1635:The Dreeson Incident

Chapter 34

Grantville

New Year's Day, 1635

"That was a pretty comprehensive defense of yourself for staying out all night with Ron on New Year's Eve, Missy," Chad Jenkins said. "Designed to drive your mother to maximum distraction, I'm sure."

"Then why are you laughing?"

"Because I was listening. Outside the door, but listening. That's a lot of what a salesman does. And through all of your pointing out that the two of you don't have to sneak around in hotel rooms or anything because Ron has a whole house at his disposal out at Lothlorien where you can do whatever you please in perfect comfort and have a kitchen in which to cook breakfast to boot… not once did you say that you actually were there."

Missy gave her father a lopsided smile.

"We were over at Pam's. Playing cards with her and Cory Joe. And a guy named Jean-Louis LaChapelle, who is a nephew of the man that Velma Hardesty married. He's really a student at the University of Leiden. If this was back home, we'd say that he was a hard science major, I guess, with a sideline in engineering. They're not as specialized here as majors were at Fairmont State or WVU. He's in town on business for his uncle and also learning what he can while he's here. He's been here several weeks and took the 'how to use a research library' training that we give out at the state library. Very, very, French, for a Calvinist who was born and grew up in the Netherlands. All charm. 'Oozing charm from every pore,' like the song said."

"How does this involve Pam?"

"Good grief, Dad. Naturally, he looked up the family of his new aunt-by-marriage. The first time this Jean-Louis saw that tow-blonde hair on top of Pam's head, he went into meltdown. Also, she's in charge of the circulation desk at the State Library now and sometimes she gives the class. She taught the section he took, so when he found out that she works there, it gave him a doubled and redoubled reason to haunt the place."

"Is she flattered?"

"Part of her wants to melt back; part of her doesn't want to get a reputation like Velma's. The rest of her, which doesn't ever want to see Velma again, which she would probably have to if she got involved with her stepfather's nephew, is trying to referee. So until she decides what to do, the one thing she's absolutely sure of is that even though she wants to be with him, she doesn't want to be alone with him. So Ron and I told her that we'd play backup. That was before she knew Cory Joe would be here. His schedule between Grantville and Magdeburg is pretty irregular. Anyway, you can't play cards with three people, and Cory Joe didn't have a date."

She turned her head to the hall. "And you might as well come back in, Mom. I know you're there."

Debbie came back, having the grace to look a little ashamed. "Um. Is Cory Joe doing well in the army up in Magdeburg?"

"Cory Joe is on General Jackson's immediate staff and serving as his personal liaison to Don Francisco Nasi."

That stopped the conversation temporarily.

"Look, Mom. He'll be twenty-five in another couple of weeks. Pam splurged on a whole cup of sugar and is going to bake a little half-sized cake for him and Susan-her birthday was in December-before he goes back to Magdeburg. I wonder when someone will reinvent powdered sugar so we can have frosting again. We're growing up. All of us. Time didn't stop when the Ring of Fire happened. That's something you've got to face. If we were back home in West Virginia, I'd be away from home, half way through my first year of college."

Missy stopped, then started again. "And about Ron… This is important for you."

Her mother looked at her.

"He isn't going to go away. No matter what happens between him and me. If anything ever does. Ron and Bill…"

"Bill?"

"Bill Hudson. Remember Bill? My cousin Bill? Your nephew Bill?"

Debbie nodded.

"While he was fighting that diphtheria epidemic down at Amberg last summer, he decided that when he got out of the army, he was going to work for Ron's dad. That it was more important in the long run to make the medicines that doctors can use than to be a doctor himself. Uncle Ray wasn't too pleased at first-he'd thought that Bill would go to the new medical school in Jena once he got out of the army, since he'd already gone as far as EMT.

"But now they've settled it that Ron and Bill, along with Reichhard Hartmann from Oberweissbach, will be setting up a subsidiary of the pharmaceuticals side. Right now, until they draw up formal papers, they're calling it 'Whatever Works.' I'm not sure exactly why-it goes back to something Tom Stone said, I think. Not just to reconstitute up-time drugs, but to figure out what can be developed from what people use here, down-time. Maybe, using modern analytical methods, come up with things derived from herbals that we didn't have before the Ring of Fire. The point is that Ron and Bill are going to be business partners, which means that Ron is going to be a sort of, um, permanent fixture as far as the family is concerned. Your side, the Hudson side, at least, no matter what Nani thinks about it. You might as well get to know him."

Ron walked down the front steps of Missy's porch. He knew that he could wait until tomorrow. There wasn't any special reason that he needed to tell someone this today rather than tomorrow, he expected. Mr. Jenkins' office wouldn't be open. It was probably not the right place, anyway. He was in charge of Consular Affairs, after all-Grantvillers abroad, not foreigners in Grantville. Otherwise, though, he wasn't sure even who was in charge of that stuff since Mr. Bellamy took a job in Magdeburg. He couldn't quite take it directly to Mr. Piazza.

Cory Joe would tell Don Francisco, but he'd be looking at things from the Magdeburg perspective. Broad brush, so to speak. That wasn't quite the same thing as local developments.

And if Ron waited until tomorrow, he'd have to make a special trip back into town from Lothlorien. Or try to explain it on the phone, which never seemed to work for him quite as well as face to face. Or try to explain it on the phone to some functionary who was trying to prevent cracked nuts from using up an important person's time.

So. He walked up to Missy's uncle's house and knocked on the door.

