Jim Baen’s Universe

Home > Other > Jim Baen’s Universe > Page 13
Jim Baen’s Universe Page 13

by Edited by Eric Flint


  They sho­wed me the­ir IDs stra­ight off. I lo­oked them over whi­le pre­ten­ding to re­ad. Mur­tagh was a typi­cal cop, so­lid mus­c­le all thro­ugh. His ca­ni­ne an­cestry sho­wed in his ex­p­res­si­on as well as his bu­ild. I'd put it at half bul­ldog and half ter­ri­er. Gar­cia, on the ot­her hand, was tho­ro­ughly hu­man and tho­ro­ughly fe­ma­le and gor­ge­o­us eno­ugh to bring an iner­ti­aless dri­ve to a full stop. Un­for­tu­na­tely, I'd met her be­fo­re.

  They ca­me in. I to­ok my usu­al se­at. Mur­tagh to­ok the cli­ent's cha­ir, which left Gar­cia per­c­hing on the si­de of the desk.

  "So what can I do for you, Of­fi­cers?" I as­ked. It's al­ways go­od for pe­op­le in my pro­fes­si­on to ke­ep on the right si­de of the law.

  "Where we­re you last night at eig­h­te­en-thirty?" Gar­cia as­ked.

  "Right he­re," I sa­id.

  "You work that la­te?" Mur­tagh as­ked, wrin­k­ling his pug no­se, skep­ti­cism prac­ti­cal­ly oozing out of his po­res.

  "This is my ho­me as well as my of­fi­ce."

  Murtagh lo­oked aro­und po­in­tedly.

  Garcia to­ok pity on me. "It's all na­no­ge­ar. It do­esn't al­ways lo­ok li­ke Sam Spa­de's of­fi­ce. The desk turns in­to a bed."

  Murtagh lo­oked at her li­ke may­be he was won­de­ring how she knew. With her long black ha­ir and tig­ht-fit­ting uni­form I might just ha­ve wis­hed that Gar­cia's know­led­ge of my bed was mo­re than just the­ore­ti­cal, but as I sa­id, I'd met her be­fo­re. Mur­tagh de­ci­ded to let it go for on­ce.

  "There's a Jesus be­en kil­led," he sa­id, and wat­c­hed me clo­sely for a re­ac­ti­on.

  He didn't get one. It didn't se­em li­ke front pa­ge news. Jesi get kil­led all the ti­me. Go­es with be­ing pa­ci­fists, go­es with be­ing set to push a lot of but­tons on a lot of re­li­gi­o­us nuts. He held the pa­use, so I as­ked: "How do­es this af­fect me?"

  "You don't ca­re?" Mur­tagh bar­ked.

  "Only in so far as no man is an is­land," I rep­li­ed. "I gu­ess the de­ad man was a brot­her, but-" I was go­ing to say he was al­so a stran­ger. Gar­cia cut me off.

  "Closer than a brot­her," she sa­id. "Mo­re li­ke anot­her you, as I un­der­s­tand clo­ning."

  "Still a stran­ger, as far as I know," I sa­id, and shrug­ged.

  About fifty ye­ars ago they got clo­ning stra­ig­h­te­ned out. No­body much bot­he­red with it. Not as if the­re we­ren't al­re­ady lots of pe­op­le. Su­re, so­me pe­op­le had kids as lit­tle per­so­nal fa­xes to the fu­tu­re, but it wasn't com­mon. It se­emed a bit tacky so­me­how. It was mo­re use for pan­das and che­etahs who didn't get a say in it. Su­re, so­me pe­op­le mi­xed up su­per­kids, and ani­mal-an­cestry kids li­ke Mur­tagh, but most pe­op­le just yaw­ned and pus­hed the next but­ton.

