The Good Doctor's Tales Folio Nine

by Randall Farmer

  “Crow Guru Arpeggio, Crow Guru Hephaestus. I maintain several areas of operation, one of which is Albuquerque,” Keaton said, starting the meeting. The first zinger – I had no idea she maintained a secondary territory or base of operations in New Mexico. “The information I’m looking for is the name of the Crow who keeps an eye on me when I’m visiting Albuquerque, and how I can contact him, or his Guru,” Keaton said. “I also don’t know what I can offer him in trade, or, truthfully, what to offer any other Crows.” My boss had found you couldn’t pay off most Crows with cash. Gilgamesh, with his engineering fetish, was a spectacular exception to this general rule.

  “Ma’am,” Hephaestus said, after a nod from Arpeggio. “The trade possibilities depend on the Crow in question.” Hephaestus had meditated for a full day to prepare for this meeting, and he was still nearly out of his mind with panic. I had expected him to be able to handle this better than he handled the Midlothian fight, but he had corrected me: “Danger isn’t dangerous – new is dangerous.” New, as in ‘meeting an Arm none of the Crows trusted’. Sigh.

  However, Hephaestus was far less nervous than he had been when he first met me in person, several months ago in Houston’s Memorial Park. “Some, such as Sky, are going to be impossible to deal with because they have so few wants in life.”

  Keaton nodded. She had filled me in, a little, on her dealings with Sky, which she considered nearly worthless. The only thing she had been able to find that Sky wanted was an Arm to stand around as a target while he experimented with various attacks. Not at all helpful.

  “Most of the Crows willing to live in the same city as an Arm, and interact with an Arm, will find information useful, if the information is related to their interests. Money, protection, access to dross, or training are also possibilities.”

  “Okay. As an example, what are you interested in?” Keaton said. Keaton’s persona today was new to me, similar to the quiet statue, but noticeably less forceful. I suspected this was the persona she used when dealing with Focuses – or, at least, Focuses not named Biggioni or Rizzari.

  “Money and business contacts, in particular, businesses willing to deal with young Crows disguised as male Transforms,” Hephaestus said. He trained young Crows in how to deal with the outside world without making fools of themselves. I had become part of his training regimen, leading to occasional phone calls and meetings with Crows who simply wanted to check off the ‘can deal with an Arm’ check box.

  “Huh.” Keaton thought. “Do you know who the Albuquerque Crow who keeps tabs on me is?”

  “Yes, ma’am, I do.”

  Keaton didn’t answer, and waited Hephaestus out. This was one of my tricks for dealing with Crows, learned from my dealings with my most difficult Crow acquaintance, Occum. I had passed this on to Keaton, along with several other verbal strategies.

  “For this information, I’m interested in fulfilling a debt I owe to Guru Arpeggio,” Hephaestus said.

  Keaton turned to Arpeggio. “Let’s hear it, Guru.”

  “I’m interested in learning the method you used to mostly fix your glow, ma’am,” Arpeggio said. “When I metasensed you a year or so ago, you had a great deal of embedded dross in your juice structure, which gave you many Monster characteristics. In the interim, you have found a way to remove most of the contamination without the help of any Crows.” Arpeggio’s fierceness climbed as he spoke.

  Keaton thought for a few moments, and then nodded. “Agreed.”

  We had talked this over ahead of time, and decided that for the meeting to count as a valid test, the negotiations had to be real. No working out the information trade beforehand.

  “The Crow in question is named Hermes, who follows a Crow Guru named Zirkel,” Hephaestus said. He gave out several phone numbers and post office box numbers in Las Vegas, all belonging to Zirkel.

  “So,” Keaton said, “is this Crow named for the Greek god or for Hermes Trismegistos the alchemist?”

  Hephaestus almost ran, surprised by Keaton’s question. Instead, he fought himself out of his panic. “The latter.” It was too easy for the Crows to think of Keaton as a mindless Monster and forget she was quite intelligent and well-read in her own right. I certainly never did – my life and livelihood depended on knowing my boss inside and out.

  “So, who does Guru Zirkel follow?” Keaton said. “My bet is that you’re his boss, Guru Arpeggio.”

