by Blaze Ward
Except that the insulation had been hidden in a brass ashtray numbered 207, after the Hunter’s badge that had been melted down and recast by someone.
It was gone now, and the cold was going to start seeping in.
“So the best you’ll offer me is life?” Zielinski asked. Again, it was probably meant to sound tough, but it came out weak and a little frightened.
“No,” Greyson replied with a shake of the head. “The best I’ll offer you is your life. You get to tell me about that chip and how it got into your hands. Then you can tell Parsons all the details she needs to know about how and why you decided to kill me and Rachel, so that she has a reason to take you into protective custody, and then make sure they put you in a medium security prison somewhere in isolation instead of putting you in General Population and telling the other convicts you used to be a cop. But that’s tomorrow. Let’s talk about how you got your hands on an illegal Synth Chip.”
For the longest time, Greyson didn’t think the man would break. That maybe Olek Zielinski had enough intestinal fortitude to take his chances with the shitstorm that would erupt when all that blackmail became public.
Sure, Kwan and Owens would be permanently ruined. A lot of cases would have to be reviewed and probably a good number of convictions set aside after certain prosecutors were added to the list next to the former Police Commissioners.
If the system was broken, it had to be repaired. Greyson had considered how many innocents might be in prison right now because Zielinski had been able to lean on a District Attorney with money and kink issues. But at the same time, it was more likely that too many guilty had walked free for the same reasons instead.
He’d start after them tomorrow.
But something in Greyson’s eyes seemed to get through to the man. Seemed to convince him that Greyson Leigh wasn’t playing games anymore.
This wasn’t the cat toying with the mouse. This was a nail just seated into a 2x4 awaiting the hammer.
So Olek talked.
Greyson leaned back and listened.
32
Quinton
Greyson hadn’t thought he’d be able to convince Quinton to emerge into the real world, but the man was bribable. All it took were the technical schematics of the Synth Chip, once Parsons had ordered Forensics to provide Greyson a copy.
Black Fab, just like Greyson had figured at the start. And one that knew just how dangerous the chip they’d made was, because near as Greyson could tell, they had shut the operation down as soon as they handed it over to Zielinski. Torn the facility apart and sold off the various machines on the second-hand market, leaving an empty warehouse stripped to the walls when a team of Hunters had arrived.
Gone.
Greyson would have felt better, except that the people who’d made the chip were still out there somewhere. Right now, angry accountants were tracing money in and out of the building, trying to find the perpetrators, but the folks involved had gotten a good head start and were already experts at hiding from the authorities.
But that wasn’t Greyson’s problem. Nor his case. He’d handed them Olek Zielinski with a full-enough confession and a pretty pink bow in what was left of his hair.
Tonight, he was celebrating. Sort of.
If it was a real party, he’d have Emmy here, but this was still too much of a cop thing, so it was just him, Rachel, and Quinton, plus a promise from Parsons that she’d honor this expense report. But then, Greyson had promised to destroy the files rather than let the Bureau or the government have them.
Steaks. The good kind, where you got a half or maybe two-third of a kilo of prime rib, crusted with salt and cooked medium rare. Horseradish shavings in cream. Semi-mashed potatoes with all the usual toppings hand-mixed in. Asparagus spears cooked in real butter.
Greyson had skipped lunch so he could order himself a cherry turnover as one last fuck-you to Olek and his box of chicken fried steak frozen dinner filled with untraceable money.
Rachel was having a small dish of chocolate ice cream with caramel drizzled over it. Quinton was sipping a glass of port and occasionally reaching for the decaf coffee.
It was late, but this place had a bar attached so the restaurant didn’t usually close until after ten.
Greyson took a bite of the turnover and savored the taste of revenge.
“So can you replicate it?” Rachel asked Quinton in between bites of her own.
“Can I?” the man said. “Absolutely. They did a few things differently from how I would have, but they were also creating a ticking bomb and they knew it. My design adds a few extra safety precautions and leaves off that nasty emotional filter your cop friend had them add. That was just evil.”
Greyson had to agree. It was one thing to let them see the outside world and add all that rich detail and setting as an overlay, but Olek had been poking at parts of the brain responsible for fear and aggression.
Quietly, so that you didn’t realize it. The system just told you that were on a secret mission to create a Mass Casualty Incident and then emotionally prepared you to walk into a crowd and start shooting random innocents that happened to be in your way.
“So what do you plan to do with yours?” Greyson asked as he finished his last bite and reached for his own coffee.
Quinton fixed them both with a look that Greyson was pretty sure his own mother had taught the man. That I-can’t-believe-you-said-that look that was midway between an angry huff and a sarcastic eyeroll.
“Sell them on the black market,” he said pointedly, dropping his voice to barely above a whisper. “And yes, Detectives, I am aware that Synth Chips without the body cutout are completely illegal in almost all jurisdictions. Might I remind you that depending on how one wished to interpret things, somewhere between eighty and one hundred percent of what I do is probably illegal in the Eastern Metroplex?”
