String City

by Graham Edwards

  Kisi Sunyana was waiting for me in the doorway.

  “You’re soaked,” I said.

  “You smell good,” she said. “Have you learned anything?”

  I hesitated. “I don’t discuss cases in progress. A lead’s one thing—the truth’s another.”

  “So you have a lead?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  Her eyes burned like coals. “Could I at least come inside?” she said. “I’ve grown terribly cold standing here, waiting for you. And I am, as you observed, wet.”

  I pulled out my key. “I guess I could find you a towel.”

  Once we were inside I flicked the light switch. Nothing. Outside, the streetlamps had died. No power for six blocks in any direction. I lit a candle.

  The office was empty; Zephyr hadn’t waited up. I shucked off my coat, dropped my boots in the electron soak, tossed Kisi a towel from the washroom. While she dried her hair, I poured us a couple of bourbons. My hand shook. Maybe it was the radiation. I steadied it by scrawling a hasty note on the pad by the phone.

  Quetzal Imports—pyramid—Sunyana connection?

  Kisi came over and I quickly closed the pad. She took the glass, her fingers brushing mine. We both drank.

  “So,” she said, pressing the towel to her throat, “did you see my husband today?”

  “Like I said, I can’t discuss the case.”

  “Please. I’m not asking for details. You told me yourself you were going to check out his offices. I just wondered what you saw.”

  “There’s something got me wondering,” I said, dodging the question. “What does a dame like you see in a guy with teeth like one of his own mincing machines?”

  She smiled. “Ah—the problem of flesh.”

  “If that’s what you want to call it. So spill: how does it work? I mean, really. The guy’s hobby is biting people; you just look like a regular dame. What’s the deal?”

  She put down her glass. Her eyes were kaleidoscopes in the candlelight. “It’s very simple. The asansa have different kinds of bites. Have you noticed how their teeth are arranged like sharks’ teeth? Several sets, nested one behind the other?”

  “Hard to miss.”

  “Well, they use whichever set is appropriate for the occasion—and the mood. All the families are different. The Sunyanas, for instance, have five sets of teeth. Kweku calls the first his ‘social set’—the basic teeth he uses for talking and smiling and so on. He has two sets he uses for eating: one for public meals and another for private. When an asansa eats in private, things can get... messy. The fourth set looks like what you’d expect to see in a vampire’s mouth, only they’re made of metal. Kweku calls them his ‘high-day irons’. If he bites you with those, you become asansa yourself. I can’t remember the last time Kweku used them. He’s very civilised, you know.”

  “That’s four sets of teeth. You said there were five.”

  “The fifth set he keeps just for me.” She turned away, letting the straps of her yellow wasp-dress fall loose. “Dry me, would you?”

  When I’d toweled her shoulders, she asked me would I dry the rest of her back. She even unwrapped the dress for me, all the way down to the seventh stripe of silk. Very obliging.

  “Thank you,” she said. “You’d make a wonderful masseur.”

  She faced me and the rest of the stripes pooled on the floor.

  29

  "I MET THE Scrutator,” I said afterward. The power was still out and the candle flame was wavering, on the verge of dying. Kisi Sunyana was black on black. So was my mood. “Damn heap of sentient scrap, stealing my trade!”

  “The robot? I thought I’d fired it?” said Kisi. She’d warmed up all the way through to hot. My kind of radiation.

  “That’s what I said. Maybe it went to the union.”

  “Do you mind if I move? My leg’s gone to sleep.”

  “Feel free.” She moved. I moved. Parts of us both found new places to be. My mood lightened. “One thing’s got me puzzled.”

  “What’s that?”

  “If you love your husband so much, how come you’re here with me?”

  “I told you. He’s hurt me. So I need to hurt him back. This is as good a way as any. Wait while I turn over.”

  “So you’re just using me?”

  “I don’t hear you complaining.”

  “You don’t know for certain Kweku’s having an affair.”

  “He’s doing something behind my back. Hold still a moment... there.”

  “There?”

  “No... here.”

