“I know what I said,” said Vera. “That’s how TV usually works. But not all the time. And not when I’m televiewing you. When I picture someone else, I get jumbled, distorted images. But when I’m tuned into you, things clear up. Most of the time, anyway. It’s pretty cool. You seem to improve my reception. I’ve no idea why it works that way, but it does.”
“But the idea that Tonto is just some kind of —”
“Look, Ian,” said Vera. “Are you here to fight with me about TV, or are you here to find out about your wife?”
“Sorry,” said Ian, who knew a good point when he met one. Questions about Tonto’s purpose, the reliability of precognition, and the ins and outs of television could be tabled until he’d found his wife. The whole point of meeting with Vera was to stoke the feeble hope that he’d see Penelope again.
There was hope. There really was. A voice in his head said so. And Vera had proved that her TV worked. Sometimes, anyway. She had known about Penelope before anyone had mentioned her. She’d known that Ian, Rhinnick, Zeus, Tonto, and Nappy would come to see her. She’d even laid out clothes for them in advance — clothes that fit. She may have been sketchy on some details, but she was the best chance Ian had. She had seen Ian finding Penelope sometime in the future. Maybe Vera could point the way.
“You’re right,” he said, his heartbeat quickening as he prepared to ask the question.
“So where do I find her?”
The answer was something of a surprise.
* * *
46Which was, ironically, not very civil at all.
Chapter 27
“Whaddya think they’ll do?” said Under-Constable Pendergast, midway through his second week as a member of the Detroit Police Department (Central Division). He had the slightly nervous, bug-eyed look of a cat whose veterinarian had failed to warm up the thermometer.
“Dunno,” said Sergeant Brick, who had, over the course of his long career, taken more than a little heat for being softer and rounder than his name suggested. And because coppers are cut from the same cloth in every universe, he’d been given the subtly clever nickname “Thickaza” during his first day on the job.
“Surrender, I suppose,” said Sergeant Brick. “We outnumber ’em three to one.”
Brick and Pendergast were leaning on a blue and white cruiser that was parked on a pot-holed street in a slightly shabby, heavily fire-escaped and clotheslined district of Central Detroit. They weren’t alone. The street was populated by a handful of police cruisers, a pair of paddy wagons, and a dozen or so assorted specimens of the Men and Women in Blue, who were milling about the street in the shuffling, aimless way of people waiting for someone else to make a decision. Preferably someone paid enough to make the type of decision that’s associated with phrases like “Review Board,” “Official Sanctions,” and “Journalistic Exposé.”
They were stationed around the corner from Vera’s shop — a shop they’d recently started calling Ground Zero. They’d be descending on it shortly.
“I don’t know,” said Pendergast, eyes still bulging. “They’re mental patients, Sarge. Crazy ones. One of them thinks that he’s a dog. Bit the thumb right off a guard when he was escaping.”
“I’ve been in dozens of these hostage situations,” said Sergeant Brick, who hadn’t. He had been involved in exactly two. Sixty-four and eighty-two years ago, respectively. But he had long ago adopted the inflationary approach to past experience that is common to all sergeants, fisherman, grandparents, and veterans you meet in pubs.
“They generally go the same way,” he said, puffing out his chest. “We get the place surrounded, see, then we call out over the loudspeaker, tellin’ ’em that we got ’em nicked. They yell out a bit and make demands. We yell back, they yell back, and they either surrender or they don’t.”
“What if they don’t?” said Pendergast, even more googly-eyed than he’d been before.
“Well, then we either chuck in a bomb or barge in with machine guns, grenades, and rocket launchers. Shoot everybody inside. Bag up all the body parts and sort your hostage bits from your suspect bits back at the station.”
Immortality has a way of simplifying police procedures.
“That’s the trickiest bit,” said Brick, thoughtfully. “Sortin’ out the body parts, I mean. Bit of a ‘red mist’ situation, your average hostage-taking. But we leave the messy bits for the medic. Easiest thing in the world, hostage recovery. You’ll be home in time for supper.”
