2xs

by Nigel Findley

  I jandered over to the bar. The chipped bartender was playing with a bottle of whiskey, spinning it high into the air and catching it. As he juggled it with his right hand, he shot out his left, pointing a dirty index finger at my chest. "You?" he barked. "Drink?"

  I shook my head. "I'm meeting someone," I told him. He thudded the bottle down on the bar, and looked me over quickly. Then he nodded. "In the back," he said, hooking a thumb over his shoulder.

  I thanked him, and went through the door he'd indicated to the left of the bar. I found myself in a short hallway, lit by a single naked bulb on the ceiling. There were two other doors, the one directly in front of me marked Dressing Room (complete with a star, clumsily cut out of gold mylar), the other marked Office. I pulled my armored duster closed across my chest-paranoia, I know, but even paranoids have enemies-and felt the weight of the Manhunter in my holster.

  As I stood there, the door to the dressing room opened, and a diminutive girl came out. She wore nothing but a couple of kilos of silver chain, and her hair had the same sheen as her "clothing." She shot me a saucy smile as she squeezed by me-totally unnecessary, as I wasn't blocking the doorway-then vanished through the door into the bar proper. I had to smile. Sometimes this job offers the most interesting rewards.

  I went down the hallway and knocked on the office door. I heard movement from inside, and then a tentative, "Yeah?"

  "It's me, Patrick," I told him. The door opened, and there was Patrick Bambra, smiling awkwardly down at me. "Ah, Derek," he said, "you're a sight for sore eyes. Come on in." There was whiskey on his breath, I noticed. He stepped back, and I followed him into the office, a small room crammed with crates of beer, a desk, and a rusty metal cot. He sat down on the cot, which creaked alarmingly, and gestured to the desk chair. I shut the door behind me, then also sat.

  For a few moments, I just looked him over. Well over two meters tall and thin as a rake, Bambra looked ridiculous sitting on the low cot, arms and legs akimbo and seemingly all joints. He didn't seem to have aged a day since our time together at the Star. I knew he was three years younger than me, but with his boyish, freckle-spattered face and mop of bright red hair, he looked ten years younger than that. He still wore the string tie and silver collar tabs that had always been his trademark. I waited a few moments, but he didn't seem to want to start the conversation. "What's going down, Patrick?" I said as last.

  He hesitated, unable or unwilling to make eye contact. He shifted uncomfortably. The embarrassed act might have fooled anyone else, but I knew he was sifting through what he did and did not want to tell me. I sighed, and reconciled myself to hearing less than the whole story. "I'm into something that's a little too deep for me, I think," he said finally. "Some people seem to want me dead."

  "You're working on a case?" He nodded. "What is it?"

  He looked away again. "Would you be liking a drink?" he asked suddenly. He reached under the bed and pulled out a half-empty bottle of synthetic Irish whiskey. He examined the label for a moment. "It's not too bad, really." I shook my head. "Well, I think I'll be having one. I need it." He reached under the cot again and retrieved a grimy glass. He poured a hefty shot, thought about it, then doubled the amount. He looked at me again, holding out the open bottle. "Sure?"

  "What's the case, Patrick?" Patrick put down the bottle, took a mouthful of whiskey. His prominent adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed. "I don't know as I can tell you that, Derek m'lad," he said slowly. "You know how it is, the code of honor and confidentiality we have to operate under . . ."

  I tuned him out, knowing he could be going for a while. (At Lone Star, one of our classmates had once suggested that Patrick Bambra must have kissed the Blarney Stone. Another had decided that instead the Blarney Stone had kissed Patrick.) When his steam finally ran down, I fixed him with a cold stare. "You said you needed my help," I reminded him.

  It was as if he'd been pumped up with hot air, and somebody had stuck a pin in hm. He seemed to visibly deflate. He nodded and lowered his eyes. "I'll tell you what I can," he said quietly. "A woman hired me to follow her husband. Not a particularly noble cause, but I needed the money. In any case, I've been on the case for a while. Then, a few days ago, things took a bit of a twist, and it became more personal." I drew breath to ask for clarification, but he hurried on. "I can't be telling you about that, Derek, and don't ask. It's not only my life I'd be putting at risk, do you understand?" I nodded grudging acceptance. "I found that I had to track down somebody else," he continued, "someone who's a member of the Universal Brotherhood. You know about the Brotherhood?"

