by John Meaney
“I've still got one,” said Donal. “And yourself?”
“I'm in the pink.” Brian patted his bald pate. “Or in the blue, at least.”
“And in the clear?”
“Lieutenant. Everything's clean. Really.”
“Good. Gimme two hundred rounds and a bunch of targets, mixed.”
“None of the, uh, specials?”
“Brian . . .”
“Just kidding. We're all legit here.”
Donal took the targets through to the range, sent the first of them back to maximum distance, then whipped out his Magnus and blew the target to shreds. He changed targets, reloaded, and got to work again.
Over and over he fired, blowing tightly clustered shots into the targets, until the air stank and his ammunition was gone.
Good enough.
Donal walked back to the elevator bank.
“Something new for me, Gertie. Down to minus twenty-seven.”
*Have you been a bad boy, Donal?*
“New job. I'm going to be working out of there from now on.”
*So you have been a bad boy.*
Donal said nothing more during the descent. Finally, Gertie brought him down slowly, slowly, toward minus 27, as if giving him time to reconsider.
At the doorway, Donal floated for a long moment while Gertie hesitated. Then:
*Your funeral, lover.*
She pushed him through.
* * *
A hulking figure was waiting for him. Donal recognized the guy from that time at the gun range, from before the debacle with the diva. Viktor Harman, who had claimed to be from the 77th Precinct.
“My name really is Viktor Harman,” the guy said now. “But I've never been inside the Seventy-seventh.”
“Okay . . . I'm guessing we have the same boss.”
“You're guessing right. Laura's looking forward to seeing you.”
Laura Steele's office was a glass-walled cube inside a large, gloomy workspace. When Donal entered, she looked up, and just for a second her eyes looked as gray and metallic as her name suggested. Then a change shifted inside her gaze.
“I thought you were only being discharged this morning.”
“I am. Was. I came straight here.”
“So what do you expect to be doing on your first day on the team?”
Donal looked out at the communal office: dark polished desks and ancient phones and Viktor Harman's hulking figure chatting to himself—no, to the wavering in the air that was Xalia.
“Don't tell me,” he said. “You have a bunch of really interesting files for me to read.”
“You got it.”
“And stuff you don't have written down?”
“Some of that too. But this”—Laura pointed at her own head—“isn't guaranteed indestructible. Most of it's down in writing somewhere.”
“Well, that's something.” Donal looked at her. “Who are we investigating?”
“We call them the Black Circle.”
“Yeah, I remember that much.”
“You looked woozy. I wasn't sure how much you'd recall.”
“Uh-huh. You mentioned Malfax Cortindo.”
Like some attenuated echo, he half-remembered a whispered Do you feel the bones? Then the disconcerting memory was gone, and he was back in the moment.
“Don't worry about the flashbacks,” said Laura. “They'll—Never mind. Not my business.”
She was right: this was none of her business.
“Malfax Cortindo,” said Donal. “You said he was part of the club. Part of the Black Circle.”
“Yeah, well. The BC—the name is embarrassing, right?—seems to include your favorite alderman. Some of the paper trail is in the files, as you'll see.”
“You mean Finross? I haven't had any dealings with him. Er . . . not directly.”
Donal's visit to the Energy Authority had happened because Alderman Finross had made the arrangement. That was one thing Donal would not forget.
“I'd guess they were trying to figure out how much you knew or how hard you were going to work to prevent the kill.”
Donal shook his head. He hadn't prevented the kill, had he? But his own remembered actions seemed like a stranger's.
“It was Commissioner Vilnar who contacted Finross initially, I think. You can't suspect the commissioner.”
Laura cocked her head to one side, saying nothing.
“Thanatos,” muttered Donal. “But he was the one who briefed me in the first place.”
“Well, he had to, didn't he? Once he'd been assigned to protect the diva. The orders didn't originate with him but the City Council.”
“Oh.”
“And that thought is most certainly not in writing. How well do you get along with the commissioner, Donal?”
