“I want Beak for my partner.”
“Monty…I told you…work first, revenge second.”
“If you deny him this he’ll quit, I guarantee it. Then he’ll just pursue it on his own anyway.”
“He doesn’t have to find out until it’s over.”
“Come on, Captain. I’ll keep a rein on him, I promise. Beak’s a good man, and he was on the original Loveland case.”
Nedland sighed, played with Monty’s ashtray. “All right. I’ll talk to him about controlling himself. I’ll tell him the connection between his wife and the other stuff.”
“Thanks.”
“Next you’ll be asking me to put Woodmere on the case.”
“Is that fully out of the question?”
“More than fully. He’s lent his experience and expertise to the organized crime network of Neptune Teeb, and I regard him currently as an enemy to HAP.”
“Jesus. Shit.”
“Other than that I guess he’s doing pretty good. I just hope I never get my hands on him. He always had loose ties to them, I guess…buying illegal weapons, and he recruited that individual to help you investigate Loveland’s teleporter from the Teeb bunch. Many of Teeb’s activities represent legitimate health hazards. He offers illegal cloning. Crimes too numerous to mention. I wouldn’t doubt that Beak knows where to find Woodmere, but he says he doesn’t and I haven’t pushed him. Yet.”
Monty diverted the conversation from his friends. “How quick can you get me my badge and a permit to carry?”
“It’s in the works now. You’re on probation, my friend, but I’m gonna take a chance and put you senior on this. Beak, Giddry and Tanabe will answer to you. Don’t disappoint me. Keep Beak in line. And keep yourself in line.”
*
Monty needed some sleep and wanted to get back to Mauve—tomorrow he’d confer at headquarters with Beak, Tanabe and Giddry—but before he left HAP he checked into the armory with his new permit to carry and a pass from Nedland ordering a health agent’s camera-equipped pistol to be put at Monty’s disposal.
It was late so it was a security robot that let him in. He took his time, knowing a robot wouldn’t grow impatient. The fact was, Monty loved guns. It wasn’t that he loved to kill, but they did give him a feeling of strength and security, and there was that perverse romance they held. Also, he loved them from an aesthetic standpoint, their form and color and feel in his hand, artistically sensitive as he was. One man might not care about his coffee mug so long as it was practical, but Monty chose his carefully and had an interesting variegated collection from which to choose, according to his mood. He would have liked to approach guns the same way now, carrying whatever struck his fancy that particular day, and he had Vern’s collection to select from, but on duty he was required to carry only a health agent’s gun, which would take a picture of the target when the weapon discharged. There were, at least, many makes to choose from.
He recognized among them the very revolver he had killed Bum Junket with, picked it up and handled it. Yes, this had been the one. He put it back down and finally settled on a woman’s gun, a short and chunky compact semi-auto with a magazine that could hold twelve tiny bullets, but that wouldn’t matter much if he used a good plasma—which of course he could, now. Like the orange plastic pistol Mauve carried in her purse, women’s guns were usually bright colors, easy to find in a pocketbook in a dark parking lot or apartment, or softer aesthetically appealing colors to make the weapons seem less intimidating. The gun Monty chose was a glossy coral pink color. Despite Nedland’s warnings about priorities and conduct—about revenge—he thought a woman’s gun was appropriate.
*
He used his new hand phone to call Mauve downstairs to unlock the door. She was sleepy and amorous, warm and smotheringly cat-like—he ended up making love with her, but it was dark and he couldn’t see the scars well and he didn’t kiss her lower face. To his relief, he didn’t do badly and after an hour was able to release within her. Mauve was pleased, stroked his back and purred to him, “So you can’t tell me where you were?”
“The Health Agency. I’m an agent again.”
“You are?” She pushed him away to see his face. “Really?”
“Yes.”
“That’s great! Why didn’t you tell me? You must be proud.”
“Be careful with these people, Mauve. Dwork, the Stems, Cangue. They’re dangerous. I’ll try not to involve you, as much as I can. Don’t tell anyone, Aurora or anyone, that I’m an active agent again.”
