Dispatch from a Colored Room

Where'd he get that suit?

When they ran out of documents, Dawnroad began sending us legal notices.

We were prepared for this, though not by our own design. The Greyking board had added a generously staffed legal department to the company, ostensibly for the protection of intellectual property (not least the colored room poem). In fact, a number of those lawyers specialized in finance, and were responsible for the questionable maneuvers that lined the pockets of the shareholders—but, in any event, you don't sign up as in-house counsel to a small press without some trace of appreciation for the product, and more than one soul in Legal worked for us unpaid to separate the bluffs from the real threats. Of the latter there were three. 

First, Dawnroad had petitioned the gendarmerie to reopen the investigation into Gauthier Leblanc's death, on the grounds that he was their real client and might not wish to surrender his assets to Aimée. Accordingly, we were told to cease and desist spending any of Aimée's inheritance, which was of course the only money either of us had to live on. This rattled me more than it did Aimée, who more quickly understood the endgame: Either her father was alive, in which case (she had faith) he would not begrudge her the money, or he was dead, in which case it was hers. In any case, she had spent some time living on credit she was not good for, and knew that you filled your belly and fended off the rain any way you could, especially when there were children to care for.

Second, we were warned that we might be summoned to testify on the activities of Greyking's investment wing. This was a pure shakedown; the implication was that, if Dawnroad didn't get what they wanted, they would blow the whistle on Greyking's only profitable division. Recall, of course, that Dawnroad owned a large minority of Greyking, which made this a self-destructive threat in the short term, and one Aimée and I were both disposed to ignore; but a perceptive soul in Legal pointed out that the good bankers at Dawnroad would still eat if their stock in Greyking plummeted, and we would not. 

Last, and strangest, Elias Charbon had informed Dawnroad Bank that he had had a share in creating the colored room poem, and that he thus deserved a fraction of Aimée's interest in the company. We find out about this at the Lunidor board meeting, where he appears in a tailored suit that must easily cost ten times the price of my outfit and Aimée's combined, beaming a fat grin like a devil that's just eaten a baby. "Nice to see you, Aimée," he says. 

Aimée, to her credit, doesn't flinch, but she doesn't meet his gaze either. "Mlle Pelerine," she says, "please have security correct their roster of authorized board members."

"Oh, I'm authorized," said Charbon. "The good people at your former financial institution recognize my claim to the assets of Greyking Books."

"We found M Charbon's claim to have inspired the colored room poem quite plausible," says a fleshy suit I vaguely recognize from my Dawnroad days. "In light of new evidence written in M Leblanc's own hand. We sent you the document."

"You sent us an ocean of documents—" I begin, but Aimée cuts me off. "I know the document," she says. "It doesn't prove anything."

"It seemed rather conclusive to us," says the suit. "'I have had the germ of a poem in my head for some weeks now, thanks to an image that my old friend Elias has created,' if I remember correctly." He knows he has; he's memorized it for just this occasion. 

"Elias Charbon is hardly the only Elias in Altronne," Aimée says. "And the poem may not be the only poem my father ever wrote. Or, for that matter, ever submitted for publication."

I have to confess this quick thinking of Aimée's nearly astonishes me, but the suit seems to have anticipated the objection, if perhaps not from her. “You should find this a welcome development, Mlle Leblanc,” he says. “A living co-creator will help shut down the lawsuits at greater speed and less cost than we could manage without him.” This absurdity is uttered with a patronizing smile that makes me want to shove my fist wrist-deep into his suety face. “Well, I suppose reasonable men may disagree on these matters,” he says, digging in the word men. "But the duly constituted majority of this board finds it plausible. In light of which we propose a new division of votes—"

"Where'd he get that suit?" I ask.

"From a friend of his at Dawnroad Bank," the suit says, "in recognition of his hitherto unheralded work for the little press we have come to love so much."

Aimée's eyes flash, and it makes me proud, but I take her elbow and turn her aside. "I know what you're going to say," I say. "This is transparently a power play, it probably violates two dozen corporate statutes, it'll never hold up in court. They know that. The fat suit back there is being obvious, which means he's baiting you. The idea here isn't actually to give half of Dawnroad to Elias; it’s to force us into court to defend it. In the meantime, we either sit out of these meetings in protest, and things happen behind our backs, or you have to sit through hours and hours of Elias Charbon staring at you and stinking up the room."

Aimée blinks twice, but she gets it. I wonder what she's gone through, in the years between her father's last letter and my arrival on her doorstep, to help her understand this sort of thing. "So what do we do?"

"We sit."

"Fuck that."

"No," I say, as fiercely as I can without letting the whole board hear. "We show strength. Look, none of these people actually want to be in a room with Elias. They're just gambling that you want it even less than they do. As soon as they see you're not intimidated by him, they'll cast him aside and he'll slink back to the sixth. The story about his 'contribution' will evaporate in less time than it'll take to get the smell out of the seats. Meanwhile, you show your allies that you don't knuckle under. That consolidates their loyalty, and maybe it switches a few who're on the fence."

Aimée looks at me for a long moment, fear and loathing barely chained behind her eyes. I sigh inside and play my trump.

"Besides," I say, "every minute he's in here is a minute he's not out on the streets, looking for Sim."

 

Fear and loathing are joined by nausea and despair, and I see her throat move as she literally swallows it all. She draws herself up straight, her skinny frame suddenly regal. "You'll hear from our attorneys," she says, then picks up a chair and moves it to one of the wide spaces between Elias and two other Dawnroad suits. Elias nearly flinches; Aimée's gaze pierces him with hate, which seems to relax him, and the grin returns. Aimée deliberately turns away, toward the suit who'd spoken. "Let's hear what else you've got."