Bone Wires

by Michael Shean

  The Forensic folks were still going over all the gear they’d found in Askew’s massive workshop, though it seemed all pretty much driven toward his work – happily enough they hadn’t found any secret machines stuffed with embarrassing data. There were no signs of deviance that Gray could find other than his chemical bath and his apparent obsession with his work. Hell, even the man’s bedsheets came away clean of any sexual secretions. So by all signs, the man was a monk – he barely ate, didn’t fuck, and lived only to make art. Well, that didn’t sound entirely out of place for creative types, especially an artist of Askew’s apparent caliber. Better that than cutting off his ear like Van Gogh or his lips and eyelids like Matsumoto, he guessed. The memory of the old Japanese artist’s fleshless leer, the rheumy eyes that stared on into forever, shook him now as much as it had in college art classes. One of those two might well have invited what happened to Askew.

  But among the list of items that were catalogued by the Forensic team, a computer was not on the list – at least, nothing that had didn’t have a tasked purpose outside of holography. Data storage devices found on site were all of a specialized, high-fidelity crystal wafer type that was used specifically for the storage of high-resolution holographic data. Gray fired off a message to Forensics asking Megan if her boys had just forgotten to add something or if there truly had not been something missing. That would be very significant.

  The tax receipts were in as well, which pleased him to no end. Scanning Askew’s tax records for the last few years showed that he had a busy boy indeed – he’d cleared more money than Gray had seen since graduating college, something that annoyed Gray to no end, and it was all from the sale of a collection of pieces to a gallery on the New City side of the Lake Washington shoreline. A quick round of research showed the place, called the Donner Gallery, to be something of a bohemian workup on the waterfront, housed in a remodeled warehouse as those places tended to be. It was the first real lead of the case, and he was going to jump on that fucker straight away. And so, after polishing off his bagel and getting another dose of coffee to go, Gray piled into the Vectra and was off.

  The Donner Gallery turned out to be exactly what Gray had envisioned: a cavernous industrial space, skeletal beams bracing the slightly domed ceiling with simple walls of steel and white plastic forming the gallery’s actual ‘rooms’ in which the pieces were shown. Gray never understood why people couldn’t just, you know, get an actual building; but then again the real estate was fairly cheap, even in the New City, and people seemed to think it was exciting to go down to the waterfront. Given the state that Lake Union was in these days, however, he could imagine that it might seem something of an adventure. You didn’t stray to the Verge side for fear of catching something, like maybe a bullet.

  Gray arrived in his usual glacial manner, putting on the face of the company as he strode through the gallery’s heavy steel door. His hands were in his pockets, and he wore the mirrored ribbon of Barolo sunglasses over his blue eyes. The ceiling arched above, strung with lights that threw a harsh white glow down upon the partitioned ‘room’ that served as the gallery’s lobby. The concrete had been polished to a mirror sheen, and a large and elegant chrome ‘U’ served as the reception desk. The walls were mostly bare, save for the rear one. The arch which presumably led into the rest of the gallery was surrounded by a monstrous neo-deco holographic sculpture, a luminous thing of neon lines and supposed metals that had been polished to an unnatural sheen. Swimming beneath the surfaces of the thing were what appeared to be spectral faces.

  Behind the desk, a pretty Asian girl with a complex nest of black braids arranged in a fan-shaped ridge upon her head sat smiling at him as he entered. Her eyes were made up to look like she had a pair of raccoon bruises, and her lips were slightly beestung as if freshly struck – a strange mixture of styles, it made her look like performance art in her own right. Perhaps she was an exhibit of her own. She smiled at Gray as he approached.

  “Welcome to the Donner Gallery, sir,” she said, in a soft soprano voice that made Gray instantly think of satin pillows. “How may I help you?”

  “I’m here to see the owner of the gallery,” he replied. “Or the manager on hand.”

  She didn’t blink. “Are you an artist, client, or member of the press?”

  “Neither,” he replied, and produced his shield. “Detective Daniel Gray, Civil Protection.”

