"Are you rested, Mr. Blanchard?"
"Yes, sir, as well as 1 can be, sir." He hoped the innuendo hadn't been lost. Not that it would matter. Crimmins wouldn’t care if Blanchard was a monk.
‘Excellent. And your assignment?”
"Completed, sir, no problems at all. You’ll have your report before sunset, as usual."
"Again, excellent.”
The man scowled at the far wall, its dull floral paper waterstained near the ceiling. This call wasn't usual, and he didn't much care for the questions he had and knew he couldn't ask. As a matter of fact, the more he thought about it, the more he realized he couldn't recall Crimmins ever contacting him like this, without prior arrangement.
He didn't like the chill that suddenly crawled up his spine.
"Uh, sir, is there a problem?”
There was a pause, and Blanchard frowned again.
The thunder grew louder.
Lightning flared around the edges of the cheap heavy drapes that covered the room’s single window.
"Mr. Blanchard, do you recall your stay in the South last autumn?"
He answered without hesitation: "Yes, sir, 1 certainly do."
No lie; it was the first time Crimmins had ever authorized a bonus.
"Well, Mr. Blanchard, it appears as if we now have a situation down there.’’
"Yes, sir."
"Leave immediately and take care of it, Mr. Blanchard. Do you understand me? Take care of it."
Blanchard grinned without humor. "You can count on me, sir. Is there something special . . . ?"
Again, the long silence.
He rubbed his chest with his free hand.
"He’s coming, Mr. Blanchard."
"I'm sorry?"
"Pay attention, Mr. Blanchard," Crimmins snapped. "I said, he's coming."
Blanchard caught himself before he laughed aloud in delight; instead he raised a fist and punched the air. He didn’t have to ask who, or how Crimmins knew. At last, at long last that damned Strider would be in his sights; would be his for the taking. “I’ll leave on the first plane I can get."
“See that you do, Mr. Blanchard, see that you do."
Blanchard frowned—what the hell did that mean?
"And Mr. Blanchard, please understand me. This time there are no options."
The frown faded quickly. "There never are, sir, I know that.”
"No, you don’t understand. I'm not only talking about him, I'm talking about you."
Blanchard stiffened, but the phone went dead before he could respond. Angrily, he dismantled the equipment; in a rage, he prowled the tiny room, fists clenched, eyes narrowed. The man had threatened him; actually threatened him. Him. As if he were some pissant amateur, some goddamn water boy, some goddamn servant, for God's sake.
He yanked the drapes aside and stood in the window, glaring down at the neon blurred and softened by rain.
He stood there for over an hour.
He didn't move.
Not once.
Shapes and shadows.
"It isn't going to work."
"Of course it will, Maurice. You must have faith."
"There is no faith. There is only what is.”
"Gaia will be displeased."
"Gaia is dying, and we’re doing nothing to help .Her." ... , - ■ = !•= . , ' ; ‘
"This is nothing?"
"Yes. It's nothing. The rogues increase, and there are too few to fight them. The Veil isn't permanent. One of these days, it's going to be nothing more than shreds,"
"Which is why we have Richard."
"Viana, for someone so smart, so . .. mature .. you are one of the most naive people 1 have ever met. That smug bastard is going to die, and for Gaia's sake, you don't have to look so pained. You agreed, just like the rest of us."
"I agreed, yes. That doesn't mean I have to like it.”
"Well, 1 do.”
"I know, Maurice. 1 know."
"I just hope it’s soon. We don’t have much time.”
In a chair by the bedroom door sat a large stuffed panda, a green bow loose around its neck, its black button eyes gleaming faintly in the glow from a panda night-light in the bathroom. On the opposite
wall was an oil landscape, framed in scrolled dark wood, highlights faintly glittering. Beneath the painting was a king-size bed with a brass headboard and solid wood footboard. Beside the bed was a nightstand, with a stuffed pink alligator coiled around a stubby pewter lamp and a French provincial telephone.
The telephone rang.
A long-fingered hand reached out from beneath the quilt, grabbed the receiver after several clumsy attempts, and pulled it back under the covers.
"This had better be good."
"it is. He's coming,”
"When?”
"Probably tomorrow.”
"Goody. Can 1 go back to sleep now?"
"But—”
The hand reappeared, dropped the receiver onto its cradle,
and vanished again.
Hunger.
There was nothing else but the hunger.
The river was dark, a rippling reflection of the clouds that sat motionless over the city. There was no traffic on the water, no sign of movement on the opposite bank or the inhabited hills that rose behind it.
Although the air wasn't cold, it still felt like snow.
Richard shifted uncomfortably.
He sat on a bench facing the embankment, hands deep in his topcoat pockets, an occasional gust sifting hair into his eyes. He had arrived in Chattanooga just before noon, checked into a third-floor room at the Read House, and waited for someone to make contact.
No one had.
There had been no message for him at the desk, none while he ate a late lunch in the hotel restaurant; none when he returned to the room to pace and grow impatient. Fay still wasn't home, and that didn't help his already fraying temper. He had been seconds shy of placing an angry call to Chesney when a bellman delivered an envelope.
