Chapter Text
I.
It was ten AM on a Thursday when the woman arrived.
She was not a woman one could easily picture calling on a detective. Her hair was the color of white sand. Though features were delicate the set of her jaw betrayed she was nothing of the sort. This was a woman used to getting her way. As he sat and waited she gave his office one long slow look like a commander surveying an army. Finally she sat in the chaise across his desk and appraised him with that same eye.
What a woman like her was doing here he had no idea. In fact he would have believed it a mistake had he not seen her stop distinctly at the sign on his door: SYLVAIN GAUTIER, P.I.
“What can I do for you today, miss….?”
“Edelgard,” said the woman. “Edelgard von Hresvelg.”
Though Sylvain recognized the name, he showed no sign of it. Only took a long slow drag of his cigarette. “Hresvelg,” he said, almost to himself. “And your business?”
The woman -- Edelgard von Hresvelg -- looked at him sharply. Then away at the patches of light filtering through the blinds. In the light those cool grey eyes verged upon violet. Next she spoke carefully.
“I’ve heard you’re an excellent private investigator. I’d like to hire you to investigate a matter privately.”
“Excellent,” said Sylvain. “Who’d you hear that from?”
She sidestepped with ease. “They said -- that you’re the best in the business. That’s what they said.”
“And they’re not wrong,” he said. “I’m very good. But I don’t take on cases much. I’m sure a well-informed woman like you knows that just fine.”
“Yes,” she said, faintly. “I know that.”
“Come off it,” he said. “I know what they say about me -- that I like women and liquor and drink to excess. And they’re right about all of it. Your so-called friend was right about one thing, though. I’m awfully particular about my cases.”
She was not looking at him now. It was apparent she had never had to flatter a man. He hoped she would stop trying and sure enough she did. She tried another tack completely.
“What sort of cases do you -- ”
“Well-paying ones, mostly.”
She did not laugh. She drew a little envelope from her clutch and slid it across the table.
“One hundred dollars. For information on a woman.”
He opened it with interest. A night photo. A blurred figure took up most of the frame. The woman was veiled and she was not facing the camera. In her hair there was a sort of floral adornment. Impossible to make out any detail. Without expression he folded the photograph neatly into a trouser-pocket.
“You’re giving me a lot to work with, Miss Hresvelg.”
She nodded once. Her mouth was a thin tense line. “It is a most sensitive matter. I am sure you understand.”
“I don’t,” he said, “and I’m not.”
She did not laugh. She probably never would.
For his part he was thinking. She had said her piece so calmly, as if neither the information nor the woman could possibly be of interest to anyone. A hundred dollars meant otherwise. A hundred dollars meant trouble.
“Mr. Gautier -- I was never here. And I will disclaim any involvement with you, if asked. But I believe the pay commensurate with the danger. Does that -- are you -- ”
She had been taken in by his silence and now she was bargaining. But there was no need.
“Relax,” he said. “I’m more afraid of you than the job.”
That surprised her genuinely. Her eyes darted over him once more inconspicuously as she could manage. She was making a reappraisal. He was making one too.
What was it about her? She was a particularly humorless client but honest vulnerability had flickered upon her face, unconstant, all through their meeting. Now it shone forth like a sudden burst of sun and endeared her to him.
“Sixty later -- forty now.”
Wordlessly she looked at him. Her eyes were twin shining amethysts.
--
The advance was more than enough to cover a night’s tab at Claude’s. For a Thursday it was packed. Sylvain sat and waited and waited some more. He thought of white-haired women and faded photographs as drinks and drinker’s conversation dissolved around him until finally a drawl he knew shook him from his reverie.
“What’ll it be?”
“You always ask,” Sylvain said. “It never changes.”
“Any good bartender needs a catchphrase,” said Claude. He slid Sylvain his usual sour. A twist of peel garnished the rim. He’d mixed it as they talked. Sylvain nodded in appreciation and took a long draught.
The lemon was assertive. Claude knew how he liked it.
“I’ve got a job for you, Riegan.”
“All your jobs are jobs for me.”
That Sylvain could not deny. He told Claude about the client and slid him the photograph over the counter for good measure. Claude listened and said nothing. He took the photograph and looked at it evenly for several long moments. Then he frowned.
“You could have gotten more out of her.”
