by Colin Harvey
"It's fascinating to hear the detail of your cases, but is there a point to this?" Aurora flicked back her hair, gradually relaxing
"Natasha's DNA was identified as yours."
"WHAT? You. Are. Kidding. Me!" Aurora leaned forward. "How? Why?"
"That's what we want to know. Your lawyer knew you were alive, but wouldn't even tell us that we'd made a mistake. Why?"
"Oh, that's easy. It didn't want to bother me. It's hugely protective of my privacy." Her voice grew harder. "When you've had the shit beaten out of you a few times, or been treated like something from Ripley's Believe It Or Not, you learn to value privacy."
"I'm sorry about hurting you." The violence that Aurora had aroused in him had been someone else's anger, someone who wasn't him. "You shocked me. But that's no excuse."
She nodded, and her lips quivered so she pressed them together.
He realized that she'd been using her anger as fuel, and now he'd apologized, she was suddenly running on empty. And equally suddenly Shah wanted to hold her and tell her it was all right. He stamped on the feeling.
"You seem… different, somehow."
He was silent for a moment, then made his voice as gentle as possible. "Tell me about that night, Aurora. Someone hired you to sleep with me, didn't they?"
"I was hired get you back to my place and told to dope you if necessary to do it. I guessed it was to set you up for blackmail. They knew you have an anti-toxin injection at the start of every month, so knowing it's weaker at the end of the month they probably targeted you then."
More likely they intended to rip my memory, Shah thought. Maybe Marietetski would be OK if I'd gone home with her. He shook his head. There was no point thinking like that.
Aurora continued, "I tried several times to get you home, but you insisted on going to your place, so I went with you. I guess your anti-toxin was stronger than we thought – and if you had a strong sense of self – it allowed you to overcome the worst effects of the drug. But not enough to stop you beating the shit out of me." She stared at him, a trace of her former anger returning. "Unless you're just a Neanderthal creep who gets off on beating people up."
Shah wasn't going to allow her to distract him with guilt. "Who hired you, Aurora? Who paid you to take me back to your place? Who was waiting for me?"
Aurora shook her head.
Shah wasn't sure whether she didn't know, or was scared to tell him. He leaned forward. "There aren't many people who could tamper with ID files. That takes a lot of influence. You may be in more danger if you don't tell me than if you do."
XXXVI
"No," Aurora said. "I'm in no danger, as long as I keep my mouth shut. And if you were that worried about putting me in harm's way, maybe you shouldn't have come."
Shah sensed that arguing wouldn't work, so he said nothing. Instead he studied her long thin legs, knife-sharp cheekbones, long blonde hair. He wondered whether she had to take estrogen supplements to stay so feminine. Now wasn't the time to ask.
This time his silence worked. Aurora began to fidget. "Are we done now?"
Shah shook his head.
"I really didn't know they were going to frame you."
"I should believe you, why?"
"Because it's the truth."
"Just coincidence that you fled the day the girl's body was found and I was arrested?"
"I'd been beaten up! My face is my livelihood, and you disfigured me!"
"A young girl was beaten to death for no other reason than she looked a little like you. She knew she was going to die, Aurora. Her last moments on this earth were filled with terror."
"I don't know anything about it. You have to believe me!"
"Convince me."
Aurora licked her lips. "I knew that you liked me, the first time I met you. It was mutual. I've always been attracted to powerful, older men." She laughed, a thin nervous sound. "Call it fatherfigure attraction if you want a cheap diagnosis. It was hardly work at all, except that they gave me a phial with a drug in. It was easy slipping it into your drink when you weren't looking."
"What was supposed to happen when you got me back to your place?"
"The other girl and I were supposed to take it in turns being filmed with you, you know, Tasha would wear a strap-on for a while, then me. Make it look like you were a real perv. It seemed plausible enough, given your age and the way it was described." Aurora chewed her lip. "I never thought – dreamed that Tasha would get hurt." She stared at Shah with haunted eyes. "I had no idea they were planning anything but blackmail."
She seemed genuine, but Shah urged himself to be sceptical. "Why Boston?"
"Kotian told me one of his local supervisors had suddenly quit. He needed someone to manage the girls for a few days. Days turned into weeks. I was planning on going back, but time passes so quickly." She added, "After you knocked me around, I was relieved to get something temporary, where looks didn't matter. My confidence took a helluva battering."
Here comes the guilt trip. "Not as big a battering as Natalia Sirtisova took."
Aurora's jaw clenched, but she was quiet for a while. "You realize," she said, "that that was partly down to you. When the others saw what you'd done, everyone went crazy. They went crazy, shouting and yelling…"
"The yelling didn't kill her," Shah said. "It was hands around her throat. Whose?"
