by Allen Steele
HOWEVER, MY POINT IS THAT YOU’RE OBVIOUSLY NOT THE TYPICAL HAPPY SIGHTSEER OUT FOR A STROLL. IT ALSO SEEMS TO ME THAT WE SHARE A PASSION FOR INFORMATION. MAY I SUGGEST A DEAL?
“I’ll listen,” McCoy said warily.
YOU TELL ME WHAT YOUR ROLE IS, AND I MAY PLACE MY RESOURCES AT YOUR DISPOSAL. THERE ARE MANY THINGS THAT YOU, WORKING ALONE, CANNOT SEE FOR YOURSELF. I, ON THE OTHER HAND, CAN BE ACCESSED AT ALMOST ANY TIME, SIMPLY BY USING THE NEAREST CONVENIENT TERMINAL.
The locks on the vault door clicked loudly. AS A TOKEN OF GOOD FAITH, I’VE UNLOCKED THE VAULT AGAIN. I HAVE ALSO JUST SCRUBBED THE VIDEOTAPES. YOU WERE NEVER HERE. ALTHOUGH, IN A SENSE, YOU’VE ALWAYS BEEN HERE.
McCoy was unnerved by Blind Boy Grunt’s omnipresence, although he was careful not to show it. He and the task group believed they had anticipated every possible contingency, even the possibility of his identity being revealed during the mission. The feasibility of something like this occurring had never even been discussed during the briefings. Blind Boy Grunt’s presence in Clarke County had not been an unknown factor, of course; only one that had been neglected. An anomaly, he had been told. Use it as a resource, if you must. Be careful if you do.
Perhaps this visit to the Immortality Partnership—entirely a personal choice, not a necessary condition of his mission—had triggered this anomaly. Indeed, the encounter might have been inevitable. In any case, whoever or whatever Blind Boy Grunt was, he/she/it could be an asset to his mission.
“If I tell you why I’m here,” said McCoy, “do I have your promise that it remains a secret? That you won’t even record this conversation?”
YES. IT’S A PROMISE.
“Okay, then.” McCoy pulled a chair out from under a desk and sat down. “Here it is …”
She was sitting on the back porch steps when he got home. He could see her in the dim light cast by the street lamps: she wore a long red tartan skirt, a white blouse, and black leather boots. It was the boots that he noticed first. He climbed wearily off his trike and shuffled over to stand in front of her, already suspecting why she was here.
“I thought the Ark had rules against using animal skin for clothing,” Bigthorn said.
Jenny Schorr looked at him in puzzlement, then followed his eyes down to her footwear. “Oh, the boots,” she said. “I’ve had them around for a long time. I break them out for certain occasions. Neil doesn’t like ’em but …”
She shrugged. “Neil’s not around, is he?”
“So where is he?”
She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Home. Either asleep or reading something by Gandhi. We had another argument and I left before the lecture started to get too dull. He’s pissed off at me, which isn’t unusual.”
The sheriff nodded and sat down beside her on the steps. Jenny scooted over to make room for him. “So he blames you for what Blind Boy Grunt put out in the mail this morning?”
Jenny laughed, running a hand through the bangs of her blond hair. “Oh, that’s only the cherry on the top of the sundae. Mainly he’s mad at me because I told the company people to go to hell.” She shrugged again, closing her eyes. “It wasn’t even what I did, but how I did it. ‘It wasn’t a co-evolutionary process,’ he said.” She rolled her eyes upwards. “Whatever that means.”
“What do you think he means?”
Jenny looked at him sideways. “That he didn’t do it first. How do you think Gandhi would have felt if Ms. Gandhi had led all the hunger strikes?”
“He should have been proud … no matter how much of a problem it causes for us.” He spread his hands. “I dunno. I only saw the movie.”
Once more Jenny laughed. “God. You’re funny and you don’t even know it.” She patted him on the arm gratefully. “Thanks. After everything that’s gone down today, I needed that.”
He looked up. The lights of the biosphere were spread above them, but something wispy and opaque was moving in, gradually blotting them from view. Clouds. Internal humidity often caused clouds to collect during the night within the biosphere. Soon it would rain—one of the rare Earth-like luxuries of Clarke County. “Tell me about it. I’ve been …”
He stopped and shook his head. “Never mind. Police business, that’s all.”
