“I can get myself into trouble just fine, Miles.”
“Yeah? Tell that to your mother.” I scratched my head, sighed again, and stuck out my hand. “Pals?”
She grinned and took my hand. “I think you’re finally growing up.”
“Ah, knock it off. What’s in the bag?”
She tossed the bag down and pulled it open. “I have some things for you to try on.”
She pulled out three men’s shirt—pale blue, white, and gray stripes—then delved in again for some sharp-looking trousers and a pinstriped suit jacket.
“They’re my dad’s,” she said. She considered the shirts for a moment before tossing me the blue one. “He left them when Mom kicked him out. I just washed them. I thought maybe you could wear something clean tonight.”
“Tonight? What’s so special about tonight?”
She stared at me like I was an idiot. She always was a good judge of character. “The mayor’s fundraiser?”
“Oh,” I said. “Right. I don’t think I’m in a party mood, kid.”
“You’re going,” she said. “Think of all the big shots you’ll be able to rub elbows with.”
“They can go rub my—” I glanced at Tania and shut my mouth quickly. “I’m not their class of people,” I said instead.
She didn’t seem to have heard me. She clutched the socks she was inspecting to her chest. “I had a look at the organizer’s blog—”
“What the hell’s a blog?”
She rode right over the top of me. “There’s going to be some big names in the Tunneling world there. The deputy chairman of Immigration, the lead Tunneling scientist for the Bore, some people from AISOR—”
“AISOR? The Tunneling company?”
This fundraiser suddenly sounded a lot more interesting. Couldn’t hurt to stick my nose around and see what I could turn up. It wasn’t a big deal if they cut that part of me off as well; I was already a walking carving board. And for Claudia, it was the least I could do. It might even be fun.
Tania reconsidered her choice of shirt and gave me the white one. “There. Classic, and it suits you.” She rummaged through the bag. “I’ve got some ties in here somewhere.”
“I have a tie.”
“I mean one that isn’t ugly.”
I frowned and inspected my tie. What the hell was wrong with it?
“Oh, don’t pout,” she said. “I’ll tell you what. Once we’ve found the right clothes, you can spend the afternoon teaching me. I want to practice directing pre-made probability-skewing Pin Holes.”
“You drive a hard bargain, kid.” I held the shirt against myself and glanced at the mirror. “A hard bargain indeed.”
SEVEN
The mayor sent a car to pick me up at eight. That was something I never thought I’d have cause to say. The silver Audi stood out in my neighborhood like a clown at a funeral. Inside it smelled like leather cleaner. The driver, a bored-looking Vei man, had to direct me to the back seat after I tried to get in the front. I tried not to look embarrassed.
Tania’s dad’s suit was a little loose, but a belt sorted out the pants and it was warm enough for me to ditch the jacket. I had to admit, they were nice digs. The shirt was ironed and everything.
The fundraiser was something about inner-city education, as far as I could tell from the website Tania showed me on her laptop. The car dropped me off outside the Bluegate Grand Hotel, about as far from the inner-city as you could get. By the looks of the pruned and polished folks that swaggered through the front doors, not a one of them had even been within a mile of a public school, let alone attended one.
The driver passed me a slip of thick cream paper through the window. “Your invitation,” he said. I thanked him, shoved it in my pocket, and left the parking bay, careful not to make eye contact with any of the fancy people.
One look at the hotel lobby’s stained wood and vaulted ceilings was enough to make me regret my decision to come. I gave more than a few seconds to thinking of turning and bolting before someone realized I didn’t belong and had me thrown out. Unfortunately, Tania would undoubtedly hear me if I came home early; the girl could hear you thinking if you weren’t careful. But I could always go wander the streets for a few hours. Hell, maybe I could scrounge up enough cash to get a taxi to the Mercy of the Eight Hospital and pick up my bike. It’d be a more productive use of my time.
I cast a look back outside, then screwed up my hands and turned away from the door. I promised the girl I’d go. Both of the girls. A silvered old man strode past me with a woman half his age hanging off his arm. I balled up my courage and fell into step behind them.
