Death and Taxes

[Peabody Polk]

Closed. This takes place, using liquid time, in the months following the outbreak of War in Salvar and the first chapter of the FQ

William James Pullhearst was in a bind.

He had just returned from Salvar, by boat the night before. He had left Aihnrekvolok in style -- his column weeks before had been a real splash among the aristocracy, who viewed it as a call to arms against the church and as wise counsel to their king. He'd been put up on a vessel of royal proportions, with royal furnishings and royal amenities -- and for a royal price tag all paid by someone other than himself, probably some royal.

But now, he was in a royal bind. And he was royally fuming.

"I knew something was up! I knew I should have come back sooner! How dare they! How dare they!"

He was staring at a printing press that did not appear to have been used in weeks. When leaving Knife's Edge he had told his assistant to print everything he sent back just as-is, and start distribution through various channels. He'd left everything there, in polite instructions on the desk, and his assistant knew the protocol well. Jeremiah had been working for him for nearly six months, and had been such a good helper...until this.

"I should never have left...how can I get out of this...curse you Peabody for a fool and Jeremiah for a charlatan!" His outbursts turned to wicked grumblings and spattered curses.

When he had left, the room had looked a specific way. Now, upon his return, it looked the same, only coated with a layer of dust. On the floor were the copies of the paper-to-be-printed that he had dutifully sent from Salvar every week, strewn about the floor where they had fallen through the mail-slot. More envelopes and papers littered the floor. Peabody picked those up and held them with no small sense of trepidation.

"Rotten stinker, he pocketed the money and ran...should teach me to check the references on the louts in this godforsaken world. Even London had more trustworthy citizens than this blighthole!" Opening the letters, he read with dismay as each one got more and more insistent and the tone more and more sinister. They were all from his chief creditor, a man by the name of Sellings.

"Please pay me by next week...I regret to end your credit...foreclosure imminent...now in arrears of eight hundred gold pieces..." "Eight hundred gold pieces!?" "...I may choose to reclaim your property as payment...mortgage cancellation...will resort to measures of force, if necessary..." Peabody put down the letters...Sellings had made his point. He was in serious debt, all because he'd trusted some hoodwink to print his papers on time and keep his finances in balance.

He quickly rummaged through the desk drawers. His calculations had shown that he could make at least 900 GP per issue, and the Reader was popular enough that there was no reason to assume he couldn't get out of his debt with one good issue. But there was nothing there, just enough paper and ink to produce maybe twenty copies -- only enough to make a pitiful 100 GP, nowhere near what was required to pay off creditors. He still couldn't believe his assistant had done this. The lad was young, but he had shown promise in the business and a good head for where the papers needed to be placed for maximum distribution. Why would he run off like this?

But in the bottom of the drawer, he did find something of use. It glinted invitingly, and at a loss for anything else to do, he reached for it. Clutching his prize in one hand and his temples with the other, he settled heavily into a chair, and began downing his last bottle of whiskey.

At this point, the only cure for bankruptcy was booze.

[Breaker]

The ring of the Breaker Boots on evenly set cobblestones welcomed me back to Radsanth. The city hadn't changed much in the months I spent covertly assisting the Salvic Royals with their civil war. I had put the events in the northern nation behind me out of necessity, meditating on the long voyage home until I processed let go of the pain and regret. When the ferry deposited me on the familiar Coronian docks I stepped off a cheerful man, ready to engage the world.

Long strides carried me to Radasanth's premier nightclub, the familiar Flesh Failures. The place did too much business to have gone under, and judging by the thick one-way glass windows they'd installed on the front, it was still thriving. I caught myself staring at my reflection. I had a coarse beard, thick enough that it covered all of the space below my cheekbones and nose. The Salvic winds had burned my skin a dark tan color, and wavy brown hair nearly concealed my hazel eyes. With a tattered gray canvas rucksack slung over one shoulder, I looked like a bum who had stolen a sifan cloth jacket and vlince trousers. And a priceless pair of black metal boots to match.

I picked both locks in less than five seconds and ducked inside, barring the door behind me and slipping a coiled bit of steel wire back into my pocket. The great room beckoned darkly, for little sunlight permeated those windows. The staff had squared everything away the previous night - chairs stacked on tables, counters polished to perfection - not a single spec of dust dispersed as I strode across the redwood dance floor. The regimental behaviors I had instilled in the staff clearly continued. I pictured the makeshift gym in the basement, with its padded leather floor, racks of kick bags and training equipment. I could almost smell the stale sweat seeping through the floorboards.

Hard to believe, but this place is my home.