“But they’re mental patients, Sarge,” protested Under-Constable Pendergast. “They’re unpredictable. They might do something — I don’t know — something mental. Something Inspector Doctor won’t expect.”
“Ah, but you’re forgettin’ who you’re talking about, laddie,” said the Sergeant. “It’s the Inspector who figured out where this lot was headed after they buggered off from the hospice. Solid bit of detectiving, that. Figured it out himself. He understands this type, he does. Built his whole career investigatin’ loonies, understand. And I heard that he’s been investigatin’ the head honcho of this gang for weeks.”
“What, Ian Brown?”
“Yup. Dangerous feller, they been sayin’. Inspector’s been on his case for a while. Probably why the big poobahs have put ’im in charge. Anyway, he’s the right man for the job. You’ll be fine.”
“If you say so, Sarge,” said Pendergast, doubtfully.
“Just you wait and see, lad,” said Sergeant Brick, slapping Pendergast companionably on the back. “Once the Inspector gets here it’ll be weapons free, go in hot, take ’em out, bag ’em up, and haul ’em back to the station. Nothin’ to worry about at all. He’s a good man, Inspector Doctor is.”
This final sentiment was true. Inspector Doctor was a good man. He was a fine policeman and an excellent detective. He was a peaceful, kindly, rumpled, frayed-at-the-edges, old-school sleuth who’d rather fight crime through plodding, careful deduction than by charging onto the scene with guns blazing. He’d never been in a shootout. He hadn’t drawn a weapon in twenty years.
And he’d never, in all his decades on the force, had occasion to file a report that featured phrases like “mass casualties,” “hail of bullets,” or “grievous wounds.”
It was a shame that all of this was about to change.
Chapter 28
“What do you mean you still don’t know?” whined Ian, whining whinily.
He and Vera were standing in the windowless workshop, facing each other across a heap of ailing appliances. Neither one of them looked happy.
“I mean I don’t know,” said Vera.
“But what do you mean you don’t —”
“Perhaps I can be of assistance,” said Rhinnick, bounding into the room. He was wearing a smoking jacket, flannel trousers, and carpet slippers. He looked like a well-to-do salmon hi-hoing into a sitting room for brandy and cigars.
“Madame Vera,” he said, formally, “I gather from your recent ejaculation that there’s something you don’t know. And from Ian, I gather that he fails to understand. From his perspective, something you’ve said has failed to penetrate. Slipped past him, as it were. This often happens in conversations where the Party of the First Part is a twisting, not-to-be-trusted, gibberish-speaking medium, and the Party of the Second Part is a slack-jawed, thick-skulled, rustic, salt-of-the-earth chap who lacks cosmopolitan sophistication and what have you.”
He slapped Ian on the back and grinned amiably.
“What the parties need,” Rhinnick continued, “is a broad-minded man of unimpeachable intellect and erudition, if erudition means what I think it does, to bridge the chasm or gulf, as it were, that has put a halt to the proceedings. Allow me to be this bridge. Merely explain the posish to me, Ms. Lantz, and I shall interpret for the benefit of our flummoxed Brown.”
Ian and Vera pulled off a gold-medal performance in the little-known event
of synchronized blinking.
“So tell me, Ms. Lantz,” Rhinnick added, flicking a nonchalant speck of dust from his sleeve, “what do you mean by ‘I don’t know’?”
“I mean I don’t know,” said Vera, flatly.
“Ah,” said Rhinnick, turning to Ian. “There you have it. She doesn’t know. Now has anyone, prescient or otherwise, conceived of a plan for dinner?”
“We were talking about Penelope,” said Ian. “Vera says her TV has shown me finding Penny somewhere in Detroit. Sometime in the future. But she can’t tell me where or when.”
“Ah. This is the thing she doesn’t know?” said Rhinnick.
“Yes,” said Ian.
“Too bad,” said Rhinnick.
“But I do know you’ll find her,” said Vera, looking abashed. “I really have seen it. That’s something, at least, right? And I know it’ll be in Detroit — somewhere near water, underground. But that’s all I see.”
“I thought you said I helped your reception,” said Ian, bitterly.
