1636 The Devil's Opera (Ring of Fire) (30 page)

Ciclope considered that, and reluctantly came to the conclusion that the boss probably knew what he was talking about. The man had had a lot more contact with up-timers that he had, after all.

“All right,” he conceded. “You take the money in exchange for money we can use, good silver from Venice or Amsterdam.” The boss seemed to choke, which was almost—but not quite—enough to make Ciclope laugh. “After all,” he continued, “we have expenses, too. And we deserve some…compensation…for our work.”

The boss seemed to have his breathing back under control, although his face was perhaps a bit darker. It was hard to tell for sure in the shadowed interior of the tavern.

“I cannot exchange all of it. I doubt that anybody in Magdeburg has that much silver on hand, except…” The boss’s expression twisted. Ciclope noted that the man apparently knew how to hate. And given the reasons why he and his partner had been called to Magdeburg, that gave him some idea as to who the unnamed source of silver might be.

“And having that much silver would be almost as dangerous as having the paper money,” the boss continued. “I can get you maybe…”

Here came the offer, Ciclope thought.

“…maybe enough for one part in ten.”

Ciclope gave the man marks for sheer arrogance. “I was thinking more like three parts in four,” he replied. “Maybe even five parts in six.”

The boss choked again, and this time Ciclope did smile; just a bit, a narrow blade’s edge of a smile, but a definite smile. The boss saw it; his color seemed to pale a bit.

They bargained back and forth, before finally settling on three parts out of ten.

“It will take me some time to gather that much coin without arousing suspicions,” the boss said. “Two, maybe three days. I will look for you here when I have it, and we can make the exchange elsewhere.”

“Agreed.” Ciclope nodded to the boss.

After the boss left, Pietro looked over to Ciclope. “He will try to cheat us, you know.”

“I know,” Ciclope said. “That is why you will leave in a moment and follow him. I want to know where he goes, and I especially want to know who he is. Be discreet.” He gripped Pietro’s forearm hard. “Do
not
let him see you, and do not attract attention. Right?”

“
Si
.”

Pietro left the table and drifted out the tavern door. Ciclope frowned, which scared away a couple of burly types who were looking for a table to sit at. What could they do next to disrupt the building project? They needed something big; something flashy…
Hmm
…

* * *

The watcher had observed the whole exchange from where he sat in the corner, collar pulled up and hat pulled down.

Interesting, he thought. Unfortunate that he couldn’t have heard the conversation, but now that he had seen the connection, perhaps he could dig the rest of it up.

* * *

Gotthilf was already at the
Polizei
shooting range when Byron finally showed up. When his partner walked in he had the cylinder of his new model seven-shot H&K .44 revolver swung out so he could check the loads and the percussion caps.

“Ready, partner?”

Byron appeared to be in a brisk mood this morning, wasting even fewer words than usual. Gotthilf responded with a nod.

Byron stripped the magazine out of his up-time Colt .45, and laid both on the counter beside Gotthilf’s. He then dug his ear protectors out of his coat pocket and laid them on the counter as well.

The up-timer touched Gotthilf’s revolver with a fingertip. “Didn’t you say something about Herr Farkas telling you about a fast loading technique for this thing?”

Gotthilf just smiled, and pulled two extra revolver cylinders out of his pocket, lining them up on the counter in front of him.

“What the…?”

Byron picked a cylinder up and examined it closely, using a finger to feel inside one of the chambers, then to touch the caps on the back of the chambers.

“Is that wax?”

“Yes,” Gotthilf said as he pulled his earplugs out of his own pockets. “Herr Farkas gave me the idea when I picked up the pistol at his shop: a very thin layer of wax poured into the chamber after the load is finished, and over the cap after it is installed. It is waterproof, so it helps keep the loads dry, and it will help keep things in place unless the cylinder is dropped or thrown at someone. Of course, it may take a bit more work to get the gun clean after shooting it.”

“And can you change cylinders quickly?”

Gotthilf shrugged. “Watch and see.” He nodded to the range officer, who blew his whistle and yelled, “Guns down.” The other shooters immediately laid their guns on the counters and raised their hands for a few seconds. After looking around, the officer pronounced, “Range is cold.”

