Book One: A Storm of Glass and Ashes

Chapter Four: Thus Spake Kaiser Willheim

Alasdair West knew the single most important fact in the world: we are all born suckers. Barnem's famous comment about the birth-rate of his target audience was intended for every living human. We are all fallible and human, and we can all be tricked into selling our soul for pocket lint if given the right presentation. For example, place a thousand dollars in a random drawer and charge people for a chance to find it. Sure, you'd have to pay someone a thousand bucks once in a while, but the right price, the right number of drawers, you could make a mint. Making money is all about math: how much, from how many, with as little from you, as possible. That's how you make a fortune.

Alex walked into a room made of clear plastic medical tarps and knew by his metric, he'd just met a much better criminal than he.

"Mr. West. Ms. West. I'm Kaiser Willheim," said the man in the middle of the room. "Please, sit."

Alex paid a lot of attention to the outside of people. Largely because that told you the most important thing about them. Not who they are. Who someone is lies in the negative and liminal spaces. It's in the rubber bands on wrists, the doodles on legal pads, the things people do without thought. That's where you find who someone really is, and in Alex's line of work, it's the least useful thing you can know about a person. Who someone is. That's concrete and unchanging, and usually the last thing someone wants you to know.

No, outsides tell you who someone wants to be. This is how they want to be seen. Kaiser Willheim was the sixth richest man in the world. He was wearing off-the-rack Armani. Slight tailoring, Alex thought. Little tucks at elbows and knees and waist. Mostly for his comfort, but not so much that it screamed bespoke. Well groomed, as if his beard were a golf course and his hair a work of art, sculpted with comb and hair gel to greet people the way a courtyard fountain does guests. Very little jewelry. Cufflinks. He wore little metal lapel clips and a string tie. There was a white ten gallon hat sitting on his desk. Huh. Alex looked at the rest of the desk residents. Apple laptop, boring. IPhone, no surprise there. Android smart watch. Huh. Noted. A sculpture of a cowboy lassoing a horse, classical bronze style, the sort of sculpture celebrating the European features of the cowboy almost as much as it did the wild toss of the stallion's mane.

"My daddy always did love westerns," Alex said, because the first person to speak--"

"The first person to speak most often controls the room. And you are lying. Bartholomew Lawrence "Baylor" West hates westerns. Passionately enough to make scamming cowboys a career choice. The same way April Stardust Rayne, formerly April Katherine DeWitt, of the Boston DeWitts, never turned down a guru. By the way, Haven, you probably ought to pry your mother out of the grip of that Yogi in Idaho. I hear he's something of a lech."

Hawk did not respond. She clenched her jaw, clenched her hands, and kept her mouth shut. That's my Hawk, he thought. It was absolutely the best move she could make. This guy had come out swinging. Alex had expected something. He hadn't expected this.

He'd taught Hawk (because he'd thought that Hawk could get through to April where he could not) that if you want to avoid getting conned, you do not engage. Don't talk. Let them make all the noise, and you watch and listen. See if you can figure out if they actually want to talk, or if they just want to provoke you.

Alex had money on "provoke".

"Government contacts," he said. "What'd you do? Throw interns at our social media?"

"That worked for Ms. West. You were a lot harder." Kaiser said.

"I bet. Not a lot of documentation when you're on the take. So. You wanted to talk. We're listening."

"Your wife actually talk, or did you buy her for the looks?" Kaiser said.

Hawk smiled, walked to the nearest chair, and sat down. If you did not know her, you might even think she was only a bit miffed. There were solar furnaces that could take a lesson from the rage burning in Hawk's eyes.