by Mark Lingane
I stared at the scene for a full egg-timer's worth of minutes. I shook my head.
She pointed. "There's a warning glyph above the entrance, a small cross in a circle. It would've been tough for them to get past without it causing a lot of pain. I wish I could've seen that." A thin smile danced over her bright lips. "I have an idea."
Without so much as a cat to-do, she improvised a disguise. She reversed my jacket and put it on, and flattened my hat on her head. The leathers did a pretty good job of making her look like a typical slowhand.
She made her way across the road and through the police, and used jutting-out bricks to climb up the wall. She reached the arch and lifted the small object off the hook. She danced back between the slowhands, who were blind to her. The force was getting slack in its antiquity. She skipped across the road between the diesels and presented the circular object.
"What will this do?" I asked.
That devilish smile danced back for another go-round. She leaned in close and whispered. "Just you wait and see." Her eyes twinkled.
I turned it around in my hands: a circle of wood ringing a small wooden cross. The cross, more stone than wood, looked old.
"It's old."
"Even older than you. It's from the rood. It's a rood shield. There are only a few of them in the world, obviously."
She stepped in close, wrapping her arms around me. I could feel the hunger of her body as she pulled herself in tight. "I know you don't believe, but when you meet one of them again, think happy, pure thoughts."
She took it out of my hands and placed it in my shirt pocket. "And keep it near your heart, it'll keep you safe."
I could feel her breath on my neck. Her perfumed scent filled my olfactories, sending exquisite shivers down my back. And with that she skipped off down the street, swinging off the streetlights. I shook my head as she bounced out of sight. She had failed to return my jacket or my hat.
23
I couldn't walk a block without my hat, so I called into the nearest millinery and got sized up by the in-store Cavanagh, hot from his Milan training. While he was sizing and pressing, I went through my pockets and discovered the photograph of Huge Jorgen singing his heart out, with his adoring fans crowded around. It wasn't the original, so parts of it were a little blurry. I asked the Cavanagh if he had a magnifying glass. He nodded and slid one over the counter to me, then continued with his blocking and pouncing.
I ran the glass over the grainy photograph. It looked like the bizarre microphone stand was made out of wood. I pondered. Would Jorgen be brave, arrogant, or insane enough to have it right out in front like that, hidden in plain sight?
"Wonderboy," I said to the bouncy young girl at the Stylus door. I walked straight past her without waiting for a reply, and even avoided a double from Jackson.
Wonderboy was writing up the set lists, waiting for the crowds to arrive and start creating an atmosphere. He looked over his reading glasses.
"Van the ... gentleman? I see you've survived a better night. You've hardly got any bruising. Not that I can see, anyway." He raised an eyebrow.
"You remember Jorgen?"
"Yeah."
"Anything odd about his microphone stand?"
He thought for a moment before shaking his head. "He's a singer. I'm surprised he had a stand. Don't singers generally steal them from the drummer?"
Jackson leaned over. "You remember his stand. He carried it around in that special black case."
Wonderboy clicked his fingers. "Yeah, I remember. I only saw it once. Like some old totem or something. Old carved wood. Cool idea, but it'd wreck your back carrying it around for too long."
"Anything special about it?"
He laughed. "You know what my memory's like after decades of drinking? I can't even finish the set lists."
"Where would it go?"
Wonderboy and Jackson looked at each other.
"With Hugh, I'm guessing repossession," Wonderboy said. He smiled at Jackson, who smiled back, big white teeth and coolness to spare.
Then I had the double.
I called in at a couple of repo places but got nowhere. They either stonewalled or didn't care enough to give me any information. If I had no proof the rood was mine, they weren't talking--"they" being men counterpointed by burly off-siders, all muscle, no hair or neck. I tossed around some ideas about who might find value in it. The repo men looked at it and all they saw was something that would be a heap of trouble to shift. Easier to grab a Gibson, or sell a gold record.
But there was something else a musician could do when the funds ran low, another place they could try so they could get their next meal.
"I didn't expect to see you," Laura said, opening her apartment door.
I looked past her. The place was looking a little disheveled. Her voice wasn't completely cold, but her eyes were distant. She wasn't looking the best. Her face was pale and her spark was diminished.
"I have a request." I clutched my hat in front of me, humbled and remorseful.
"I was hoping for an apology. Or a dinner invitation."
"I'm working on it," I mumbled. "Do you have PDB access?"
"Its official name is the National Goods Recycle Database and Register." Her voice slipped a few degrees.
I nodded. "Pawnbrokers." I felt about a thumb tall.
"Don't say that too loudly, Mina's still here. She might get the wrong idea." Her voice thawed. "But yes, I've got access."
"Could you run this number?" I rummaged in my pocket and extracted the piece of paper off the back of the first gold record etched with S. Cain's name.
She sighed and took it. "It'll cost you."
"I don't have anything valuable." I looked down at my battered boots.
She sighed. "You've got issues with self-esteem, that's what you've got. Come back tonight with a golden smile. Now make with the feet until you can take a hint."
I backed away, expecting her to close the door. She just stood there, looking at me. I felt like a teenager on a first date with my first love, and it had all gone wrong, neither of us certain what to do next.