  "Of course," I said. Hell, you couldn't go more than a couple of blocks without seeing a Brotherhood billboard or some slag standing on a street corner handing out propaganda. "Go on."

  "So I went to the Brotherhood to track her ... the person." He examined me closely to see if I'd noticed his slip, but I controlled my expression even though I was chuckling inwardly. I thought I scanned at least part of this: friend Bambra, who claimed to have sworn off women before he turned twenty, had fallen in love with someone he shouldn't have. Cherchez la femme, for sure. "I lied my way up the hierarchy," he proceeded, "until I hit somebody at a high enough level that he'd have to know the person I was after. But he stonewalled me, shut me down for good and all." Patrick's flashing eyes, uncharacteristically serious, locked with mine. "He also put me out of sanction, Derek."

  I stared at him. "Out of sanction" was an old espionage term that one of our Lone Star classmates had dug up, and that we'd started using any chance we got. What it meant, in essence, was shoot first and then fingerprint the corpse. "Echo that," I said. "Are we talking about the same Universal Brotherhood here?"

  The Brotherhood I knew was some kind of flaky love-cult, some touchy-feely organization that suckered in the hard-luck stories that were all too common in the sprawl. A death order and a peace-be-upon-you-brother show like the Universal Brotherhood didn't go together.

  Patrick smiled wanly. "That's how I was feeling at first," he admitted, "but my word on it. I'm after talking to this fine gentleman, and the next thing I know I'm dodging bullets. I don't like that, Derek. I've never been liking it."

  I made a T with my hands. "Time out," I said. "I've got to know more about all this. You can't tell me who you were looking for, right?" He shook his head quickly. "How about the guy in the Brotherhood?"

  "Sure, and I can tell you that," Patrick said. "His name will always be emblazoned in my brain. He was a Mr. William Sutcliffe."

  Chapter 9.

  I shook my head to clear it. They say it's a small world, but this was utterly ridiculous. Maybe I should start re-examining my disbelief in synchronicity.

  Patrick was watching me, and those bright eyes didn't miss much. "Would you be knowing the gentleman?" he asked.

  I wasn't in the mood to discuss Lolly or the fact that it was Sutcliffe's tap she'd been washing when she bought it. "I've heard the name," I answered guardedly. "When did you meet with him?"

  "This was yesterday."

  "Oh."

  Patrick waited for me to say something else. "Well," he said slowly, when it was obvious I had nothing to add. "I guess this is what it comes to. I need you to help me."

  "How?" I asked. "I can't bodyguard you. I don't know if you've heard, but I've got people after my own hide."

  "Yes, I had heard that."

  "But you're doing the right thing," I went on. "Find a place to belly up for a while. Maybe hook up with some other runners, some muscle."

  He nodded. "I had figured that much out," he said. "But the thing is, that way I won't be having any freedom of movement."

  I smiled and shook my head. "If you won't tell me who it is you're looking for, I can't help you much there, can I?" He looked down, avoiding my gaze. "There's one thing I can do, though," I said. "I've got reasons of my own to dig up dirt on William Sutcliffe. If I find something you might use, I'll get it to you immediately. As long as you agree to do the same: anything you learn, you
tell me. Karimasu-ka?"

  "I understand, Derek," he said quickly, and his voice sounded sincere. Patrick Bambra was frightened for his life, and he'd do whatever it took to protect that life. "I'm in your debt."

  I waved that off. "Where did you find Sutcliffe?"

  "He's at the Brotherhood chapterhouse in Redmond. The corner of Belmont and Waveland." Then his expression changed to genuine concern. "But I wouldn't be going there in person, boyo. Ask the wrong questions, and they might decide you're out of sanction, too. And I wouldn't be knowing what the wrong questions are."