  Hephaestus froze. Arpeggio didn’t answer.

  “Come, now, Guru Hephaestus,” Keaton said, pressing. Another test. Any Crow able to deal with Keaton was going to have to be able to cope with this sort of intellectual pressure. “I need this information to keep me from falling into the clutches of Guru Shadow, who we suspect is working at your level. I’m going to have to reevaluate my strategy if he follows Guru Shadow.” Information trading, Keaton style, was not for the faint of heart.

  “I understand your worries, and I can answer this, Arm Keaton,” Arpeggio said. “Guru Zirkel follows me. However, ma’am, boss is not the right term, nor is the term ‘follow’. Guru to Guru relationships involve trading and debts, among other things.” I was impressed that Keaton had managed to stress Arpeggio enough for him to spit out a ‘ma’am’. I doubted we would be finding out anything about the ‘among other things’, though.

  After a moment, Keaton then went into the details of how she had burned off the embedded dross. Her technique was similar to what I had used to get the last of my own embedded dross out of me. However, she had meditated and concentrated on each of her known problems, burning the embedded dross off piece by localized piece, going through several kills in the process.

  “Hancock,” Keaton said, after she fulfilled her end of the bargain. “Here’s what I want from you. There’s a Council Focus in San Diego – Webb – who’s been dodging my attempts to contact her for months. I’m assigning you the task of making contact with her. Impress her. Figure out what in the hell the bitch is up to. Get the Crows to help you.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said. Another test of my alliance. It would be up to me to provide recompense to whatever Crows I involved. “When, ma’am?”

  “After the Rickenbach wedding.” After her comment, Keaton dismissed us. She was gone from my house within an hour, thankfully. I hoped she wouldn’t do this again – I didn’t like having to give ground to someone else in my own territory. On the other hand, it didn’t bother the tag, so I guessed it was just another way for a boss Arm to put her subordinates in their proper places. Crap.

  ---

  Both Hephaestus and Arpeggio relaxed after Keaton left, and to my surprise, they didn’t flee my presence. “So, do you think this Hermes Crow will be willing to deal with Keaton?” I said, as I fixed them both a largish dinner. I was beginning to get a sense for how Arpeggio’s mind worked. Similar to Gilgamesh, he was intensely curious, and, alas, he had taken my measure and found me only dangerous, not terrifying.

  I didn’t blame him. Keaton was terrifying.

  “I doubt it, at least to start with,” Arpeggio said. “He’s a rather standard Crow.”

  “I haven’t met any Crows who’re standard Crows, have I?”

  Both Hephaestus and Arpeggio nodded, confirming what Gilgamesh and Sky had told me, before. “Even the most standard of the Crows you’ve dealt with, Sinclair, is exceptional in his own way,” Hephaestus said. “He’s one of the Crows who’s most integrated into the normal world, and he’s mastered the difficulties of being an itinerant Crow, as well. Also, he’s gotten interested in Occum’s Nobles, and he’s going to be getting some training from Occum in how to be a Noble Master. I wouldn’t be surprised to find him setting up a Noble household within a year.”

  “We need better Crows.”

  Guru Arpeggio snorted. “What we need are less terrifying Major Transforms. The task your boss assigned you, establishing contact with Council Focus Webb, is going to be more difficult than you realize. Focus Webb is a strong-willed western Focus, of which there are many. She isn’t d
ark, but she is far more standoffish than the Focuses I know you to deal with, and to us Crows, she’s as terrifying as your Arm boss. Save for her own local clique of Focuses, she rarely dealt with any other Focuses until she got selected to be on the Focus Council.”

  That did say a lot. I nodded in thanks, and went back to frying my chicken.

  Tonya at the Reception [expanded]

  “Tell me what you see.”

  “Ma’am?” Delia said, confused by Tonya’s question. The reception had settled into the Dearborn Hyatt’s main ballroom, probably one of the few places big enough to hold them all. Tonya didn’t want to think about how much money this reception cost Gail’s father, but Gail said he could afford it. He stood over by where the band set up after the break, looking like he was about to burst the buttons of his suit with pride. Tonya had been teaching Delia about other Focuses and households all evening.

