by Colin Harvey
"What's with the 'unknown caller' ID?"
"Different 'piece. I got some prepaids. If Abhijit should check and sees I've been talking to you…"
"Are you OK? Has he hurt you?"
She shook her head. As with most cheap prepaids, the icon was grainy and occluded much of her beauty. "He's called me from home – where he's with the family – seven times in the last three hours, each time a little less coherent. But he's not threatened me."
"He's struggling to cope."
"He's ranting about the NYPD, and you in particular."
"I could come over, if you wanted?"
"I wish you would," Aurora said. "Funny, you'd think I'd be relieved at the death of a monster, but – oh, I dunno what I feel." She added, "But it's not a good idea right now. Abhijit might turn up at any moment."
"What about somewhere else? I just wanna talk," he added hastily.
"I don't need you to talk." Aurora laughed. "Doesn't that sound awful? I meant if you want to just sit and sip coffee, that's fine. Just you being there helps."
"Give me twenty minutes to get changed and fix something to eat."
"I'll get something," Aurora said. "It's your fee for babysitting me."
"OK." He cut the line.
"Was that her?" Leslyn said.
Shah stared at Leslyn. "It was Aurora, yes." He held up a hand to forestall whatever Leslyn was going to say. "It's probably safer for us to legally separate at the moment," Shah said, "although I want to stay in the apartment." Judging by the look on Leslyn's face, Shah thought as he left the room to shower, she's more relieved than upset.
IL
"Why was she relieved?" Aurora said when Shah told her at her apartment. They'd ended up there despite her anxiety that Kotian might learn they were meeting. "It's just as likely his people'd see us out and about," she admitted as she joined him on the couch.
She had sensed something was troubling Shah, chipped away at his diffidence until he gave it up. She leaned on his shoulder, then nudged him. "Why relieved?"
"We been drifting apart," Shah said. "Long as things rolled along on a day-to-day basis, we could gloss it over. But thugs threatening her changes things."
"Surely that goon wasn't the first?"
"Yep. Over thirty years and Leslyn's never been threatened."
"That's quite an achievement."
"Is it?" Shah deliberated. "I guess it is. The downside is, far as she's concerned, my job's no more dangerous than any other." He added, "Until now."
Aurora stretched out a leg. Lately he seemed to have been thinking far too much about those legs… She nudged him again. "Penny for your thoughts, as my grandma used to say."
"A penny?"
"Like a cent, only probably worth more."
"Most things would be," Shah grumbled. As she rested her head on his shoulder in a blaze of blonde hair, he closed his eyes and swallowed. He was acutely aware of her perfume, and – when he opened his eyes – her cleavage. She wore a black dress barely bigger than a postage stamp. When she moved, he glimpsed midriff. "Are you wearing anything under this?" He flicked her thin shoulder strap.
"No," she said, gazing into his eyes.
He suddenly found it very hard to breathe.
She stretched and her lips touched his. When she pulled back, he followed her lips with his own, and they parted. Her tongue touched his, momentarily at first, then the kiss grew deeper, more passionate.
They peeled apart, slowly.
"You're shaking." Aurora looked puzzled, frowned. "Am I repulsive, Pete?"
Shah shook his head. He wanted to say, "You're the most beautiful woman I've ever seen."
"Give me time to get used to this. It's all a bit new to me. Everything's new to me, but this is especially so."
She shifted, faced him eye to eye. "You can ask me anything you want, Pete, anything at all. Questions phrased, how shall I say… respectfully… are no problem. It's the 'what kind of weirdo freak are you' comments that bother me."
Shah scratched his head. "I dunno where to begin."
Aurora put on her eyepiece and sent something. Moments later his chimed, and he downloaded the clip she'd sent him.
The alarm radio blares into life with Rebel Cutie blasting out "Keep on Loving You" with a skankamatic back beat. You stretch to slap the alarm down–
The clip ended and Shah removed his 'piece. "So that's you," he said. "That still how you feel? A freakazoid?"
"Sometimes," Aurora said with a faint smile. "Let me give you the technical stuff. No, I don't have a penis, I have a giant clitoris. Engorged, it's about three inches long. I don't pee out of the end of it like men, and I don't produce semen. Genetically, I'm a woman."
"It all sounds a bit clinical," Shah said. Aurora swung a leg over him so that she was sat on his knees, facing him. "Were you born like it… I mean, I read about guys being operated on at the start of the century to become women…."
"Those were transexuals," Aurora said. "I'm an intersexual. They chose to change gender. I often wonder why their patrones paid the money that enabled them to change; paid to buy a girl with a cock when they could get a woman. Which brings me to another question."
"Go on," Shah said.
"Why are you here? Why aren't you trawling bars with the other guys from the precinct, chasing ordinary pussy?"
Shah thought. "I hardly ever go into bars. I used to during hockey season, 'cause it's nice to sit with fans. But during the closed season – well, Muslims and bars. Not exactly a winning combination, if you see what I mean."
