Baccala shrugged. "Okay. That's all."
Chesney stood up and went to the door, then looked back. The other man was staring at his desk top but obviously not seeing the satiny finish or the solid gold pen and pencil set. The actuary made a note to ask his demon just how long the memory-fogging would last against a sustained attempt by a first-class mind to overcome it.
"It usually holds pretty good," said Xaphan. "A guy who's really sharp can chisel his way through, if he works at it lots." It drank some more rum. "But then we can just slap on a second coat."
"So I don't need to worry," Chesney said.
"Not about that."
"What about the other thing?"
"The meeting of the Twenty?" The demon puffed on its cigar. "On that one, I can't help ya."
"Why not?"
"Boss says. I go near that bizness, it's twenty-three skidoo for old Xaphan. I'm down in the pit shoving hot coals up some mug's rosy–"
Melda cut him off. "We get the picture," she said, "and, personally, it's not one I want to keep."
"No problem," said the demon. It wagged a digit sideways. Melda blinked. "And I'm not just thinkin' of my own comfort," Xaphan went on. "They could assign you some hotshot that's not as, shall we say, accommodatin' as me."
"Then what can you tell me about the meeting?" Chesney said.
"Nuthin' you don't already know."
"You're not much help."
"Not when you're not crimefightin'." It drained its glass of rum and the tumbler instantly refilled.
There was a silence in Chesney's apartment. After it had lingered for a while, Melda said, "Xaphan's right." The demon toasted her but she ignored it. "Whatever's going on with the Twenty is none of our business." She pointed a finger at Chesney. "You wanted to fight crime. It makes you happy. So let's fight some crime." She turned to the demon. "What have you got?"
Xaphan frowned and looked to the young man. "You want I should answer her?"
"Consider her my partner in crimefighting."
"Okey-doke." The demon looked up as if there was something written on the ceiling. "Tonight we got a strong-armin', some kids swipin' a car, coupla hit-andruns, three mom-and-pop puncheroos, a guy sellin' pirated videos–"
"Nuh-uh," said Melda. "None of that picayune stuff. We want something people are gonna be blogging about tomorrow."
"I can only give ya the crime that's happenin'," said Xaphan.
Chesney watched Melda thinking. It occurred to Chesney that though he had called her his crimefighting partner without giving it any thought, it might be useful to have someone whose brain could illuminate the darkness that constantly hedged in his pools of light. Now he saw an idea strike her.
"What about," she said, "crime that happened last year, or the year before, and the guy got away with it, and he's still around?"
"Yes!" said Chesney. "Cold cases!"
The weasel brows did a brief up-and-down. "Yeah, got plenty of that."
"Like what?" said Melda. "And keep it to serious crimes only." She was trying to remember the name of the young woman who had been snatched from her apartment a few years back. It almost came to her, but now the demon was itemizing prospective cases, ticking them off on its short digits. "Got a guy used to go around marryin' widows and divorcees, then he'd clean out their bank accounts and catch the bus outta town. He made millions."
"Where is he?" Melda said.
"Nursin' home on Parkhurst. But he's missin a few marbles now."
"What else?"
"An ex-button man for the outfit. He's retired now, lives in Meadowview."
"Button man?" said Melda.
"He rubbed out guys on contract. He did Joey Hiccups and Angie Snips – they called him that cause he usedta carry these tin snips in the trunk of his car and–"
Chesney said, "Is there any evidence that could connect this button man to the murders?"
His assistant waved its cigar. "Nah. He was a real pro." It took a puff. "Course, we could always make some evidence."
Chesney didn't have to think about it. "No," he said. "I'm the good guy. I fly straight. What else have you got?"
"There's another guy, a civilian, used to pick up hitchhikers and take them back to his place."
"And?" said Melda.
"They're still there."
Chesney felt a cold chill pass down his spine. "How many?"
"Seventeen."
"What did he do to them?"
Xaphan looked at him sideways. "Your partner won't like the pictures in her head."
"Where are they now?"
"In his garage," the demon said, and paused to keep his Churchill alight. When it was glowing again, it said, "It's a double, and he made half of it into a secret room."
"He buried them under the floor?"
"Nah, he set most of them on chairs. Some of them are sittin' around tables. A couple are standin' in the corner. One of 'em's leanin' against the mantelpiece. Very cozy." He drank some more rum. "Guy likes to go in and talk to them."
Chesney could see that Melda was reluctant to ask, but had to anyway. "But… the smell."
"Oh, they don't smell," Xaphan said. "He's an amateur taxidermist."
