Mostly, though, it was Greyboar. Biggest problem the Railroad always had was keeping the porkers from discovering and busting up the stops. Never a problem, that, with our stop. The first time the porkers came by, poking and prying and asking questions, Greyboar went out to talk to them. He gave them The Stare, and that was that. They never came around again.
But, like I’ve said a thousand times, it’s the natural state of life to be unjust. As the wise man says: “Every silver lining has a cloud.”
Because, you see, Gwendolyn did find out. And, sure enough, she did come to the conclusion that maybe her baby brother, the cold-blooded murderous thug, was—just maybe—not such a totally worthless piece of human garbage, after all.
And, of course, if you want to get yourself into big trouble—Big Trouble—there’s no quicker way to do it than to get into Gwendolyn’s good graces.
PART III: SYNTHESIS
Chapter 22.
Disaster Strikes
It was bound to happen. The signs had all been there,
gathering like clouds. Good deeds done, promises kept, righteous behavior maintained, the lot. I could feel disaster coming, like hearing thunder over the horizon.
Now that we were flush, it was impossible to get Greyboar to work at all. Hildegard’s bonus, on top of the Cardinal’s treasure, had elevated us into the ranks of the “idle rich.” Which is a splendid place to be, of course, but not when it leads to delusions of grandeur. The fact is that your true idle rich can stay that way because they’ve got other people slaving away to keep them in that blessed state. All we had was a hoard that would be gone soon enough, and the pitiful earnings which Jenny and Angela brought in from the dresswork they did on the rare occasions they weren’t totally preoccupied with the Railroad.
Live on the interest, you say? Huh. Not familiar with the practices of Groutch bankers of the day, I see. Fees for this, fees for that. Not to mention the charming practice of charging you 4% of the existing balance every month in recompense for the time and labor involved in calculating your 4% interest. No slouches, they.
Fie on all respectable financial institutions! My bank is the bottom of a mattress. Which is safe enough when you’ve got Greyboar snoring away on top, but it’s still withering away.
But—
No use. Greyboar refused each and every job I turned up. His criteria for “philosophically acceptable” chokes got more ridiculous by the day. I tried to point out the contradiction involved between demanding an advance in entropy while simultaneously maintaining ethical standards that no genuine beatified saint could ever have matched, but—
No use. Every day, the same thing. Practice his “Languor,” study his “Torpor,” daydream about the eventual bliss of eternal “Stupor.” Except for whenever the Cat floated back around, at which point all of that philosophical nonsense went right out the window in favor of, uh, what you might call “empiricism.” As in, pleasures of the flesh. At those times, I always had to make sure I’d extracted whatever moneys we needed before Greyboar and the Cat had finished with their first clinch and gone upstairs. Never get to the mattress thereafter.
* * *
Yes, I could feel it coming. Disaster.
I started getting twitchy. Moving from one window of the townhouse to another, scrutinizing the streets below, watching for the first signs. Muttering under my breath. Eating sandwiches while on guard, instead of joining the festive little crowd at the dinner table.
Angela and Jenny were peeved with me, needless to say. Accused me of being a paranoiac. At one point, they got annoyed enough to put me on a regimen of abstinence for a week. I’ll admit that jolted me out of it, for a time. Terrible thing, abstinence. I’d always thought so, even in the good old days before I’d fallen madly in love like some fairy tale dunce.
Didn’t last, though. Soon enough, that immensely pleasant state which the upper crust likes to call “post-coital tristesse” turned into genuine distress. Staring up at the ceiling, expecting a meteor to come through any minute.
So Jenny and Angela would boot me out of the bed and I’d go wandering through the house in the dead of night. Afraid even to light a candle lest some lurking danger spot me in the darkness. A ghost before my time. A specter, I say! In my own home!