“I couldn’t have gotten a word out of her,” said Sylvain, “not if I’d tried.”
“No -- financially. It’s not every day you take on a Hresvelg as a client.”
“I’m surprised you know the name.”
“Everyone knows it. Make that much money and news travels fast. The Blaiddyds of -- Boston?”
“Philadelphia, last I checked.”
“ -- Philadelphia, then. East Coast money, same as you.”
Sylvain couldn’t help but laugh. “The Gautiers don’t have that kind of money.”
“They’ve got enough, though. Enough that a Gautier shouldn’t need to be a private dick. Hard not to wonder about sometimes.”
“Keep wondering,” said Sylvain. “Another glass.”
There were over a dozen bars in Potrero but for all intents and purposes there was really only one. Claude’s was the neighborhood. Every grifter in the city had made its acquaintance. A night here with your ears peeled could blow a case wide open. Sylvain made the rounds. There was a crowd tonight: the singer Dorothea; a new understudy she had brought on a whim; Raphael, who ran the lodge down the street; his newest boarder, a fellow named Ignatz; even a dark-haired man he did not know sitting in the far corner, nursing an old-fashioned.
The gossip was all useless. The only item of note was that someone was set to acquire the Ferry Building. It was news to the boarder, who worked in the building. The boarder had started a job as county clerk and was knee-deep in census records. Dorothea’s opera was opening. Raphael’s boarders were behaving. Nothing worth remembering. No one recognized the picture.
Only Dorothea had a lead. The hairpin looked familiar, she said. Her old flatmate had something similar. A former nun by the name of Mercedes von Martritz. Not much of a lead but better than vapor. Certainly all he had to go on. As payment Dorothea wanted him to see her show. He had always meant to go but pretended to consider it.
“You’ll come and see me, won’t you, Gautier? A pathetic man like you with nothing better to do.” She raised her glass to him as if to toast.
“I don’t see why you talk to him like that,” said the understudy -- Lorenz -- reproachfully. He was from a good family. He did not fit in.
“He likes it,” Dorothea said.
“I do.”
“I don’t see why,” said Lorenz rather petulantly. He was a man who could not understand women. No one could understand why he was at the bar at all.
At one AM the bar finally began to empty out. At length Sylvain’s attention returned to the man in the corner with the dark hair and bright eyes. As he gazed at him longer he decided he resembled nothing more than a wet cat. Happiness seemed an emotion foreign to him. And he did not want to be disturbed -- one did not have to be a gumshoe to tell.
Sylvain took the hint. He plucked five fresh bills from his wallet and left them under his glass as a nod to Claude’s continued services. Then he walked home, through empty streets and yellow fog, and passed out on his cot without changing clothes.
--
At ten o’clock the next morning he found himself calling on Mercedes von Martritz’s apartment. She let him in at once; she had been expecting him. He had not known what to expect of a former nun but had expected no one so personable. She wore a veil that covered none of the important attributes of her face: neither the smile nor the eyes nor the voice full of song. She insisted he call her Mercedes. She was altogether lovely. She was wasted on a convent.
Mercedes made him tea while they talked. She had grown up in the church, raised by sisters, and she had always intended to serve. But her presence had brought trouble to Sacred Heart. A specter from her past had come calling. What sort of specter? Here she was loath to provide detail and foolishly he did not press her. It was enough to know that adornment was worn by the nuns. Or he hoped it would be.
He had meant to stop in on the flat briefly but found himself lingering into the afternoon. As he got up to leave she kissed him on the cheek and his heart stuttered. “Fell and Fillmore,” she said brightly. “You can’t miss it.”
--
He didn’t miss it. Over the intersection of Fell and Fillmore towered Sacred Heart Monastery. Age emanated from its weathered stone. It took up the full city block. What it was doing there in the first place Sylvain didn’t know. The stone stairs carved into the steep hill were smooth and treacherous and climbing them proved no mean feat. At the very top a wrought iron gate with a serpentine motif barred entry.
Sylvain stood there and waited. Waiting was part of the job. After what felt like an eternity a man with a goatee strode out to meet him.
This man looked deeply aged yet not aged at all. From his robes and his stature it was clear he was a man of importance.