  “There,” Tonya said. Delia followed Tonya’s eyes.

  “That’s interesting,” Delia said. “Gail has female bodyguards.” The best man had bodyguard written all over him and watched over everything with an attitude of cold suspicion. It took a good eye to see that his wife, Gail’s maid of honor, had the bodyguard training as well.

  “I hear they got their initial training from Beth’s people, but that Wini made them take a month of training with her people, too, and Wendy leaned on them to follow Stacy’s suggestion and train up their able women as bodyguards,” Tonya said.

  Delia nodded thoughtfully. “So what do you think of Gail’s household, ma’am? I know you’ve been watching over her for the last nine months.”

  Tonya leaned back in her chair and sighed. “They’re a lot better than they were when I first contacted Gail. I would rate it about mid-level, promising for a Focus of Gail’s age.”

  “Not better than mid-level, for a Focus of her promise?” Delia said. Over at the bandstand, the band, some of Grace Johnson’s people, started to tune up. The room became even louder as everyone raised their voices over the band.

  “Gail’s taking her household down an entirely new path,” Tonya said. “Like Inferno, her household has tremendous potential, but also like Inferno, it’s going to take years to come together properly.”

  “So no bigger things for Gail and her household for now,” Delia said. “I hope they can afford the years.”

  “I hope so, too.” Tonya watched Gail thoughtfully, over by the punch bowl and so happy she bubbled. Bigger things, Tonya thought, and wondered what Delia meant. Gail had made a decent start, especially given her initial troubles, and she had a good heart to keep her honest. Her leadership style was ‘barely controlled chaos’, which meant weak central leadership and a lot of household power invested in her Transforms and normals. She read household authority on quite a few of Gail’s people, especially in Van, the best man, and Gail’s maid of honor.

  “The big test will come when Gail’s charisma fully comes in,” Tonya said, flickering her eyes over at Linda Cooley, trying to hide the fact she snorted down some expensive noxious drug as if it was play money. Tonya strongly suspected Linda used her potent yet motherly charisma to score herself ‘product samples’. “Quite a few Focuses fall by the wayside due to the temptations inherent in strong charisma. If she can handle her charisma, and her household matures, she’ll be Council quality.” The Council could use another strong competent Focus. Esther Weiczokowski, the Midwest region rep, wasn’t truly Council quality, in Tonya’s opinion.

  “Council quality?” Delia made a face. “What a hell of a thing to curse some young Focus with. Couldn’t you steer her toward something less destructive, like Focus Rizzari’s Cause?”

  “You think it might be better to let her grow into her power and not be forced into it out of necessity?” Tonya said. Delia nodded. “That might be for the best. If we can afford it.”

  Delia smiled. Tonya took another sip of punch and picked at the wedding cake on her plate. Over at the bandstand, the band, all Transforms, segued into ‘Octopus’s Garden’ at a volume that shook the rafters. Tonya appreciated the jazz they had started with, but the young folks wanted to dance. Gail’s father went charging up and the notes faded off as he hollered at them to play something more suitable for a first dance. Tonya smiled and shook her head. The band must be either new at weddings, or flustered by their audience.

  As Gail had walked up the aisle, she had caught Tonya’s eyes, and Tonya had read in them love. Why did this innocent young Focus think so much of her? Despite their phone conversations, some that had gotten harsh, despite the mind scrape in Keaton’s house, Gail still treated Tonya like royalty. As if she was some kind of saint. A miracle worker, a saver of lives. After so long as the Wicked Witch of the East, it was a decided jolt to have a young Focus think she was a saint rather than a demon. This would be a lot to live up to.

  Tonya wasn’t sure how close she was ready to be with Gail. She liked Gail well enough, but real friendship? So weak and yet so strong. So morally good. Far too far on the other side of a rather large generational divide. Gail’s little ordeal with Adkins and the mind scrape at Keaton’s was nothing compared to what the first Focuses would put Gail through if Gail tried to grab real power. What the first Focuses had put Polly and her through when they became Council members together was beyond rough.

