Pawn, page 10
“Mistress.” Moirae looked up from her table to see her handmaiden at the door to the study. Ananke looked worried, and she who was often known as the spinner of threads instantly knew why. She sighed.
“Send Plutos in.” Of course it was him. She’d actually been expecting him for some time. Unlike most of their number, he delved deeply into the matters of mortals, and he noticed when things happened. Especially when anything involving wealth was involved. But then that was his bailiwick. Greed. He called it wealth or fortune or prosperity, or any of a hundred other names, but in the end it was only about greed. And these days, with the rise in the importance of money, his star was in sharp ascendance. He didn’t want anything to interfere with that.
Plutos didn’t wait to be called, waiting was never in his character. Instead he simply strode past her handmaiden almost knocking her aside, and marched across the wooden floorboards to her. It was rudeness of course, calculated rudeness, but his star was rising and he was always bold. Greed was never timid.
The strange thing was that he was never a warrior. There were others who could defeat him easily in battle. But Plutos didn’t care. He just told them he could hire a thousand better warriors. He didn’t even look like a warrior. He looked like a used car salesman, slightly short, tending to the overweight side of the scales, with a hooked nose and a permanent larcenous gleam in his eyes. No amount of overdressing could hide his nature, though naturally he always wore the finest clothes available. Italian designed suits, hand made shoes, silk shirts, and for some reason completely lost to her, a fedora. He dressed to show his wealth. To tell everyone how important he was.
Regardless of his appearance, he believed he held sway in the world of the common man, especially now in these ages of commerce. He probably did. When everything in life was reduced to money, he ruled and he knew it. He carried himself like a ruler. Head held high, chest puffed out, striding everywhere as if he owned it all. A pompous little prince of prosperity. The worst though was his gaze as he stared all around him, taking in everyone and everything including her, and coldly assessing their worth. But then that was his realm. Money.
“Plutos.” She greeted him, though not warmly. The two of them had never been friends, and probably would never be. Most of the others usually paid her some respect, partly out of a sense of kinship, and partly out of fear. She was the only one of them all who could dictate the lives of the others, to an extent. But Plutos, having become so strong these past centuries, no longer felt the need. He launched into his complaint without uttering a single pleasantry.
“Moirae. Been spinning some threads of late?” Of course what he meant were those ones that might upset his concerns. But his concerns were many, and there were few threads she could spin that wouldn’t cross at least some of them. Naturally though, she knew what he was upset about. She’d known he would be four hundred years before when she’d begun spinning this particular pattern.
“You mean Aphrodite.” If he could be direct to the point of insolence then so could she, and if it came to a fight then it wouldn’t be she who limped away to lick her wounds.
“I mean Aphrodite and this pathetic mortal of hers who seems to be turning my followers into a confused gaggle of geese at every turn. That could only be your doing spinner.” He all but yelled it at her, disturbing the calm of her home, daring her to deny him. But she had no intention of denying it.
“Of course it is.” For a moment he stopped dead in his tracks, taken aback, apparently surprised that she would actually admit that she was playing in his bailiwick. That just wasn’t supposed to be done, least of all to him. But only for a moment. Then his stare grew hard again.
“Why? I mean I understand about Aphrodite. She needs to replenish herself and all that as we all do from time to time. To bury herself in the mortal realm for a bit and be worshipped. Especially now when her strength is waning and she is little more than a handmaiden. But why upset my concerns to do it? Let the simpering cow find another follower.” Unspoken was the question of what he thought he could do about it. There wasn’t much, no matter how strong he thought he was becoming, since in this matter his bailiwick had also become hers. But he wouldn’t have wanted to hear that. Greed seldom listened to reason. And if he thought that insulting Aphrodite would help his cause, he was very much mistaken.
“You know that I do only what I have to. My freedom in these matters is limited.”
“Huh!” He snorted at her in disbelief, a sound that only made him seem even less pleasant as if such a thing was possible, and one that she didn’t like to hear in her own home. “You cut and weave the threads of life according to your whim. Don’t deny it. If you interfere in my business it’s because you choose to. And in this matter you would be wise to choose not to.” Threats, finally, and he’d only been in her home for a couple of minutes. At least it would be a short meeting.
“And did you ever think my dear little brother, that in this matter it’s you who is interfering in my business?” She smiled sweetly at him, knowing it would annoy him, as would calling him her little brother. He wasn’t related at all to her, none of them were, and he didn’t want to imagine that they were that close, but it was the ‘little’ that would really sting.
“Your business? This is commerce.”
“No it’s fate. The dice are cast and the game is begun. All I can do now is try to play the odds a little to protect a few innocents and help a sister. You would be well advised to stand clear.”