I pushed past the door behind the bar and paced through a neat storage space. Turned left around the corner and saw a triangle of lamplight flickering on the floor. The owner, a clever businessman named Andre Sellings, sat in a wicker chair behind his desk. Through the half-open door I saw he had changed even more than his nightclub. Last I saw him the man was built like a bear cub, short and stocky and bulging with power. Now he just well - bulged. Isn't that a sign of wealth around here? I guess I should congratulate him... the middle aged man must have gained fifty pounds, and carried all of them in his belly, which shifted unsteadily as he pored over complicated documents. I nudged the door open with one boot and leaned a shoulder into the cramped office.

"Who in Haidia's Nest are y- mother of my aunt, Cronen?" Sellings let out a jolly one note laugh and slapped the desk, crumpling several scrolls. "I knew they couldn't break the Breaker, not even with all the crazies in Salvar. How are you young man?" He swept a hand at the empty chair facing him. I set down my bag and picked up the chair, twirled it through a short arc and set it down backwards against the side of his desk instead of the front. Straddling the woven wicker seat, I accepted the small tumbler Andre passed me and chimed glasses with him.

"Your health," I said, and took a sip. My employer chuckled and patted his gut in response to the statement, drinking deeply from his own vessel. The amber brandy was strong enough for my taste but too sweet for my palate. Even so the fire in my bloodstream felt good, so I sipped again. "I'm well, Sellings. I'd ask how you're doing but by the looks of the new ale taps and the selection of imports-" The plump business man cut me off with another booming laugh.

"You noticed those! Of course you did, what don't you notice? Angeline wanted to keep the Dwarven scotch a secret 'till your birthday, she's been staying in your rooms by the by." My teeth clicked on the glass as my forehead furrowed.

"She... has?" I spoke carefully. Sellings' love for his only child showed on his red-nosed features as soon as he mentioned her name. And after all, she had gotten me the job as head of security in the first place. But ever since our first less than romantic - well, carnal encounter, she'd played a few too many games trying to get me back in bed.

"Well just temporarily," he assured me, wearing his best man to man you know how it is look. "She's been covering for two of the other girls, both got pregnant the same weekend-"
"Full moon?" I asked, and he chuckled.
"No no, they've got good men to raise the babes with. Problem is Angeline's been so overworked she never gets home. Last I heard she was interviewing some fresh new barmaids, so I'm sure she'll be out of your way soon." Sellings sighed and finished his drink, poured himself more and offered me the bottle as I followed suit.

"No thanks, not ah... quite this early. I'd like to drop my things upstairs and get settled." He chuckled again and waved a hand, eyes returning to his figures.

"Of course, of course... but if it's not asking too much, I've got a job for you. Outside of the usual house works. Big debt that needs collecting, you take twenty five per cent." I made an affirmative sound and rapped my knuckles twice on the sturdy oaken desk, rose and retrieved my rucksack. "Thanks Breaker... you know where to find me when you want the details." As I stepped out of his office and moved to the back staircase his voice floated after me "-and it's good to have you back!"

I climbed the stairs noisily and strode across the polished hardwood hallway on the second floor. Most of the suites behind those bronze-knobbed doors were rented out to wealthy patrons, but the one closest to the stairs was always reserved for me. Well, supposedly...

Scampering footsteps sounded behind my unmarked door, and it whipped open. I breathed in. A litany of lethal unarmed counterattacks flooded my mind. But the willowy frame which skipped around the door belonged to Angeline. She pressed it shut with her back, blue eyes looking up at me through tangled golden locks. The gorgeous young woman's cheeks were aflame, and she wore nothing more than a sheer silken shift.

"Hi Josh!" She trilled, eyes shining like sapphires, "promise you won't be mad. Please?" Her lips pouted as she placed a delicate palm flat on my chest. I quirked an eyebrow.
"Mad about what?" I sniffed the air suspiciously, smelling the sweat which wet her shift in several places.

"Nothing, just... there's an eighteen year old girl in your bed." She shrugged and smiled as angelically as a devil can. I exhaled my breath in a long sigh and shook my head.

Nice to know... some things never change.

[Peabody Polk]

With a glass of whiskey in one hand, Peabody rifled through the papers across his desk with the other. Anything that had writing on it, he shoveled off onto the floor, papers flying forcefully off the hard surface and falling to the ground in a glorious mess. Anything clean enough to write on he took, ripping sheets in half, collecting a pile of neat white paper. With the desk appropriately clean and with a stack of paper that seemed acceptable, he grabbed an inkwell and a quill from the drawer. He hated quills with a passion, but his ivory-nib fountain pen had snapped in two on the boat ride to Salvar, so he set about doing what had to be done. Nicking the tip with a cross-hatch using a sharp knife, also in the drawer, he dipped it in the inkwell.

With a sideways look at his glass of whiskey and what remained of the bottle, he tilted back the glass, gunned the contents, took a swig directly from the bottle, and poured another two fingers. "No point in doing the deed sober," he muttered to himself, and he began to scribble wildly on the piece of paper.

