The inevitably silly caption read:
Natalie knew that they were playing for keeps and called her pretty opponent's bluff. But Cindy was ready to meet the challenge and made the move to sweeten the pot.
I could see Tommy's almost immediate arousal flickering beneath the surface of his skull. He had a thing about animals. I began to broadcast old images of Lassie, the uncut version, and in a second was in the driver's seat. I looked up at Willieboy, then winced. I had stiffened up during the intervening hours of inactivity. I grimaced. "Makeup." My voice was dead and dry. I shrugged my shoulder as I waited, felt the ghost of a drill bit in the bone and shivered involuntarily.
Elmo had brought the case along. Relieved, he quickly snapped it open and handed it to me. There was a compact mirror at the bottom. Tommy had managed to apply a ghostlike foundation of white before slipping into his coma. I finished drawing on the eyes.
"Shit, you're about the weirdest God-damned son-of-a-bitch I ever met, Wildclown. I should'a known Butt Violence would get you going." He shook his head and set his chair upright-dropped into it. A large paw rummaged in his jumpsuit pocket and produced a crushed pack of cigarettes. He tossed one to Elmo, then offered the pack to me. I took one and held it between my lips. I was at a difficult point in the application. The pupils were the tough part. I had to close each eye as I applied them. One trembling finger and the job would be a mess.
"Come on, God damn it! You look fine. Shit!" Willieboy puffed heartily on his cigarette. "I can't believe you! You're worse than a woman with that goddamn shit!" He stood up and began pacing again; his heavy boots tore at the floor. His leather, steel and rubber jumpsuit creaked. "Oh come on!"
"Go plant a garden…" I mumbled around my dead cigarette. Finished, I put the mirror and makeup away, clicked the case shut, and set it on the floor. I gestured to Elmo, pointed at my cigarette, he lit it and I leaned back taking a long hard drag. Willieboy walked back and forth, his cigarette a cancerous will o'the wisp.
"Any whiskey?" I asked, smiling around my smoke.
"Fuck you're just coming out of it…Ah!" Willieboy restrained himself, then went over and rummaged in a faded veneer cupboard. He turned around with a dusty bottle of Canadian Club and three glasses. I looked at the dust on the bottle, ran a finger over it, and peered at the gray on my fingertip as he poured.
"I'd say you haven't been treating this whiskey right, Mr. Willieboy." I smiled again, and drank the glass offered me.
Willieboy sat down, drank his own, and then topped mine up. Elmo sipped at his. The whiskey sprinted into my veins. I took the initiative.
"I suppose it would be awfully insensitive of me not to mention the faded prison fatigues you were wearing that night at the Morocco Hotel. Nice touch."
"Good eye, Wildclown. Glad you appreciated it." Willieboy folded his hands over his knee.
"Let me see," I said, making a steeple of my fingers the way Sherlock Holmes would. "You are not an outlaw; but, you do work outside the law. Robin Hood, shall we say?"
"No, not Robin Hood. I ain't giving no money to no one that didn't earn it. I just work outside their law." Willieboy's grin was unconvincing.
"Whose law?" I could feel my senses perking up.
"There are powerful groups inside Authority that follow their own programs." He let me have it with the eye sockets; they darkened as he squinted around the serious statement.
I dropped my hands and gazed at my boots through cigarette smoke. They were miles away. "I'll take a stab. You're Inspector Borden."
"Yes I am." Willieboy smiled in an unfriendly way and my mind went to work tying that into the web.
Chapter 44
"Willieboy's just a cover name," I grumbled, glowering at him over a fresh drink. He hadn't moved. "I should have known. It's just stupid enough to be believed."
"I wanted to use a name that would inspire compassion." He grinned angrily.
"Your face would have done that," I snarled.
"But you should know," Willieboy said sourly. "There's more than one Inspector Borden."
"More than one." I was interested, but tried to be coy. "Nepotism?"
"It's a nickname we have for a posting in Authority. It's reserved for injured workers and bad inspector's go there for punishment. We collect shit on the phantom baby, stuff like that." He smirked. "It's a play on Inspector Boredom."
