Forests of the Night

by S. Andrew Swann

  Weir got up from her chair and started pacing. "Now I'm glad they let me go. There's no legitimate reason for having that kind of money in a lump sum—"

  "Why would he?"

  "Could be anything. Avoiding disclosure, a secret slush fund, illegal contributions, embezzlement—"

  "Could this have to do with Binder pressuring the police to stop the investigation?"

  "I heard that, too. Sure. That's as good a reason to pressure his old cronies in the council and the police department as any."

  Nohar stood up and, after a short debate within himself, held out his hand. "Thank you for your help, Ms. Weir."

  Her hand clasped his. It was tiny, naked, and warm, but it gave a strong squeeze. "My pleasure. I needed to talk to someone. And please don't call me Miz Weir."

  "Stephanie?"

  "I prefer Stephie." Nohar caught a look of what could have been uncertainty cross her face. "Will I see you again?"

  Nohar had no idea. "I'm sure we'll need to go over some things later.''

  She led him to the door and he ducked out into the darkening night. Before the door was completely shut, Nohar turned around. "Can I ask you something?"

  "Why stop now?"

  "Why are you so relaxed around me?"

  She laughed, an innocent little sound. "Should I be nervous?"

  "I'm a moreau—"

  "Well, Mr. Rajasthan, maybe I'll do better next time." She shut the door before Nohar could answer. After a slight hesitation, he pressed the call button.

  "Yes?" said the speaker.

  "Call me Nohar."

  Nohar sat in the Jerboa and watched the night darken around him. He was parked in front of Daryl Johnson's house, a low-slung ranch, and wondering exactly why he'd acted the way he did with Weir—with Stephie. He really couldn't isolate anything he'd done or said that could be called unprofessional, but he felt like he'd bumbled through the whole interview. Especially the lesbian comment—"I don't want to talk about that right now." Nohar wondered why. She was willing to talk about anything but, even seemed reluctant to let him leave.

  The night had faded to monochrome when Nohar climbed out of the convertible. He decided the problem had been Maria. Thinking about that was beginning to affect his work.

  Nohar watched a reflection of the full moon ripple in the polymer sheathing that now covered the picture window. The scene was too stark for Shaker Heights. The moon had turned the world black and white, and even the night air tried to convey a chill, more psychic than actual. From somewhere the breeze carried the taint of a sewer.

  The police tags were gone. The investigation had stopped, here at least. Nohar approached the building, trying to resolve in his mind the contradictions the police report had raised.

  He stood in front of the picture window and looked across the street. Five houses stood in line with the window and Daryl Johnson's head. Similar ranch houses, all in well-manicured plots, all well lit. The specs for the sniper's weapon said it weighed 15 kilos unloaded, and it was over two meters long. None of the possible sniper positions offered a bit of cover that would have satisfied Nohar.

  Chapter 7

  It didn't rain on Friday.

  Philip Young still refused to answer his comm, so Nohar donned his suit and went to see the finance chairman in person. Philip Young's address was in the midst of the strip of suburbia between Moreytown and Shaker. It was close enough to home that Nohar decided to walk. By the time he was halfway there, his itching fur made him regret the decision. When he had reached Young's neighborhood, Nohar had his jacket flung over his shoulder, his shirt unbuttoned to his waist, and his tie hung in a loose circle around his neck.

  Young's neighborhood was a netherworld of ancient duplexes and brick four-story apartments. The lawns were overgrown. The trees bore the scars of traffic accidents and leaned at odd angles. Less intimidating than Shaker Heights—Moreytown, only with humans. He still received the occasional stare, but he wasn't far enough off the beaten path for the pinks to see him as unusual. Only a few crossed the street to avoid him.

  Nohar felt less of the nervousness that made his interview with Stephie Weir such an embarrassment. Nohar was well on his way to convincing himself he might just be able to get Young to give him some insight on that three million dollars. His major worry was exactly how to approach Young about homosexuality. Pinks could be tender on that subject.