Gotthilf held up three fingers. The range officer nodded. “Three targets in lanes six, seven and eight.”

The target spotter ran out from behind his barrier, posted three man-sized targets side by side, and scurried back to his safe spot.

The range officer looked around. “One shooter,” he yelled. “One shooter only.”

Gotthilf put his earplugs in. He looked to the range officer, who nodded and announced, “Range is hot!”

Picking up the big revolver, Gotthilf swung the cylinder out one last time for a check, then returned it to its seated position with a
click
. He took a two-handed stance, focused on the center target over the sights, and began squeezing the trigger.

Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam!

Gotthilf hadn’t just pulled the trigger as fast as he could. There had been aim involved, even though he was shooting quickly. He popped the cylinder out of the frame, triggered the release into his left hand, snatched a fresh cylinder off the counter and loaded it, then swung it back into the frame. In a moment, it was lined up with the left target, and he began squeezing the trigger again.

Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam!

The smoke from the black powder was getting thick around his position, despite the electric fans that were blowing air into the space. Gotthilf repeated the drill to replace the cylinder, even faster this time, and took aim at the right target.

Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam!

He laid the revolver down on the counter, smoke wisping from the barrel. The ranger officer blew his whistle again. “No shooting!” After a moment, he blew it again. “Range is cold. Clear the targets!”

The target spotter ran out, grabbed Gotthilf’s targets and ran them up to him, then ran back to his place behind the barrier.

Everyone gathered around as Gotthilf laid the targets out side by side. Byron whistled.

“Good shooting, partner. Twenty-one shots in less than a minute, and most of them landed in the center of mass, except for this one,” he pointed to one that grazed the head outline of one of the targets, “which probably took off an ear, and that one,” Gotthilf winced at the hole in the groin area of the outline, “which I figure has the guy singing soprano now.”

Laughter and ribald jests broke out around them. A couple of the other shooters clapped him on the back before they headed back to their own positions, talking about what they had seen.

“…got to get me one of those…”

“You know how much they cost?”

“…don’t care…give up beer if I have to…”

“So that’s a lot of firepower,” Byron said over the background conversations, nudging the big revolver with a finger. “You really think you need that much?”

“That and more,” Gotthilf said, pulling three more cylinders out of his pockets and setting them on the counter. “I have a bad feeling about what’s brewing in Magdeburg.”

Byron whistled.

* * *

Amber Higham strode down the hall accompanied by Andrea Abati and Hermann Katzberg. She arrived at the knot of her people milling around in the hallway, and said, “What’s going on? Why aren’t you in the room getting ready for rehearsal?”

“Someone else is in the room,” Dieter said. “Listen.”

And when she stopped and paid attention to the noises floating through the hallway, sure enough, she could hear the sounds of the rehearsal room piano being played. Played loudly. Being hammered, actually.

“Classical stuff,” she remarked. “Not Bach. Doesn’t sound like Chopin. Liszt? Brahms?”

“No,” Hermann said with a grin. “The last movement of Beethoven’s ‘Moonlight Sonata.’ And by the piece I know who’s in the room. Go ahead and go in. She will not notice.”

Amber opened the door and stuck her head through the opening, whereupon she glimpsed the back of Marla Linder, ponytail swaying behind her as her hands flashed up and down the keyboard, alternating rolling arpeggios with crashing chords. She opened the door wide and motioned everyone into the room. They all gathered in the back of the room behind the piano, and simply watched the artist at work. Amber remembered Mary saying something about when Marla practiced the piano she shut out the entire world. Sure seemed like she was this morning.

In another minute or so, the piece came to its ending as Marla played arpeggiated runs up and down the keyboard, leading into the final statement of the theme of the piece, followed by several percussive chords. She took her hands off the keys, but held the sustain pedal down and let the final chord resonate in the room.

The clapping started as soon as Marla released the pedal. Her head jerked around, and Amber thought she blushed. She stood quickly, edged out from between the piano and the bench, and said, “Oh, come on now, stop it. I was just practicing.”