"I don't know," Aurora said. "There were about twenty people there at Sunny's loft apartment. Forry, Raison, Paulie, Adonis – all of Sunny's usual pack – were there, with some other guys, and girls for all of them. Millie – another of Sunny's girls – took me into a bathroom to clean me up. When she'd finished and we came out, they'd all gone."
"You were Kotian's girl? Or Sunny's?"
"Abhijit's companion," Aurora said, then spat, "Sunny's whore, occasionally."
"You're telling me," Shah crammed his voice with skepticism, "you knew nothing about a body pulled from the East River that was identified as Aurora Debonis – her face smashed beyond recognition, fingerprints removed?"
Aurora insisted, "I didn't see anything."
"If he's convicted of a felony, you'll be charged as an accomplice."
"Why? I'm his girl – I had nothing to do with killing her."
There was a long, long silence. Aurora shifted her position on the bed.
Shah cleared his throat, said, "If the plan was to get me back to your place, why didn't you leave me where I was when I insisted on going home? Why sleep with me if it wasn't going to work out? It's not as if I'm either young, or good-looking, or rich."
"You wouldn't believe me if I told you."
"Try me."
Aurora exhaled. "I liked you. I wanted you in me." She blinked. "Part of me still does. Though judging by your reaction the last time, I can't see that ever happening."
Shah didn't answer. He wondered what she would say if he told her that he'd trawled the net looking for his memories of what had happened, trying to understand that other Shah, who was so revolted by the reality of her. She'd probably use that knowledge. You been dancing round the fact that she's a companion; her affection's worth whatever you can afford.
"No." Aurora added, "I thought not."
"You ever wonder what it'd be like to be just average?"
Aurora leaned back on the bed. "You think I always looked like this? Half of it's surgery, Pete."
"You were a guy?"
Aurora shook her head. "No, I was always a girl with an extra surprise." She stared at him. "That's the problem, isn't it? You still can't get past that, though you're different." She shook her head. "I never thought I'd see you again, let alone here. What's changed?"
Shah couldn't tell her. For all he'd studied endless downloads he didn't know how to make a move. He'd lost his judgment of how to court a woman, and didn't want the humiliation of messing it up.
"Once I'd got past the 'I'm screwed' and realized that it wasn't you at all," he finally said, "all I could think of was why?" He stared at her. "Who sent you
up here? Sunny? Or Kotian Senior? Or was it always part of the plan?"
Aurora looked down at the bed. "Abhijit knew nothing about the date. Sunny set it up, said he'd heard you were a sucker for a pretty face. When I called Abhijit to tell him I'd been smacked around, he sent me to Boston. I told my other patrones I had a family emergency." She looked up. "Abhijit arranges to come as often as he can."
That explains his frequent disappearances out of town, Shah thought. It's to see her. "You're in love with him."
Aurora smiled, almost shyly. "Not quite. Though he can be very charming."
"What about Sunny?"
Aurora's face tightened. She glanced at her watch.
"You got to be somewhere?" Shah said.
"An eleven o'clock meeting." She caught his look, laughed. "It's not like that. I don't do two guys in one morning any more. I can afford to be picky. This is the girls I supervise."
"I'll drive you back."
"There's no need."
"I got no other reason to be here."
"You're kidding? You've driven two hundred and twenty miles to talk to me?"
"What else am I going to with all those days off?" Shah thought, Now we know where you are sweetie, this is only the first of many, many such conversations. Shah had heard it called "The Long Game". It seemed an apt description. His voice revealed none of his thoughts though. "I cleared it with my captain late on Saturday. I could hardly make it official, given that all I had to go on was a hunch, but he stumped up the calories if I took the time as leave."
Aurora's smile couldn't hide her bemusement. "Why not just send Boston PD?"
"You'd have talked to them like we just talked?" Shah smiled back. "Two old friends gossiping, no tapes, no lawyers?"
"Maybe not." Aurora gathered her things.
"Let me buy you lunch after your meeting," Shah blurted.
Aurora stared at him. "You are different. Not sure how, or why, but…"
Now would be the time to tell her, Shah thought. He just couldn't bring himself to do it. Not yet. He still didn't know quite how she'd take the news, whether she would try to use it. Unless Kotian's already told her. But somehow I imagine they have better things to do than talk about than a tired old cop who's just another little local problem.
They stopped at reception.
Aurora said to the desk clerk, "It's on the Kotian account."
"No it's not," Shah said, still smiling, but steel in his voice. There would be no accusations of bribery from the Kotians when he got them to trial. Maybe they'll be more accepting of out of state calories.
They were, fortunately.
Outside, the sun was shining, so Shah clipped his eyepiece to a pair of sunshades on another half-frame, making up a whole pair of sunglasses. He wondered whether Aurora had assumed that he had a second tape on him somewhere. Probably, he thought, as they strolled to the car in the sunshine. To an outsider we'd look like old friends, even lovers. "When's Kotian visiting next?"