  Nohar stopped and faced Young's house with the noontime sun burning the back of his neck. Young should be home. The staff had the week off because of Johnson's death.

  Gnats were clouding around his head, making his whiskers twitch.

  He wondered why the finance chairman—who presumably guided those large sums under the table—lived here. This was a bad neighborhood, and the house wasn't any better off than its neighbors. The second floor windows were sealed behind white plastic sheathing. The siding was gray and pockmarked with dents and scratches. The porch was warped and succumbing to dry rot. It was as much a hellhole as Nohar's apartment.

  And the place smelted to high heaven. He snorted and rubbed the skin of his broad nose. It was a sour, tinny odor he couldn't place. It irritated his sinuses and prodded him with a nagging familiarity. Why did Young live here? Young was an accountant. Perhaps there was a convoluted tax reason behind it.

  Nohar walked up to the porch with some trepidation. It didn't look like it could hold him. He walked cautiously, the boards groaning under his weight, and nearly fell through a rotten section when his tail was caught in the crumbling joinery overhanging the front steps. Nohar had to back up and thrash his tail a few times to loosen it. It came free, less a tuft of fur the size of a large marble. After that, he walked to the door holding his tail so high his lower back ached.

  The door possessed a single key lock, and one call button with no sign of an intercom. Both had been painted over a dozen times. Nohar pressed the button until he heard the paint crack, but nothing happened. He knocked loudly, but no one seemed to be around to answer. He had the feeling Young's directory listing was a sham, and Young lived about as much at his "home" as Nohar worked at his "office." He carefully walked across the porch to peer into what he assumed was a living room window. The furnishings consisted of a mattress and a card table.

  So much for the straightforward approach.

  Nohar undid his tie and wrapped it around his right hand. He cocked back and was about to smash in the window, when he identified the smell. The tinny smell had been getting worse ever since he had first noticed it. Nohar had assumed it was because he was approaching the source, which was true. However, he had been on the porch a few minutes and the smell kept increasing. What had been a minor annoyance on the sidewalk was now making his eyes water.

  The smell was strong enough now for him to identify it. He remembered where he had smelled it before. It had been a long time since he'd watched the demolition of the abandoned gas stations at the corner of Mayfield and Coventry, since he had watched them dig up the rusted storage tanks, since he had smelled gasoline.

  Instinct made him back away from the window and try to identify where the smell was coming from. His tie slipped from his claws and fell to the porch.

  The smell was strongest to the left of the porch. It came from behind the house, up the weed-shot driveway.

  The garage-Carefully, he descended the steps and rounded the porch. He walked up the driveway toward the two-car garage and the smell permeated everything. His eyes watered. His sinuses hurt. The smell was making him dizzy.

  The doors on the garage were closed, but he could hear activity within—splashing, a metal can banging, someone breathing heavily. He slowed his approach and was within five meters of the garage when the noise stopped.

  Nohar wished he was carrying a gun.

  The door shot up and chunked into place. Fumes washed over Nohar and nearly made him pass out. Philip Young faced him, framed by the garage door. Nohar knew, from the statistics he had read, Young was only in his mid-thirties. The
articles had portrayed him as a Wunderkind who had engineered the financing of Binder's first congressional upset.

  The man that was looking at Nohar wasn't a young genius. He was an emaciated wild man. Young was stripped to the waist, and drenched with sweat and gasoline. Behind him were stacks of wet cardboard boxes, file folders, papers, suitcases. Some still dripped amber fluid. Young's red-shot eyes darted to Nohar and his right hand shook a black snub-nosed thirty-eight at the moreau. "You're not going to do me like you did Derry." Nohar hoped his voice sounded calm. "You don't want to fire that gun."

  The gun shook as Young's head darted left and right. "You're with them, aren't you? You're all with them.*' Young was freaked, and he was going to blow himself, the garage, and Nohar all over the East Side.

  "Calm down. I'm trying to find out who killed Derry."

  “Liar!'' Nohar's mouth dried up when he heard the hammer cock. "You're all with them. I watched one of you kill him."

