Page 99 of By Any Means

Not before nor after. Chary sweated miserably, and not from summer or the heat of the furnace. He should’ve told Laurie days before, and now he was going to find out secondhand.

But Laurie was focused on something else. “No sponsor… except Raberding?” he asked.

“He would’ve, on conditions.” But he wanted too much, Chary knew. And even the hint of such a thing had made Raberding froth at the mouth and leap for more.

“Horizontal integration?” Laurie murmured.

“I wouldn’t do it. And you know, Tulley, if we put them into our non-union place first, it would fuel even more sentiment against them. I wanted the machine to do for the industry what you called inevitable. I thought, even if I had to go through a hundred Locals… if they could see what they would do for the boys? If that could be Chary’s legacy? But they have opposed her at every turn. And then they tried to kill him for it.”

“August.” Chary’s voice was thick. He hadn’t known August knew how he felt about the boys working the factory, except that he’d known he’d been one. “Brother.”

Laurie, who did not look unmoved, was nevertheless still mired in his role as investigator. “Who forced you outta there again? You said he was your referral at Brooklyn Glass—he turned out to be an enforcer instead?”

“Oh, Sawyer. He shoved me out of Walhalla, right onto Orchard. I think it was just personal. We met as fairies, years and years ago, and I had recalled he also worked for Wright Glass at the time. Privately, it’d tickled me. Papa raising a cross-dressing whore, employing a part-time one, too. Enh, we are truly everywhere.” August shrugged. “I never liked him. He was a bit of a bigot. Remembering what he used to do was useful. He didn’t know who I was born as, of course. And I can’t blame him for being angry. I was a risk to him even only as a fellow former whore.”

Laurie had grabbed hold of the marver, like it’d cost him not to speak during all of this revelation. Now he croaked, “Sawyer—Irving Sawyer?”

Chary hadn’t heard the name before, he was pretty sure; to Laurie, it seemed to have been devastating. Someone he’d known?

“Yes, Irving,” August said. “I knew him as Erwina, but he didn’t keep that up for long. It didn’t suit, you know? Sometimes it doesn’t. I figured he’d have done anything to keep his normal job, and he did; he did what I asked.” He shrugged again. “I hold no blame with him for throwing me out, as I said. I used him casually.”

“Oh, dear God,” Chary said. “You didn’t blackmail the man?”

“No!” August flushed an ugly, shamed red. “Not with anything spoken aloud,” he muttered.

“You wore out your welcome with him, at the very least.”

But was it enough motive to try and kill a man for?

“Sorry, Chary. I did what I thought I had to. I didn’t think he’d attack you for it.”

“Odd jobs. Well, there you go,” Laurie said, and groaned. He had a hand over his face. “Look. I knew the man. Sawyer was my source at Brooklyn Glass. He’s dead now. He was mur— He was killed.”

Oh, God. Oh, no. If they were the same man— the man that Chary had killed, accidentally, in desperation? Had he done that, killed Laurie’s source? He, Chary?

“Dead?” August said, just as Chary said tremulously, “Do you think him my attacker?”

“Do I think a man would kill to avoid being outed and ousted from his job? The thing that keeps him and his family fed and clothed and off the streets? I mean, yeah. I do. Jesus, Chary.”

Not recrimination; sympathy.

“Now wait a moment. Sawyer’s dead?”

I maybe killed him. Chary met Laurie’s eyes, thinking it, seeing it reflected there; neither said a thing.

August swore, as their silence was answer enough. “I did not wish him dead,” he whispered. “How did it happen, d’you know?”

“Stabbed, the report said.” Once, twice, barely enough to kill, and Chary hadn’t meant it, not at all— “Outside Boone’s bar,” Laurie lied. He sighed, heavily, tapping the steel marver. “I also think he could’ve done murder to keep himself and his family fed and clothed. He could’ve been a gun for hire atop everything else… Sure, I’d believe it.”

It sounded too much like good old hearty self-deception for Chary’s conscience.

“But why would he inform to you about the missing men if— No. Why would he kill those gaffers?”

August said, “Missing men?”

“Was he a racialist?” Laurie said, back to interrogating. “Sawyer. You called him a bigot.”

“Not in so many words… but it was half why he was so angry to have to refer me, I think. They were not, absolutely not salting Wright Glass, so who was I to try? Wright Glass didn’t hire ‘the union type,’ he said. A good few at the Local looked relieved to find me white on introduction. English-speaking.” He smirked, though painfully. “I didn’t mention being papist.”