by Gregg Taylor
“It is.”
“Then a handshake it is.” She shook my hand. “Be careful, Mister Finn.”
“What do I call you?” I asked, realizing at last that I didn’t know.
“Sixteen,” she almost whispered.
“Why Sixteen?” I asked.
“Because Sixteen Alpha One One Series M Two Beta Five is kind of a mouthful of marbles,” she grinned.
“Someone once told me that it was an act of intimacy for you to reveal your designation.”
“They wouldn’t know an act of intimacy if it bit them on the leg,” she said, still holding my hand across the desk. “It’s not their fault. Some fool forgot to give them the right parts.”
THIRTEEN
It had taken me most of the night and I’d traveled halfway across the downtown core in the process, but I had what I’d been after – confirmation of just how deep Claire Marsland was in, and me with her. My confidence in hotel security had faded somewhat with the knowledge of Locust’s direct involvement. He didn’t seem like the kind for an all-out assault, but he didn’t strike me as the patient sort either.
The rain had mostly let up, and it was late. I decided to take my chances on the QuikSwipe with a local hack.
“Sorry, pal,” I said to the first cabby that stopped, trying to sound a little too soused for my own good, but not drunk enough to be taken for a ride. “Can you check the balance on this for me?”
The cabby had sworn a little under his breath for no good reason. “Forty-one,” he reported back curtly.
“Will that get me to the Ironwood Arms?”
He shrugged. “Just about.”
I climbed all the way in. “As far as you can, then,” I said and seconds later was whipping along the empty streets. The meter hit forty-one credits ten blocks from the hotel and the driver shut it off and kept rolling. I muttered my thanks and he waved his hand as if to dismiss me. “You get back to where you come from, you say nice things about Bountiful City, okay?” It was nice to find a civic-minded cabbie at this hour. I assured him that I would and stepped out of the cab, my now-empty QuikSwipe in hand.
I had to keep the slightly inebriated traveler pose up just a little longer for the benefit of hotel security. I had left my key upstairs, and they were less than eager to phone up to clear me.
“Sure, buddy, I understand. I’ll just kip out here in the lobby until morning.”
“I can’t really let you sleep down here, sir.”
“No, it’s fine. The couches look nice and comfortable, and you don’t want to disturb my lady-friend, I understand...”
I staggered towards the tastefully appointed lobby area, only to be called back after fewer than five steps. I would have bet that I’d have had to drool a little on the upholstery first. The night concierge was summoned and he phoned up to Claire’s room. It clearly took a few rings, but at last he began speaking and I was able to swallow my heart again.
“I’m sorry to disturb you, Miss Marsland, but there is a gentleman here who claims to be your traveling companion and says that he has lost his key.” There was a pause while he looked at me. His brows knit in confusion as he regarded me. “About six-three, perhaps six-four... two-thirty.... grey coat... hat that has seen better days.”
One of the security men found this amusing. I let it go.
“Yes, ma’am, he is alone… Of course.” He handed me the receiver.
“Hello?” I said.
“How do I know it’s you?” the voice asked. It didn’t sound like she had slept.
“I know I should have called, sweetheart, but I just lost track of time.”
The guards were having a great time with this.
“Are you putting on an act for the staff?” she asked.
“Something like that.”
“Is there anyone else with you?”
“No,” I said.
“Did you learn anything?”
“Oh, say... I found out an old friend of your father’s is in town.” The concierge was getting impatient. He hadn’t expected us to chat.
“In town... himself?” she asked quietly.
“That’s right. Look, I think this fellow here has things to do, I’m going to hand you back to him, all right?” I did so. The concierge nodded and smiled into the telephone. “Of course, ma’am. Sorry again to have disturbed you.” He hung up the phone and motioned to the guards who were standing around sniggering. Two of them accompanied me up the elevator and as far as the door. They didn’t leave my side until Claire had opened the door and thanked them, and they didn’t walk away until the door was closed.
“They’re very thorough,” she said, not displeased.
“Like I said.” I flopped into the desk chair. The bedclothes were disturbed, as if she had been trying to sleep at least. I couldn’t tell, but she didn’t seem to have much on under her robe but a shift – I was almost too tired to take much of an interest. Almost.
“I’m glad you’re back,” she said, smiling a little shyly, her arms wrapped around herself as if the robe weren’t quite enough protection. “What did you find out?”
“What I said on the phone.” I put my feet up on the desk, mostly out of exhaustion. “By all accounts, Cyrus the Locust and a crew of heavies rolled into town a couple of days ago. They’ve had time to establish themselves, but so far we’ve either been very lucky or they’re taking kind of a relaxed approach to this project thus far.”
“Why would they do that?” she asked, her brows knit. Her hand went back to the necklace again. The neckline of her robe was low enough that I could see the bauble that she played with. It looked like a man’s signet ring. Probably her father’s. I tried not to look like I’d noticed.
“Maybe they don’t think Viktor Marsland’s little girl is going to put up that much of a fight. Maybe they’d rather not risk a murder charge, even if they do only lose a Shade in the process.”
“Lose a Shade?”
