The Stars Were Right

by Alexander, K. M.

  Shuai Tan was small, thrust into a space built in another time and for some other purpose. Four small tables with room for nine customers occupied the dining area of the restaurant. An extra table sat outside, though the chairs that went along with it had been stolen years earlier, never to be replaced.

  The exterior and interior brick walls had been painted a dingy aqua blue; the paint so thick it was impossible to see the pattern of the cinderblocks. A dirty awning lit by flickering sodium lights kept the rainwater off the necks of hungry customers.

  A hand painted sign advertised "good food" for "cheap prices," and above me, the ancient tube monochrome broadcasted, whipping through the day's news in a language unknown to me. I had sat near the window intentionally. I preferred to keep my eyes off that image-filled box and focused on the more interesting stories that play out in the streets. The hustle and bustle of life itself.

  Noises echoed from the kitchen, and I leaned back in my chair to drink it all in. This was my ritual, my first meal upon returning to Lovat. Before bed or even a shower, I had to first come to Shuai Tan and eat a mountain of bao yu.

  "Can I take your order now, sir?" asked the waiter, fluttering next to my table and wringing his hands impatiently.

  "I'll have some of that fried rice the fella over there has, and the bao yu in the sweet pepper sauce, with the ah...." I checked the menu. "...Ah, yes, the asparagus?"

  "Ah," winced the waiter, his Strutten only slightly accented, "We're out of the asparagus, we could substitute..." he thought about it." …mushrooms? Would mushrooms be all right, sir? Anything else?"

  "That'll be fine," I said, taking an ill-advised sip of my warm beer. I fought back a shudder. "Can I get a vermouth?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "With ice if you have any."

  "Ice. Yes, sir."

  The waiter nodded and fluttered off and left me alone near the window, watching the street. Bao yu. "Abalone" in Strutten, the common language of the territories, Bao yu in a language so ancient and dead no one could remember the name. My mouth watered. I couldn't imagine living farther inland. In cities even as close as Syringa, seafood was scarce. The trip across the Big Ninety took too long and seafood spoiled easily. Lovat was lucky. The archipelago brought in sea life by the droves. Shrimp. Seals. Mussels. Clams. Otter. The occasional whale. The bounty of the ocean crashed against her gates, and the city was hungry.

  According to some censuses, Lovat is also home to one of the largest populations of gathered cephels on the planet. Not sure how much I believe it — they tend to keep to themselves, spending most of their time in their underwater colonies in the Sunk.

  Cephels' octopodian heritage make them excellent fishermen and shellfish collectors. They tend to run massive shellfish farms somewhere below, and even larger spreads farther out into the sea. Huge swaths of seafloor growing acres and acres of some of the best shellfish you could bite into, and Lovat got first choice.

  That meant the hole-in-the-wall, down-in-the-subs restaurants rarely visited by elevated citizens had some of the freshest seafood this side of the Eastern Mountains, and were handled by people who knew how to prepare it.

  I turned my gaze from the window back into the narrow restaurant. The waiter had paused by the rear counter to stare at whatever was playing out on the monochrome above me. Probably another random shooting in Destiny or a Purity movement march. The waiter's face was painted with the lights of the screen: grays and whites of varying luminosity. Like the mirrored reflection of a stormy sky in the sea.

  I settled myself, trying to ignore the horrible aftertaste of my beer, and waited for my vermouth. I caught the half-blind kresh glance at me and then back to the monochrome, awkwardly shoveling another spoonful of rice into his mouth. Ignoring him, I continued my vigil at Shuai Tan's storefront.

  In the distance I could hear sirens.

  You know that odd voice in the back of your head that knows something is off, but the rest of you is too stupid to comprehend what's going on? Yeah. That part of me was screaming, and the rest of me? Well, the rest of me just wanted some vermouth and to be left alone.

  I heard voices near the back of the restaurant and glanced over, seeing the waiter talking in hushed tones into the telephone. He glanced over his shoulder at me, once, twice, three times, and then back at the monochrome. The rest of me caught up. I could feel the eyes of the other patron as well. He had stopped eating and was staring with those cloudy, heart-shaped eyes. Something wasn't right. It felt off.

  I rose.