She tucked her hair behind her ear and smiled shyly at me. I was guessing it cost her to do that, and I couldn't even give her loose change.
The records down in government central went back an eternity. Templeton 667 was included. It was a big house, owned by various people over the years. The current owner was Phoenix. Every fifty or so years the owner changed, regular. According to the paperwork, it was built three hundred years ago. There was an ancient photograph attached to the front of the file, taken not long after the place was built by the look of it.
In the picture was Phoenix, or as close to a relative as it was possible to get without relying on heavy-duty science or magic. I was no expert on skin care, but he seemed in good shape for someone outliving a deep-sea turtle. Or maybe it was a clerical error, considering general government incompetence and corruption, and someone had left the photograph out in the sun too long. I wondered if Phoenix owned any other property. People who owned one old place often owned others.
I unclipped the old photograph and got the elderly woman behind the counter to make a copy for me. She grumbled, glaring over her reading glasses with an attitude of disgust that muted her blue permanent wave. A smile had no currency here, and her gray world of bureaucratic ineptitude steamrollered over my attempt at lightness.
She charged up the xerography machine, an old Chester, cranking the handle until the room was humming with electrostatic charge, and the corona glowed blue. Her flabby arm, stretching the floral fabric of her dress, wobbled with the handle's oscillation. We shielded our eyes against the eventual electrostatic discharge.
She peeled out the copy and handed it over. I asked to see the other properties owned by Phoenix. She gave me a stare that froze parts of the tundra and kept it frozen until the ice age ended. She said it was impossible, that it would mean flicking through her entire book of property owners. She implied that I should com
e back in another lifetime. I said I'd be back in an hour.
I'd barely stepped out of the building before I felt the presence of someone following me, poorly. Amateur hour. A couple of quick turns and double-backs and I was able to make the fellow, not that it was hard.
I ducked in behind a bus stop and watched Mr. Bird strut past. Then I followed him, an easy task considering how high his head stuck above the crowd. He stopped, glancing around wildly, when he realized I was no longer in front of him. It was all I needed as confirmation. I turned and headed off across town.
I walked into the tank. The desk sergeant watched me carefully as I strode past. He tried administrative bureaucracy, but if you pretend you're deaf you can get away with anything. The tank floor was full of bustling men and women, some walking around and others sitting at the sea of desks. The omnipresent naked globes hanging down on their extended wires swung occasionally, sending eerie shadows over the bare brick walls.
I burst into Watcher's office. "Are you following me?" I leveled my finger at him.
He spluttered out his beverage, and nearly tripped in his eagerness to stand. He didn't have the confidence to debate me below waist level.
"What do you think you're doing, storming in here like you own the place?" he howled.
"Asking a simple question," I growled.
"No, I am not following you. I was sitting down having a nice cup of tea and you've made me spill it. I'm working through my memory to see if I can arrest you for shouting and disturbing the beverages. You come in here properly humble, with your hat in your hand and your voice low and polite, and your eyes full of nothing."
"I've got strange people visiting me." I sat in his low-slung visitor's chair, barely able to see above the desk. Watcher towered above me.
"It's nothing to do with me. It's the people you types attract. I'm sure you're old enough to take care of it." He dusted his hand and looked indifferent. He slumped down into his plush leather chair and glared at me.
"How sure are you?"
"Look, what do you want?" He leaned forward on the desk, resting his elbows in the spilt liquid.
There was a shout from outside. He sprang up and went to the door. He went to shout, sighed, and looked back over his shoulder. "Stay here." He disappeared into the milieu of the tank floor.
I quickly went to his filing cabinet and flicked through the files. I searched through L and M, and found Angelina's file. It would make interesting reading. I folded it into my pocket and sat down just as Watcher walked back in, loosening his tie.
"Are you tracking anyone I know?" I said.
He paused before he rose up tall and said, "You're asking about privileged police information that could be being collected by top undercover agents to bring down the city's biggest crime ring."
I tapped my fingers on the armrest. "What about Laura?"
"Malory's relationship with this station, or any special action she may be addressing, is of no relevance to you. Quite frankly, she's been difficult and unreliable lately."
"I was talking about her health."
"Oh. I see. Why?"
"I'm a concerned citizen."
Neither of us had an ounce of humor to weigh between us; the smiles were thin.
"If you've had enough of wasting my time, there are other people I need to see." He gave me a curt smile and indicated the door.
I left the room and stood next to the door against the wall, which was as stone-faced as Watcher. I heard him pick up the phone and dial.
"Yeah, he was just here," I heard him say.
There was a pause as he listened.
"What do you want me to do? Listen, L--"
"Sir, can I help you?" A young slowhand snapped my attention away from eavesdropping. Watcher's conversation was lost as the slowhand closed the door.
"No. I'm leaving," I replied.
The youngster gave me a smile, and indicated the exit sign.
I stepped out onto the main street. The day was passing, as were the people. My stomach growled. It was well past lunchtime but I didn't care. Another pain was stabbing at me. There was only one person besides Watcher who had come into my life and got to know me, who was also associated with Watcher. Laura.
