Within himself, carefully hidden from this underworld lordling all in pink, he smiled at the memory of his master’s initial revulsion, of how intrigue began to show, of how the man had wished to try the venoms out. He had had to caution him, saying, “Be careful. With the jellyfish, you just leave your hand in longer for a larger dose. With the snakes, I linked the drug and pigment genes in reciprocal tandem. The paler the color, the less pigment, the more drug there is in the venom. You can start the customers off easy, and then sell them stronger and stronger pets. Don’t take a light one.”
“I understand tolerance.” His master had reached for one of the darker, more brilliant reptiles and let it bite his arm, nearly as dark-skinned as Chowdhury’s own. His eyes had closed, his mouth half opened, his breath moaned outward in an ecstatic groan. “I like that,” he had said at last. “And so will they. I’ll pass them on.”
And indeed they had. “The snakes,” Chowdhury said, “will take a little longer.”
“What a pity.” The man in pink shook his head. “Those will be much more profitable.” He sighed heavily. “In fact, one of our board members was saying he wished we could retail them through legitimate channels. He even suggested an advertising slogan: ‘Make an asp of yourself!’”
Chowdhury chuckled dutifully at this display of the other’s wit.
But the lighter tone did not last. The other stuck the fingers of his free hand into the top of a pants pocket. Then, abruptly, as if the pocket concealed some secret switch, he asked, “How long?”
Chowdhury shrugged. They would grow quickly, but…“I’ll need a month or so to build up the breeding stock, even using hormones to speed their growth. Then, say, six months before you’ll have many for the market.”
The other shrugged as well, though he did not look surprised. Perhaps, Chowdhury thought, he had some small sense of biology. “Que sera…” He patted and squeezed Chowdhury’s shoulder once more. He said, “Then you’ll have plenty of time to come up with something else,” and turned away. The interview was over.
Something else? No, they would not let him go. Never, or never until he lost his touch or the competition proved more imaginative or the police caught them all. He told himself not to worry about that last possibility. He could always claim that he had been forced to do his work, though he did find it satisfying, if not as satisfying as his Armadons. And besides, as the lordling in the pink tuxedo had begun to say, “Que sera, sera.” What will be, will be.
Behind the door he stood beside, the toilet flushed and a deep, gurgling voice, like that of a drowning troll, rumbled, “Don’t forget to wash your hands!” A more normal voice swore, and there was a rush of water in the sink. Chowdhury chuckled and moved away.
But what else was there? Nettles, jellyfish, snakes. Bees, wasps, and spiders were also venom injectors and could be tailored to deliver drugs that were effective in small quantities, such as hallucinogens. Even mosquitoes and other biting insects might work, for they injected a droplet of saliva when they bit. In fact, a snake’s venom was a modified saliva in the first place.
But they were bugs. Non-users, ignorant of their value, would swat them, smearing all their value on walls and arms and rolled newspapers. And people who would use them would surely be too few; bugs were not popular. What was worse, it might be difficult to keep them from escaping and multiplying endlessly. Then the world would have a drug problem!
He supposed it would be possible to come up with worse ideas. A porcupine? Its every quill filled with some mind-altering substance, standing ready to be plucked and injected? A hedgehog, its quills shorter and less prone to accidental removal and injection, would be a better choice. Color-code the quills, each color corresponding to a different drug?
Or a virus? Short-term and noncontagious to protect the market, just as his masters wished. One that would force the body to make its own supply of the drug, and then, after a few hours or a day, die out? Or a bacterium that could reproduce only outside the body? Either would have advantages over the more conspicuous genimals. They would be easier to smuggle, to conceal, to take surreptitiously. He would have to see what he could do along those lines.
Lost in thought, Chowdhury made his way toward the Gelareans’ door. As he neared it, a billow of red converged upon him. He reached for the doorknob anyway, but before he could touch it, a soft hand seized his wrist. “Ralphie! You can’t leave yet!”
