by Warren Ellis
There was the twitch of a smile at one corner of her lips, and she nodded as if to say You’ll do. Tallow had put a little thought into creating his first impression on her, and although, looking into her eyes now, he doubted that Talia was unintelligent enough to completely fall for it, he was content that she seemed to acknowledge the effort.
“Talia,” she said. “C’mon in, John.”
The apartment stood in stark contrast to the troll cave Scarly worked in. There was nothing in the apartment that was not beautiful, or useful, or both. Spare and spacious, but warm, a carefully and tastefully curated space rather than a chill minimalist plain. There was a sweet, rich cooking aroma in the air.
Ahead of them, walking to the kitchen, Scarly dropped her coat on the floor by a sofa.
“Scarlatta,” Talia snapped.
Scarly froze, backtracked, picked up the coat, folded it, and laid it on the sofa.
“I’ll let you get away with putting it there instead of in the closet because we have guests. You’re not at work now.”
“Well,” said Scarly in a small voice, “I sorta am.”
Talia turned and raised an eyebrow at Tallow.
“If I’m not welcome,” said Tallow, “then, seriously, I’m okay with leaving. I felt like I was imposing anyway. It’s fine, really.”
“That’s not what I meant,” said Talia. “What I want to know is where you get these magic powers that make Scarlatta happy, or at least compliant, about working one second more than her scheduled hours.”
Talia stepped over, put one palm on Tallow’s back, and began to propel him through the apartment. “I want you to sit at my table, John, and teach me of this magic, because I may be able to use it to make my wife pick up after herself and—who knows?—maybe even wash things. Although that might be testing even your wizardly abilities. And then after that, perhaps you might explain to me a little bit about this case that is causing me to feed you as well as put up with losing my wife for the night.”
There was a howl from the kitchen. “Oh, Tallie. What did you do?”
“Whaddaya mean, what did I do?”
“Tallie, we can’t afford this. What did I tell you?”
As Talia strode forth, Tallow stepped to the side and got an angled view into the kitchen, where, standing in unwrapped butcher’s paper, was a stack of well-marbled sirloin steaks.
“What you told me,” said Talia, “was that the only things you’d ever seen John eat were burgers and steak, which wasn’t a whole hell of a lot to go on when it came to feeding him.”
“Tallie, we have so many things to pay for—”
Talia reached her and put her hands on Scarly’s shoulders, making her appear even smaller than she was. “Yes, we do. But the butcher owed me a favor, and I went out to the stores at the end of the day. These cost pretty much nothing, and so did the ciabatta. It would have cost me more to make a pot of ramen. You need to not worry so much, Scarly. It’ll put you in an early grave, and I’m not done with you yet.”
Scarly gave in with a small laugh, and Talia kissed her forehead, slowly. “And I’ll tell you another thing.” Talia smiled. “No hipster runoff in some hole-in-the-wall tourist food shed in Lower Manhattan is gonna make better steak sandwiches than me. I just won’t have it. John, are you a drinking man?”
“I’m a driving man,” he said.
“I get that. But one beer won’t kill you. I have some imported stuff you might want to try.”
“Maybe I could split one with you.”
“Deal. Sit, sit. Oh: How do you like your steaks cooked?”
Tallow sat at the oval kitchen table. It was old and well used, probably picked up at a sale or conceivably out of a dumpster. Someone had sanded down the various cuts and gouges, but just to the point where the edges were no longer sharp and raw. It had the feeling of having been smoothed by weather.
“Medium, I guess?”
“Medium? God, how boring. Middle of the road. Medium’s for people who can’t make choices. Rare or well done?”
“Uh…well done, then.”
“Well done. You mean ruined. These are good steaks. I won’t have it. You’ll get it rare and like it.”
“She only knows how to cook steaks rare,” said Scarly.
“Shut up, woman,” said Talia. “Since we have a guest, I’ll make a special effort to do medium rare.”
