round bunco artist! Admit it!”

“I’m not!” Moist protested weakly.

“Liar, too,” said Mrs. Lavish cheerfully. “And probably an impostor! Oh, don’t waste that innocent look on me! I said you are a rogue, sir! I wouldn’t trust you with a bucket of water if my knickers were on fire!”

Then she prodded Moist in the chest, hard. “Well, are you going to lie there all day?” she snapped. “Get up, man. I didn’t say I didn’t like you!”

Head spinning, Moist got cautiously to his feet.

“Give me your hand, Mr. Lipwig,” said Mrs. Lavish. “Postmaster general? You are a work of art! Put it here!”

“What? Oh…” Moist grasped the old woman’s hand. It was like shaking hands with cold parchment.

Mrs. Lavish laughed. “Ah, yes. Just like the forthright and reassuring grasp of my late husband. No honest man has a handshake as honest as that. How in the world has it taken you so long to find the financial sector?”

Moist looked around. They were alone, his calves were sore, and there was no fooling some people. What we have here, he told himself, is a Mk.1 Feisty Old Lady: turkey neck, embarrassing sense of humor, a gleeful pleasure in mild cruelty, direct way of speaking that flirts with rudeness and, more important, also flirts with flirting. Likes to think she’s “no lady.” Game for anything that doesn’t carry the risk of falling over and with a look in her eye that says “I can do what I like, because I am old. And I have a soft spot for rascals.” Old ladies like that were hard to fool, but there was no need to. He relaxed. Sometimes it was a sheer relief to drop the mask.

“I’m not an impostor, at least,” he said. “Moist von Lipwig is my given name.”

“Yes, I can’t imagine that you would have had any choice in the matter,” said Mrs. Lavish, heading back to her seat. “However, you seem to be fooling all of the people all of the time. Sit down, Mr. Lipwig. I shall not bite.” This last was said with a look that transmitted: “But give me half a bottle of gin and five minutes to find my teeth and we shall see!” She indicated a chair next to her.

“What? I thought I was being dismissed!” said Moist, playing along.

“Really? Why?”

“For being all those things you said?”

“I didn’t say I thought you were a bad person,” said Mrs. Lavish. “And Mr. Fusspot likes you and he is a remarkably good judge of people. Besides, you’ve done wonders with our post office, just as Havelock says.” Mrs. Lavish reached down beside her and pulled a large bottle of gin onto the desktop. “A drink, Mr. Lipwig?”

“Er…not at this time.”

Mrs. Lavish sniffed. “I don’t have much time, sir, but fortunately I have a lot of gin.” Moist watched her pour a marginally sublethal measure into a tumbler.

“Do you have a young lady?” she asked, raising the glass.

“Yes.”

“Does she know what you’re like?”

“Yes. I keep telling her.”

“Doesn’t believe you, eh? Ah, such is the way of a woman in love,” sighed Mrs. Lavish.

“I don’t think it worries her, actually. She’s not your average girl.”

“Ah, and she sees your inner self? Or perhaps the carefully constructed inner self you keep around for people to find? People like you…” she paused and went on: “…people like us always keep at least one inner self for inquisitive visitors, don’t we?”

Moist didn’t rise to this. Talking to Mrs. Lavish was like standing in front of a magic mirror that stripped you to your marrow. He just said: “Most of the people she knows are golems.”

“Oh? Great big clay men who are utterly trustworthy and don’t have anything to declare in the trouser department? What does she see in you, Mr. Lipwig?” She prodded him with a finger like a cheese straw.

Moist’s mouth dropped open.

“A contrast, I trust,” said Mrs. Lavish, patting him on the arm. “And now Havelock has sent you here to tell me how to run my bank. You may call me Topsy.”

“Well, I—” Tell her how to run her bank? It hadn’t been put like that.

Topsy leaned forward. “I never minded about Honey, you know,” she said, slightly lowering her voice. “Quite a nice girl, but thick as a yard of lard. She wasn’t the first, either. Not by a long way. I was Joshua’s mistress once myself.”

“Really?” He knew he was going to hear it all, whether he wanted to or not.

“Oh, yes,” said Mrs. Lavish. “People understood more then. It was all quite acceptable. I used to take tea with his wife once a month to sort out his schedule, and she always said she was glad to have him out from under her feet. Of course, a mistress was expected to be a woman of some accomplishment in those days.” She sighed. “Now, of course, the ability to spin upside down around a pole seems to be sufficient.”

“Standards are falling everywhere,” said Moist. It was a pretty good bet. They always were.

“Banking is really rather similar,” said Topsy, as though thinking aloud.

“Pardon?”

“I mean the mere physical end in view is going to be the same, but style should count for something, don’t you think? There should be flair. There should be inventiveness. There should be an experience rather than a mere function. Havelock says you understand these things.” She gave Moist a questioning look. “After all, you have made the Post Office an almost heroic enterprise, yes? People set their watches by the arrival of the Genua Express. They used to set their calendars!”