He raised his eyebrows. The woman’s crimson hood was up, her birthmark a mere shadow on her cheek. “But I must, Victoria.”
“I know he wants to talk to you, and…”
“We can see each other at the lab tomorrow.”
Her voice added to its quiet insistence just a hint of desperate wail: “But he told me to be sure…”
He shook his head. “Lovely party, Vicky, but I’ve had enough for now. And I’m sure he would rather relax with you once everyone else goes home.”
Her voice went quiet. “I wish you were…”
Was she about to say “right”? He did not want to hear of the Gelareans’ marital difficulties. He pushed the door open and slipped outside before she could say any more.
Dusk had fallen, but the heat still struck him like a wall after the comfort of the house’s air-conditioning. He had been in Maine once, at about this time of year, and he had been impressed by how livable a place could be if only the day’s heat gave way to coolness. One could recover.
He had a small air conditioner in his small apartment. It was a necessity of life much farther south than Maine. So was a wife, in Maine as everywhere else. Sean was fortunate. Hearth rug Nick Gilman was even luckier, for he also had a child.
It was too hot to rush. He walked slowly, ambling, looking at the bioform houses that he passed, studying the few other pedestrians on the walks. Not far away, he knew, there was an empty pumpkin house with a “For Sale” sign on its lawn. He had walked past it more than once in recent days, wishing that he could afford to buy it, or perhaps something more elegant, like the Gelarean place.
He had been married once. But she had left. She had called him cruel, abusive, mean-spirited, and worse. She had wanted him to see a therapist. They had drugs, she had told him. They can teach you not to hate.
He had refused. Of course. So had his Papa, when Mama had said the same thing, or close enough. So he too would sleep alone tonight. There would be no one to whom he might boast of his achievements.
Feet clicked on the walk behind him. He turned his head, and there—faltering as she noticed a stranger’s perhaps hazardous attention, intention firming as she decided to take a chance, now again catching up so quickly—was a woman. Young, buxom, white teeth gleaming in her dark face as she smiled a greeting. The sheen of sweat. An aroma of musk. A schwartzer. What the Boers, and his Papa, called a kaffir. An Arabic word for infidel, once used to refer to the most intelligent of the Bantu groups, the Boer equivalent of “nigger.”
As she drew abreast of him, he increased his pace enough to stay with her. He hated blacks, yes, as he hated whites. He always had and he always would, after what they—both of them!—had done to his parents. But he was lonely tonight, and his masters had approved of his work. He was feeling almost friendly, and in an unfeigned way quite unlike the act he had deliberately performed for Nick Gilman.
He waved a hand at their surroundings to catch her eye. “My apartment is lots cooler than this.”
She looked at him. Their eyes met. She laughed. “So is mine. And it’s not far away.”
He felt something open up within him, brightening and relaxing. Was it possible? Could such a simple overture possibly have evoked any interest at all? A delicious thrill ran through the core of his being, and he told himself that she was not truly what he hated. Schwartzer, yes, but not kaffir, not the savage blacks who had taken over virtually all the continent of Africa and slaughtered whites, yellows, other blacks, everyone who was not of their tribe. Her ancestors had surely never been within a thousand miles of South Af
rica. In fact, they had been among the persecuted, just as had his parents. He could see it in her eyes, dark pools stained by generations of slavery, oppression, and discrimination. And besides, she was surely not a black, not a true black, not in this country with its centuries of miscegenation, recognized and unrecognized. She was a coloured, like him.
She touched his wrist as if by accident. He smiled. “I can hardly wait. A cold drink. A cold shower.”
“Me too,” she said, and her touch repeated. It was not an accident.
“But it would be so much nicer with company.”
She nodded, smiling broadly. “I can hardly wait.” A pause, just long enough for his hopes to soar like a police department Hawk. And then she lengthened her stride, drew ahead, and looked back to say, “My boyfriend’s there already.”