  “…Ah.” The receptionist didn’t necessarily deflate, but she did stiffen a bit. “Just a moment, please,” she said, and rose to vanish beneath the bizarre holographic maw into the gallery. Gray took the opportunity to get a better look at the holographic sculpture. It was strange, really, looking at the thing – the faces swam and shifted beneath the arch’s illusory surface, crisp and sharply defined. Eyeless and hairless, however, the features looked little more than masks. And yet, there was something familiar about them…

  Presently someone came through the archway, distracting Gray considerably from his examination. A man appeared, thin and tall, and dressed in a suit which Gray could not identify; its lines were simple and its fabric a plum color so dark as to be almost black. He wore a silk ascot above this secured with a simple golden pin. He had a shock of dark hair that hung over a pale, pointed face and very thin lips that curved up slightly at the corners, so that he appeared to be in a constant state of dry amusement.

  However, none of these features served as a distraction. It was his eyes which had shocked Gray so, or rather the lack of them. A pair of hemispheral lenses replaced them entirely. Tinted blue and well polished, the visual appliances were gilded heavily with gold around their edges, making them look like a kind of bizarre mask from a Victorian writer’s fevered mind. Behind the jewel-like lenses, Gray could make out the slightest signs of motion; it made their appearance all the more strange, as if something wriggled behind them that sought to get out.

  “Good morning, Detective,” said the man, whose hands laced together at chest level like a praying mantis. His voice was very soft, very gentle. “I am Alexis Donner. This gallery belongs to me.”

  Gray stared at him for a moment, his lips pursed. He was grateful that his eyes were hidden behind their mirrored shield, but less so that his reflection was being thrown back at him by those strange lenses. The vaguest sense of vertigo began to take up residence inside his head. “Good morning,” he finally said, and was pleased that he maintained his professional tone. “I’d like to speak with you concerning Martin Askew.”

  “Ah, Martin.” Donner’s lips curled a bit more into a semblance of a smile. Something deep inside of Gray, something small and vestigial and herd-related, quailed at the sight of it. “I hope that he hasn’t gotten himself into some sort of trouble.”

  “I’m afraid he has,” replied Gray, forcing himself not to stare at Donner’s horrible eyes. “I’m from Homicide Solutions, sir. Mr. Askew’s body was found last night at his home.”

  Donner’s brows lifted slightly at that, an expression of what would otherwise be great surprise muted heavily by the lenses. “That’s shocking,” he said, but tone didn’t change at all. “I suppose he was murdered? Or was he attempting to murder someone else?”

  Gray canted his head a bit. “Is this something which you might think possible?”

  “Of course,” Donner replied breezily. “The man was always talking about research – he’d been talking about doing a new work for the gallery concerning the forms of death. Well, of course I wouldn’t accept a work that might have been made from the blood of someone else, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t capable of taking his research…home with him.” That horrible smile spread slightly. “He wasn’t well, poor Martin.”

  You should have reported him if he wasn’t, you fucker, Gray thought darkly to himself. “So we are given to understand,” he said instead. “Do you have any reason to suspect he might have done this…research?”

  There was the softest sound from Donner’s lenses as whatever was inside moved a bit. Gray
was beginning to equate it with blinking. “There is always a danger, I suppose,” he said, “But no, I don’t believe so. He was still in the middle of creating the Prince of Order.”

  “The Prince of Order,” Gray repeated. “That’s his newest work?”

  Donner nodded. “Quite,” he replied. “It’s a reworking of Rodin, you see, a holographic depiction of Man as the primary agent of Order and Reason in the universe. A bit like the Thinker himself, only of course far superior.” You could almost hear the capital letters come out. Donner smiled a bit more widely, showing a slice of white beneath. Gray saw that all of Donner’s teeth seemed to be entirely alike, which disturbed him in a way he could not begin to explain.

  “I see,” he said, his brows arching very faintly. “Well. What else can you tell me about him?”

