Charlie nudged him, and he blinked, startled for a moment. He looked around, saw again this immensity of empty space with which Vincent surrounded himself. He hated that he felt so envious, that he wished, at some embarrassing level, that he could go back to school and learn the things Vincent had learned that let him make this kind of money — except even going back to technical college would cost him money he didn’t have, short of begging Molly for a loan.
“Is there anything else?” Vincent asked, keen to get back to whatever he’d been doing.
Spider was about to shake his head and say no, thanks, the receipt was all they needed — but then he stopped, and remembered something. He said, “Listen, the day we came to pick up your Tempo—”
Vincent laughed, “Yeah, didn’t that go well, huh?”
Surprised, Spider said, “You know the unit was destroyed?”
“Yeah, you told me that night.”
“I never told you that. This is the first time—”
“No, not you. I meant, someone from your shop?”
Spider and Charlie exchanged looks. “Someone from the shop came out here and told you what had happened?”
“Yeah. That night. Offered me a thousand bucks compensation, cash, if I didn’t say anything, and signed this gag-order thing.”
“Which you signed?”
“Shit, yes! Some bastard turns up wanting to give me a thousand bucks, yeah you bet I said yes! You said yourself the machine was a dud, so what the hell? Didn’t matter to me.”
Spider thought about this. “I said the machine was a potential bomb, that there was something really spooky going on with it.”
“You thought it was a dud, I know you did. And you were right, too, probably. I mean, that’s why you get the big bucks, right?” He grinned, not trying to be mean about it.
Spider didn’t take it that way. He could only see Mr. Vincent lording his wealth over him, how losing an expensive, though second-hand, time machine was no great loss. Spider kept thinking that if he’d lost something that had cost that kind of money, it would bloody-well hurt, because it had taken so long to save up all that money, or it had cost so much to get a loan for it, or whatever. He took a breath, trying to calm himself. “Yeah. Right.”
It fell to Charlie to ask the obvious question. “So, Mr. Vincent, the fellow who came out to tell you about your machine: did he leave a card or anything?”
Vincent smiled, nodded. “Oh yeah. Hang on.” He popped his watch, sorted through a bunch of files, found the card, and beamed it over to Charlie. “There you go.” When Charlie indicated he’d received it on his watch, Vincent said to them both, now looking a bit wary, “Are you guys trying to tell me he isn’t with you?”
Charlie shot Spider the card. Spider had to admit, looking at it on his own watch, it certainly looked legitimate. Spider closed his watch-screen and said to Vincent, “The fellow you spoke to, could you maybe describe him?”
“He wasn’t from your shop?”
“No.”
Vincent stared at the floor and rubbed his neck some more. “I’m sure they said they were from Malaga. He knew all about my Tempo.”
Charlie reminded him, “Could you give us some kind of rough description?”
“But why would he do that? Why would he pretend like that?”
Spider was getting impatient, so he tried changing tack. “This guy, did he tell you anything about what destroyed your Tempo?”
“Nah, he just said it blew up when you tried to fix it — that nobody was hurt, which was good, ’cause for a moment there, I was worried sick, thinking, God, I’m responsible! It was horrible. But he said it was fine, no harm done, other than my machine being toast.”
“He didn’t say what they found inside it?”
“No, why? What was inside it?”
Charlie looked at Spider. Spider shrugged, and said to Vincent, “Another time machine, and a woman, a dead woman.”
Mr. Vincent paused a moment, then stared at them both with his eye-plugs. “No shit! Really?”
“Really,” Spider said. “Now, if you could just give us that description?”
“So how’d she die?”
“That description, if you wouldn’t mind?”
“No, you gotta tell me, I mean, you’ve told me all this other stuff, you’ve gotta tell me that. C’mon!”
Spider stared at the floor and tried to get his breathing to settle down. He gave Mr. Vincent the bare-bones version of what he knew about Clea Fassbinder’s demise, which wasn’t much, but it appeared to satisfy Mr. Vincent, who, clearly still amazed at the whole thing, gave them a rough description of his own visitor that night.
