But only briefly for that last one.
If there was a recipe for making a wooden man who survived missions for the society, we didn’t work it out.
Pratt got bored and wandered away first, after only twenty minutes. The others followed shortly after. None of them seemed angry or resentful, but I could see they were frustrated. Me, I didn’t care all that much if each of these peers got a Ray Lilly of their own, but I hated saying I don’t know over and over.
Before he left, Callin asked me to think about it and return tomorrow.
They left their trays and plates when they left, but people sitting at other tables jumped up and bussed their things for them. It was like they were rock stars or something.
Elizabeth Tredwell plopped into Callin’s spot, two tiny cups of coffee in her hand. She slid one across the table to me. “Here you go. Don’t bother if it’s one too many. Well! That went better than expected. I was afraid we’d have another mess to clean up.”
A lean, balding man in a gray suit slid gracefully into the seat beside her. He was middle-aged and seemed pretty pleased with himself. He sat with the posture of a private first class who knew the general was watching. “Yours wouldn’t be the first corpse the peers dropped in this place. Ray Lilly, yes?” As terrible as I am with accents, I pegged this guy’s immediately. I’d met plenty of Israeli muscle back when I lived in Los Angeles, and they all talked like this. He turned to Elizabeth. “Roman is on his way.”
“Excellent,” she said. “Ray, this is Isser Harel.”
Isser extended his hand. “Not my real name, obviously.”
I didn’t know what was obvious about it, but okay.
My confusion must have showed, because Elizabeth said: “Several of us use pseudonyms for security. Anita isn’t really ‘Anita King’, for example.”
“I don’t know Anita’s real name,” Isser said, “nor should I. Many of the peers have adopted pseudonyms as well, for various reasons. But for myself, a former agent, I have taken the name of the man who oversaw the capture of Adolf Eichmann and founded the Mossad.”
“And that impresses people?” I asked.
He shrugged. “Sure. Except for the Nazis, and who cares about Nazis?”
A man hurried through the door. He wore a blue suit that fit him like a sack and his face was tired and pouchy. He was the kind of guy who looked older than he was, and he looked about eighty.
“I am sorry for being late,” he said. He didn’t extend his hand. “Mr. Lilly, yes? I am Roman Marchuk, Bureau Chief of Investigative Division. I organize investigations into suspicious activity. Tell me, is it true that you simply walked out of a meeting with the peers? Without leave? And that you came down here to eat your lunch, making peers follow?”
Elizabeth and Isser stared at me with a sort of mute amazement.
“Actually,” I said, “it was breakfast.”
They laughed, shaking their heads. I wondered what they’d do if I told them what I’d said before I walked out.
“You see, Ray, the peers are quite old-fashioned,” Elizabeth said. “Very old-world. To them, everyone working for the Twenty Palace Society is part of a servant class, and in the old world, the servants served. They didn’t make themselves an annoyance. When a peer is particularly vexed, they have a tendency to slap with the backs of their hands, if you get my meaning.”
I did. I’d seen Annalise dole out one of those backhand slaps. She’d taken off a guy’s head with it.
Still, I didn’t like what I was hearing. “Servant class? I’m an American.” I felt like an asshole for saying it, but a righteous asshole.
“Yes. Well,” Elizabeth said. “It sometimes takes a while for our roles to become fully clear.” As though I just needed to learn my place. I let the remark pass. “Roman has explained his role; I’m the Peer Services Liaison. When the peers need to travel somewhere, or invest some money, or require legal assistance, they contact me, then I put my concierges on it. This is not just when they’re on missions, of course. We help with the day-to-day of their lives.”
“And security,” I said.
“Yes, inside the First Palace, although I trust Anita to run things there. And Isser here is our Soft Operations Coordinator.”
