Red Dog Conspiracy: A Noir Future Steampunk Crime Family Saga

The next morning, I pored over the newspaper, searching for clues as to the nature of the Red Dogs.

Little had happened overnight. There were no ads denouncing us, no editorials seeking new ideals …

“Anything of interest in the paper today?” Amelia said.

“Nothing noteworthy. Perhaps the villains took the day off.”

Amelia laughed.

But I would not be deterred. The Red Dog cards were either taunts or attempts at intimidation, and the thought of either infuriated me. I meant to get to the bottom of this.

At first, the idea of the kidnapper being at the Ball left me bewildered. But I realized there were many men at the Ball besides those announced on the list. Waiters, retainers, cooks, Men’s Room attendants, even the coat-man himself.

“I read the piece on your charity adventure in the newspaper,” Tony said at breakfast. “Father will be pleased.”

This was the longest speech Tony had given since the Kerrs’ visit the day before. “It was most productive.”

“What about the interview? When will it print?”

I shook my head and shrugged. “Never, so far as I know. The man resigned.”

Tony frowned. “For what reason?”

“I don’t know. Even his editor Mr. Durak could not say. His resignation was sudden and unexpected.”

“Jacqui, what happened? In the interview.”

I glanced at the maid. Tony waved her out of the room. “Come sit with me.”

What should I tell him?

I moved to sit to his right. “Nothing happened. Amelia sat with us and we had tea. I asked Mr. Pike what he meant by his editorial. We had a short conversation. He mentioned the poor, so I invited him to come with me to dispense charity. He agreed to come but never arrived. Mr. Durak came instead.”

“How odd.” After a few moments, Tony resumed eating. “I can only hope the man resigned for reasons that have nothing to do with our family.”

“I apologize for yesterday. You’re right; I drank too much. I didn’t expect them to call … and I wasn’t myself.”

Tony shook his head and shrugged, telling me not to think of it further.

I felt relieved. “I thought if they are upset, we should know before the Queen’s Day dinner, to avoid controversy with so many guests present. Might I invite the younger Kerrs to luncheon before then, to make sure all is well?”

Tony nodded. “That’s a good idea.”

* * *

After the morning meeting, I told Pearson I was going to the dressmaker’s and would be home for luncheon.

Madame Biltcliffe’s storefront had beveled glass and polished cedar under wide eaves. Perfectly dressed and coiffed mannequins stood in the window around an empty chair made of oak trimmed in brass.

A large placard on the chair read:

Currently Engaged By

Mrs. Anthony Spadros

For Her Spring Gown

If anything, Madame Biltcliffe excelled at salesmanship.

My day footman Honor took my hand to help me out of the carriage, and yes, I thanked him. Society etiquette be damned. I detested the notion that I must ignore a man’s assistance.

Honor nodded without expression and closed the door.

Madame Biltcliffe made the dress I was visiting her for weeks ago, a green silk shantung gown and jacket with black cording, quite intricate. All it needed was hemming, but fussing with the dress seemed as good an excuse as any to get away. Tony had no idea what making dresses entailed or how long one should take.

Being the dressmaker to Mrs. Anthony Spadros brought Madame Biltcliffe a good deal of business. So our arrangement to use her maid as a decoy was most satisfactory.

As a “shop maid,” I could go many places “Mrs. Spadros” could not. Besides, it wouldn’t do to have someone peek behind the curtain where I supposedly posed for dress-fitting and find an empty room.

I changed into Madame Biltcliffe’s deep mourning (with veil) and left through her back door, arriving at the train station at the stroke of eleven.

The train station was like most - a concrete slab floor with concrete pillars holding a wooden roof. Large clocks adorned the top of every fourth post, while benches of dark wood with black wrought-iron armrests completed the scene. The sky was gray and misty, the sun failing to shine upon the tracks.

Stephen arrived twenty minutes late, out of breath. I followed him around the corner and we sat at a bench.

“A man was … after me,” Stephen panted, “had to lose him.”

Fear gripped me, and I took a deep breath, trying to calm myself. “What did he look like?”

“Didn’t get … a good look … at his face. He was dressed … like a gentleman … all in brown -”

Could it have been the same man?