The folded cream paper inside said nothing more than aquarium park and the bellman hadn’t a clue who had brought it; it had been left at the front desk, that's all he knew..
The park on the river was more a plaza than a park, with paving stones, a few benches, young trees barely tall enough to be worthy of the name. No one had been there when he had arrived, and he was the only one here now. On his left, the Tennessee Aquarium rose in contemporary design and dark brick, the only windows on the ground floor, where the entrance and gift shop were.
He shifted again, and tucked his chin into his coat.
He had been here over an hour—it was just past four-thirty—and the only life he had seen was a group of schoolchildren heading noisily inside, herded by a pair of young, harried teachers. A short while later, he heard traffic slowly building behind him on Broad Street, a wide four-lane boulevard that cut through the city’s center, the south end ending at the aquarium park; the north end narrowing and forking as it approached Lookout Mountain.
Ten minutes, he thought sourly; I'll give them ten minutes.
Excited voices turned his head. The kids were finally leaving, their tour over, and a school bus coughed impatiently at the curb. One child raced away from the others toward the water, bundled in bright colors, mittens dangling from strings on his sleeves.
"Don't," warned Richard softly as the child waddled past him.
The little boy stopped, tilted his head, and grinned. "Fish," he declared, pointing at the aquarium. His cheeks and the tip of his nose were already red.
"Right.”
"Fish," the boy said, pointing now at the river.
Richard shook his head. "Nope. Not today."
At that moment one of the teachers rushed up and scooped the child into her arms. Flustered, face drawn with anxiety, she scolded the boy softly for leaving the class and, in the same breath, thanked Richard for stopping him.
"No problem,” he said with a smile. "He wants to learn, that's all."
"Fish!" the boy yelled happil
y as he was carried away. "No fish!"
Suddenly Richard felt very old indeed.
But not so old that he didn't hear the footfall behind him. He straightened just as a woman came around the bench and sat on the far end. She wore a long emerald coat and matching scarf, obviously chosen to set off her dark-red hair cut short and brushed back over her ears. Black gloves, black shoes, black purse on a thick strap over her right shoulder He guessed her to be in her early thirties.
"Sorry I'm late,” she said without looking at him. Her voice was soft, and her accent clearly marked her as from Tennessee. "I got tied up.”
He said nothing.
She did look then, mild doubt in her expression. "Oh, God, you are Richard, aren't you?”
"What if I’m not?”
"Then I've just made a complete ass of myself."
He smiled crookedly, tempted to deny it just to see her blush, then nodded before saying, "All this is a bit melodramatic, isn't it? It would have been warmer in the hotel. And a whole lot less public."
Unconcerned, she shrugged and looked at the sky, at the river. "People meet here all the time. No big deal. It's not like the CIA is watching us, you know.” She slipped a hand inside her coat, pulled out a large manila envelope sealed with clear tape and dropped it on the bench between them. "Here’s some stuff in here you should look at soon as you can." As he reached for it, she added, "Copies, of course. Police reports, the Medical Examiner, stuff like that. A few of my own notes, just to get you started."
He didn't open it. Instead, he folded it in half and jammed it into his pocket. "How’d you get this?”
She shrugged again. "That's easy. I’m a cop.’’
With every assignment large or small came a local contact, someone paid to bring him information, to open doors where necessary, and to forget he ever existed when he finally left town. They were usually told he was Government, nothing else, and seldom tried to mine him for more; those few who did were easily, gently thwarted. When he was gone, however, they were watched by others, just in case the money they received wasn’t enough of a guarantee.
That had only happened once.
The contact hadn't survived.
Neither had any of the contacts been Garou. The Warders had decided that might pose more problems than they were worth. It was bad enough they had to hunt one of their own down; asking one to help a Strider was asking for trouble.
Nor had a contact ever before been as intimately knowledgeable with the cases at hand as Detective Sergeant Joanne Minster.
Another first.
Richard wasn't at all sure he liked it.
Police, the best police, had unspoken loyalties beyond the reach of a lucrative, extracurricular job. They also tended to ask too many questions. The right questions. The questions he would not be able to answer without lying. And lies had to be kept track of, had to be covered with virtually every word he said.
He wondered, then, as he looked at her, and liking what he saw, if she actually knew.
"If you're going to stare," she said softly, slowly turning her face toward him, "do it so people will think you're either getting ready to pop the question, or that you're just smitten with my incredible earthy beauty."
A heartbeat later she grinned.
He couldn’t help it; he laughed and shook his head in apology.
When she rose, he stood with her, and they headed for the street, her arm tucked around his.
It felt good, her closeness; it felt natural.
And that, too, disturbed him.
He was used to being alone, that was his nature. Lately, however, alone had begun to feel too damn much like lonely.
The city had gone dark except for the streetlamps, and a few lighted offices and the large red letters atop the Chubb Building far to his left. He couldn't see the clouds, but he could feel them, waiting. An automobile passed, tires sounding wet on the tarmac; it was the only one he could see in any direction. Chattanooga was not, he realized, a city whose downtown held much life beyond ordinary business hours, despite the obvious attempts at urban revitalization.
"When's your next shift?" he asked as they walked toward the hotel, several blocks away.
