by Gene Wolfe
Of course I wanted to ask about the people who wanted me, but I didn’t. In the first place, she probably knew nothing at all about them, not even their names. In the second place, it was certain to piss her off; and the less she knew the more pissed off she would be. The thing to do was to ask some of ours if they had seen anybody in there looking for me. So I did, after I had a nice hot shower and washed my hair and all that. I went around in one of those stupid hospital gowns they give you for the night sometimes and asked at least half a dozen people. Millie Baumgartner (yes, the cookbook lady) was the only one who had seen anything, a little guy in dark clothes and a tall guy in uniform. She hadn’t recognized the uniform, but she told me she was not good on them. Just a uniform. Green, maybe. Or blue. They had been together.
The small one sounded like he might be the guy who had given me money. He might also have been any of a million other guys.
So that night I went to bed back on my own shelf. It was a lot more comfortable than the truck, but here’s the funny thing. I would rather have been back on the truck. I do not know why, except that I had convinced myself by then that it was all over. I would never see Colette again or Arabella either. I would sleep there on my shelf until I burned, remembering plots, and reviews they had gotten, and the quotes on the backs of my books. Not eating too much because I would get fat and would not look right, and not eating too little either because I would get skinny and then I would look wrong.
With all that going on, I should have had a hard time getting to sleep, and maybe I did, but I do not remember it. All I know is that I was sound asleep when the ’bot came in and woke us up for breakfast.
9
PAYNE, FISH, AND PAIN
They came for me about ten or ten thirty, two big, strong guys. Neither of them was tall and neither was short. Both wore conservative jackets with a little bit of blue piping; neither one was in uniform. They looked to me like they were both in their midforties, but I could be wrong about that. These days, who knows.
Have I said they both wore sunglasses? I do not think I did, but I’m not sure how you back up on this. Maybe I ought to stop right here and explain what I’m doing, how I’m writing this. Only what I’m doing is not really writing, which my brain is blocked on. (Or not all of it is. Only some of it.)
Like this.
I have got to use formal English when I talk. You know all about that. Even before they fixed me so I could not have kids, they put this mental block on me; so when I know what I want to say, another part of my mind, a part I cannot control, turns whatever it is into formal phrases and sentences. Let’s call that part the autospeech center. Then they put in a rule against writing: NOT ALLOWED. Only I can do it on the keyboard like now, so it comes out right, the way I think and not the way I talk.
Well, with this screen I am using (maybe I will tell you about that later) you can either type on the keyboard like this or just talk to it if you would rather do that, which a lot of people would because there are not a hell of a lot of people who can use a keyboard anymore.
So what I do is dictate when I tell you what I said, and use the keyboard for what I think. Neat, right? Only I do not know how to back up on this one. I know you can pull up a manual on the screen, but I do not know how. I need to find that out, too.
The first guy shook my hand and said, “Pain’s my name. Wonderful to meet you, Mr. Smithe. I listened to your disks years and years back, all I could find. Meeting you now is a great, great pleasure.”
The other guy just shook hands, and off we went. Out of the library into the sunshine and then into a big black hovercraft, with the first guy in the driver’s seat. Later I found out his name was spelled “Payne.” The quiet guy’s name was Fish, or maybe Fisher. Something like that. They were partners.
We never flew very high, nowhere near as high as Colette’s hovercab had gone. I asked Payne if we were going far, saying we ought to notify the library if we were. It was something I had just made up; but I thought it sounded good, and I believe he bought it. He said no, we were just going to a safe house on the other side of town; and by the time he had said it we were there, with the roof of the old garage folding back so we could set down into it. I didn’t think “safe house” sounded good, and I was right.
We got out and Fish said, “We oughta cuff him. He might run.” It was the first time I had heard him say a word.
Payne said, “He won’t, will you, Mr. Smithe? You’d get rocked. Tell Fish you won’t run.” That was when I found out Fish’s name.
We went out of the garage and along an old, cracked path to a big screened-in porch. I noticed that from the outside you could not see into it at all, but from inside you could see out like the screens were not even there. I said it was a nice place.
Payne told me, “You won’t be here long, I promise. Just for a couple of days if everything goes well. And then,” he clapped his hands, “back to your shelf in the library, safe and sound.”
Fish said, “Only we got you for as long as we want you. If we need to work you over for a year, well…” He shrugged. “That’s how it goes sometimes.”
“Here’s how it went,” Payne explained. “We were nice and said we wanted to check you out, and they said we couldn’t because you were already checked out by somebody else. She’d never gotten her deposit back, and her time wasn’t up. So they couldn’t let anybody have you.”
I nodded.
“So we said fine, we’re taking him as evidence. You go to court and explain, and if the judge likes you, you’ll get him back in a year or maybe two. Then they said, okay, you can check him out. So you’re checked out.”
I said, “They were supposed to give me a card, in that case.”
“I’ll speak to them about it. It doesn’t matter to us, but I don’t think we could ever sweat anybody for a year. You’d die. I know I would.”
“You won’t have to,” I told him. “I’ll gladly tell you anything you want to know, provided I know it myself. That is my duty as a library resource.”