"Friday," Aurora said. "But Sunny will be up tomorrow." She shivered.
Shah decided to exploit that momentary revelation. "You know he's out of control, don't you?" He added, "We know he killed that girl. We've lost count of the beatings he's handed out."
"Then why haven't you put him away?" Aurora said, though Shah sensed she was defending Sunny from duty, not because she wanted to.
"The complaints are always withdrawn later on." Shah added, "I'll leave you to work out why – you're not stupid."
Aurora didn't answer, but got into the car. "Just drive. Or I'll be late."
XXXVII
"I'm not sure we should celebrate Eid this year," you tell your mother. "It feels wrong, when thousands of families are mourning their dead. And it highlights that we're Muslims."
"But Pervez, we had nothing to do with what happened to those poor people!" Madaar cries. "And the neighbors know we're Muslims."
"Knowing it and rubbing their noses in it are two different things." You button your uniform shirt and reach for your shoulder holster. "Eid's a time of joy. There seems nothing joyful at the moment in watching them dig bodies out of Ground Zero." You've been spared that, but you've seen the devastation etched into the faces of the rescue teams. That has been bad enough. You're finding it hard to sleep, but it seems an insult to the memory of the victims to request counseling. What have you suffered, compared to the victims' families?
You can't really talk to your mother about it. She's cried enough for the victims already, even though she probably never knew any of them. But she knows those who knew them, and no one in New York or New Jersey is wholly untouched – the consequences of the bombers' actions have rippled outwards in the three months after the bombings, changing those they touch and bouncing into new directions.
"The grocer's assistant wouldn't serve me today," she'd complained the week after the bombing. She never knew that you went down there the next day after and reminded the grocer that you are perhaps more American than he, who emigrated from Vietnam thirty years before. "I was born here," you'd said, pointing to your badge. "If your assistant insults my mother, he insults me."
The next day you saw the assistant was gone. The way the owner glared at you told you that you only won that battle because you're a cop.
"We'll talk about this tonight," you say, wondering whether you can turn things around and how. Meanwhile you must become a cop first, a Muslim second, and face the wounded city once again. It's becoming easier with each passing day, as you see what's been done in the name of your religion.
XXXVIII
While Aurora was in her meeting, Shah sat in the car outside the apartment complex and called van Doorn.
"How's the weather up there?" The captain said.
"Better than what you got. I saw snow in Times Square on the newsfeeds."
"Mostly melted within an hour, but yeah, it caught everyone by surprise." Van Doorn said cautiously, "Find your friend?"
"Jackpot. She's not given much up, but I've got a couple of ideas. One thing made me think. You might want to discreetly check bank balances."
Van Doorn didn't immediately reply, digesting the implications. "You think they have someone inside, on the take?"
"She knew about timings of anti-tox shots," Shah said. "Admitted that they doped me at a specific time. But they underestimated the strength of the shots, so it's not someone with access to the dosages, which rules out the ME's office. Maybe HR. They'd know the timing."
"I'll look into it. I'll need to narrow it down as much as I can before involving IA." He added, "When you coming back?"
"Tomorrow. And I might bring a friend."
When Aurora returned, Shah greeted her with a peck on the cheek. "Lunch?"
"That would be nice." She didn't sound enthusiastic, but then he wasn't sure he'd be keen to dine with someone who'd knocked him around the room.
He reached out to touch her chin. She flinched, but held still while he examined her jaw. "It healed up well," he said.
"Better than I feared it would." She met his gaze. He sensed the effort it cost her.
"How the hell did you intend to blackmail – oh, your eyepiece. It would've recorded everything."
Aurora nodded. "I fitted an image intensifier to it. But even without it, your voice would've been incriminating enough."
"Who spoofed my fingerprints onto the scanner?"
"I used a gelatin mould."
Shah started the engine. "And I guess you took my eyepiece?"
She grunted. "If they could've spliced memories in, rather than only cut segments, you would have been in deep, deep trouble."
"I was in enough," he said, noting she said 'they' not 'we'. He pulled out into the main road. There was more traffic this morning, so he had to concentrate. He was still painfully aware of how erratic his driving was. "Why don't you come back to New York with me? It's a good way to avoid Sunny for a few days."
"Why should I?"
"Because you're scared of him."
> "Crap!" Aurora looked about to say more, but bit her lip. "Not many men repel me," she finally admitted. "I can't afford to be put off by one, however creepy, but there are certain kinds of guy who scare me." She added, "One got a little possessive before I came to Boston. It took him a while to track me, but he managed it eventually. I told him to shove off, which he really didn't like."