by John Meaney
He entered, closing the door behind him, and went down the short hallway to a small, tidy sitting room. Lace antimacassars were draped across the backs of two armchairs and a settee. Matching doilies decorated low tables on which traditional five-sided purple candles were burning.
“Here we are.” The woman came in with a tray. “Coffee, scarab cookies. Sit down, young man.”
“My name's Fred Harkin.” It was a cover name Harald had used before. “Um, thank you.”
“And I'm Rita Westrason, but you probably knew that.” She put the tray down on a table, then pointed at Harald's folder. “Probably got everything in there about me.”
“Not that much, ma'am.”
“Well.”
While Mrs. Westrason poured coffee, Harald looked around, noticing the blue-and-white photographs on the mantelpiece. One was old, of a young man in shirtsleeves; the other, less faded, of a similar-looking man, in uniform.
“That was my Roberto.” Mrs. Westrason pointed at the older photo. “Not long after our wedding. He's been gone for fifteen years now.”
Gone to the necrofusion piles, she meant.
“I'm sorry. And is that your son?”
“Pietro. He's a chief petty officer in the Federal Navy, you know.”
“Good for him,” said Harald, meaning it.
“He's a good boy.” Mrs. Westrason sipped her coffee. “Ah. Tastes all right, and do you know it used to burn my stomach something rotten. Even with taking bicarbonate of soda every day. But it's all cleared up now. Isn't that great?”
“Um, absolutely, ma'am. Could you tell me if you're—”
“Call me Rita.”
“Yes, thank you.” Harald allowed himself a soft exhalation. “So, Rita, how has the phone service been? Has it been, uh, reliable enough?”
It occurred to him that he could have prepared more detailed questions consistent with his cover. He should ask about the quality of signal, he guessed now, and how often a crossed line occurred. That kind of thing. But in the Marines, he'd learned not to plan in detail too far ahead of time. Situations change, and planning too soon usually means having to plan twice over, or sink in the shit.
“Totally wonderful.” Mrs. Westrason pointed to the indigo telephone. “Clear as a bell, fast to connect, and cheaper than it was before. I mean the old black one, dear.”
“And never any problems, Rita?”
“Nary a one. And do you know, my old osteowhatsits has healed up too. I know that's a coincidence, but a nice one, don't you think?”
“Um, sure. I certainly do.”
“So what do you do for the phone company, besides cheer up lonely old ladies?”
“Well, I also …”
Harald spun a web of lies for the next quarter of an hour. Finally he said, “Sorry, Rita, but I have to check on some other customers. I hope they're half as nice as you.”
“Fred, you are a dear boy. You stay there a moment.”
“But—”
Mrs. Westrason bustled into the kitchen, and came back carrying a small blue disposable snailskin bag.
“Greyberry cookies, and a couple of the scarabs,” she said. “You're too thin.”
“No, I couldn't.”
“Of course you can. Unless you want me to phone your supervisor”—she pointed at the indigo handset—“and simply insist.”
“All right, Rita. I give up. Thank you so much.”
It took several more minutes of politeness before Harald was out of the front door. He waved, Mrs. Westrason shut the door, and then he was alone on the landing, clutching his bag of cookies.
Commissioner Vilnar, from behind his desk, watched the pretty young surveillance officer enter and take the visitor's seat. He saw the way she focused on the orrery.
“Do you like it?” The commissioner leaned back in his scale-covered chair. “Being able to decorate your own office is a perk of the job that I've grown used to.”
“It's terrific, sir. I wish I could afford one.”
The commissioner knew from her file that she came from Nulumbra. Perhaps the contrast between the brightness of her homeland and the Tristopolitan darkness made her think about the nature of Earth's orbit.
“Maybe someday you'll be able to buy dozens. Politicking and hobnobbing with the rich and influential, though, is hard work on the liver and digestion.”
“Sir.” The young officer smiled.
“And one of the people I've been schmoozing with is the managing director of Tristopolis City Zoo. He's also a city councillor, and a big supporter of the Department when it comes to getting funding.”
