The Family Trade

by Stross, Charles

  “That was another, in the office?” asked Brill.

  “Yes.” Miriam shrugged. “I figure the idea was to kill anyone who comes sniffing. But the only people who know what’s in there are me and whoever…whoever murdered the night watchman.”

  “What about Roland?”

  “Oh, yes. I told Roland. And he could have told—” for a moment Miriam looked wistful. “Damn, this means I can’t trust anyone who works for Angbard, can I?” She glanced obliquely at Brill.

  “I don’t work for Angbard,” Brill said slowly. “I work for you.”

  “Well, that’s nice to know.” Miriam gave her a lopsided grin. “I hope it doesn’t get you into trouble. Worse trouble,” she corrected.

  “What are we going to do?” asked Brill, frowning as only a twenty-something confronted by fate can frown.

  “Hmm. Well, I’m going to open this door.” Miriam gestured. “Somehow or other. Then…there’s a lot you don’t know, isn’t there? The door opens on an alley in a place called New York. It’s a big city and it’s after dark. I’m going to call a car service, and you’re going to do what I do—get in after me, ride with me to where we’re going, wait while I pay the driver, and go inside. I’ll do all the talking. You should concentrate on taking in whatever you can without looking like a yokel. Once we’re in private, you can talk all you want. All right? Think you can do that?”

  Brill nodded seriously. “It’ll be for me like when you first arrived? On the other side?” she asked.

  “Good analogy.” Miriam nodded. “No, it’ll be worse, much worse.” She grinned again. “I had an introduction; the whole world didn’t all get thrown at me all at once. Just try not to get yourself killed crossing the road, okay?” Then she glanced around. “Look, over there below the mezzanine, see those crates? I want you to go and sit down on the other side of them. Shield your head with your arms, yes, like they’re about to fall on you. And keep your mouth open. I’m going to try and get this door open without blowing us to pieces. I figure it should be possible because they were expecting people to come in from outside, not to materialize right inside the warehouse.”

  “We’re already supposed to be dead, aren’t we?”

  Miriam nodded. “Go,” she said.

  Brill headed off toward the stack of tea chests. Miriam bent down and followed the near-invisible wire off to one side. I really don’t like the look of this, she thought, her heart hammering at her ribs. She glanced up at the green casing, ominous as a hornet’s nest suspended overhead. “Let’s see,” she mumbled. “The door opens inward, pulls on the wire…or the warehouse door opens inward, also pulls on the wire. But if it’s spring-loaded, releasing it could also set the fucking thing off. Hmm.”

  She examined the wire as it ran around a rusting nail pounded into the wall beside the door. “Right.” She stood up and walked back across to the trailer with its own booby trap and its cargo of death. Climbing the steps, she paused for a moment, took a deep breath, and stepped over the wire.

  Nothing happened. I’m still here, she told herself. She took another deep breath, this time to avoid having to breathe in too close to the thing sprawled across the fallen office chair at the far side of the office. She’d called Roland, told him to send cleaners—instead, these booby traps had materialized. When the Clan wants you dead, you die, she realized bleakly. If indeed it is the Clan…

  There, on a rusting tool chest propped against the other wall, was exactly what she was looking for. She picked up the heavy-duty staple gun and checked that it was loaded. “Yup.” She hefted it one-handed, then mustered up a smile and picked up a pair of rusty pliers and stepped back out of the trailer.

  Two minutes later, she had the door open. The wire, firmly stapled to the door frame, was severed: The mine was still armed, but the trigger wire led nowhere. “Come on,” she called to Brilliana. “It’s safe now! We can leave!” Brill hurried over. As she did so, Miriam glanced up and shuddered once more. What if they’d heard of infrared motion detectors?

  Well, that was the Clan all over.

  It was snowing lightly, and Miriam phoned for a taxi when they reached the main road. Brill kept quiet, but her eyes grew wide when she saw Miriam talking into a small gray box—and wider still as she took in the cars that rumbled past in the gloom. She glanced from side to side like a caged cat in a strange, threatening environment. “I didn’t know it would be like this!” she whispered to Miriam. Then she shivered. “It’s really cold.”