Scribbling furiously for a few moments, he soon decided he didn't like what he wrote, gulped about half the glass, and pushed the ruined paper off the desk. Setting to work again, he soon held up the paper, took a long look at it, downed the remaining whiskey, and spat out, "It'll do, Peabody, it'll do."

Opening another drawer, he withdrew the one object he had not moved from its place since arriving at the place months ago. He had wrapped it in cloth, and had managed to hide it from the confounded customs agent who had taken half his possessions upon his unseemly arrival in the glorified holding pens the denizens of this world called Scara Brae. It was older than he was, and he had serious doubts whether it would even work. He also knew that he had one chance.

Peabody placed the revolver on the desk, snatching up the bottle of whiskey and taking another swig. With the piece of paper still clutched in one grubby hand, he rose unsteadily from the chair and walked over to the printing press. He bent over its apparatus quickly, moving letters here and there, rearranging patterns. He was fast approaching drunk, but he was practiced enough at this art to do it right, even with a third of a fifth in his belly. With a few final deft motions, he coated the whole thing with ink, inserted the paper, set the letters, and with a single fluid motion pressed out a sheet. Snapping it up and whipping it around to dry, he read it to himself. That'd do. He just needed one copy.

He walked back to the desk. It was about time, this world had been nothing but a boring joke. With a bunch of dratted races of nincompoop elves at each others throats and some sort of phony baloney church and monarchy in the north, the whole thing had been like a poorly written textbook about Napoleon, if Napoleon had been a puffed-up toad capable of controlling fireballs with a well-tuned piano. It was no London. Yet, like London, it still had dreadful investors who demanded gold out of thin air for no good reason.

And so Peabody slapped down the note on the desk, willing his entire estate -- and all the debts therein -- to one Jeremiah Gregory. Let the little snot deal with the rents! With that, William James Pullhearst, alias Peabody Polk, lifted the burnished revolver to his temple, downed the remainder of the bottle of whiskey, and pulled the trigger.

[Breaker]

"Love the beard. Is that how men wear it up north?" Angeline giggled as she followed me into the room, lithe fingers falling on my shoulders and attempting to knead tension out of the muscles. "By the ruptured Tap," the girl chattered, digging in harder with her thumbs, "Touching your back always made me feel like a tanner mending armour, Heartbreaker. But you're hard as oak now... like a stout chair. What happened to you up there?" Her mouth neared my ear as her voice got quieter, one hand sliding over my collarbone and scraping down my chest. A feeling between a tickle and an itch seeped past my navel and into my groin as her other hand crept lower and gripped a muscle that was not part of my back.

"Looks like a comfy seat, even if it is carved from wood." I had made it through the small antechamber and into my sleeping quarters, and it seemed Angeline's earlier confession hadn't been a turn of phrase. The young woman who spoke had milky skin and raven hair, soft grey eyes and rosy lips that smirked invitingly as she drew on a cigarette, sweet smoke trailing from its glowing ember. A cotton sheet concealed her naked body except for her shoulders and a heart shaped face that shone with natural blush and a sheen of perspiration. The sheets were wet, probably see through in some places if you looked long enough...

I tossed my rucksack into the corner beside the dresser, and crossed my arms. Clasped one of Angeline's slim wrists in each hand and shifted my base, twitched my hips subtly. With a choked "eep!" of alarm the tall blonde woman somersaulted onto the bed, landing flat on her back next to her brunette paramour.
"See something else you fancy?" Angeline asked as she re-settled her shift below her waist. The raven-haired young woman only smiled wider and passed her the cigarette, then leaned forward and pressed her lips into the blonde's. I turned away, examining myself in the mirror above the bureau, pretending I couldn't hear them passing lungfulls of smoke back and forth in long, drawn out kisses. In my bloody bed.

The man looking back at me in the mirror was unfamiliar. A combination of the Salvic elements and the long trip home had left me looking like one of the northern fishermen who spent four fifths of each year out on the ice. Oh well... I can shave later. No need to look presentable when collecting a debt. I still smelled like a dead seabird though, so I stripped off my old clothing, stiff with the salt of many days wear on a ship, and found myself something suitable in the dresser. Black pants and a buttoned black shirt, denim and loose enough to accommodate my flexibility. I grinned at myself in the mirror; now I looked right. Like a hired goon.

"Angeline, what kind of club is this, when the entertainment re-garbs before the show is over?" I glanced toward the brunette as she spoke and turned away promptly, rubbing my palms into my eye sockets as if to erase the image. The women were watching me, caressing each other in the way young lovers had, having tossed the moist sheet to the floor. "How can this by the famous Heartbreaker?"[/I] the girl chided, doing something that made Angeline gasp. "He blushes to see us. Could an impostor have returned in his place?"