“Oh.”
“So strictly on the QT, between you and me, if you should happen to pick up on any sighting of wolves … Let me know first, all right?”
“Wolves?” The officer was puzzled. “Not unlicensed death-wolves, sir?”
“Hades forbid. I mean low-sentience snow-wolves. Primitive cousins.”
“In the city? You mean some have escaped?”
Commissioner Vilnar shook his head.
“The director didn't say so directly, and I might be reading between the lines and making up lies. So that's why I want you to come to me first.”
The young officer looked down at the floor, then up at Vilnar, her gaze clear.
“Absolutely, sir. I'm fine with that.”
“Good.” The commissioner knew that his reasoning didn't make entirely rational sense, but that was all right. Let her think that there were confidential matters behind his request—or rather, behind his clear but off-the-record command. “Very good. You can get back to work now.”
“Sir.”
Once she had gone, the black chair stirred, tilting a little.
“Don't ask me,” the commissioner said. “But if it is about to happen, I'll tell you one thing now: we're not ready.”
The chair subsided into stillness.
“Nowhere near ready.”
At ground level, a stooped woman with a lined face, her hair as white as Harald's, was running a mop over the linoleum. Her bucket was beside her front door, which stood half-open. On it, a thirteen-sided knotted-iron emblem hung, surrounding a star formed of interwoven stiletto blades: the symbol of the Holy Reaver. The woman was probably devout, hobbling to temple every day, nine days a week.
“I'm sorry.” Harald hefted his folder and the bag of cookies that Mrs. Westrason had given him. “I'm about to walk across your clean floor.”
“That's what it's for.”
“Thanks. Um, I don't suppose you know Rita Westrason upstairs?”
“What, that bitch?” The old woman stopped, and held her mop still. “You know, she helped me bring my washing in from the yard, just yesterday. She has turned over a new leaf recently. But for years, she was the most miserable person in the block. Wrapped up in herself, in thorns of memory, like the scriptures say.”
“She changed suddenly, did she?”
“I don't know. Well, yes, but I couldn't say when.”
Looking at the symbol on the door, Harald said: “I don't suppose it would have been around St. Lazlo's Day, would it?”
The saints’ days were indelibly written in his mind, from his childhood with a temple-going, ineffectual mother, and a father who was loving until the drink took over. An excellent dad at first, Jax Hammersen had brushed against the edge of a void-summoning field at work one day, and changed forever.
“—right,” the old woman was saying. “I had the Lanyard-and-Leash hanging on the door, so it was St. Lazlo's Day. How did you know?”
“Um, I think Mrs. Westrason had a kind of, what, conversion? Insight?”
“Huh.” Leaning on her mop, the old woman stared up the stairs, then turned back to Harald, and tapped her brow. “Just as likely the brain sickness, like those old biddies get. You know what I mean?”
“Could be.” Harald began to chuckle.
“Go on, young man. Walk across my clean floor, if that's what you're going to do.”
“Wel
l, I do have to go. Though it's hard tearing myself away from a beautiful woman.”
Lines deepened as the old woman smiled and her eyes twinkled, bringing sudden truth to Harald's flattery.
“Get the Hades out of here, with your glib tongue.”
But she was still smiling as she said it, and continued to smile as Harald leaped lightly over the clean area to the outer door. He waved, told her to take care, and left.
Outside on the street, as he walked on, he pulled a clear membranous evidence bag from his pocket, and wrapped it around the bag of cookies without slowing pace. The membrane sealed up. The cookies were probably harmless.
What he had certainly learned was that a personality change had come over Mrs. Westrason on the day that her new telephone was installed. The phone outfit was called CRS, well established in Illurium, new to the Federation. Commander Bowman had ordered Harald to check on the customers’ well-being, whatever that was supposed to mean.
