by Steven Brust
Marci nodded. “And the stuff about the reporters?”
“The magazines on the table. The Washington Post, Rolling Stone, The Guardian, The Boston Globe, Harper’s, The New Yorker: newspapers and magazines that are known for revealing political scandals. Upstairs told me that Blum might have been involved in that, so I was looking for it.”
“But you were only in there for a few seconds.”
“As I said, I’ve been trained.”
“What was in the bookcases?”
Donovan nodded. “Ah. Now, that is actually interesting. They were all novels. Mysteries, thrillers. A complete set of Anthony Price. And Patrick O’Brian.”
“How is that interesting?”
“A bookshelf full of fiction? At the office? Why not keep them at home?”
“Oh. Well, why?”
“I don’t know yet. I’m going to guess that we’ll never find out, and, if we do, it won’t matter. But it’s a thing I noticed, so I’m going to keep track of it.”
“Wow,” said Marci. “You’re good at this.”
“Yeah, and you’re good at what you do. And Susan’s good at what she does. And so are most of the rest of the Foundation. They’re all good at what they do.”
“Nice to know we’re the good guys,” said Marci.
“If we are,” said Donovan.
Susan’s head snapped around. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, I’m not sure they—we—are the good guys anymore.”
“Why?” said Susan.
“Why do I wonder? Because we’re after someone who’s killing members of the Roma Vindices Mystici, and from everything I know all the people he’s killing are assholes.”
“I think they—I mean we—are still the good guys,” said Susan.
“Yeah, because you’re a hippie chick who trusts everyone.”
“No, because if we were bad guys we’d be getting paid more than minimum wage.”
“Huh,” said Donovan.
“You know,” said Marci. “That’s actually kind of a good argument.”
Donovan thought about it. “Make sure you include the interrogation on your time sheets,” he said.
3
MYSTERIOUS CHARLIE
I called him Mysterious Charlie for a reason. Face-to-face meetings with him were rare, and strange, and not really face-to-face. Once we met in the confessional of a church, me taking the role of the priest. Another time, booths in a diner at three in the morning, facing away from each other. My first meeting with him came when he was driving the cab I got at Denver International after I came back from New York, back when my first attempt had failed so spectacularly. He’d struck up a conversation by asking if I believed in the Devil. I wondered if I’d stumbled into a slasher film with a crazy cabbie; after what I’d just been through, that didn’t seem impossible. But I ventured to say no, I didn’t believe in the Devil, and he said, “How about metaphorically, Mr. Nagorski?”
“How did you—?” I broke off, now thinking it was a thriller instead of a slasher movie, which I supposed was a little better.
“Relax, Mr. Nagorski. We’ll talk, and I’ll make you a proposal, and you’ll either say yes or no, and if you say no I’ll drop you off at your home and you’ll never hear from me again.”
“What if I say maybe?” I said, because my head was spinning a little and I was having trouble processing.
“‘Maybe’ counts as ‘no,’ I’m afraid.”
“Oh,” I said, and tried to get my brain to form thoughts. “Who are you?”
“Call me Charles. Or Charlie.”
“How did you know my name?”
His rearview mirror was tilted up so I could only get a bit of his profile—he had a sharp nose and a sharper chin, a long neck, and short, dark hair; that’s about all I can tell you. He said, “I will answer your question, Mr. Nagorski. I will answer as many questions as necessary for you to make an informed decision, and eventually, if we work together, I will answer others. But humor me and answer mine first. Do you believe in the Devil metaphorically?”
“You mean, do I believe in evil?”
“Yes.”
That was an easy question to answer, especially just then. “I believe in selfishness and greed and people who don’t give a shit who gets hurt,” I said. “So I suppose I do.”
“How about magic?”
“Metaphorically?”
“Literally. The supernatural, subject to conscious control.”
“No.”
“Really? Then there are a few things you must have trouble explaining. Not only how I know your name, but how, in the line of cabs and the line of passengers, I happened to be the one to pick you up. And more than that, you have to ask yourself how it is that Paul Joseph Whittier Junior is still alive.”
Suddenly, the cab seemed very warm, and I wanted to open the door and jump out, or maybe just throw up. I guess he knew that, because he said, “Don’t be frightened, Mr. Nagorski. At least, not of me. I will let you out if you wish, or take you home. But if you want, I can help you kill Paul Whittier. And I would like to do so. I have my own reasons, naturally. May I call you Nick?”
“Um. Sure.”
“Thank you, Nick. As I say, I can help you. But it won’t be easy, and the first thing you have to do is believe in magic.”
“I’m not sure I can do that.”
“You have to believe in something, Nick. You believed in marriage, and that didn’t work out. You believed in hard work and loyalty, and that didn’t work out, either. You believed in the law, and that life was fair, and—”
“I get the point. You know all sorts of things about me.”