I forced myself to think of her as just that - a girl. Not a young woman, not an adult capable of receiving affection. How could Angeline have known I was back already? It seemed impossible, but little else made sense. This girl, with her flawless skin and haughty demeanour, would have coaxed the old Cronen into bed inside a minute. But I don't like being manipulated so much anymore... Salvar had changed me, made me stronger but less supple, wiser but less glad. There was a trade-off, a balance, to everything, and it seemed somewhere in the teetering I'd lost the ability to take comfort in the arms of a stranger. Or a friend, for that matter. Receiving comfort meant showing weakness, and I had little desire to do that. Even so, I couldn't deny the allure... even the girl's cigarette smelled so... so...

Seductive.

"What's in that?" I was sitting cross-legged on the foot of the bed, leaning forward, reaching for the cigarette. I received it and brought it to my nose, inhaling the scent, then put the end to my lips.

"It's a mixture," Angeline said the word mixture like mystery. I took a long draw, closing my eyes to relish the taste as much as to shut out the overpoweringly attractive visual. I pursed my lips and tilted my head back, opened my eyes and blew a series of three smoke rings that drifted upwards until they dispersed against the high oaken ceiling.

"Mmm..." the sound came from deep within my throat. In Salvar it seemed everyone smoked, at least all the soldiers, and I'd picked up the old habit without thinking twice. The long ship ride home with no tobacco had seemed like enough to kick it, but when presented with such a fine...

"Tobacco's from the fields of Yarborough. This year's crop. And is that... Radsanthian reefer?" The girls giggled and pretended to whisper to one another, but my ears were sharp enough to hear that neither actually said any words. They were stoned, and trying to get me to come closer. Enough of that. Seeing a stack of similarly rolled joints on the bedside table, I stuffed a handful into my shirt pocket and fled the upper floor while I still could.


*

An hour later I stood in the lengthening shadow of a drab building, a plume of smoke trailing from the corner of my mouth and a glassy shine in my eye. Over several more drinks, Andre had explained that the job was actually a sub-contract passed to him by his elder brother, another successful businessman named Sellings. Allegedly, after weeks of being unable to locate the borrower - one William James Pullhearst - the elder Sellings had grown frustrated with the task and put a large price next to the name, assuming the gold would get the job done eventually without him having to bother.

By the time I left the Flesh Failures my head was buzzing like a shaken beehive, and by the time I reached Polk's abandoned offices the cannabis and tobacco were harmonising their melodious effects with that soothing buzz. Maybe there is something to the theory of northern addictions, I thought as I snubbed the cigarette in my palm and flicked it away. I didn't need to talk to this other bloody Sellings until I had collected, and intoxicated as I was I didn't damn well feel like it either.

Silent as I could manage with metal boots I entered the building and made my way up the nearest flight of stairs, listening and eventually detecting the sounds of someone moving around behind a nearby door. Could it be that easy? Andre said the borrower had fled - I had only hoped to find a clue as to where he might be hiding. With a moderately intentional stagger I burst through the door in a shower of splintering timbers and rushed toward the occupant.

Click.

My impulse was to stop the fat man behind the desk from blowing his brains out, but it seemed the revolver he held was non functional. His eyes and mouth dropped open as, shocked by my entrance, he levelled the old firearm at me. I caught the barrel and twisted it downward violently, mashing the round man's hand against the hard corner of his desk, probably destroying some of the carpals or metacarpals in there. After being teased by the girls and getting myself higher than the Jagged Peaks, it felt good to hurt someone. Almost like a release of some of the tension between my shoulders.

I kept the man's hand pinned to the desktop so he could only free it by releasing the gun, and bent my knees until I could stare directly into his eyes, our faces inches apart.

"Are you Polk?" I asked, and ratcheted my grip one notch tighter.

[Peabody Polk]

He hadn't really expected it to work. Artifacts like the one in his hand needed care and attention. It had come with him from the dreadful humid fog of London, through whatever dreadful portal ripped him into this God-forsaken cesspit, past the guards whose job it was to strip passengers into this world of whatever remnants of sense connected them to their history, and then rotted for nearly a year in the bottom of a drawer. There was no way it would work.

He felt a twinge of regret for half a second, because he knew good and well the moment of his courage had fled him. All that remained was to wander the streets a penniless beggar for the remainder of his wretched existence. Maybe he would find Monroe Stein, the "doctor" who wandered the streets talking about the conflagration of werewolves towards the maintenance of virtue. They would make quite an illustrious pair of bums.

With a sudden shattering crack, Peabody thought for a single wrenching moment that the gun had worked after all, that he would soon be raptured to whatever hell of pain or -- more likely -- eternal mindless quietude awaited the wretched souls of flesh and sorrow bound to wander such worlds of absurdity for the remainder of their existence.

((this isn't done. I will finish editing when I return from work))