At the corner, Harald turned left, stopped at the second door on the row of tenements, and checked the next entry in his folder. A Mr. Kelfeld lived here, aged seventy-one. He'd bought one of the new phones just two weeks ago. Harald closed the folder, climbed the stone steps to the door, and pressed the brass horned head affixed to it.
When the door opened, the old man who looked out stood ramrod-straight.
“Good morning, sir.” Harald held up the folder, displaying its logo. “I'm checking on the phone quality. You've had good service, since we installed the telephone?”
“Not a single hiss or crackle. Not like the old one.”
“That's good to hear. And how's your health been?”
“Do you know, I feel twenty years younger. The old aches and pains have gone the way of those hisses and crackles. Coincidence, of course.”
“Of course …”
“Won't you come in, young man? I'm just making a pot of stab-root tea.”
Beyond Mr. Kelfeld, in the hallway, stood a well-polished table. On it, Harald could just see the edge of an indigo handset.
“That's kind of you, sir. I'd love to.”
Two hours later, when Harald returned to Pies'n’Trolls, he saw Kresham sitting at a corner table. Dark glasses hid Kresham's stone eyes. It was a well-known habit of Federation military, and ex-military, to slip on a pair of shades whenever they went indoors, to keep their vision sharp when they returned to the dimmer world outside. Right now, the shades made Kresham look like an ex-soldier or perhaps a wannabe; but without the shades, the other customers would have known he was an ex-sniper.
There was nothing wrong with that, except that retired snipers often became cops, and Kresham was currently undercover.
As Harald neared the table, Kresham drained his bottle of Blue Lizard beer.
“Hey,” said Harald. “Where's Jacko?”
“Round back in the kitchen, with the missus.” Kresham pointed to a plate on which only two beans and a streak of sauce remained. “They do kimodo sausages and liverbeans just right. Good protein.”
“Got to keep your strength up.” Harald slid into the seat opposite, and put down his folder. “So how did you get on?”
Beside Kresham lay a folder identical to Harald's.
“Mainly old folk, taking up the early offer 'cause the rates are low, and they're at home all day so it's easy for the connection guys to come.”
“That's what I found,” said Harald. “Anything else?”
Kresham looked around, checking the other customers. A group of men in grease-stained coveralls tucking into purple omelets and fried tubers. Two loners drinking tea and reading newspapers. All of them civilians, and harmless.
“Pretty sprightly bunch,” he said, “for a bunch of old folk. That was odd.”
“And did you notice that they got healthy recently?”
“Yeah, I picked up on that. One person,” said Kresham, “seemed to have started being nice to her neighbors, for the first time in decades.”
Harald thought of Mrs. Westrason.
“I had one exactly like that.”
“Huh. So the new phones”—Kresham lowered his voice as he tapped his folder—“make people nicer and healthier. Bound to be a good thing.”
“Right. Bound to be.”
Neither one of them was smiling.
“You felt any desire to make a call yourself?”
“Not with those phones, no,” said Harald.
“Me neither.”
Both men stared at each other. Finally, Harald changed the subject.
“Tell me about Bowman. You've reported to him for, what, two years now?”
“About that,” answered Kresham. “He's a good guy. Closer to the commissioner than most people realize.”
“That's interesting.”
“Uh-huh. And he'd welcome you on board, man, if you wanna join Robbery-Haunting.”
“Maybe.” Harald sniffed the stone flask. “Indigoberry tea. Not bad.”
“You're thinking the task force will continue, right?” Kresham tipped back his Blue Lizard, swallowed, and put the bottle down. “Under Donal Riordan?”
“Hades, I don't know.” Harald poured himself some tea. “First there's the question of what you might call our operational parameters, and then there's the question of team cohesion. Like what kind of leader would Donal be?”
“Oh. I see.”
Kresham's beer was finished, and he moved the empty bottle aside.
“Thing is,” said Harald, “the chief suspects are probably outside city limits, maybe outside the country. So the feds will want a real federal team that can take off anywhere they need to at a minute's notice, you know?”
“Uh-huh.” It wasn't just the shades that made Kresham's expression hard to read. “And you were saying about Riordan?”