His spirits fell once more. She had been toying with him, and he would find no more satisfaction, of any kind, tonight.
* * *
Chapter Thirteen
“FISCHER!”
Lieutenant Napoleon Alexander’s office had one small window. On its sill was a dirty ashtray that dated from the days when the lieutenant had been a pipe smoker. On humid days, its carefully preserved encrustation of tar and ash added a strong note of stale tobacco to the office air. Until the year before, a rack of dusty pipes had held down papers atop the filing cabinet in the corner and made the stench even worse. Still more tobacco scent lifted from the walls, which would not be due for two years or more for an addition to their myriad layers of paint, visible in rounded corners and chip craters whose edges were bands of multicolored strata.
The rack of pipes had disappeared when the Count had decided they made it too hard to resist temptation. But the ashtray remained, together with the rumor that when the Count was alone and unobserved, he would lift it to his face to savor the aroma. This Monday morning, he would not need to touch it. The air was warm, and it was raining. The room stank of old tobacco.
The stacks of papers were still there, as clear a sign as Bernie’s typewriter of underfunding. All the rest of the world was thoroughly computerized and had been for decades. The best the police could do was equip booking desks and evidence technicians with slow, cranky, limited-memory OS/2 machines from the last century. The officers had to write their reports on even older electronic typewriters, as their predecessors had once had to use manual typewriters. Obsolescence was a police tradition.
“Fischer!” the Count repeated.
Bernie was staring through the window at the rain that drew a gray curtain across the front of the Aerie. The bicycle rack was invisible. “Yes, sir!” As usual, Bernie’s salute was sloppy and his stance was a far, far cry from the rigidity of the “Attention!” his superior had all but shouted.
The Count licked his bright red lips and said, very softly, “I had an alarming, a very alarming, phone call this morning.” He stood and leaned forward over his desk, bracing himself with his arms. “An anonymous phone call. About you. And I don’t generally put much credence in anonymous phone calls about my people. But do you know what that anonymous caller said?”
Both Bernie and Lieutenant Napoleon Alexander knew that such phone calls were part of any detective’s life. Inevitably he stepped on toes. He came closer than they liked to people with guilty consciences. And they did everything they could to deflect attention. It rarely worked, for a detective’s superiors always knew what such calls most truly signified.
What, then, could have the Count so worked up? Bernie could not guess, but he was sure he would learn very shortly. He said, “No, sir.”
The Count glared at Bernie. “He said that you are neglecting your work. You are spending too much time at the Neoform labs. You are sniffing after Dr. Emily Gilman like a dog after a bitch in heat!” Spittle sprayed from his mouth to sprinkle the desktop. A few droplets landed on Bernie’s shirtfront.
Bernie stepped backward at the force of his boss’s explosion. First Connie, he thought. Now him. Emily was a sexy lady, yes, but why did everyone think he should be trying to get into her undies? “But…” He tried to speak, but he was given no opportunity.
The Count’s next words were softer: “I’ve seen her picture. She’s pretty. Good boobs. Nice ass. But you’re supposed to chase that ass on your own time!”
Finally, he could say something. “It’s work, sir, really. I’m…”
“Not anymore, it isn’t. The feds are handling the Sparrow case, and you don’t need to do any more research on gengineering, do you?” He didn’t give Bernie a chance to reply. “And I told you to concentrate on that mutilation-rape!”
“But they’re linked!”
The Count, still leaning over his desk, blinked. For a moment, he looked almost owlish. “Explain that.”
Bernie tried his best. “The rape was in Greenacres, right? And two of Neoform’s major people live in that genurb.” He sketched Ralph Chowdhury, his hatreds, and his rivalry with Emily Gilman over their creations. He told how he had happened to be invited to the party celebrating Emily’s patent, and he described Sean Gelarean, company founder, and his richly furnished, limited-access house.
