One of Us

by Michael Marshall Smith

  I wanted to know who the men in the grey suits were, and what they were doing, and why I knew them. Which was okay, because all lines of inquiry seemed to be leading in the same direction.

  Deck stood guard outside in the street as I broke into Ray Hammond’s apartment. Laura came with me. Her choice, not mine. On the way over I’d checked the news and found the Prose Café gun battle was all over it. Travis made it out with a flesh wound, Barton was critical and not expected to last, the other two cops were dead.

  The ‘persons unknown’ had disappeared, with no bodies left on the scene. City-wide APB on them; no mention of me.

  There was no tape across the door to Hammond’s crib, and no cop standing guard, which implied that the LAPD didn’t know what he had been doing in the area. I asked Laura about that, and she said he had a regular address over in Burbank. She wouldn’t say why she hadn’t hunted him down there, only that she’d worked out he spent some of the time elsewhere, and got the hacker—Quat, as it had transpired—to find out where. Presumably the cops had done a house-to-house, and given up on getting no reply from the entry phone to this apartment. If they came back for a second sweep, or anybody else weird turned up, Deck would let us know. Until then, his apartment was ours.

  The lock on the door was complex and expensive, but no match for my organizer. Within two minutes it was open, and we were inside.

  The apartment was small, the door giving straight into a square living room with a kitchen over on one side. The small window would have looked over the street below had the curtains not been drawn. Two other rooms out back, a bedroom and the other nearly filled by a desk. A bathroom you could very nearly get all of your body into at once.

  The kitchen said this wasn’t a place Hammond had spent much quality time. Three cans of beer and some leftover Chinese in the fridge, the noodles covered in a bacterial culture so advanced they probably had their own constitution and strong views on environmental issues. Precisely one plate and one set of cutlery in the drawer. The rest of the apartment said that Hammond liked his downtime in an austere environment. The furniture was cheap and functional: a sofa and one chair in the living room, a single bed, a couple of small tables with nothing on them. The closets in the bedroom were empty, there were no toiletries in the bathroom, and dust lurked in every corner. There were no pictures on the walls of any of the rooms. It was like a suite in a motel no-one ever used, two weeks after the maid had been fired and taken her severance pay in reproduction art.

  I left Laura in the living room and went through into the study. A shelf hung above the desk, with a single book on it. A small bible, well-thumbed. A quote had been written out on the inside front cover: ‘And I beheld, and, lo, in the midst of the throne and of the four beasts, and in the midst of the elders, stood a Lamb as it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God sent forth into all the earth.’

  Strange. I slipped it in my pocket.

  Apart from that the room was bare, but as I glanced under the desk I noticed something. On the floor near the wall there were a few lines in the dust, where the carpet showed through. As if cables had lain there until recently. The closets told a similar story: clean rectangles in fine dust, where file boxes had been stacked. I went back into the living room, turned the seat cushions on the sofa. Neat diagonal cuts across the underside of each: somebody looking for something concealed.

  ‘Someone’s already tossed the place,’ I said. ‘I think there was a computer on that desk, and it’s gone, along with files. They were looking for something else too, something you could hide in a cushion. Do you have any idea what that might be?’

  There was no reply. I looked up to see Laura leaning against the kitchen unit, head slumped forward. ‘Laura?’

  She slowly lifted her head. Her eyes were unnaturally dry, mouth turned down at the corners. She looked like a fourteen-year-old girl seen through the prism of a lifetime of disappointment. ‘Can I have a cigarette?’ she said.

  ‘Thought you’d quit.’

  She smiled wanly. ‘Only about a hundred times.’

  ‘It’s my belief some people are smokers and some aren’t,’ I said. ‘You work out which and stick with it. Saves everyone a load of grief.’

  I glanced round the walls for sensors, was surprised not to see any. Then I remembered Hammond had been both a smoker and a ranking cop. Presumably he cut himself a dispensation. I lit a couple of Camels and handed one to Laura. ‘Hammond is the key to all of this,’ I said. ‘You killed him. Any chance of explaining why?’

  ‘I don’t remember doing it.’