“It’s been a long day for you too?” she asked kindly.
“Yeah. I don’t want to talk about it.” He rested his aching back against the steps and crossed his arms behind his head. “So why are you here?”
“I had to get out of the house.” The Schorr house, almost identical to Bigthorn’s cottage, was just a short way along McAullife Lane, in the same neighborhood. A stroll down the block. She shrugged, looking down at him. “I just wanted to talk, that’s all.”
Bigthorn doubted that was all. For the time being, though, he was unwilling to fight it. “So talk. Tell me what’s on your mind.”
“What’s on my mind?”
“The first thing that comes into your head,” he said.
There was a long pause. “Every now and then,” Jenny said, “some writer or reporter finds out that the granddaughter of a former President, the daughter of a U.S. Senator and so forth …”
“No shit,” he interrupted, raising his head a little. “Is that who you are?”
“You didn’t know that?” she asked. Bigthorn shook his head, then started to ask the obvious questions. “Don’t ask,” she insisted. “It doesn’t matter. Really. Anyway, they find out I’m living as a bohemian in a hippie commune. The reporter thinks he or she—it’s usually a ‘he’—has the greatest scoop of the week, not knowing that I’ve seen a dozen more like him since I was fifteen. So he comes out to wherever I am at the time, to do …”
She sniggered, raising a finger. “I’ve got the term down pat now … a ‘far-reaching, in-depth profile.’”
“What does that usually mean?” Bigthorn asked.
“Oh, the same old thing. Why am I living the way that I do? Why don’t I run for the Senate or the White House? Am I having a nervous breakdown because I don’t? How does it feel to be married to Neil Schorr?”
She shook her head. “The same questions each time. The first time I got interviewed I was thrilled, but after I was twenty … well, I just let the poor slobs do their jobs. They’ve got some editor back in Chicago or New York or wherever, counting on them for their far-reaching, in-depth profile of Jenny Schorr. I can understand. Besides, I always thought it helped whatever cause I was fighting for at the time. But I stopped reading the articles they wrote because they never really get it right. They’ve never asked the right questions.”
She looked at him expectantly. Her eyes were lonely, soft. Lost. “I don’t know,” he said. “What are they supposed to ask you?”
Jenny grinned, then blushed and looked away, her light hair falling to shroud her face. “They never ask if I ever wanted to get laid by a cop,” she blurted out. She laughed nervously. “Oh shit, I didn’t mean for it to come out like that …” Her voice trailed off.
Bigthorn swallowed and sat up on the steps. “I guess,” he said slowly, “that was why you came over.”
“Is that so bad?” she whispered. She reached up into her hair to hold her face in her hands. “Is it such an awful thing to want someone you know … someone who isn’t into a power game … to make love to you? What’s so …?”
Bigthorn reached out and gently took her hand in his. Jenny laid her head on his shoulder. “Would it help if I told you a story?” he asked her.
She looked up. “A story? What kind of …?”
“Just an old Indian story.” She hesitated, still uncertain then smiled a little and put her head back on his shoulder. “Okay,” he said. “Once a long time ago, Coyote went to visit his friend Spider Man.…”
“Spider Man? Like the superhero?”
“No, he’s a different person. Don’t ask me to explain. Anyway, Coyote went to visit Spider Man, but Spider Man was on his way out the door to go hunting, so he told his wife to fry a couple of buffalo li
vers for Coyote and him. Spider Man was always abusive towards his wife, see? He told her not to touch the livers until he got home, and if she didn’t, maybe he would let her have the leftovers when they were through eating.”
“Spider Man sounds like a real nice guy.”
“He’s a real shit, all right. So Spider Woman began to fry the livers while Coyote was hanging around the hogan. Well, while she was getting more and more hungry, smelling the livers she was cooking but was forbidden to eat, Coyote was getting more and more horny, watching her bending over the fire-pit.…”
“A coyote was getting horny looking at a spider?” Jenny giggled.
Bigthorn shook her gently. “I told you if I had to explain it, you wouldn’t get it.”
“Anthropomorphic mythology,” she added sagely. “I took a semester in it in college.”