The Twenty didn't meet often, but when they did it was always in the partners' conference room of Baiche, Lobeer, Tresidder: the old-money law firm a couple of blocks from City Hall. The room had not been redecorated since the 1930s, nor had the big mahogany table Julius Baiche had had imported from London before the war ever been replaced. It was wide enough that only a pair of professional basketball players could have shook hands across it and long enough to seat twenty on each side. And tonight almost every chair was filled with one of the magnates who made the city what it was. Even Jack Dolman, the area's major real estate developer, was there, smiling grimly as he endured the ribbing from colleagues who had seen the raw footage of the poker game in Civic Plaza – Dolman had been the one the big-busted brunette had been servicing.
W.T. Paxton was not present, but he was represented by his executive assistant. Seth Baccala entered quietly and took a seat in one of the partners' oak and leather chairs that lined the conference table. Other aides and assistants – there weren't too many: Twenty business was closely held – sat on straight-backed chairs against the side walls of the long room.
Louis Tresidder, silver-haired, patrician-faced, and for fifteen years now the chairman of the group, called the meeting to order with a double-tap of the gavel, then called on Police Commissioner Hanshaw to put the rest of them in the picture. Hanshaw did it quickly, sketching the previous incidents involving the Actionary leading up to the Civic Plaza situation then going on to the sudden appearance of four bank robbers, with loot, outside Police Central. The latest incident was news to many of the elite assembled for the meeting – the police had managed to keep the story away from the media until the FBI made its announcement which, like most FBI press statements, was short on detail.
"Bottom line," said the commissioner, "we don't who this joker is or how he does what he does. But Chief Hoople," he nodded toward where the chief of police sat on one of the chairs along the wall, "and I have assigned one of our best detectives to cut through the mystery and get us the facts. He's ready to make a report." Hanshaw looked to one of his assistants, seated by the door. "Bring him in."
Denby wasted no time. He entered the room and went around the table, distributing copies of the photo the bank robber had taken. Under the lieutenant's arm was a stationery box. When they all had the photos before them he laid the box down at the head of the table and said, "Gentlemen, that's a picture of the man who calls himself the Actionary. Claims to be a crimefighter."
An elderly man named Carruthers, president of the largest state-chartered bank in town, said, "What does it tell us?"
"About him," said Denby, "not much." He looked around at the assembled silverbacks, though his gaze lingered curiously on Baccala for a moment. "I'm more interested in the place he's standing in. Look at it. It's de
ad, barren. The sky's filthy. The bank robber I interrogated said it stank of old death."
"Where is it?" said another man, who owned almost thirty per cent of the city's rental housing stock and spent nothing on upkeep.
"Let me get to that," said the lieutenant. "This guy, he's making himself out as some kind of Green Lantern-Batman kind of freelance crimefighter. But," he looked around the table again, "he's been presenting himself as somebody different in another venue."
He had them now. They were leaning forward. "I happen to know," Denby said, "that he's been appearing to Billy Lee Hardacre, the TV preacher, and telling him he's an angel on a mission from God."
"Ah, jeez," said Hanshaw, "let's don't get that asshole involved."
"He's already involved," Denby said. "Our mystery guy has convinced Hardacre that one of Paxton's employees is a latter-day prophet."
All eyes in the room turned to Seth Baccala. "Which employee?" the assistant asked Denby.
"Arnstruther."
"Who?" and "Who's that?" erupted from several points around the table.
"Never mind," said Denby. "It's just a kid with some kind of mental block – autism or something. He does tricks with numbers."
"He's an actuary," Baccala said. "A good one. W.T. thinks highly of him."
Louis Tresidder tapped his gavel once. "We're drifting off point."
"We are," said Denby. "Look, I don't know what the guy's trying to pull with Hardacre, or by catching bank robbers, for that matter. I don't know why, or who, in this case, but I think I've got a handle on how."
"How what?" said Carruthers.
"How he appears and disappears. How he relocates a room full of people to Civic Plaza without them noticing."
"Say it," said Hanshaw.
"The guy's a time traveler. That picture you all saw, that's the future – after atomic war or global warming or–"
The men around the table weren't leaning forward anymore. "What the fuck are you on about?" said Jack Dolman.
"He's got powers," said Denby. "Mind-control powers. You didn't even notice when he moved you–"
"Dolman's mind was distracted by something a little closer to hand," said a man farther down the table.
"Is this all you have?" said Tresidder. "A picture of, what, the desert? And some speculation out of a bad scifi movie?"
"No," said Denby, "I've got this." He shoved the stationery box toward the lawyer. "Read that and tell us what it says."
Tresidder lifted the cover off the box and bent to peer within. Then he poked a finger into the box and stirred it around. He lifted the digit and examined it: the tip was covered in a gray powder. "What is this?" he said.
Denby craned his neck to see what Tresidder saw. "It's a b–" he began, but broke off as he saw what was in the box. His face went pale. "Less than an hour ago," he said, "that box was filled with white paper – glowing white paper – with words written in languages that kept changing."
