Black In White

by J. C. Andrijeski

  Glaring at me, he made his voice more threatening.

  “Or maybe you fucking know him, Miri. Maybe you met him over in the sand pits, on R&R or something. Maybe you slept with him over there... dated him. Played chess with him. Cleaned his rifle. Whatever.”

  When I gaped at him, he held up a hand.

  “Frankly, I don’t care. That part’s none of my damned business. What I do care about, is that you’re not thinking clearly around him. And I’m not the only one who’s noticed.”

  I continued to stare at him, as much in disbelief as anything.

  I couldn’t help wondering what Black had said to him. Clearly, he’d said things about me, not just about Ian. Black was feeding this line to Nick that he knew me in some way. But why? What possible motive could he have? And what the hell had he said to rattle Nick like this? To have him looking at me like I was the damned enemy?

  For the first time in a long time, I was really tempted to read Nick.

  On purpose I mean... something I never did with friends.

  I picked up things on accident sure, no matter how much I shielded. But actually going there, trying to get inside a friend’s brain, that was a major no-no for me.

  I shoved the fleeting temptation out of my mind the instant it rose.

  “Nick,” I said instead, my voice openly puzzled. “You were watching me the whole time I spoke to Black. You practically high-fived me when I came out of there––”

  “And you’ve been acting weird ever since,” he cut in.

  “You were there, Nick,” I said angrily. “You heard the whole interview!”

  “I was there,” he acknowledged, gripping the armrests of the leather chair. “And I did hear it. But I strongly suspect I didn’t hear all of it, Miriam. Now why is that, do you think?”

  I flinched before I could stop myself.

  Then I bit my lip.

  “Meaning what?” I said, my voice neutral.

  “Meaning that!” he snapped, motioning at my mouth. “Meaning what you just did, right there! Meaning those weird silences between you two in the box... and the time you nearly fell out of your damned chair, just looking at him. I didn’t think much of it at the time, but I noticed. Even before I talked to Black, Glen asked me why you two seemed to know each other...”

  When I avoided his eyes, anger leaked out more aggressively in his voice.

  “Are you going to tell me the truth?” he said. “Did you meet him over there? In some fucking sand cave outside Kabul?”

  I shook my head, staring at him incredulously. “No.”

  “Do you know him at all? From before we picked him up?”

  “No!” I said, angrier.

  He continued to level that stare at me. I could feel the skepticism on him. More than skepticism. He flat out thought I was lying to him.

  As if he heard me, Nick let out a forced sigh, clenching his jaw briefly. “I don’t know what it is about the two of you, but everything in my cop instincts tells me to keep you as far away from that piece of shit ghost as possible. So that’s what I’m going to do.”

  Exhaling in annoyance, I started to speak but Nick cut me off.

  “I mean it, Miri,” he said, holding up a hand. He leaned forward, glaring at me. “You go near that guy, I’ll arrest you. You hear me? I don’t give a damn what Ian says. I’ll throw you in jail until we have enough to haul Black back in... and then I’ll slap you with interfering with an open murder investigation. Make you go in front of a judge... even if they throw it out.”

  I stared at him, unable to hide my incredulity.

  “Jesus, Nick. What in the hell––”

  “I know you better than you think, Miri,” Nick said, his voice colder still.

  There was a silence where we just looked at one another.

  As we did, it hit me that I’d never been on the receiving end of that particular look in Nick’s eyes before. I’d seen it, sure, but I’d never had it aimed at me.

  He didn’t just think I was holding out on him.

  He knew I was holding out on him. He knew there was something about Quentin Black I wasn’t telling him.

  And he didn’t like it.

  He didn’t like it one bit.

  Five

  ONE OF OURS

  I’VE NEVER LIKED being told what to do.

  It’s a character flaw, I know.

  But it is what it is.

  Now that I knew they might be letting Black go later that day, my window felt suddenly short. I knew how the release system usually worked. I also knew Nick. He’d find some excuse to keep Black there as long as he possibly could... at least until mid-afternoon. Longer if he could get away with it. They’d run him through hoops until his lawyer threw a fit. Knowing Nick, Black would get out right around the end of the workday, somewhere around five or six o’clock.

  Four or four-thirty at the earliest.

  So I had some time, but not a lot.

  Nick finally left my office around eight o’clock. Not long after that, I saw three clients, including the one I’d blown off the day before, pretty much one after the other.

  Then it was noon.

  After the last one finally left––and I pretty much had to shove him out the door, since he was one of those needy, clingy types––I spent a few minutes looking over the website of one Black Security and Investigations Firm, sole proprietor, Mr. Quentin R. Black.

  I didn’t learn much.

  Other than a basic list of services and some impressive names on his testimonials list, his website was frustratingly vague, if beautifully designed.

  Chasing down his clients didn’t yield much either.