“I’m trying to explain, Nick. What do you believe in?”
“I believe in God. I mean, sort of. Maybe.”
“What is God except magic, Nick?”
I was starting to recover—or maybe I was just emotionally distancing myself from the weirdness. I’d had a lot of practice at emotionally distancing myself lately. I said, “There’s something wrong with that logic, Charlie, but I’m not sure what it is.”
That was the first time I heard him chuckle. He didn’t do it often; he was a serious kind of guy. He said, “Whittier is protected by magic, Nick. That’s why you failed. You’ll need magic of your own to kill him. It’s that simple.”
“Yeah. Uh, look, Charlie—”
He said, “What would it take to convince you?”
I thought about it. “I suppose empirical proof, like the business with the cab, but more tangible, and a way to convince myself I wasn’t hallucinating, and that it couldn’t be faked.”
“That sounds impossible, Nick.”
“Sorry.”
“Sounds impossible, not is impossible.”
“All right.”
“So, should I take you home, or should I convince you?”
“Convince me,” I said.
He crossed two lanes of traffic and took three rights, taking us back the way we’d come. “Let’s get started,” he said.
Later, he explained that getting me in the cab hadn’t been magic at all—he’d just spotted me, counted, and bribed a few other cabbies to let him in front. But by then it didn’t matter, because I’d been convinced.
* * *
The words that greeted Marci when she walked through the door were, “Where have you been? You were gone all night.” There was also a delicious smell, but the sour tone of the question demanded her attention first.
Lawrence sat at the kitchen table, cheek on hand, holding a ginger ale that, no doubt, he’d been staring at until the door opened. Marci went over, sat down, and looked at him. No, it wasn’t magic. She never used magic on him. She could have, but she didn’t. She just looked at him and waited. He stared back, then dropped his eyes. “Sorry,” he said.
She leaned over, kissed his forehead, and put her hand on his. “Bad day?”
“Why,” he said, “did I get a job where I have to interact with the public? And especia
lly the kind of public that owns SUVs and lives the way they drive?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe something about nothing else being available? Or else the gods are trying to teach you patience.”
“Yeah, that must be it. A growth opportunity.” He managed a smile and kissed her cheek. “How about your day?”
“It was all right.” Except for getting shot at. And taking part in the interrogation of someone who tried to kill me. Achievement unlocked?
“You look beat.”
“Yeah, a bit. It was tiring.”
“Are you ever going to tell me what you do?”
“No, love.”
“Is it okay if I keep asking?”
“Yes, love.”
“Okay, then. Hungry?”
“Yes, love. Did you cook?”
“Rice and beans with Chorizo.”
“I swoon; I die. Feed me, then put me to bed.”
He did, and they made love, and that was better. Then they slept, spooning, his arm around her, which may have been better still.
Marci slept until the middle of the afternoon, and Lawrence was at work when she woke up. She spent the a few hours indulging herself by reading papers by Stanislav Smirnov on Percolation theory, then made herself stop. She did a load of laundry, went through the fridge and the cupboards and started a shopping list, then, braced by both fun and tedium, tackled the bills.
An hour later she rubbed her eyes and glared at the computer, wanting it to notify her of a Skype call that would take her to anything, even another corpse, even someone else shooting at her. It was obstinately silent.
I am a sorcerer. I can sense grid lines. I can stand at a node and feel the power flow through me. I can dive into the remnants of a spell and tell what has been cast, how long ago, and sometimes even sense things about the caster. I can make strangers trust me by willing that they do so. I can conjure a shield that will stop bullets. I know how to create an artifact by sending my spell into an object to be cast later by anyone who knows how to release it. I embody a tradition stretching back to the 1930s, and before that to the Middle Ages, and before that to the nameless pioneers of the Art who, through trial and error, learned truths and created superstitions. That is who I am. That is what I am. And I’m stumped trying to figure out how to pay the fucking rent and the minimum payment on the Visa and two cell phones and not have our Internet turned off and still leave Lawrence enough money for bus fare to work.
The amazing thing isn’t that sorcerers become criminals; it’s how few of us do so.
But her teachers had been insistent that willpower was the key to making the world do what you wished, so she used hers and returned to the bills.
* * *
I had a face-to-face with Mysterious Charlie before leaving New York. Or, well, back-to-back, I guess you’d call it. This time, we met at Washington Square Park, about one in the morning, at an empty chess table. More precisely, I was at the chess table, with my back to the wall, and he was on the other side. It was like a bad spy movie. I wondered if he was an actor or a politician, someone I’d recognize. I suspected he was just trying to be mysterious, but I knew for sure he wasn’t anyone to mess with. He knew things, and he knew people who could do things. Even more, he was helping me get what I wanted. What with one thing or another, if he wanted our meetings to go like a parody of a Michael Caine movie I wasn’t going to object.