  I shook my head. "I'm not that dumb," I told him. He looked mildly offended-as though I'd added "even though you are"-but said nothing. I got to my feet. "You've got my number," I said. "Check in with me from time to time, I'll tell you what I've found. And you call me the moment you find out something." I opened the door and was halfway into the corridor when I thought of something else and turned back.

  "If I were you, I'd set up some kind of security with the bartender. Have him warn you if anyone out of the ordinary comes snooping around. He didn't know who the frag I was, but told me right away where you were. For all he knew, I could be the one who put you out of sanction." I left him there, sitting on the bed, turning pale and chewing on that disturbing thought.

  As I drove homeward, my mind kept turning back to Patrick. He'd always been something of an enigma, or, to be more precise, an anachronism. As though he'd been born maybe a century too late. He loved the literature of the 1930s and 1940s, particularly the "hard-boiled" genre of detective fiction, and could immerse himself for days in the film noir classics based on those books. When there was a minor revival of that kind of stuff a dozen years back, Patrick was in heaven. He even got me hooked on the same drek for a while, but not for long. It's tough enough to survive in the sprawl even when you're paying full attention to today.

  But nobody could say Patrick Bambra wasn't a survivor, albeit sometimes by default. He'd been flushed out of Lone Star training, but had managed to keep body and soul together until deciding on a new career. In the years since, he'd found enough cases to keep himself going. Though some were the knight-in-shining-armor kind of thing he dreamed of, the work was mostly sleazy divorce jobs. He still deserved credit for somehow managing to do that and keep his skin unpunctured. I knew people far more competent than Patrick who couldn't say the same. Still, Patrick is a romantic through and through, and the sprawl is not kind to romantics. His latest problems were a case in point. I was pretty sure I could scan how things had developed, no matter how secretive Patrick tried to be. A woman had hired him to track her husband-he'd admitted as much-which meant a classic slimy divorce case. The way I reconstructed it from here was that while following the guy, Patrick had seen the correspondent, in other words, the sweet young thing with whom the subject was two-timing on his wife. What would a thorough-going romantic do in a case like that? Bingo! Fall in love with said sweet young thing and try to track her down for his own purposes. She happens to be a member of the Universal Brotherhood, so friend Bambra seeks her there.

  Which is where he meets William Sutcliffe ...

  And Sutcliffe takes out a contract on him. Serious overkill for matters of the heart, no matter how sleazy. Obviously Sutcliffe or people associated with him got worried that Patrick might find out something more important than the whereabouts of his putative lady-love, and decided to remove the risk. Just the way they'd removed the risk with Lolly. The difference being that Patrick was still breathing.

  So one thing hadn't changed, Mr. William Sutcliffe was still the lead of choice. What had changed was that I had a reasonable place to start tracking him down.

  I remembered Patrick saying that the Universal Brotherhood's chapterhouse was in Kingsgate and not too far from Superdad's. I turned onto Belmont. The chapterhouse was right on the corner of Belmont and Waveland. It had once been a four-plex movie theater, built back when going to the movies was something people in Redmond did. (Now simsense, armed assault, and civil insurrection seem to have overtaken movies as the major pastimes.) The building had a clean, attractive façade, and the two floors of offices above the "theater level" were notable in that all windows were intact. The marquee that used to advertise the films playing was still in place, but now carried quite a different message: "The Universal Brotherhood-Come in and find the power of Belonging." As I cruised by, I saw maybe a dozen people coming or going through the big front doors.

  I hung a left onto Belmont, drove slowly past the entrance to the alley behind the chapterhouse. Seeing a scrum of squatter-types pushing and shoving to get in through a doorway in the rear of the building, I figured this had to be one of the Brotherhood's well-known charity soup kitchens. I wondered if the building also had a free clinic.

  As I drove away, heading back to Purity, I thought it through. The Universal Brotherhood was one of the few rays of light that shone into this part of the sprawl. They gave food to the hungry, shelter to the homeless, and medical aid to the sick or damaged. Sounded pretty good to me. Oh sure, I'd heard rumors that they'd managed to cut themselves a sweet deal when it came to dodging taxes, but what organized religion hadn't? The Brotherhood seemed to be on the up and up, as much as any organization could be in the twisted world of 2052.