  I knew some of that had to be due to the nature of his work. Even so, I found myself wondering if he had people on his payroll who knew how to get a good chunk of his web presence blocked from regular search engines. I didn’t come across a single picture of him online, not even on his own website. I briefly contemplated calling his firm’s front desk, then decided I would rather go in person. I knew there was a good chance his office would have surveillance cameras but I was willing to risk that too.

  Anyway, Black had been taunting me. Might as well return the favor.

  Grabbing my keys off the hook near my office door, I only paused long enough to feed Gomey an excuse about a headache and how I’d decided to work the rest of the afternoon from home. As I battled the traffic to make my way downtown on California Street, I told myself that I needed to do this... that I had a kind of civic duty to check him out personally, given that most people would have no idea what they were dealing with in Black.

  I told myself I just wanted to see his workspace.

  Gather a few impressions.

  I knew it would be easier to check him out in the psychic sense later on, if I got a good look at where he worked. There was some kind of weird relationship between knowing a person’s physical location and being able to see them with my mind.

  I knew that was only part of it though.

  If I was being wholly honest with myself, I was planning on doing something I hadn’t done in years, not since I’d gone looking for Zoe’s killer and found nothing. I was planning on actively using my psychic ability to investigate something. Mostly, I was hoping I could get enough off Black’s employees to form a more complete picture of Mr. Black himself. Maybe then I could decide if Nick was right about him.

  I knew Nick very well might be right about him.

  But I needed to know for myself.

  I got something different off Black than what Nick did. I couldn’t yet put it into words, but I was reasonably sure it wasn’t only the psychic thing that Black and I shared. I knew it might be that, however. I knew Nick might be right about me, in thinking I just didn’t want to believe Black could be a psychopathic killer, even if my reasons were different from what Nick thought.

  I just had to hope Nick wouldn’t return to my office in the next few hours.

  I pulled into an underground parking structure th
ree blocks from Black’s office building about fifteen minutes later. Taking only my phone and my purse, I walked up to the faceted, cylindrical tower and felt my throat tighten as I saw the stepped fountain standing in a sidewalk garden in front of the building. The seven-story glass-enclosed lobby I could see behind the garden looked like something out of a movie.

  Even for this part of town, the building was high-end.

  I recognized it, although I’d never been inside.

  That feeling of unreality worsened when I went through the revolving door and found myself standing in front of a waterfall fountain coming out of one wall and decorated with hanging crystals that shimmered with pale, colored lights. Real art hung on the walls. It was like they’d made a section of the lower lobby into an adjust of the San Francisco MOMA.

  I hadn’t made it halfway across the granite tile floor before I was approached by someone in a security uniform. I’d been looking down, noticing that the floor was designed like an elaborate chess board as I aimed my feet for the main bank of elevators, when the guard stepped right in front of me, forcing me to halt.

  Smiling, he asked me politely which business I intended to visit.

  When I told him, he excused himself to wander a few feet away and murmur something into his sleeve. I noticed he never really took his attention off me, however.

  I wondered if he’d tackle me to the ground if I made a break for the elevators.

  I strongly suspected he would.

  He touched his ear after he stopped talking into his sleeve and only then did I notice he wore an earpiece as well. So this building didn’t have rent-a-cops... it had its own Secret Service, including the requisite toys that intimidated as much as provided function.

  Just when I’d started to think I was about to be booted out that revolving door for not having an appointment, the guard’s expression cleared.

  Nodding to something someone said on the other side of the line, he smiled.

  Turning towards me, he winked, and widened that smile at me.

  Huh, I thought.

  He took his hand off his ear and motioned for me to follow him.

  He looked genuinely friendly now as he escorted me off to the side and down a narrow corridor past the security desk and to the left of the main bank of elevators. I couldn’t help wondering why I got the nod, and assumed it must be because I wore a suit, was female and happened to be wearing high heels that day.

  Sometimes, being a well-dressed woman didn’t suck.

  Even so, I glanced back at that row of gleaming elevators as we left them behind, wondering why he wasn’t taking me to them. I suddenly envisioned myself being strip-searched in a windowless room. Pulling my jacket tighter around my skirt suit and trying not to frown, I only relaxed after I read the guy briefly and realized he was just taking me to a different set of elevators.

  A few seconds later we reached the alcove I’d seen in his head when I took a quick peek at his thoughts. Only one elevator sat in that alcove, and it looked strangely smaller and older than the ones I’d glimpsed from the main lobby.

  It also looked considerably more fancy, with copper-colored plating on the outside doors rather than the brushed steel of the main bank. An art deco-styled arrow pointed at only five numbers set in the wall, all of which were also fashioned of copper.

  So apparently this was the express elevator. It served only floors 44, 45, 46, 47 and 48.

  The guard used a pass card to open the elevator doors.

  Smiling at me again, he motioned politely for me to enter, then entered after me, making me nervous all over again. But he only used his pass card to activate the button for floor 48 before he exited, nodding to me in a friendly way as the doors closed between us.

  I breathed a sigh of relief once I found myself alone.