“… Didn’t know he was following until … I went round several corners and he was … still back behind. Scared me, he did.”

Why would he follow Stephen? Was he there on charity day?

I peered around me. Several men in brown hurried to their trains, fussed with their luggage, talked with their wives, or entertained their children.

Surely a gentleman would have been conspicuous down by the Spadros poorhouse? Wouldn’t Mr. Durak, the editor, have noticed a man who didn’t belong in their group?

I glanced at the clock; I had a short time before I must leave. I took out the half-dollar, and Stephen stared at it. “I’m looking for a boy of twelve that’s gone missing.”

Stephen grabbed the top of his hair with his left hand and stared at the ceiling while his breathing slowed. Then he dropped his arm and faced me. “I don’t know of anyone gone missing. Did he run off?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know. All I know is there was a stamp on the wall of a Red Dog -”

The young man stood. “Wasn’t me, miss, I swear!”

“I’m not blaming you. Here, sit down.”

He didn’t move. A train came into the station and stopped, passengers coming and going around us.

“Come on, please. Sit. I’m not with the police. I just want to find the boy for his mother.”

“Okay.” Stephen sat. “What do you want me to do?”

“I know you’re with the Red Dogs, okay? I don’t care. Do they talk about the boy?”

He shook his head. “Nobody never tells me nothing. Just do this or do that. The ace, he gets word what to do and then he tells us, and we do it. He gives us sweets and a penny each time. The penny helps my Ma a lot. Usually all I do is put the card down, but I just started.”

“What’s the ace’s name?”

Stephen shrugged. “They call him Clover. He’s older, like eighteen, and he has a patch on his eye.”

“Who tells Clover what to tell you?”

Stephen shrugged. “I dunno. I never seen him, or heard a name. That’s all I know, miss, I swear.”

The chime struck half past eleven.

I handed him the half-dollar, and he stuffed it in his pocket. “There’s another one if you learn more about the boy. He’s twelve but looks ten, with dark hair and eyes. Name’s David Bryce.”

Stephen nodded gravely. “It’s bad to take little boys.” His face twisted in disgust. “Not what we do at all. I’ll help find him.”

“Don’t take chances. Meet back here in one week, same time. If someone follows you again, go to Madame Biltcliffe’s dress shop on 42nd street. Leave a message for Eunice Ogier with Madame Biltcliffe’s girl Tenni. She looks like me from the back.”

“Okay, Miss Ogier.” He smiled. “Thanks.”

I sat a few more minutes then made my way back to Madame’s shop, changed clothes, and went home. I got back with time to spare.

* * *

After luncheon, I went to my study to plan out my calling schedule. I couldn’t pretend to go places indefinitely: sooner or later I had to actually call on someone, or people would talk. I opened my calendar and began a list. Who visited and when, who left a card when Tony was hurt, those who had left invitations in my pocket at the Ball …

A knock at the door. “Come in.”

Inventor Maxim Call entered. I had never seen the man above ground since I came here, nor had he ever addressed me. I curtsied. “To what do I owe the honor of this visit?”

“Come here, girl, I have something to show you.”

Maxim Call was a grizzled old man, wiry and brown, with piercing blue eyes. He was a Spadros cousin, a distant one, but cared little about Family intrigue. Or social niceties, it seemed.

I followed him into the hall, mystified. Pearson hurried to ring the bell which warned the staff that I came downstairs. The Inventor went through the parlor and down the stairs, then through the kitchens to a door in the far wall. The maids curtsied as we passed.

The Inventor descended a winding flight of metal steps around a copper pole which felt hot to the touch. At the bottom of the steps was a white hallway, lit with electric bulbs from above. We entered a round room large enough to encompass the entire Spadros Manor, including its front porch, gardens, and stables.

The high-ceilinged room was warm, smelling of sulfur and sweat. In the center lay an 8-foot tall cylindrical cage which reminded me of lace. A box almost as large sat inside. Pulleys and chains emerged from this, going through the ceiling into tunnels above. Many pipes lined the walls. Vents in the ceiling matched those I remembered seeing on the floors above us.