“Seteth,” the man said, rather primly. He looked uncomfortable. “I’m afraid visitors are generally -- announced. Particularly -- police.”
“I’m not with the law.”
The monk -- Seteth -- looked him over with old thoughtful eyes before nodding just once in agreement. “Perhaps a private investigator. Doubtless you have business here.”
“I might and I might not. Mercedes von Martritz sent me.”
This surprised Seteth visibly. “Mercedes is your client?”
“No,” Sylvain said, “she’s got nothing against you. But I’m looking for a woman with flowers in her hair and she told me this was where I’d find her.”
Seteth smiled at that. On another man it would have been a laugh.
“Fascinating,” he said, and looked off down Fillmore absently. Then he took Sylvain by the hand and led him through the gate.
Everyone they came across stared. Sylvain could hardly blame them. You didn’t see a senior monk dragging along a gumshoe every day. Seteth had not lied: there were no visitors at Sacred Heart. Various sisters drifted by in their veils and their flowering hairclips, whispering as they passed. None of them matched the photo. Or perhaps they did and it was impossible to tell. The only person he saw who seemed not to have sworn vows was a haggard man being helped by a small nun. Perhaps he was a supplicant.
In the meanwhile Seteth showed him the grounds. Here was the courtyard. Here a greenhouse for the brothers and sisters interested in botany. There were the fountains and the pond. The monk lit up as he described the rituals of fishing. Sylvain listened with interest and bemusement. He tossed a coin in the pond for luck. When the tour concluded he was almost sorry for it.
“You’ve been awfully gracious.”
“We are in the business of grace,” said Seteth. “Rhea wants to see you.” It was clear Sylvain didn’t understand. Seteth’s face creased with amusement. Each of his emotions corresponded to a line on his face. “The Mother Superior.”
--
A golden light suffused the abbess’s rooms. Ornate stained-glass patterns decorated a single vast window. The panelling told a story Sylvain did not know. It was open slightly. A woman stood by the window, hands clasped over her robes, her face impassive. Even from behind she had an air of command he could sense. All the lines of the room were drawn to her. A lone white lily adorned her hair. She turned ever so slightly toward them and there it was. The photo’s likeness. It was there. All there.
Seteth bowed twice: slightly to him, deeply to her. Then he was gone, and Sylvain was alone with the Mother Superior.
He was not a religious man but seeing her he knew God played favorites. She had astonishing seafoam eyes. Imperious curves. He would never have picked her for an abbess in a crowd. Not that abbesses usually made it to crowds. That was good all things considered. A woman like that could do real damage out in the world.
Then she turned ever so slightly toward him and he saw it: the photo's likeness, plain as day.
“So you’re Gautier,” said Rhea, huskier than an abbess had any right to be. “Seteth told me about you. I’ve been expecting a lackey for some time now, really, so it’s no shock.“
“I’m not sure what you mean,” he said truthfully.
“Drop the act. It’s the girl, isn’t it? You’re here on her behalf.”
Sylvain eyed her. She did not mean Mercedes.
“I wouldn’t be much of a detective if I told you all about my client.”
“I suppose she did a little number on you. The damsel-in-distress routine.”
“She wasn’t very distressed for a damsel.”
Rhea laughed. She looked Sylvain over with newfound respect.
“Probably said she wanted information. She’s a damn liar. She wants the sword.”
“I don’t know anything about a sword,” he said slowly.
She laughed again, this time for longer. This laugh was no meek thing. It was harsh and guttural and wild.
“That girl’s something else. I tell my enemies more than she does her friends.”
He did not argue the point.
“I’ll show you,” said Rhea. She led him through hallways and hallways. She led him through twisting passageways to a room full of dust.
It was an armory, or a shrine, or something in between. Weapons of great age and unknown provenance lined the walls. One such weapon caught his eye immediately. It was no ordinary sword. The blade was serrated. The hilt was carved in an ornate pattern he had never seen. A great doom seemed to be upon it.
Rhea followed his gaze. “So you did know.”
“I’m a good guesser.”
“Hm,” said Rhea. She took it down from the wall and practically threw it into his arms. It was sturdier than it looked. Gold flecks peeled carelessly off the handle and blade. Holding it he could imagine himself a swordsman in another time. He continued to hold it. An indentation in the hilt was there, strange enough to draw attention. It would have fit something the size of an egg. As he held the hilt longer the imaginings wavered and suddenly warped into terrible things: war, famine, ravines and rivers of red. Sylvain shuddered. He handed it back.