“You’re doing well, Nick.” He kept his voice low and rough, which added to the sense of someone playing at spy. But I’ve never met a real spy, so for all I know that’s how they are.
“Thanks, Charlie. There’s still a long way to go. You have something for me?”
“Yes. When I leave, there will be a paper bag containing what you need.”
“Thanks.”
“If you remember, I told you that if things went well, I’d be willing to start answering your questions. So, what do you want to know?”
“What’s your game? I mean, what is it you’re after? Why are you helping me?”
“A good question, but I’m not ready to answer it. Ask me another.”
“All right. Since it’s on my mind: Why won’t you let me see your face?”
“For the same reason I won’t answer your last question. Because there is danger of you being captured, and forced to reveal everything you know. I want you unable to identify me.”
“I don’t like how ‘forced’ sounds in that sentence.”
“I never denied there was danger.”
“True. All right. Next question. What is—”
“No, just one question, for now.”
“Huh,” I said. “If I’d known that, I’d have asked something different.”
* * *
Donovan sat in the office chair at the kitchen table, laptop in front of him, but he didn’t touch it. The medical billing work was building up next to him, but he ignored it. The screen for Internet hearts was up, but he didn’t log in.
Okay, then. Let’s assume Hippie Chick is right and we are the good guys. How do we find this fuck?
He plugged in the speakers, found some Beastie Boys, cranked it, and wallowed in synthesized drums and nostalgia and memories of a girl named Diane whose hair smelled like vanilla. That didn’t provide any answers either, but it made Donovan smile.
After an hour or so, he turned off the music; he was only vaguely aware that his foot kept tapping.
Well, shit. The obvious question is, other than the Mystici, what connects these two? It isn’t geography, or profession. He took out his cell, and selected a name. After five rings, a deep voice came on. “Donny. What’s up?”
“Jeffrey my hero. Got a question. How long do phone companies keep records of calls?”
“Six weeks to ten years, depending on the company. Why?”
“I’m going to text you two names, with cities and approximate ages. See if you can find a connection between them.”
“Do I get paid for this?”
“Jeffrey! How can you even ask?”
“Because we’ve been here before.”
“Yeah. How much will you want?”
“Five thousand.”
“Five thousand. They’ll have a cow. Okay, tell you what. If you find a connection, I’ll pass the bill up, and raise a big stink if they don’t want to pay it.”
“What if there isn’t any connection?”
“Then I owe you a drink.”
“Sheeeeeeit.”
“Welcome to my world.”
“Can we at least make it dinner?”
“Cheap dinner.”
“Not fast food.”
“Agreed. One step up.”
“All right. I’ll look into it. But only because it’s you.”
“You’re a hell of a guy.”
“Are you ever going to tell me who I’m working for?”
“Seriously, Jeffrey? You really want to know?”
“Of course not, I just like asking.”
“Look forward to hearing from you.”
“I’ll be in touch.”
Donovan disconnected, then stared at his phone, wondering if at some point someone would be looking at the records of the call he’d just made, maybe to track him, maybe to use as evidence of some crime as yet uncommitted. What the hell. The NSA has it already. Why worry about it?
* * *
I caught a red-eye to San Diego, and checked into the Hilton San Diego Airport. This time I used a fake ID that Mysterious Charlie had gotten for me, because this one was going to be different. Well, they’re all different, but this one—
First, I carried out my plan of getting a whole lot of sleep. When I finally woke up, I stumbled downstairs for breakfast—no coffee, thanks—then slept some more. Travel takes a lot out of you.
When I woke up again it was after noon local time, and I was groggy. I went down to the Odysea and read the paper and drank coffee. The news was full of bad, and for the thousandth time, I wished I cared about sports—this would
have been a perfect day to read up on how my local team had done, and study the statistics of my favorite players. Too bad. Eventually I put the paper down and just watched the Pacific.
When I got back to my room, feeling much better, I took out the file. The next name on the list was Caren Wright. I needed to take my time and be sure with this one. This one would be noticed, which meant I might be noticed; and I didn’t want to be noticed until my work was done.
I knew a fair bit about Caren Wright. Aged fifty-three, divorced twice, no children. She came from money and still had it. She had a mansion in La Jolla, and a winter home in Aspen, a condo in Sacramento, and a “cottage” in Nantucket. A few years ago, she’d gotten herself elected to the State Senate, where she had helped pass a bill making it illegal for persons under eighteen to use tanning beds. Important stuff, that. Oh, and she did some work to prevent the proposed football stadium in Los Angeles from being thoroughly reviewed. I don’t know how much she made from that one—my sources of information aren’t perfect.
But I can usually find out what I need to know, like what bills she voted for, or what kind of cars she owned, or the security codes for the two gates to her backyard, or when she would relax in her heated pool.
