The White Elephant of Panschin

Other Doings while Veronica is Trapped Underground

     Airik grimly made his way back to the ballroom at the Twelve Happiness Luxury Hotel. He had to find a substitute for Upton right away; he needed Elliot to research Qiao & Schopenhour and to figure out, via servants' gossip, what connection existed between his secretary and Miss Qiao; he had to anticipate what arrangements Qiao & Schopenhour would claim Upton agreed to; and, worst of all, he still had to socialize in the ballroom with a pack of greedy, grasping strangers. Every one of those guests had witnessed Upton's accident and would be gossiping avidly about it. His fall was spectacular enough to make the social columns all the way to Barsoom, complete with wild speculation about Upton's drunken habits, a detailed rehash of his skirt-chasing lifestyle (including naming names), and hints about exposure to Red Mercury causing insanity in the Shelleen family.

     It was going to be a challenge to steer conversations back to safety equipment.

     And there was Mr. Burgess to consider. The younger Mr. Qiao had made a fascinating statement, demanding careful thought. How did Burgess retain his power? He appeared to be a badly dressed buffoon, yet buffoons did not stay employed in any kind of position of authority no matter how powerful their families were.

     Hmm. He could add Burgess to Elliot's list of research tasks.

     He should, Airik knew, have someone else from the Shelleen delegation doing this work, but he didn't want to reveal any connection to the White Elephant. It had become a refuge in Panschin, a free-city he was rapidly coming to dislike. He did not want to examine why it felt like going home when he saw Veronica Bradwell. And there lay the other, bigger reason. The Shelleen family would have plenty to say to him about associating with the daughter of such a notorious embezzler and scoundrel. Gaston would insist he sever all ties rather than affect Shelleen's own business dealings and he would be correct. The senior members of the family would fully back Gaston on that point. Despite any questions or concerns Elliot might harbor on the subject, he would not reveal them. His valet knew his place.

     Airik steeled himself and plunged into the whirl of people in the Twelve Happiness ballroom.

     ***

     Malcolm Cobb read through document after document in the second subbasement under the branch office of the Second National Bank of Panschin. The evidence was damning when examined en masse and in order as opposed to how the documents had been processed, each separate and unrelated from its fellows. Burgess was either the most incompetent buffoon the bank had on staff – unlikely but possible – or he was utterly corrupt; a far more likely possibility. Yet Malcolm couldn't reveal what he found. Burgess had taken great care to implicate his fellow senior officers in the bank. Burgess had ensured that if he fell from power, he'd take all his peers along with him to the Dirac mines.

     Anything Malcolm revealed would have to be done with the utmost care so he did not end up being punished for airing the bank's dirty laundry. And worse, the reports indicated Burgess and Simon Bradwell had worked with other banks whose senior executives also would not want their dirty laundry aired out for the free-city residents to see. And sue over.

     It was galling. Every name he read in the myriad of documents belonged to an executive or family who were already wealthy and powerful, yet what they had wasn't enough. They wanted more. If he brought this situation to light and public attention, he would be the one to suffer, along with his entire family and Shelby and her little family. Not them. It was grotesquely unfair.

     Seeing the record of corruption made Malcolm want, more than ever, to climb to the very top of the ladder at Second National. He wanted to become the president of the bank, along with chairman of the board. With each step up the corporate ladder, he could better clean house. He might not be able to prosecute anyone currently within Second National's corporate structure, but he could do his best to make sure there was closer and more rigorous oversight in the future.