  ‘I know. I don’t need the detail: I need to know the why, and you still remember that.’

  ‘It was personal,’ she said.

  ‘No shit. Nobody uses a whole clip over a parking ticket.’

  ‘It’s not relevant to what’s happening now.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Look, it just isn’t. Are you done here? Can we go?’

  ‘At some point you’re going to have to tell someone,’ I said. ‘And I don’t mean the cops. I just mean somebody. You drink too much, and your mouth’s generally trying to make a smile it doesn’t mean. You go to Mexico for a two-day holiday and spend the whole time wallowing in misery, when you’re not getting yourself in bad situations in bars. When you dumped the memory of the murder on me it was already fucked up, like you’re used to blanking things. You’ve got to find a way of letting some of this stuff out of your head.’

  She smiled sardonically. ‘Thanks for the consultation, doctor. Shall I come along to be patronized again, next week, same time?’

  ‘Just trying to help.’ I shrugged. ‘Despite the fact you’re a complete pain in the ass, I like you.’

  Mistake. She turned away and ground her cigarette out in the sink, barely half-smoked. ‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘Every guy always does.’

  Her eyes changed, went opaque, and it was clear the conversation was over.

  The apartment was a dead end. I cleaned up the sink so no-one would know we’d been there, and locked the door behind us as we left. We collected Deck from outside, and on a whim I walked up to the crossroads and peered through the window of the liquor store. The old guy was still sitting behind the counter, as he had been in the memory, looking like he’d been stuffed. I left the others outside and went in.

  ‘How’s your dog?’ I asked.

  The old man looked up at me, squinted: he obviously couldn’t see too well. ‘He died. Who are you? Do I know you?’

  ‘Course you do,’ I said. ‘I’m in here all the time.’

  ‘Oh. Well, nice to see you again.’ He leaned forward, started to stand up. As soon as he’d begun I wanted to tell him not to bother: whole cities have been built with less effort. His face was deeply lined, the skin dry as powder, and the closer he got to standing, the less healthy he looked. But it was clearly important to him, so I waited the process out. I glanced outside, saw Deck and Laura standing talking. Eventually the old guy was more or less upright, leaning on the counter. ‘What can I get for you?’

  ‘Nothing, actually,’ I said. ‘You know that cop who got shot? Happened just along from here, didn’t it?’

  ‘That’s right,’ he replied proudly. ‘Saw the whole thing. You a cop?’

  I debated saying yes, and committing a felony, but decided I’d already got enough marks against my name. ‘No. Just interested. And you didn’t see it all. You were asleep.’

  Hands shaking: ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘I just do. Plus you can’t see the spot where the body fell from here. So tell me what you actually saw.’ I didn’t offer him money. It would have been demeaning: talking was all this guy had left.

  He licked his lips. ‘Tell the truth, I was a little tired that night. May have nodded off around one. Anyhow, I heard this noise, and woke up. Thought at first it was the door banging, but there was no-one in the store and the noise kept going on. Realized it was a gun going off
. By the time I got to the door it had stopped. I decided to stay inside.’

  ‘What happened then?’

  ‘Heard a car come roaring down the road, then somebody ran past my door. Just in front of me, but I don’t see too well. Sounded like a woman’s footsteps to me, though: went off and round the corner. Then I hear shouting, some guy cussing fit to burst. So I went back to my chair, got my glasses, came and looked again.’

  ‘You couldn’t see anybody from here, though, right?’

  ‘Not at first,’ he said. ‘I’m coming to that. At first there’s just these two voices, saying something I can’t hear. Then two more cars roll up.’

  The hairs on the back of my neck began to rise. ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘Kind of a shiny grey, with those blacked-out windows the pimps and drug-dealers like. Two guys get out of each car.’

  ‘Medium height, wearing suits?’

  ‘That’s right.’ He peered at me. ‘You know them?’

  I shook my head. Six. There were six of the bastards now. ‘What happened then?’