“Good for you. Shut up already and listen. Like I said, Spider Woman was getting hungry from smelling the livers. ‘Well,’ she said to herself, ‘maybe if I had just a little piece, my wicked husband won’t notice,’ so she tore off a small piece of liver and ate it. She liked it so much that she ate another piece, then another and another, and before she knew it, Spider Woman had eaten both livers. By this time, Coyote lost patience. He slid up behind Spider Woman and put his hands up under her dress and started to run his hands around her. At first Spider Woman tried to get him to leave her alone, but then she got an idea. So, first, she let Coyote screw her.…”
Jenny raised her head again, in surprise. “I didn’t know there were such things as dirty Indian stories.”
“Are you kidding? We know the best dirty jokes in the world.” She giggled and put her head back on his shoulder. “Well, when they were done screwing, Spider Woman said to Coyote, ‘Of course, you’re welcome to stay for dinner, too.’ Coyote, who was always trying to get something for nothing, said, ‘That’s great, but you ate the buffalo livers and there isn’t anything else to cook. Spider Man is such a lousy hunter, he won’t bring anything home to eat. What are we going to have?’ Spider Woman said, ‘Why, what we always have for dinner when guests come over. Balls.’ Coyote looked puzzled, and he asked, ‘Balls? What kind of balls?’ Spider Woman laughed. ‘Why, your balls, what else?’”
Jenny started to laugh. Bigthorn grinned and continued his story. “So Spider Woman gets her knife and walks towards Coyote. ‘Just drop your breechcloth and stand still,’ she said. ‘Don’t worry, it won’t hurt but for just a second. I’ve got lots of practice.’”
Jenny was still laughing as Bigthorn went on. “Well, naturally, Coyote wasn’t going to have any of this, so he jumped up and dashed out of the hogan. Just as he was running out the door, Spider Man was coming back from his hunt. Seeing Coyote running off down the road, he turned to his wife and said, ‘What’s going on? Why’s my friend running away?’ ‘Some friend,’ Spider Woman replied. ‘He’s nothing but a thief! He’s taken both of the livers I just cooked and run off! Never invite him over for dinner again!’”
Jenny had stopped laughing by now. She was still grinning, but there was a serious look in her eyes as she watched Bigthorn. “Well,” he continued, “Spider Man took off after Coyote, but Coyote was much too fast for him and left him far behind. Finally Spider Man shouted, ‘Coyote! Come back! Leave me at least one to eat!’”
“Hmmm.” Jenny yawned and propped an elbow on Bigthorn’s shoulder. “Okay, tell me the truth. Is there a point to that story?”
He sighed and raised his hands in mock frustration. “Point? You want a point? It’s a dirty joke.”
She nodded her head back and forth, a wry smile on her face. “Well, maybe it’s just an Anglo-Saxon notion that every fable has a moral to it, but I could have sworn you were telling me that story for a reason.”
Bigthorn knitted his hands together between his knees and looked down at them. He was tired. It had been a long day, and it seemed as if it was ending the way it had begun. He was back to the same questions of propriety he had faced in his hogan, when Jenny had awakened him.
This time, though, he was too exhausted to make fine judgments. This time, the flesh was moving him, not the spirit.
“Maybe,” he said. “Let me ask just one question.”
“Name it.”
“If I bring you inside tonight, will Neil cut my balls off and eat them?”
She snickered. “He’s a vegetarian.” Then she became somber and shook her head. “I don’t think Neil cares anymore what I do, as long as it’s not political. If he does …”
Jenny paused. “That’s between him and me … and I’m getting tired of his crap. Anyway, it’s not your problem.”
She rested her chin on his shoulder. “Besides, I can think of nicer things to do with a well-hung pair of balls than cook them.”
Bigthorn thought about it for only another second. What the hell, he decided. He leaned over and kissed her, and her slim, warm body melted against his own.
It lasted for a few fragile, tender moments, then she broke the kiss. “Let’s take ourselves inside,” she whispered. “It looks like rain, and maybe your neighbors shouldn’t see this.”
Jenny stood up, She walked up the steps to the landing and grasped the handle of the back porch’s screen door. Bigthorn was turning around, about to rise from the steps as she was pulling open the door, when he glanced under her arm and saw a thin, silvery wire stretched taut between the frame and the handle.
That shouldn’t be there, he thought. He opened his mouth to say something.…
Then the bomb went off.
13
The Brides of Elvis
(Sunday: 12:55 A.M.)
Macy was awakened by the distant rumble of what sounded like thunder.