“Great! That’s great!” Payne smiled. His smile reminded me of an aunt of mine (the first me) who smiled like that whenever she had wrung the neck of one of her chickens. The harder the chicken had tried to get away, the bigger the smile.
We went into the house and into a room that had navy blue drapes over all the windows. Payne saw me looking at them, and held one up. “Soundproofing, see? The window’s shut, too. Double panes in all the windows, glass and notint, and both panes are bullet resistant. It’s so good you can scream if you want to. We won’t have to beat you to make you stop, or stuff a rag in your mouth—nothing like that. Go ahead and scream anytime you feel like it. Want to try it out?”
I shook my head. I had the feeling that if I did, he was going to say he could make me scream better than that and break one of my fingers or maybe burn my feet.
“It’s pretty much a standard interrogation room, only it’s off in the ’burbs where the lawyers won’t find it.” The smile had not gone. “And if they did, they’d need a warrant to get inside—which they wouldn’t get. Do you have a lawyer?”
I said, “I’m afraid not.”
Fish wanted to know, “We goin’ to tie him to the chair?”
Payne shook his head, motioned toward a big ponticwood chair in the center of the room, and told me to have a seat. “I don’t see why. Mr. Smithe’s going to cooperate with us fully—answer every question we’ve got. Right, Mr. Smithe?”
“Correct.”
“Besides, it’s more fun if they’re loose. They get ideas. Make us some kafe, will you?”
I said, “Aren’t you going to sit down?”
Payme smiled again. Same smile. “Not me, Mr. Smithe. I sit down too much as it is. Desk work and all that dog shit. Taking screens and making screens. I ought to walk more. How about a cup of kafe? I should’ve asked sooner.”
I said sure—only it came out as “certainly.”
“First question, describe your connection to t
he Coldbrook family.”
I said, “I don’t really have any connection to the family as such. Colette Coldbrook checked me out, and she’s the only member of the family I’ve ever met.” I hesitated, wondering how much Payne really knew. “As I understand it, all the other members of her family are deceased.”
“She borrowed you?”
“From the library. As I said.”
“Several times?” Payne leaned forward, interested.
“No, only once. Are you holding her?”
He smacked me so hard I just about passed out. “I ask, you answer. Anytime you ask a question, that’s what you get.”
My eyes were watering; I fought to blink it back. “That’s a nasty way to treat a library resource in place of kafe.”
“It’s how we do it. Oh, and if you stand up it’s more of the same, only worse. Tell me everything you know about the Coldbrooks. No detail is too small.”
“It’s not much, I warn you.”
Payne laughed. “You don’t rattle easy, do you? I like that. I should’ve known from your books.”
“That’s very generous of you, very flattering. But I fear it’s not really true.”
“We’re going to find out. Talk about the Coldbrooks, and keep talking.”
“All right. It was a family of four consisting of the father, the mother, and two children. The father’s name was Conrad. I don’t know his wife’s name; Colette always called her Mother. The children were Conrad, Junior, and Colette. At the time she borrowed me, the other three were dead.”
“We’ll start with the mother. What do you know about her?”
“Nothing, beyond the fact that she’s dead. At least Colette said she was.”
“You never saw her? Not even her picture?”
“No, I…”
“You thought of something. What is it?”
“I saw her picture. Or rather I saw a family picture, and she was in it.”
“Good!”
Fish came in, carrying a kafe server, mugs, sweetener, and so forth on a tray.
Payne handed me a mug spangled with yellow flowers. “You get this for cooperating. White and sweet?”
I nodded. “Both, please.”
“Tell me about the picture and you’ll get them.”
Fish set his tray down.
“There’s a long narrow sunroom or solarium running down the south wall of the house. That’s where the lift tube is. We went into it from the kitchen. The outside wall is notint windows, but the facing wall’s hung with pictures. One showed the entire Coldbrook family, the father and the mother, Conrad, Junior, and Colette.” I sipped my black kafe, which was fresh and good but way too strong.
“This was the family’s house, the house outside New Delphi?”
I nodded. “Correct.”
“You’ve seen it. Been inside.”
“Yes,” I said. “Colette took me there.”
Fish made a little noise of satisfaction.
“We’ll get to the house in a minute. Describe the mother.”
“I’ll try. I didn’t stand there and study the picture, you understand. I just glanced at it in passing. She was the smallest of the four, although I doubt that she was actually as short as she appeared. At the time the picture was taken, I would say that she was an attractive woman just entering middle age. Seventy, perhaps. Her clothes looked a bit old-fashioned, I thought, though of course the picture had probably been taken several years ago. Blue-and-white skimmer, dark blue scarf about her neck. Do you remember when women wore those?”
That got me another blow, one that knocked the mug from my hand. I picked it up, apologized, and offered to clean up the mess as well as I could. Payne shook his head and whistled for a ’bot.
When it had completed its task and gone, he said, “The woman we were talking about, the mother. Jewelry?”
I said, “I didn’t notice any.”
“Hair?”
I had to think. “Dark, I’m sure. It appeared jet black in the picture. It may not have been, but it was certainly quite dark. Of course women’s hair colors change with the wind.”