"What else do you collect?" I leveled my gaze. My head still thumped alarmingly.
"Records, man! Things about the baby, UFO's, ghosts, you know, the odd missing person. But mostly weird stuff-anything that might be connected to the Change." He shook his head. "Authority doesn't know what it is-why there's dead people walking around and that-so we collect and record every bit of unusual information that we hear."
"So there are other Inspector Bordens?"
"Lots, maybe a hundred, I don't know. I just found it a convenient dodge."
I barely heard his last sentence. I was imagining a hundred Inspector Bordens, and myself trying to find out how many of them were involved.
"Let's not waste time with your real name, Inspector Willieboy. I'll just fire away like we're old friends. Why were you working undercover at the Morocco?" I paused watching him. "Say you're a rogue inspector fighting a corrupt system, and I'll vomit."
Willieboy frowned. "A maverick inspector, then." He climbed from his chair to pace again. "There's a lot of things going on that run against the original mandate of Authority. What you and I call Authority started to form five years after the Change from existing government and privately run agencies. Its original name was Social Authority. Anyway, we were kind of a police force designed to handle it all. No one knew what the Change was, or how long it would last. 'To maintain a social direction,' it says that right in our handbook or charter or whatever. You got to remember, everyone was scared back then. Nobody knew what was happening. I think the first steps to creating Authority were taken by the FBI and the CIA, although Interpol and the U.N. got involved because Authority is present in some form or other in every country in the world now. Anyway, it was decided that the social direction would be one with an open-ended policy of discovery. Since no one knew what the hell had happened we couldn't wisely take any specific direction. And there were a whole lot of powerful Christians in government going bugaboo about the Second Coming. They didn't know whether to shit or go blind. So, discovery was a safe bet.
"With law enforcement agencies privatizing at the start of the new Millennium we conscripted our first people there. Then for a while Authority competed with the government-run coppers. Remember the dead riots? Human rights conscious civil servants couldn't cut the mustard anymore. A heavier hand was needed if civilization was going to survive the panic. So Authority started absorbing government police forces too.
"As time past, control of Authority was shifted to the civilly elected directorate boards that were created not long after the country fragmented-say fifteen years after the Change, when the dead took over the countryside and forced us all into city states. The Federal government had to change with the times and the politicians and lawmakers saw that to keep a hook in the action, they had to streamline the process of Social Authority being adopted by all political and legislative branches of government. The directorate boards were created using representatives from the old system to administer government on federal, regional and local levels."
"Same shit. Different pile," I said, pleased with the history lesson.
"Government in the Old World was simple: get elected, cover your ass and go for your pension. Same thing applied to the new directors only now, with the populace spooked they only had to offer protection and reassurance. Nobody blinked an eye when Martial Law was unofficially declared. Thirty-five years into it, democratic elections were taken over by Authority's public relations wing, and the rest is history-the higher-ups just started making appointments from the ranks. We're in the process of soaking in the air force, army and navy on the Federal level. There's a movemen
t on to re-unite the surviving cities under a single flag-a single Authority. Same thing's going on all over the world: maintain a social direction. If Authority exists then people have something to rally around and something to fear. The result: order."
"Good for business," I mumbled in my most cynical tone.
"That's what it's all about." Willieboy crushed his cigarette, sat down, poured himself another drink and then topped mine up again. He lit another cigarette, gestured for me to take one from the pack where he threw it. His level of literacy improved as he talked.
"As time goes on, society's getting crazier and Authority's growing more powerful. Since the men and women that make up the directorate board come from the old system, lobby groups, congressmen, senators and hangers-on, they just adapt their routines to the Change-and with the appointments from Authority ranks-well, people are getting really entrenched. And since everyone is suddenly immortal-you can imagine! There's plenty of opportunity for old wounds to fester, and for special interest groups to grow within Authority-who am I kidding, they were there already. Now we got pressure tactics, protection rackets-that kind of thing springing up-nothing new."
