“ How many dead?” said Samantha softly.
“Eleven.”
“Good… good Lord.”
“Yeah. This is the worst yet. The worst by far.” He paused. “Someone is killing unioners. And anyone they’re close to.”
There was a pause as Hayes and Samantha considered that.
“Have you seen many unioners with that tattoo?” asked Hayes.
“Well. No. Just the recent dead ones.”
“But even so, who would want them dead?” Hayes said, standing up. He walked to the edge of the platform and looked down at the sooty rails and the blackened stone floor. “I mean, who’d even be able to do something like this? Slaughter everyone on a trolley without even slowing it down?”
“You sure those names are all you can give us?” said a voice.
Hayes turned to see Collins standing not far off, watching him with harsh eyes. “What?” he said.
“You sure there’s nothing else you know? At all?” asked Collins.
Hayes shook his head. “Nothing.”
Collins looked at him for a long time. Eyes uncertain. Hands at his hips, uncomfortably close to his gun.
“What?” asked Hayes.
“There’s nothing you’re hiding from us?” Collins asked, this time quieter.
“Hiding? No. Why are you asking?”
But Collins just shook his head and walked back to the other officers.
“What the hell? What was that about?” asked Hayes.
“He’s just worried,” said Garvey.
“Well, I can see that.”
“No, he’s worried about you. And McNaughton.”
“Why?”
“Oh, come on, Hayes,” said Garvey, exasperated. “You come in here telling us that about half these men are responsible for murders in your company, and then all of them suddenly drop dead? Not to mention that it was on the day after you sent me their files. That’s sort of odd, isn’t it?”
“You think McNaughton could have done this?”
“I don’t know. Do you?”
Hayes stared into the tracks at his feet. “No,” he said. “They don’t have the guts. Besides, those files I sent you were nothing. Just enough to give you a lead.”
“You sure?” Garvey said.
“I doubt if McNaughton is capable of murder, either,” said Samantha. “Particularly mass murder. But before we’re asked to start incriminating ourselves, are we involved with an official police investigation, Detective Garvey?”
“Well. Not official, no,” said Garvey.
“So on what grounds are we here?”
“You were just asked. By me. And Collins. And Brightly, probably. Consulted, maybe. Your company pulls a lot of water around here. People are usually pretty happy to just do whatever the hell they say. But I have a hunch that’s going to change soon.”
They turned to look at the conductor, who was shouting about something once more. The policemen around him frantically tried to flag him down.
“And all he knows is he heard a loud noise,” said Hayes quietly.
“Yeah,” said Garvey.
“And then all those people were dead.”
“Yes. And only he survived, out of all of them,” said Garvey. Then, quieter, “Want to sit with him for a while? See if he’s telling the truth?”
Hayes shook his head. “Not in a crowd. Later, maybe. I’m already getting a headache. And you think your John Doe may have something to do with it?”
“Maybe. I’d talk about it but I don’t know when I’m getting out of here. It’ll be hours for sure.”
“How many other detectives are on this?”
“Right now we’re all just running around, bugshit crazy. I’m guessing it’ll come down to two murder police and then a shitload of High Crimes. I’ll be on it, maybe. Labor detail and all. Probably Morris, too.”
“Shit,” said Hayes. “Morris is worthless.”
“Yeah. Goddamn. Usually I love a murder in the Shanties. All these little tennie weasels do is talk. cooped up in these goddamn tenements, what else are they going to do but talk about who killed who, and why? But this is going to be the pits.” He moved to spit, then glanced sideways at Samantha and stopped. He coughed and said, “Want me to swing by and kick you out of bed later?”
“That’ll work,” said Hayes.
“I need to get back. It was, ah, nice meeting you, Miss Fairbanks,” he said, and tipped his hat. The he walked back to the distant, dark figures grouped around the trolley.
“John Doe?” asked Samantha as they walked back up through the streets.
“Unnamed murder,” Hayes said. “Garvey caught one a couple of weeks ago. Man found floating in a Construct canal, throat cut. Dragged him out right before I met you, in fact.”
“Oh. And, excuse me, but what exactly is Construct?”
Hayes stopped and looked at her cockeyed.
“I mean, I’ve heard everyone talk about it,” she said. “I’ve just never seen the name on any of the districts and boroughs or anything.”
“That’s because it’s not a real name. That’s odd. You’re usually pretty on the ball, Sam,” he said. “Construct is the great stillbirth of Evesden. Here, you can see it from nearby.”
He led her out to the edge of a bridge and pointed at the northwestern horizon. There beside the massive form of the Kulahee Bridge two dozen tall cement pillars stood like ancient monoliths, bare and gray and silent, each bigger than most buildings. Around their bases were skeletons of scaffolding and iron framework and silent construction equipment. They seemed like the ruins of a primitive temple, as though some savage fragment of history had somehow found itself wedged against the shore.
Samantha frowned. “So it’s just…”
“You probably know it as the Isle Projects,” said Hayes.
“Oh. Yes.”
“No one calls it that here, though. It was going to be a section of city-funded, McNaughton-approved, and McNaughton-built tenements. Domiciles. Towers of apartments. Whatever the hell. Some were going to be bigger than the Nail, they said.”
“And what happened?”
“Well, for one thing, most of the land around the city was already used up. So some engineering prodigy decided they’d make their own.”
“Their own land?”
“Yes. After all, it had worked for the Kulahee Bridge. See, that area designated for Construct wasn’t good for foundation, not at all. Part of an ocean runlet, or something. But they gave it a good try and laid down cement and steel and redirected the streams and gave half the damn shore a complete overhaul. Reclamation, they called it. Brought in some Dutchman to do it, apparently they’re naturals. Eventually they had just miles and miles and miles of buildable foundation, some of it right out in the ocean. Or so they thought. North section started experiencing real trouble with the dredging and it put the rest of the plan on a tilt. They said you could put a marble on one end of Construct and it’d travel four miles before going into the water, on a dry day at low tide, that is. Then the contractors and the real estate folks started crying foul and there were problems with backers or whatever, and everything devolved into some sort of huge litigious feud. It’s been in limbo in court for years. There’s a lot of money to be made there, you know. It’s Evesden’s great humanitarian effort. It was going to turn it from a valuable hole to the shining city on the hill.”
“How do you mean?”
“Hum,” said Hayes, thinking. One hand roved through his coat for a match. Finding one, he lit it and puffed at his cigarette distractedly. “That’s a bit more complicated.”
“Please try, if you would.”
“Well, see, if you go from one end of this city to the other you’ll find a dozen towns in between. All with different names, all with different people. This city exploded and people grouped together and lived where they wanted before the government could say anything about it. But the poor got the short end of the stick. They…”
He stopped and looked at her. Her pad was out and she was scribbling away.
“Are you writing this down?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said.
“Why?”
“Because I want to know this. Go on.”
“Well. Suit yourself. Anyways, the poor got the short end of the stick. They got the in-between places. They got Dockland. They got the Shanties. They got Lynn. We’re in the nice part of the Shanties now, almost none of it is this presentable. Construct was going to be new living. The rich extending a hand to the poor. Instead they made the world’s biggest graveyard. So the poor stay where they are, stuck in their little neighborhoods, and everyone tries to forget about it.” He sneaked a glance at her. “Newton is far and away the most advanced section of town. It has the elevated train and it has the conduits. You’re living in the twentieth century we were all promised, while the rest of the city’s still fucking medieval. Hope you like it.” He stamped out his cigarette. “Come on. Let’s go see Evans and find out what the word is.”