Robert Charrette - Arthur 03 - A Knight Among Knaves (27 page)

"This stinks, Captain."

"Easy, Charley," Manny said, dropping a hand on his arm.

Like he needed restraint. Like he was going to strangle Hancock.

"Listen to your partner, Gordon. This isn't worth your job."

Maybe so. It sure wasn't worth anything to stay and argue.

When they got back to their cube, Manny looked around to see if anybody was paying attention and, satisfied that they had as much privacy as one got in the squad room, quietly asked, "You gonna do it?"

Worried about your job, Manny?
"Yeah. This is a no-win. They'll strip it out of our machines, if we don't hand it to them."

Manny nodded, satisfied. "Hancock's right, you know. We oughta forget this one."

"Yeah." Hancock could suck rocks. No way Charley was going to forget.

So he didn't forget. What could he
do?
There wasn't a hell

of a lot he
could
do. The investigations weren't really going anywhere. Despite the wealth of data Pamela Martinez had dumped on him, he had been unable to discern a pattern to the killings, unable to get a handle on what drove the killer. the victims were too dissimilar, the locations too different. the only constants were the victims' conditions and the fact that all the killings happened at night, but that bit wasn't news in an SIU investigation. The best he'd been able to do was plot a track from San Francisco, where the thing had gotten off the
Wisteria,
to New England, where it seemed to have decided that it liked the climate.

Spinning wheels didn't help anybody, and spinning wheels was all he had done. Maybe whoever was getting his tiles would have better luck. He doubted it. He started stripping out the stuff he'd gotten from Martinez and couldn't verify from another source. Then he went after Caspar's contributions.

Thinking about Caspar, Charley figured he ought to let Caspar know before his cybernetic ear dropped something new in the
Wisteria
killer's Modus file. It was late in the week and the address Charley had for the ear might not be any good anymore, but Charley felt like he ought to try. He popped an e-mail explaining that he had just been taken out of the loop on Modus 273 and there wasn't any point in sending any more connections.

Caspar might have been waiting on-line for him, given the speed at which a response landed in his box.

Suspect connection between current termination and other terminated investigations,
was the meat of Caspar's message, but the bones were in the appended list of cases. Some of them Charley recognized, some were unknowns. Most of them weren't even from the NEC. Out of Charley's jurisdiction, but clearly not out of Caspar's sphere of interest.

Charley was interested, but who had the time? He had half a dozen investigations to close down, write up, and gift-wrap for—whom? He'd guessed Fletcher and his feds, but Hancock hadn't confirmed or denied. No real reason to hide federal involvement. The
Wisteria
killer had left bodies in a couple of dozen states. Clear interstate crime. So why wasn
't
Hancock talking? Who was really calling the shots?

There were times when Charley wished he were back on the streets.

John didn't know if Spillway Sue had changed her slump, hut the door at the bottom of the alley stairs was locked. Someone was living there. Recalling how much difficulty he'd had tracking her down before, he decided to wait and see who came home.

The alley was wide enough for vehicles, but somebody had once decided to deny passage and had built a cinder-block wall across it. Somebody else hadn't liked the idea and had blown a hole in the obstruction. He could still see the scorch marks on the remains of the barrier and the fragmentation scars on the walls of the nearby buildings. There were enough cinder blocks left against Sue's building to offer a seat, so John took it. The spot got him off the damp ground and out of the way while staying close enough to her door to watch and wait, but not so close she'd take his presence as an immediate threat when she returned.

He let his legs dangle and idly kicked his feet against the concrete, scuffing his fine green elven boots. They were good boots, without a doubt the best-fitting pair he'd ever had, deserving of better care, but they were elven and he had little concern for such things at the moment.

While he waited, he watched the thick clouds plow across the night sky. They promised more of the rain that had slicked the afternoon streets and brought the first fall leaves, tamping them into sodden, brown masses. Not that there were a lot of trees, in this neighborhood. Pure urban around here. Through a gap in the buildings he could see the southern end of the Hill. There were trees there, many of them already well on their way to winter barrenness thanks to the rain. Unlike the urban barrenness, nature's would give way to renewed life in the spring. Mankind's stripping of the green just went on and on.

Gloomy thoughts for a gloomy night.

He didn't have to be here. He could be back at the slump baby-sitting his automated effort to verify the information on the disk. But what would be the point of that? He'd taken the best course, having rigged a cuckoo and set loose half a dozen agents to do data searches. The searches would take time— had already taken hours; there wasn't much he could do to speed it up, and the little bit of boost that he might give could be dangerous. The cuckoo was his cutout to keep him safe from tagalongs that could all too easily run him down if he was doing his hunting live. The minimal contact he'd have with the agents when he dropped in to pick up whatever they had sieved carried a risk of picking up a tagalong, but only a minimal risk. Minimal risk was the key to safe hacking.

So he was here, hoping to find Sue. Not for the first time, he wondered if he was doing the right thing, and—not for the first time—he figured out the answer. The processing loop got shorter every time he went through it. Sue had been the best thing to come into his life since he'd fled Worcester. How could he
not
do this? He had to see her and let her know he was back. She'd understand. Their relationship had barely gotten off the ground, but it had a heart to it, a soul. She
would
understand.

The sound of voices out on the street told him that his wait was over. One of the voices belonged to Sue. Four people appeared at the mouth of the alley. She was with a trio of guys. Male guys. John listened as they exchanged banter. The talk was friendly, easygoing street stuff—end of the day, see-you-tomorrow stuff—and John worried that one of those three wasn't going to keep walking.