  That didn't mean individual members of the Brotherhood hierarchy-William Sutcliffe, in particular- couldn't be dirty in some way. That's the way it seemed to scan. Sutcliffe was involved in something deep and dark, which Lolly learned about accidentally from the line tap. Then Sutcliffe found out that she was on to him, so scratch Lolly. A couple of days later, Patrick comes around asking questions about his love interest. I had no idea whether the woman Patrick was tracking had anything to do with whatever drek Lolly had turned up, or whether Sutcliffe was simply paranoid about anyone asking any strange questions.

  One way or the other, he'd reacted according to type, so scratch Patrick . . . almost. Either Bambra was luckier than Lolly, or else Sutcliffe hadn't put the same time and effort into removing him.

  So William Sutcliffe was still the key. That conclusion was firm and clear in my mind as I parked my car and went upstairs to my Redmond doss. I sat down at the telecom, saw the message light was blinking.

  I hit the keys, and Jocasta's face rilled the screen.

  She was looking tired, definitely the worse for wear, but her expression seemed to be some mixture of embarrassment and determination to get through whatever was on her mind. "I'm sorry about the way I reacted last night," she said without preamble. "I didn't expect things to work out the way they did, and I wasn't ready for it. I wanted to blame you for everything because then I'd be too busy hating you to know what was going on in my own feelings. Well, that's it," She smiled wearily. "I hope you slept better than I did. I'll call you later." And her image vanished.

  I sat back and mused for a moment. She'd talked fast, and her words had sounded stilted and rehearsed, which they probably were. But I sensed the sincerity. Good. Jocasta was a valuable source of information. I preferred not to be cut off from what she could tell me.

  The search utility I'd sent after William Sutcliffe had been running for almost twenty-four hours. If his name appeared in any of the standard public databases anywhere in North America, the utility would have found it by now. I terminated the search and called up a summary of its results.

  Nothing. The utility had flashed through every UCAS public database, then started on the Native American nations, Cal Free, CAS, Quebec, and even Atzlan. As I'd half expected, all attempts to search the Tir Taimgire network had come up Access Denied, but the odds were low that a Seattle operator like Sutcliffe would have connections with the elven land. After coming up empty on this continent, the utility had gone on to have its way with the Caribbean League, then jumped the Atlantic to Europe. (Fragging good thing I wasn't going to have to pay the connect fees.)

  I can't say I was surprised by the results. Very few of my chummers would have shown up on such a superficial
scan, neither would major underworld operators or corporate heavy hitters, albeit for different reasons. It didn't really matter anyway, now that I knew Sutcliffe had a connection with the Universal Brotherhood. I'd heard from a couple of shadow deckers that the Brotherhood kept its membership roster confidential, which probably meant its officers were even deeper in the shadows. That meant it would be impossible for me to get a line on Sutcliffe myself. I'd have to use the services of a good decker.

  Buddy. I called her number, waited for the beep, and described what I wanted: a full-scale, damn-the-torpedoes, don't-spare-the-nuyen search for a William Sutcliffe, starting with the Universal Brotherhood. As fast as possible, standard rates with-and this hurt-a 20-percent bonus for next-day service.

  I hung up feeling I was making some kind of progress. Unfortunately, I couldn't do much personally to advance matters over the next few hours. I reviewed in my head ways I could go about tracking Sutcliife.

  Buddy was covering all the bureaucratic avenues. Magic? I'm no mage, but even the drek-hot practitioners out there wouldn't be much help. As far as I knew, you couldn't track somebody magically with nothing to go on but a name. (Could you? If somebody had figured out how to do it, that meant Lone Star's combat mages might someday track me down, no matter where I went. It would definitely be in my best interest} I realized, to stay a little bit more in touch with magical research.)

  How about the personal touch? I could show up at the Brotherhood chapterhouse and try to track Sutcliffe the old-fashioned way. But that didn't seem like a good option, considering that I'd be operating on his home turf and that I had no idea how far the corruption-if that's what it was-spread throughout the Brotherhood organization. Unless I was extremely good or extremely lucky, neither of which I wanted to depend on, I'd end up with a price on my head just like Patrick.