“Stand clear!” He seemed incensed by the very idea, and he stood up to his full height, which was somewhat less than average, drew in a deep breath and prepared to blast her with his tongue. That was when she stopped him.
With the slightest of gestures she let a few motes of dust accidentally tickle the back of his throat and instead of screaming at her in a rage he began coughing and spluttering uncontrollably, something he surely wasn’t used to. None of them were ever ill in any way and so she figured it would be a good lesson for him. Moirae let him finish before she gave him his marching orders.
“Plutos, this is my business. Fate has a design and a purpose with this mortal, one far more important than your petty dreams of avarice. My hands are very limited in this matter, yours are tied completely. If you interfere with Rufus Hennassy again, no matter how slightly, you will be struck down, hard.” It was a warning and a threat, but oddly enough not hers.
Many people, even many of her own kind, didn’t understand her. They thought she controlled destiny, that she spun and cut and wove according to her own whims. She didn’t. She didn’t have that sort of power. She simply saw the patterns and occasionally managed to retie a strand here, add a new one there, or most distressing of all for her comrades, snipped one when she saw the need. But she could really only tidy around the edges. The woof and weave of fate was mostly already woven.
“Now you can leave.” She dismissed him, politely as was her want, but her voice certain, and despite it being the last thing he surely ever wanted to do, Plutos left, still coughing. He would probably be back though, angrier than before. Much angrier when he discovered what awaited him outside.
She couldn’t hear it of course, the front door was too far away, but she could imagine the scream when he finally exited the house and saw his car. It seemed that pigeons in their hundreds had decided purely by chance to roost on his precious gold, open top rolls, and even in the short time that he’d been with her, they’d left their calling cards all over it. He loved that car. He loved how much it cost and how it told everyone how rich he was.
Served him right for being what the mortals these days called a plonker.
“Mistress?” She looked up to see Ananke standing there again, trying not to smile too broadly. Just as she was. It was always nice to send Plutos packing, though she knew he would be back. He was right in that there was money and wealth involved in this matter, and as the patron of such things, he had a vested interest in seeing that he and his profited. Especially in this case when his dreams were so grand. Plutos thought his schemes were so clever. He didn’t realise that she could see all of them, and when there was the need, nip them in the bud. Still he was not the sort to give up easily.
“Tea please Ananke, and then come and sit with me.” Ananke left her then to get the tea, and Moirae sat back in her seat, thinking. What she was doing was a gamble, one begun four centuries before when she’d suggested to Aphrodite that she should sit for Rembrandt. But it was a necessary one. The rise of Plutos had to be stopped, and even then she had seen him gaining in power. Power to rival the most powerful of them. That was bad.
With his power would come great suffering. Greed was never a good thing, especially in excess. So if he achieved his dreams of dominion, mankind would suffer. For a while, but not forever.
As with every action there was an equal and opposite reaction, as Newton had so wisely said. He’d just thought he was speaking of physics, not celestial politics. He would never have guessed that the two were related. Even if Plutos won, it would be a cold and heartless world that his influence would foster, and there would be a reaction. In time his world would be knocked back, and a better time would return. He couldn’t stop that. Even Plutos would find himself diminished as his bailiwick was slowly torn down and wealth eventually became a failed idea. But that would mean war and strife on an epic scale. It would last for centuries, and the suffering would be terrible. She hoped to avoid that, or at least the worst of it. But everything depended on one timid mortal.
It was time once more to read his destiny, something that was more Ananke’s sphere than hers. Ananke followed the man, she followed the whole of fate. But in the end, the two became one.
“Tea.” Ananke smiled politely as she brought the tray to the table. She was always polite. It was one of the traits that Moirae so valued in her, and part of the reason she had asked her so long ago to share her home instead of keeping her own. Ananke was a goddess in her own right, just a very weak one, her sphere of influence limited. Left to herself she would receive none of the respect she was due, even though her work was often exquisite. But as her handmaiden, few would dare challenge her. No one messed with fate. She was the only one of them that could interfere directly with the other gods. Not just their works, their very lives.
Moirae only hoped that it was as good an arrangement for Ananke as it was for her. She knew she would say yes if asked, but she was a timid sort herself. Even if it wasn’t she wouldn’t say no.
“Sit Ananke, and tell me what you see of Rufus. Again. His every action and inaction. What will drive him to greatness and what will send him fleeing from it.” And Rufus was the key. So vital, so dangerous, so powerful and so weak, and above all else so broken. Using him was taking a chance, but it was also the only chance she had.
Sometimes life simply wasn’t fair. Some times all the power of the gods simply wasn’t enough and everything had to fall on the shoulders of a single mortal, and a damaged one at that. And when that happened, all she could do was hope, and though it would seem odd to those who knew what she was, pray.
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Chapter Ten.
