know what to say. There are casualties, I suppose. Effects. Like the slums. Like the unions. But tell me of a way that we could hire everyone we wanted and pay them all what they wanted and not handicap our own goals, our own dreams? I know that sounds cliched, that those are arguments you’re sure to have heard before. Patronizing ones as well, arguments anyone can poke holes in. I thought so, too. But after being here and seeing what we can make, they stopped being so cliched to me. I spent all four of my years here trying to think of a way to reconcile them. I’ve given up.”
“Four years?” Samantha asked, surprised.
“Yes,” said Evans.
“You’ve only been here four years?”
He smiled. “How long did you think I’ve lived here?”
“I don’t know, sir. Longer than that.”
“I guess you think I’ve spent a lifetime here. I mean, I’ve been longer with the company, more than forty years. But no. I’ve only been at the heart of things for four.”
He reached below his seat and pulled out a small silver tray and two small glasses with a little bottle of gin. He poured himself one and sipped a little, then drank the rest in one gulp. He offered her a glass, apologizing as he did as though he would never wish to watch a lady drink, then replaced the set when she refused.
“I believe that was one of Mr. Hayes’s innovations,” he admitted. “The traveling bar.” He paused and considered something. “Do you know how I came to be here, Miss Fairbanks?”
She shook her head.
“I am here for the same reason you are here, really,” he said. “My transfer took place a little over four years ago, as I said. Through Brightly, actually. I was in Pakistan. Far, far away. Working as McNaughton’s chief negotiator for mining claims in the mountains. I was a civilized man in what I thought was an uncivilized land. I had gone there looking for adventure but found more bargaining and more talk and more money. Same as always. Business as always. Then one day I got a telegram. Emergency telegram, with the executive emergency access code at the end. Had to dig out the rule book to even figure out what that meant. It was from some man I’d never heard of, man by the name of Brightly. Said to get in the saddle and head due east, to Nalpur.
“So I did. I rode and I rode and I rode all day, to Nalpur, and there I was summoned to the town prison. Nasty place. Most of it was underground, the cells were pits with bars over them. It was like a crypt. And inside I found at least a dozen men in suits, like they had come right out of New York or Chicago or Evesden. McNaughton men, you see.
“I was directed to Brightly, in the back. I’d not heard of him before, but he was quite enthusiastic to see me. I asked him exactly what his position was and he smiled and told me he operated under a lot of different hats, but the hat of the day was Personnel and Acquisitions and he was here to get a man and he needed some executive backup. My backup, he said. Said I was the premier agent in the region and, somehow, I had negotiated for jurisdiction over our own employees in the country. Like we were our own nation. I didn’t recall that but I went along with it and asked what sort of employee we were here to get. And he said, ‘A man of talents and knowledge.’ Just that, and he said I was to hire him. This seemed strange, he wasn’t our boy yet so how could we have jurisdiction, but Brightly waved that aside and said all I needed to do was interview the fellow. I balked and he said, ‘No, no. No, no. He’s a harmless little thing, an Englishman, civilized and sophisticated like you or me.’ And he showed him to me. Took me to one of the cells and had me look in.
“There was a table in the middle, and at the table was this little man. A towheaded little man with an immense beard and his hands and ankles all done up in chains. Slight as a blade of grass and still as a monk. And for some reason, I felt sad for the little prisoner. He seemed so alone. So alone in that awful place.
“So I said I would do it. Brightly congratulated me and gave me this enormous interview file. I said it would take hours to get through and he said that was fine, fine, just fine. And he smiled at me. I remember that.
“I went in there and I sat down with the little man and, well, I started talking. Hullo, I’m Jim, you seem to be in a difficult situation and I’m here to help, so on and so forth. Just like bargaining with any of the locals, you see. And for a long while the little man didn’t speak. Just stared at me, dead-eyed. Eyes like glaciers. Only way I could get him to talk was by offering him a cigarette. He almost ate the thing, he was so happy to have it. And then we started our discussion.