Fish rumbled, “Don’t get fancy.”
“With the phases of the moon, in that case, and the tireless march of the zodiac.”
For a minute there I thought Fish was going to smack me, and so did he; Payne waved him back. “You said she looked small. Talk about that.”
“Correct, she did. On another occasion, Colette told me she was terribly shy. Would you like to hear about that?”
“What about the father?”
“Very tall, and thin. Considerably taller than his son and daughter, although they both looked tall, and Colette is certainly tall for a woman. I would say that he was at least a head and a half taller than his wife. He had broad shoulders and large hands. It was easy to see that he was the dominant member of the family, the decision maker. Everything about him showed it, his height, his eyes, his body language. He had one hand resting on his wife’s shoulder and the other on his son’s. He was the only one who was touching another member—no, that’s wrong. Colette and her brother had joined hands, I think. Not obviously.”
“Describe the father’s face.”
I thought about that for a moment. “Thin. Bony. Strong jaw. Prominent nose. Not at all handsome, but impressive.”
“Clean shaven?”
“Yes. No beard or mustache. I couldn’t see his hair because he was wearing a cap.”
“He was bald.”
“Was he?”
Payne’s hand went up. “Aren’t you ever going to learn? I ask, you answer.”
“I’m sorry. I was surprised, that’s all. They can cure baldness.”
“Maybe he didn’t want to be cured. Tell us about the brother. Describe him. Did he look like his father?”
“No, I don’t believe so. There may have been some resemblance, but nothing striking. More like his mother, I would say. His face was more rounded and not as thin. He looked tall, as I said, but certainly not as tall as his father. Half a head shorter, perhaps. Dark hair. Quite handsome.”
“Colette borrowed you from our library, you said. From the Spice Grove Public Library.”
I nodded. “Yes. She did.”
“For some reason she took you to the family place in New Delphi. Probably she was going there, and she brought you along for company. How long were the two of you together?”
I had to think about that one. “Two and a half days, perhaps.”
“So you had plenty of opportunity to observe her. How she looked, how she dressed, the sound of her voice. All that stuff.”
“Correct. I did.”
Payne leaned toward me, intent. “Fish and I have seen her picture and seen her on trivid, but we’ve never seen her in person, neither one of us. What would you say was her most striking feature? Think!”
“Her eyes, certainly. She has large violet eyes, very beautiful. In her smooth, pale face, they were positively arresting.”
“Did you ever watch her get dressed? Watch her putting on her makeup?”
“No. I never so much as set foot in her bedroom. She had forbade that.”
He leaned back. “Could she have been wearing tinted contacts?”
I thought about that one; it felt wrong, but it was something I knew little or nothing about. “I suppose so. I don’t believe she was.”
Fish grunted.
Payne ignored it. “She wore eye makeup, I’m sure. A woman like that—she’d be bound to.”
“Correct. Also powder and face cream and so forth. I would have been surprised if she had not.”
“What about false eyelashes? Would you have spotted those? They tell me the best ones are very good. Really good, but they’re expensive and they’ve got to be applied at a salon.”
I thought about that, wondering how long this would go on and whether I had any chance of getting away. “I doubt that very much. She wore mascara—but not false lashes, in my opinion.”
“I see
.” (This was still Payne, leaning back with half-closed eyes.) “Good figure?”
“Yes, very good. Not voluptuous, you understand. She’s slender, with long legs and a small waist. I’ve never seen her dance, but I would imagine she would be a good dancer. She’s really very graceful for such a tall woman.”
“You fell for her.”
For some reason I had one hell of a time explaining that I was a reclone just then, but I knew I had to do it. “If I were to have a romantic relationship with a fully human, I would lose my life, Officer Payne. Besides, I—well, I am romantically attached to Arabella Lee, a famous poet. She was my wife—subsequently my ex-wife—during our real lives.”
Payne leaned over me. “Yeah, reclones are things, not people. That’s right. But some people have certain things they care a lot about. A pair of shoes, a ground car, maybe just an old cabinet that’s been in the family for a couple hundred years. Does Colette Coldbrook care a lot about you, Mr. Smithe?”
“Ask her, please. She ought to be a better source of information, and…”
“Yeah? What is it?”
“And please tell me what she says.”
Fish snorted.
I sipped my kafe, trying not to show that I felt like the biggest fool ever. “Something was said earlier about whitener and sweetener, and I see both on that tray. I’d like some, if it’s not too much trouble.”
Grinning, Payne stood up to get them. “For somebody who’s not a man, you’re one hell of a man, Mr. Smithe. I wish I had you on our team.”
I said, “I am on your team, Officer Payne, for as long as you have me checked out.”
He took my mug and added rather too much whitener and rather too little sweetener to it, stirred it, and returned it to me.
Fish growled, “Ask him about the house.”
“Not quite yet.” Payne poured himself more kafe. “You wanted me to ask Colette Coldbrook how she felt about you, Mr. Smithe. Clearly you were hoping to find out if we had her.”
I shook my head. “I assume you do, though I doubt that she’s in this house.”
“We don’t have her at all. Someone does, and I think I know who. But it’s not our department—not even close. Does she like you?”