He was silent for a while, just enjoying his joint. I just watched him. The pot was dulling his reactions, and making it hard for me to read him.
“I wonder about you, sometimes,” he said, after a while. “Your stare, and the horrible nightmares you have, and the way you tense up around cops. You’ve got some pretty nasty demons back there.”
I smiled a bit. “You don’t want to know about my demons.” Damn. I hadn’t thought I was being so obvious about the cops.
“There’s other things, too. Those muscles you have, the way you disappear at night, and the incredible amount of food you can eat without worrying about your figure.” He thought about it for a while, and then he shrugged.
“That was a hell of speech you gave, you know that? You could be a pretty major figure in this business, if you wanted. You’ve got the organizational skills, and you’ve got a damned good feel for people, in a sort of dark way. You’re realistic enough not to get caught up in the bullshit, and you give a damned good speech. I think people would follow you if you tried to lead.
“The only thing is, I don’t think you believe in this stuff. You come along and you’re good, but you don’t belong. I’ve got some friends, though. They’ve been looking for someone like you, with your skills and attitude, for a long time. Any interest in talking to them?” He suspected. This was more than an omen, this was my mission.
“Not really.”
“Bummer.”
We both sat back in our chairs and shared the joint. Neither of us said anything for a long while. We used up the joint, and Red took the last good toke and snuffed it out.
“I have a friend, though,” I said. “Someone like me. She’s sort of interested in people like your friends. Tell you what – give me some names and phone numbers of these friends, and I’ll see they get to her.” He hesitated. “She’s a good person to know, in this business,” I said, letting my voice go husky.
I reached over to him and brought him to me. Two days had passed since my second kill on this mission (seventeen year old girl a couple days from going over, who died with a needle in her arm because I put it there to cover my tracks), and we had done enough talking. There, in the common room of the co-op, I took Red to me, and I showed him how good sex might be. I did things with his body far beyond his mundane dreams. Those men had thought I was good before. They never knew how good I could be. I would figure in Red’s wet dreams for the rest of his life.
Red fell asleep on the couch after we finished, too exhausted even to move. When he woke up, I was gone, along with his list of SDS contacts.
Gilgamesh Meets Focus Rizzari [expanded version]
Only one day after his meeting with Thomas the Dreamer, and already a mystery. He expected juice patterns from Gymnast, and he found them. He knew about Sky’s relatively recent dalliance with Gymnast and her household. However, even after dodging the juice patterns decorating the ground near her household and approaching to within a hundred yards of her home, he still couldn’t find any sign of gristle dross. Transforms had lived in the estate for years. The place should have been a cesspit of gristle dross, beyond the ability of any Crow to remove.
The common wisdom said that Crows could not work with Focuses, and yet, all the signs here pointed to Crows working with Focus Rizzari for a very long time. Was this mystery tied in to the disappearance of the Crows? He wouldn’t have thought so, but he certainly couldn’t say for sure.
The tiny Focus waited for him on the front steps of her mansion, leading up to a covered porch, as he had arranged in his last phone call to her. A single light in the ceiling of the porch illuminated her in the evening darkness. His ability to read her emotions came and went, more variance than simply a distance related function. While she waited for him to nerve himself up to approach her, he suspected she wove juice patterns, some form of experimentation, given the negligible amount of juice in use.
He wasn’t terrified of Focus Rizzari, nor she of him. She exuded strength, not the dark strength of Hera or Icon, but a different, almost familiar strength he found comforting. He suspected she knew exactly where he was at any point in time, and was polite enough to give no sign.
Too soon to approach, he backed off, taking refuge behind the hedges of a smaller estate across the road. His hands shook, which he thought silly. He had coped with Keaton far more easily, and Icon as well. What was different about this situation?
His mission. He suspected he hadn’t yet accepted the mission as his. The task to ferret out evidence of Crow Killer’s identity wasn’t one he wanted. What he wanted to be doing was helping Tiamat recover.
Yet, here he was.