Sue was wearing a floppy hat, the sort of thing she'd worn before she met him. He'd liked the look then, he liked it now. The hat made her look like an old-time adventurer, in a Iunked, retro way. Her clothes were as eclectic a mix as ever, maybe more so given the extra layers she wore against the chill. But her look was only an outward expression of her
self.
It was the person inside the clothes John wanted. She didn't have Fraoch's ethereal beauty and she never would, but she had a liveliness, a warmth, that radiated from her. He was getting hot just seeing her stand there.

His fear that she might have found someone to replace him looked unwarranted. The guys shoved off and she entered the alley alone. He had thought about using the same routine he'd used with Dr. Spae, to give Sue a chance to know it was him before showing his elven face, but he got loo involved watching her to think about spells. Staying inconspicuous wasn't a problem; she didn't notice him until she was halfway to her door.

Upon seeing him sitting on the wall, she didn't back up, or call her friends, or even reach for a weapon. She stayed cool, collected, squinting a little because the light didn't give her a good view of him. Sue set herself, hands sweeping back her long outer vest to rest on her hips, and looked up at him, deceptively casual. John wasn't deceived. She'd be ready for fight or flight, whatever made the most sense. Streetwise, Spillway Sue was.

He noticed a bit of dead-black ballistic plastic peeping out from just behind her wrist. The black shape was grooved like a pistol butt's. When had she started carrying so openly?

What else was different?

She took the initiative, proving that not everything had changed.

"You're sitting on my turf, friend," she said, neither hostile nor friendly. "Ya got business or is this a social call?"

"It's nice to see you again, Sue."

She didn't respond at once and when she said, "Tall Jack," she didn't sound like she believed that she had recognized his voice correctly.

"Haven't answered to that name in a while, but yeah, it's me.

He dropped off the wall and—thankfully—landed gracefully. As he approached her, he dragged off the watch cap that the bogies had found for Mm; he'd been using it to cover his ears. Time to stop hiding.

Her eyes narrowed and her face went hard when she got a good look at him. The sudden shift to hostility hit him hard. What she said hit harder.

"Not a nice trick, Bennett. Watcha want with me?"

Her words had the element of surprise, like getting a solid rabbit punch to the gut from a kindergartner. "I'm not Bennett," was all John could think to say.

"Ya can drop the voice, okay? I'm wise ta ya."

Her misidentification angered him. Holding his hand before him at chest height, he summoned flame to it. She flinched as the flickering flames appeared. He knew she didn't like magical things, but he wanted her to see.

"Take a good look; I'm not him. Never have been. Never will be."

She obliged him, searching his face. She was quiet for a long time, her brow dipping slowly into a furrow of confusion. Her mouth opened slightly. Her head gave the tiniest of shakes. "If ya can change your voice, ya can change your face."

"If I were him, why would I bother not doing it right? Come on, you know I'm me. This is my real face. You asked me once why I didn't look like Bennett; well, now you can see that I do. At least when there's no magic disguising me."

"Magic's for school brats ta believe in."

"You know better than that. You've seen it. You've even been to the otherworld."

"Been a lot of places, ain't all of them real."

"I'm real, Sue. This face is. Touch it and see for yourself."

For a second, she looked like she might take him up on the offer. Then her suspicion took hold again. "Suppose it is you. What am I supposed ta do?"

"Say hello? Invite me inside?"

"Hello."

That was one. "And?"

"I'll pass."

"Why?"

She threw up her hands and stomped toward the wall. She spun before she reached it. "Whaddaya mean, why? Ya shimmied out on me, Tall Jack!"

"I didn't mean to."

Her face was pinched in a scowl. "Looked like ya walked out under your own power ta me."

"I came back as soon as I could."

She laughed. A bitter, mocking laugh. "As soon as ya could? Tell me another one."

Her attitude cut him, but there was a familiarity to her obstinate disbelief. A real, close-to-home familiarity. Hadn't Bennett claimed to be unable to visit John during his youth? John hadn't believed him. And now here was John telling the truth and not being believed.

Maybe Bennett hadn't been lying either.

John didn't like being on the other side of such distrust. It hadn't been his intention to be away so long. He didn't really deserve her scorn. He certainly didn't want it. He wanted things to go back to the way they were.

"It's true," he told her. "Where I was, time was, well, different."

"Drop the puppy-dog look. And don't give me any magic shit. I ain't buying."

"If you won't let me tell you the truth, how can I explain things to you?"

"Truth? I ain't no corp prole who don't know how ta wipe her ass unless the suits give her vid instructions. I got a lot more ta me than a cunt and a pair of boobs. Ya want truth? I'll give ya some! Save your stories for some starry-eyed virgin outta the rezcoms. I know why ya came back. Ya came back 'cause ya got a little bored. Decided it was time for another romp with Stupid Sue. She won't mind, ya said ta yourself. I'll just pop in, throw a little razzle, grab a couple of quickies, and be off again. No fuss, no muss. Back ta the glam with a 'See ya, Sue. I'll be back.' Ya like empty promises all glossed up with a bunch of slick words and soulful looks? Well you're the only one, dode. I think it'd be a good idea for ya ta take your fancy face and poof before I cram your lying bullshit down your throat. Ya
can
just go poof, can't ya, being an elf and all? Come on, let me see ya do it."

"Sue—"

"Come on, magic man, go poof."

What could John say? Sue thought he was running a scam on her. What proof could he offer her that he wasn't doing what she thought? Anything he said was just words. From her point of view, she was justified. How could she know of the strangeness of time in Faery? How could she understand it when John, who had been there, didn't understand it?

"It's not that way, Sue."

"Poof!"

With a gust of wind that snatched away Sue's hat, the promised rain arrived in sheets. Sue didn't go after the hat. Neither did John. They stared at each other, getting wet.