Wes Jenkins opened it himself. He smiled in a friendly enough way. In fact, he looked like he was in a really good mood. That was always better than catching a man in a bad mood. Not to mention, he seemed awfully wide awake for this early in the morning on New Years Day.

Mrs. Jenkins seemed like she was in a good mood, too. Also wide awake. And she worked at the same office, so it ought to be all right to say everything in front of her.

Ron started talking. It was amazing how much a man could say during a whole night of playing cards. Particularly a man who was not entirely and totally all there because of a head of blonde hair. Particularly a man who was trying to impress that head of blonde hair with his family's connections and influence.

A man who apparently didn't have the vaguest idea that the half-brother of the blonde hair was in military intelligence. That was interesting in itself.

It was surprising how much Jean-Louis LaChapelle had let drop in passing while they were playing cards the night before. How much Ron, in thinking back to Venice, had started to get the sensation of " deja vu all over again." People representing themselves as out of town Committee of Correspondence sympathizers trying to make contacts in Grantville. And…

"I've heard some of this at work, too, out at the plant. I just hadn't put it all together. Everything in Grantville isn't perfect. There are places, not just the 250 Club but other places, where up-timers and down-timers seem to rub one another the wrong way, sometimes. LaChapelle seems to know they're doing this. More of the 'who, what, when, where, and how' than I felt comfortable about, even though he didn't say anything to indicate that he's involved in it himself. Especially considering who he is."

"Who?"

Wes obviously didn't know. Well, there wasn't any obvious connection between the two names.

"LaChapelle is the nephew of the man who married Pam's mother. Velma Hardesty. That guy was-well, is, he's alive and well somewhere in the Netherlands, Haarlem I think-thick as thieves with this Jacques-Pierre Dumais. They spent a lot of time together while he was in town. And Dumais… Mr. Jenkins, I really don't want to say something stupid."

"Say it." Wes smiled. "As I recall, I thought your view of my mother's gravy boat was a pretty fair assessment of the item."

"Dumais makes a big thing about being Huguenot. It's one of the cards he plays, locally. 'I'm your heroic Protestant type Frenchman, no lackey of that evil Cardinal Richelieu.' The other, for the 250 Club people, is, 'I'm no Kraut,' which isn't quite the same thing. But in Rome, Ducos and those people who tried to assassinate the pope-they were Huguenots. And they were manipulating other people to do their dirty work. That included the Committee of Correspondence people in Venice."

Wes looked a little blank. He had had other things on his mind during the period of the embassy to Venice.

"Uh. The Marcoli family. My brother Frank's in-laws." Ron frowned. He knew that he didn't have all the connections, so not all of this made sense. "Ducos got away. He has to have gone somewhere. He has to have connections, ways to get instructions to his people. I don't have a thing to tie LaChapelle and his uncle to Ducos. But they do tie to Dumais, at least Mauger does, and Dumais is manipulating other people to do his dirty work. I don't have anything to tie Dumais to Ducos, either. It's…"

"You don't have to have a full picture when you bring something in," Wes said. "Every piece of the puzzle helps. There's staff up in Magdeburg who spend all day, every day, trying to fit the pieces together."

"Nasi's people, I know. Thanks anyway," Ron said. "If it hadn't been for the gravy boat, I might have let the whole thing drop, or tried something really roundabout like writing to Father Gus, since he and Frank are pretty good friends, and hoping that he would show it to Father Mazzare-Cardinal Mazzare, I should say. But I thought, if you were interested, this might be faster."

"If a couple of other people are interested in this, is there anyplace in town I can catch you later today? I know it's a holiday. .."

"I was going back home. I suppose I could always go over and annoy Missy's parents by existing."

"I would not, if I were you." Clara said. "Debbie has already sent Missy to go to sleep and called me to complain."

"Go over to Ben Hardesty's," Wes suggested. "Cory Joe has already been in touch with Arnold Bellamy this morning, early. He's waiting at Ben's until we get a meeting set up. I'll swing by for the two of you when we've gotten in touch with everyone who should be sitting in on this. At least, everyone who doesn't have a hangover. The administration of the SoTF has at least a couple of officials who seem to have partied harder than the rest of them." He grinned. "Ed Piazza among them. We'll brief them tomorrow."

Ron blinked. The principal? Well, the president of the State of Thuringia-Franconia?

"He's Italian," Clara said gently. "There was red wine. Annabelle says that at least New Years Eve is not a wedding or a wake."

By a week or so later, it became clear that Bill Hudson was wasting an awful lot of time getting back and forth from Willie Ray's place to Lothlorien. Ron suggested that he might as well move in, since it didn't seem likely that his brother Frank would ever need his room there again.

They packed up the personal stuff that Frank had left behind when they left for Italy a year before into barrels and put those in a storeroom. Then they moved Bill's stuff with his father's team and wagon.

This involved meeting Bill's grandmother. Who was also Missy's other grandmother, the Hudson one, the one she called "Nani."

It was a sort of interesting experience. The kind of thing that made Ron glad that she had introduced him to her Jenkins grandmother first. That had to be saying something.

They were standing next to the wagon, waiting for someone to bring out another load of stuff on the dolly. She appeared and demanded fiercely, "Are you the young man who kissed Missy while she was riding a motorcycle last fall?"

Perhaps he shouldn't have answered, "Like this?" and demonstrated the procedure.

It certainly hadn't helped that Missy responded to the old lady's glare by throwing her arms around his neck and kissing him again. With considerably more verve.