“Less than one hundred,” Rachel spoke up. “You’ve been aiding law enforcement authorities to solve a crime. Pretty sure that’s not currently illegal.”
Everyone laughed at that one.
Greyson focused on the man.
“As long as nobody gets hurt, I don’t care,” he told Quinton. “Not my department. Not my cases. I was only on this one because of Zielinski trying to kill me. Pretty sure that if me being targeted hadn’t suggested a leak in the Bureau, none of us would have been involved.”
“Just so, Detective,” Quinton said, still a little huffy before relenting. “But that doesn’t change much. Because of your help, I can make a whole bunch of money this year, until either the chips get popular enough that they decide to change the laws, or some bad apples start making killer designs again and the government has to really crack down hard enough that I pull up stakes and walk away.”
“I’d ask if you wanted a legitimate job, but the background checks they’d make you go through probably wouldn’t be worth it,” Greyson said. “Nor the pay cut.”
“Certainly not the pay cut,” Quinton laughed. “Even with the bribes I pay, I make way more than a Detective/Hunter does, Greyson.”
“Well, with your permission, I’d like to keep you in my contacts list, Quinton,” Greyson replied. “Never know when I might need an expert like you on case. Maybe I can make you rich again.”
“Looking forward to it, Detective,” Quinton smiled.
“Good,” Greyson said simply. Dessert done, he rose abruptly. “You two stay and have a pleasant evening. I’m going to pay the bill and then go home and sleep for a day.”
Rachel caught his hand before he could get far.
“Hey,” she said simply. “Before you decide you have no fucks at all left to give, just remember that ya done good here. I don’t know any other cops that would have destroyed all that blackmail. Nor mailed those bearer instruments to a variety of charitable organizations anonymously. You’re a good cop, Greyson Leigh. And a good man. Keep that in mind.”
Greyson blinked. For a moment, he wondered if he’d start crying right here in the rest
aurant, but he held it together with a gruff “Thank you” as he staggered off to where the waitress was approaching him with a bill.
Dinner for three didn’t even run as much as he’d expected, but that was fine. It was Parsons’s money when he turned in the report in a few days.
Right now, he just wanted to go home and let it all go. Even a day of chasing down leads after all of Zielinski’s confession hadn’t been enough time to recover from the last week.
Now he wanted to rest.
33
Denise
Greyson walked up the stairs to his apartment with a measured tread. Now that Zielinski was finally gone for good, he had a lot of thinking to do. Did he really want to keep doing this job? Keep getting his hands dirty and his boots bloody from wading through all the crap that this world could put out?
Rachel had been on the mark about no fucks left to give, except that he had found in the last few days that he did have a few. A man with nothing left would have handed over all that stuff to the Metropolitan’s office and hoped that they would end up more honest than Zielinski. Or mailed it to the major news bureaus to run with, just so he could watch lives implode on the evening news with a highball glass in one hand and a snarl in his heart.
Maybe gone and bought himself a private island somewhere with all the money Olek had left him. Just lay on the beach and sip fancy rum drinks while being fanned by pretty girls.
He already knew that something like that would get old about two days in. Greyson Leigh was a seeker. A Detective/Hunter. It was a job almost perfectly suited to his mind, his life, and his soul.
Somebody might as well get a benefit out of all that corruption. If Greyson had shown some of his otherwise private political leanings with the places he had mailed his packages, that was between him and God. And God supposedly loved everyone, so Greyson figured he was on safe ground rescuing kittens and funding women’s shelters. Let them invest the money as they figured would do them the most good.
He was tired. Bone tired. Soul tired.
Greyson approached his door and unlocked everything patiently, as he did all things.
He opened it and smelled her perfume before he could even see her, but he was a Detective/Hunter. That was his job.
Emmy didn’t wear that scent. And wouldn’t be in his apartment when he wasn’t there. Not that he hadn’t offered her a key, but her only interest was him. If he was busy, she already had a life that involved carving out time to see him.
Greyson pushed the door the rest of the way open and looked in to see Denise sitting on the couch, quietly waiting for him. Her reader was resting to one side, so she’d been here a while.
He stepped across the threshold and closed the door behind him, taking a moment to reset all the locks before he turned to stare at the Metropolitan of the Eastern Metroplex.
“When you rekey the door, send me the invoice,” she began carefully. “Redhawk had a spare key made when he was here. I have it with me, but you’ll feel better returning everything to what it was before all this happened.”
He grunted and took off his longcoat, hanging it on the hook beside the door. The boots went next.
For the hell of it, Greyson took his jacket off as well as he walked over to the kitchen chair and hung it across the back. The shoulder holster and palmstunner were next and he put them on the counter where they always went. Comm and wallet as well.
It was almost like he was alone in here. If he closed his eyes and dreamed hard enough.
Or clapped louder, because Tinkerbell would die otherwise.
Greyson turned to Denise and drank her in.
Fifty-five. Dark skin the color of old wood that had been polished clean. Brown eyes staring calmly back at him, maybe with a smile in them. Hair in loose ringlets but all black, even though he knew better.