“That thing’s trouble for anyone it touches.”
Rhea accepted it without complaint. Coolly she lifted it.
“Seiros herself wielded this in the Crusades. Our order has safekept it for centuries.” Her sea-green eyes shone bright on the steel. In them there seemed to be fondness. Perhaps even pride. “Insolent girl. Thinking a holy relic is a family heirloom.” Then she swept the blade toward the floor in one cutting fluid motion. He barely saw it move. This woman knew more than one way to fell a man.
“I don’t know much about it,” said Sylvain.
“You know enough,” said Rhea. “You know not to trust Edelgard."
She spat this last part like a curse.
--
On the way out of the monastery he ran back into the haggard man. His eyes were sunken into the pits of his face. His presence was commanding. In another life he could have been a politician or a general. In this one something dreadful had befallen him.
“He wants to tell you something.”
It was the nun from earlier. She had mint-green curls and barely came up to his elbows. She was clutching his hand brightly. She was not scared of him at all. “He says -- that you’re being followed, I think. By someone. Or something, I’m not sure.“
“I’d like more details,” said Sylvain, “if you will.”
The haggard man looked at him. A matted shock of hair obscured one eye. The other was bright and awful. Sylvain looked at it until he could look no longer. This seemed to please the haggard man.
“Be careful,” the man said, in a voice hoarse from disuse. His lone eye gleamed. Then he turned away.
--
He called his client that afternoon and told her most of the details. He was careful not to mention the sword. She sounded tired and slightly annoyed but thanked him all the same. The forty dollars would be in his account by the morrow. She thanked him for his time. He thanked her for the money. After a final couple of stilted exchanges he hung up and thought for a long moment.
It was odd to feel so strongly he was missing something crucial. Sylvain mixed himself three highballs and drank them. He skimmed the paper. No news except that the Ferry deal had gone through with a picture of a sallow-looking man to go with it. Nothing at all about a sword. He sighed out loud and tried to convince himself it would turn up in the wash. He washed his pony-glasses and put them away and took them out again. At length he realized it had become seven-thirty and Dorothea’s show would start within the hour, whereupon he got in his Plymouth and floored it to Van Ness.
The opera was packed like sardines. It was opening night and Manuela Casagranda was headlining. Posters of her lined the hall. Her North American debut, they said. Somehow he’d forgotten. Sylvain weaved through the upper balconies and their velvet seats looking for a place to sit until a gaze stopped him in his tracks halfway through the third row of seats.
It was the man from Claude’s. His dark hair was tied back in a bun. Anger radiated from every pore of his body. Sylvain couldn’t stop looking at him.
“May I sit here?”
“Suit yourself,” said the man irritably.
“You’re from the other night -- Claude’s -- I never caught your name.”
“No,” said the man. “You didn’t.”
Up close he looked like a panther, sleek and black. He felt dangerous in a way Sylvain was not familiar with. He looked at Sylvain with violent eyes. On women that expression meant desire. On men it meant hatred. Here he was not sure which.
--
Sylvain had never seen Tosca. From what he could glean the plot went as follows: Tosca, the singer, loved the painter Cavaradossi. Scarpia, the corrupt police chief, desired her. He was corrupt and would stop at nothing to claim her. Tosca, knowing this, formulated a plan. And then tragedy struck.
It was torrid. It was an opera plot. He spotted Dorothea as a village girl in the first act and then again in the chorus. He did not look for the understudy. One thing only was on his mind. At intermission he strode outside and found the man in the turtleneck.
“You don’t seem to like me very much,” he said, “and there’s no harm in that, but for whatever I’ve done to offend you, I’d like to apologize.”
The man shuddered. Then he turned away.
“You’ve done nothing wrong,” he said. “I just don’t like your client.”
Sylvain’s answer surprised himself. “I don’t either," he said. "But she's paying good money.”
The man let out a short bark. “Money!” he said darkly. “She would -- she’s got enough of that.” He appraised Sylvain once more. The open hostility was gone from his eyes, replaced by something else. He had a secret and he wanted to spit it out. They were alone on the balcony. Indistinct chatter wafted from below. Again Sylvain waited. He knew when to wait.