They seemed to know where they were going. Some guy in a pompous uniform checked my invitation then pulled open a door with golden handles. I found myself in a ballroom big enough to fit my apartment building laid on its side. The floors were polished wood, the ceiling white and dangling with chandeliers. A hundred circular tables sat arranged in rows throughout the room, and between them were enough penguin suits and colored gowns to fill an Academy Awards ceremony.
All right, this was definitely not my kind of party.
The fashionable crowd was clustered into groups of eight or nine, all staring adoringly at the most useful and prestigious person in the group. Every now and then a penguin would make a break from a huddle, snag a glass of champagne from a passing waiter, and integrate himself into another collection of politely chortling suits. String music drifted from a tuxedo-clad band up on the stage. No one paid them any attention.
I stood dumbly in the doorway for a minute or two, fighting a rising panic. I didn’t count on finding any friends here. If I recalled all my general knowledge, I could pick out a couple of faces that I’d seen on the news. The chubby guy with the red bow tie was some local politician, and the lady with the bird’s nest for a hairstyle was always in the news for owning a chain of banks or something.
I gave careful consideration to each of the groups I could see, trying to find the friendliest face, and then I made my decision.
I went for the bar.
The girl behind the bar was all smiles. “What can I get you, sir?”
Sir. That was rich. Maybe it was because I was at least a good decade older than her. I scratched my head. “Gimme a Coke.”
“Are you sure, sir? It’s an open bar.”
“Nah, Coke’s fine.” I wanted a clear head for once.
I snatched a few tiny sandwiches and pastries from a waiter and shoved them in my mouth while I waited for the girl to pour my drink. Some people sneer at the tiny portions they serve at these places, but not me. Small things are easier to sneak into your pockets.
“Miles Franco,” a voice boomed from behind a group of rich white people.
I choked down a pastry, took my Coke for courage while wishing I’d ordered something stronger after all, and turned to face the oversized woman striding through the crowd toward me.
“Miss Mayor,” I said, putting on a smile. “Nice party, isn’t it?”
Mayor Juliet White could command the room’s presence with her sheer physical dimensions as much as her voice. She was pushing obese, but in the sort of way that made you think of a Mafia Don rather than a couch potato. Her platinum blond hair was pulled into a severe bun tonight. She wore a suit jacket with ’80s-style shoulder pads. The crowd made way for her—mainly because they didn’t have any choice—while a few hangers-on trailed in her wake.
She brought her bulk to a halt in front of me and stuck out her hand. “Good to see you, Franco. I wasn’t sure you’d make it. Thought you might be too jittery, eh?” She slapped me on the shoulder, spilling Coke across my hand. My muscles started aching again. “Good God, man. What happened to your ear?”
“Barber got a bit too eager,” I said.
“I’d get a new one if I were you. I heard the police have been hassling you again.”
“Ain’t nothing,” I said. “They just wanted to see if I could help them with another case.”
“You sure?” she frowned, absent-mindedly taking a glass of red wine presented to her by one of her puppy dogs. “You already had to put up with that farce of a trial. Any fool could see you were only acting in self-defense.”
I dived into my drink to avoid answering. Claims of self-defense didn’t go so well when you had a big enough stack of bodies to fill an industrial freezer. Especially not when you were jacked up on Chroma, and trespassing at that.
Mayor White made me uneasy, and had done ever since she publicly threw her support in behind me before she was elected a couple of months ago. She used to be a hotshot defense lawyer, the kind who could sing and make the jury dance. She’d come to visit me in my cell, made me tell her my story. A couple of days later, my court-sponsored lawyer was gone and I had a slick, high-class defense lawyer working pro bono as my new legal counsel. It was no secret that the guy was an old colleague of Juliet White’s. Saved me from going bankrupt, but it made me cold inside. She was playing an angle, and I didn’t much like it.
“Oh, don’t go getting all shy on me, Franco,” she said, putting a heavy arm around my shoulders. “You should seize this chance. Do some networking. You’ve got more to offer this city than the rest of these bozos put together.”