Gilgamesh sighed and shook his head. He forced his mind back to the situation at hand. He had to.
For instance, how did a Focus household manage to live in such a large estate? How did they get the money? This was a millionare’s estate; despite the relative narrowness of the streetfront, the estate covered about an acre and a half. Much of the estate wasn’t visible from the street; he picked out five other buildings out back, including a garage and what had to have once been a horse barn (no longer; the barn had a basement and a loft, and showed the obvious dross signs of Transform inhabitation).
The Skinner had visited here, but he picked up no evidence of Arm dross inside the main house or the barn, just in the back yard and in several of the outbuildings. He couldn’t blame them for not trusting the elder Arm, but how had they kept her out of the main house? She must have chosen not to go in. Why?
Much of what he understood about Gymnast and her household had to be wrong, because it was self-contradictory. The worst was the story of Occum and the Inferno (the Crow term for this Focus household) house poet, Lament. Lament was a favorite of the Crows who worshipped poetry. One legend had Occum rescuing her from a Monster, another had Occum sending her fan letters and tricking Lament into thinking Occum was a Negro woman. Another legend said Lament was a Transform diplomat who captured Occum, but later let him go. Gilgamesh doubted any of these legends contained any truth.
Sky had been absent from the household for a month, and had visited only sporadically in the months beforehand, yet the household was still relatively clear of dross. Even stranger, none of the dross was sweet, the form of dross most Focuses, save the most pathetic enslaved ones, produced. Instead, he picked up an earthy, mildly spicy flavor to some of the remaining dross, localized in one large room that dominated the bottom floor of the estate mansion.
Gilgamesh wondered if he should leave, and return at the end of his planned trip, as he would be doing with Occum’s Beast Man infested place. Too many mysteries, always unnerving for a Crow. Yet, that was what he was trying to find – mysteries and anomalies.
He concentrated his metasense on the Focus, who smiled and looked in his direction as he did so. How did she notice his metasense use? Talent and tricks. Focus Rizzari’s glow was beautiful, more beautiful than any of the other Focuses he had taken the time to study. Despite her almost Crow-like patience, as she waited for him, her inner self revealed her as forceful and curious, loyal and driven. Almost Tiamat-like.
Gilgamesh made his choice, and began to walk toward the Focus, crossing the street down the block, and then walking back toward Focus Rizzari. His chosen trick this time, to get around the panic, was to concentrate on the Tiamat-like aspects of Focus Rizzari’s inner self. He could cope with Tiamat. He should be able to cope with a Tiamat-like Focus.
Focus Rizzari stood when he ambled up the short slate and concrete walkway leading from the street to the mansion. “Hello there,” she said. She stuck out her hand and smiled. “I’m Focus Lorraine Rizzari.” Gilgamesh blinked and fought down panic – he hadn’t realized how short the Focus was, even shorter than the Skinner.
“Gilgamesh,” he said, and took her hand.
Of all things, the Focus’s household had a feeling of ‘home’.
It was a pleasant night for late April in Boston, though Gilgamesh suspected it would rain tomor
row. He sat at one end of the front porch, meditating, two of the household’s pet cats in his lap, three others rubbing up against his legs or asleep at his feet. Opposite, Gymnast meditated with him. Her people stayed mostly in her oversized house, though several were out in back, working on repairs to the wrecked cabana next to the pool or just enjoying the night air. He hadn’t entered the oversized house yet, but he had walked the grounds. Good dross suffused the cabana area, hot Keaton dross, a month old but not fully dried out.
A meeting with Gymnast seemed a perfect place to start his investigations and establish his cover. It helped that Gymnast was a quiet woman. Her glow felt strong, but she was nowhere near as dark as Hera of Philadelphia or as different as Icon of Los Angeles. She had also been as patient with him as Shadow and Thomas the Dreamer.
She was also pregnant. He hadn’t realized that Focuses could become pregnant. Typical Sky, doing the impossible.