The balding man leaned forward. “Before you ask, the ‘hard operations’ are the ones the peers go on. Their kill missions. You understand because you have been there, I know. But dispatching a peer is like launching a cruise missile, and it is not always the best way. Sometimes, a gentler approach works best: a burglary, perhaps, to steal an enchanted heirloom. A bankruptcy, scandal, or bogus criminal charge, to burden them with legal expenses and force them to sell their heirlooms to us. Sometimes, a kidnapping, to put the fear of Almighty God into them. Those are the people I deal with every day: forgers, thieves, corrupt politicians, and kidnappers.” He looked at me with a placid expression. “Does this shock you, to hear that we sometimes snatch someone’s mother off the street and send her little finger in the mail?”
Was I shocked? I was remembering my first official mission with Annalise, in Hammer Bay. Would Charles Hammer have stopped his bullshit if he’d gotten a box with his sister’s ear in it? How many lives would have been saved if I’d acted like the asshole I am instead of trying to be hero I’m not?
“It’s not as harsh as killing them, I guess.”
“Yes. That is how I see things, too. Gentler. Also, we have strict rules. The society is funded by investments arranged by Elizabeth’s people and by the assets the peers acquire. For my operatives, making a profit is strictly forbidden. We take no ransom but magic.”
“How much overlap is there in your divisions?”
“None for me,” Isser said, leaning back. “Obviously. My operatives know who they work for, of course, but the thieves and kidnappers they hire can never know.”
“Roman and I share some resources,” Elizabeth explained. “Some of the computer technicians protecting our secrets in Security will sometimes be tasked with digging up other people’s secrets for Investigations.”
Ray nodded. Now was the time to lead them toward the subject he wanted to cover. “But lately, you’ve had less to do.”
“Pardon me, but my workload has not decreased,” Roman said. He smiled slightly, seemingly at great effort, to suggest that he meant what he said but was not seriously complaining. He smoothed his left eyebrow with the thumb of his left hand. “There are still many strange things in world, although fewer and fewer come from our enemies in the Deeps.”
Isser cut in. “Elizabeth manages fewer missions, but she still deals with the peers’ ordinary needs. It is my division that has fallen into lassitude. For better or worse.”
Roman grunted. “And way media writes today makes whole thing impossible. ‘You will not believe crazy thing!’ they say in headline, but you read story and thing is not crazy but very believable instead.” His phone buzzed and he dug into his ill-fitting jacket for it. “So, we are busy, but with only nonsense. Now I must be busy again. It is good to meet you, Ray. Sorry I must be rude.”
He extended his hand. I shook it. “It’s all good.” He hurried to the door. To the other two, I said, “He’s a cop?”
“A detective,” Elizabeth said, “who specialized in organized crime. Don’t let his manner fool you. He’s brilliant.”
I looked at Isser. “And you were a spy, but not for the Mossad. Something else.” I looked at the way he sat in his chair and said, “Military intelligence, probably. And you”—I gestured vaguely at Elizabeth—“were probably gopher to the Queen of England.”
She looked startled, as though I’d recited her social security number to her. Then I remembered she didn’t have one because that’s an American thing. “Actually, I coordinated state events at Buckingham Palace, and the royal family knew me well.”
“And I was an Assistant Chief of Staff for Aman, which is indeed Israeli military intelligence, but not Mossad.”
Elizabeth stared at me stonily. “Were
you guessing, or are there files on us we don’t know about?”
She’d turned serious, and Isser’s eyes had narrowed. “I’m a car thief, not a cop,” I said. “I don’t do filing.”
It occurred to me that this might be what the peers were trying to discover when they were grilling me about my history and training and shit: this way of seeing.
I’d guessed Elizabeth came from Buckingham Palace because of the way she talked and acted, her attitude toward being a servant, and also—this was the real clincher—because of the arrogance of the peers of the society. Her job could probably be handled by an experienced hotel concierge, but that wouldn’t be prestigious enough for these assholes. They’d want to be served by someone who served royalty.
And Isser might have looked sly and casual, but even in his chair, he was sitting at attention. Besides, the guy couldn’t hide his accent, but would he pick a fake name from his old organization? It would be like posting a neon sign that said, Start your research on me here.