The sweet smell was onions caramelizing in a pan. A tray of chopped bacon and mushrooms was under the unlit broiler, and warmed, split ciabatta rolls were cooling on the oven rack below. Talia opened an oddly shaped green beer bottle with an orange label reading ST. PETER’S SUMMER ALE and poured half the contents into a long glass for him. She toasted him with the bottle, a somehow ironic kink in her eyebrow, and swigged from it as she turned to the stove, poked at the onions with a pointed spoon, and poured some powerfully fruited olive oil into a broad, heavy frying pan.
Tallow sipped at his beer without tasting it, avoiding everyone’s eyes for the moment. He watched the oil in the pan. It was slow to heat, because of the heavy bottom, but it heated very evenly. It raised little rolling patterns, like sand after the tide’s gone out. He watched it grow a shimmer, and then glitter, with little scintillant wave crests of foam. The oil rippled and shone like the reflection of a harvest moon in a green pond. Talia took two of the thin steaks and laid them expertly in the pan. There was a great crackling rush as they seared. She pushed each of them lightly with the tips of steel tongs, to ensure they weren’t sticking, and then studied them as they cooked. Tallow would have guessed it was precisely one minute before she flipped them. The marbled fat had rendered beautifully, but he did wonder how long Talia had been serving Scarly medium steaks and telling her they were rare.
Talia stepped to the oven, took two of the rolls and plated them, tugged the top tray out with the tongs and laid some of the bacon and mushroom on the cut side of the top half of each roll, and then picked up the spoon and pushed caramelized onion over the cut side of the each bottom half. The second minute must have been up then: Talia plucked the steaks out, draped one on the bottom half of each roll, and pressed the sandwiches together before putting them down in front of Bat and Scarly.
“Ours next,” Talia said to Tallow.
“Sure,” said Tallow, who for no good reason found himself wanting to curl up in a dark corner and cry his eyes out.
This, he knew, was what he’d been avoiding. Seeing other people live lives. Something as mundane and utterly dull and ubiquitous in the world as watching one person cook for a loved one was crushing his heart in its plain little fist.
“You look miles away,” said Talia, putting a plate in front of him and sitting to his left, between him and Scarly. Tallow looked up and realized he wasn’t completely sure where the last two minutes had gone. But there was food in front of him now, and Bat and Scarly were both giving him that slightly scared look that in the past few days he’d learned indicated that he was being strange.
“Sorry,” Tallow said. “Lots to think about.”
“Try your food,” Talia said, not unkindly.
He did. It was incredibly good, and he said so.
“There,” said Talia, turning to Scarly. “Now, don’t let me hear another goddamn thing about how John brings you the best steak sandwiches ever. I make the best steak sandwiches ever. Got it?”
“Got it.” Scarly grinned.
Tallow tried the beer again, tasting it this time, and he found it to be equally good, big and hoppy, a well-chosen partner to the food.
“So,” said Talia. “Tell me what you have to think about. And don’t even consider saying that it’s an active case and you can’t talk about it, blah-blah. That doesn’t work in this house, okay?”
“Okay,” said Tallow and, between bites, gave her a rough overview of the case to date. Partway through, he noticed that Bat and Scarly weren’t interjecting or expanding on anything. Talia ran the household. It occurred to him that he himself was falling into step a
nd seeking her approval in some abstract way.
Even the broadest brushstrokes of the case, however, had a certain power, and Talia rocked back in her chair as she absorbed its kicks.
“Wow,” she said, eventually. Looking at Scarly, she said, “You’re right. He’s good. But I don’t see where you go from here. He just said there’s no investigative chain from the cigarette butt that’d stand up in a court.”
“That’s provided,” said Tallow slowly, “that you think this’ll end up in a court.”
Talia’s eyes widened a little at that.
“Here’s what you don’t know,” Tallow said to Scarly. “Assistant Chief Turkel pretty much told me that I’m a dead man walking. If I’m right about everything, Turkel’s never once gotten his own hands dirty. That means that our guy—”
“CTS,” said Bat with a dark wry smile.