  The ghoul that was Donner turned and walked back under the arch, gesturing with one long hand for Gray to follow him. “Brilliant,” Donner began. “Oh, quite unquestionably brilliant – his work is as inventive and strange as it is high-resolution. He wrote most of the rendering software that he uses to create his work, you know. I imagine he could have made a great deal of money just doing that, but no, Martin preferred to create. Very admirable in these oversaturated, commercialist times. Wouldn’t you say, Detective?”

  “Ah, yes,” Gray said, frowning faintly. He walked with Donner into the next room, which was fairly large on its own; on the walls were all manner of strange holographic sculptures, many of which were knotworks of light that shuddered and played within themselves. A few others were gory things, structures made of ‘living’ flesh or glistening, animate intestine – the wet pink of the former was so realistic that Gray’s stomach lurched a bit. “It’s very good work,” he said, turning his eyes to bore through the back of Donner’s head. “Were they all, ah, made by Mr. Askew?” He wanted to try and get a purchase on his victim’s psychology. Nothing that he saw back at Askew’s workshop made him think that the man was capable of murdering someone.

  “Oh my, no!” Donner let out a titter, gesturing about. “This is a Thomas Murzen, and these by Miss Ingrid Santiago. These were all done by a New York artist by the name of Lindzer Yates.” Gray was dismayed to find that the horrible anatomical sculptures had been made by Yates. “Martin’s work is more…cerebral. You cannot know its horror until you know the man himself, do you see?” Donner turned to look at Gray, his lenses staring Gray straight in the eye – almost as if he could see through other man’s mirrored lenses, his flesh, straight into the brains which commanded it. Again that tiny herd-thing deep in Gray’s mind sought shelter from that horrible gaze, and again Gray pushed it back.

  “I suppose I would have had to know the man,” Gray said. “But I think I understand a bit better.” You always knew a man by the company he kept, and if Donner was any indication of Askew’s circle of friends no doubt he had been stone bugfuck. Gray wondered if Donner had any corpses in his closet, and vowed right then and there that he’d be digging into the man’s records to make sure. “What else can you tell me about him?”

  “Are you asking me if I would know anyone who would want to murder him?” Donner shrugged. “No, though I suppose if I were inclined I might wish to at this moment – his death means no small amount of inconvenience to me. I had a buyer arranged for Prince of Order, you see. But as it stands, all of his work goes to the gallery for sale should he expire so I rather win out in the end.”

  Gray looked at Donner for a long moment. Did he just put things so baldly as that? “One could say that you’ve just made yourself a suspect, Mr. Donner,” he said. “Considering what his work has sold for up to this point, that’s motive enough for many.”

  “Quite so.” Donner’s head bowed very faintly. “And very astutely put, Detective. But I have been in Paris for the last week attempting to procure a few more pieces, and if you’re visiting me now I assume that you’ve found his body no later than in the last few days.”

  “Indeed,” Gray replied, impassive now. “Might I ask, when was the last time you spoke with Mr. Askew?”

  Donner’s brows arched a bit more. “Don’t be silly,” he replied, sounding rather amused now. “I haven’t spoken with Martin outside of network mail in three weeks. If you’re looking for a suspect, Detective, I’m afraid that you’re going to have to look elsewhere.”

  They stood there a moment, Gray looking at Donner, his eyes hidden from the gallery owner’s own and yet not – silence stretched between them like an invisible tether, a tether which then broke as Gray finally spoke. “I will take my leave, then,” he said, giving the other man the very slightest of nods. “I may call again later.”

  “I will be here,” said Donner, who after nodding in return began to drift back into the bowels of the gallery. “I’m always here, after all, unless I’m not…” Gray was left alone with the sculptures, silent horrors and glittering lights, and after heaving a sigh made his exit.

  He used to like art. He was rather good at painting with oils. Once he even thought that he might have tried his hand at being an artist. Now he was very glad he was a detective. He only had to deal with mutants like Donner in the smallest of doses, Donner and his weirdly placid receptionist who he now would not be surprised to find was involved in whatever deviance he got on with behind the scenes. Gray got back into the Vectra thinking that he’d just survived something…and for that he was very grateful.

  A homicide investigation was like overturning stones, and every man beneath was a monster.

  “That’ll be six fifty, hon.”