“We're like”—Donal pretended to have difficulty crossing his fingers, as if they were repelling magnets—“that. Damn. Just like that.”
“Good answer. I should've asked you earlier.”
“Perhaps, Laura—If I can call you that.”
“What I think is, if you have to ask—”
“—it's probably too soon. So can I get you a cup of coffee, Commander?”
“Yeah. Black and strong.”
“You got it.”
Donal fetched coffee in ectofoam mugs and left one on Laura's desk. She was deep in phone conversation with someone now, but she'd left the door open, so it clearly wasn't confidential.
Going back out into the main office, sipping his too-hot coffee, Donal nodded to Viktor. Then he made his way to the only clean desk.
*That's mine.*
Suddenly the air was wavering in front of him.
*Yours is the messy one over there.*
A faint outline of a raised hand pointed.
“Thank you so much.”
Donal sat down, kicked a gray metal trash can into position, and slid the papers from the desktop, plus the old-fashioned blotter, straight into the can. Then he pulled open the tall lower drawer, designed for hanging files, and stuffed the trash can inside.
“There we are. All tidy.”
Donal pushed the drawer shut with his foot.
*Aren't you going to ask why I need a desk?*
Donal looked at her.
“Xalia, come on. I can see right through you. You're fishing for compliments.”
*Like I haven't heard that one before. But what do you mean?*
“You're solidly beautiful. You're gorgeous. Why wouldn't you have somewhere to sit?”
*Ha.You're a piece of work yourself, Donal Riordan—*
“Back at ya.”
*—But you're not fooling me. I know who you've really got your eye on.*
“I don't—”
But his gaze had already shifted toward the door of Laura's office before he could stop himself.
“Shit.”
*Ha.*
Then Viktor was returning to his desk with a flimsy report clutched in one big hand, and Xalia faded into near-invisibility. Donal pretended to find something interesting in the upper drawer of his new desk.
A detective, not part of the team, passed through the office. He was big, almost as big as Viktor, and his eyes were the color of slate—in fact, they appeared to be made of slate. Donal had seen stone lenses before, during his army days: they were sniper implants, and they were for life.
“Hey.” The big man stopped by Donal's desk, and offered his hand. “I'm Kresham.”
“Donal.”
Kresham's grip, like Viktor's, felt capable of crushing Donal's hand. “Good to meet ya.”
“Likewise.”
Kresham nodded, as though a one-word reply was a point in Donal's favor. Given the reticence of most snipers, that was probably the case.
Viktor said, “Who's on Blanz, then?”
“Harald's got him.”
“Long-range?”
“Yeah. I'm going back to my own desk, for some peace and quiet. Don't call me.”
Donal looked from on
e to the other.
“You guys wouldn't be talking about Sherman Blanz, would you?”
Viktor shrugged. “Why not?”
“Senator Sherman Blanz.”
“Right.”
“You have a visiting federal senator under surveillance.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Shit.” A slow smile spread across Donal's face. “I think I'm going to enjoy it here, if we all stay out of jail long enough.”
*Ain't the jailhouse we have to worry about. It's the graveyard.*
Donal stared at Xalia, whose form seemed to grow as opaque as mist just for a second. He remembered that smartwraiths like Xalia would be classified as nonhuman under Blanz's proposed Vital Renewal Bill, with no more legal rights than a piece of furniture.
“But we wouldn't do anything illegal or bad to Blanz, would we?”
*We're professional police officers.*
“Even though Blanz is a cretinous bigoted motherfucker who deserves to die in long-lasting agony.”
*Even though.*
Donal let out a long breath.
“You guys got any other interesting surprises for me?”
“Dozens,” said Viktor. “But if we told you, they wouldn't be surprises.”
“Shit.”
That evening brought a different kind of surprise into Donal's life: the sudden experience of being homeless.