  Young was off his nut, but at least Nohar realized what he must be talking about. "A moreau could have killed Derry and I never would have heard about it. Why don't you put down the gun and we can talk."

  Young looked back at the boxes he'd been dousing. "You understand, I can't let anyone find out."

  Nohar was lost again. "Sure, I understand."

  "Derry didn't know he was helping them—what they were. When he found out, he was going to stop. You realize that."

  Young was still looking into the garage, Nohar took the opportunity to take a few steps toward him. "Of course, no one could hold that against him."

  Young whipped around, waving the gun. “That's just it! They'll blame Derry. People would say he was working for them—”

  Young rambled, paying little attention to Nohar. Nohar worked his way a little closer. He could see into the garage better now. His eyes watered and it was hard to read, but he could see some of the boxes of paper were filled with printouts. They looked like payroll records. One suitcase was filled with ramcards.

  Young suddenly became aware of him again. "Stop right there."

  Young's finger tightened and Nohar froze. "Why did 'they' kill Derry?"

  The gun was pointed straight at Nohar as Young spoke. "He found out about them. He went over the finance records and figured it out,"

  "You're the finance chairman. Why didn't you figure it out first?"

  Mistake. Young started shaking and yelling something inarticulate. Nohar turned and dived at the ground.

  Young fired.

  Young screamed.

  Nohar was looking away from the garage when the gun went off. He heard the crack of the revolver, immediately followed by a whoosh that made his eardrums pop. The bullet felt like a hammer blow in his left shoulder. The explosion followed, a burning hand that slammed him into the ground. The acrid smoke made his nose burn. The odor of his own burning fur made him gag.

  Young was still screaming.

  The explosion gave way to the crackling fire and the rustle of raining debris. Nohar rolled on to his back to put out his burning fur. When he did so, he wrenched his shoulder, sending a dagger of pain straight through his neck.

  He blacked out.

  * * * *

  The absolute worst smell Nohar could imagine was the smell of hospital disinfectant. As soon as he had gained a slight awareness of his surroundings, that chemical odor awakened him the rest of the way. Before he had even opened his eyes, he could feel his stomach tightening. "Someone, open a window!" It came out in barely a whisper.

  Someone was there and Nohar could hear the window whoosh open. The stale city air let him breathe again. Nohar opened his eyes.

  It was what he'd been afraid of. He was in a hospital. It was in the cheap adjustable bed, the awful disinfectant smell, the thin sheets, and the linoleum tile. It was in the odor of blood and shit the chemicals tried to hide. It was in the plastic curtains that pretended to give some privacy to the naked moreys lined up, in their beds, like cattle in a slaughterhouse. Nohar hated hospitals.

  Nohar turned his head and saw, standing next to the window, Detective Irwin Harsk. The pink was as stone-faced as ever. "Am I under arrest?"

  Harsk looked annoyed. "You are a paranoid bastard. Young blew up, you're allegedly an innocent bystander. Believe it or not, we found two witnesses that agree on two things in ten. Give me some credit for brains."

  "Why are you here?"

  "I'm here because you're giving me problems downtown. I'm supposed to be some morey expert. They expect me to exercise some control over you. I don't like jurisdictional problems. I don't like the DEA staking out half of my territory. I don't like the Fed. And I don't like outsiders pressuring me to bottle something up. I don't like Binder. I don't like Binder's friends—"

  Nohar struggled to get into a sitting position and his shoulder didn't seem to object. "What?"

  "A bunch of people who think they're cops are trying to dick me around. They want me to keep you away from Binder's people, or bad things will happen. Like what, I don't know. I'm already as low as you get in this town." Harsk slammed his fist into the side of the window frame. "Hell, Shaker's screwing around the Johnson killing for Binder. They deserve you."

  Harsk looked like he needed to strangle someone. For once, Nohar was speechless.

  "Look," Harsk said, "I'm not going to do their shit-work for them. But you're on your own lookout. I just want to avoid the bullshit and do what someone once laughingly described as my job." Harsk walked to the door and paused. "One more thing. The DEA has a serious red flag on your ass."