  “Doesn’t mean he’s cheating. Trust me—when a guy visits the wharf after hours, it’s unlikely to be for pleasure.”

  “Speaking of pleasure... how does that feel, gumshoe?”

  “Dandy. All I’m saying is, if he isn’t cheating, and finds out you are, what’s he going to do to me?”

  “Are you worried about his teeth?”

  “They are a factor.”

  “Don’t worry. I can handle Kweku.”

  “Seems to me he can handle himself. Hey, how are you doing that?”

  “I practice martial arts. Give it a moment—you’ll like it. Yes, Kweku is very self-assured. The Sunyana are very proud, very honorable. Kweku isn’t just a businessman—he’s the head of an ancient family. Most people just see the meat he puts on their plate. To Kweku, meat is his life’s blood.”

  “Your husband’s business is booming. He’s one of the few to escape the recession. He must be doing something right.”

  “Yes, profits have been up the last three years running. I don’t know how he does it. But I never did have a head for business. Only love. Hold me here.”

  “Here?”

  “No, here.”

  “How are you doing that?”

  “I can also do this.”

  “Holy mother of...”

  “I just wish I knew what my husband was doing hanging around that wharf. It’s so dangerous. I mean, that’s why they put that fence up, isn’t it? Because of the quarantine and everything?”

  “The fence wasn’t his concern. He just took the shortest route to the pyramid.”

  “It’s time to stop talking.”

  “Why do we need to...? Oh...”

  The candle went out. Down in the basement, the tokamak was roaring. Laura’s face filled the darkness, watching me with her dead eyes. Was she judging me? No way to tell. I waited for the guilt to roll in but it didn’t.

  I was glad she was there.

  30

  WHEN I WOKE, Kisi was gone. Laura too. The cushions were on the couch backward. So was I. Outside, the fog had returned with a vengeance, thick yellow with a hint of dawn. Too late for night owls, too early for mail. I got dressed, fired up the coffee machine. Kisi Sunyana had played me like a fiddle, in more ways than one. My strings were still twanging.

  I pulled my boots out of the electron soak, checked the Roentgen counters. They were clean. I checked my coat; it still smelled of vanilla. I turned it inside-out twice until the scent was gone, then hung it back on the hook.

  I drank coffee, stroked the small hairs on the back of my neck. Something still prickled there, still not quite a hunch. I leafed through a few reports, watched the fog bubble, tried to work out what was wrong. Eventually I saw it.

  If it was too early for mail, why was there a letter on the mat?

  I picked it up, opened it, expecting it to be from Kisi. I read:

  I was still here when you came back last night. I’d spent the day tidying up the cellar, like I said I was going to, and when I’d finished I made cocoa and sat on the cellar steps, only I must have fallen asleep, because the next thing I was hearing voices. It was you and that woman. I didn’t want to eavesdrop so I stayed down here, turned up the boiler and just listened to it roar. Later, after she’d gone, I came upstairs. You were asleep on the couch. I saw the notepad on your desk and opened it, and saw what you’d written there. That’s when I decided.

  Here’s the thing. I wa
nt you to take me seriously. The only way that’s going to happen is if I prove to you what I’m capable of. So I’m going to check out that pyramid, whatever it is. Heck—maybe I’ll even solve the Sunyana case for you!

  Don’t come after me—I want to do this by myself.

  Zephyr

  I read it twice, then screwed it up and hurled it across the room. The girl was crazy! By now she was probably dead.

  Outside, a municipal cleaning truck crawled past on grimy millipede tracks. Roving suckers vacuumed trash from the gutters. Also chunks of asphalt and a couple of hobos. The fog bulked out, eclipsing the early light.

  I turned my coat inside-out three times until it was a life preserver, pulled what I needed from the middle drawer of the filing cabinet and headed for the river.

  31

  THE RIVER LETHE runs right through the middle of String City and out the other side. Nobody knows what its source is, but once it gets past the wharf it joins the Acheron and together they head out for the ocean. Time was, boats packed the river like beans in sauce. Not any more.