"Don’t have one. I’m on administrative leave."
He frowned. "Meaning?"
He felt her stiffen slightly. "Meaning, until I .A. finishes their investigation.” She glanced up at him. "That's Internal Affairs."
It was his turn to stiffen, but she tugged lightly on his arm, waving her free hand vaguely toward the street.
"It’s all right, they're not following me, it's nothing like that. Corruption or anything, I mean." A deep breath that exhaled quietly. The grip on his arm didn't change. "There was a shooting over at East Bridge last weekend—that's a mall, by the way—and I was involved. A daylight robbery attempt. The guy's dead." She hesitated. "I was the shooter."
He heard no remorse in her tone, nor did he sense any.
"The trouble is, he was black, and I'm not."
“So . .
"So it was either desk duty and a whole bunch of stupid papers, or leave until everything's sorted out and the protests calm down a bit. I took the leave."
They were the only ones on the street.
No cars, no buses; it might as well have been midnight.
A faint mist began to fall, and it felt as if they were walking through fog.
Another block, and there were curbside trees, their branches bare, skeleton shadows cast across the damp pavement. Treed islands in the center of the street as well, now, and in the distance the faint sound of an ambulance wailing.
"Here's the thing," she said, fumbling in her purse with her left hand. "Check those reports out tonight. I assume you'll know what you're reading."
"Pretty much," he answered, taking a business card from her. On the back she had written what he gathered was her home telephone number.
"I'll meet you tomorrow for breakfast,” she continued. "If you have any questions, ask them then. Then .. . whatever you need me for."
"We can't talk tonight?’’
"Is there a rush?"
The last killing had been a fortnight ago, according to the sketchy information Chesney had given him. Anything fresh would have been gone days ago.
He shook his head.
"Good. Because I have a date, and i’ll be damned if I’m going to stand him up."
The Read House was on the corner, a narrow canopy stretching from its brick front to the curb. There was no doorman, only a trio of empty newspaper machines. Long windows stretched left and right away from the glass-door entrance—to the right, they displayed clothing for the half-dozen expensive shops inside; to the left he could see small restaurant/bar tables, empty of patrons, in a section cut off from the rest of the room by a latticework wall.
Across the boulevard someone laughed drunkenly, and someone scolded.
They stood for a moment beneath the canopy, backs to a sudden wind, before she released his arm and looked up at him, one eye partially closed. Examining him, the ghost of a smile at her lips .
She wants to ask, he thought, but she probably won’t. Not tonight.
"Nine o’clock," she said abruptly, turned, and walked across the street without checking for traffic, toward a large and largely empty parking lot on the opposite corner. He watched until she let herself into a small sedan and drove away. Then he went inside, took the elevator to his floor, and stood for a second in front of his door, searching his pockets for the electronic key.
He hated those things.
They didn’t seem real, just stiff cardboard with holes punched in them.
When he found it, he let himself in, softly kicked the door closed behind him, and flicked the wall switch on as he shrugged off his coat. A table lamp was the only illumination, but he didn't need anymore.
One look told him someone had been here while he'd been gone.
It wasn't the maid.
The room had been searched.
1
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The room had once been two, the center of the connecting wall replaced by an archway that accentuated the high plaster ceiling and pale floral wallpaper. Opposite the door was a three-cushion couch fronted by a glass-top cocktail table and flanked by end tables on which stood two tall brass lamps; a high window behind the couch overlooked Broad Street, hidden now by thick drapes. To the right was a closet and an inset wet bar backed by a mirror; to his left, a cherry-wood table with three matching padded chairs set around it.
Richard dropped the coat onto the nearest chair and moved toward the arch.
Beyond was a king-size bed with two low night-stands, a window behind it. Facing the footboard was a tall cabinet of scrolled walnut—behind its upper doors was a television, with three drawers set below it. In the far wall was another closet, and the bathroom door.
The sitting-room lamp didn't quite reach that far; all he could see was the near side of the bed. The rest were shapes and shadows.
And a scent.
Before he had left the hotel for the park, he had made sure he'd spoken to the maid who had cleaned his room, a flimsy excuse about misplacing an important paper. They hadn’t chatted long, but it was long enough for him to learn her scent.
This wasn't it.
His left hand closed into a loose fist.
He swallowed several times and tightened his jaw to keep his temper from overriding his good sense.
It was a struggle he wasn't so sure he wanted to win.
What he wanted to do was let the Garou take him, take the form and let him rip the place apart; what he had to do was find the one who had invaded his place. And that sparked his anger further, because he knew he wouldn't be able to do it here. As he prowled, nostrils flared, gaze searching slowly, he realized that whoever it had been, had been extraordinarily careful.
Nothing had been disturbed except a drawer not quite closed all the way, a pen not quite in the same position beside the bed s telephone.
He growled quietly.
Scent on his clothes in the drawer, scent on his clothes in the bedroom closet.
His left hand tightened.
Scent in the bathroom.
It hadn't been the cop, the woman. Although she hadn't worn perfume, he could still recall the clear scent of her shower-fresh and warm despite the winter air. He would know it anywhere. And this wasn't it.
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