"OK, so dancing classes. Or is that against Muslim tenets?"
"Islam isn't against people enjoying themselves!"
"Never said it was. Stop dodging the question."
"I don't get time."
"Oh, bull!" Aurora said. "You got time to meet me, but not to hunt a girlfriend?"
"I could ask you the same sort of 'what's going on' question, Aurora. You tell me you just wanna talk, but you're wearing – everywhere I look, I see skin. It turns me on but I'm so scared of how I feel. My only memories of romancing are thirty years outta date. I got almost no idea how be around a woman 'cept for work, what to talk about–" he ran out of words.
Aurora slid off him and pulling her skirt down, stood up. "Didn't mean to overload that poor old man's brain." Her halfsmile said otherwise.
"Please don't–"
She hushed him. "I'll be back in a second." She ducked into her bedroom.
Shah wished that he'd had the guts to blurt out the truth; that he'd started to fantasize about her at night, that she haunted his dreams nowadays. The truth was, dreams were safer than reality.
She emerged from her room wearing trousers and what looked like about eight layers of clothing, most red or black, although one dark blue sleeve peeked out through a gap. She then ostentatiously draped the chador over all of them, leaving only her eyes visible. Shah sensed barely suppressed laughter. "Better?"
Shah sighed. "Clown." He patted the seat beside him, and she sat. "You didn't need to go that far," he grumbled.
"Never happy, some people."
"Maybe somewhere between the two extremes," he took her hand. "Can I still ask you anything, in a respectful manner?"
"Of course." She rested her head on his shoulder.
With his free hand, he slid the chador off and stroked her hair. "What do your parents think of you?"
"They're dead now." She put a finger to his lips to forestall his sympathy. "Grandma decided when she had Mom not to cut her, as always used to happen."
"It's common – the mega whatever-you-call-it?"
"Clitoromegaly," she said, smiling. "I'm genetically female. Used to be about one in fifteen thousand need what they called gender reassignment, supposedly for the kids' benefit. I think it was more for the parents, to make their kids normal – whatever the hell normal is."
"Oh, my," Shah breathed.
"Oh, my," Aurora agreed.
"Your mom was intersexual?"
"So was Dad," Aurora said. "But he was genetically male. He left when I was a baby. Mom always insisted it was nothing to do with me." She added quickly, "No cheap psychology about me looking for father-substitutes, please."
"I wouldn't dream of it," Shah lied. "Nor nuclear families. But you had your Mom."
"Till I was seventeen," Aurora said. "Lost Mom the year after the cancer took Grandma. In Mom's case it was a head-on." She stroked his hand with her thumb. "I ran off to Washington, where I met a guy who wanted to look after me – at least at first."
"What happened to him?" Shah wondered whether the guy had been Kotian. "I met Kotian," Aurora said. "He helped me set up – genuinely set up – on my own. I owe him, Shah. That's what makes this so hard. He's a complex man."
Who's just lost his son, Shah thought, squashing any sympathy he might have felt.
Do you want to stay the night?" Aurora said. "I can make up the bed in the spare room. Or…" she smiled lazily.
"Not tonight," Shah said. To ease the disappointed look he said, "Maybe next time. Sometime soon, anyway."
They kissed goodnight at her apartment door.
It seemed to Shah as he left the complex, that the streets of New York had never looked so beautiful.
L
The evening was still early. Shah could go home and make uneasy small-talk with Leslyn and Doug, with all the attendant risks of stepping on an emotional mine, or ride the web. But trawling the past was less attractive than earlier.
Instead he strolled the streets and watched people: late shift employees hurrying from work with faces drained by the day, or to work with the set expressions of those who had to be somewhere whether or not they wished it; shoppers headed home from the delis and grocery stores that had sprung up, as small mammals replaced the dinosaurs, to replace the hypermarkets, carrying paper bags full of the groceries they couldn't grow or barter for themselves; couples, wandering past hand in hand.
He ran through the events from meeting Aurora to Sunny's death, wondered whether it was as inevitable as it seemed now. Maybe if he and Marietetski had taken another route, or if he'd ignored Aurora's pleas for help? But they would almost certainly have been ambushed at another time, or Sunny would have found another way to incriminate him. Whichever way he looked at it, the chain of events that led to Sunny's shooting seemed foreordained.
Part of Shah's re-induction had been training to pay greater attention to his surroundings, to minimize the chances of another attack. For the first time since then, he was walking a block on which a sign advertising Manny's Sports Bar was mounted on one wall.
Shah stopped. Talking to the guys at the station, he'd learned that it was baseball season now. The old Shah had been a sports nut – perhaps, Shah sensed, as a way of getting along with guys with whom he had little else in common – but had liked to watch the matches alone and talk about them next morning in the squad room.