  "Cancel my order," I announced. "I think I need some air."

  The waiter turned and backed into the counter. The sirens wailed outside loudly and a few large fourgons rolled up. Flashing red and blue lights reflected against the painted aqua walls, and the old kresh cowered behind his table, the cane falling to the floor in a clatter.

  Lovat police burst inside before I could do anything.

  "That's him, officer," I heard the waiter stammer. "That's him! The man from the mono!"

  The grey and blue clad cops all turned toward me, as if guided by some powerful hand.

  I reacted.

  I would not be pinned down, I would not be trapped. They would not take me. Something snapped. Escape.

  I shoved my way past the officers, knocking over two deputies before barreling into a third just entering the door.

  The waiter kept yammering behind me, his voice rising as I moved farther away until he was screaming, "That's him! That's him! The murderer! That's the man from the monochrome!"

  I somehow made it out the narrow door, falling face first onto the level two street and bloodying my nose. The scent of piss, sewage, and spoiled raw meat hit my nostrils like a battering ram. I struggled to my feet, confused and wanting only to escape.

  I was tackled from the right. The officer who hit me was a burly maero, his shoulders as hard as iron. I collapsed onto the street feeling a shooting pain on the left side of my chest. My head bounced off the pavement right near the edge of a large, exposed portion of the Sunk.

  Under the water I could see the barnacle-covered ghosts of a society long since drowned. A lamppost. A vehicle of some sort. A warehouse. All had succumbed to nature and drowned as the seas had risen. Now they served as homes for fish and crabs. A few cephel had stopped and gazed up at me through the water, their bulbous hourglass irises fixated upon my arrest.

  Pushing with my hands I tried to rise, but felt the weight of the maero's knee press against my spine.

  "Don't think about it," came a growl. Low, throaty, dripping with unspoken threats.

  I turned as best I could and saw another Lovat Central patrol arrive. A small scooter with a detachable light. Unmarked.

  A dimanian in a sweeping tan coat stepped off his ride. A cigarette dangled dangerously from his dry lips. He was overweight, with a moon face and two sweeping black horns that followed the curve of his bald pate before rising upward into points. Two black beady eyes stared knives at me under a menacing brow. He scratched a greying goatee.

  "Waldo Bell? Waldo Emerson Bell?" he asked, almost casually, but his voice had a sharp edge to it. The kind of voice that could tell a dirty joke and berate an uncooperative witness in the same breath. A cop's voice.

  "Yes," I said, feeling the pavement press hard against my cheek.

  He thrust a silver-plated badge in my face, snatching it away before my eyes could focus on it.

  "I'm Detective Carl Bouchard. I'm placing you under arrest for the murder of Thaddeus Gil Russel."

  FOUR

  "You stink."

  I sat in a room the color of rotten mint. The pale green that had once covered the walls was stained by centuries of cigarette smoke, sweat, blood, and humidity. On my left was a metal door painted the same color as the walls; a small window showed the buzz of the hallway beyond it. Too high to see anything, but visible enough for prisoners to know that a free world existed just beyond its frame. The tops of heads drifted past.

  Before me
sat my captor; behind him, an obsidian-dark glass wall, which reflected a shadowy version of myself back at me, as if I was trapped in oily tar. I looked worn, beaten, and tired. My caramel-colored skin was darkened by the sun and my dusty brown hair was longer than I typically preferred. My brow was caked with weeks of road dirt broken by rivulets of sweat, and a drying stain of blood trailed from my nose to my lips. A month's beard obscured my square jaw. Below my heavy brow, my dust-colored eyes peered back at me, darker than in reality, yet somehow reflecting how I felt. I wasn't handsome. I wasn't ugly. Just dirty—dirty and exhausted.

  I ignored the detective sitting across from me and continued staring at the black mirror. I've seen enough cop serials on hotel monochromes to know that a group of police officers and maybe a department chief or two stood behind that glass watching me. I visualized them smoking and imagined a few drinking whiskey from mugs.

  I gave them the finger.

  It just felt right. Probably something else I picked up from the monochrome. The surly suspect. It was probably a stupid idea, but it made me feel better. My way of broadcasting that I knew they were watching me.

