Here's Number Ten ...
”Roses For Maria”(Tenth Installment)[/i]
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At first, I had decided not to go back to my place that night. I went to some places out of my usual way. At a downtown ‘net café, I logged in to a ConSec site to see if I’d been posted as a person of interest in the case of Irina Madour. I hadn’t; not that that meant very much. They usually didn’t post you until after they’d spent some time trying to find you. Then I looked to see if Irina herself had been posted as a missing person. She hadn’t. That made me think; they usually posted MPs within hours of a report.
I went back to where my office was, getting off at the next tube station but one and walking around by sidestreets. I took up a position in the lobby of an apartment building and kept an eye on the street. After half an hour, I concluded there wasn’t anyone waiting for me; no sign of a mysterious car, such as citizen Petanko had mentioned. At five-o-four precisely, Wonder Woman came out the main door with her coat and walking shoes on and set off at a quitting-time trot toward the Fillmore Square tube station. I followed her. She went straight into the station, down the escalator, and onto the platform. She caught a Number Six train which would take her out toward Springdale—home to the husband, I didn’t doubt.
I weighed matters and decided I had, most likely, been given a night’s reprieve. I wasn’t about to try to skip town, after all.
Still, I wasn’t careless, either. I got some plastic trash bags and packed my gym bag inside one. I got off a stop early, grabbed a bite at a Koguryan place and walked an alternate route back to my street as darkness started to fall. When I got to my block, I had a good look first. Then I rounded back and had a good look from the other end. Finally, I pushed a dumpster up under the fire escape at the rear, climbed up, threw my bag up on to the ironwork, and clambered up after it. Then I went up to the roof of the building and had one more good look from up top. Everything looked jake. So I went in. Once in, I pulled the shades on the window, and taped up some trashbags for good measure. And I like low light in my main room anyway. I felt that my friend Miles had also been a low-light sort of guy. I didn’t forget to activate the motion sensor and ‘cam I had set up in the hallway. Then, at last, I dumped the gym bag. I was getting tired of it.
I checked my messages. There was one from Jak.
“Citizen, I … this is Jakklyn … Max, I’m … very disappointed.” There was a sniff.
“I called the office, but someone else answered. I thought I worked well for you. Didn’t I? You could have told me if there was anything wrong. I feel …”—sniff—
“…like you just had me pulled.
Was it something I said? Were you offended about my asking to work full-time …? I thought … I thought we had a good relationship. I’m sorry if I stepped out of place—“ Then it cut off.
I felt a little sad myself. She’d been a keeper. I’d been more comfortable with her—frankly—than I was with Wonder Woman, who’d undoubtedly be gone next week, replaced by someone else again that I’d have to train from the ground up, like a lot of Jak’s predecessors. It was true that I’d had to make a statement about Jak, but that was routine. They were lauching an investigation, taking statements about everyone connected, however remotely, with Irina. That would be me, and by extension, my office staff. I got Jak’s number and called her back, but there was no answer. She was probably at her night job. I left a message telling her to call me back tomorrow at the office.
It dawned on me that citizen Ramirez hadn’t told me that Jak had called.
I poured myself a Jax and kola and fired up Old Betsy. I went to work on citizen Garcia Ramirez. At the end of a half-hour, outside of an address, a phone number, and a ‘netmail address, I had nothing more than citizen West had told me. She did have an associate membership in the Libria Family Foundation, but that meant little; one out of ten Librians could show the same. But the overall picture was distinctly odd. There should have been financial records—most of which I knew how to get into; I’d found Sami Petanko’s easily enough. At the very least I’d have expected a gym membership, one or two school honor associations, a ‘netlog or three, donations to something, and some mentions connected with her family life. If she were an immigrant, which seemed probable, there should have been records pertaining to that. It was possible that her record could have been scrubbed for reasons pertaining to her work at MOJ, but in such cases they usually took care to create something to take its place.
I scratched my head, realized I needed a haircut, and decided to get rid of her tomorrow.
The ‘netcasts had the sports scores. Five members of the Reproductive Freedom Action Council had been taken in for disruptive behavior at a women’s health issues meeting. ConSec officers had a lead in the East Forty-Eighth battle; in a clip of an interview, ConSec President Tyrone Brandt extended his condolences to the families of the slain officers; he had spoken at a tribute earlier that day. He said that they had several persons of interest in the case and were pursuing leads vigorously. A measure had swiftly passed an MOJ plenum, allowing many ConSec officers to be armed in the pursuit of their duties; there was a clip of Citizen Lisa Preston presiding. The financial markets had had an off day; they had nothing on me. Citizen Keef Herzog’s matter didn’t seem to rate a mention. I switched off.
Then I had a shower and a change, and went back into my space. I took my weapon.
I took stance; breathed, found the place.
I began with Kata One.
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That night, I dreamed again. It was the girl galloping the horse in the moonlight just like before. Only not like before, because she reined in and turned to look at me. Her face was the face of Garcia Ramirez. I turned, and John Preston was there, and another Cleric I’d known briefly, a partner of Preston’s named Partridge. Preston told me to get into a ‘cab. The ‘cab flew off to Amazonia, where Doctor Authier Madour was waiting with a hypodermic needle the size of a lacrosse stick. He jammed it into my thigh. It was full of an amber liquid I recognized all too well as Prozium. I sat bolt upright, taking in the darkness. Miles was doing his thing. It was morning. I wasn’t looking forward to the rest of the day, either.
I didn’t go in to the Ministry gymplex; Jonesy would have to do weights. I trained at my place, going over the Gun Katas again. I grabbed some breakfast, checked the ‘casts again, and headed out. I didn’t forget my weapon, or Citizen Herzog’s magcard, which I secreted in the lining of my coat in a little place I had for magcards.
