Page 17 of By Any Means

All told, he spent two weeks (and far too much money on street-cart food) stalking Chary Wright, simply watching as the man punched overnight shifts at his own factory, like that thing was his actual job and the millionaire inheritance was for part-time play.

That first Monday, Laurie had returned to Avenue D in the early hours to confirm Chary’s exit from the glassworks gates. Chary was there, filthy, sweaty, steaming in the cold, rising dawn; he hobbled back to 2nd Street. He came out again a few short hours later, around one, beardless and be-suited for his rich man’s visiting hours. He did this Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, too. Friday and Saturday Chary spent wholly at his Fifth Avenue house, no exits, no visitors, a shut-in; Laurie imagined he mostly slept. Saturday night, Chary snuck out to Grand Central and took the northeast overnight train to Maine. Monday next, he was back at the Fifth Avenue townhouse again for fashionable hours, and the strange, exhausting cycle began again. Laurie was worn down merely observing, and he got to catch sleep on benches where he was able, to dodge the police when he wasn’t.

As the second week stretched on, he felt a guilty envy pricking at him, that this silver-spoon man (however had-been disinherited) was able to disguise himself at hard labor, was doing what Laurie would have done, given the chance, while Laurie had to merely sit in a high tenement window and note down his coming and going and wonder why. Penance? Necessity? Expectation? Revenge? Spite? None of the usual motives seemed to fit.

Chary Wright didn’t seem beholden to anybody or anything except work and exhaustion, and as interesting as it was to Laurie, the man, it wouldn’t make for a good story for Laurie, the journalist. Chary wasn’t doing anything illegal or immoral or petitionable.

It especially didn’t make for a murdered brother. If Chary had been doing this for some time—long enough to continue in a very skilled trade, perhaps even since having been disinherited at twelve?—then why would he not cease once he’d gotten the whole kit ’n boodle? If he had murdered his more-fortunate brother for his inheritance, why not stop his filthy work once he was filthy rich? Men did murder and worse to claw themselves upward, but the whole point of violence born out of desperation was to try and change their circumstances. Six months, millions of dollars, and a blueberry farm later, and Chary was still keeping on in his circumstances.

While it was fascinating and confusing, Laurie couldn’t see what it had to do with inheritance, a party boy’s death, or Brooklyn Glass.

For there was another thing. Surely, if Chary had meant to work to spite the memory of the father who’d disinherited him, he’d work anywhere else—but especially for the competition. Give trade secrets to Tjofabier Raberding like candy, especially once he had access to all of them.

But he hadn’t.

On the last Saturday evening, at a bit of a loss after watching Chary board the overnight train to Maine right on schedule, and disinclined to follow him—he had done so last Saturday, spending twelve hours on a train and back again only to confirm Chary Wright attended Catholic mass at a tiny St. Michael’s in the middle of nowhere and then spent the rest of a very boring Sunday reading on the porch of his rural mansion in the middle of nowhere. The worst thing about small towns was that asking questions of Church Ladies was out of the question. Laurie determined to go back to basics. His old beats, maybe. Bars, haunts, dark park alcoves, street corners. Enough of rich men and their eccentricities.

With luck, he wouldn’t have to pull any more strings with Hiram Sumner, either.

“I don’t need your help finding a fairy saloon in Brooklyn, H,” Laurie snapped, in office on the Friday next. “You set me up once. Knowing your kinda place, I’d end up tied up and spit-roasted in a basement.”

“There’s a visual I didn’t need.” Hiram grabbed his hat and coat from their hook and smirked. “How about I come along to make sure ropes don’t happen? It’s been a while since we’ve gone hunting as a double-edge.”

It was something they’d done before. They worked well as a pair, Laurie’s masculine, normal-facing appearance contrasting Hiram’s knife-sharp pretty. There was a reason—several reasons—he’d connected Hiram to precise and obvious Tjofabier Raberding: in company, Hiram presented quite feminine. He was slim, smaller, with blue-grey eyes, smooth black hair, compact features lined up neat in a heart-shaped face. Cream rouge on his cheeks, not just the unseasonable May heat: a signature.

Laurie had once held him in a certain starry-eyed regard, had erroneously extrapolated their professional relationship to something more in his head, thinking it meant something that Hiram knew what it was to be looked at and judged, typified in the same (but flipped) way Laurie was. Thinking they’d fit because of it.

They hadn’t. He’d gotten over it, though. Laurie’s regard turned out to be, outside of a few incidental threesomes, completely unrequited. Hiram had only ever wanted Laurie’s job—he tolerated his friendship—and not Laurie himself. The dismissal still stung sometimes, especially when Hiram was in this sort of sleek, taunting mood. Laurie was vaguely aware that it was meant to sting and keep stinging, and left vaguely wondering if he was supposed to enjoy it.

“You don’t exactly draw in the kinda source I’ll be looking for there.”

A raised eyebrow said Hiram drew in whatever kind of man he wanted, thank you. Laurie clarified hastily: “You’re too high-class, I mean.”

“Hm.” Hiram didn’t back down. “I will stay on the periphery while you hunt your rough.”

“For god’s sake, H, it’s Brooklyn. I don’t need minding. Or is this penance for throwing me at Raberding like an altar offering?”

“No one forced you to flirt with that shark, much less tell him what you like. Aren’t you Presbyterian?”

“I’m not anything anymore, Puritan. And I think you knew he’d smell blood.”

“Did I?” Settling his top hat (proving Laurie’s point), Hiram gave him an assessing, rouge-bright look. “Did you like him?”

Maybe Hiram had set him up with intentions. “He has my card,” Laurie said evasively.

Hiram said nothing. His irises were unnervingly pale, clouds over blue sky; sometimes, the pupils reflected light, like a cat’s.

“Is this you endorsing him?” Laurie asked. “At least change out of that suit, if you’re coming. Put on a cap.”

“I don’t know that I endorse anyone. As you keep telling me, L, you can mind your own self. Also: no.”

Laurie groaned. “If you screw with my snagging a union source, Sumner, I’m telling Sam.”

“Rat,” Hiram taunted mildly.

What this bar trade of a source had going for himself, in Laurie’s eyes—besides thighs to rival his own but firmer, and pectorals like a pulled-back bow—was that he was not an heir to a glassworks, only a gaffer for one. (Brooklyn Glass. Union. Local #68.) That he wasn’t a millionaire. He was, in fact, a part-time prostitute, which was fine. Better than fine. Laurie liked to put his money where his mouth was.

Unfortunately, Laurie’s mouth wasn’t currently liking where it was put. The man’s lips were cold, and the tip of his nose, too.