She and Isser still looked doubtful. “Guessing is what I do.” And if that wasn’t enough to satisfy them, tough shit. Besides, I had an idea I wanted to test. “Have either of you seen an actual predator?”
“Yes,” Isser answered. “Once, in the high desert in the frigid night. I even caught a glimpse of the Empty Spaces, as you once did. That incident led to my current position.”
“I did not see one firsthand,” Elizabeth said. “However, I did see a predator through a video monitor. I saw what it could do. I think you’ll find a lot of us here have lost friends and loved ones to creatures from the Empty Spaces.”
Which brought them all together in a feeling of shared purpose. “I’m glad to finally meet the people running the society.”
Elizabeth shifted in her seat. “It’s the peers who are in charge—”
“But you’re the ones who make it work.”
“Our main role here is as a point of contact for the peers. All communications for our three divisions come through us specifically. The peers never need to call an investment broker or lawyer; I arrange that for them. They never need to recruit a skilled safecracker; they can call Isser. If there’s a question about one of our investigations, they call Roman.”
“Although,” Isser interjected, “our Ms. Powliss has been known to break normal channels with the investigators. It’s yet another of poor Roman’s headaches.”
“Nonetheless,” Elizabeth continued, “this is how the society functions, and because you have been so instrumental on recent missions, the council has decided to extend this same courtesy to you. You aren’t a peer, but you’re an effective operative for our side, and we’d like to offer our support.”
She seemed sort of brittle as she said it, as though she felt she was on thin ice. “Huh. How often do you make offers like this?” I was sure I knew the answer, and I was right.
“Never. Before the peers cleared this decision, they said the society has never permitted such a thing. Not in hundreds of years. So, you’re the first.”
“So, not to allies, like this João”—I practiced saying his name—shoe-ow—and thought I’d gotten reasonably close—“who was hanging around near the entrance?”
They looked at each other and I knew I’d gotten him in trouble. Elizabeth shook her head. “Absolutely not.”
I knew it was a compliment. They were bringing me inside and treating me with respect. Still, I felt wary. “Thank you,” I said, because they were expecting some kind of gratitude. “Good to know I won’t have to order my own pizzas anymore. But I guess this means you don’t believe Annalise and me were faking our missions.”
“Well, I certainly don’t. I’ve known Ms. Powliss for years, and I wouldn’t dream of accusing her of dissembling of any sort.”
I nodded. Elizabeth was smart and self-possessed, but she wouldn’t accuse her bosses of anything. Servant class.
“I, also, do not doubt her,” Isser said. “One of the few recent duties my operatives have had was to confirm reports of your missions. What they could, at least.”
Elizabeth’s phone rang.
I didn’t have much more time with them. In fact, I was surprised two of them had sat with me so long. “Okay. Since I have access to you guys now, let me ask something: What happened when the society lost its spell books? It had two, right? Two of the three spell books that come from a time before human beings. And then they were gone.”
Isser nodded. “Along with our most powerful peers. How did you learn about this?”
“Not from anybody in the society,” I said, a little resentfully. “Some of the motherfuckers we were trying to kill told me.”
“Well,” Elizabeth said without looking up from her phone, “you’re about to meet one of the few human beings who were there.”
Isser’s jaw dropped. “Dmitry is here? In the building?”
Elizabeth looked pale when she answered. “He just turned up in a suite upstairs, bypassing our checkpoints. And he wants to speak to Ray immediately. Alone.”
After:
As we pulled into São Bento station in Porto, Annalise got a text from Maria. The Kiels were gathering their luggage to get off the train. We didn’t have any luggage, so we just hopped.
If the train station in Lisbon looked like the set of a science fiction show on TV, the one in Porto looked like it belonged in an old-time romance. There were high ceilings and arched windows and too many people pushing past us. And, of course, tiles with art on them. It took some time, but Annalise led me outside the station, across the street, and to the foot of the hill. She made me turn my back to the station.
She took out her phone and texted Status? to Maria.