“I asked him what he was here for. And he said, ‘Robbery.’ And I said, ‘Oh, and you’re innocent, of course,’ and he said, ‘No.’ And I looked at him. Let him think it over. I asked, ‘You’re guilty of robbery?’ and he said, ‘Yes.’ I asked him who he had robbed and what he had stolen. He said he had stolen fifteen cases of pistol rounds from a McNaughton shipment. Us. He had robbed us. He had stolen our goods to sell to some warlord or another, and he didn’t give a damn, it seemed. That was a bit of a nasty shock. I couldn’t imagine why we would want such a man. But, well, I recovered and we went along.
“But as we spoke he seemed to change. It took place gradually, over a few hours, but I noticed after a while. His accent changed. Became American, Southwestern, like mine. He loosened up. And then we started talking. Not talking about work or prison or his past, but about me. About becoming Presbyterian. About Nap Lajoie and horses and Kipling. Things I loved. And we talked for hours. Hours and hours.
“And suddenly I had no idea why I had been so worried about this prisoner. He was a great fellow, smart and cheery. Like a kindred spirit. I told him so, told him I was astonished to find him here in prison. And that was when he cracked a little. Just a little. He looked at me, so sad, and asked if maybe he didn’t belong there. Maybe prison was where he should be. I told him no, no, a man like you is made for great things. Prison is no place for a man with such potential. And he nodded like he was agreeing. But, you know, I don’t think he ever really believed me. I think he would always believe that he belonged in that prison. That he deserved it, somehow.
“But I signed him. And when I came up I found Brightly and his men busy as bees, writing down this and talking about that. They had been watching, you see. I told them I had no idea why such a man was in prison, he seemed like a worthy man to me. Surely he must have had understandable reasons for his actions. And Brightly smiled at me and he said, ‘Evans, did you even get that man’s name?’
“Well, I was astounded. I’d forgotten, and I couldn’t believe it. I started to tear open the briefcase to see what he’d signed on all the forms when Brightly told me not to bother. They knew who he was. He was a smuggler and raider out of India, ex-British colonial. Son of an ambassador, they figured, been living off our shipping lines for years. They’d tried to catch him but, well, he always seemed to know when we were coming. It was like trying to catch a ghost. When they caught him it wasn’t out of any cleverness of their own, he was raving drunk in some bar and bragging. Then they tossed him in prison, and… and he survived. Which, really, was remarkable. Do you know, by any chance, how long a white man survives in a prison over there? Or any man? I can guarantee it’s not long. But he survived. Like he just knew when trouble was heading his way.
“And then, Brightly said, there was what he’d done in the cell in there. Hadn’t he changed? Hadn’t he somehow turned into the man I wanted to meet, the man I’d most like to talk to? And made me a friend. Did it in less than four hours, too. Said he’d done it to three other inquisitors. Turned them around and made them his. And then Brightly explained.” Evans frowned, thinking. “He said… Well. Child, you may think I’m mad for saying this, but-”
“I know what he can do,” Samantha said quietly.
Evans looked at her, stunned. “You do?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“Just from watching him. And from things he said. Then I asked and he explained it to me himself. It doesn’t seem like a gift too often. It seems more like a disease.”
“Yes,” said Evans, still shaken. “Yes, I rather expect it does. You’re cleverer than me, my girl. Cleverer by far. Were you mad? Angry?”
“I was. At first.” She paused. “I do wish you had told me,” she said, stiffly.
He smiled feebly. “I wished I could have. Believe me, I know the anger you felt. I was furious at him. And at Brightly. I was furious he had exposed me to that man, but he said he had to see what would happen, just to see if what the prisoner had done to the other interrogators was coincidence. He’d been doing it all day, you see. And they needed a real signature on that paper, he said. A real executive. I didn’t know that was a load of hooey at the time, of course Brightly outranked me, he always has. But I believed it, and Brightly told me how a man like that might be useful. Might be useful for the company in these dangerous times. ‘Come on, man,’ he said. ‘Think of the company. Think of Willie, do it for Willie.’ Willie being William McNaughton, you see. And I said, ‘Do what,