The decor was old. The quadrant-folk called it Art Deco-dent, a reminder of the Old Days with its greedy, wicked men. I recalled the damaged grandeur of Ma’s cathedral, the smooth lines of steam automobiles. The mobs called the horseless carriage an offense against nature, and burned the factories that made them.

But this room teemed with mechanism: copper pipes, brass gears and pistons whirring. Liquids bubbled in glass tubes, and several Apprentices moved about the room.

“Quit your gawking and come here.”

I blinked, embarrassed. I had indeed been gawking. I went to the Inventor’s side.

“You know why we’re down here?”

“You … tend the Magma Steam Generator?”

“Pish, the Generator is two miles below us. Yes, we tend it. But we do much more here.” He gestured to include the room, and I turned to look. A man wearing dark goggles used a bright torch on metal, another tinkered underneath a huge weapon.

I turned back to him. “How may I help you?”

He grinned. “You’re a quick one. I did want to see you about the Generator. Tell me what you know of it.”

Very little, actually. “I know it’s inside the city piling, here, under the house. It seems odd, though. Why did they put the piling here?”

He laughed. “You have it wrong way round.” He gestured to an Apprentice, who brought two breathing masks, and we put them on. The mask felt quite confining, and the air close, but the sulfur smell vanished after a few breaths. “Want to see it?”

I nodded, excited at the opportunity. The list could wait.

Going to the box in the room’s center, the Inventor opened a door in the side of it. It was an automatic hoisting device, large enough to carry people, lit by an electric light above. Once inside, I realized this was another cage, only with a finer mesh.

The Inventor pressed a button, and we began to move. It felt strange and marvelous to descend into the earth, to see the rock move around us. The temperature rose every minute, oven-like, and I began to sweat.

“Many pilings anchor the city.” His voice came muffled from inside the mask, and it reminded me of the Masked Man. “The one here happened to have a scientific building over it to study the magma. The first Acevedo Spadros captured this building and refurbished it as his home.”

I nodded. It did explain the odd shape.

“It’s good for you: this building can withstand a bomb blast. Of course, there is a danger, having molten rock in your basement.” The cage came to a halt, and he opened the door. A walkway through a large, dark, empty room with an orange glow to our left. Steam curled in the air. “This is as close as we can go.”

We hurried to a door, which he opened, and we entered a small, well-lit room. After he closed the door behind us, he opened another one just ahead. This little room let us view the curling orange steam through thick windows.

The hole the steam exited seemed vast, many hundreds of feet across. The view was breathtaking.

The Inventor took off his mask. “The air is good here.” Once I took off my mask, he pointed at the orange steam. “The magma is many hundreds of feet below us. We wear special suits to venture further. Water drops to our generator beneath us; the magma’s heat turns the water to steam, which powers the mechanism.”

“So what is the problem?”

“Magma steam is corrosive. The combination of intense heat and corroding effect is destroying the drill tubes and pilings.”

I stared at him in shock. “What can be done?”

“There lies the problem. We don’t know. Eventually, the whole thing will decay until the tubes collapse. The magma will cool and harden, and all will be well. Except that we will have insufficient steam for the Generators, and lose electricity and heat for the city.”

He folded his arms. “Four hundred years our city thrived. The Coup did us in.” His voice was wistful. “Thirty years of warfare, without tending the tubes … and many of those who knew how were lost.” He shook his head. “I suppose we must all live in this world our parents made, playing the wretched cards they’ve dealt us. My life has been spent trying to learn how to slow the decay of our tubes, but I fear I will end in failure.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“If the Spadros drill tubes are failing, the rest of the city’s are as well. We Inventors must be allowed to work together if we have any chance of learning how to stop the process.”

I had a revelation: perhaps this explained the Clubb’s invitation at the Grand Ball. Were they trying to cultivate us as partners? “I still don’t understand. Why tell me this?”

“Roy Spadros will not listen. Your husband doesn’t understand what this will do to our quadrant. You have seen cold and darkness and famine.”

That I had.

A beautiful fat rat ran by, dark against the fallen pillars, but the snow made the stones too slippery to give chase. Shivering, I felt disappointed at missing the chance to catch it. My stomach rumbled at the thought of finally having meat for dinner.