  With that, Harsk left.

  Nohar watched Harsk weave his way between the moreys, and didn't know what to think. He'd always pictured Harsk as constantly dreaming up new ways to screw him over. Maybe Harsk was right, he was paranoid.

  He felt his shoulder. The wound didn't seem to be major. The dressing extended to the back of his neck, which felt tender when Nohar pressed it. He pulled back the sheet. There were five or six dressings on his tail. That, and a transparent support bandage on his slightly swollen right knee, was the only visible damage. Considering how close he was to Young when the not blew himself up, he'd gotten off light.

  "Damn it." Nohar suddenly remembered Cat. He didn't know how long he'd been out, and Cat only had half a day's food in his bowl when Nohar left.

  He looked up and down the ward. No doctors, no nurses, not even a janitor. Harsk had been the only pink down here and he had already left. Nohar knew when, or if, hospital administration finally got to him, there would be a few hours of forms to fill out. Just to keep the bureaucracy happy.

  To hell with that.

  He swung his legs over the edge of the bed and gently started putting pressure on his right leg. It wasn't a bad sprain. It held his weight. He stood up slowly and felt slightly dizzy. He was alarmed until he realized it was still from that damn disinfectant smell. Breathing through his mouth helped.

  There was a window between his bed and the next one. The fuzzy nocturnal view—Nohar wished he could kill the lights in the ward so he could see better—of the skyline told him he wasn't far enough down the Midtown Corridor to be at the Clinic. That meant he was at University Hospital and only a few blocks from Moreytown. He was probably in the new veterinary building.

  Lightning flashed on the horizon. Nohar looked at the bed on the other side of the window. In it was a canine who had an arm shaved naked inside a transparent cast. He—like Nohar, the canine was naked and not covered by a sheet-was watching Nohar's activity with some interest. The canine spoke when he saw he'd caught Nohar's attention. "You blow up?"

  It was hard placing the accent, but defiantly first generation. Probably Southeast Asian. Nohar began looking for exit signs as he answered. "Yes."

  "Pink law's bad news. Best eye yourself, tiger-man—"

  Nohar was barely listening. He'd located the exit. "Sure. You have the date?"

  "Fade side of August two. Saturday is five minutes from nirvana."

  Thirty-s
ix hours. He must have been drugged. That was it. He was leaving. The canine was still nattering. Nohar thanked him and started toward the exit. Most of the moreys here were asleep, but a few watched him leave. There were a few comments, mostly of the "Skip on the pinks" variety. He did get one sexual proposition, but he didn't pause enough to register the species or the sex the offer came from.

  He slipped out of the wardroom, the glass doors sliding aside as he passed, and found himself in a carpeted reception area. There was a waiting room, and a nurse's station across from it. No one in sight. The elevators and the stairs were directly across from the doors to the ward. All he needed to do was cross between the station and the waiting room. Once in the stairwell he could make it to the parking garage.

  He limped across no man's land and nearly made it to the stairwell.

  The elevator doors opened without any warning. He was caught right in front of the elevator. If it hadn't been so damn silent, he might have had a chance to duck to the side.

  The last person he expected to see in the elevator was Stephie Weir.

  As the doors opened, she took a step forward and her motion ceased. Nohar thought he must have looked as surprised as she did. Neither of them moved. They stood there, staring at each other, until the doors started closing again.

  Realizing he was about to blow his escape, Nohar jumped into the elevator. He called out, "Down. Garage level," and pressed the button for the garage level just in case the thing didn't have a voice pickup. Nohar hoped no one else in the building would want to use this particular elevator in the next half-minute.

  Stephie was staring at him. Nohar waited until he felt the car moving downward, then he asked, "What are you doing here?"

  The question seemed to break her out of shock. She lifted her gaze. "I want to know what happened to Phil. I was waiting down there two hours until Detective Harsk—Christ, what are you doing with no clothes on?"

  That damned pink fetish. "Avoiding bureaucracy."

  "What the hell are you talking about? You're naked!"

  "Not until they shave me.1'