"And you're one of the select few committed to the original ideals of the bold and brave drafters of the Social Authority mandate. I don't buy it." It was my turn to stand and pace a little. My head throbbed immediately, so I leaned against a desk along the far wall. It groaned, but held my weight.
"Fuck, you're a cynic, Wildclown." Willieboy turned in his chair. "That's not it at all. I work for one of the groups inside Authority. But we're on the level-you know, we're not into any of this religious shit, or just violence for the fun of it. We're straight money people. I'm not alone, and I'm not pure. We'll put pressure on a bad loan, you know, lean on troublemakers; but we don't grind people up. There's no profit in that."
"Who does?" I rubbed smoke from my eye.
"Hard to say. There are a lot of groups big and small. There's even a bunch of ex-cops and law enforcement agents trying to clean things up. Some of the worst are the religious groups. They haven't handled the Change well, you know. But look out for the King's Men. They work for the King of the Dead. You probably heard of him-William King? He was about a hundred-year-old Senator when he died, and his death was violent, so what's left of him ain't pretty. But he's become a powerbroker to be reckoned with. And he hires any Authority Enforcers or Inspectors who get killed in the line of duty, so he's growing a nice little army let me tell you-and he's connected, all those dead inspectors got friends. Anyway, we didn't care about his operation-nobody did. Everything he did was involved with afterlife stuff-skin-stretchers. He does some smuggling, illegal drug sales. But he stayed on his own turf. That's the only rule we follow. Stay on your own turf. And he was dead, and dead guys only go so far. They aren't the same as us."
"He didn't see it that way." My sarcasm was obvious.
"Hard to say." Willieboy looked evasive.
"You were at the Morocco because of Cotton not Billings. Regenerics?" My face fell, I'm sure I heard it hit the floor. "You took up a position in the lobby, and hoped for the answer to walk through the door. You did your desk clerk act, and all that talk about Van Reydner was so much smoke."
"No." He looked at me gravely. "I gave you the story we got from the real desk clerk. Lucky little bastard said he got into her panties, too. Anyway, since Authority is so broken up inside, well, any case with clout is over-investigated. Everybody gets a look to see if it matters to him. My group, let's call them the Businessmen, had a special interest in this one."
"You moved in fast…didn't the other groups get wise? Someone would have recognized you."
"Authority is big, and I don't always look like this." He waved a hand across his face.
"Cotton was hiding at the Morocco." The whiskey was taming my pain. "He had something for you."
Willieboy leaned back. "Yeah, and whoever whacked Billings was the only witness to Cotton's murder. Billings was in Blacktime when it happened." He paused. "About a couple weeks before the murders we started getting calls from a guy who said he needed protection. Well, he called a lot of people since every phone at HQ is tapped, so everyone inside perked up. He said he needed protection for a valuable item but didn't know who to trust. I guess most educated people approach Authority with caution. In one of his last calls he said he created Regenerics. Said he'd share the spoils if someone would help him out. Well the Businessmen have tech people and they laid it all out for us. If this thing worked there would be plenty of folding money for all, right? We had to get it onto our turf though. If it was right-if it worked, well, we knew we were talking billions. So we wanted to try to bring the guy in. Records showed us that Cotton was the leading authority on Regenerics and he worked in town for King Industries so we knew we were going to have some trouble. Not our turf right? But when we finally put a plan together to grab him he was gone. That night he calls us says he needs protection. And there it ended." Willieboy fell silent, studying his nails. "He's dead the next day."
"How the hell did I figure into it?" I grabbed another cigarette. "You must have linked the two murders."
"You've got to remember. Everybody in Authority is on a special team, and each team watches the next team. And the Businessmen are not a very powerful team, yet. Anyway, there was a ban on investigation of the Cotton murder that came down the chain so anything we wanted we had to get without drawing attention. The smaller groups, we can still get a shit-kicking. I put Billings onto you because you can work autonomously. You were unconnected and expendable. Anyway, if I got you working, I could begin to find out who had killed Cotton. The link was obvious."