  Gray handed the bills over with a faint frown. He stood at the counter of a sidewalk diner not far from the gallery called Beautiful Unit, having just made the purchase of a very strong cup of coffee. Beautiful Unit was the size of a train car and sandwiched between two gentrified warehouses turned into boutiques not far from where the Donner Gallery stood. The pale boy behind the counter had shoulder-length hair turned into a mad, wing-like hairstyle called ‘The Eagle’ that was in for the tricentennial. Gray had read about it in Polychrome, which was about the only men’s magazine he cared to read. Lots of good dressing tips in there, very professional. The boy gave him a shy smile when he handed Gray the cup, his eyes dancing with flirtation; Polychrome was also a gay men’s magazine, an oddity in this day of sexual integration, and he knew that there were certain fashions that were usually strictly ‘by boys, for boys’. Some of it he liked, like the silver caps on his lapels which were an artifact of the ‘Sterling Look’ that still had some traction in gay circles. He wore them anyway. This sort of thing probably explained his luck with women, but it looked damned good and there was something to be given up if you didn’t want to look like a savage.

  But right now, Gray had needed the coffee – he thought about Donner and those horrible eyes, and how he looked at Gray with the cold interest of an insect. He smiled briefly back at the counter boy and made his exit, walking outside of Beautiful Unit and sipping his coffee in the cold air. The last dregs of the morning were boiling off under the faint sunlight that penetrated the clouds above - ah, a good day, Gray thought, when we are reminded the sun isn’t just a memory or a nuclear fireball that gives you skin cancer.

  He also thought about the message that he’d gotten from Megan Cinders on his way over to get that coffee, which now stung his tongue as he took a long sip of it. There hadn’t been a computer in Askew’s apartment that had not been purpose-built for holography – no desk sets, no palm machines, not even a Minimail slug. His displays had been custom ordered to be without network connectivity. Askew even shuttled data around between his machines using data cylinders, which just blew Gray’s fucking mind. Megan’s opinion was that he intentionally kept himself a hermit, and just didn’t keep these sorts of machines around the house.

  This challenged Gray’s entire picture of reality. No wireless or network connectivity anywhere near his house. Askew obviously wasn’t a Luddite, so what the hell was this about? Who was he attempting to kee
p out, if anyone? He had to be trying to keep someone out, living as he was; surely nobody sane would attempt to isolate themselves that way. As Gray thought this, however, the image of the burns and that damned barrel of industrial cleaner rose to the surface in his mind. What connection was there between the two men? Both were from very different walks of life – one an artist, one a member of the police, neither with anything discernible in common. There were no racial or professional similarities, no common company. There was Angie’s tip about this Jimmy Black-Eyes, but that wasn’t likely going to have anything to do with the murder. Gray had decided, at least to himself, that if there was anything in Anderson’s case that could be related to organized crime it would be the explosive wad of cash in his pocket, not the smack he took to the back of the head. He knew that the company wanted to bury the details behind Anderson’s death, but Gray wasn’t sure that was going to be possible – not if another corpse or two showed up.

  And then there was Askew, with absolutely no apparent cause of death other than the blade that cut him open. How did he get down there? Was he sleeping? Passed out? Gray tried to imagine how it might have happened; two scenarios came to mind. One involved Askew’s killer sneaking into the apartment somehow – there were many windows, after all – and sticking him from behind. You didn’t need to do much with a hot blade to drop the body from shock, after all, and it was entirely possible that the initial wound could have been made in the back and then hidden amongst the rest of the damage. The other scenario involved someone that Askew knew somehow getting to him, most likely the same way.

  Gray sipped at his coffee and frowned at the street. A pair of men in heavy coveralls walked along the opposite sidewalk, carrying workboxes and chatting gravely in what sounded like Arabic. The boxy form of an ancient Honda Trio trundled past on ball tires, ‘The American Age’ leaking from its open window. Gray wrinkled his nose at that, imagining a giant Wilson Leung in his horrible suit, and took another sip. Why spines? It was trophy-collecting behavior, certainly, but what was the importance of that particular section of bone?