“Inspector?” Barns looked up from his papers, surprised to hear a strange voice at his doorway. People seldom visited him. He visited them. That was the way of a humble copper. He was even more surprised to see that his visitor was a young woman, neatly dressed in a dark suit with her long dark hair tightly cropped back. She was also obviously very athletic, the suit couldn’t hide that, nor the polite but serious cast of her face. Something about her screamed official at him. That went well with the ID on a string that she was wearing around her neck. It was very American television and not at all what he was used to but then she didn’t work in the local station and he had no right to judge how others should carry their identification.
The ID he couldn’t help but notice, said Interpol in large black letters and he quickly gathered her visit had nothing to do with light entertainment. It also wasn’t normal. In more than three decades on the job he had spoken with maybe a handful of Interpol agents, and most of the time it was no more than a request for a piece of information over the phone. To have an agent actually show up at his door was a first.
“Miss?” That was as much of an invite as she needed apparently, and the young woman pushed the door the rest of the way open and walked straight in, surprising him. He hadn’t asked her to enter. But who was he to complain? She was Interpol.
“Dikē. Agent Dikē of Interpol.” She even reached across his desk to offer her hand instead of the other way around, and like a deer caught in the headlights, he took it. Just who was in charge here? He felt somewhat stupid shaking her hand, and from the heads he could see popping up from behind their computers out in the main room, and the secret smiles shared among them, he guessed he looked it too. The junior detectives might well need some heavy duties given to them in the very near future.
“How can I help you Agent Dikē?” It was a formality of course, she would tell him and he would be expected to comply with whatever demands she made. Such was politics in the modern police force.
“I’m not completely sure really. But you’ve begun making some enquiries into a person of interest on our side of the channel, and I’d quite like to know why.” As politely as she said it, he knew it wasn’t going to be a choice for him. But he wasn’t sure he wanted it to be.
“Rufus Hennassy?”
“Ah, no.” She looked confused. “Carl Venner. Investment banker, swindler, criminal financier, and all around bad guy. Who’s Rufus Hennassy?”
“It doesn’t really matter.” Barns swiftly turned the conversation back to Venner, badly wanting to find something on him. All his people had been working flat out on him for days and found nothing. “You have some interest in Mr. Venner?” He was more than surprised when all their enquiries had come back showing nothing more criminal than the odd speeding ticket. Of course that just meant he was clever, and finally, maybe, he had some evidence staring him in the face that his investment banker was the world class scumbag he appeared to be.
“Interest? That’s one way of putting it. We’ve tracked his activities for years. He’s thought to be running one of the most complicated money laundering schemes ever devised through his bank. Taking bent money from drug dealers, gunrunners, crime families and black listed countries, and converting it all into good clean investments. He is the banker behind some of the most evil gangs of murderers and thugs known. And the money behind several very nasty regimes as well. And your interest is?” She was being polite again, but he didn’t care. Finally he had something. Something that could crack the case wide open. Maybe. He would have given her his own bank account details if it would have helped.
Barns told her everything he knew, everything he had on Venner, and everything he suspected, and it didn’t seem to come as a surprise to her as she leafed through the files he handed her. Except for one thing.
“Art! I should have known.” She seemed hard on herself, and he wasn’t completely sure why. How should she have known? “It’s a brilliant way to launder money. We knew he’d bought that decrepit old church for a reason. Never realised it was the painting. A Rembrandt you say?” Barns nodded.
“Bastard!” She seemed genuinely angry as she spat it out. “He bullied the church out of their property for a song by buying up the land around them and cutting off their access, effectively making it worthless, and we couldn’t figure out what his game was. Now he stands to make tens of millions or more out of it. Always an angle with him.”
“You didn’t know about the painting?”
“No.” And she didn’t seem happy about it. “We knew he had something in the works. We heard through our sources that he was selling something big. But we didn’t think it was an artwork. Or that it would be stolen. I mean who would be stupid enough to steal from Venner? With his contacts, their life expectancy would be extremely limited.”
“You mean?”
“Oh yes. Absolutely. He doesn’t do the dirty work himself. He never goes near anything that looks like it could soil him in the slightest. But with his wealth, both what we know about and what we don’t, he has no shortage of people he can hire.” Suddenly she stared straight at him.
“Inside job?” She had good instincts.
“I’d put good money on it. The only thing I can’t figure is the angle. He has no motive.”
“Oh that slimy little bastard has a motive alright. He always has a motive. It’s just finding it that’s the hard part. And sadly in this case, from what you’ve said, very hard. Fifty, a hundred million or more pounds worth of painting in his greedy little hands. If he was willing to part with that, even for a second, whatever his motive is it has to be big.” That much Barns could agree with, though he was a little worried by her valuation of the painting. That was five to ten times what he’d imagined, and if she was simply guessing, maybe it was more again. But then again it might not be.
