by S J Hunter
“I had to offer, or it was going to nag at my conscience. You haven’t even had time to adjust to being a regular target for the fanatical amateurs, and soon we’re going to have pros after us,” Chris said.
“Okay. Understood. Apology accepted. Can we move on to where you think we should go from here? It’s all still just gut work, after all. Even the fifty-year-old connection to Josephson, if it came out, would prove nothing.”
“That’s why it’s going to get more serious tomorrow. I want to talk to Paula Bedford in the morning. She’s been estranged from her father for years, and I want to see if she will tell us why, or offer some insight. I think she will talk to you more readily than to me. But understand this: once we do this, it may really be a little like going to war.”
“That settles it,” Livvy said. “I need fuel. I am eating this semi-warm pepperoni pizza. Despite having one too many already, I am scrounging through your beer supply for another cold one. My apologies, but I am requisitioning your couch, where I expect to have a supremely restful night. And I demand a toothbrush, even if it’s yours.”
Chris stood up again when she mentioned the semi-warm pizza and picked up her plate. She looked up at him in challenge.
“I have, unfortunately, no better alternatives to any of that,” Chris said, carrying the pizza back to the flashwarmer. “Although I might be able to find you your own toothbrush.”
*****
Chris dried his hands in a ‘fresher after finishing cleaning up in the kitchenette, then walked back into the table, gripped the back of his chair and looked down at his guest. He had to give her credit – a lot of credit. She’d hung in there, absorbing not only the bare facts of the case but the processes that had allowed their accumulation. A pro all right.
“You should have had more pizza,” he said quietly.
“Mmmm. I’m good. It was good, though, thanks,” Livvy murmured, and turned her head from one side where she had laid it down on her crossed arms on the table to the other so that she could look up at him.
“Just very tired. Put the toothbrush where I can find it, please. I’ll wait for you to…”
Chris cocked his head to one side and grinned. His guest – his first guest in probably a decade – appeared to have fallen asleep between one word and the next. He scanned the apartment, letting his gaze linger for a moment on Louie, who was lying on his blanket near the door. His eyes were open. He gazed back at Chris and thumped his tail on the floor twice.
“I guess I made an impression,” Chris said.
Louie lifted his head for a few seconds, then laid it back down on his forepaws and closed his eyes.
“Everyone’s a critic. Maybe I can consider this a practice run,” Chris said softly, still looking at Louie. “At being a better host.”
Chp. 9 Force Concentration (Thursday)
Livvy woke up the next morning in Chris’ bed. She was draped thoughtfully in a sheet, but was wearing nothing but her extremely expensive French underwear. She had a vague memory from late last night of having fallen asleep somewhere and then being aware of Chris helping her to her feet.
“Come along Hutchins, time for bed.”
“What’s this? After only four beers?” she remembered asking.
“Five, and I do remember warning you to eat your pizza,” Chris had said.
“No, you told me to eat my pizza. You see, I listened. To everything,” she’d said a little blurrily, pausing in her struggle to get out of her clothes to tap her head. “Well, help me out here. I detest sleeping in my clothes, and I need to wear them again tomorrow. Did you find a toothbrush?”
She had no memory of Chris’ response to that, but here she was. She had known that they made beds that pulled down from walls, but had never experienced sleeping in one before, nor had she ever awakened to a view of a kitchen with an attractive man in it, using it. The whole situation was proving more disconcerting than she would have thought possible given her many years of experience, but she was willing to blame that on the beer.
She lay very still for a few moments, then raised her head to see Louie staring at her hopefully from the foot of the bed and to get a better view of Chris in the kitchen making breakfast with quiet efficiency. His couch was covered with a set of sheets as well. She felt a little guilty.
She decided she didn’t feel brave enough to face anyone, even Louie, until she brushed her teeth and hair so she wrapped herself in the sheet and toddled into the bathroom like an inept geisha. There she found the toothbrush she remembered, even more vaguely, from the night before, a clean towel, a brush, and her clothes, neatly hung up. Hanging over the clothes on the same hook was an armored vest of the type that was meant to fit under street clothing.
Fifteen minutes later, lavered, brushed, and combed she felt ready for breakfast. Louie met her just outside the bathroom door and escorted her to the table, then went back to the front door and stretched out on his side.
“Coffee?” Chris asked.
“Oh God yes, black. Please.”
She also saw scrambled eggs, toast, and orange juice.
“Still supplying some good fuel.” She cleared her throat.
“How’d you sleep?”
“Much better than you, I’ll bet. Thanks for… you know.”
“If you mean, Hutchins, ‘thank you for making me as comfortable as possible,’ I always hope I can say that even though I don’t get guests much, I haven’t forgotten how to treat them.” Chris arched his eyebrows and gave a small but wickedly attractive grin that totally dispelled any remaining constraint. “I’m old enough to be your grandfather, you know.”
Livvy choked and spit coffee all over the table. “Sorry. Laying it on way too thick,” she said, gasping and blotting it up with a napkin. “Chrono, McGregor, chrono only.”