  ‘Not much. The guys go round the corner, stay there a few minutes. I’m wondering if I should go offer to help, but I figure there’s enough of them—what can I do? And I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m kind of old. Then they come running back, get in the cars, drive off. Second later the first car goes past, shiny grey, just the same. And that’s it. I called the cops.’

  ‘And you told them about the guys in the cars?’

  ‘I certainly did. Gangland slaying, I called it. They quoted me in the paper—though they kept the number of guys a secret.’

  Big, bad news. After last night, Travis had a way of connecting me to Hammond’s murder: Hammond→anti-social guys in suits→Hap. Not actually the right way, because he didn’t know Laura Reynolds’ role in the loop, but a way. It was enough.

  ‘Thanks,’ I said, distractedly. ‘You’ve been a big help.’

  ‘Pleasure,’ he said. ‘And since I know you, I’ll tell you something I didn’t like to say to the cops. They’d have thought I was losing my mind, or just that my eyes weren’t right. The guys I saw: it wasn’t just like they all bought their suits from the same place. Their faces looked the same too.’ He looked at me levelly, and for a moment I saw the man he’d once been—and made a silent bet that this was one liquor store which hadn’t been knocked off very often. ‘You believe me?’

  ‘Yes I do,’ I said. ‘And I’ll return the favour with a piece of advice. You see them again, you hide.’

  When I got outside Deck was leaning against a lamp-post. Laura was standing ten yards down the way, round about the position Hammond’s body had fallen.

  ‘What’s up with her?’ I asked.

  ‘Told her one of the reasons it took me so long to get back last night.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘Went by your apartment. I figured if all the weird dudes were at the Café raising hell, might be a good time. Somebody had already tricked the lock—I guess after those two guys lost you, they checked out your place. I went in, dug your memory receiver out the closet, closed the door. Didn’t tidy up or anything.’

  I smiled, thinking not for the first time how dire the world must be if you don’t have someone like Deck sitting in the dug-out with you. ‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘But you were lucky. Turns out these guys come in six-packs.’

  Deck raised his eyebrows. ‘Shit. Anyhow, so I mentioned this to Laura. She knows you can put it back into her head.’

  I reached out, touched him on the shoulder. ‘Wait here a second,’ I said.

  I walked down the road until I was a couple of yards from Laura. She was staring at the remainder of a large bloodstain on the sidewalk, arms folded, shoulders slumped.

  ‘So when do you want to do it?’ she asked.

  ‘I don’t,’ I said.

  She looked up slowly, then frowned. ‘What?’

  ‘There’s no point. Travis is already on my case, and the cops can connect me to Hammond’s death through the guys who are chasing after you. It’s too late for the transfer to do me any good.’

  ‘But you didn’t do it.’

  I shrugged. ‘Maybe not. But I’ve got used to having it in my head. There was a place there waiting for it.’

  ‘And that’s it?’

  ‘That’s it.’

  Laura breathed out heavily. For just a moment she looked like the person she really was, all the spikes retracted and forgotten. She glanced down the road into the distance then back at me. ‘So what are you going to do now?’

  ‘Find out what’s going on.’

  ‘You care?’

  ‘Yes, I do. If I were you I’d ring in sick, go take a vacation in Europe for a while. What do you do for a living, anyhow?’

  ‘Work for a bank,’ she said, and smiled up at me, one eye squinted against the sun. ‘Client liaison. Kind of stupid, huh?’

  ‘It’s a living.’

  ‘It’s a coma, is what it is.’ She looked over at Deck, who was still leaning against the lamp-post, gazing at nothing in particular. ‘You know what? I think I’ve resigned.’

  ‘You want a ride someplace?’

  ‘Yeah. Wherever you guys are going.’ She laughed at the confusion in my face. ‘Come on, Hap. I’ve still got the four weirdos of the apocalypse after me, and they know I did what I did.’

  ‘There’s six of them,’ I said. ‘Actually.’

  ‘Whatever. You’ve got a hair up your ass about working it out somehow: I figure I’m safer with you guys.’

  ‘Could be a bad decision.’

  ‘My favourite type,’ she smiled, and nodded towards Deck. ‘Come on: let me buy you a beer.’