  You can't pull a fast one over ol' Waldo Emerson Bell, I thought.

  Yet there I sat. Arrested. In questioning.

  So much for feeling better.

  "When's the last time you showered?"

  My eyes flicked from my reflection in the glass wall toward the cop sitting across the metal table. Nothing moved but the steam wafting out of his ceramic coffee mug. Bright letters skipped across the mug, proclaiming the detective as the "World's Best Dad!" He looked like a mess. Probably an alcoholic. His right hand was missing the traditional wedding tattoo, but I saw some scarring. Divorced?

  He settled slightly, his eyes fixed on me. The detective was fat, in that thick bouncer sort of way: wide neck, thick hands, and a broad chest. His suit was too tight, and his arms were enormous. He probably lifted weights in years past. The muscles remained but they were now buried under mounds of fast food, day old doughnuts, and booze. It takes a long time for strength to fade, and I would bet he could snap me like a twig if he desired, though I'd wager I could probably outrun him.

  He grinned. A big grin, with straight white teeth like pillars propping up his fleshy lips. He was dimanian, with large swooping horns that were faded to a dull gray and clung to his bald head, lifting and tapering upward at their apex. A single horn sprouted from his chin, which I had earlier mistaken for a goatee. Dark beady eyes matching the mirrored glass behind him watched me from beneath heavy lids. He looked like some ancient drawing of a chubby devil. His grin faded into a smirk.

  Detective Carl Bouchard.

  My captor.

  "Three weeks? Maybe four now." I sighed, shrugging. They were the first words I'd spoken in an hour, and my voice was raspy and dry. When was the last time I bathed? Syringa? That little inn I stayed in outside the city? I honestly couldn't remember. I don't bathe often on the trail, and I'm aware how grubby I can look. The road clings to a roader, placing its mark upon him like the Lord's upon Cain, as the ancient tales go.

  I usually bathe my first night in the city—that would have been tonight. Instead, rather than relaxing in a steaming tub in my rented room, I was chained to the floor of the LPD building in downtown Lovat, watching a fat cop drink himself to death. Lovely.

  "That's disgusting," said Bouchard, matter-of-factly. He sniffed, as if to double check his statement.

  I watched him lean back in his chair and slip a flask from his jacket, pouring a few ounces of whiskey into his "World's Best Dad" mug, careful to block his actions from the eyes behind the glass. My eyes turned from his mug toward the wall. Bouchard glanced over his shoulder before leaning forward, only inches from my face. I smelled the potpourri of cheap aftershave, tobacco, whiskey, and coffee drift over me.

  I wasn't the only one who stank.

  "Medicine," he whispered conspiratorially, as if my watching him catch a nip was enough to make us chummy. "Bum knee."

  I shrugged, hoping my face remained placid. This rough cop act—if it was an act—did little for me. He was doing his job like everyone else. Holding me, waiting for me to snap and reveal everything. It was lazy. He was as much a slave to the serials as I was; he might have wanted to wrap this up in a neat hour, but I had all the time in the world. He'd have a long wait.

  I continued to sit in silence, still wondering why I was here. The arrest was still swimming in my head—the reading of my rights, the accusations—it was a blur and more confusing than anything else.

  Murder? Had he accused me of murder?

  Bouchard watched me, the tick of the clock the only noise besides his occasional slurp from the coffee mug.

  "You want something?" he asked, finally willing to break our silence. "Coffee? You thirsty? Water? Hungry?"

  "Hungry," I said, my voice sounding like a wheeze. My stomach growled, and it felt like a week since I ate my small bowl of noodles from the cart outside Thad's. I never got my bao yu and I was both disappointed and frustrated by this.

  Bouchard still said nothing. He leaned back, his enormous gut rising like the moon over the horizon of the metal table. His tree-trunk arms crossed his boulder chest. He looked disheveled, unprofessional. A three-day patch of stubble dotted his jaw. His tie was frayed, ancient, second-hand, worn out of requirement rather than any desire to appear stylish. His coat was too small, and the cuffs ended almost mid-forearm, exposing a tangle of dark hair that sprouted like barnacles in the Sunk. He distractedly licked a space between two of his pillar teeth with a sharp red tongue as he sized me up.