Thinking of that angelic face, I couldn't believe she could be so deceptive. But wouldn't she be the perfect person? No, she wasn't a betrayer. It must be someone else. But who?
Laura had said mob connections went high, and that Levi was probably connected. I wondered if the mob also included Rami Watcher.
24
I went back to my office. I took Angelina's file from my pocket, flipped it open, and slipped the contents onto the desk. The first document was a photograph--good quality, in a plastic bag--of Hugh Jorgen. That was unexpected. He was singing out his, at the time, still-beating heart. He had no idea what was coming.
That was the thing with death--you rarely knew it was coming until the reaper tapped you on the shoulder. I'd lived a life of Watcher breathing down my neck, holding out against the inevitable final curtain. Now I felt like it had all been to meet Laura Malory. Even for the briefest of moments, it was worth the wait.
In the photograph, a crowd of excitable ladies was standing at the base of the stage, staring adoringly up at Jorgen. The microphone stand was clearer in this shot. It was indeed an old piece of wood, semi-disguised by the cable wrapping around it. It was a long pole, about six inches wide, maybe less--the detail wasn't that great in the grain. I wondered what was special about the photograph for it to be included in the file. Angelina told me she hadn't met Jorgen.
Hadn't met him.
I examined the photograph more closely. I didn't recognize anyone in the band, or in the crowd. I reached into my desk drawer and pulled out a magnifying glass. I went over each person in the crowd. There at the back was a pretty young lady, with her black hair tied back, looking tense, afraid, and staring straight at Mr. Jorgen.
She may not have met him, face to face, but she sure knew about him.
There were more pictures of a bedroom--a young girl's bedroom, possibly a teenager's. It had been trashed. There were police tags over everything in the photograph. There were a couple of close-ups of a small bed with dark patches. The notes on the rear of the picture stated that it was blood. It was dated a decade ago.
I picked up a photograph of a second bedroom, with a double bed this time but showing the same mayhem; possibly a parents' bedroom, full of memories. A picture of the inside of a closet showed a collection of weapons bound together by thick leather straps. The next shot had them spread out on the floor. The notes listed Matchlock muskets, custom Taurus model-85 revolvers, a mocked-up Remington 870, and a gas-operated automatic crossbow. There were also knives, medieval and ancient.
The weapons were a collector's dream, but all very illegal after the '39 senate ruling. Good stuff to have around the house with a teenage girl. I picked up a note that said: Missing: Wooden Pole "rood". It was also dated ten years ago.
Angelina had lost her parents at the same time she was attacked. Someone had gone in and massacred her family, and taken the rood. Then she had either fended for herself through her teenage years, or someone had looked after her, watched out for her.
I checked my watch; an hour had flown past. I put everything back in the file and stashed it in the backup secret alcove above my closet. Then it occurred to me that if I hid it and the trashmen found it, they might consider it important. I went for the double bluff and hid it in the filing cabinet, in plain sight, under "M" for miscellaneous, or possibly misdirection.
Time to make my way back to the government records office.
Xerography lady gave me a short list comprising four city addresses and one other document, handwritten, I noticed. They were all temptations of the flesh: a couple of brothels, a bar, and an all-you-can eatery. One of particular interest was--ironically--an old church, with an undisclosed address. That meant it was a piece of land, his only one, not within the city boundaries, but ou
t on the wastelands to the east. You'd need to be a brave parishioner to venture out there. I put it on my to-do list, at the bottom, under cleaning behind the refrigerator.
I pocketed the list and made my way to the first address. It was a skin joint out to the north, probably servicing politicians and other respectable notaries. It was on a green, leafy street, open wide for any bribes that came its way. Nestled between a jewelry shop--catching the guilt money from philanderers for their forgotten wives--and a wine bar made of marble and glass was a bundle of bricks and twisted metal; an imploded building feeling unworthy of its location and extracting itself from view.
I knocked on the doors of the suffering businesses on either side. A young lady in the jeweler's said it was like the place had died. They were going to be hit hard by the sudden lack of custom. She told me it had happened two nights ago. I put that in the same timeframe as Templeton 667.
There were rumors, the young lady said, that it had been full of the skinny blond hookers they seemed to employ exclusively, but there had been no evidence they were missed. No one grieving had come by. Only the businessmen and politicians had paused momentarily before finding interests elsewhere and striding onto new stomping grounds.
I headed out to the western districts, to the bar next on my list. It was roughneck country, where haulers brought in banned contraband from the more freethinking parts of the world, big meat-headed thugs who maximized everything for greed. In the food chain of depravity, they were the fat middle management, ripping off the small fry and lying to the top about profits being made.
It was a surprise, but not a total one, to see that the building had been flattened. It looked like it had been an old church at one point. Now it was just a pile of bricks.
The diesel station next to it looked deserted. No one was stopping. No one was buying fuel. I knocked on the door of the house attached to the diesel stop, and eventually a hungover-looking guy opened the door. He confirmed that the place next door had collapsed in on itself, two nights ago. He had been on duty when it happened. He said there had been an influx of the skinny blond hookers they got in to entertain people, then not long after midnight the whole thing had come down. Like the life had been sucked out of it.
