The Iron Man [Serial]

The Velvet Mafia

That night, after a supper of pasta with fried sardines, I heard from Angelo and Estasi what they had seen. Estasi was possessed of a similarity with Angelo, dark of hair and eye, though she was perhaps slightly older. I could sense from the way Miranda sometimes interrupted to answer for them that she was protective of her two last employees. They kept house with her. I knew of businesses that offered lodgings to employees, but the number of table and chairs were not such that Miranda could have housed many more.

We'd retired from the dining table to a suite of sofas and chairs arranged for conversation. The room had tall windows, now shuttered, and was lit with gas sconces and chandelier of multi-colored glass. There was a large wooden-framed loom, where some families may have kept a piano. A desk and cabinets were visible within the adjacent room. It looked surprisingly elegant for a Manual Caste home.

Under The Pax, our Castes were said to be different from the socio-economic classes they had replaced. All professions were said to be valued and necessary. Yet The Dress Code made it clear some professions were expected in only the most utilitarian and functional, while others were expected in finery. Miranda wove lush velvets in drab gray cotton frocks.

I supposed that Miranda had been classified into her Caste, as a weaver, after establishment of the Pax, though the workshop and old palazzo had come to her from the previous generation. It was different for me, and others my age. I'd moved to London after it fell under sway of Paris toward the end of the Great War. Angelo had probably only ever known The Great War or The Pax. Miranda seemed she might be old enough to remember before.

Apart from Morté, whom Miranda had photographed, two other men had visited. Only one had given a name, a Monsieur Pallador. The other he had referred to as his friend. I took up my sketchbook and crayons to make renderings of the troublemakers. I began by asking what this friend was like.

At once, Angelo and Estasi answered:

"Scary."

"Sexy," Estasi said. They looked questioningly at each other and then broke into laughter.

I was not accustomed to others openly admitting that type of attraction, and I was uncertain I wished to know how the man could be both frightening and desirable. I continued to prompt my hosts for factual details about his appearance. "Eyes like a sheikh," Angelo said, "but he doesn't look like an Arab." I gathered Angelo meant to say the man wore some great deal of kohl about his eyes, as fictional characters from the near east were sometimes depicted.

Sina's shifting posture said that she disliked the generalizations. When I suggested Arabs may not look any more alike each other than Italians, Angelo stated that he was Sammarinese.

I continued to sketch as the continued their description: top hat, earrings bigger than a Merc's, malevolent smile. I was beginning to see the possibility for a man to be frightening yet enticing.

"And Pallador?" I asked, decisively turning the page in my book.

Miranda, Angelo, and Estasi first looked at each other. "He's a che--" Angelo started.

Miranda interrupted, "Angelo means to say that Monsieur Pallador has the appearance and manner of a fop."

"Oh."

"He wears French powders on his face!" Angelo said, with gestures to his lips and cheeks.

I struggled to sketch the described combination of beauty, affectation and mean-spiritedness. It was late by the time I finished my sketches and notes.

I walked through the building with Miranda and Sina, checking the doors and windows were secure. The palazzo had drafts and gaps in the interior plaster, and the wood of the upper floors was bowed such as to dip toward the center. I laid my sketchbook on Miranda's desk, planning to wirefax my findings the next morning.