“Of course not. So you’re totally forgiven?”
“I’m on probation but I’m heading the case.”
“God. Well, they must think highly of you even if you don’t think so highly of them. They do a lot of good, Monty, they do…you know that. Things are bad, but you do the best you can with what you got.”
“You’ve got an aphorism fetish.” Monty rolled off her, lay belly up exhausted. “Always carry your gun. You got lead or plasma?”
“Lead.”
“Crap. I’ll get you some legal plasma…it’ll do the trick, so don’t be trigger-happy.”
“I told you about my dad; I know how to handle a gun just fine. Monty…you’re thinking about Opal too much, I’m afraid. You’re worried that I’m gonna die, too, and then you’ll have two deaths to feel responsible for…”
“I would have two deaths I’d be responsible for.”
“You wouldn’t…”
“Enough, all right? Let’s just sleep. I’ve been through this with people a hundred times.” Silence for a few minutes.
“Well, I’m not through with it yet…I’ll just let it go for now.”
For a moment Monty felt irritated and defensive, in the next he felt a warm flow of affection and pride. He realized, through all the clouds of distraction, that he was falling in love with her.
Before he knew it he was softly confessing, “I don’t know if I’m trying to do a job well, or if it’s just totally revenge, or a commitment to society. I don’t know if I want to avenge Opal because I loved her and miss her and want justice, or if it’s mostly to alleviate my sense of guilt…to redeem myself.”
“I’m sure it’s all of those things, but maybe one thing more than the others depending on the moment. Don’t be ashamed—it’s just the different parts of you. At least they all want the same thing.”
“You’re very soothing.” Monty closed his eyes. Sighed, tired.
“I’m an actress—I can do these things.” Mauve settled back.
Monty opened his eyes. “So you’re just acting concerned but not really feeling it?”
“What? No, of course I feel it…I’m not faking my concern! I was just making a joke…” Mauve watched him swing his legs out of bed and sit on the edge, naked back to her.
“You’re an actress.”
“Yes, Monty, but I’m not acting now. You’re hurting my feelings and I’m getting mad…”
“The coincidence makes me uncomfortable. That you just happened to be connected to a play that’s obviously connected to Loveland…that you just happened to become involved with me…”
“My God!” Mauve scrambled naked out of bed. “I get it, I see—you’re saying I’m one of them!”
“I’m just saying it’s odd…”
“No, you’re not, you suspect me! You don’t trust me—you think I’m part of this, don’t you? Look at me!”
He didn’t. “It’s odd, that’s all.”
“You followed me! You looked into me and came after me! What did I do, squirt a magic perfume on you when I bought a magazine? Yes, Monty, I admit Westy concocted this super pheromone spray, a magic potion, and I put you under my spell. I’m part of them, Monty, I’m luring you to your doom. Look at me, Monty, don’t turn your back on the enemy.”
“I’m just thinking of Beak…I’m paranoid, I admit it, I’m sorry…”
“I don’t believe you.” Mauve slapped barefoot across the tiled floor to thrust her arms into her rob
e. “Thank you. Thank you.”
Monty got up, faced her, face pained. “I’m sorry. I mean it. It was just a crazy thought, I admit it. Please.”
“Why don’t you go home? I need to be alone.” Mauve began making herself tea.
“I know you’re for real. You’re risking your life to help me…”
“I love this play—it’s the best thing to happen to me in years. You think this is easy for me?”
“There’ll be others.” He tried to joke, “When this is over you’ll get all the more attention because of it.”
“Have me truth scanned.” Mauve glared at him, deeply scar-faced in the unpleasant kitchen light. “I mean it. I will. I won’t have you suspecting me even subconsciously.”
“I was thinking of my friend Beak, who was on the Loveland thing before. His wife was murdered last year. I’m sure Loveland did it to get at him. That’s why I got paranoid. And Loveland likes playing intricate tricks.”
“I’m no trick. Scan me.”