“What can I do?”

“Talk with your husband. Beg him to listen. Tell him what it was like for you.”

I could do the first. I wasn’t sure the second would help much, and … I wasn’t ready for the third. “I will try.”

* * *

I wasn’t sure how to broach the subject of the Magma Steam Generator. So I said nothing. Tony didn’t speak for most of dinner. “I hear the Inventor brought you downstairs.”

I felt glad he brought it up, but he almost sounded angry. What was wrong? “He did.”

“Horrible place. I won’t have you down there again.”

His words stung. “I enjoyed it there.” I loved watching the orange steam as it curled.

Tony gave a short, bitter laugh. “Did you now. Did he tell you the world was ending, too?”

I felt hurt by Tony’s sarcasm, angry at his disrespect. It wasn’t like him. For all his gruffness, Maxim Call had spoken to me like a person, someone to be respected.

He looked up. “What’s wrong now?”

“You shouldn’t take the words of an Inventor lightly.”

Tony glanced at the servants. “Out.”

They curtsied or bowed, and left.

“Why would you speak to me that way in front of the staff?”

“I might say the same to you. What I don’t understand is why you would ignore such a threat to the city?”

Tony put down his fork. “What do you want me to do?”

“He wants to be allowed to speak with the other Inventors -”

“These Inventors always want to work together. This. Will. Not. Happen. I will not have other Families stealing our work. “

“He said he might learn how to fix it if -”

“We have the finest computers in the world. His Apprentice plans a machine to perform the computations of a hundred men. That is what Maxim Call should focus on, not -”

He missed the point entirely! “And how would it work without power?”

Tony brought both fists down so hard his plate and silverware bounced and his water goblet overturned. He sat for a moment, not breathing, his knuckles white, his face down-turned. “I can’t … take anything more, Jacqui! Please.”

What happened? I had never seen him like this before. Filled with compassion, I ran to him, kneeling beside his chair. “I’m so sorry. Please forgive me.” I rose, and Tony leaned on me as I smoothed his hair. “I don’t mean to burden you.”

He put his arm around my hips. “Why did you go down there without an escort?” Tony sounded wounded, afraid.

What did the servants say? “It never occurred to me. Maxim Call is old enough to be my grandfather.”

Tony sighed, closing his eyes. “But the rest are not.” Water from his glass soaked the tablecloth, began to drip to the floor. “If you must go down there again, you must go with your maid.”

Amelia would never go down there; she hated small spaces.

He held my hand against his cheek, staring at the table. “I … I just want to keep you safe. I won’t have your reputation smeared. I won’t have.…”

Won’t have people call me a Pot rag whore.

Someone inside me wept behind bars of glass. “I understand.”

Later, he lay beside me, fingers interlaced in mine, his shirt off, the covers back. His left side was still horribly bruised, and the look in his eyes seemed to match somehow.

* * *

Tony asked me to run the morning meeting without him. When I returned, Tony and his men were in his study, with orders not to be disturbed until tea.

So I asked Pearson to arrange kitchen inventory. When I saw the three new kitchen maids, I was filled with horror.

“Hey, you need be giving us more money.” Poignee stood in front of me in my study, hands on her hips. Ottilie and Treysa stood beside her. “You wouldn’t want us telling Mr. Spadros about your romp with Joseph Kerr, now, would you?

I laughed, but I felt uncomfortable. Pearson was right; I should never have hired Pot rags, even if they were my friends once. “A romance at sixteen, with a man I won’t see again? I’ll tell him myself.”

The one girl who wasn’t new said, “I’m sorry about your friends, mum.” Her voice held compassion, and remorse.

“We were friends, until they came here.” Then it all changed. Why couldn’t they be content with the bounty they were given? Why did they have to grasp for more?

I wondered where their bodies lay. And how I would explain Ottilie’s death to Joe’s housekeeper Marja, Ottilie’s mother.

* * *

The maids and I were in the middle of the work when Pearson appeared: Mr. Roy Spadros was here to see me.

“Me?”

“Yes, mum,” Pearson said. “He was most insistent.”

The old monster sounded in a foul mood already. I took off my apron, washed my hands, and hurried upstairs.