“Yeah, apparently Carter’s crew is mostly Shades. Run by someone called the Monarch. He’s here too, for whatever that’s worth.”
“Is that serious?” she asked.
“He seems to think so, unless he didn’t pick his own nickname. Would it offend you if I took my shoes off?”
Her eyes danced. “Would it offend you if I put some slightly more substantial clothes on?”
I grimaced. “Well, now, I’m not sure that I’m not giving up more than I’m gaining.”
“It would make me feel a little more comfortable. I’ve got some other pajamas in that blue bag.”
I handed it to her and she made her way into the bathroom as I untied my shoes and slipped them off to my great relief. I glanced at the clock and called out to her, “Would you mind if I turned the NewsNet on? Civic Events should just about be over, and there’s a story on the Police Beat I have a passing interest in.”
She called something in response but I couldn’t quite make it out, so I went ahead and switched on the report. The Vid NewsNet was less aggressive than its audio-only mandatory simulcast. The logic was that if you turned on the broadcast yourself, you didn’t need to be forced to pay attention. Besides, the girls they had to read it were pretty spectacular, even at this hour. This one was a redhead, which wasn’t my usual preference, but in this case I’d have been prepared to make a pretty big exception.
“And now, turning to the Police Beat, there is news at this hour of another brutal homicide in Downtown Bountiful, the second in less than twelve hours.”
It was always a “brutal” homicide with these people. How many gentle murders were committed in the average year?
“Authorities would not speculate if this case was believed to be connected with the still-unidentified corpse found yesterday in an alley in Section 23. That case is still open and police spokesmen, having ended the search for relatives for the murdered man, plan to hold a press conference early this morning to discuss particulars of the crime and solicit assistance from concerned citizens...”
> Claire Marsland came out of the bathroom wearing a light green tank top and a pair of loose-fitting plaid pajama pants. Her bare arms were strong and toned, and she was pulling her hair back into a ponytail as she entered. “Anything interesting?” she asked, not realizing how much she answered her own question.
“Nah,” I said. “Doesn’t look like there’ll be any news until tomorrow.”
“The most recent crime took place only hours ago, when a body was unceremoniously dumped from a passing Hov in the city’s waterfront.”
“Is this it?” Claire asked.
“No,” I said.
“Witnesses report that the man appeared to have been strangled, though police spokesmen would not confirm that report. Sky NewsNet has obtained amateur footage of the scene. I should warn you, the following images are graphic and may be disturbing to some viewers.”
Claire turned away. I turned the volume up.
I didn’t hear another word the redhead said. She could have taken her top off and failed to make much of an impression. My attention was held entirely by the grainy image of a small man with short and spiky hair and a suit cut almost like an old-school tuxedo. He was very dead, and the expression frozen on his face said that it hadn’t been easy, and it hadn’t been quick.
“Felco,” I said grimly. Claire almost jumped out of her skin and whipped her head back towards the screen. She gasped at the last instant of the image on the screen before it cut back to the redhead, who moved on to entertainment news. I flipped the screen to another feed.
“You knew that person?” Claire said. I could see that her arms were covered in goosebumps. I suspected mine were too.
“Yes,” I said.
“Was he in some way involved in.... in this?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Who was he?” There was a note of panic in her voice.
“As far as I can tell he was a liar who told the truth at least once.”
The panic was replaced by irritation. “Could you possibly be any more cryptic?” she snapped.
“If I have to.”
There was a banging against the wall that told us both that we had been steadily raising our voices. There was a moment of silence between us.
“Mister Finn, I am trying to do what is right,” she said quietly. “For my father, for myself and for... for forces so large that I hesitate to even mention them. But I am not suicidal. I cannot decide what is right when you treat me like a child.”
I looked at her. She was no child, that much was certain. Anyone who could command that much dignity in their pajamas was all right with me. I stood and carried the chair from the desk and jammed it under the doorknob, for all the good that would do. I turned off the light, leaving the room bathed in the blue glow of the NewsNet. I took off my coat and threw it on the desk, and dialed the NewsNet between feeds for some quiet static. She stood her ground and watched this entire display. I sat on the bed, my back to the headboard but with one foot on the floor, just like an old cinema. I pulled the Double-Z from its holster and turned my eyes to the door.
“The whole truth and nothing but the truth. From the beginning,” I said, not looking at her.
She paused a moment, then walked around to the other side of the bed and sat down. From the corner of my eye I could see her looking at me with quiet intensity. I took my hat off and tossed it lightly towards the end of the bed. Even in the dim light, it must have made an impression, as she gasped audibly.
“Ask me again what happened to my head.”
FOURTEEN
At this point, I could make a few assumptions.
For starters, it seemed like the death of Viktor Marsland had been an accident. Not that he wasn’t the victim of violence, just that if you’re trying to get a man to give up the ultimate prize, it isn’t a brilliant move to kill him before he gives it to you. I could also assume that Cyrus Carter was displeased with that turn of events. Since his boy Monarch was still alive, one might further speculate that the death of Viktor Marsland was directly caused by an underling who was most likely feeding fish or helping to hold up a bridge somewhere just now.