When he arrived at his neighborhood, no one paid him any attention, but that was business as usual. Walking past the washeteria, Fozzy's Rags, he saw old Mrs. MacZoran give a start at his appearance; then she turned and said something to the large woman sitting beside her. Behind them, the washing machines churned on.
Donal would have gone in to chat with her, but he'd drunk too much coffee and his guts were still shaky: he needed the bathroom. When he reached the apartment block and climbed to the fifth floor, he knew right away that something had changed, even before he saw and smelled the fresh coat of black paint on his front door.
A tiny handwritten label said Davinia Strihen, which meant it was no longer his front door, exactly.
For a moment, hand inside his jacket and resting on the butt of his Magnus, Donal was tempted to kick the lock out of the jamb. But this Strihen woman probably knew nothing of Donal Riordan, and she might be an old dear, liable to drop dead of a heart attack if he burst in.
“For fuck's sake.”
He went downstairs, pushed his way between cardboard boxes in the ground-level hallway, and made his way back to the super's office at the rear. That was a door he could kick in, and did.
It crashed open with a satisfying sound of splinters ripping from wood.
“Hey—”
“Right, fuckin' hey. What's up, Ferd?”
“Oh, Hades, Loot . . . er, Lieutenant. It was the landlord.
Bastard made me.”
“Made you do what, Ferd?”
Ferdinand was old and fat and hadn't shaved for ten or twelve days. If Donal needed a decent opponent to fight, Ferd wasn't it, and this wasn't the place.
The landlord lived a long way uptown from here.
“They said you was in the hospital. Didn't think you'd come out again.”
“Nice of everyone to care.”
“Yeah, well . . . we did. Old Mrs. MacZoran wanted to send flowers, but I didn't know where the hospital was.”
“Where's my stuff?”
“Oh, Thanat—Sorry. It's . . .” Ferd's voice trailed off, and he swallowed.
“You trashed it?”
“Hades, no. It's outside.”
“In the backyard.”
“No—I mean, yeah, but it wasn't my idea. Honest.”
Donal started to raise his fist, then turned away and slammed the rear door open with the heel of his hand. It bounced back from the wall, and he kicked it. Then he went out into the narrow alleyway of broken concrete.
Small black ferns were growing in the cracks. Four dented cardboard boxes lay there, stained in the aftermath of quicksilver rain. One of the boxes was torn. Donal's old brown jacket looked shredded.
He went back in to Ferd's room. Ferd had pulled on his coat, trying but failing to button it across his globular stomach. He stopped, swallowing, as soon as he saw Donal.
“I was just, er, just—”
“About to phone for a taxi for me. Right?”
“Er, right, Lieutenant. Right.”
The rent hadn't been paid for a month, that was true. But beyond that . . . Damn it, Donal would sort it out tomorrow. But he needed a place to stay for the night.
He stared around Ferd's tiny room, with torn wallpaper hanging in triangular patches from the walls. It was filled with an old, dank, rotten smell, and the couch was torn, its springs exposed. He could have forced Ferd to let him stay here, but he'd rather sleep in the open.
“Taxi. Outside. As soon as possible. Got it?”
“Got it. Thanks, Lieutenant.”
Thanks for what? For not punching his head in?
Donal went back out and picked up two of his four boxes—half of everything he owned, how wonderful—and headed inside. Ferd was already dialing, and Donal pushed his way through to the front hallway.
He set the two boxes down just inside the closed front door. Going back to fetch the other two, he heard Ferd say, “Please, Joe, for Hades's sake. He'll kill me otherwise.”
Donal felt the anger rise inside him, and for a blinding split second he could feel himself ripping out the Magnus and whipping it backhand across Ferd's flabby face, cutting open the skin. Then he throttled down and pushed the anger back inside him, where it belonged—coiled up, ready for use when he needed it.
Ready for when he met the true killers responsible for the diva's demise.
Out on the sidewalk, he waited for the purple cab to appear. While he did so, he wondered where the Hades he was going to stay for tonight and the nights to follow. A month's unpaid rent was the equivalent of, what, two days in a hotel?