When Pearson opened the door to my study, Roy stood by my writing desk rifling through my mail.

My mind went to the letters I received from my sources, which weren’t often so well coded as mine. Did I destroy them all?

“May I help you, Mr. Spadros?”

Roy stalked over and glared at Pearson. “Get out.”

The door closed with a click that startled me.

In his thick hand Roy held a pamphlet, and he shook it at me. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

I grasped my hands together to stop their trembling. “Mr. Spadros, if you would tell me what has upset you, I would know how to answer.”

“This.” He flung the pamphlet at me, which hit my arm and fell to the floor. He began pacing the room, leaving me to pick the offending paper from the floor.

Slaves To Debauchery And Fear No Longer!

Written by Thrace Pike

I felt stunned. “Pike?”

Inside the vaunted Family Manors, those opulent dens of thieves, lie bags of rottenness that need lancing and soon.

Men who feed off the suffering of others with their lust for gold while their people starve in the streets, placating their cries for bread with shows of charity to gain the approval of their peers - which the corrupted editors of this foul city’s newspaper are eager to encourage for a fee, and the assurance that they will not be targeted for assassination - these men should be supported no longer.

Women who flaunt their bodies to inflame righteous men, to distract them from their duties as the keepers of morality in this city, simply for their own perverse amusement …

I put the pamphlet down, shocked and embarrassed. “This man is mad.”

Roy stalked over to me. “The whole thing stinks of your whorish ineptitude.”

I moved around the chair towards him, appalled. “Surely you don’t think I did anything improper! Our meeting lasted no more than ten minutes. My maid sat in the room the entire time.”

Roy backhanded me across the face with such force that I fell against the chair. My dress ripped at the waist when I hit the chair’s wing. “Shut up, bitch. Your maid told me everything. You’re lucky I don’t kill the both of you.” Roy turned and began pacing as I rose, clutching my face. “That man is a Bridger. This is going to get them marching again for sure.”

I leaned against the chair, shocked.

The Grand Order of Rational Respectability In Bridges: fanatical religious folk. So fanatical that the Grand Order ejected the Bridgers from their organization eighty years ago. Bridgers believed Party Time was the gateway to hell, and used violence to prevent its production or distribution.

Bridgers weren’t afraid of the Families: killing a Bridger just made the rest angrier. They didn’t take bribes, and wouldn’t respond to blackmail. Once they began, they didn’t stop. We could kill them all, but that gave the Feds just the excuse they needed to come after us.

“They haven’t realized how much we profit from Party Time,” Roy said, “that’s the only thing keeping them from tearing this town apart.”

I had set one of them against the Spadros Family.

Roy came from across the room and faced me. “All the things I taught you, and you go to the Pot whores for your ideas?”

My mother was a Pot whore. Who else would I look to but my mother? As a child, I watched my mother use the same technique many a time.

But I failed; my eyes stung with the shame of it. “What do you suggest I do?”

“Fix your face, get your maid settled. I’ll think of something.”

Amelia. I made a quick exit before he changed his mind, taking the pamphlet with me to cover the tear in my dress.

What had he done?

I searched the entire upstairs and main floor, except Tony’s study, where the men still met, to no avail. I found Amelia downstairs in her rooms, her hair in disarray, crying in her husband Peter’s arms.

Chairs and tables were overturned; broken pottery and blood lay on the stone floor. Blood stained the lap of her apron; her brown eyes were red from weeping.

When she saw me, she began to shake. “He made me tell, mum, I wasn’t going to, I swear, but then,” she sobbed, “he cut me …” She began to wail, putting her face in Peter’s chest, and he smoothed her hair.

Their three children, two girls and a boy, peered around the corner with frightened eyes. The oldest and youngest had eyes of brown; the boy’s eyes were light blue.

Peter said, “If we could leave, we would, but Mr. Roy would follow us, no matter where we went. We thought it would be better here, that Mr. Anthony could protect us. But …” He shook his head and turned Amelia away, then looked over his shoulder, anger in his brown eyes. “She is your maid and under your care; you’re supposed to shield her, not put her into harm.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, but it felt hollow. I turned to leave.