When she had recovered enough, she said, “I’ve been thinking about everything you said last night, specifically about the records from the Greater Potomac Institute. I mean, so far, that’s all we have for evidence, isn’t it? If we put everything else together, it’s still only coincidence and conjecture, but if Bedford were to deny knowing Josephson… and then we came up with the records…” It took her a while to get it all out around mouthfuls of toast and scrambled eggs.
“At some point that may be useful as a challenge, but not much. I have copies of my copies, somewhere safe, but they’re still only copies, and it’s been a long time. Bedford can claim he forgot he ever met Josephson,” Chris said. “Right now, our priority is to figure out what he’s planning, which is how Paula might be able to help.”
Livvy finished her toast and carried her dirty dishes in to Chris’ tiny kitchen counter. “Are we going in to the office first?”
“Not this morning. We don’t have time, and the Chief might ask where we’re going.”
“And shouldn’t we… like, tell him?”
“Do you really feel like repeating everything that was said last night without first getting a better idea if I’ve misjudged the man? Because I don’t. I doubt if I’ve strung that many sentences together in the course of one evening in three decades.”
“You got me. Then this is it, isn’t it? The declaration of war.”
“I am still half convinced that our best play would be to have you out of town, where you can be a true back-up,” Chris said.
“In case you actually get killed, you mean? How reassuring. And I thought it was just concern for my safety that made you suggest it last night, when really you’re just being thorough.”
Chris rewarded her with one of his faint smiles. “The good news is, Paula Bedford lives in Manhattan, so we’re taking the High Speed up and back. While we’re on it, we should be safe.”
He looked at Louie. “Sorry Louie, no work for you today. You stay home.”
Later, when Chris had plenty of time to appreciate the ironies, he recognized one of life’s cruel little jokes. Once you said something, it was out there, and could never be taken back, no matter how wide of t
he mark it was.
*****
Livvy was able to buy a few amenities at the High Speed Onboard Mall, including an aquamarine silk blouse that helped her feel a little less like a fugitive. The blouse was so thin she was actually grateful for the armored vest underneath. She had abandoned her belt and now carried her pistol, comu, D-cards, and other necessities in a small bag that she could wear slung over her shoulder.
Now, standing in front of the security panel at Paula Bedford’s Fifth Avenue apartment building and trying to project confidence and reliability, she looked at Chris and noticed that he didn’t seem to be trying. He just did. She wondered if it was natural to his personality, the result of the experience of many years of perpetual prime-of-life living, or more than 75 years in Enforcement that enabled him. Probably all three, she decided. As a combination, tough to get over.
“Ms. Bedford, we’re here from D.C. LLE. We came up here to talk to you. May we come in, please?” Chris said to the security line link.
“No, please just go back. I’m sorry for all of your inconvenience, I truly am, but you should have called first,” came the disembodied voice. Paula could see them, of course, and Chris had positioned them so that Livvy and he, wearing their credentials around their necks, were both plainly visible. Livvy kept her face calm, confident, and benign, mirroring Chris’ voice and expression. There was no way they could tell if she was continuing to listen or if she had broken the communication link.
“Four days ago, your father got together with a doctor with some seriously dangerous skills, a doctor whose research he’s been supporting for many years. Whatever is going to happen is happening now. We intend to stop him from hurting anyone else. We would appreciate your help,” Chris said succintly.
There was a long silence, during which Chris and Livvy continued to stand outside the building and transmit resolve and trustworthiness. A full two minutes later, a pleasing chime signaled acceptance, and they stepped over to the door.
The doorman in the vestibule opened for them, and ushered them through the next two doors into the lobby. He used a key to unlock the vintage elevator doors and gestured them inside.
“Ms. Bedford will assist you with the elevator control. Good day, sir, madam,” he said courteously and gave a slight bow.
“How did you know what to say?” Livvy asked once the elevator had started.
“You don’t believe in that old saying about honesty?”
“’I probably had a crush on you. Isabella,’” Livvy quoted, deepening her voice.
“That was just courtesy, which she knew as well,” Chris said. “With Ms. Bedford… three years ago she came to Joshua’s funeral. They may have been brother and sister, but they were separated by ten years and raised by different mothers in different cities. I suspect she barely knew him. From all reports, she didn’t approach her father or say one word to him during the whole time she was in D.C. She respects family, but she certainly wasn’t there for her father’s sake. She doesn’t trust him.”
The elevator opened into an ornate vestibule to Paula Bedford’s penthouse, which occupied the top two floors. They could see her, a tall, pale brunette wearing a long flowing dress in golden tones and standing behind two more layers of security glass. There was a sturdy-looking formally dressed man standing attentively to the side. Paula hesitated briefly, then she said something and the man pressed his palm to the locks on the inner and outer doors and let them in.
Chris appeared to ignore their surroundings, but Livvy looked around curiously. As with so many who were plugged into Longevity and who had the wealth to indulge their whims, including Livvy’s parents, Paula Bedford chose to live in surroundings that suggested the classic styles of an earlier century. Livvy always suspected that it meant they secretly longed for the simplicity and elegance of those pre-Longevity times. In Paula Bedford’s case, the style was 18th century, Louis XV, with appropriate gilt and damask.