“At least four Crows utilize your household, Focus Rizzari,” he said, after his meditation revealed the general lack of dross outside of her house. “Though only one of them has been inside at the good stuff recently, as far as I can tell.”
For the first time, Gilgamesh thought about the size of the task he had taken on. Thomas the Dreamer’s idea to go talk to people, collect random bits of information, and sort through them looking for the relevant bits sounded so good in theory. In practice, the task felt daunting. How much information would he need to sift through? There could be thousands of mysteries, most of them having nothing to do with Crow Killer. Without access to Arm dross he would need to write down everything he discovered, or he would forget things. His journal would extend into volumes.
He tried not to think about the dangers circling all these other mysteries he might stumble across.
“That would be Sky,” Focus Rizzari said. She was a short woman, less than five feet tall, with short black hair and as expected a gymnast’s body. Beautiful, like all Focuses, but she covered it with dowdy clothes and an academic awkwardness, a subtle disguise making her feel less dangerous. “Occum, Sinclair and Midgard have also made nighttime visits in the past month.”
Interesting. Last he knew, Occum was holed up with his Beast Men. He knew he would need to visit Occum on his mission, but because of Occum’s work with his terrifying Beast Men, Gilgamesh planned to save the Occum visit for later.
“Focus, ma’am, I do wonder about the complete lack of bad dross here.” She had said her household had lived here for five years. This place ought to be a cesspit.
“The gristle dross?” Focus Rizzari said. “I’ve had contact with Occum since before I moved back here. Although we’ve never formally met, a long and involved story all on its own, ever since I moved back here he’s been doing full twice yearly cleanings, when we’re on vacation.” Gymnast let her voice tail off. She studied the nearly starless night sky, dimmed by the city lights around them. A cool breeze rustled the trees, and the dark hair on her head. He found her presence comforting, a surprise. She was a Focus.
Hmm. Gristle dross was a Crow term. The fact Occum had worked with Gymnast for so long was a major point in her favor. The information also provided an important bit of data, implying a stout Crow had the capability to do full dross removal over the long haul. Gilgamesh didn’t have the capability, yet; despite his best efforts the Skinner’s San Francisco mansion already had a few places where the dross had gone over to gristle.
His observation led to another interesting idea. Gilgamesh had involved himself with an Arm at a young age and his involvement allowed him to advance faster than normal for a Crow. Occum had also involved himself with a Major Transform, a Focus, for many years, presumably when both were young Major Transforms. Did this involvement contribute to Occum’s effectiveness? Was it good for a Crow to have early involvement with other Major Transforms? An interesting idea, one he needed more data points to prove.
“He won’t meet you? Occum, from what he sounds like in his letters, is one of the least skittish Crows I know of. He even works with Beast Men.”
Gymnast gave him an awkward smile. “Occum considers Beast Men far easier for a Crow to deal with than Arms and, um, certain darker Focuses.”
Gilgamesh closed his eyes and let his metasense expand around him, paying close attention to the Focus. Gymnast wasn’t dark enough to produce slippery dross, as Hera had. Another mystery. Did different Crows have different definitions of dark? Maybe some Crows out there didn’t consider Crow Killer to be evil. Now that was an awful thought.
He actually found Gymnast’s glow beautiful and nicely defined, having many of the same attractive aspects as Tiamat’s glow. His observation illuminated another mystery: shouldn’t a Focus with an Arm-like glow have an Arm-like personality?
“Doesn’t not having to move cause problems with the other Focuses?” Gilgamesh asked.
Focus Rizzari nodded and moved her chair a little closer to Gilgamesh, deliberately crowding him. When she wasn’t meditating, she couldn’t keep her eyes off of him. Sometimes he swore the looks she gave him were of shocked awe, other times she appeared to be lost in rapturous meditation. Surely he couldn’t be that interesting. He worked on restraining his panic.