  Acheron Lock is the only place still busy, mostly with tourists; everyone likes to see water defy gravity. It’s not such a great trick once you learn there’s anti-matter in the lock gates. Downstream you can take a fishing trip; the salmon there claim to have knowledge of the secrets of the universe, but most of them don’t even know the alphabet. The occasional swimmer still tries to doggie-paddle across the Acheron, even though they know they’ll come out in tears. Nobody dares swim in the Lethe. That’s because the water wipes your mind clean of all its memories. In the Lethe, you keep your waders on at all times.

  Waders I didn’t have. But I still had no intention of getting my feet wet, so I let my boots take me down the crumbling pier to where the Argo was moored. I knew the Argo of old. Her skipper and I went back a long way.

  As I stood at the end of the pier, I hoped we went far enough.

  “Jason!” I shouted. “I need a favor.”

  The door to the Argo’s wheelhouse jerked open. Blue eyes stared out from a face that was all beard and wrinkles. “I knew it was going to be you,” Jason said. “Did I say that already?”

  “Hello, Jason.”

  “D’you want to come aboard? Or were you just leaving?”

  “You got a gangplank?”

  “I knew you were going to say that.”

  I waited while he fussed with the plank. Halfway through he forgot I was there and greeted me all over again. Jumbled memory’s a side effect of working years on the Lethe. Mostly Jason just suffered from déjà vu; today he seemed particularly mixed up.

  We drank hot syrup in the wheelhouse and I let Jason talk. I didn’t like wasting time, but if I wanted his help I needed him sweet.

  “Business is bad,” he said, sipping the sickly brew. “Dredging’s a lost art. Dredging’s a lost art. Did I say that already?”

  “They still paying you to move silt around?”

  “Naw, these days I salvage. Ever since I lost that fleece. Gold sinks. Bicycles too. You’d be amazed what people throw in the river. Bicycles, dishwashers, even automobiles. And bicycles. Amazing what I pull up. You’d be amazed. I sell on enough to cover my costs. Bicycles too. Did I say that?”

  “You might have mentioned it.”

  “Also, the Lethe being what it is, I do a fair trade in lost souls.”

  “You dredge up lost souls?”

  “You’d be amazed what you...”

  “Look, Jason, about this favor...”

  “Can I get you a drink?”

  I waggled my mug. “You already gave me syrup, Jason. One cup’s more than enough.”

  He grinned; his beard parted enough to show where his teeth had once been. “I like syrup. Did I ever tell you that?”

  “Worked it out for myself, buddy.”

  He stood up, an ancient hairy barrel of a man. The wheelhouse was small and between us we filled it. He wiped the window, peered outside. “I feel like I’ve been here before,” he said, suddenly plaintive. “Have I? Or did I just arrive?”

  “You’re on the river, Jason,” I said. “It’s where you live. You’re always here.”

  “I know, but...” he shook his head. His beard rustled like cellophane. “Never mind. Did you tell me what it was you wanted?”

  “I was just about to.”

  A look of infinite sorrow shadowed Jason’s face. “You may have to tell me more than once.”

  32

  THE FOG MADE for slow going. It took the Argo an hour to cut its way through the shallows and round the curve to where the docklands began. I could have used the footbridge—I guessed that was what Zephyr must have done—but its deck is exposed and I worried Sunyana might have spies. So Jason it was.

  As he steered his beloved Argo away from the jetty, he started singing a shanty from the old days:

  So steady me hearties and buckle up tight

  Protect yourselves front and behind

  For the waves they do wetten, and if you should let ’em

  You’re sure to be losin’ your mind

  “The water’s calm today,” I said, peering cautiously over the bow rail.

  “The Lethe’s always calm,” Jason called from the wheelhouse. “Sunshine or storm, she’ll never try to drag you down. Safest waters I ever worked, and that’s a true fact.”

  “Really? I always figured it was dangerous.”

  “Danger’s down to you. The Lethe—she’ll take you readily enough, but only if you give her no other choice. She’ll look after us, don’t you fret.”