The crowd parted around us like the goddamn Red Sea. “I dunno, Miss White, I was thinking of heading off soon. Gotta wash my hair, you know.” I paused. “Actually, now that you mention it, there is someone I heard might be around. You heard of these AISOR guys?”
“Ah.” She gave me a knowing look and tapped the side of her nose. “Looking for work, eh? Good man, good man.”
“Not work,” I said. “I just want to talk—”
If she heard me, she didn’t pay a lick of attention. Her arm steered me to a small group sitting around a table in the corner. All were human—come to think of it, I hadn’t seen a single Vei since I’d arrived. Most of the group were middle-aged and sagging in all the wrong places, but two of them drew my eye. A tiny man in gold-rimmed spectacles peered at me with a look like a hawk. He brought a glass to his lips—water, plain—and then wiped the dampness from his pencil mustache with a napkin. I knew at once he was important. Regular guys like me can’t pull off facial hair like that.
Next to him was an Asian woman, probably in her late twenties. She paid me no mind, but she had a smile for the mayor. Black hair ran in straight lines past her cream-colored face. She was no knockout like Vivian, but she had a kind of quiet, open beauty to her, like a wishing fountain in a park.
I was instantly on guard.
Mayor White forced me into a chair and slapped me on the back so hard one of the sandwiches nearly came back up. “I’m sure you all recognize this face, don’t you?” she asked the group. “He’s been on TV enough.”
Eight sets of eyes looked at me, and seven looked away again. Spectacles had a hell of a stare on him for such a little guy.
She turned to me. “Franco, let me introduce you.” She pointed at Spectacles. “Miles Franco, meet Jozef Kowalski.”
“CEO of AISOR,” I said, offering my hand. Amazing what you could find on the Internet. Well, amazing what Tania could find. Kowalski peered at my hand for a moment like a biologist studying some new specimen out of Limbus, then he took it. It wasn’t so much a grip as a whispering touch. I could’ve wrapped my thumb and little finger all the way round his wrist and had room to spare.
“Who’s this, Jozef? Got yourself a new woman?” Mayor White gestured to the dark-haired girl who finally seemed to have noticed me.
Kowalski loudly didn’t smile. “This is Zhi Lu, one of my most promising chemical analysts. She’s with me in a purely professional capacity.”
I didn’t doubt it. By the look of him he wouldn’t know what to do with a woman if he found himself alone with one. Hell, it’d been so long I was starting to forget, myself.
“Miles Franco,” I said.
She nodded. “I know.”
The other people at the table went back to their own discussions, hushed now. A few sent looks in my direction, and a pair of them walked away to find better company. I tried to see if my glass of Coke had any conversation tips for a man half the city considered a mass murderer. It didn’t, but the mayor stepped in to rescue me instead.
“Jozef’s been a huge help getting the city back on its feet,” she said. “This is what Bluegate needs. Business. Investors. Some inflow of capital to get the wheels turning again.”
Kowalski waved the compliments away. “We saw an opportunity. We’re not a charity organization.”
“Charity’s not what we need.” The mayor pointed her wine glass in my direction. “You’ve seen the effort AISOR’s put into rebuilding the infrastructure in central and the South Bay.”
“Uh, not really. I’ve been in…” I glanced at Zhi Lu and changed what I was going to say. “…indisposed. Anyway,” I said, “I was wondering something. Call me an idiot, but what does AISOR do exactly?”
“We’re involved in a number of industries, but our main focus here in Bluegate is the Tunneling sector.” His voice was pure corporate-speak, but it didn’t tell me much. “The world of Tunneling has changed, and there are all sorts of opportunities for a company like us.”
I frowned. “You’re talking about Limbus? You’ve got a way to make money from that place?”
He took a sip of his water and said nothing.
“Well, watch yourself,” I said. “Those critters are nasty.” I still had scars on my arm where a spider-dog had sunk his teeth into me. I downed the rest of my Coke, grimacing as the bubbles stung my throat. I glanced at Zhi Lu and found her studying me, her head cocked slightly to the side. She was wearing a red satin dress that showed just a hint of cleavage. I turned my gaze back to Kowalski before she could make me nervous. “Say, you guys don’t have anything to do with drugs, do you?”