“Yes. I can’t tell any other Focuses the truth about how I keep this place and why I don’t have to move. So I tell them it’s because I can think in differential equations.” She grinned at him. “Can you believe it? No bad juice buildup because I think in differential equations? A crazy explanation, yes, but I have to tell them something.” He was glad she told him that the differential equation explanation was a fiction. He winced inside to think of running across such a story as fact and trying to understand how the data fit in. He wondered how many of the unsolved mysteries waiting for him would turn out to be deliberate obfuscations. For that matter, how much ‘common knowledge’ would turn out to be false, intentionally on someone’s part, or otherwise.
His task was starting to look appallingly complex.
“I thought you were rebelling against the senior Focuses in part because they refuse to believe Male Major Transforms exist.”
Such an innocent question. Such an exasperated slap of her forehead by the back of her right hand.
“Does everybody know?” Focus Rizzari said. “We haven’t even made our formal ‘Declaration of Independence’ yet!” Her reactions showed him a glimpse of her hotter more Arm-like emotions, which naturally attracted him. He did boggle at Gymnast’s level of emotional self-control, which masked those emotions until now. Since he had learned to sense emotions with his metasense he had never run into someone who could mask them so thoroughly.
“I’m sorry,” Gilgamesh said. “Your rebellion seemed to be common knowledge.” He drummed his fingers on the wooden arm of his chair and haphazardly petted one of the cats in his lap. The cat was shedding. He didn’t understand politics and Focus politics seemed even more incomprehensible than normal human politics. This didn’t bode well, if Carol’s hypothesis was correct, and Officer Canon slash Crow Killer turned out to be a Focus.
“So, if I may ask what may be a personal question, did you call the cats to you, or did they seek you out on your own?”
“I didn’t call them,” Gilgamesh said. He metasensed the cats for the first time and noticed a tiny haze of dross about them. “Some other Crow’s befriended them, though.” He refused to believe any mysterious affinity to animals might be related to the Crow Killer puzzle.
Or maybe not. He sighed inside, and made a mental note to write down his affinity. The cat Gilgamesh was petting kneaded his leg and purred.
“That would be Occum.” Gymnast thought for a moment. “Strange. Our housecats never show their tails when Sky’s around. Do you Crows have individual animal affinities?”
Gilgamesh shrugged at the strange question. Many Crows kept dogs, he knew, but he had never felt the urge. There always seemed to be cats around, though, wherever he went. “If we do, I think for me it’s cats.”
“So. Sk
y says you’re trying to be an adventurous Crow, like he is. What’s your mission?”
“I have two. One is personal, the other is from my Guru, Shadow.” Gymnast smiled in recognition. Gilgamesh wondered if she had met Shadow or just exchanged letters with him. “My personal mission is to figure out what’s going on with Crows as Major Transforms. As I hinted at over the phone, my other mission is to figure out who’s been killing and kidnapping Crows.”
He didn’t mean to blurt that out. Right after Thomas the Dreamer told him to be secretive. Had he fallen for the tiny Focus’s charisma? That was easy to believe. He found her quite likeable. Her personality was as magnetic as her glow.
“Hold on,” Focus Rizzari said, more forceful. “When did this killing start?”
“After the Philadelphia Massacre. I think the mastermind behind it is the Beast Master of the Beast Men, who Carol knows as Officer Canon. I also think Officer Canon and those Beast Men are behind the tagged Transform kidnappings you Focuses are so worried about. Stacy Keaton shares my views on the subject, but neither of us has any real data to back it up.”
The Focus bit her lip. “So they can sneak up on Crows as well. I didn’t think anyone could sneak up on a Crow.”
“Neither did the Crows,” Gilgamesh said. “Wait. As well? The Transform kidnappers are using Transform stealth tricks?”
“Yes. In several cases the Transforms were kidnapped from within a Focus’s metasense and eyesight range.”
Gilgamesh tried to contain his glee. A real, obviously relevant piece of information! Maybe this questioning business would work, despite his doubts.
“I think I’m as ready as I’m ever going to be,” he said. He looked up when he didn’t get an answer. Focus Rizzari stared at him, but her mind wandered elsewhere.
The Good Doctor's Tales Folio Six Page 7