“Maybe so,” Amber replied, “but your practicing is better than most folks’ performance.” She waved everyone forward to start preparing for the rehearsal.

Marla snorted, which amused Amber. It wasn’t a ladylike snort. But then, with Marla’s diaphragm, a lot of air would get moved at a moment like that.

“Not hardly,” Marla said. “I lost three months. I’m as rusty as a piece of old barbed wire. I’m starting to get my singing chops back, but I’ve still got a ways to go with the piano, so I’m grabbing every chance I can to practice. And let’s not even talk about the flute.”

“That sounded good,” Hermann contributed from where he was arranging his music on the piano. “I did not hear any clunkers.”

“Oh, I’ve quit making the easy mistakes,” Marla said with a grimace. “Now I’ve got to quit making the hard ones.”

“Enough about the piano.” Amber spoke firmly. “Now is the time for the voice.”

The vocalists warmed up quickly, and they swung into the rehearsal.

Voices were clear today, and everyone seemed to have plenty of stamina. Even so, Amber didn’t push them too hard. After a solid morning of rehearsing, she finally called it to an end.

“Okay, listen up everyone.” When they were grouped in front of where she sat on her stool, she said, “Good rehearsal. Last one for a couple of days. Today’s Friday. Tomorrow we start fitting costumes. I want the soloists here in the morning, chorus in the afternoon. Everyone got that?”

Nods from all the group.

“Good. Spend Sunday with your friends and family, because that’s the last time you get to before opening night. Monday we start rehearsing in the auditorium at the opera hall. It’s going to be long days and even longer nights for the next few weeks. Things are going well, but don’t let up on it, okay?”

Grins from some, sober looks from others, but nods all around again.

“Great. See you tomorrow.”

She waved at them, and they scattered.

Left by herself in an empty room, Amber sagged on her stool for a long moment, pushed her glasses up into her hair, and scrubbed her hands across her face. Lord, she wasn’t getting any younger, and boy, could she tell it. The last few weeks before any premiere were always horrendous, but even at the height of her professional acting and directing days she’d never had anything as important as this show resting on her shoulders. Some big shot investor’s money, yeah. The reputations of the actors, sometimes the reputations of the writers, yeah. But never anything that could potentially affect the future of a nation. And she was doing it with the equivalent of one and a half seasoned professionals and a bunch of serious but newbie amateurs.

Amber scrubbed her face again, dropped her glasses back on her nose, and got back on her feet to start gathering her stuff.

One thing about it, she thought to herself. If she had to do something like this, at least she was working with dynamite material. She wasn’t a fan of opera, as such, although she did like Gilbert and Sullivan. But Gronow’s libretto was stellar. And although she was not the consummate musician that Marla and Andrea Abati were, even she could tell that Heinrich her husband had written a very good score.

Amber shrugged her coat on, looked around the room one more time, and closed the door firmly behind her. One step closer to opening night.

Chapter 36

Stephan Burckardt carried the leather bag in and set it down on his employer’s desk with a thump.

“That’s the last of it, Herr Schmidt.”

Schmidt loosened the neck of the bag, reached into it, and pulled out a handful of silver coins. He looked them over, then tipped his palm and let them slide back into the bag, which he then retied.

“Took you long enough,” Schmidt snarled. “I needed it three days ago.” He leaned back in his chair. “Be gone. But be here early in the morning.”

Stephan didn’t need to be told twice that he could leave. His keys were in his hand before he was out of Schmidt’s office. One trice to lock the file cabinets; one trice to shovel papers into a drawer and lock his desk; half a trice to grab his hat and coat off the pegs they hung from; and he was out the door before the master could change his mind.

Outside, he looked around, trying to decide whether to head across the Big Ditch to his room and get a good night’s sleep, or to the nearest tavern for a mug of ale. He licked his lips. Sleep sounded good, but so did ale, and seemingly without a conscious decision his feet took him in the direction of the Chain. It had been a long few days. Surely he’d be okay for the length of time it took to down a mug. And Master Schmidt had released him early enough that he’d still have plenty of time for sleep after taking a mug’s worth.