  About forty ye­ars ago so­me idi­ot had the bright idea of ta­king so­me of the DNA from a blo­od-sta­ined han­d­ker­c­hi­ef in a church in Gre­ece and pro­du­cing a ge­nu­ine cer­ti­fi­ed clo­ne of Jesus. The­re was up­ro­ar, as you'd ex­pect, and the up­ro­ar was only cal­med down a lit­tle when they sa­id they'd gi­ve the clo­nes to an­yo­ne who wan­ted one, free of char­ge, every church and every fa­mily can ha­ve the­ir own Jesus. A lot of pe­op­le did, a sur­p­ri­sing num­ber of pe­op­le, eno­ugh so that so­on ha­ving a baby Jesus of yo­ur own wasn't all that in­te­res­ting or unu­su­al. In fact, it was a fad. Be­ing a Jesus, well, that was anot­her thing. To start with, for the first few, ever­y­t­hing we did was news. Jesus suf­fers lit­tle chil­d­ren. Jesus cuts ha­ir, Jesus works in gas sta­ti­on. By the ti­me I was gro­wing up, Jesi we­re pretty much just li­ke any ot­her et­h­ni­city, only with fe­wer wo­men and no cu­isi­ne. The­re we­re hun­d­reds of tho­usands of us in the U.S. alo­ne. Pe­op­le ar­gu­ed abo­ut whet­her the DNA was re­al­ly that of Jesus, pe­op­le ar­gu­ed abo­ut he­re­dity ver­sus en­vi­ron­ment, pe­op­le ar­gu­ed abo­ut whet­her we we­re the An­tic­h­rist or the Se­cond Co­ming. Chur­c­hes to­ok po­si­ti­ons, Jesi to­ok po­si­ti­ons. I tri­ed to stand so­mew­he­re well away from all the po­si­ti­oning. I kept my ha­ir short and my fa­ce sha­ved and me well out of it. If you ha­ve to ha­ve a per­so­nal ro­le mo­del, I think Sam Spa­de is bet­ter than Jesus Christ any day.

  "You're the­ore­ti­cal­ly a sus­pect," Gar­cia sa­id qu­i­etly.

  This truly sur­p­ri­sed me. Snif­fers can tell who's mo­ved thro­ugh an area for ho­urs af­ter­wards. Tas­ters ke­ep pho­tog­raphs and air sam­p­les, and with uni­ver­sal log­ging of DNA it's re­al­ly hard to ac­tu­al­ly get away with a mur­der the­se days. "Mur­der sus­pect" se­emed li­ke a very old fas­hi­oned con­cept. Cri­me, and de­tec­ti­on too mostly, had mo­ved on­li­ne. Then I got it. It to­ok lon­ger than it sho­uld ha­ve.

  "Your de­ad Jesus was kil­led by anot­her Jesus?"

  Garcia gri­ma­ced. Mur­tagh nod­ded. "You're the only Jesus on re­cord who's ever kil­led an­yo­ne."

  "Hell, Gar­cia, you know abo­ut that."

  Garcia tap­ped her fin­gers on my scre­en and bro­ught up a re­cord. She sho­uldn't ha­ve be­en ab­le to do that, but I didn't obj­ect. "Li­ke I sa­id," she sa­id to Mur­tagh. "He did it to sa­ve him­self and me. He was a split-se­cond ahe­ad of the vil­la­in."

  Villain was anot­her old-fas­hi­oned word, but it didn't so­und stran­ge on Gar­cia's lips, not when re­fer­ring to Kelly. Kelly, Tur­row and Li had rob­bed a cli­ent of mi­ne of a lar­ge amo­unt of mo­ney, and Gar­cia was wor­king on them too. She'd co­me to see me and we'd ag­re­ed to co­ope­ra­te. We'd wor­ked to­get­her so well. I still didn't li­ke to think abo­ut it.

  "I had a li­cen­se for the gun," I sa­id.

  "There wasn't any qu­es­ti­on," Gar­cia sa­id.

  We'd go­ne in si­de by si­de. I'd shot Kelly. She'd shot Tur­row and Li wit­ho­ut he­si­ta­ti­on. Kelly had be­en co­ming at us with a gun in her hand. Tur­row and Li we­re sit­ting at the­ir pu­ters. Li was off in vir­tu­al. She hadn't even mo­ved.

  "You're still the only Jesus on re­cord who's ever kil­led an­yo­ne," Mur­tagh sa­id. "Jesi are al­ways get­ting kil­led. A Jesus kil­ling is so­met­hing new. So, what ma­de you do it?"

  "Save my li­fe. Sa­ve hers," I sa­id. I've tho­ught abo­ut it sin­ce, but I didn't think at all at the ti­me. I saw the gun co­ming up and squ­e­ezed my own trig­ger. What was Kelly's li­fe com­pa­red to Gar­cia's, or even mi­ne? So what if it was cas­ting the first sto­ne? Kelly was co­ming right at us. One shot, one de­ath. I co­uldn't ha­ve do­ne what Gar­cia did, and ta­ken out the ot­hers.

  "Well this wasn't any ca­se of self-de­fen­se," Mur­tagh sa­id.