Peter said, “Don’t come here uninvited again.”

I took luncheon in my rooms. My hands shook. I tasted blood. My teeth hurt. By the time I ate and put on enough powder to hide the large darkening bruise on my cheek, Roy was gone.

He cut Amelia.

I felt caged; I had to go somewhere, anywhere, or else I feared I would go mad. I hid the torn dress and pamphlet in the back of my closets, changed clothes, and found a hat with a pale pink veil which matched well enough to be passable. I told Pearson I was going for a stroll and would be back by tea time.

The overcast sky matched the gray cobblestones. The remaining bits of dirty snow and horse dung left by the sweepers were melting to gray puddles, just as my life seemed to be melting around me.

When Roy’s father Acevedo Spadros was murdered by his own men 20 years ago, Roy began a rampage which ended with most of his father’s men and their families tortured to death, down to the smallest child.

Roy left one alive from each family: tongues torn out, maimed beyond recognition, and dumped in the Pot. As a child, I saw one of those men; Amelia and I had indeed fared well.

I resolved not to tell Tony of Roy’s attack. It would only upset Tony, and what could he do in any case?

I needed Roy Spadros to deter Jack Diamond. But when he outlived his usefulness, I would kill Roy myself.

By the time I returned, a soft rain had begun. Pearson shook my coat out in the hallway before hanging it. “I will have the girls dry it properly.”

As if I hadn’t cut the kitchen inventory short mid-morning. As if my maid wasn’t tortured in her own quarters. What hold did Roy have on Pearson? “Thank you.”

“I had your maids’ rooms cleared to return their effects to their families. They had a number of items from your study, including some letters. I have placed them on your desk.”

Why would they steal letters? “I’m sorry I put you through such trouble. You were right: I should never have brought them.”

“No trouble at all. But it’s my missus you might speak to.”

Poor Jane. She probably never thought she’d have to train Pot rags when she became mistress of the kitchens.

“Mr. Anthony awaits you in the parlor.”

The room smelled of hot biscuits and honey. Tony smiled when he saw me. “There you are! You must be chilled after your stroll.” He paused. “Why do you still wear your hat?”

“Oh. I forgot.” What else could I do? I took it off, placed it on the sofa, then turned towards him to sit.

“By the Shuffler! What happened to your face?”

“Does it look bad?”

Tony sat stunned for a moment. “I can see you’ve powdered it, but your cheek is swollen and red.”

I smiled. “After your father came calling -”

“My father was here?”

“Oh, yes, did Pearson not tell you? I told your father you were in a meeting and he left straight-away. But after I saw him to the door, and he got in his carriage and left, an insect lighted on my cheek and I was stung cruelly! It swelled, and for a while I felt ill, so I took luncheon in my room.”

Tony took my hand. “I’m glad you feel better now.” He paused. “How odd. A stinging insect in this cold weather.”

“It is odd, almost unbelievable. It was a horrible sharp sting.”

“I’ll call for the doctor and have the eaves inspected for nests. I won’t let this happen again.”

I went to the looking-glass. “The swelling has subsided somewhat; I think the cold air did it some good.”

Tony’s reflection nodded, his face distorted by the bevel at the edge of the mirror.

A ridiculous story, but the best I could manage. Yet Tony seemed to want to believe me. He went to the door, told Pearson to call for the doctor, and resumed his seat.

“How was your meeting?”

He shrugged.

“Were the guards ever found?”

“No. I fear they’re dead. They were good men, with families …. We’ll find the villains who attacked us, sooner or later.”

Dr. Salmon arrived. Tony stepped outside of the room while the doctor examined my face. “What shall I say happened?”

I told him of Roy’s assault, and the story I had given Tony. He chuckled at that, and said he would corroborate my tale when he next spoke with my husband.

“Doctor, can anything be done for Mrs. Molly Spadros?”

Dr. Salmon’s face became solemn, and he shook his head. “Only if she wishes to divorce him.”

I shook my head, filled with melancholy. Roy wouldn’t tolerate it; he would kill her before he allowed her to live free.

He patted my hand. “Don’t fret yourself on her account. She is a much stronger woman than she appears.”