Just as a cab appeared at the left-hand end of the street, a Vixen slid around the corner of the opposite end, its curved, finned shape out of place in this neighborhood. It slowed, cruising. Then Donal recognized the blond-haired silhouette behind the windshield.
He held up his hand in a static wave.
“Hey, bud.” The taxi driver leaned out his window. “You Riordan?”
“Never heard of him,” said Donal. “That's my lift over there.”
“Hades, I hate this rat-damned place. Lower Halls.” The driver stared at the apartment building's scratched and scabby door, obviously debating the merits of going inside to raise hell while leaving his vehicle exposed on the curb.
On the far side of the street, two shifty youngsters with yellow eyes (nephews of the Fozzy who owned the washeteria) slouched against ruined brickwork, watching Donal and the taxi. That was enough for the driver, who gunned the accelerator and said, “You want my advice, you get far away from this dump.”
Donal said nothing as the taxi pulled away from the curb and twisted into a U-turn, engine growling as it headed back the way it had come. Then Laura's Vixen pulled up, and the taxi was forgotten.
“You throwing out the garbage, Lieutenant?”
“I am the garbage, Commander. Me and my worldly belongings here are headed for a hotel.”
She stared at him for a moment. Then: “The trunk lid's unlocked. What are you waiting for?”
“Thank you.”
Donal went around to the back of the car. Low and solid, it appeared to purr as it sat there idling. Donal had to use both hands to twist the twin handles; then the lid raised itself up on the sprung hinges, revealing the near-empty compartment.
He hesitated, then transferred the first of his boxes from sidewalk to trunk, squashed it into one corner, then followed it with the remaining boxes. He slammed the lid down, walked around to the side of the vehicle, and slid in on the passenger's side.
“You've booked a place?”
“I thought I might try the A.” Th
e Agnostic Men's Association ran hostels, as well as the jailhouse gyms that Donal often trained in. “There's one on Thousand Third.”
“That'll be a no, then.”
“I—Right.”
“I've got a spare room. More than one.” Laura slipped the car into gear. “But you'll have to fend for yourself when it comes to food. I have nothing in stock.”
“No problem.” Donal watched the apartment building slide away. It felt as though a chunk of his life had come loose and fallen into a wild, cold ocean. “I'm not used to...Well. Thanks.”
Laura nodded, her mouth tightening, as though she was engaged in some kind of internal argument with herself. Donal decided he should keep quiet.
So why was she driving this way in the first place?
The old, damaged neighborhood disappeared behind them as the Vixen arced upward onto a curving overpass, slipping among fast-moving cylindrical motortrucks, ignoring a blast of horns as she pulled in front of a triple-decker transporter stacked with five-wheeled quin bikes.
They pulled onto the Midtown Expressway, and Donal's pulse quickened. Laura was astonishingly beautiful. She was also a coworker, acting on a charitable impulse toward a subordinate. And if she owned a Vixen, she was a lot richer than he was. When he left the orphanage, he'd vowed never to accept charity again.
Do you hear the—
Shut up.
They soared into the heart of the city, among the hard-edged Gothic-deco towers, then pulled into a helical off-ramp.
Oh, shit.
Donal hated these things.
“You're all right with thaumatunnels, right?” Laura was already taking them off the main overpass and into the mouth of the spiral. “Right?”
“Yeah . . . sure.”
The car flipped upside down as it spun through the helical descent.
Shit shit shit.
Then it was righting itself as it slid into a basement garage, screeching echoes bouncing back from stone walls carved with malevolent hard-angled protective runes.
Most of the parked cars were bigger and grander than the dark-but-sporty Vixen, but there was one thing every vehicle had in common: Donal could never afford to rent one for a weekend, never mind buy one.
“Home bitter home,” said Laura, with no trace of emotion, and slammed the car into a decelerating turn that pushed Donal to the side, pressing him against the door. “Here we are.”