“What do you know about Dimitri Blaiddyd?” said the man.
Sylvain thought about it carefully. He took a long draught of his glass and thought more.
“Not very much,” he admitted. “His widow’s rich. What of it?”
This was not the response the man had been expecting. He looked at him in disbelief.
“That’s really all you know.”
“Do I look like a man who’s not telling the truth?”
“You wouldn’t know truth if it slapped you in the face.”
Sylvain stared at him. Then he laughed. “You’re a riot. I never knew a riot could be so mean. Give me your name.”
The man looked at him. His eyes glittered unspeakably. “Fraldarius,” he said. “Felix Fraldarius.”
--
The second half of Tosca went by more slowly than the first. This was due to no fault of the plot but rather human error. He could not stop thinking of the man seated next to him. Only the ending recaptured his attention. Caravadossi’s death scene. Whoever was playing him was quite the actor. He staggered out on stage for a couple steps, fell to the floor and writhed to rapturous applause. As the curtain fell Sylvain’s attention snapped to his seatmate like a drawn string. Soon they were at the bar downstairs nursing two stiff drinks and talking. Or at least Sylvain was.
“I liked Caravadossi,” said Sylvain, “liked that little routine when he died -- convincing.”
“Hm.”
“You know, you’ve barely touched your drink.”
Another scowl. “Drink it yourself if you care so much.”
“I think I will,” said Sylvain, and did. It was a full glass of peat whiskey and it burned like hell on the way down. “You’re scowling, Fraldarius. Can I call you Felix?”
“I don’t give a damn what you call me.”
Sylvain was starting to enjoy that scowl.
It was raining sheets as they walked down Gough. Wet lamplight flooded the pavement. Fraldarius knew how to navigate the crowd. His eyes shifted ceaselessly left to right. He turned into alleyways without explanation. At length he stopped abruptly and muttered into Sylvain’s ear:
“We’re being followed.”
They were. They had walked quickly and with purpose to prevent that very possibility. But they had not succeeded. Felix Fraldarius was a wary man and Sylvain was no slouch and each felt the man’s presence: a spectre trailing them some thirty yards back, receding into smoke when either sought him out.
"He's no amateur," muttered Sylvain. “We can’t shake him -- we’d better blend in.”
“Got any ideas?”
“Maybe,” Sylvain said. He grabbed Felix by the wrist and booked it up the street to the brasserie. A crowd was forming as it always did after the show. He maneuvered them through the throng as if to enter. At the last moment he stepped expertly behind a fighting couple and pushed Felix against the alley wall in one deft motion. Here it was raining and dark and no one could make out their faces. But that was not his only plan.
Felix looked up at him. His eyes burned like embers.
Sylvain had one more idea. Almost experimental. He bent down. Felix looked up at him. His body was jagged like knives. Tense and on edge. He kissed like someone who hadn’t been kissed in a long time. Like someone hungry for it. Sylvain did not know how long they stood there for. Only the steady patter of rain and the murmur of the bar reminded him that time was passing.
“Are we still being followed?” he asked, finally, after minutes of this.
Felix said nothing. His eyes were wide and they flickered over Sylvain as if asking a question. Then he leaned forward again.
--
At seven o’clock the next morning Sylvain woke up to a loud rap on his door. It was followed by a flurry of raps that conveyed urgency. He recognized those raps. They could mean nothing good. One bleary squint through the blinds conveyed the picture well enough. A squadron car parked on the street. Outside his door an officer standing impatiently.
Not just any officer. Sylvain knew that cropped blonde hair well. He shuffled down the stairs two at a time and opened the door in his bedclothes.
“Galatea. To what do I owe the pleasure?”
The captain scowled. “Drop the formalities. You know why I’m here.”
“I don’t, actually,” said Sylvain. It was true, though he had a guess.
Captain Ingrid Galatea looked at him and sighed as if talking to an infant. The captain had an unimpeachable sense of justice and as much give to her as a wooden plank. She had kept her nose to the grindstone for eight years to get this job and had cleaned house the moment she took it. No one wanted to be on her bad side. From the way she was looking at him now he figured he might be.
“You’re wanted at the station,” the captain said, “on suspicion of murder.”