  “It’s winter, kid. Get used to it.” Miriam grinned, slightly manic from her success with the bomb.

  “It’s colder on the other side, isn’t it?”

  A cab pulled alongside, its light turned off. Miriam walked over. “Cab for Beckstein?” she asked. The driver nodded. She held open the rear door. “Get in and slide across,” she told Brill. Then she gave directions and got inside, shutting the door.

  The cab moved off. Brill looked around in fascination, then reached down toward her ankles. “It’s heated!” she said quietly.

  “Of course it’s heated,” said the driver in a Pakistani accent. “You think I let my passengers freeze to death before they pay me?”

  “Excuse my friend,” Miriam told him, casting a warning glance at Brill. “She’s from Russia. Just arrived.”

  “Oh,” said the driver, as if that explained everything. “Yes, very good, that.”

  Brill kept her eyes wide but her mouth closed the rest of the way to the Marriott Marquis, but watched carefully as Miriam paid off the cabbie using pieces of green paper she pulled from a billfold. “Come on, follow me,” said Miriam.

  Miriam felt Brill tense as the glass doors opened automatically ahead of them, but she kept up with her as she headed for the express elevator. “One moment,” Miriam muttered to her, pushing the button. “This is an elevator. It’s a room, suspended on wires, in a vertical shaft. We use it instead of the stairs.”

  “Why?” Brill looked puzzled.

  “Have you ever tried to climb forty flights of stairs?” Miriam shut up as another elevator arrived, disgorging a couple of septuagenarians. Then the express doors opened, and she waved Brill inside. “This is easier,” she said, hitting the second from top button. The younger woman lurched against the wall as the elevator began to rise. “We’ll be there in no time.”

  The glass-walled elevator car began to track up the outer wall of the tower. “That’s—oh my!” Brill leaned back against the far wall from the window. “I’d rather walk, I think,” she said shakily.

  A thought struck Miriam at the top. “We’d better be careful going in,” she commented before the doors opened. “I want you to wait behind me.”

  “Why?” Brill followed her out of the lift into an empty landing. She looked slightly green, and Miriam realized she hadn’t said anything on the way up.

  “Because,” Miriam frowned, “we’re safe from the other side, here. But Roland knows which room I’m using.” He won’t have told anybody, she reasoned. Even if he has, they can’t have booby-trapped it from the inside, like the warehouse. Not on the twenty-second floor. I hope.

  “All right.” Brill swallowed. “Which way?” she asked, looking bewildered.

  “Follow me.” Miriam pushed through the fire doors, strolled along a hotel corridor, trying to imagine what it might look like to someone who’d never seen a hotel—or an elevator—before. “Wait here.”

  She swiped her card-key through the lock, then stood aside, right hand thrust in her jacket pocket as she pushed the door open to reveal an empty suite, freshly prepared beds, an open bathroom door. “Quick.” She waved Brill inside then followed her, shut and locked the door, and sagged against it in relief.

  “Oh shit, oh shit…” Her hands felt cold and shook until she clasped them together. Delayed shock, the analytical observer in her brain commented. Tonight you killed an assassin in self-defense, defused a bomb, discovered a murder and a conspiracy, and rescued Brill and Olga. Isn’t it about time you col
lapsed in a gibbering heap?

  “Where is—” Brilliana was looking around, eyes narrowed. “It’s so small! But it’s hot. The fireplace—”

  “You don’t have fireplaces in tall buildings,” Miriam said automatically. “We’re twenty-two floors up. We’ve got air-conditioning—that box, under the curtains, it warms the air, keeps it at a comfortable temperature all year around.” She rubbed her forehead: The pounding headache was threatening to make a comeback. “Have a seat.”

  Brill picked a chair in front of the television set. “What now?” she asked, yawning.

  Miriam glanced at the bedside clock: It was about one o’-clock in the morning. “It’s late,” said Miriam. “Tonight we sleep. In the morning I’m going to take you on a journey to another city, to meet someone I trust. A friend. Then—” she instinctively fingered the pocket with the two lockets in it, her own and the one she’d taken from the assassin—“we’ll work out what to do next.”