“You do,” said Vera. “I can’t explain it. It’s — it’s like I’m being blocked.”
Ian made the downcast, disappointed face you’d make if handed a pre-licked popsicle. The look wasn’t lost on Vera. She crossed her arms and frowned.
“Oh, and I suppose your powers always work perfectly,” she said, suddenly riled.
“What powers?” said Ian.
“Your powers. Things you can do. Walking, talking, moving things around with your hands. Turning sensory inputs into memory. Turning water into urine. Turning food into shi—”
“Get to the point,” said Ian.
“They don’t always work, do they? You forget things. You trip. Your plumbing gets backed up. You don’t expect your own powers to work all the time. Stop harassing me about mine. It’s getting old. I’m doing my best.”
“She has a point, old horse,” said Rhinnick.
Ian made a face that was equal parts confusion and frustration, garnished with a pinch of shame. He had a vague, guilty sense that he was being hard on Vera — she had no particular reason to help him, after all, and yet she appeared to be trying. But where the thought of reuniting with Penelope had once been a faint, intangible hope, now it was something more. Something real. Something concrete. It now carried the frustrating, impotent sense of being separated from Penny by a thin but unbreakable pane of glass. She was within arm’s length, but totally out of reach. It was like speaking to your best friend over the telephone and hearing him get mugged.
Penny would have known what to do, thought Ian. She’d have known the questions to ask. She’d know how to prompt Vera to see more, to find details that would help her zero in on the whens and wheres and hows.
It was at this precise moment that Ian turned toward Rhinnick and asked a question that he didn’t intend to ask. It hadn’t been on his mind at all. It just popped out, completely unbidden, as though Ian were the unpaid, hollow-bottomed half of a ventriloquist’s nightclub act.
“How’s Tonto doing?” he asked.
“Sleeping comfortably,” said Rhinnick. “She still hasn’t woken up, but has cheesed the stirring and moaning. She appears to be doing fine but for the persistent Rip-Van-Winkling. Nappy expects her to wake shortly, not that I suppose Nappy’s any expert on the subject of comatose guides. Come to that, she is the very reason I’ve re-entered your society.”
“Who, Nappy?” said Ian.
“The very pipsqueak in question,” said Rhinnick. “I don’t mind telling you, Brown, but while I was upstairs doing the Author’s will and composing a few mots justes about our recent comings and goings, I became conscious of a certain amount of non-platonic fraternizing between the upstairs members of our party, viz, the aforementioned Nappy and young Zeus. If I’m any judge of things — and I daresay I am — there was oompus boompus afoot. Woo was being pitched about the joint in no small measure. Dashed syrupy, sappy stuff. Instead of ministering to recumbent guides — who, I’ll grant you, didn’t seem to be benefitting from the ministrations we did provide — this Nappy set her laser-sights directly on my loyal gendarme and went to bat with the solicitous words and gestures. Here the melting eye, there the cooing whisper. And Zeus returned the soft murmurs with an approving, wagging tail. Dashed inappropriate, what? Well, you’ll no doubt understand that remaining in statu quo was not an option for yours truly. I fled the scene, this woo-pitching being more than a man of spirit could stick at any price. Thus it was that I came downstairs to rub elbows with you.”
“Quiet,” said Vera, checking Rhinnick and Ian with a gesture. She slipped into her standard television routine, crinkling her brow and staring into the distance. “I’m getting something,” she whispered.
She cocked her head to one side and scowled in the mildly perturbed manner of one who can hear her neighbours arguing through the wall but can’t pick up anything juicy. This carried on for ten or twelve heartbeats, until her expression softened. She directed her gaze at Ian.
“I know when you’re going to find her,” she said.
“When?” gasped Ian.
“You find her when you learn The Rules.”
“What do you mean, learn the rules?”
“The Rules,” said Vera, working her mouth around the capital letters. “The big ones. The Rules that make Detroit tick. You’re going to figure out why everything happens the way it happens. You’re going to solve the mysteries — all of the questions about the beforelife, about mindwipes — everything. You’re going to figure it all out.”
