Page 23 of By Any Means

Raberding smiled, full of meaning. No twelve-inch-thick concrete walls there. “I forgave him, of course. If you met him you’d understand. He grovels quite prettily.” He grimaced at the slip. “Groveled.”

“An accommodating man, aren’t you?”

“Oh, well. It broke something between us, to be sure.”

“Broke what?”

“Prior to that, we were considering… a more significant amount of commitment. Cutting-edge innovation of the business… perhaps co-ownership…” Raberding lowered his voice. “Husband-owned, I had hoped.” He sighed. “It was not to be.”

Not legal, either, Laurie thought. But not uncommon. Some men, in company, liked to claim marriage and then live like they indeed were. Laurie had known a few men to commit for whole lifetimes, legal or no.

But this was more distraction, tailored just for Laurie’s sympathy. Raberding was good at distraction—possibly as good as Laurie was at getting folks to talk—and he knew it. Because a merger: that was significant. Very significant.

Further motive for murder.

“The joys of horizontal integration,” Laurie drawled. “How romantic. Great for business, isn’t it?”

Raberding laughed and swirled his drink. “It was August who was great for business. I told you he was brilliant. Haven’t I?”

“Classical mechanics, you said,” Laurie agreed. “Which type? And which definition?”

Raberding acknowledged with a tilt of his head. “An educated man, I see. Yes. Engineering. Mathematics. You know, I don’t fully understand the distinctions myself. But the ideas he had, you wouldn’t believe, and at only twenty-four.”

“What kind of ideas?”

“The revolutionizing kind. Industry-changing kinds. You’ll pardon me if I keep them to myself, Lawrence Tulley.”

“No hard feelings.” Mechanization, then. Almost without a doubt. Behind farmwork, the glass industry was almost the last skilled-labor holdout against automation. Laurie had heard rumblings—only just, within the past six months, at the start of the New Year—about bottle machines, truly semiautomatic, the kind that needed almost no labor and had six times the output of a blower. Absolutely, that was something that would make a businessman drool.

“No, you weren’t accommodating,” Laurie revised. “You felt lucky. Gratified to be his dear friend. Yet he never shared these brilliant ideas with you?”

“I wished he would have trusted me with them, yes.” He paused as he likely realized how this looked. “That he would’ve lived, to trust me with them eventually.”

Laurie nodded. Raberding needn’t have worried; he didn’t need to flag this to Laurie, red-scarf’d. If August Wright had been as smart as Raberding made him out, he’d patented everything down to screws. That Raberding would’ve been better off, professionally and personally, with August alive, wasn’t in question.

It was clear, however, that Hiram had it totally right. Tjofabier Raberding was all shark.

“Hence your overture. And in return, he stole from you.”

Raberding shrugged. “Aesthetics aside, you must see why I still forgave him.”

“I see why you wanted to overtake him, sure.” More double meaning. “Anybody would, really.”

Raberding preened, a pleased rooster, a possessive sentiment eight months misplaced by loss. Though, as a strange contrast to the tears in the Ansonia apartment, it was not at all tinged with grief.

Maybe he hadn’t wanted August dead—but did he truly mourn him?

“No takeover. A co-ownership,” Raberding repeated. “I believe it would have benefited everyone. I believed August thought so, too. Why shouldn’t New York have a consolidated glassworks? Flint glass, bottles, and all? Simpler for all. Better for the workers to all join up with their union of choice.”

“Uh-huh.” Or the opposite could happen, and with no competition, the new conglomerate business could boot unioners entirely.

Raberding looked amused. “Aren’t you a union kind of man, Mr. Tulley?”

“I’m not here to argue capitalist exploits, Raberding. Did August refuse more than just your business proposal? The proverbial ball-and-chain, too?”

“Ah. You know, we never got around to confronting each other about that before he died. Another thing I will never know.”

He was lying. “I’m sorry.” So was Laurie.