by Steven Brust
“Want to tell me what you two are doing here before nine in the morning?”
Susan shrugged as if it should have been obvious. “We talked it over, and decided we didn’t want you to get deaded. So we’re here for the duration. Got any coffee?”
Donovan stared at her, then elaborately looked around the apartment. “Just where, exactly?”
“Oh, come on. There’s room. For sleeping, two in your bed, one on the couch.”
“Seriously? This isn’t—”
“It isn’t what, Laughing Boy? Your life isn’t threatened? All of our lives aren’t threatened?”
“Shit. If you were going to do this, we could have done it at your place, which is at least big enough.”
“Would you have come?”
“No.”
“See?”
“Tell me you didn’t both slipwalk here.” He looked at their faces. “Shit. Oversight will have my ass. Or, worse, they might have yours. You know they can charge you for an unauthorized slipwalk? They can deduct it from your pay? Unless they get pissed off and kick you out. Jesus. I’m going to have to—”
“Shut the fuck up,” said Susan. “Deal with it. This is what we have to do. The bad guys potentially know your address. In any case, they know who you are. You think we’re going to let them take a free shot at you if they feel like it?”
“The only one of us who’s been specifically targeted is Marci, not me.”
“So,” said Susan with the air of someone springing a trap. “Want to help us protect her?”
“Ah, shit.” And, “Okay. I have one spare blanket, no spare sheets, no spare pillows except the ones on the couch.”
“We’ll figure it out.”
He sighed. “Do you two play Hearts?”
* * *
Becker walked down to the Paseo del Prado, to a place beneath the trees just in sight of the museum and out of sight of the Foundation. There he waited as he always waited, not moving, hardly even blinking, as if waiting itself were an activity requiring the most careful concentration.
After a quarter of an hour, an old man walking with the assistance of a black cane approached him.
“Mr. Becker,” said the old man. “You haven’t changed.”
“Nor have you, Mr. Crosheck,” Becker lied smoothly.
Crosheck laughed. “I’m not sure what this is about, but I appreciate it. I haven’t had an excuse to slipwalk in over a year. I intend to see a bit of Madrid before I go back.”
Becker nodded. “Shall we find a place to sit?”
“No, I’d rather stroll.”
“As you please. Have you heard from Mr. Longfellow lately?”
“Chumpy? He just called me yesterday for advice on a case. It was flattering. He still calls me Grampa. Why?”
“I’m his handler.”
“Yes, I know. That’s why I felt comfortable giving him advice on how to handle you.”
Becker’s smile was quick, more of a formality than an indication of amusement. “Mr. Crosheck, I heard from Charles Leong today.”
“Did you really! I take it for the first time in a while?”
“For the first time since our encounter with you, Mr Crosheck.”
“We were all a lot younger then, weren’t we?” They were walking slowly, and only now turning the corner around the museum. “This way,” he said.
“All right.”
“So, what did your friend Leong want?”
“I don’t know. He lied to me about where he was.”
“You’re involved in the investigation of murders.”
“Yes.”
“And this is the moment he calls you out of nowhere.”
“Exactly.”
“So he’s involved.”
“It’s hard to believe he isn’t.”
“And the question is, why would he alert you to that?”
Becker nodded.
Crosheck stopped beside a tree, pulled a leaf, held it up to his nose, and inhaled deeply. He closed his eyes, smiled, then let it fall to the ground. They continued walking.
“Why did you want to see me?” asked Crosheck.
“He said something, while we were talking. He said what we’d done was right. And I agreed with him.”
“Yes, Mr. Becker?”
“What do you think, Mr. Crosheck?”
“What do I think? If I thought you were doing right, I wouldn’t have worked so hard to find you, to catch you, to disable you, to perform what they call the S.R.P. on you. No, Mr. Becker, I do not think you were right. You took lives. And that wasn’t the worst of it. You turned a man into a raving lunatic. You drove a woman to suicide. A young man, barely older than a boy, ran off and hasn’t been heard of since, and is probably dead. The woman who took her life had a family. Did right?”
“Mr. Crosheck, does it mean nothing to you what those people were doing with their powers? How many people they were hurting? And what we were trying to do, to get the Mystici to use their gifts for something worthwhile? None of this means anything to you?”
Crosheck was quiet for several paces. Then he said, “Magic is an exercise of will.”
“I remember, Mr. Crosheck.”
“Then you should know that nothing is more vile than removing another’s will—then forcing another to do your bidding. Whether that bidding is right or wrong, whether it helps or hurts, it is still wrong; it is a crime.”
“We differ in this matter, Mr. Crosheck.”
“I know that, Mr. Becker.” Then he said, “If it means anything, I respect you.”
“It does mean something, Mr. Crosheck. Thank you.”
The old man nodded. “It is a terrible thing that I did to you. I think it was right, but that doesn’t make it easy to live with. Of all the times I’ve done that, your and Leong’s are the only ones I can’t put out of my mind, that I argue with myself about.” They walked a little farther. “But we are burning daylight. I think you didn’t risk the wrath of the Black Hole to speak of matters of conscience and justice, no matter how important they might seem.”