For a moment or two, Shah stood, undecided. Then shrugged. He could always drink water. Or beer, for that matter. Old Shah had rarely thought about his religion it seemed, and New Shah had no idea why or whether that was significant. New Shah hadn't abstained from alcohol because it was forbidden, but whenever he'd been in a social situation it was with people like Leslyn who knew he didn't drink, and therefore didn't offer it him.
But tonight he was alone.
Shah pushed through the doors.
The noise inside almost stopped him in his tracks – it was like walking into a solid wall. The drinkers were six deep around the bar. It was an interval, judging by the ads for local shops and services on the screens.
Shah took a deep breath, pushed his way through the throng. Several people moved out of his way anyway. One beefy guy grinned. "You given up holding up that stupid badge to clear your way, then Pete?"
Ah, Shah thought. That was how he used to do it. He took it out and held it up, "You mean this?" To roars of laughter. Someone said, "Like you needs to with that eyepiece shrieking, 'I'm a cop, get outta my way!' "
Shah thought, yeah, it is cheesy, and put the badge away again.
A third man turned and said, "Hey, not see you in here a while. Wifey been lockin' you in of a night?"
"Something like that." Shah forced cheerfulness. No reason he should know what happened, if he only sees me here.
One of the barmen turned as he said, "What'll it be–" He broke off when he saw Shah. He turned white and muttered, "Got to go. Sorry." He called to a colleague, "Pat, serve this guy!" and fled.
The man who had spoken before said, "Does Karl owe you money, or sump'n?"
A second man said, "You musta caught him bangin' your wife, way he ran fer it."
Both roared with laughter, and Shah – making an effort – joined in, although his main reaction was curiosity. No barman flees a returning regular – quite the opposite.
"What'll it be?" Pat said. From the voice Shah gathered that Pat was a woman, although with the tattoos, cropped blonde hair and bodybuilder physique it was hard to tell.
"Beer," Shah said. Maybe she's intersexual, as well. If there's a one in fifteen thousand chance, like Aurora said, there must be close to five thousand in the country. Most would come to a city like New York, than stay in the 'burbs.
A large tankard banged onto the bar. "On the house," Pat said. "Stevie's compliments." She chin-cocked one of the other barmen, who was halfway through serving a customer. Shah returned Stevie's wave.
"You must be in his good books. You covering as the weekend doorman?" Shah's second new acquaintance said.
"Maybe." Shah smiled, and sipped his beer, which was sweet and gassy and bland. Maybe it's an acquired taste, he thought, unsure whether he could be bothered to acquire it.
The interval ended. Most of the drinkers jostled for position near the screens, while a few laggards frantically finished ordering their drinks.
Shah leaned against the bar and watched men throwing balls at other men, who were armed with sticks with which they sometimes hit the ball. It was as incomprehensible as one of the Inca sacrifices he had watched on a history feed.
Someone tapped his shoulder.
"Stevie," Shah said to the barman/doorman looming over him.
"Nice to see you, Pete," Stevie said. Shah suspected he was cleverer than his slow, deep voice made him out to be. "Sorry to hear about your trouble. You better now?"
Shah nodded.
"That why you drinkin' beer, now?" Stevie said. "You forgotten what it tastes like?" He nudged Shah, and smiled. Shah smiled back. The humor here was different from the station, harder to fathom. But Shah instinctively liked Stevie.
"What did you hear?" Shah said.
"Youse got worked over. Memories ripped. How 'bout your partner?"
"That why Karl took off?" Shah said, ignoring the previous question.
Stevie didn't seem to mind. "Said he had an urgent call to make. Yeah, he's taking a long time, isn't he?" Stevie grinned, clearly relishing the idea of Karl discomfited.
"Why don't you go look for him?" Something about Karl's reaction had been too extreme, and Shah wanted to know why.
Minutes later Stevie returned through the 'Staff Only' door he'd left through, and catching Shah's eye, shook his head.
Shah made an "oh well" gesture, and saluting in farewell, pushed his way to the doors.
Where he came face to face with Kotian.
LI
"Celebrating, Officer?" Kotian sneered. His eyes were redrimmed, though Shah guessed from their glaze that tears weren't the only reason for that. Minders stood just behind each shoulder. South Asians like Kotian, they stared at Shah, their expressions unreadable.
Shah knew nothing would ease Kotian's pain. But if he said nothing, he'd look callous. "I'm sorry, Abhijit. I tried–"
"Spare me the phony sympathy, Shah. And save your excuses for the hearing. "
All around them conversation had stopped and people stood, staring too intently at anywhere other than Shah and Kotian.
> "Good night, Abhijit." Shah had to brush past them, and as he did so he felt the bodyguard tense. Shah braced himself for a punch or even a knife thrust, but the bodyguard relaxed and Shah emerged into the open air.
He breathed a huge sigh and checked his hands. They were shaking. His head felt woozy. I only had one drink. How can people put so much away? And what's the attraction?
Slowly, he weaved his way home.