“Chowdhury,” he said, “may think he has good reason to want Emily dead, and he would know how to fiddle the Sparrow. And the Assassin bird, which is a Neoform product! She may be the next woman we find in pieces.”
The Count settled back in his seat and shook his head wearily. “I doubt it.”
“And Gelarean’s house. I’m suspicious. I’d like a warrant.”
Lieutenant Alexander shook his head again. “No grounds.”
“Greg Florin was there. In a pink tux.” Bernie had indeed recognized the casino owner. Because the state did not license gambling, Florin’s operation was illegal. But the police ignored his transgression, tolerating him as long as he kept away from more socially disruptive activities. Because there were rumors that he was not in fact avoiding those activities, his presence at the party was ominous.
The Count sighed. Both men were aware that the drug business was reviving with the aid of the same gengineering technology that had almost destroyed it at first. They knew of the cocaine nettles and the seeds that had appeared in the hangar of the Chickadee that had saved Emily Gilman. They recognized the potential of a gengineering firm such as Neoform.
“I was checking out that house the other day,” Bernie said. “As you suggested. And I found a nettle leaf.”
The mood in the Count’s small office had changed. Bernie was no longer on the carpet, no longer under suspicion of uncontrollable randiness. He was, instead, an official hound tracking prey through a maze of misdirection. He was a hawk indeed.
“Connections,” said the Count. “You’re right.” He sighed heavily. “Stay with it, then. Carry on.”
Before Bernie could close the door behind him, he added, “But no search warrants. Not yet.”
The rain had ended by noon. The clouds had dissipated, and the city had steamed all afternoon in the summer sun. Now, Connie Skoglund’s air conditioner hummed in the background.
“I still think she wants you.” Connie’s motions as she sliced onions and green peppers with a long-bladed knife were fast and efficient. In a moment, she would add them to the pepperoni-and-cheese pizza Bernie was taking from her freezer. They already had glasses of a cheap red wine that could pass for Chianti.
“That’s the last one,” said the freezer. “Should I put more on the list?”
Connie pitched her voice an octave higher: “Check!”
“Bull.” Bernie set the pizza down on the counter and sipped heartily from his glass. “It’s a strictly work relationship, and you know it.” He had spent the day on a knifing, a burglary, a drug bust, paperwork, a court appearance, routine matters of the sort that had occupied police officers’ lives as long as there had been police officers. He had barely had a chance to think about the Sparrow case or, for that matter, about finding whatever monster had murdered Jasmine Willison. Nor had he yet said a word to Co
nnie about his confrontation that morning with the Count. She had brought up Emily’s supposed infatuation with him entirely on her own.
She shook her head. Her brown hair, still glossy from a recent brushing, bounced. He smelled a flowery shampoo and wished he too had gotten away from work with time to shower and change. All he had been able to do was unfasten the harness that throughout the day had held his .357 magnum in its shoulder holster. His shirt was marked by still-drying sweat beneath the arms, the stain a simple, civilian moon under his right arm, but a moon extended by a shape that resembled the subcontinent of India beneath his left. He could smell himself. His scent was not much like flowers.
“Uh-uh,” she said. “Bull, yourself. No way. You wouldn’t be hanging around her so much if that was all it was. And she wouldn’t be letting you.”
“It’s research!”
“You don’t have to see her every day for research.”
“I don’t!”
“Near enough.”
A thought suddenly struck him. He set his glass down. He laid one hand on her shoulder and turned her to face him. “Say. You didn’t have anything to do with that phone call, did you?”
She stared back at him, her mouth a thin, horizontal line of annoyance. “What phone call?”
He did not let go of her while he told her what the Count had told him that morning. When he was done, she raised a hand to brush his arm away and turned back to the pizza. “Jackass.”
“What do you mean?”
This time she turned around on her own. She held her slicing knife up between their faces and shook it. “I said, you’re a jackass. A fool. You don’t get it, do you?”
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