They were all watching him now, and most of the expressions he was seeing were not encouraging. "I lifted the paper from Hardacre's study–"
"Wait a minute," said the police commissioner, "are you saying you broke into Hardacre's house and stole this," he looked in the box, shook his head, "this whatever it was? No warrant, nothing?"
"Where would I get a warrant? You said to do whatever it took."
"Jesus wept," said Tresidder. "I've seen that bastard in court. Makes a great white shark look like a picky eater. We don't want him anywhere near this thing."
"He's already in it," said Denby. "He calls himself the precursor of the new prophet."
"But you burgled his house," Tresidder said. "Tell me he doesn't know you've got whatever it was."
Denby paused. "He will if the kid talks to him."
"What kid?"
"Arnstruther. The actuary from Paxton's. His mother is Hardacre's mistress. I told him I had the book, trying to get him to get a message to the time traveler."
"Jesus H. Christ in a crinoline!" said the police commissioner. "Have you any idea what you've done?" He turned to the chief of police, who was seated on one of the chairs at the side of the room. "Did you know about this?"
The sentiment was echoed by comments from around the table. Chief John Edgar Hoople was not a member of the Twenty, but his job – like every other senior publicsector position in the city – depended on their approval. He stood up. "Not about Hardacre."
"We need distance," said Tresidder, "and we need it now."
Hoople got the message. "Lieutenant Denby, you are hereby relieved of duty, forthwith. Take that," he pointed at the box of ashes, "and get rid of it. Report to my office at 8am tomorrow and make sure you bring your badge and gun."
Denby's face registered shock. "You're suspending me?"
"You'll be lucky if we're not burying you," said Hanshaw.
The chief made a hand gesture that said, let's not get into this now, but Denby had already rounded on the commissioner. "I did my job, the way I was told to. 'Whatever it takes,' I was told."
"Nobody told you to drag somebody like Hardacre into it," said Hanshaw.
"You've got to listen," Denby said. "I've cracked the case."
"Doesn't matter," said the chief. "If Hardacre's in it, that's a whole different kettle of worms." He looked around the room, in a way that asked for support. "Here's how it has to go: you went rogue, did stuff on your own time that you shouldn't. Nobody authorized it."
"That's not true!"
"It's our word against yours. You'll get a reprimand. If Hardacre makes real trouble, you'll get demoted and assigned to clerical duties."
"That's not right!" said Denby.
"Time goes by," said the commissioner, "and this all blows over, you could be reinstated. But for now you've got to take one for the team."
There were nods and words of assent from around the table. Tresidder said, "Perhaps the lieutenant is concerned about pay and benefits. I think we could arrange for an informal subsidy–"
"It's not about the goddamned money! Not even about the rank," Denby said. "I did my job and you're screwing me over!" Commissioner Hanshaw was going to speak but the lieutenant cut him off. "What's really important here is that we've got a guy from the future messing around with our city. He's got powers and he's using them, for what purpose we don't know. I've got a theory–"
But the Twenty were not interested in the lieutenant's theory. The introduction of Hardacre into an already uncontrollable situation had spooked them. Hoople took the initiative. "That's enough, lieutenant! My office, 8am!"
Denby looked at the well-fed faces. These were men who were used to having it their way, and well-practiced at swatting aside anybody who tried to tell them they couldn't. Tresidder was closing up the box of ashes, and now the lawyer slid it across the glossy table. Denby picked it up and tucked it under his arm again.
A moment later, he was outside the conference room, treading the deep-piled carpeting toward the elevators. The offices were empty, the secretaries' desks neatly ordered, the lights turned down low. The sterile gloom matched Denby's mood.
"Lieutenant," said a voice behind him. He turned and saw that Seth Baccala had followed him out of the meeting.
"What?"
"Tomorrow, after you see the chief, come and see me."
"Why?"
"Because," said the smooth young executive, "I'm inclined to believe you."
"Aren't you afraid of Billy Lee Hardacre?" Denby said.
"Not as much as I'm afraid of someone who can play the kinds of games your time traveler can."
"He's coming out now," Xaphan said.
The demon had refused to tell them anything about the meeting of the Twenty but had agreed to let them know when Denby reappeared. Melda had a plan for the lieutenant and the taxidermist.
"What's his mood?" she asked the demon. "How's he feeling?"
"Like somebody used his hat for a chamber pot and told him to get used to it."
"So the meeting d
idn't go well?"
"Can't tell you that," said Xaphan.
"You don't have to," said Melda. "Show me Denby."
A screen appeared in the air in Chesney's apartment and an image formed on it: the lieutenant exiting a downtown office building, his shoulders hunched, his mouth downturned, a box under his arm.
"Oh, yeah," said Melda, "that did not go well." She turned to Chesney. "All right, time for Lieutenant Denby and the Actionary team to have a meeting of minds."
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