  "There are what, a co­up­le of tho­usand Jesi in Philly?" I go­og­led aro­und and got an an­s­wer right away, 2912. "Others co­uld ha­ve flown in, or co­me by tra­in, hell, even lan­ded at the spa­ce­port. I can't pro­ve it wasn't me, but in the sa­me way I don't see how you can pro­ve it was." They co­uldn't use truth-tell un­less they had a co­urt or­der, or un­less I vo­lun­te­ered. Fifth Amen­d­ment.

  "It wasn't you," Gar­cia sa­id. "The snif­fers out­si­de this bu­il­ding show that you ca­me in yes­ter­day and didn't le­ave aga­in."

  "Then why are you he­re?"

  "We wan­ted yo­ur help. Yo­ur psycho­lo­gi­cal in­sight in­to Jesi, the in­sight of a Jesus who be­ca­me a pri­va­te in­ves­ti­ga­tor and who kil­led in self-de­fen­se, in­to which of the sus­pects it co­uld ha­ve be­en. If we had a go­od idea we co­uld get a truth-tell, but we can't just ask to pump it in­to the lot of them. The law­yers of all the in­no­cents wo­uld scre­am blue mur­der." Gar­cia cros­sed her legs and bit her lip. "Will you help us?"

  "Will you pay my pro­fes­si­onal ra­tes?"

  "Hey- " Mur­tagh grow­led, but Gar­cia cu
t him off.

  "We'll pay yo­ur pro­fes­si­onal ra­tes. Jesus!" I co­uldn't tell if she was cal­ling me by na­me or swe­aring.

  "So, tell me abo­ut the sus­pects."

  "Well, the tas­ter re­cords are just abo­ut use­less, as the DNA all co­mes up as just pla­in Jesus," Mur­tagh sa­id. The­re are se­cond ge­ne­ra­ti­on Jesi now, kids of the ori­gi­nals, not clo­nes, who wo­uld show up as a Jesus-mix, sa­me as Mur­tagh wo­uld show as a dog-mix. "But the snif­fers let us nar­row it down to six in­di­vi­du­als who we­re in the stre­et at the right ti­me."

  "Tell me abo­ut them."

  "First, let me tell you abo­ut the mur­der. The de­ad man is Alam­bert Jesus," Gar­cia sa­id. "You he­ard of him?"

  "The wri­ter," I sa­id. He was a bes­t­sel­ler, and pro­bably Philly's best known Jesus. I hadn't re­ad any of his bo­oks. They lo­oked to be se­ve­ral gig thick, and I don't ha­ve much ti­me for re­ading.

  "Lots of you ha­ve wri­ting ta­lent. It se­ems to be ge­ne­tic. Co­me to that I gu­ess the pa­rab­les are pretty go­od short sto­ri­es," Mur­tagh sa­id.

  "I sa­ve my skill in that di­rec­ti­on for wri­ting up my ca­ses."

  Murtagh ga­ve a lit­tle bar­king la­ugh.

  Garcia went on. "Well, Alam­bert Jesus li­ved in Chi­na­town. He was ho­me. He ope­ned the do­or to a Jesus. The Jesus tor­tu­red him to de­ath, slowly. Then the Jesus left."

  "Tortured him? That do­esn't ma­ke sen­se."

  "Doesn't, do­es it?" Mur­tagh sig­hed. "Do­esn't go with the pa­ci­fism and thou shalt not kill stuff."

  "Maybe this one ca­me to bring a sword," Gar­cia sug­ges­ted, lo­oking at me.

  I had eno­ugh of that in my chil­d­ho­od. "Who­ever we're clo­nes of, and as far as I'm con­cer­ned Jesus is just shor­t­hand for the per­son who­se blo­od was on that han­d­ker­c­hi­ef, I think the­re are eno­ugh of us for you to be ab­le to tell that we're the sa­me in so­me ways and dif­fe­rent in ot­hers wit­ho­ut get­ting re­li­gi­on in­to it."

  "You don't think re­li­gi­on has an­y­t­hing to do with the mur­der?" Mur­tagh as­ked.

  "Was he cru­ci­fi­ed?" I as­ked.

  "Interesting gu­ess," Gar­cia sa­id. "But whi­le I he­ar that hap­pens a lot in the So­uth, no. Alam­bert was not cru­ci­fi­ed."

  "Then it pro­bably wasn't re­li­gi­o­us."