“The clacks still makes a loss,” said Moist.

“A marvelously small one, while enriching the commonality of mankind in all sorts of ways, and I’ve no doubt that Havelock’s tax men take their share of that. You have the gift of enthusing people, Mr. Lipwig.”

“Well, I…well, I suppose I do,” he managed. “I know if you want to sell the sausage you have to know how to sell the sizzle.”

“Well and good, well and good,” said Topsy, “but I hope you know that however gifted you are as a sizzle salesman, sooner or later you must be able to produce the sausage, hmm?” She gave him a wink which would have got a younger woman jailed.

“Incidentally,” she went on, “I recall hearing that the gods led you to the treasure trove that helped you to rebuild the Post Office. What really happened? You can tell Topsy.”

He probably could, he decided, and noticed that although her hair was indeed thinning and almost white, it still held a pale trace of orange that hinted of more vivid reds in the past. “It was my stashed loot from years of swindling,” he said.

Mrs. Lavish clapped her hands. “Wonderful! A sausage indeed! That is so…satisfying. Havelock has always had an instinct for people. He has plans for the city, you know.”

“The Undertaking,” said Moist. “Yes, I know.”

“Underground streets and new docks and everything,” said Topsy, “and for that a government needs money and money needs banks. Unfortunately, people have rather lost their faith in banks.”

“Why?”

“Because we lost their money, usually. Mostly not on purpose. We have been badly buffeted in recent years. The crash of 88, the crash of 93, the crash of 98…although that one was more of a ding. My late husband was a man who loaned unwisely, so we must carry bad debts and other results of questionable decisions. Now we’re where little old ladies keep their money because they always have done and the nice young clerks are still polite and there’s still a brass bowl by the door for their little dogs to drink out of. Could you do anything about this? The supply of old ladies is running out, as I’m well aware.”

“Well, er, I may have a few ideas,” said Moist. “But it’s all still a bit of a shock. I don’t really understand how banks work.”

“You’ve never put money in a bank?”

“Not in, no.”

“How do you think they work?”

“Well, you take rich people’s money and lend it to suitable people at interest, and give as little as possible of the interest back.”

“Yes, and what is a suitable person?”

“Someone who can prove they don’t need the money?”

“Oh, you cynic. But you have got the general idea.”

“No poor people, then?”

“Not in banks, Mr. Lipwig. No one with an income under a hundred and fifty dollars a year. That is why socks and mattresses were invented. My late husband always said that the only way to make money out of poor people is by keeping them poor. He was not, in his business life, a very nice man. Do you have any more questions?”

“How did you become the bank’s chairman?” said Moist.

“Chairman and manager,” said Topsy proudly. “Joshua liked to be in control.

“Oh, yes, didn’t he just,” she added, as if to herself. “And I am now both of them because of a little bit of ancient magic called ‘being left fifty percent of the shares.’”

“I thought that bit of magic was fifty-one percent of the shares,” said Moist. “Couldn’t the other shareholders force—”

An inner door opened at the far side of the room and a tall woman in white entered, carrying a tray with its contents concealed by a cloth.

“It really is time for your medicine, Mrs. Lavish,” she said.

“It does me no good at all, Sister!” snapped the old woman.

“Now, you know the doctor said no more alcohol,” said the nurse. She looked accusingly at Moist. “She’s to have no more alcohol,” she repeated, on the apparent assumption that he had a few bottles on his person.

“Well I say no more doctor!” said Mrs. Lavish, winking conspiratorially at Moist. “My so-called stepchildren are paying for this, can you believe it? They’re out to poison me! And they tell everyone I’ve gone mad—”

There was a knock at the door, less a request to enter than a declaration of intent. Mrs. Lavish moved with impressive speed and the bows were already swiveling when the door swung open.

Mr. Bent came in, with Mr. Fusspot under his arm, still growling.

“I said five times, Mr. Bent!” Mrs. Lavish yelled. “I might have shot Mr. Fusspot! Can’t you count?”

“I do beg your pardon,” said Bent, placing Mr. Fusspot carefully in the in tray. “And I can count.”

“Who’s a little fusspot then?” said Mrs. Lavish, as the little dog almost exploded with mad excitement at seeing someone he’d last seen at least ten minutes ago. “Has oo been a good boy? Has he been a good boy, Mr. Bent?”

“Yes, madam. Excessively.” The venom of a snake ice cream could not have been chillier. “May I return to my duties now?”

“Mr. Bent thinks I don’t know how to run a bank, doesn’t he, Mr. Fusspot,” Mrs. Lavish crooned to the dog. “He’s a silly Mr. Bent, isn’t he? Yes, Mr. Bent, you may go.”

Moist recalled an old BhangBhangduc proverb: “When old ladies talk maliciously to their dog, that dog is lunch.” It seemed amazingly appropriate at a time like this, and a time like this was not a good time to be around.