I smiled. "I beat the bushes; you shoot anything I scare into the air. Why not just tell me about Cotton? You knew he was dead, but you let me go after Billings' killer."
"Let's face it. I knew about Cotton, and from that it was easy to put the two murders together. I thought you were a down and outer, but with you out snooping around I knew you'd draw attention away from me. The fact that you actually cleaned up the Billings case surprised me." Willieboy leveled his gaze at my wounds. "Who worked you over?"
"My girlfriend. Listen, you haven't explained why you would let me solve the Billings' case, and then just sit back on my ass." I was annoyed. It wasn't nice to find I'd been somebody's tool.
"You solved it but you didn't produce Adrian or Van Reydner. We needed them." Willieboy gazed at me for a moment. "I hoped you'd find something that would lead you into the Cotton murder, but the fire and news gags from our leaders, the Primes, kind of fucked everything up. We all know that the Primes just take orders from the biggest groups anyway and so we knew the King didn't want anyone else finding what Cotton lost-so he pulled strings, right? You didn't know about the other murder because the story was suppressed. That made if hard for you to find Adrian or Van Reydner. You thought it was over-then you disappeared.
"I didn't think Adrian would try to snuff you-must be your personality. He pretty much gave away his hand with that. Whatever he heard, or picked up that night must be worth a lot. When you disappeared I figured he got you." He smiled around a new cigarette. "Now, answer my questions. There is an avalanche getting ready to fall on your head. And a lot of nasty people are looking at you right now. I'm pretty sure you're investigating Cotton. I want to know who you're working for and what you've dug up. It's the only way I can keep you alive."
I gazed into Willieboy's eyes and tried to imagine any compassion residing behind them. I shook my head.
"Then you're dead," he leaned forward hissing. "You're dead."
I could feel Elmo tense beside me.
"I'm dead, then," I said with as much nonchalance as I could muster.
Chapter 45
Willieboy made claws out of his hands, and then wedged them between his knees. His eyelids fluttered with mock compassion.
"I'm just a lowly bush beater. Any tigers and the clown gets it." I tried to change the topic. "You already said I
was expendable." I straightened. "The fire at the Morocco makes more sense. If one of your teams didn't want the murders investigated, they'd just torch it. Do you have any idea who ordered that?"
"No." Willieboy leaned back in his chair, apparently willing to wait for his report.
"How long have you been following me?"
"A long time." Willieboy was reluctant to let that cat out of the bag. He studied his nails. "Shit, we lost you in the landfill. A couple of the boys I'd sent to tail you to Simpson's, fucking lost you in the fog."
"I talked to Cane."
"Oh, don't worry about fucking Cane! He wouldn't tell us anything. He's got his own deal going on the inside."
"When did you pick me up again?"
"Not long after you got back…" His eyes were earnest.
"You made the call…put me onto Cotton."
"When the time was right, yeah. I didn't think you'd give up like that."
"I guess I wasn't doing my job," I said this absently. I saw all the threads of intrigue winding themselves into a noose-would I put my head through it? "The note for the warehouse-Cotton's laboratory. I assume you left that for me." I watched Willieboy nod. "If Cotton died at the Morocco…why was his lab torched?"
"It's the King," said Willieboy. "Or his people. Someone was trying to provide convincing answers. There's a lot of money at stake. Fewer questions the better."
"You lost me again last night." My shoulder had begun to throb.
"One of our boys must have been sleeping, or scarfing around with some whore. Shit, you live in a rough neighborhood. This morning we spotted your friend," he gestured to Elmo, "and followed him to the church. We were outside for about half an hour."
I tried to count the facts he didn't know. The only thing I knew for sure was he probably didn't know about the missing detective, Owen Grey, or Van Reydner's note for me to meet her at the Arizona. I realized the Handyman and his partner were members of the Twelve Stars Group-so they must have a team working in Authority, but how big were they? I conjured up the picture of the odd charm I'd seen on his wrist, and on the thin arm of Adrian's secretary.
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