“Not necessary—I believe you.” Monty wanted to tell her about the rapists but fought the temptation. “Later, though, I may want to record your memories. I could find some clues in them.” He was already fairly certain, however, that the faces of Mauve’s rapists would match the computer-generated faces Beak had sent him. What he must find out was if any of the “actors” Cangue had hired to play the rapists, different each show, matched those faces also.
“Now I don’t trust you. I don’t trust you that you trust me.”
Monty sighed. “I’m sorry. Tomorrow I’ll scan you, then, down at HAP. Just to clear the air. And I’ll copy your memories, too—all right?”
“Fine.” Mauve stopped making tea and returned to bed. “I’m going to sleep.”
“I am sorry, Mauve.”
“Mm,” she grunted.
He read a magazine at the kitchen table and didn’t guiltily sneak back into bed until she was asleep.
*
Haz Tanabe was crewcut, youngish, of Japanese extraction—solemn and solemn-suited, a dependable machine. Baf Giddry was a white, burly forcer-type in his early fifties, his graying hair slicked back and clinched into a braid down to the middle of his back. Monty quickly sensed resentment from Giddry that Nedland had placed him in command of the field investigation. While Mauve was having her memories recorded, Tanabe and Giddry filled Monty and Beak in on their investigation of the mix-up at Cugok, where “friendly flesh” had gone out labeled as vitamins in two thousand bottles. The source of the accident was still rather ambiguous, but no evidence as yet pointed to a deliberate act. No workers or supervisors had as yet been asked to submit to truth scan.
“How’d your girly fare under truth scan?” Giddry asked.
“She isn’t lying,” Monty intoned. “She’s not involved in anything weird.”
“How involved are you with her?”
“That has no immediate bearing on this case.”
“You drilling her, though, huh?”
“Baf, I want a professional and cooperative working relationship with you. If I can’t have it, I’ll ask Nedland to pull you off this.”
“You’re on probation, you sludge, and you threaten me?”
“Shut it, Baf—now,” Beak growled. “I back him up. One more word and I go to Ned myself. Let’s drop this now before it gets bad.”
“Dropped.” Giddry sneered and lit a cigar.
“Good,” Monty hissed, his gaze on Giddry cold. “Now, what I’m having recorded from Mauve is every show they’ve done so far. I want to see if any of the rapists who’ve attacked Aurora Lehrman on stage match up with the two who raped Mauve, or the sketches of the two who raped Beak’s wife.”
Beak said tightly, trying to sound composed and professional, “But you haven’t told her, for now, what you’re recording and looking at.”
“Right.”
“Remember how I figured out that the mutated body with the ID identifying it as Tate Hurrea turned out to be Auretta Here?” Beak said. “Well, I’ve started a list of names…Westy Dwork, Ferule Cangue, for now…to see if they’re really something else coded or scrambled up, too. Loveland does have a certain style.”
“It has to be an imitator,” Giddry groaned. “You give that psycho too much credit.”
“Don’t underestimate him,” said Monty. “Don’t close your mind to any possibility regarding him.”
Giddry just sighed out cigar smoke.
Tanabe said, “Why would a prominent researcher like Dwork assist Loveland? For money? There’s enough money to be made at Cugok, with ‘friendly flesh.’”
“Some people never have enough money. And Dwork’s a psycho, too. He’s a freak lover and he loves what he’s doing in Meathearts. During last night’s show he cut Mauve so deep the scalpel scraped her teeth. And…what if Loveland helped Dwork develop ‘friendly flesh?’”
“Come on, Black,” said Giddry.
“He majored in bioengineering at Paxton Polytech, and in The Godfucker he cloned his finger back on stage after cutting it off. Sound familiar?”
“You still think Cangue is Loveland?” Tanabe said.
“Maybe. He may think coming back as a dwarf will keep us off his scent.”
“Cangue is doing these freaky plays because he is a freak,” Giddry said.