  "The sus­pects," Mur­tagh sa­id, get­ting a lo­ok in his eye li­ke he was on the tra­il. "The­se are the ones who we­re on the spot right af­ter. Let me run thro­ugh them qu­ickly." As he na­med them he bro­ught the­ir fa­ces up on my scre­en, one pa­ir of so­ul­ful brown eyes af­ter anot­her, dif­fe­rent ar­ran­ge­ments of ha­ir and clot­hes. All of them co­uld ha­ve be­en my brot­hers. Or me. "Jesus Pot­rin, 28, lo­cal ra­dio talk show host. Only sus­pect who ac­tu­al­ly knew Alam­bert. They we­ren't clo­se fri­ends, but he'd had him on the show. Jesus Do­well, 18, down-and-out. No known con­nec­ti­on. Alex Jesus Fe­rug­lio, 35, chef at Joseph Po­on's, on Arch. Alam­bert ate in the­re oc­ca­si­onal­ly. Jos­hua Jesus, 33, mi­nis­ter of the Church of the Se­cond Co­ming. No known con­nec­ti­on. Karl Jesus, 26, mo­tor mec­ha­nic, no known con­nec­ti­on. Mal­colm Jesus Zim­mer­man, 29, doc­tor from Mon­ta­na, in town for a con­ven­ti­on. No known con­nec­ti­on."

  "Jesus, they re­al­ly do ha­ve not­hing in com­mon ex­cept the­ir ge­nes," Gar­cia sa­id. This ti­me I was su­re she was swe­aring.

  "I don't know any of them eit­her," I sa­id. "I've eaten in Joseph Po­on's, but who hasn't?" It was the best fu­si­on fo­od in town.

  "Nothing jumps out at you?" Gar­cia as­ked.

  "Not im­me­di­ately. They all had the op­por­tu­nity. The met­hod's ob­vi­o­us. The prob­lem is mo­ti­ve. I'll po­ke abo­ut on li­ne and see what I can find in the­ir bi­og­rap­hi­es, but I'm not ho­pe­ful." Why wo­uld any of them kill Alam­bert? Why wo­uld a Jesus kill anot­her Jesus? What co­uld they pos­sibly get out of it?

  "Well, Jesus or not, we'll catch them, and whic­he­ver of them it was will fry for it," Mur­tagh sa­id, get­ting up.

  "Though what that will do with pub­lic opi­ni­on I don't know," Gar­cia sa­id.

  "It must ha­ve be­en Jos­hua Jesus," I sa­id, as the pi­eces ca­me to­get­her. "Don't exe­cu­te him. That's what he wants."

  Murtagh sat down aga­in. "That's what he wants? Ex­p­la­in."

  "That's his mo­ti­va­ti­on. He's a mil­le­na­ri­an, a re­li­gi­o­us nut, a pri­est of the Se­cond Co­ming and he thinks he's it. He's thir­ty-th­ree, the age Jesus was when he was cru­ci­fi­ed. He must ha­ve pic­ked this as a su­re way of be­ing exe­cu­ted by the sta­te."

  "A nut," Gar­cia sa­id. "A re­li­gi­o­us fa­na­tic."

  "True- tell will get it out of him, and you ought to be ab­le to get an or­der. You can put him in a nut­ho­use and throw away the key," I sa­id.

  "Huh," bar­ked Mur­tagh. "Co­ming, Gar­cia?"

  "I'll just be a mo­ment," she sa­id.

  Murtagh step­ped out­si­de.

  "You're not a re­li­gi­o­us fa­na­tic," she sa­id.

  "There are pos­si­bi­li­ti­es in the ge­nes, not pre­des­ti­na­ti­on," I sa­id. "I'm not a wri­ter or a chef eit­her. The­re's mo­re to me than my ge­nes."

  "And the­re's mo­re to me than my trig­ger fin­ger."

  We lo­oked at each ot­her, a lit­tle wary, a lit­tle un­cer­ta­in, but damn she was be­a­uti­ful and even mo­re than a be­a­uti­ful as­sis­tant and an outer of­fi­ce I ne­eded a par­t­ner. "Bles­sed be the trig­ger happy," I sa­id, and she was in my arms.

  Sometimes in this li­fe you've just got to ask yo­ur­self: "What wo­uld Sam Spa­de do?"

  Brieanna’s Constant

  Eric M. Witchey

  He red­li­ned his black Camry in­to the par­king lot of the Le­eman bu­il­ding, a fo­ur-story red­b­rick full of sof­t­wa­re en­gi­ne­ers and psycho­lo­gists. Dr. Alan Dic­k­son con­si­de­red par­king di­rectly in front of the ma­in en­t­ran­ce in Bri­e­an­na’s spa­ce-the tar­get spa­ce. Of co­ur­se, that wo­uld skew his ex­pe­ri­ment re­sults. He swung wi­de.