  They spent a nervous night in the anonymous hotel room, high above any threat from world-walking pursuers. In the morning Miriam pointed Brill at the shower—she had to explain the controls—while she called room service, then went to check the wardrobe.

  A big anonymous-looking suitcase nearly filled the luggage niche, right where she’d left it. While breakfast was on its way up, Miriam opened it and pulled out some fresh clothing. Have to take time to buy some more, she thought, looking at what was left. Most of the suitcase was occupied by items that wouldn’t exactly render her inconspicuous on this side. Later, she resolved. Her wallet itched, reproaching her. Inside it was the platinum card Duke Angbard had sent her. Two million dollars of other people’s blood money. Either it was her “Get Out of Jail Free” card, or a death trap, depending on whether whoever had sent the first bunch of assassins—her enemy within the Clan, rather than without—was able to follow its transactions. Probably they wouldn’t be able to, at least not fast enough to catch up with her if she kept moving. If they were, Miriam wasn’t the only family member who was at risk. It’s probably safe as long as it keeps working and I keep moving, she reasoned. If somebody puts a stop on it, I’m in trouble. And better not go buying any air tickets. Not that she was planning on doing that—the idea of introducing airline passenger etiquette to Brill left her shaking her head.

  There was a discreet knock at the door. Miriam picked up her pistol and, hiding it in her pocket, approached. The peephole showed her a bored bellhop pushing a trolley. She opened the door. “Thanks,” she said, passing him a tip. “We’ll keep the trolley.”

  Back inside the suite, Brill emerged from the bathroom looking pink and freshly scrubbed—and somewhat confused. “Where does all the water come from?” she asked, almost complaining. “It never stopped!”

  “Welcome to New York, baby,” Miriam drawled, lifting the cover off a plate laden with a full-cooked breakfast. “Land of plenty, home of—sorry,” she finished lamely and waved Brill toward a chair. “Come on, there’s enough food for both of us.” Damn, she thought. I don’t want to go rubbing her nose in it. Not like that.

  “Thank you,” Brill said, primly picking up a knife and fork and going to work. “Hmm. It tastes slightly…odd.”

  “Yeah.” Miriam chewed thoughtfully, then poured a couple of cups of coffee from the thermal jug. “The eggs aren’t as good. Are they?”

  “It’s all a little different.” Brill frowned, inspecting her plate minutely. “They’re all the same, aren’t they? Like identical twins?”

  “It’s how we make things here.” Miriam shrugged. “You’ll see lots of things that are identical. But not people.” She began working on her toast before she noticed Brill surreptitiously following her example with the small wrapped parcels of butter. “First, I’m going to call my friend. If she’s all right, we’re going to go on a journey to another city and I’m going to leave you with her for a few days. The way we tell it is: You’re a relative from out of state who’s coming to stay. Your parents are weird backwoods types, which is why there’s a lot of stuff you haven’t seen. My friend will know the truth. Also, she’s got a contact number for Roland. If I—” she cleared her throat—“she’ll get you back in touch, so you can go home. To the other side, I mean, when you need to.”

  “‘When I need to’,” Brill echoed doubtfully. She glanced around the room. “What’s that?”

  “That?” Miriam blinked. “It’s a television set.”

  “Oh. Like Ser Villem’s after-dinner entertainments. I remember that! The cat and the mouse, and the talking rabbit, Bugs.” Brill smiled. “They are everywhere, here?”

  “That’s one way of putting it.” Kid, I prescribe a week as a dedicated couch potato before we let you go outdoors on your own, she resolved. “I’ve got a call to make,” she said, reaching for her mobile.

  The first thing Miriam did was switch her phone off, open the back, and replace the SIM chip with one she took from her billfold. Then she reassembled it. The phone beeped as it came up with a new identity, but there was no voice mail waiting for her. Steeling herself, she dialed a number—one belonging to another mobile phone she’d sent via FedEx a couple of days before.