“You’re sure about this, Mr. Vincent?”
“Pretty sure,” he said. Spider could tell he didn’t give half a shit about it, that he was much more amazed to learn about his old time machine’s unlikely cargo. “God, if I’d only known. Wait’ll I tell my girlfriend!” He was grinning happily, glad to have a bit of tragic violence enter his life, if only indirectly.
Spider and Charlie could not wait to leave. Once they were back on the road, with Charlie driving once more, Charlie said, “That description mean anything to you, boss?”
Spider had been thinking about the description, trying to match it against people he knew, but was coming up blank. “Charlie, I think we just stumbled across an actual Section Ten spook going about a bit of clean-up.”
“Shit,” Charlie said, genuinely shocked.
Spider was looking at the image of the business card Vincent had given them. It looked exactly right. Not that it was in any way difficult to fake up a business card; what bothered Spider was the gnawing thought that somehow those Section Ten guys might have figured out who Clea Fassbinder was and what was going on in the bigger picture. He assumed the Section Ten spooks also had probably figured out who’d killed her, and that they wouldn’t tell anyone. It would be their little secret. Spider figured they would keep the details to themselves in case they ever needed the killer to do something for them, in which case they would have tremendous leverage to use against him.
Spider idly fantasized that it would be cool if James Rutherford could help him sneak into Section Ten so he could access the Fassbinder file and make a copy. It would absolutely work in a cheesy spy movie, but in this world, it could never happen. James did have high-level DOTAS access, but that would cut no ice with Section Ten. What Spider needed was a buddy in Section Ten. He wondered, for a moment, if James knew anybody like that.
Just stop, he told himself, sitting back in his seat, taking some calming breaths. You’re not a cop, and you’re not investigating anything. You’re just some poor bastard fixing time machines. Nothing more, nothing less. However Clea Fassbinder met her death, it’s not your business. You do not need to know.
But he did need to know. From the first time he had seen Clea Fassbinder’s pale and lifeless body, awash in drying blood, right there in the parking lot of his time machine repair shop, he knew he was bound to her. She was “on his patch,” as they used to say — on his turf. He owed it to her to find out what happened, and who was responsible. He’d done his best all these years to shut away all of that part of him that loved being a policeman. But that night, faced with that woman’s blood-smeared face, he’d felt something snap deep inside him. He’d told himself, right up until that moment, that he could more or less manage with just being a time machine repairman, where the greatest, most compelling mysteries at hand were figuring out what was making some time machine make that strange rattling sound when it was idling, or where that bad smell was coming from. It wasn’t much, and it didn’t pay much, but he could be his own boss, to some extent. Dickhead was a pain, but not a huge pain. Dickhead was just doing his own job. It was simple, honest work, even if ninety percent of time machine owners turned out to be inatten
tive idiots who had no business going anywhere near such things. It was a living, and all things considered, particularly the way his police career had turned out, probably more than he deserved.
It was a little after 4:00 pm when they pulled into the shop’s parking area. Charlie asked Spider if he was all right; he’d gone quiet. Spider nodded absently, waved him off, and headed inside; he didn’t respond when Malaria told him she’d gone to get the instant coffee, and that she could only get a small jar because she only had twenty dollars on her. He nodded, waved again, and closed his office door. It took a few moments to convert his desk into a bed, and he lay down, his eyes closed, trying to take everything in, the way his mind was blasting memories and ideas and faces and voices at him. The look in Clea Fassbinder’s eyes. The smell of her death.