He glanced at me and took a sip of water. “Drugs? Medicines, you mean?”
I shrugged. “Sure.”
“I’m afraid not.”
“Never mind.” Was he lying? I wanted to press him, but I couldn’t exactly be discreet here. Maybe if I ducked out for a while, I could tail him and get him alone. It was the best I could come up with, and besides, I was getting jumpy again. I left my empty glass on the table and stood up.
Mayor White grabbed my sleeve. “Where are you going, Franco?”
“To take a piss.”
She grinned and waved me away. “Be back in time for the speeches. After that the fundraisers will come out to try and empty your pockets, and you’ll want to be on your guard. Don’t let ’em get anything without a fight.”
I tipped an imaginary hat to Kowalski and the girl, said, “Nice meeting you,” and shoved my way back through the crowd.
My ear might be stuffed, but I could still smell the bullshit. Something about that guy made my gut do backflips and set off the alarms in my head. Maybe AISOR didn’t kill Claudia, but I’d bet my shoes they weren’t as sparkling clean as they wanted to appear. In this city, no one was.
I waited until I’d put enough suits between me and the table that I couldn’t be seen, then I went back to the bar and found the smiling girl. “Hit me again.”
“Coke?” she said.
“Good memory.” I drummed my fingers on the bar. Where to now? Maybe I could ask around, see if I could dig up any dirt on AISOR until I could get Kowalski by himself.
The idea made my head pound. Good luck trying to fit in here. The air was stifling despite the air conditioning, and the armpits of my shirt were soaked.
The bar girl passed me my Coke. I put on my nice guy face. “Is there somewhere I can get some air?”
She pointed. “The courtyard.”
None of the hotels I’d ever stayed in had a courtyard. Most would be lucky to have a swimming pool without a dead rat in it. I thanked the girl, shoved my free hand in my pocket, and made my way back through the press.
It was a relief to actually breathe again. The courtyard was as swan
ky as the rest of the place, filled with hanging plants and tile walkways. A few of the other suits had escaped out here, and one or two even risked becoming social pariahs by lighting cigarettes. I found a bench in the corner that had a view of the garden and took a load off. My feet thanked me. I was wearing Tania’s dad’s shoes, though I might as well have been walking barefoot on tacks.
The courtyard’s garden was so big I couldn’t see the far side of it in the dark. Trees and rose bushes stood in ordered rows alongside the lawn. A dense line of hedges and evergreens stood guard to my right. I let the earthy scent wash over me while I sipped my drink.
Something moved in the garden. Maybe someone got too drunk, went to spew in the bushes. No, this wasn’t that kind of party. The shadow moved again. Ice dripped down my spine. I stood up quickly. The shadow ducked behind a line of trees. Hell. Was someone watching me?
A hand touched my shoulder. My skeleton tried to jump out my nose. I spun, grabbed the wrist, and cocked my hand with the glass in it, ready to smash it in a goon’s face.
Only it wasn’t a goon I was looking at. I lowered my arm and hoped the dark covered the color in my cheeks. “Sorry, I…uh…didn’t hear you.”
Zhi Lu had taken a step back from me, but the fear in her face fell away a moment later. She looked much prettier when some asshole wasn’t about to sock her one. “I saw you out here,” she said. She had a hint of an accent. “I wanted to escape from the speeches.”
I glanced back toward the main hall. Someone’s voice was crackling over a bad speaker system. He must’ve made a joke, because a wave of polite laughter rolled out a moment later, then died like an old man in an empty room.
“Your boss was right about you being smart.” I shuffled on the spot. She was closer than I normally like people to be, close enough for me to smell her vanilla-scented perfume. And since she was a beautiful woman working for a company that might or might not be engaging in mass murder, I’d have preferred at least a couple of sheets of bullet-proof glass between us.
But she wasn’t going anywhere. I stood there like an idiot for another couple of seconds, then pointed to the bench. “Seat?”
The Man Who Walked in Darkness (Miles Franco #2) (Miles Franco Urban Fantasy) Page 6
