All Bedlam Courses Past (part one hundred eighteen)

 

 

 

 

 

All Bedlam Courses Past

 

Chapter Four

Counterfeits

(part one hundred eighteen)

 

 

 

---

 

 

 

A slow fall was the only practical choice, paced by a wall rising left. At its finale, the wall sat six feet or so, water oozing from broken pipe-heads along the way. Privy water, Richard thought—but equally the smell might work up from the river.

The steps carried to an overtrodden pile of bricks, then a lane of storefronts. Second-hand, if looking patronized at all…one a specialist in clothing, another in books, shoes, the piano they sat on.

What ought to be Schnelle’s basement-end was shuttered. But the handle worked.

A boy shot out. Getting inside an inky room, where two customer chairs blocked a counter, Richard found it plausible no one escaped unless the door fortuitously opened—

“What!”

“Mrs. Allen sent me.”

“What’s your order?”

“A dozen of your best.”

“I don’t run less than fifty. But, a hundred.”

“I don’t want a hundred.”

“You want a hundred. Why do you want a hundred? Because you always want twice what you think you want, and you can’t get less than fifty.”

“Did Allen say he was paying for it?”

“Is Allen in the room?”

“Well, I don’t want a hundred. Give me fifty.”

“You can be sorry,” Uncle Schnelle said. “What’s the story?”

Schnelle was short-legged, broad of chest and biceps. He had a cash register on his counter, lifted this in a negligent way, balancing it one-handed on his belly to dig a pencil from some lint. He restored the lint to its dark slumber, and with a huge sigh struck a jotting pose.

“What are the names of these guys? Gremot, how you spell it?”

Richard spelled it.

“Who else?”

“Uh. Nachfolger?”

“Nachfolger!” Schnelle wrote this with an emphasis. “Who else?”

“Rutherford.”

“Mm-hmm. So it’s the railroad?”

Was it? Vanguard officers, Rowan’s enemies, Richard had supposed. Still, take any Cookesville fiddle, same players.

Schnelle looked up. “What are you waiting for?”

“They took land.”

“Land!” Mock-astonishment now.

 

 

126

 

 

---

 

 

“Farmers’ land. They traded shares for it. The company went bankrupt, so… Well, investors just lose, don’t they? Take your chances a thing’ll pay off. Unless you can prove…”

“You got a problem with words?” Schnelle muttered.

“Prove it was dirty somehow.”

“How you think?”

“I don’t think. Why would I?”

“I want some juice. Didn’t I hear they got a nutbin, some kind, in Cookesville? That guy Ebrach in the railroad scheme?”

“Ebrach? You’re mixing things up.” This came prim, as though Miss Gremot had spoken.

“O-oh, we don’t wanna do that. Whole truth and nothing but. Motto of the free press.”

“There’s a rumor Gremot’s got a bastard son, a sort of protégé of Ebrach.”

It was a lot, to go from dismissing a rumor to mongering it, but Richard was seeing Rowan’s angle at last.

“Maybe,” he said, “a hundred.”

Schnelle grunted and exited under the stairs.

A click, click, click, click from the room behind…like a bag filling with nickels. Richard waited, waited long enough he needed to visit the river, returned to a more resonant cacophony, like a boat in the wind crashing against a pier…

He waited longer still. The sun was setting. Aunt Schnelle came down to light lamps.

“How do. Mrs. Allen up there?”

She wasn’t, he guessed.

“Mrs. Allen leave any message?”

“For who? For you?”

Schnelle grunted in, whumping down a stack of papers. “You fold those yourself.”

“How much?”

“Five dollars.”

Not the worst, Richard was saying to himself, and almost to Schnelle…

“Do I see stamps in your wallet? Give me those. And twenty dollars for the press.”

“I can give you ten.”

One of Ermentrude’s. But Schnelle seemed a partner of Allen. He lifted half the stack at what looked the perfect center. “Fine, take fifty. Maybe you’ll sell them.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

127

 

 

---

Bedlam

All Bedlam Courses Past (part one hundred nineteen)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(2024, Stephanie Foster)