He wished he was in on it. He hated the idea that something juicy and interesting was going on and he was stuck on the outside, frustrated. He hated even more this feeling of needing to be involved, as if finding out the circumstances surrounding a tragic death was somehow secondary to the real issue. It felt horribly like a narcotic craving. All these years he’d been straight and clean, getting through each day, one day at a time, but the craving had never gone away. He knew he missed investigating the awful things people did to one another, finding out what drove people, cleaning up after them. It was appalling, filthy, dispiriting work most times, quite lacking in glamor or even excitement — but it didn’t matter. He was helping to straighten things out, to solve hideous, blood-soaked puzzles. He had always missed that part of it. God, how he’d missed it!
He found himself staring at the note Mr. Vincent had sent to his watchtop, the copy of the receipt he’d gotten from Ian Fry. Fry’s contact details were right there. The phone number had been automagically turned into a clickable link. He tapped his phone patch, got dial tone, then touched Fry’s number. It connected, and started ringing.
Spider said to himself, I can quit anytime!
Fry answered. “Speak now or forever hold your peace,” he said.
They talked a few minutes. Spider told Mr. Fry that he was trying to trace the original owner of the Tempo 300 Mr. Fry had sold to Mr. Vincent. Fry gave Spider a first name, Jules, and a phone number, and said that was all he had. “He told me that he’d only owned the thing a few weeks and was selling it because he’d just taken a full-time job up north.”
“That’s a shame,” Spider said, “nice new machine like that.”
“Rules,” Fry said. “No time machines around mining sites. Bad for business.”
It was true, for the same reason you didn’t want people with time machines going to 1929 to pick up bargain stocks.
“Did this Jules fellow mention if he bought the machine new?”
“No, he got it from a used time machine dealer in Cannington.”
“Which one?” There were several, many of them former used car dealers who had branched out into the exciting new world of chronotechnology. Spider suddenly realized that Dickhead owned a share in one such used time machine dealership. That would be way too circular, he said to himself.
Mr. Fry heard him. “What was that?”
“Sorry. Um, so, you don’t have the name of the dealer this Jules bought his machine from?”
“Nah, sorry, mate.”
“Okay, no worries.”
Fry said, “Cheers!” and was gone.
Spider was thinking. He had the dodgy Tempo’s DOTAS registration code. And there were only so many used time machine dealers in Cannington. He wondered if he could get Malaria to track down which of those dealerships sold it. It was in no way official business. It was even, it could be argued, a waste of her valuable time. To say nothing, as noted previously, of it being in so many ways none of Spider’s business.
“Yeah, but how long could it take?” he said to himself, sounding, he thought, very reasonable. Maybe if he told Malaria there was no rush on the info. Just something she could chase up when she wasn’t busy fielding calls from idiots.
He sighed, thinking: Spider, you are one sick puppy. Get some help. Now. You’re not a policeman anymore. Just stop it. Stop it now.
Nodding, feeling a little ashamed, he said to himself, But I just want to know. That’s all. I just… want… to know.
His phone rang, and he nearly jumped out of his bed with shock.
It was Dickhead. “Sorry I’ve been delayed. On my way now. Should be there in twenty minutes or so, depending on traffic.”
Bloody Dickhead, Spider thought, surprisingly glad for the interruption. A sort-of welcome reminder of Spider’s actual responsibilities, like those damned key-point indicators, and the all-important need to achieve higher throughput, higher turnover, higher cash flow, and the endless, often bitter debate over whether to concentrate on simple, quick jobs which would pay modestly but often, or focus on big, expensive jobs that would take a long time, but pay very well. How many times over the years had he had this argument with Dickhead? How many times had he told the bastard that if he’d just give Spider some more staff they could maybe do a “dynamic mix” — a phrase Dickhead had quite admired — of simple and complex jobs, depending on what they had in the workshop at any given time.
Dickhead had always insisted, though, that he had this algorithm that specified just how many staff Spider could have and still maintain profitability, and the bad news was that Spider had the correct number already. More staff meant more overhead, and that meant he’d miss those key-point indicators, fail to hit quarterly targets, and so on, and that wouldn’t do. He didn’t want to have to close the Malaga branch, and break up the great team of Spider and Charlie. They just had to work harder, and work smarter, he told Spider. That’s all there was to it. After all, the Cannington shop managed a higher turnover of jobs with only one full-time service technician and two part-time guys. Why couldn’t Spider and Charlie do the same?