“If all I’m gonna get out of you is negative shit, Giddry…”
“Hey, you need to hear the opposing view, too, don’t ya? If all you want to hear is somebody parrot your theories I’ll gladly get off the case…”
“Gentlemen?” The Indian technician Anu was leaning in the room. “We’re ready to show you what we’ve got…”
The rapists in the debut performance of Meathearts didn’t match Beak’s computer sketches. Monty stole a sideways glance at Beak. The agent’s eyes were riveted into the screen, and blazing. His hands squeezed the arms of his chair. “Enough,” Monty told Anu. “Forward to the second show.” He leaned toward Beak. “Easy, man. Why don’t you go? I can do this.”
“Then why’d you ask me to come on the case? I can handle it.”
Aurora Lehrman stood intact on stage again…but as in the premier show, Mauve saw only a brief glimpse before she was whisked backstage to be repaired. It was in the work area of Westy Dwork, however, that Mauve witnessed Aurora’s rape and mutilation—on a monitor screen. They watched a panting, gore-spattered Dwork toss his wig and mustache onto a counter. “Got you good that time, love.” He smiled directly at the four men. He touched buttons on his devices, meanwhile distracted by Aurora’s ordeal on the monitor.
Anu froze one rapist’s face as it appeared on the screen, blew it up. No match. Then the other. No match…just the red plastic jackets.
It was the same with the next show. Finally, the performance Monty had attended. No—none of the rapists resembled either the dark or light-skinned mongrel from the computer composites. Monty sighed. “Take us to Mauve’s rape,” he now told the technician…with dread.
She’d been sleeping. Vague dream images, then the invading boom, the invading light. Monty realized that she had moved since then to her current apartment; the walls here were alien despite familiar decorations. She sat up. Through her eyes the four men saw the two men, plunging at her. One leaped as she screamed. Cuffed her. The camera angle abruptly whipped away…
“It’s them,” breathed Beak.
“I know,” said Monty. “Freeze it,” he ordered the tech.
Mauve’s nightshirt was seen being raised over her head, blocking the screen for a moment. One face was close, well-framed. “Freeze it!” Monty barked.
It was frozen. They didn’t have to blow it up. The sneering face looked like that of a typical heterogeneous punk: part white, part Hispanic or black, part Asian, all lost in one unpleasant mix topped with a greasy elaborate bouffant.
“Hard copy,” Monty instructed. A glossy printed copy whirred out of a machine. Anu set it aside. “Go on,” Monty said.
They watched the mixed-breed rape M
auve, his hand over her mouth. He glared at his audience. He spat on the camera in contempt. They heard Mauve sob and gurgle. “Make a sound and I cut you,” said the off-screen second man. A knife must have been held nearby, maybe its edge or tip pressed against her cheek in a kind of dress rehearsal…
Finally the other one came into view. The tech froze a good look at him and made a copy. He was a white-skinned punk with black features and a blond crewcut.
“Should we go on?” asked Anu meekly.
“Absolutely not,” said Monty, shaking, bloodless. “Kill it.”
“Scum,” observed Giddry.
“They killed my wife. Those are the monsters who killed my wife,” Beak whispered, his eyes filling, hands still locked as claws on the arms of his chair.
The lights came up—show over.
SEVENTEEN
“What did the blackies say?” said Giddry, referring to the police. Monty had just returned from a meeting in which he and Nedland had informed their police liaisons and the former chief investigators of the Toll Loveland case of these new, bizarre developments.
Monty sat at a computer screen, tapping keys, in the small workroom handed over to them at HAP for their investigation. “They say the involvement of Westy Dwork in the drug mix-up at Cugok and in any weird activities connected to Loveland is too tenuous for an arrest…”
“Tenuous?”
“Insubstantial. Weak.”
“Yeah, yeah—so?”
“We can bring him in for questioning, but I said no, I don’t want to tip him off yet. Ned urged them not to bring him in, either. Let’s hope they don’t stick their noses into this too far and scare these people away.”
“They shouldn’t even be involved.”
“It’s unavoidable, if there’s any connection to Loveland.”
“So what are you looking for?” Tanabe came wheeling closer in his chair. Beak had been given the rest of the day off to spend with his children.
“Dwork bragged to me about his extensive schooling, but I didn’t get to push it enough to find out where he went. Loveland majored in bioengineering at Paxton Polytech…”
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