“Please, sit down,” Paula said graciously.
“How do you think I can help you? I have no knowledge of my father’s activities.”
“I’m sure you don’t,” Chris said. “But at this point, anything you can tell us that would be revealing of his character and the direction his… inclinations might take him would be helpful.”
“You mean his obsession,” Paula said.
“If you want to call it that,” Chris said.
Paula hesitated, as though she were choosing her words with care. “My father’s problem is that he was born in a time when creating a dynasty has become in some ways obsolete. When people can live for centuries, and their children have all of that time to live their own lives and build their own empires… and when the cost of having a single child is the loss of fifty years of one’s own life… Without Longevity, he might have been a very different man. A devoted family man.”
She settled back in her delicately ornate armchair and arranged the folds of her shimmering silk dress over her long legs.
“I say that, and it is suitable for even my intimate friends to think I believe it, but of course I don’t. His obsession precludes any empathy, even with his children. He will not accept his own death. He believes, very deeply, that he is worthy of exception.
“You understand the incredible price he feels he paid for Joshua and me. It must have been an extremely difficult choice for him. In earlier times, such men were compelled to face their own, inevitable mortality. Even then, there were roads to immortality of a kind: children and grandchildren, if one were a loving family man, or some public monument, or art or literature, if one were civic-minded or creative. No one held out the hope of something more. Now, there is. For a man who is neither loving, nor creative, nor civic-minded, and who despises obstacles to his will, and who sees true immortality within his grasp, what stops him? The Law?”
“So I’ve imagined,” Chris said.
“We are all good at rationalizing our choices, without even being aware we are doing so,” Paula said. Her eyes flicked over Livvy in much the same way Isabella’s had, then came back to Chris. “I suppose that my father is better at it than most. Respect for the Law will not even make him pause. You will need to compel him.”
Livvy wasn’t prepared to be dismissed. “What would he do to satisfy his obsession?” she asked mildly.
Paula turned back to consider her once more. “Anything. Which is why you are now sitting here, instead of standing downstairs still waiting. My father would choose his own life – his own survival, to be clear – above any other. He believes – he has to believe – he is a Titan, after all. He doesn’t stoop to seeking justification.”
She lifted a hand and the formally dressed man, who was standing by with the customary tea tray, came over and set it on a table between her and her guests. Livvy wondered if the very wealthy, largely confined now to their fortified mansions, would ever abandon this pleasant custom.
“I can tell you my own story, but I’m not sure how much that will help you. My mother told me that once he found out I was a girl he asked her to have an abortion. She refused and he never forgave her. They divorced shortly thereafter and he proceeded to ignore me for most of my life until about 25 years ago when he asked me to give him a grandson. He was prepared to be generous, but not only do I not need the money – my mother’s family has their own resources – but it wouldn’t have mattered if I did. Understand that in the right situation, I might have welcomed children. I would never, under any circumstances, expose them to my father, although I cannot say that he was ever anything worse than neglectful or dismissive.”
“Nothing worse than… Ms. Bedford, do you really believe that your brother’s death was an accident?” Chris asked.
The question didn’t startle her so much as make her turn to him thoughtfully.
“I’ve always wondered, but I couldn’t see the purpose. Joshua was not a strong man, and other than when there was a business connection, he avoided my father almost as diligently as I have. He wouldn’t challenge
him in business. And it couldn’t have been about money because my brother also had his own, from his mother’s family, but it all went to Jesse. My father didn’t marry so much as form business alliances.”
“How was your brother’s relationship with your nephew, Jesse?”
Again, Paula took her time. She was obviously following a line of thought.
“Jesse has always lived with Micaela, his mother. The times I spoke with Joshua in the years shortly before his death, he spoke as though he and Mickey were on good terms, and that he was not only very fond of Jesse but quite proud of him.
“Mickey has a little money on her own, so she was somewhat dependent. But besides a tendency to be active on the socialite circuit, Mickey has always seemed to be a good mother, and while they were together I believe she was a good wife. And Joshua was always very generous toward her, I believe. Now, she gets an allowance from Jesse’s trust. She’s certainly lived as though it wasn’t an issue. But I’m digressing, because you made it plain… why? You don’t suspect Mickey, do you?”
“No, there is only one person I suspect of anything, and you know why. I just have had trouble believing how it ultimately fit together. But I think we both know,” Chris said.
For the first time, Paula’s poise deserted her. Livvy watched as a thought took hold, and Paula folded her arms across her midriff. “It’s monstrous, isn’t it? To even consider such a thing. Even him…”
“Yes,” Chris said simply.
Paula sat for a few minutes, hugging herself and looking very thoughtful, and then she looked up.
“Do you have proof? Can you stop him?”
“At this point we don’t have enough evidence to prove anything. One of the reasons I came here today is to find out if my suspicions had credibility with someone who knows John Bedford. It seems they do. The other is to find out if you think Micaela would take Jesse and go somewhere safe for a while.