“—CTS, then. That means that CTS is going to be given a new job by Turkel. Which also supposes that Turkel knows where to find him. Which probably also means that Westover and Machen know where to find him. But shelve that for a second. It means that the guy we’re coming after will soon be coming after me. Given the acceleration of certain aspects of the case, I think soon could mean as early as tonight. And let’s be honest: it’s not like Al Turkel doesn’t know where I live.”
“I’ll make up the sofa,” said Talia, and drained the last of her bottle.
“That’s very kind,” said Tallow, “but there’s no need. I’ll be going home tonight.”
Talia brought the bottle down on the table like a gavel. “No way in hell. After what you just told me? Look, I don’t know you, but if these two say you’re good, that’s halfway enough for me, and you haven’t exactly disgraced yourself tonight. And even if you had, it would not be fucking human to send you back to somewhere that’s being staked out by some insane hit man.”
Tallow then told them what he and Bat had done earlier in the evening. It seemed odd to him that no one seemed any happier afterward. Not even Bat, who’d done the work.
“Come on,” he said, “it is at least a plan, right?”
“Coffee?” said Talia, rising and stepping to a forbidding chunk of technology on the far corner of the kitchen counter.
“Thank you,” said Tallow.
“You haven’t drunk it yet,” said Bat.
“Bat, you have the digestive system of a runty, poisoned squirrel. John is clearly made of stronger stuff. Even if he is quite nuts.”
“Why does everyone call me crazy?”
Talia, at the machine, said, “Has it occurred to you for just one moment that you could have spun this whole thing into promotions for yourself, Scarlatta, and probably even Bat?”
Tallow jolted forward in his chair. “What?”
“You could have easily just said to this assistant chief, Okay, I know what your game is—what’s it worth to you to ensure no one finds out? You could have said, I want to be an inspector, or a lieutenant, and my good friend Scarlatta would like a supervisory role and a big fat raise. And Bat would like to lose his virginity. See to it, and all this goes away. You could have done that. Did you ever think of it, John?”
“No,” he said, sitting back. “Not once.”
“Now that you’ve thought about it,” Talia said, “do you wish you’d done it?”
After some length, Tallow quietly said, “No.”
“Crazy.” Talia smiled. “But okay. You can still sleep over. I tell you, though, I imagine your life as a detective has been unnecessarily difficult over the years.”
“Not really,” Tallow said, mostly to himself. “Not until now.”
His cell phone rang.
Thirty
THE HUNTER ate a little more, sat within a dark stand of trees in order to gather himself for a short period, and then slept for a while.
He awoke from troubled sleep with a shock, as if a dream had run him through with a spear.
Looking up and quelling some trembling in his hands, the hunter found a few stars and the moon to judge the time by, and he calculated that his appointment was imminent. He took his bag and checked through its contents—even with the gun and some things appropriated from the hardware store, he still felt worriedly undertooled—and then rose and began to walk, shaking the damp cold from his legs with some difficulty. Once his thighs and calves loosened up, he slipped into the deep growth abutting the designated meeting point, shifting to the slow and exaggerated steps of woodcraft training and approaching in silence and invisibility.
There were three people at the meeting point.
The hunter smiled. They still huffed and shuffled like three nervous boys in their early twenties. The meeting was obviously going to be more protracted than he would have liked, but it looked as if it’d make up for it in amusement.
He emerged onto the path, allowing them to see him. Their joint reaction pleased him to an almost guilty extent.
“Hello,” he said. “The gang’s all here, I see.”
They all looked sick to one degree or another.
“It’s been a very long time since we all stood in the same place,” said the hunter. “I wonder why you have all arrived to make me feel so special tonight.”
Westover slowly extended a hand, a slip of paper in his fingers. The hunter, regarding him with condescending humor, took it, slowly.
“That,” Westover said, “is the name and address of the police officer in question.”