  Even after freeing herself from the Patterson tag, Tonya still wasn’t sure if what she and Polly had suffered through to get onto the Council had been real, or whether it had been some sort of obscure juice-powered illusion. Tonya had lost three bodyguards out of the ordeal, men who felt what had happened to her through the juice link. After the ordeal, they were no longer steady enough to be bodyguards; the first Focuses had kept her bodyguards within range on purpose, to torment them. The ordeal had left her with nightmares for months, and drove a wedge between her and Polly that still had not fully disappeared, even after all these years.

  Gail still thought the Adkins episode had been wrong. Tonya had the urge to shake Gail, and scream in her face that she had no right to complain about what she had gone through. Doing so wouldn’t have been right, though. Experience did matter, and Gail would get all the experiences she could ever want over the years if she decided to play with the big girls.

  “Ma’am,” a man said, coming up to them. One of Focus Katie Anderson’s Transforms. Tonya and her people still sat where they had eaten dinner, a large round table they had shared with Judith Stell and her people. “My Focus, Katie, isn’t feeling so well. Too much stress from too many Focuses here at the reception. She would like to postpone the meeting until tomorrow.” The man eyed her with distaste, the same way you might boggle at some demon from the bowels of hell.

  The meeting was a piece of business both she and Polly were arranging, attempting to figure out how Katie’s household had started making a profit for the first time ever. Polly suspected something foul was going on. They planned to sweet talk the information out of Katie with their combined charisma.

  “I understand,” Tonya said. “Would eight tomorrow morning be fine?” Her household would have to postpone its trip back to Philly for an hour or two, annoying but not impossible. “I’ll tell Focus Keistermann.”

  The man nodded, and backed away as swiftly as courtesy permitted. She wondered which of her many contretemps the man knew her by. Most likely the Wicked Witch of the East, breaker of recalcitrant Transforms. Of course, there was always the Arm Flap. Or possibly the little scene in Houston regarding a gift surplus Transform that bombed onto the national media during her set-to with Hancock. Hopefully, he wouldn’t remember back when she had found her face on Time Magazine in ’63 for her Monster hunting prowess, or remember the rumors of her role in the subduing of the renegade Focus Martine DeYoung and DeYoung’s people in ’64, in the middle of her not-at-all-public befriending of Stacy Keaton.

  Too much business. “Look at Wendy’s people,” Tonya said to Delia, pointing. Several of them were off in the corner, getting serious at the bar.
>
  “What about them?” Delia said. In a while, Tonya would get up and mingle, but right now she wanted to continue people-watching.

  “You can get a feel for the household by watching the people,” Tonya said. “For instance, Wendy’s household. They’re new, their Focus has gone the dictator route, and they’re working with an Arm, so they’re all jumpy and walking wounded, and downing large quantities of alcohol. As with Focus Rickenbach’s household, about a third of her women Transforms are bodyguard trained.”

  Delia nodded. “All right.” She paused. “That’s a bit obvious, now that I think about it.” Tonya’s lessons were intended to train Delia’s Transform-enhanced senses to picking up more subtleties.

  “Okay. Compare them to Grace Johnson’s people. See how Grace’s people watch everything around them. The household seems to be functional now, although not exceptional, but something awful happened in the past there, and they still haven’t recovered.”

  Delia frowned. “All right, there’s something different about her household, but I don’t know if I could have put my finger on the difference.”

  “Look at Wini Adkins household, then. Can you see it?”

  Delia nodded. “You can always pick them out, even in a room full of other people. They have edges so sharp they cut you.”

  “So for the opposite, compare them to Beth Hargrove’s people.”

  Delia frowned. “Hargrove’s crew seems happy.”

  “Yes, happy, and well-adjusted and decent. They have no edge at all. Even her bodyguards are friendly.”

  Delia grinned. “What, you don’t think Danny and Pete make everyone think of warm puppies and Teddy Bears?”

  “Hey,” Pete growled from beside her, but he never stopped his ceaseless watching.

  “Bodyguards shouldn’t be friendly,” Tonya said. “Even Gail’s bodyguards are tougher, even the groom.”