  Only Bri­e­an­na Wol­fe had a one hun­d­red per­cent suc­cess ra­te. She had par­ked her ugly, red cof­fee ven­dor’s truck in the sa­me slot in front of the Le­eman bu­il­ding at exactly 7:30 every we­ek­day mor­ning for two ye­ars. He plan­ned to put an end to Ms. Wol­fe’s im­pos­sib­le luck and fi­nish his study of the in­f­lu­en­ce of per­so­nal ex­pec­ta­ti­ons on cha­otic systems.

  He par­ked on the far si­de of the lot and re­ac­hed to the pas­sen­ger se­at for his bri­ef­ca­se.

  The se­at was empty.

  Marg’s mas­ca­ra-st­re­aked fa­ce ca­me back to him. She’d wan­ted so­me ro­man­tic ti­me with him be­fo­re work. He co­uldn’t be la­te. She’d se­emed so con­fu­sed. It wasn’t her fa­ult she didn’t un­der­s­tand. Ac­hing gu­ilt fil­led his chest. He re­ac­hed for the gray cell pho­ne mo­un­ted on his dash.

  His hand ho­ve­red.

  Calling wo­uldn’t help. Only suc­cess and tic­kets to Ka­u­ai wo­uld ma­ke her smi­le. The tic­kets we­re in his bri­ef­ca­se. He ne­eded to cre­ate the suc­cess. He got out of the car and he­aded ac­ross the lot.

  ****

  Brieanna gat­he­red her wa­ist-long, ho­ney-and-ash ha­ir be­hind her he­ad and bo­und it in­to a pon­y­ta­il with a blue scrun­c­hie. Blue be­ca­use she saw a crack of cle­ar sky in the oran­ge-bot­to­med, dawn clo­uds over the sle­eping city. She and Val­dez, her ti­ger tom­cat, had just fi­nis­hed lo­ading Big Red’s ref­ri­ge­ra­tors.

  Big Red, a two-ton step van pa­in­ted li­ke a red dog, wa­ited lo­yal­ly at the curb out­si­de her one bed­ro­om bun­ga­low in the wo­oded hills west of the city.

  Red had be­en very ne­ar his trip to the scra
p yard when Bri­e­an­na fo­und him stal­led and dying at a co­unty fa­ir. He’d be­en pri­mer gray then, ow­ned by a gre­asy, to­ot­h­less perv sel­ling car­ni­vo­re car­ci­no­gen tu­bes wrap­ped in whi­te bre­ad buns. It ma­de Bri­e­an­na shi­ver to think abo­ut what tho­se things did to pe­op­le’s chi.

  She res­cu­ed Red. She brush-pa­in­ted him to lo­ok li­ke a hu­ge dog from a kid’s bo­ok she had re­ad in her aro­ma the­ra­pist’s wa­iting ro­om. His pa­in­ted ears sur­ro­un­ded the tall do­ors on both si­des of the cab. She put a big black spot on his si­de to ma­ke the sa­les win­dow lo­ok right. The squ­are win­d­s­hi­eld pa­nels on the front we­ren’t exactly go­od eyes, but the black bas­ket­ball han­ging on the grill was a gre­at no­se. She lo­ved him, and that kept him run­ning. Af­ter all, that’s what kept ever­y­t­hing run­ning.

  She chec­ked the paws on her Mr. Pe­abody watch. “Six-twenty,” she sa­id. Val­dez me­owed ac­k­now­led­g­ment and pres­sed his bro­ad he­ad aga­inst her an­k­les. “We’re early to­day.” She lif­ted Val­dez and dra­ped him over her sho­ul­ders li­ke a fat, stri­ped sto­le. To­get­her, they mo­un­ted the two steps in­to Big Red.

  Valdez le­aped down on­to his fle­ece-li­ned bed be­si­de the long stick shift. The van smel­led of fresh-ro­ast and eucal­y­p­tus in­cen­se. Gol­den tas­sels sur­ro­un­ded the win­d­s­hi­eld. The car­go area over­f­lo­wed with hum­ming pro­pa­ne re­efers and en­gi­ne-dri­ven ste­amers per­so­nal­ly de­co­ra­ted by Brie. Her milk co­oler was black-and-whi­te and na­med Bes­sie. Her bran muf­fin box had lit­tle he­art stic­kers on the glass. Her lat­te mac­hi­ne was fi­re en­gi­ne red, ex­cept for the hand-pa­in­ted, yel­low smi­les and the chro­me tu­bing. She cal­led it “Mor­ning Smi­les,” af­ter the po­em she’d writ­ten the mor­ning af­ter a prop­he­tic dre­am told her to sell cof­fee.

 

‹ Prev