  He turned the wheel to starboard. The bow swung to port. The Argo still had her original reverse tiller. Jason liked her that way.

  Out on the water, he was more like his old self: the Jason I’d come to know during the long years of war preceding this time of relative peace. Sadly, the coming apocalypse—if that was what it was—was proof that these quiet days were just a lull before another storm.

  As for the war, well, I did my best not to think about that.

  The boat turned, cutting through a shoal of selkies. The seal-women kept pace with us for a while, surfing our bow wave and singing in their high voices. Their silvery faces were pretty and mindless. They kept catching my eye and looking startled, like they’d never seen a person before. Still, they looked happy. Maybe attention span isn’t everything.

  The fog thickened like gravy.

  “Are you sure you know where you’re going?” I said. “I can’t see a thing.”

  “I get soundings off the bottom. You’d be amazed what you can do with an echo. Plus I get soundings off the bottom. Did I mention that?”

  I shivered: the strident selkie song made me think of Tony Marscapone’s dead banshee wives and nuclear syrens.

  It also made me think of Laura.

  Cranes loomed in the fog and the edge of the wharf came into view. Jason goosed the throttle. The gunmetal water grew choppy and the selkies scattered. Under the waves I caught glimpses of ghostly faces, staring up at me with dead, blank eyes.

  “Lost souls?” I edged back from the rail.

  “Some,” said Jason. “Most are just folk. Nothing rots in the Lethe, and the water keeps you fed, and keeps you down. When you fall in the river, it wipes your memory, but it doesn’t just do it once—it does it over and over, so you keep waking up with all your past on the tip of your tongue. See how puzzled they look?”

  He was right. The faces looked lost, confused. Like they were about to speak, but had forgotten what they wanted to say. Truth was, they’d forgotten everything. A thousand times over. All because of the water. One drop was all it took.

  The waves were beginning to splash over the bow. I stepped back from the rail.

  “So how are the lost souls different to these poor saps?”

  “The souls run deep. In the still waters. Dredging them up brings good money—there are folk think lost souls make great hood ornaments. That’s my trade. I hate it, but it pays. But you’ve got
to watch the Maelstrom.”

  “The Maelstrom?”

  “Where the souls gather. You get caught in the Maelstrom, you’re fishbait. Did I mention they make great hood ornaments?”

  “You said they prefer still waters. Isn’t the Maelstrom a whirlpool?”

  “Only round the edges. Round the edges it’s like some crazy polka. But in the middle it’s still. That’s where the lost souls are, right in the eye of the storm. Did I mention the fishbait?”

  My eyes plumbed the depths. My thoughts circled back to Laura.

  “Sometimes I wish they never found her body. That way, I could convince myself she was still alive.”

  “Finders keepers,” Jason replied. “You lose, you weep.”

  Faces bubbled up, burst, fluoresced and folded, dead leaves drenched by the tide. They were strangers all, unfamiliar spirits.

  Now I’d started thinking of Laura, I didn’t want to stop. But thoughts are a curse and Jason had said something.

  In the middle it’s still.

  The short hairs on my neck were prickling again. Why did that sound familiar? Was it the river, playing tricks?

  “The eye of the storm,” I muttered. “The still center of the dance.”

  Not déjà vu, I thought. Presque vu: the feeling like everything’s about to make sense.

  Something wailed in the fog. The sound was raw and mournful, a leviathan’s moan. The waves surged. Jason lashed the wheel and leaped down the steps to the deck. He started coiling ropes, pulling chains, turning capstans.

  “What’s happening?” I said.

  “Bow wave. There’s another ship out there. A big one. Headed our way.”

  The river bucked like a mustang. The Argo’s keel left the water. She flew, tipped on her nose, crashed back into foam. I dodged behind the wheelhouse to keep dry. Jason was there before me; he looked like a barrel but moved like an eel.

  An iceberg appeared out of the fog. A second look told me it wasn’t an iceberg but a huge, glass-walled container ship, splitting the river like Moses. Its lower hull was caked with barnacles the size of truck tires. The Argo was a gnat in its shadow, all set to get swatted.