  Ten

  It took a while for lunch to arrive at Applebaum’s. It always does. We got a table outside with a view down Sunset and started drinking: Deck and Laura made fun of passers-by while I sorted through the stuff in my pockets. I’d dumped so many things in my jacket during the last couple days that I was beginning to walk with a stoop.

  Unfortunately it seemed I needed to keep most of it. The dream receiver, for example. I used the restaurant’s payphone to call REMtemps to find out why no dreams had been sent my way the night before, but Stratten wasn’t available. The hell-bitch Sabrina kept me hanging on for ever and then said he’d get back to me. I was keeping Deck’s gun for the time being: mine was doubtless in an evidence locker relating to the incident in the Prose Café. Without my organizer I’d be fucked, and I didn’t have the heart to throw the clock away, even though it seemed to have gone into hibernation. Maybe it was in shock: it had gone straight back to sleep after being shot at outside my apartment, and I hadn’t heard a peep out of it since. I shook it for a while, and pushed some buttons experimentally, but I’m not even sure they do anything. They’re probably just there because people expect them. Either way, it wasn’t playing. I asked Laura if she’d mind carrying it in her bag: she took it from me and stuffed it inside.

  Then something struck me. I’d found Laura at the Nirvana through some weird wisdom on the clock’s part. But how had the two guys in suits done it? From Laura’s memory and the old guy’s story it was clear they hadn’t been able to follow her immediately.

  ‘Laura,’ I said. ‘Can I ask you something?’

  ‘Anything you like,’ she replied expansively, refilling her glass from the pitcher. ‘Though I may not answer.’

  ‘Any idea how the guys in suits found you were staying at the Nirvana?’

  She shook her head. ‘No. And after I dropped the memory on you I was being hyper-cautious and more than a little paranoid. Even so I never got the sense anyone was following me. Though you were, of course.’

  ‘Granted, but most of the time I was so far off your tail I was in the wrong country. What about in the bar you spent the evening in: you didn’t see anyone strange there?’

  ‘No. Though I did meet a guy.’ Abruptly she shivered, as the weather crashed and flipped from sunny to overcast and chilly in the s
pace of a second. There was a chorus of mutters from the drinkers and diners around us, as they waited for the jackets and sweaters they’d valet-stowed to be brought back out to them.

  ‘What guy?’

  She shrugged. ‘Just a guy. I was sitting at a corner table, killing time, and this guy asked if I minded him joining me. I was going to say yes I did mind, because I really wasn’t in the mood for being hit on, but then I felt all right about it and said okay.’

  ‘What did he look like?’

  ‘Late thirties, early forties. Smartly dressed, dark casual suit. Good hair.’

  ‘And did he hit on you?’

  ‘No. We just talked. Or I did, anyway. He just sort of sat there, and nodded, and made me feel okay. I chattered away about nothing in particular and he listened. Like he was actually quite interested, rather than just waiting for it to be over so he could ask how I liked my eggs in the morning. Then after a while I decide it’s late and I should go. He said stay a little longer, and I was tempted, but, I don’t know.’

  ‘What?’

  She looked away. ‘It was the wrong night for it. I wasn’t in the mood for someone nice being sweet to me. It would have been spoilt.’

  ‘And so?’

  ‘And so I said goodnight, and that it had been cool to meet him. He gave me his card, which was kind of weird.’

  She dug in her purse and handed it to me. It was blank. I turned it over, and saw the other side was the same.

  ‘Minimalist,’ said Deck, and then went back to writing ‘This stuff causes cancer too; so why can’t I smoke?’ on every packet of Sweet ’n’ Low in the bowl on the table.

  I laid the card on my organizer and got it to check for varnish barcodes, synthetic holography and a variety of other fads and graphic design stupidities. Nothing beeped. It was just a blank rectangle of card, creamy white and with a slight texture. Quite a nice bit of paper, as it happened, but not very informative. I shrugged and handed it back to Laura.

  The food arrived, and I concentrated for a while on getting a large salt beef sandwich inside my head. In the meantime I pulled the remaining object out of my jacket pocket. Hammond’s bible.