“Do we know anything about his habits?” the hunter asked, noting that the location was a good two hours’ walk away.
“No social life,” said Turkel. “He spends his nights reading and listening to music, apparently.”
The hunter pocketed the slip. “Excellent. So, shall I be on my way?”
“I think we have to talk about how this ends,” said Westover.
“How it ends? With the death of the man whose address you just gave me.”
“Really? That ends all this?”
“That depends,” said the hunter, “on what you mean by all this. What I mean is that I expect this man’s death to hamper the investigation to such an extent that it effectively concludes it.”
“I’m unclear on that,” said Machen.
“If I may,” said Turkel to the hunter. The hunter gave him a broad, mocking smile and bade him continue with a grand sweep of his hand. Turkel swallowed hard and continued. “Tallow is the case, at this point. He’s submitted no paper report that I’m aware of. Tallow’s death erases enough information to cripple further investigation. And, frankly, he seems to be the only one interested in pursuing it. I suspect he’s mentally ill. There is another issue involving one of the guns removed from a storage facility, but investigatively it’s—”
“A dead end?” The hunter chuckled.
“—going to be unproductive,” Turkel said, faint disgust in his face as it turned to the hunter.
“There we have it,” said the hunter. “The death of this man concludes the difficulty in front of us. But I don’t speak of an end to all this. There is work yet to be done.”
“What work?” said Westover.
“My work. It has been undone, and must begin again. My keep has been breached, and my work dismantled and stolen. I strongly doubt that I will ever recover all the pieces, and in any case they may be too tainted to weave back together. I must begin again.”
“If we’re understanding you correctly,” said Machen, “your…collection took the best part of twenty years to put together. But the work is done.”
“Really?” The hunter chuckled again. “Have you all achieved your great ambitions? Dreams all come true? Is there nothing more you aspire to? I doubt that. I don’t think that, for you three, greed was something you could don in your young winters and then shrug off like an overcoat in a warm room. Do you really mean to tell me that there is nothing left that you want? You, Mr. Machen. You could yet be running the great financial mill of this city. In twenty years you could be the mayor. Mr. Turkel here is
not yet commissioner, is he? Mr. Westover—well, I shudder to think of what horrors he has still to achieve. Although, if I’m honest, I’m not greatly impressed by the security around his home.”
“You don’t want to stop,” said Machen in a flat voice.
“I don’t want to stop. I have a thing to finish. And since you three also have things to finish, I feel that it works out well for all of us.”
Westover said, “What would it take to make you stop?”
The hunter laughed, surprising even himself.
“It’s a serious question,” said Westover. “It comes with the promise of substantial remuneration and whatever other facilitation you might require.”
“We can begin in the region of half a million dollars in nonconsecutive used bills,” said Machen.
“And, of course, a guarantee of safe passage out of the Five Boroughs, with provision of either a vehicle or a plane ticket,” said Turkel.
“Well, well,” said the hunter. “You’ve been talking among yourselves, haven’t you? Three fat old men huddling in a park in the dark, wondering how to haggle their way out of the lives they chose for themselves. Fearfully hoping to buy off the agent of their success.”
“We hired you, and we can—” Machen began.
“You hired me and so you can fire me? I work for you? Is that what you’re saying? You idiots. You mindless, worthless, laughable slugs. I don’t work for you. You work for me. I found three people so desperate to be somebodies that they gave me money for the work I already fully intended to do. You didn’t give me purpose. You funded my purpose. I took the structure of your needs for my own use. You work for me, and I decide when it ends. All three of you are the same mediocrities you were when I met you. You simply own better shoes now. Look at you. You think I killed at your command to make you great. You’re not great. You are nothing but the things that float to the surface when all obstructions are cut away. You can’t buy me off because this was never about the money. It was about the work. You will continue to fund me as per the original arrangement, and you will continue to give me more modern people to kill, because it amuses me. Do you understand me?”
