Aeroparts Factory Read Online Free PDF

smoke were competing for second and third place, and the
everpresent fumes of oil lamps and candles that fought the glum
darkness inside the place permeated everything without demanding
attention.
    Bromsky's was filled up nicely already,
considering the relatively early hour. Dotty wondered what the
reason would be. Usually, if Bromsky's was so full, Lena's place
would be more occupied also, like on pay-day. Something special was
going on. Determined to learning more, Dotty pushed through the
throngs of people in their dull greys and browns, heading for the
bar behind which Bromsky was lord and master. As long as his wife
Kate was out of sight.
    Bromsky was his normal self. The threadbare
bowler hat he wore kept itself together out of sheer determination,
not reaching the short grey crown that circled the man's head.
Forty eight years of life had taken all colour from his hair, and
most colour from his face. His deep-lying eyes missed nothing that
went on in his establishment. The everpresent stubbly beard on his
meaty face hung beneath fat lips that held a stump of cigar.
Bromsky was busy: the cigar had gone out and he had not taken the
time to relight it. Only the fact that he was behind the bar was
evidence that Bromsky was the bartender. He was dressed in the same
uncheering greys and black and browns as his customers.
    "Hi Bromsky," Dotty said loudly, to be heard
over the sea of voices in the pub, "what's the big commotion
today?"
    "Summin' bad at the airship plant," the
barman muttered, "they all talk and hardly drink."
    Dotty stared at the used glasses on the
counter for a moment. It couldn't be so bad as Bromsky painted the
situation. "Give me a beer, and write it up, will you," Dotty then
said.
    "Write it up, write it up," Bromsky started
his litany. "You all gonna be the death of me." He grabbed the
small worn blackboard under the counter, produced a smudgy piece of
chalk from somewhere and scribbled something down. Then he pulled
her a beer and hawk-eyed the crowd again.
    As Dotty made her way through the crowd, her
bum was groped many times. Somehow the mob always had time for
that, no matter how pressing the subject of their talks was. Dotty
didn't mind. As long as they groped, they were potential customers.
After all, she thought, you also squeezed a tomato before you
bought one.
    At one of the overloaded tables, men were
loudly discussing the problems at 'the factory'. Dotty knew that
they were talking about the place that made part for airships. It
was the one of the few factories around where the common people
were allowed to work, and this one was the main source of
employment for the neighbourhood. Actually they were needed there.
There were machine men there, but these things could not do all the
work. That's where the men came in.
    "I'm telling you, there's more than six
blokes dead there," said Martin, one of the drinkers. "The load
that came down was humongous. Devil knows why so many were in the
pit too." Clearly he had been there when it happened, whatever 'it'
was. "The coppers were there real fast and they told us all to
bugger off for the day. Masterson was mighty pissed off by that,
but nothing he could do about it."
    Another man, known as Bass, snorted. "You
won't find that half day in your pay, mate."
    Martin fell silent, his face turning pale.
Then he uttered a few unfriendly words addressed to Masterson and
the coppers.
    Another person entered Bromsky's then. At
first the man went unnoticed, but that changed rapidly as he pushed
himself through the pub, carrying a large bag that made many a
curse heard as it banged into people. The owner of the bag, rather
thin and dressed in a black suit that revealed nothing about him,
seemed to look for someone. His bag hit Dotty in a hip very hard.
"Hey, watch out mister!" she yelled after him, but the man was
oblivious to any of the comments that were thrown at him. "Bloody
idiot," she muttered, rubbing her hip. It felt as if she'd been
poked with a piece