Picture a face that expresses comprehension, confidence, acceptance, and tranquility. The sort of face you might see on a Zen master as he contemplates a butterfly on a mountaintop while listening to the sound of one hand clapping. That’s the opposite of the face that Ian made now.
Vera’s eyes rolled back in her head. She started swaying like a hippie who feels the groove, waving both hands breezily overhead. She then intoned a bit of prophecy in a pitch that fell between sepulchral and eldritch. It ran as follows:
And One shall come — One who sees the past, and marks it for His own. And His fellowship shall flee the Halls of Madness, scouring the world for the One who is Lost. He shall be accounted a Man of Rules. And when He perceives the Hidden Rules, when He learns the Truth of all, only then shall He rejoin the One He seeks.
She gave her head a shake, blinked several times, and returned to position one.
“Wow,” said Ian, impressed.
“Golly,” said Rhinnick.
“Wh-where’d that come from?” said Ian, trembling slightly.
“From me!” said Vera, brightly. “I made it up just now. One of my better ones, I think. People like their predictions wrapped up in a bit of drama. Makes them feel more important. Anyhow, you get the gist. You have to learn The Rules and find Penelope. Did you like it?”
“You just made that up?” said Ian, throwing his hands up in frustration. “I thought you saw something, I thought you —”
“I did see something,” said Vera. “Something important. I’m just not sure what it means. But I’m sure that it has everything to do with you finding Penelope. You’ll learn The Rules of everything, and then you’ll know exactly where she is. Or maybe the other way around — you’ll find out where she is and then you’ll learn The Rules. One or the other, I’m sure of it. But —”
The rest of the sentence was cut off by a booming, mechanically amplified voice that shook several flakes of plaster from the workshop’s walls and ceiling. It was coming from outside.
“COME OUT WITH YOUR HANDS UP!” it boomed, before making the ear-splitting, mechanical screeching sound that often accompanies such pronouncements.
“WE HAVE THE SHOP SURROUNDED. RELEASE YOUR HOSTAGE AND COME QUIETLY OR WE’LL TAKE YOU IN BY FORCE. YOU HAVE THREE MINUTES.”
Squeak, squawk.
Ian, who’d
had plenty of recent practice making panicked faces, made one now.
Rhinnick gaped in uncharacteristic, bug-eyed silence.
Vera merely scrunched her mouth to one side and looked puzzled.
“That’s weird,” she said, calmly.
“Weird?” said Ian, doing the little Urgent Dance one would normally do after combining too much beer with not enough bathroom. “What do you mean it’s weird?”
“I didn’t see this coming,” said Vera, thoughtfully. “You’d think I would. I mean —”
What she meant would never be known, because her sentence was drowned out by the sound of thundering feet from overhead, the loud crash of a shattering window, and a prolonged series of shouts, screams, and eardrum-wobbling bursts of gunfire from the street outside the shop. These were punctuated by shrieks of pain, thuds, crashes, bangs, and small explosions.
Something heavy slammed against the side of the shop, leaving a dent in the workshop wall. It was police cruiser–shaped. Plaster rained on the workbench and on Vera’s work-in-progress. It would have rained on Ian, Rhinnick, and Vera, too, but for the fact that, during the first, frantic moments of whatever the hell was happening outside, all three had dived for cover under the bench. Each of them was now struggling to get underneath the other two for added protection.
More gunfire. More shouting. Bullets shredded the wall and pinged around the workshop, one of them whizzing past Rhinnick’s ear before embedding itself in a toaster.
Another muffled explosion — this one outside the shop’s back door.
And suddenly silence.
A thousand years later — or so it seemed from the perspective of anyone who happened to be huddled under a workbench at the time — the silence was interrupted by the jangling of the bell hanging over the shop’s rear entrance.
The door creaked open.
Tonto entered.
She was wearing a man’s tuxedo shirt and a pair of purple shorts. Her hair was severely tousled, and she glistened with a faint patina of sweat. She might have been an advert for an eau de cologne but for the armful of high-calibre weapons she was clutching against her chest while using her free hand to remove taser prongs from her abdomen, neck, and thighs.
Beforelife Page 31