  "Muffie, get the kid a sandwich," he eventually said. He tossed a lira to the only other person in the interrogation room: an emaciated human in a baggy tan suit leaning on the wall near the door. Detective Muffie caught it after a second of fumbling. I turned to look at him. The silent partner. There was no good cop, bad cop routine between these two. Just the personality and the spook. Bouchard and Muffie. Partners? Seemed like a stretch. Bouchard was the brains and the brawn. Muffie? He was just along for the ride. He didn't look more than a few days out of the academy. His suit looked like he borrowed it from someone two sizes bigger, and he twitched and scratched like a pitchfork junkie. Probably was one.

  He disappeared through the metal door, giving me a glimpse of the outside hallway and a pretty female officer walking past.

  Bouchard yelled after him, "And a cup of coffee!" before turning back to me. "You like coffee, don't you, kid?"

  I nodded.

  "The coffee here is shit...," he said amiably, like we were buddies.

  Of course it is. Maybe the serials are more accurate than we all believe.

  He continued. "But it serves its purpose. Wakes a fella up. Puts hair on your chest."

  He smirked as he opened the manila folder on the metal table between us. It was a shoddy thing, and it matched Bouchard's tie. Frayed edges, worn well beyond its years. The little tab at the top had white labels layered on top of each other for generations, creating a gummy mess of gray stickers stained with ink. My name was scrawled atop the pile in blocky handwriting.

  Waldo Emerson Bell.

  I tried to fold my hands and lay them on top of the table, but I realized that the chains holding me to the floor prevented that. I considered pulling them again, but the smarter portion of my brain won out and I rested my hands in my lap. I briefly wondered how I'd eat that sandwich, and in response my stomach growled.

  Silence fell between us, a silence too heavy to be outmatched by the small air conditioner humming in the window, or the buzz from the sodium lights. We stared at one another like old jai alai masters sizing up opponents. Bouchard continued to lick at the space between his teeth; it was vaguely lizard-like, though I didn't point that out. I tried to reveal nothing in my stare—just my boredom.

  "Waldo Emerson Bell. Six feet tall. Brown hair. Hazel Eyes. Tattoos of cargowain wheels on your left and right forearms. You were raised in the Merritt tow
nship. A wheelwright's son, father is Talbert Olsen Bell, correct?"

  I nodded. Placid.

  "Named after your great-grandfather on your mother's side. Waldo Emerson Scot. You're a caravan master and part owner of Bell Caravans alongside your partner, Wensem dal Ibble. How am I doing so far?" He grinned.

  I nodded again.

  "You're 32. Moderately successful. You make monthly runs between Lovat and Syringa and occasionally make a run to Hellgate and operate your caravan company in one of the caravansaras outside the city. Beyond the scrape and the span." He looked up. "One of the islands?"

  I nodded a third time, hoping my face didn't betray my annoyance.

  "How's your father?" he asked. Easy questions first.

  "He's well," I responded coolly.

  "Enjoying retirement?"

  "He's not retired."

  I watched him make some notes.

  "Rough life in Merritt?"

  "No. It's a small town. Lots to do for a young boy. Haystack mountain, the forest, the river."

  "Who taught you caravanning?"

  "You pick it up."

  "Did you know a Thaddeus Gil Russel?"

  I looked up, my dust-colored eyes meeting his inky black ones. Bouchard smiled a sterile smile and scratched next to the small horn jutting from his chin. Clearly he meant the question to take me by surprise.

  It did.

  "Yeah, I know Thad. He's a business partner of mine. Traders don't often come into the city, and those that do don't like to talk with anur. So while on the trail, I acquire spectacles for him from merchants and scavengers. When I return to Lovat, I sell them to him, and in turn he sells them at a tidy profit. Good money in eyeglasses."

  "Is there now?" questioned Detective Bouchard.

  It was a leading question, but I obliged. "They're lightweight. Relativity cheap—it's hard to find a single pair that works. You need to shop for eyeglasses in bulk, you see? New caravaneers tend to go for the items that are extremely valuable. Iron. Steel. Aluminum. Problem is those are bulky and heavy, so you don't have room for more delicate items. Necessary items that people will pay good money for, items that are hard to acquire."