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.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
After they cleared the bodies Collins mustered up a group of men, armed them with rifles, and had them sweep the trolley tunnel, torches wheeling through the dark as they ran. Though the lights faded their shouts somehow remained, echoing through the many atria of the tunnels. Garvey sat on the station bench once they were gone, waiting. Sometimes he got up to examine the trolley car again, especially the door. He touched where it had crumpled in and traced his fingers over the strange cracks in the glass. Each time he would sit back down, chin in his hand.
A half-hour later a patrolman came down from the street and reported a call from Collins saying they had found no suspects, no assailants, no nothing, and to continue his investigation, this time down into the tunnel. Garvey nodded as he heard the order. It was not unexpected, but that didn’t mean it was welcome.
They paired him with a trolley maintenance overseer by the name of Nippen, a short, thick man in blackened overalls who seemed entirely too cheerful for such dark work. He ferociously shook Garvey’s hand, ignorant of the grease stains he was leaving on the big detective’s palm, and then gave him a tin hat and hopped down onto the rails. “Come on down, Detective,” he said. “Let’s wander a bit.”
Garvey, not liking at all the way he said “wander,” put on the hat, lowered himself down onto the rails, and followed him into the dark.
“They stopped the trolleys, right?” said Garvey as they entered the tunnel. He flicked on his torch and the rails before him lit up like dusky ribbons. “I’d hate if they followed up something like this by crushing my ass.”
Nippen laughed. “They stopped everything. Our whole system is fucked for a day, for a whole day. No money today, not for anyone.” He laughed again, as if the thought cheered him.
“Any idea what we should be looking for?” Garvey asked.
“Not a one,” said Nippen. “You get all kinds of odd stuff down here.”
“Really? I thought they kept the trolley lines clear.”
“Oh, no,” said Nippen. “Well, we try. We try to keep the tunnels clear. But shit obeys gravity, and all things eventually want to go down. People. Animals. Garbage. But if anything keeps the tunnels clear, it’s the trolleys themselves. It’s hard to argue with a few tons of iron and steel. They just push it all out, see?”
“You get people down here?” said Garvey.
“Oh, sure. The bums love it down here. It’s warm in places. The crazies all seem to come down here, eventually.”
As they passed under one juncture a deep moaning and squalling filled the tunnels around them. Garvey ducked down and sent his torch beam dancing about. “What the hell is that?” he said.
Nippen stared up at the tunnel roof, smiling. “I don’t know,” he said thoughtfully.
“You don’t?”
“No. You hear a lot of things in the tunnels. There’s a lot of machinery below the city you forget about.” He listened as the squalling tapered off. “That? Oh, I’d say that was probably a pneumatic messenger tube shooting across town. Probably trying to force through a thick spot of mail. Maybe.”
“It sounded awful big.”
“It may have been,” Nippen said. “I hear McNaughton has pneumatic tubes the size of people. That they shoot people back and forth through the tubes. That true?”
