He realized she was trying to thank him. Skeeter felt his cheeks burn. "Listen, about the bill, I've got some money—"
"We'll talk about that later, all right? Oh-oh..."
Skeeter glanced around and blanched.
His boss was in-bound and the head of station maintenance did not look happy.
"Is it true?" Charlie Ryan demanded.
"Is what true?" Skeeter asked, wary and on his guard.
"That you beat up a construction worker over a goddamned down-timer whore? Then brought her up here while you're still clocked in officially on my dime?"
Skeeter clenched his fists. "Yes, it's true! He was beating the shit out of her—"
"I don't pay you to rescue your down-timer pals, Jackson! I looked the other way when it was Ianira Cassondra, but this by God tears it! And I sure as hell don't pay you to put hard-working construction professionals in the brig!"
Rachel tried to intervene. "Charlie, everyone on station's had trouble with those guys and you know it."
"Stay out of this, Rachel! Jackson, I pay you to mop bathrooms. Right now, there's a bathroom in Little Agora that's not getting mopped."
"I'll clean the stinking bathroom!" Skeeter growled.
Charlie Ryan look him up and down. "No, you won't. You're fired, Jackson."
"Charlie—" Rachel protested.
"Let it go, Rachel," Skeeter bit out. "If I'd known I was working for a stinking bigot, I'd've quit weeks ago."
He stalked out of the infirmary and let the crowds on Commons swallow him up.
What he was going to do now, he honestly did not know.
He walked aimlessly for ages, hands thrust deep into his pockets, watching the tourists practice walking in their rented costumes and laughing at one another's antics and buying each other expensive lunches and souvenirs, and wondered if any of them had the slightest notion what it was like for the down-time populations stranded on these stations?
He was sitting on the marble edging of a fountain in Victoria Station, head literally in hands, when Kynan Rhys Gower appeared from out of the crowd, expression grim. "Skeeter, we have trouble."
He glanced up, startled to hear the Welshman's voice. "Trouble? Oh, man, now what?"
"It is Julius," Kynan said quietly. "He is missing."
Skeeter just shut his eyes for a long moment. "Oh, no..." Not another friend, missing. The teenager from Rome had organized the down-timer kids into a sort of club known affectionately as the Lost and Found Gang. Under Ianira's guidance, the "gang" had turned its attention to earning money guiding lost tourists back to their hotel rooms, serving as the Found Ones' eyes and ears in places where adults would have roused suspicion, running errands and proving their value time and again. The children's work had allowed the Found Ones to learn rather a good bit more about the cults active on station than Mike Benson or anyone in security had managed to discover.
"How long has he been missing?" Skeeter asked tiredly.
"We are not sure," Kynan sighed. "No one has seen him since..." The Welshman hesitated. "He was supposed to be running an errand for the Found Ones, just before the riot broke out, the one Inaira disappeared in. No one has seen him, since."
"Oh, God. What's going on around this station?"
Kynan clenched his fists in visible frustration. "I do not know! But if I find out, Skeeter, I will take apart whoever is responsible!"
Of that, Skeeter had no doubt whatsoever. Skeeter intended to help. "Okay, we've got to get another search organized. For Julius, this time."
"The Lost and Found Gang are already searching."
"I want them to get as close to those creeps on the Arabian Nights construction crew as they can. And those crazy Jack the Ripper cults, too. Any group of nuts on this station who might have a reason to want Ianira to disappear, to stir up trouble, is on the suspect list."
Kynan nodded. "I will get word to the children. They are angry, Skeeter, and afraid."
"Huh. So am I, Kynan Rhys Gower. So am I."
The Welshman nodded slowly. "Yes. A brave man is one who admits his fear. Only a fool believes himself invincible. The Council of Seven has called an emergency meeting. Another one."
"That's no surprise. What time?"
"An hour from now."
Skeeter nodded. At least he wouldn't have to worry about losing his job, sneaking off to attend it. Kynan Rhys Gower hesitated. "I have heard what happened, Skeeter. Bergitta is all right?"
"Yeah. Bruised, scared. But Rachel said she's okay."
"Good." The one-time longbow-man's jaw muscles bunched. "Charlie Ryan is a pig. He hires us because he does not have to pay, what is the up-time word? Union wages."
"Yeah. Tell me about it."
"Skeeter..."
He glanced up at the ominous growl in the other man's voice.
"Accidents happen."
"No." Skeeter shoved himself to his feet, looked the Welshman straight in the eyes. "No, it's his right to fire me. And I was doing a lousy job, spending all my time looking for Ianira and Marcus instead of working. I happen to think he's got his priorities screwed up, but I won't hear of anything like that. I appreciate it, but it'd just be a waste of effort. Guys like Charlie Ryan are like mushrooms. Squash one, five more pop up. Besides, if anybody's going to loosen his teeth, it's gonna be me, okay?"
Kynan Rhys Gower clearly considered arguing, then let it go. "That is your right," he said quietly. "But you have earned more this day than you have lost."
Skeeter didn't know what to say.
"I will see you at the Council meeting," the Welshman told him quietly, then left him standing in the glare and noise of Commons, wondering why his eyes stung so harshly. "I'll be there," Skeeter swore to empty air.
How many more of his friends would simply vanish into thin air before this ugly business was done? What had Julius seen or overheard, to cause someone to snatch him, too? When Skeeter got his hands on whoever was responsible for this... That someone would learn what it meant to suffer the summary justice of a Yakka Mongol clansman. Meanwhile, he had another friend missing.
Skeeter had far too few friends to risk losing any more of them.
Margo craned forward, so excited and repelled at the same time, she felt queasy. Then she saw the face and gasped as she recognized him. "James Maybrick!" she cried. "It's James Maybrick! The cotton merchant from Liverpool!"
"Shh!" The scholars motioned frantically for silence, trying to hear anything the murderer and his victim might say, even though everything was being recorded, including Polly Nichols' final footfalls. Margo gulped back nausea, watched in rising horror as Maybrick escorted his victim down to the gate where he would strangle and butcher her. When he struck with his fist, Margo hid her face in her hands, unable to watch. The sounds were bad enough...
Then Conroy Melvyn burst out, "Who the bloody hell is that?"
Margo jerked her gaze up to the television screen... and found herself staring, right along with the rest of the shocked Ripper Watch Team. A man had crept up behind Jack the Ripper, who was still hacking away at his dead victim.
"James... enough." Just the barest thread of a whisper. Then, when Maybrick continued to hack at the dead woman's neck, as though trying to cut loose her entire head, "She's dead, James. Enough!"
Whoever this man was, he clearly knew James Maybrick. More importantly, Maybrick clearly knew him. The maniacal rage in Maybrick's eyes faded as he glanced around. Maybrick's lips worked wetly. "But I wanted the head..." Plaintive, utterly mad.
"There's no time. Fetch me the money from her pockets. Be quick about it, the constable will be arriving momentarily."
The Buck's Row cameras, fitted with low-light equipment, picked up the lean, saturnine face, the drooping mustaches of a total stranger who stepped up to peer at Polly Nichols. As Maybrick stooped to crouch over the dead woman, the newcomer closed a hand around Jack the Ripper's shoulder, a casual gesture which revealed a depth of meaning to anyone who knew the stiff etiquette of Victorian Britain. These men knew each other well enough for casual familiarities. Maybrick was wiping his knife on Polly's underskirts.