A little old woman in a black coat and black scarf tied over her hair answered aloud. “The status is that they went immediately to the ticket counter and bought two tickets on the Douro River Line. They’re going inland, possibly toward Spain. They might be meeting someone, because the train doesn’t go all the way to the border anymore.”
“When does our train leave?”
I glanced at my phone. It was nearly five o’clock. My last day on Earth was crawling by.
“My train leaves in slightly more than twenty minutes,” Maria said. “You will need to hire an auto. The Linha do Douro is small and the cars are open; if you board, they will spot you. I will travel with them and notify you when they get off. In the meantime, get yourself some little French girls. These northerners are stuck-up pigs, but they know how to cook.”
Maria pulled a pair of black-framed glasses from her bag and went back into the station. Annalise took out her phone and called Elizabeth to arrange a driver. Back home, I was her driver, but whether she didn’t trust me to translate the signs or she didn’t trust the predator in me, today I was a useless passenger.
We walked away from the town square in case the Kiels decided to grab dinner in one of the cafes nearby. Like in Lisbon, the sidewalks in Porto were calçada and were crowded by the fronts of buildings—no lawns, no fences, no separation from the daily traffic. Unlike Lisbon, where the buildings were big, blocky things and were mostly painted white, in Porto the buildings were more slender, more varied in height, and more colorful. Some were yellow. Some were lavender. It hadn’t really occurred to me how uncomfortable I’d been down in the south until I walked onto the streets here. Everything felt less imposing.
I also saw a number of for-sale signs on buildings with broken windows and collapsed roofs. I glanced at the mark on my wrist again. Maybe the local cops would find my scorched bones in that one. Or that one. Maybe they’d find them tonight.
While we waited for our driver, Annalise took me for little French girls. I didn’t think for a second that this would be a Celebrate Ray’s Last Night on Earth thing, and my pessimism was on the mark. It turned out to be the name of a fucked-up sandwich with gravy poured over it. The fries were good.
It was dark by the time the driver arrived. Elizabeth had arranged an older Nissan Xterra, whi
ch I was grateful for. I didn’t want to fold myself into one of those European toy cars, not if we were traveling any great distance. The driver was a middle-aged guy with crooked shoulders. He looked like a partially deflated balloon. As we talked, I learned he was a former investigator but had left the society because of an illness of some kind. I didn’t pry. I asked if he was working for Uber and he laughed at me. The society wouldn’t let a bunch of Silicon Valley tech bros track their movements, not ever.
I didn’t pay much attention to the instructions the boss gave to our driver. Instead, I stared out the window at the city. We passed out of the old section into parts that looked like any city: asphalt, streetlights, shops on the corner. We passed a thing that looked like a giant, flouncing butterfly net, then eased onto a multi-lane road. The driver might have looked sickly, but he had a lead foot.
Once we passed city limits, it was narrow blacktop road the whole way.
We reached farm country, but not at all like the broad, open plains full of wheat or corn that we’d driven through in the US. Out my window, I saw lots of sloping hills, lots of swerves and turns in the road ahead. By the moonlight, I could see pretty little houses amidst compact olive trees standing in rows and columns on the hillsides. They looked remarkably like the ones back in California. Where they hadn’t planted olive trees, there were grapevines.
I suddenly remembered that there was a sweet, strong wine called port, and it came from here, probably from these exact vines. It was named after the city we’d just left. I’d never tried any, and now I probably never would.
Some of the farms looked abandoned, and little access roads wound through the hills. Any one of them would have been a decent place for Annalise to ask for the money in my pocket. We could have done it right in the car, sitting behind a hill somewhere. We could have done it anytime.
And when that time came, I would not run.
It was some time before Annalise received another text from Maria. After reading it, she made the driver pull over and they talked about train stations. He put it into his GPS. It turned out to be on the other side of the river. He had to turn around for the nearest bridge. Even with a late start, we had outpaced the train.
The Twisted Path, a Twenty Palaces Novella Page 5