She had fallen asleep again on the floor of the abandoned apartment, dozing off in front of the wall-screen as she had off and on throughout the hours since she had found sanctuary in the littered, unfurnished condo. The rumble subsided, and her first inclination was to ignore the sound and fall back to sleep, until she heard another, quieter sound: the soft patter of rain falling just outside the door.
Macy sat up slowly, taking care not to twist her sprained ankle, then crawled on her hands and knees over the coarse carpet to the window. The utilitarian drapes were drawn; she pushed aside a corner to gaze out into the courtyard between the block-like buildings of the apartment complex.
Rain fell in a long, silvery drizzle against the light cast by the lampposts in the courtyard, forming puddles on the pavement and running in fast little creeks to the sewer grates. Macy stared in wonderment at the rain. She had been told that it rained in the biosphere, but she hadn’t really believed it—a rainstorm in outer space …
She let the drape close, and lay back against the windowsill. The only light in the room came from the wall-screen. The movie she had been watching had ended and now a late-night newsfeed from some station in Atlanta was on the screen. A thin young Asian newscaster was reading the headlines: the President was promising economic aid to South Africa after its fifth change of government in about as many decades; the joint U.S.-Soviet Mars exploration team had uncovered new alien relics in the Cydonia region; the British Navy’s new frigate, the HMS Thatcher, had caught fire during sea trials in the North Atlantic; a New York publishing house had signed a $1.25 million contract with MIT’s Artificial Intelligence Laboratory for rights to a mystery novel written by one its computers; a household robot in San Diego was about to stand trial on manslaughter charges in the death of a seven-year-old girl. Macy watched apathetically. None of it meant anything to her.
Then a commercial came on. A close-up of the profile of a young, pretty woman, looking longingly ahead. A voice-over, presumably her thoughts: It’s been such a long time since I’ve gotten away from the office.… They tell me it’s a lovely place. The camera backs up, passing her husband sitting in the adjacent seat, to pan past the rows of quiet, comfortable passengers sipping quiet, comfortable-looking drinks from squeeze bottles. Sure, it’s expensiv
e … but Arthur deserves the best, doesn’t he?… and I could use this break from the business. The camera moves down an aisle, past floating stewards and fades through a forward door into a cockpit, where handsome and competent pilots work behind consoles filled with gleaming lights. And it’s not the same as going to Brazil or Tahiti, one of those places.… Finally, the camera moves through the cockpit windows, out into the starry depths of space. Clarke County is seen in the extreme distance, then the camera swings briefly back to pan across the approaching spacecraft, before resting on the distant, receding crescent of Earth. I mean, we all deserve a little adventure now and then, don’t we? The TexSpace logo appears on the screen; then the streamlined words “CLARKE COUNTY … SPACE” are superimposed over the planet. A soft, masculine voice replaces the woman’s: TexSpace to Clarke County. For the sophisticated traveler.
“Bullshit,” Macy muttered. “This place is a dump.”
She had no idea who the apartment’s former occupant had been, although a few discarded hygiene items hinted that it was probably a woman. Actually, the apartment was not all that bad, although Macy had been in bathrooms and closets which were larger. The former tenant had taken all of his or her furniture when he or she had left—not too long ago, Macy figured—since the electricity was still on, the water still ran, and there was a roll of toilet paper and a bar of soap in the bathroom.
Yesterday Macy had sprained her right ankle when she had jumped from her hotel suite’s balcony; she had not been able to hobble very far, and it was simply dumb luck that when she had wandered into the chock-a-block apartment complex, she had found the door to Unit 37 standing open. Macy knew an abandoned apartment when she saw one. Since she had no other immediate alternatives, and since she was certain that a Salvatore hit man was on her trail, the young woman fled into the apartment and locked the door behind her.
She had been hiding here all day, and it was beginning to drive her crazy. The refrigerator had contained a couple of cans of Seven-Up, half a tin of Vienna sausage, and a few stale slices of bread. She had eaten everything a few hours before, and now she was hungry again. The apartment was as littered as only an untenanted housing unit could be, which irritated her high-class instincts. During the evening, noise had filtered in through the walls and the ceiling: the thudding roar of Japanese hard-rock from the unit above, a guy in the unit to the right who threw temper tantrums for no discernible reason, a constantly screaming baby in the unit to the left.