“I’m trying to understand what Charles—Mr. Leong—wanted. Why he called me, cast suspicion on himself.”
“What comes to mind is that Chumpy—Mr. Longfellow—said there were two people involved.”
“Yes, so he—ah. He is drawing attention to himself in order to draw it away from the other.”
Crosheck nodded. “Or perhaps a third.”
“A third? What third?”
“I don’t know. But you know of two people involved in this. Is there a law that says there can’t be more?”
“What you’re talking about sounds like conspiracy.”
“Is that so impossible?”
Becker considered that; Crosheck remained silent. They turned and began walking back the way they’d come.
“What might be the object of this conspiracy, Mr. Crosheck?”
“How would I know? I’m throwing possibilities out.”
Becker smiled a little. “As far as eliminating possibilities, this isn’t working as well as it might.”
“Best to know them all before you start to eliminate them.”
“Mr. Longstreet asked about the possibility that the Mystici have a spy among us.”
“What did you say?”
“That it was possible.”
“Well?”
“I don’t know if they do. If they do, I don’t know if the spy would be involved. I hate to waste resources attempting to find a spy for the Mystici if that has nothing to do with the case.”
“If I understand correctly, I doubt the Mystici are behind the murders of their own people.”
Becker nodded. “You’re probably right. I think I won’t take the bait. I’ll keep Mr. Longfellow on his task, and arrange to meet Mr. Leong, if he actually wants to meet, which at this point I doubt—I suspect I won’t hear from him again.”
“You think he wanted you searching for a Mystici inside the Foundation?”
“That is my belief. I’ll give it more thought. In the meantime, thank you very much, Mr. Crosheck. You’ve been extremely helpful.”
“Entirely my pleasure. I look forward to seeing Madrid.”
They walked a little farther, until they had returned to the museum. “I’ll leave you here, Mr. Crosheck. I wish you a pleasant day.”
“And you.”
“Oh, and Mr. Croscheck?”
“Yes?”
“I hope you rot in Hell.”
“Yes, Mr. Becker. I know.”
12
… WE’D BEST FIGURE OUT
Donovan accepted defeat with at least some measure of grace. Susan and Marci were on the couch; he was at the kitchen table, turned away from it, facing them. Donovan didn’t have any wine, but Susan seemed happy enough with a beer, and Marci had tea. Donovan studied the condensation on his own beer bottle, and calculated that if they talked about the case he wouldn’t have to deal with how the three of them were going to survive in his apartment without murdering one another.
“Here’s how I see it,” he said. “We have two people, X and Y. The shooter, and the supplier. There’s also someone inside the Foundation, who is either a spy or the mastermind.”
The others nodded, and waited.
“So we find the shooter, and hope he can lead us to the supplier, and hope the supplier can lead us to the mastermind, if he exists.”
“That,” said Hippie Chick, “is a lot of hoping.”
Marci nodded.
“I know,” said Donovan. “So, as long as you’re here, see if you can help me figure out something better.”
Susan and Marci looked at each other, shrugged, then turned back to Donovan.
“How are we finding the shooter?” Marci wanted to know.
“We have a lot of facts, and more coming from Upstairs. Once we have everything, I’m hoping we can put it all together enough to predict his next target, and be there ahead of him.”
“More hope,” said Susan.
“Yeah.”
“Well,” said Marci. “What about the artifacts? You call him the supplier, because he’s supplying the artifacts. What if we find him through them? That’d cut out some steps.”
“Sure, but how? Vasilyev is dead, and even if he weren’t, that would mean waiting for another attack.”
Marci looked down at the floor; then she looked up. “Did Becker give you a list of what artifacts are missing?”
“As many as we know.”
“Show me.”
Donovan turned around, opened up his laptop, and waited for it to come out of “sleep” mode. Then he brought up the file. Marci got up and read over his shoulder. Her hair smelled like cucumbers, which Donovan thought was pleasant but kind of weird.
“There,” said Marci. “In the bottom right. ‘A:ph.’”
“Yeah,” said Donovan. “What does it mean?”
“When we’d get memos from the kiddie pool, they’d say: ‘T’ and a colon and two initials.”
“T for Recruitment and Training,” said Donovan, “and the initials of whoever wrote the memo.”
Marci nodded. “The A means Artifacts and Enchantments.”
“So who is ‘ph’?”
“I don’t know. Let’s find out.”
“We can do that. But what will it give us?”
Marci said, “What was the Burrow looking for?”
“The artifacts,” said Donovan. “What they did, how to trigger them.”
“Right. What they were not looking for is how they went missing in the first place.”
“Yeah,” said Donovan. “I figure the PO-lice are on that.”
“But that’s what we need to know. If we can trace the actual theft—”
“But how—oh. Damn, girl. Nice. I should have been on that.”
“Call Becker. Find out who ‘ph’ is.”
“No and yes, in that order. I don’t want to talk to Becker about this. The bad guys have somebody on the inside.”
“You think it’s Becker?”
“Are you sure it isn’t?”
“Then,” said Susan, “do have another way to find out who ‘ph’ is?”