  “Hello?” The voice at the end of the line sounded positively chirpy.

  “Paulie! Are you okay?”

  “Miriam! How’s it going, babe?”

  “It’s going messy,” she admitted. “Look, remember the other day? Are you still home?”

  “Yes. What’s come up?”

  “I’m going to come pay you a visit,” said Miriam. “First, I’ve got a lot of things to discuss, stuff to get in order—and a down payment. Second, I’ve got a lodger. How’s your spare room?”

  “Oh, you know it’s been empty since I kicked that bum Walter out? What’s up, you wanting him to stay with me?”

  Miriam glanced at Brill. “It’s a she, and I think you’ll probably like her,” she said guardedly. “It’s part of that deal we made. I need you to put her up for a few weeks, on the company—I mean, I’m paying. Trouble is, she’s from, uh, out of state, if you follow me. She doesn’t know her way around at all.”

  “Does she, like, speak English?” Paulette sounded interested rather than perturbed, for which Miriam was immensely grateful. Brilliana was toying with her coffee and pretending not to realize Miriam was discussing her, on an intimate basis, with a talking box.

  “Yeah, that’s not a problem. But this morning was the first time she’d ever met an electric shower, and that is a problem for me, because I’ve got a lot of traveling to do in the next few weeks and I need to put her where someone can keep an eye on her as she gets used to the way things are done over here. Can you do that?”

  “Probably,” Paulette said briskly. “Depends if she hates my guts on first sight—or vice versa. I can’t promise more than that, can I?”

  “Well—” Miriam took a deep breath. “Okay, we’re coming up today on the train. You going to be home in the afternoon?”

  “For you, any day! You’ve got a lot to tell me about?”

  “Everything,” Miriam said fervently. “It’s been crazy.”

  “Bye, then.”

  Miriam put the phone down and rubbed her eyes. Brill was watching her oddly. “Who was that?” she asked.

  “Who—oh, on the phone?” Miriam glanced at it. So Brill had figured out that much? Bright girl. “A friend of mine. My, uh, business agent. On this side.” She grinned. “For the past few days, anyway. We’re going to see her this afternoon.”

  “‘Her’?” Brill raised an eyebrow. “All the hot water you want, no need to feed the fire, and women running businesses? No wonder my mother didn’t want me coming here—she was afraid I’d never come back!”

  “That seems to go with the territory,” Miriam agreed dryly.

  After breakfast she chivvied Brill into getting dressed again. Her tailored suit and blouse would blend into the background just fine: another business traveler in the heart of New York. Miriam thought for a moment, th
en picked another jacket—this time a dressy one rather than one built for bad weather. She’d have to keep her pistol in her handbag, but she’d look more in keeping with Brill, and hopefully it would distract any killers hunting for a lone woman in her early thirties with thus-and-such features.

  Miriam took the large suitcase when they left the room and headed downstairs. Brill’s eyes kept swiveling at everything from telephones to cigarette ads, but she kept her questions to herself as Miriam shepherded her into a nearby bank for ten minutes, then flagged down a taxi. “What was that about?” Brill murmured after Miriam told the driver where to go.

  “Needed to take care of some money business,” Miriam replied. “Angbard gave me a line on some credit, but—” she stopped, shrugged. I’m talking Martian again, she realized.

  “You’ll have to tell me how this credit thing works some time,” Brill commented. “I don’t think I’ve actually seen a coin since I came here. Do people use them?”

  “Not much. Which makes some things easier—it’s harder to steal larger amounts—and other things more difficult—like transferring large quantities of money to someone else without it being noticed.”

  “Huh.” Brill stared out of the window at the passing traffic, the pedestrians in their dark winter colors, and the bright advertisements. “It’s so noisy! How do you get any thinking done?”

  “Sometimes it’s hard,” Miriam admitted.

  She bought two tickets to Boston and shepherded Brill onto the express train without incident. They found a table a long way from anyone else without difficulty, which turned out to be a good thing, because Brill was unable to control her surprise when the train began to move. “It’s so different!” she squeaked, taken aback.