She was dressed like she’d come here from the office. Whether that meant somewhere in Boston or maybe she’d quietly caught the bullet train up was irrelevant. She was here, and dressed for business, rather than seduction.
That was good. He wasn’t entirely sure how he’d react if she’d poured him a glass of wine and put on some quiet jazz before he arrived.
Rachel had been right about his humor. And his direction.
Not many fucks left to give, even for Denise.
He pulled a heavy breath deep into his lungs and let it go, wondering if this was still Act Three or finally the denouement.
She had the couch, so he moved to the chair, settling into it about midway back. Not up where he might leap to his feet. Not back where he could put his feet up and nap.
“Hello, Denise,” he said as casually as he could force right now.
It was close to midnight, and he’d been moving for four days, not counting catnaps. Grumpy only described his humor in the sense that it pointed in the right general direction.
“Hello, Greyson,” she said, leaning herself back some.
She’d been poised when he walked in, but he wasn’t sure if that was poised to jump up and kiss him, or to bolt.
He studied her for one long, last moment before this conversation started.
“To what do I owe the honor?” he finally asked.
She flinched a little at his tone, but she’d broken into his apartment and waited for him to return from his team’s celebration of a successful conclusion on a number of different fronts. An assassination attempt. A corrupt Hunter. Another one, anyway.
God only knew how many were still around. Greyson had a feeling that everyone in the department was about to have accountants crawling up their asses starting tomorrow.
When he was a young cop, all of a decade ago, one of the oldest salts still around had used a term that had stuck with him. The man was a desk sergeant who had been allowed to stay on duty until he celebrated his fiftieth year in uniform. The man had been born in 1974, which felt like the Dark Ages these days.
Josh had called them “Blue Jean Cops” because they never understood how to hide shady money. Went out and bought expensive clothes and designer jeans before moving up to the sorts of fancy suits that Dominguez had collected. Or art and expensive cars. Antique firearms. Mistresses of every color, although usually all the same shape.
Greyson expected a lot of angry accountants going through people’s drawers and closets soon but he wasn’t worried.
He was busy saving kittens and funding women’s shelters. Nothing at all on him, and he hoped Rachel was smart enough not to touch anything she might have pocketed for another few years.
Greyson didn’t think Rachel had. She was trying too hard to wash the taint of Dominguez off her skin and her career. Replacing it with Greyson Leigh might be an improvement.
And it might not.
He watched Denise process his words. And the complicated emotions in his eyes. Finally she drew a breath.
“I asked both Rachel Asher and Redhawk,” she said. “Neither of them knew the answer, so I suppose that’s good.”
Silence stretched.
Greyson watched her silently, unwilling to answer the question until she actually asked it.
“Did Zielinski have a file with my name on it?” she finally asked in a pained voice.
Only someone at least a little bent would even have to worry about something like that. There hadn’t been a file on Greyson Leigh. Nor on Rachel Asher, but Greyson put that down to her not being important enough, since she’d been a mentee of Carlos Dominguez.
Without those two Phrenic, Ethen and Zaborra, Rachel might have drifted far enough to warrant her own file by now.
Greyson wondered what Denise thought someone might have on her.
“He did,” Greyson replied quietly, letting it dangle like that.
She deflated. That was the only word Greyson could think of to describe the way she sagged in on herself, spine hunching and shoulders twisting inwards.
“But there wasn’t much in it,” Greyson completed the thought after a moment.
Her eyes came up with
a gleam he could only describe as hope.
Greyson waited, while Denise composed herself and drew her own heavy breath.
“When it came time to make him go away, he suggested that it would be in my best interest to leave him alone,” she said. “Without saying what blackmail evidence he might be willing to unleash if I didn’t.”
“Owens and Kwan are sleeping much easier tonight,” Greyson nodded. “Or will be when they hear the news. You should never let either of them anywhere near a public job again, let us say.”
“That bad?” she asked diplomatically.
“Worse than you probably imagine, if you have to ask, Denise,” Greyson answered.
Greyson drew a breath and leaned forward a little.
“Rachel didn’t know much because I went through it while she was asleep and hid it from her,” he said. “Wasn’t much, as a matter of fact, so I can’t draw any useful conclusions and neither could anyone else, if they had managed to see it before it got destroyed. Nobody will.”
She sagged again, but this time it was relief. Her eyes fell with her head before she lifted both up and fixed on him.
“What was it?” she asked, relief and fear warring with each other.
He studied her now. Saw the woman she had been once upon a time. Saw the woman she had turned into. Maybe only a little bent from her reaction, but there had been a file with her name on it in Zielinski’s cabinet.
“Pictures,” Greyson said simply.
Her eyes got a little twitchy in ways that she wasn’t fast enough to hide. He wondered what she might have done that then might have gotten immortalized.
Confessions without ever speaking, like Rachel had done to him.
Latency, as Quinton Laux might have called it. The things there, but not seen.
“Most of them were pictures of us,” Greyson added, dropping that into the silence like a rock into the mud at the edge of a still pond.
Like when he’d been a kid, an eternity ago.