  Even so, I found myself looking up, scanning the inside of the mirrored car with its brass railings until I found the God’s eye camera. Frowning up at it, I looked down at the emerald green carpet on the floor of the elevator, then at the five numbered buttons.

  The elevator moved fast.

  I mean, it really booked.

  It climbed those stories faster than I was prepared for... not really giving me time to think through what I intended to say when I reached Black’s offices. I also had only a minute or two to think about the possible ramifications of Black definitely knowing I’d been here, and how I felt about that, as well.

  But maybe he wouldn’t know.

  After all, they must get walk in clients occasionally. Would they really run every face and ID by Quentin Black himself, when he owned the company?

  It struck me as unlikely.

  The thought made me relax, if only a little.

  When the doors opened with a melodic ping a few seconds later and I walked out, I found myself in another glass-enclosed lobby. Tall windows stood to either side of the elevator’s foyer, and the ceiling directly overhead was all glass, too. Remembering we were essentially housed in the penthouse floor of the building, I forced myself to exhale after I’d looked up at a swath of blue sky and high, white cumulous clouds, taking in the view for a few seconds before I steeled myself and looked straight ahead.

  A brushed copper door stood directly in front of me, a decidedly more modern version than the art deco style of the elevators. The door stood unusually wide and tall, with a long, vertical cylinder for a handle, about the width of a copper pipe.

  Etched into the translucent, plate glass walls that angled back on either side of that door was the same eagle symbol that had been on Black’s business cards. The glass formed a near pyramid shape with the copper door at one end and diagonal hallways on either side. I couldn’t see through either of the long windows, or even see shapes moving inside, but the effect of all that glass made it look strangely like the prow of a ship.

  This had to be the place.

  Were they really the only business on this floor? Or were more offices located at the end of both of those dimly-lit, angled corridors?

  Even as my mind posed the question, a door opened somewhere down the corridor to my left. I heard it rather than saw it, just as I heard footsteps coming towards me from that same hall, moving purposefully over the plush carpet.

  They weren’t loud, but the sound carried, probably due to acoustics.

  I reached out with my mind, but got nothing.

  Silence.

  Nerves slid over me, intense enough that I considered retreat. I considered walking straight into the offices of Black Securities and Investigations... then I considered just leaving, getting back in the art deco elevator and returning to the ground floor.

  Before I could make up my mind, the person walking towards me reached the natural light of the lobby through the high glass walls and windows.

  Once he had, I could only stare.

  It was Quentin Black himself.

  Moreover, he was shirtless, wearing only black dress pants. I couldn’t help staring at his bare chest and the rest of the way down his body to his bare feet before my eyes jerked back up to his face. His hair was wet, like he’d just gotten out of the shower.

  He had tattoos on his inner arms... tattoos I hadn’t seen when he was covered in blood.

  He didn’t have much body hair, I noticed.

  “Hello, doc,” he said.

  He raised a hand in a strangely dated-looking greeting.

  Before I could manage to form words, he motioned with his head back down the corridor from which he’d come.

  “Do you mind?” he said. “I’m not fully decent.” His sculpted lips lifted in a faint smile. “I confess, I considered just summoning you the other way... but I thought you might not react entirely well to that. From the look on your face, I suspect I am right.”

  He continued to study me when I didn’t answer, that faint scrutiny in his eyes.

  Then, all at once, he was done.

  “Come along then,” he said. “It’s just down here.”

  Without another word, he
turned on his heel, moving lightly and with an unmistakable grace. I again got fighter as I followed him with my eyes. That impression strengthened as he continued to walk. I watched him retreat back down that dimly-lit corridor until I couldn’t see him anymore and it struck me that it probably wasn’t another office that lived down there.

  It was his actual residence.

  After another, stuttered breath of a pause, I found myself following him.

  “JUST A MOMENT,” he said to me, after he’d motioned me into another high-ceilinged foyer. I found myself staring past him at a massive window on the other side of a sunken living room with plush, pale green carpet. My jaw was hanging, but he continued speaking in the same casual tone, as if I’d been there a dozen times before.

  “I’d prefer if we were alone before we talked...” he added. “Give me a minute, will you?”

  It took a few seconds for his words to penetrate.

  Then I jerked my eyes off the view through that window, where I could see the Bay Bridge with Oakland in the background past Yerba Buena Island. I looked up at him, and a jolt went through me when I realized how tall he was.

  “Alone?” I said. “Did you say alone?”

  Those flecked gold eyes met mine. “Yes.”

  “You mean we’re not alone now?”

  He tilted his head sideways.

  I guessed it was a shrug? Something about the gesture struck me as even more alien than his gold eyes. Remembering that I’d sat across from this man in chains only about 36 hours ago, I found myself noticing yet again just how tall he was, how broad his shoulders and how those muscles in his arms and chest didn’t look any smaller when he wasn’t wearing a shirt.

  I felt my breath tighten as he watched me look at him.

  “Meaning what?” I said.

  He stepped away from me. I noticed suddenly that he held my jacket in his hands. He must have removed it while I’d been gaping out his living room window.