So they’ve got a dead cybercypher on their hands and a pile of not much else. But they know, or suspect, that there may be a backup copy of E2-476 somewhere. And they know, or suspect, that Daddy’s little girl is the key to recovering it. So they wait. For a few weeks, she does nothing. Do they give up? Do they go away? They do not. Of course they do not.
In time, they probably would have found it necessary to intervene, and it isn’t very likely that Claire would have enjoyed that much. But before Mister Carter lost his patience, suddenly the mild-mannered Miss Marsland started making calls to private investigators in seedy Bountiful City half a continent away. Curious.
Who knows why she settled on me. I could have asked her, but I probably didn’t want to know. The answer was almost certainly Della. Clearly, this is why I spent the big bucks on her program. She gives comfortable, well-heeled clients the impression that our bustling detective agency is just the right outfit to handle their comfortable, well-heeled cases. I made a mental note to give her a raise.
So Claire booked a shuttle to Bountiful. She flew in direct, which suggests that at the time she made the reservation I had no idea there was more to her story than the missing and possibly fictional sister Katrin. Or that I was just an idiot.
Somewhere between point A (being girl hires handsome, rugged private investigator) and point B (being girl actually meets same), a call came in from a mysterious Mister Felco. When he wasn’t busy trying to seduce my answering machine, he found the time to offer me a supposedly lucrative side deal to sell out my new out-of-town client.
How did Felco find me? It seemed unlikely that I’d ever know for sure, but he probably had a trace on the girl’s line. The Locust must have had the same arrangement, since Sixteen’s connections said he came in two days ago.
So how did Felco know what he knew about E2-476? Again, the fact that someone had taken the good time and trouble to throttle the life out of him and throw him out of a speeding limo made it unlikely that I’d ever know. He could have had his own connections in Omniframe Internal, but it didn’t seem like it was in his pay grade. More likely he was a low-level grifter who managed to scoop some info that leaked out of Carter’s camp and thought he might pull one over on the big man.
You could conclude from the recent newsflash of his ugly demise that Felco’s contacts had been rumbled along the way, but there was one big problem with that. The Locust’s boys hadn’t hit Felco first, they’d come after me, and I had the scrambled brains to prove it. Which suggested that they’d found Felco through me, not the other way around. I probably should have given him his gun back. It wouldn’t have saved him, but he might have taken one or two of Carter’s Shades with him. Maybe even the supposedly sinister Monarch. That would have been convenient.
Sixteen said that Carter had six boys with him. Odds were good that I’d taken care of one back at my office. Odds were bad that the unarmed Felco had reduced that number at all. I was prepared to guess that the Latino in the black windbreaker and the thug in the brown sweater were in that company, though neither struck me as scary enough to have been Monarch himself.
The thing that worried me the most about what happened to Felco was what they’d done with the body. I’d been prepared to take some solace in the fact that they’d given us a quiet night. What I didn’t know was that they were too busy eliminating the competition to have Claire and myself killed just now. I had to believe that even outside of their normal sphere of operations, Carter’s crew could have hidden the body if they’d cared to. They were sending a message and it was hard not to see just what that was meant to be.
If we could make it to morning then we’d be all right. That was what I was telling myself. We could risk the streets, at least for a while. It was a lie, and I knew it was a lie, but you have to set achievable goals.
So I sat on the bed and watched the door
of Claire Marsland’s hotel room, the GAT in my hand, ready to frag the first thing that came through then worry about the second. Achievable goals.
And while I waited, I did the one thing that a good detective never does. The sort of thing you’d never find in Murder, Sweet Murder.
I told Claire Marsland everything.
FIFTEEN
They say that the truth is the easiest thing to remember. In my case, that chestnut was made all the more true by the fact that I didn’t remember much of anything.
To her credit, Claire took the news surprisingly well. She sat and listened to my recitation as if I were a schoolboy who had learned it all by rote. I stared straight ahead, focused on the door. It made it easier.
After half an hour or more, I was finished. There was nothing more to say. If she wanted me out, I’d go. I guess I wouldn’t have been sorry to see the other side of the door, though I doubted it would save me.
She rose without speaking from the end of the bed where she’d been sitting in silence. She stretched a little, like a cat, her back arching and showing her form as long and lean beneath her comfortable clothes. She walked into the bathroom and I heard the water running. A minute late she was back, a warm washcloth and a cup of water in her hands. I sat quietly as she cleaned the wound on my head as best she could. The water dripped down from my hair and I ignored it, though the shoulder of my shirt was approaching soaked in the process. We spoke not a word.
In time, she moved away towards the bathroom still carrying both cup and cloth. She paused as she picked up my hat from the bed where I had thrown it. She stepped into the bathroom and I could hear her pour out the cup of water and rinse it. When she reappeared she was holding my hat in her hands, wiping out the dried blood with the cloth. Here was a dame that wasn’t easily rattled. That bought and sold me, that tiny gesture. If she told me to jump off a bridge I’d have given it serious consideration. Here was the girl for me if there ever was one. At last she spoke.