There were times when arguing with Dickhead McMahon made Spider want to slash his wrists open and have a nice hot bath. It was like arguing with a machine: McMahon never tired, never got flustered, never lost his temper. He could argue anyone to a standstill. And always, when you were finished arguing with the man, he would leave you with the impression that somehow you’d won the debate, by agreeing with his position. It was a strange sensation. And now he was coming in to go another few rounds with Spider on a day when, quite honestly, that warm bath looked very attractive.
Dickhead arrived a few minutes later. Spider intercepted him at the entrance to the shop, and before the boss could harass Malaria, Spider guided him through to his office. Exactly how he would get Dickhead to leave Malaria alone, or at least to keep his interactions with her on a professional basis, he did not know. Dickhead, after all, would say he was only being friendly, not grasping that there was a difference between “friendly” and “polite.” Spider sighed, and followed his boss into the office, and shut the door.
“What, no coffee?” Dickhead asked as he parked himself in one of the guest chairs.
“We have instant,” Spider said, warily.
“Good fucking God, Spider! What kind of operation are you running here?”
“The droid’s out of commission.”
Dickhead listened, nodded very seriously, making a show of calculating complex numbers in his head, and said, “And? I was under the impression that you were in the ‘repairing things that are busted’ line of work.”
“We are in that line of work, for values of ‘things’ limited strictly to time machines. Nobody here has time to fix a stupid coffee machine. Perhaps you might lend your own considerable skills to the task?”
“You do realize that hospitality to one’s employer is an important part of your responsibilities here, don’t you?”
“And do you realize, Dickhead, that you’re keeping me from actually working on my backlog of jobs, right?”
/> Here Dickhead smiled in a way that appeared to take up more room than his large face allowed. Even his smile had a zone-of-control. He said, glancing about, as if to make sure nobody was listening, “Forget the bloody coffee, Spider. I’m here regarding another matter, something rather more important, if you take my meaning?” The old bastard looked sly, saying this.
Spider knew he was going to regret what he was about to say, but he said, “Oh?”
“You’re not exactly happy in this job, are you, Spider?”
Uh-oh, Spider thought. Where’s he going with this? “I wouldn’t say that, Dickhead.”
McMahon shrugged a little, leaned back in his chair, hands folded across his considerable belly. Spider was sure he was going to fall over backwards if he kept that up, but knew not to say anything. His boss said, “In any case, an opportunity has come up, you might say.”
Spider sat down. “I’m pretty comfortable right where I am, you know.” The last time Spider had expressed eagerness at one of Dickhead’s suggestions, he’d wound up in this line of work. If he was indeed being offered something new, he could only assume that whatever it was, it would also be a miserable experience and he’d still be plagued with demands that he keep up his KPIs and turnover and all the rest of the tedious, busywork management shit he had to put up with now.
“You’re comfortable where you are now, are you?” Dickhead said, not buying it. “Have you looked at yourself in a mirror lately? You look like you’re sitting on sharpened nails. You look like you think eating raw shit from an open sewer might offer you greater job satisfaction. You look, in short, like you want a change, Spider, and — and hear me out here, son — I’m here to offer you just what you want.” He smiled slightly, looking mischievous.
Spider reflected for a moment. Would it do any harm to at least hear what he had to say? He could still say no. He hadn’t signed anything.
Then again, he thought, he had very few workplace rights in this job. It was within Dickhead’s power to make acceptance of this new “opportunity” a condition of keeping any kind of job with him. Accept the opportunity, or lose your current job. Unemployment was no way to try to live. He’d never get Molly back without some kind of income, without prospects. And even Mrs. Ng, who offered the cheapest rent in Perth, wouldn’t have him, either.
Time Machines Repaired While-U-Wait Page 15