“Yeah. You guys wait here. Make yourselves comfortable; figure out how we’re going to survive here. I’m going to make a lightning trip to Spain. If I don’t get anything, maybe I’ll find Fenwood from Oversight and punch him in the mouth just on general principle.”
* * *
It was a perfectly perfect day when Donovan stepped away from a perfectly perfect tree on a perfectly perfect tree-lined boulevard that would have been more at home in a romance novel than a major European city. Donovan only gave it the most cursory look, however, as he recovered his footing and looked around for the address.
Right across the street, of course. It was a big, off-white building full of shops on the lowest floor and manikins wearing elaborate Renaissance garb on the second. Donovan found the proper door and went straight back.
A cheery receptionist met Donovan as he entered and said something with an upside-down question mark at the beginning.
“No habla español,” he managed. “¿Habla inglés?”
“Of course, sir,” said the young man in an accent that made Donovan think of West Virginia. “How may I help you?”
“My name is Donovan Longfellow, and I need to make a pickup in the receiving department.”
The young man continued smiling. “I assume you mean the shipping department?”
“Usually, that’s where it would be. But this is a special case.”
The young man lost his smile and nodded abruptly. “How can the Foundation help you, Mr. Longfellow?”
“Where is the Twelfth Floor?”
“On the tenth floor.”
Donovan kept his face straight and nodded. “Could you please tell them that I’m on my way up, and would like to see Ms. Morgan? Tell her it’s … um, shit. What’s the damn code?”
“Sir?”
“Tell her I love doing nothing.”
“Sir? I don’t—”
“Goddammit. Just tell her it’s urgent. I’ve just slipwalked from New Jersey, where I work on the Ranch, and I know what Oversight is going to say about that, and I don’t care. I need to see her. Can you tell her that?”
He nodded. “Go on up, sir, and speak with the receptionist. Mr. Longfellow, was it? I’ll relay the message.”
Donovan took the elevator to 10, stepped off, walked up to the nearest desk, and read the plaque. “Ms. Trujillo?”
She nodded and addressed him in mildly accented English. “You must be Mr. Longfellow.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Please go on back. It is left behind my desk, at the very end of the hall. There is no need to knock.”
“Thank you, ma’am.”
A minute later, he stood before the organizational summit of the Foundation. The office was huge and floor to ceiling window, with rows of plants set to catch the sunlight as it moved around. The desk wouldn’t have fit into Donovan’s apartment. A shelf held Japanese vases and Victorian dolls. Donovan wondered if she used magic to keep the sun’s glare off her computer. She, herself, was between fifty-two and fifty-five, didn’t care that her hair was streaked with gray, and she kept it short. Her clothing was business casual, not designer, but elegant. She favored violet, which matched either her eyes or the color of her contact lenses. She wore a gold necklace with a modest ruby set in it, and no rings. There were no pictures on her desk.
He said, “Ms. Morgan—”
She interrupted. “Camellia. Does Mr. Becker know you’re here?”
“No.”
Morgan nodded. “In that case, Mr. Longfellow, you’d better close the door.”
“Donovan, then,” he said, and closed the door, and sat down.
“So, Donovan. What can I do for you?”
“There’s a memo from the Bu—from Artifacts. It was signed ‘ph.’ I’d like to know who ‘ph’ is.”
“Why?”<
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“Because he or she may have information that will aid our investigation.”
“What information exactly?”
“If I knew I wouldn’t need to ask.”
“Are you keeping secrets from me, Mr. Longfellow?”
“It seems to be the official Foundation pastime. I thought maybe I’d play, too.”
Morgan considered for a moment, then nodded. “You are asking for information pursuant to your investigation.”
“Yes.”
“And you do not wish to reveal details, because you are uncertain about who might learn what, and what that person might do with the information, and you’re afraid there may be an information leak.”
“Yes.”
“Is there any part of this you’re comfortable telling me?”
“I intend to find everyone involved in this, and what their plan is, and thwart it.”
“Thwart it.”
“Yes.”
Morgan nodded. “Her name is Peggy Hanson. I’ll have the Burrow send her up and meet you in the conference room. Ms. Trujillo will point it out to you.”
“Thank you.”
“And Donovan.”
“Yes?”
“Good hunting.”
Donovan nodded and stood up.
By the time he’d gotten directions to the conference room and followed them, there was already a woman there, looking wide-eyed and young, fat, pretty, no makeup. She was wearing blue jeans and a brown button-up sweater, and Donovan was pretty sure she was wishing she’d worn something more businessy.
“Peggy Hanson?” he said from the doorway.
She nodded.
“Do you speak English?”
She nodded again.
“I’m Donovan Longfellow. Can we talk for a minute?”
She nodded a third time. She looked like she wished she had a purse so she could clutch it. Jesus. What did they tell people about I and E? Or was it a race thing? I assure you, Ms. Hanson, I hardly ever eat white people. No, probably wouldn’t hit the right note.
Donovan closed the door and sat at the head of the table, Hanson on his immediate left. He said, “May I call you Peggy?”
She nodded a fourth time. Maybe she had a stutter.
“Thanks. Then call me Donovan.”
“Am I in trouble?” Her voice came out like a squeak.