“Shit.” Harald exhaled, put down his tea. “We've had our … differences.”
“So he's not as good as I've heard?”
“Fuck it, Kresham. Maybe I'm not as good as you've heard.”
Kresham had not moved. He could remain motionless for a day or longer, if he had to.
“Tell me,” he said.
“When we were tracking down the bastards, after they'd killed Mina d'Alkernay and stolen Cortindo's body … Look, it was obvious that somehow the Black Circle had inside knowledge, and the signs pointed to the commissioner being a mage, planted inside the department.”
“The Old Man?” Kresham whistled. “You suspected the Old Man?”
“Yeah, and I was convinced that Donal Riordan was his spy inside our task force. Donal was the most recent recruit, and Xalia overheard him talking to the commissioner, and … like that. He was the obvious suspect.”
“Obvious. Right.”
“Ninety percent of the time, the obvious culprit is the real one.” Harald blinked his gentle eyes. “But ninety percent isn't always, and I should have remembered that.”
“I heard you pulled Riordan out of a tight spot in Silvex City.”
“And Cortindo and Gelbthorne and Blanz still got away. At least Laura and Donal took down Blanz, later.”
It had cost Laura her life, but Harald didn't need to say so. The whole force knew what happened in Fortinium that day.
“Shit, Harald. There's no point in beating up on yourself.” Kresham raised his empty Blue Lizard bottle, and waved it so that Jacko, behind the counter, could see. “If you want pain, we can get ourselves down to the combat room and I'll give you a bruising, like the old days.”
“You and which regiment, exactly?”
“Dream on, buddy.”
Jacko arrived with two bottles of Blue Lizard, plus a flask of sweetrose-flavored water for Harald. Kresham slid over, and Jacko sat down.
“I propose a toast,” said Jacko, pushing the drink across the table.
Harald picked up the flask.
“Fuck 'em and die.”
Jacko and Kresham clinked their bottles against the flask. All three repeated the Marines’ oath in unison.
&
nbsp; “Fuck 'em and die.”
They drank.
At about the same time, two men wearing indigo coveralls exited a silver-windowed van, carrying equipment cases. They crossed the dirty sidewalk to an apartment block, and entered the lobby, tracking grime across the recently cleaned floor.
Climbing the stairs, they headed for the fourth story, and reached the door of number 19. One of the men knocked. After a minute, the door opened.
“Why, hello.”
“Good afternoon, Mrs. Westrason.”
Both men blinked in exact synchronicity, pupils flickering—just for a moment—into cross-slits like plus-signs.
“Nice to see you boys again.”
“Can we come in?”
“I was hoping you would.”
They entered, and the door closed shut.
It was five a.m. Donal sat at his desk in shirtsleeves, staring at nothing. On the desktop, his Magnus lay disassembled. A bottle of moth-oil stood beside the gun, along with the thin brushes and spider cotton pads he used to clean it.
“Hey, big guy.” Alexa came into the room. “How's it going?”
“You must be mistaking me for Viktor.”
“He's only a foot taller than you, Donal. Easy for a girl like me to get confused.”
“Uh-huh.” Donal looked down at his stripped weapon. It was perfectly clean. “Give me a moment here.”
He snapped the Magnus back together, and replaced it in his shoulder holster. Then he wrapped up the cleaning kit, and placed it in the top drawer.
“Shouldn't you be at home asleep?” he added, checking the time on his watch.
Not just the time.
The watchface was mostly black, with maybe a quarter showing silver. Three-quarters charge remained: nearly three days before he needed to plug himself in to recharge.
“Not if you need cheering up, Lieutenant.”
“I'm happy. Have you ever seen a happier expression?”
“Uh-huh. You want some coffee?”
“No thanks.”
“Thanatos, Donal. You have changed.”
“Excuse me?”
“Refusing coffee. Come on. What did you think I meant?”
Donal spread his hands, aware that they did not shake, not even the tiny tremor that a calm but living human would experience.