As I walked down the street, I passed Sal’s shop. I turned to wave at his window.
Something waved back. I went over to see what was going on, and Sal was standing in the window by the walkthrough to the counter.
“Hey, Sal,” I said. “Feeling chirpy, are we?”
Sal wheezed. He pointed to a Number Nine del-pod by the door. He spoke.
“This morning,” he said. “By ‘cab.”
His stock of talk for the day exhausted, he hooked his gnarled thumbs in his apron. I looked at the del-pod. It had my name on it.
I picked it up and set it on the counter, and looked at Sal questioningly. He didn’t flicker, so I tore off the plastic wrap, pulled the sealing tabs, and prised it open; a few scraps of styro packing material fluttered out as I lifted the cover.
Inside, on a bed of styro particles, was the severed head of citizen Sami Petanko.
I closed it quickly. “Sal,” I said. “Sal, talk to me, buddy. When did this come? Who left it?”
He spread his hands and prepared for the unwonted effort. “‘S’morning. An ‘our ago. By ‘cab.” Then he shrugged. He hadn’t, it seemed, noticed anything particular about the ‘cab.
“What? The ‘cabster just came in and dropped it? Said it was for me?”
Sal gave a nod.
“What ‘cabster? What’d he look like?”
Sal held his hand to indicate someone of medium height. Then he pointed to a brown box. The guy had been medium height, brown hair, nothing else. There wasn’t going to be much help there.
Sal let me have some plastic wrap to re-seal the del-pod. Then I wrote a name on it, and got a large shopping bag to put it in.
I set out for the office.
I acted nice on the train.
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I got in to the office, smiled at Wonder Woman, said good-morning, and plunked the bag down next to her workstation. She gave me a smile and a greeting, but she wasn’t running any files.
“Is anything the matter with the system?” I asked her.
“There is,” she answered. “Late yesterday, at about three-thirty, the connection to ConSec went down. I made several attempts to restore, without success. I called ConSec administration for support, but was notified that forwarding had been terminated by order of the Chief of Central Bureau.”
“All forwarding?”
“No, citizen, forwarding to this office. No reason was given to me. I informed them that you would be contacting them today. I trust that was the correct thing to tell them?”
“Yeah. But why didn’t you call me, citizen?”
“I attempted to contact you several times. However, you had gone to the Ministry, which is a wireless-free zone. You would have been required to turn off your device and surrender it to personnel. You appear to have neglected to turn it on again afterward.”
I palmed my PDA; I had forgotten to charge it last night, and the power switch was, actually, in the off position, where I had put it on the guard’s instructions.
“It is a common oversight,” she said. “Failing the data work, I undertook some other routine optimization matters. Since you had not instructed me not to report this morning, I did so.” She put a hand to the silk bow around her throat. “That is … satisfactory?”
“Yes, citizen. You acted as you should have,” I told her.
“Do you have any … tasks for me this morning, in the interim?”
“I do,” I said. “Citizen, I’d like you to to take this parcel down to the courier office in Fillmore Square. I have an account there. Please check the address on here, and have it delivered to the place indicated.” I hefted the del-pod and put it on the worktable. She looked, then punched in and found an address on the ‘net. I dug a label out, and wrote a return address on it, which, as I recall, was that of a Soho fleabag. I listened as she read the destination address off the ‘netscreen, and wrote that on the label, too. I put the del-pod back in the shopping bag. Then she got her coat and purse and the bag, and went out to have citizen Sami Petanko’s head couriered to the office of Doctor Authier Madour.
I went into my office. The bug was still there. I detached it, smashed it with my stapler, opened the window, and tossed out the remains. Then I called Officer Roy Roy’s office number at ConSec.
“’Morning, citizen,” he said. “You’ll have to keep it brief; I have a meeting uptown at ten.”
“My data transfers have stopped,” I said. “Three-thirty yesterday, the link went down. My office assistant says she contacted your support line, and they said the link had been terminated on ConSec’s end. By order of Chief Timmons.”
“Is this the same OA who erased your call menu yesterday?” he asked.
“Ha ha. That’s irrelevant, citizen,” I said. “But I want to know if this is true. If it is, why? And without notice? There are procedures here. Something isn’t right.”
“I don’t know what I can do, citizen,” he said. “I’m down here in Substances. Admin is a different planet. You know that.”
“But you’re the officer responsible for working with me,” I said. “I can certainly take it up with them, but I thought you might know something. Before I got all official with it.”
“If it came straight from a Bureau Chief, they wouldn’t have stopped to consult me,” he said. “I mean, I can look into it, citizen, but it’ll be Monday. And even then, all I can do is tell you what I heard.”
“Anything,” I said. “I’m out of a job if this isn’t resolved. Speaking of jobs, anything new on Irina Madour?”
“We’re working on it. That’s all I can tell you. But with every officer in the city on the lookout, she can’t stay gone for long.”
“Yeah … well, thanks, citizen.”
“No problem,” he said. “Talk to you soon.”
He ended the call. Then I dialled ConSec administration. They confirmed that the transfers had been suspended by order of the Central Bureau Chief, Citizen Timmons, who had left for a meeting. No reason had been given.
I hung up in frustration. Then I dialled my landlord.
“Hey, citizen Slater,” he said. “They just got done reviewing the ‘cam records.”
“What’d they come up with?”
“After your OA left Tuesday night, nothing out of the routine came up. Everything very quiet. On Wednesday, no one was recorded going into your office at all. Not even you. Nobody except your OA.”
“On Wednesday? Are you sure?” I asked.
“Yeah. Hard to miss with the two-tone hairdo and combat wear. She came in about one p.m., was in there about forty minutes, then left again. Do you have a new OA? A woman came in Thursday morning. Dark hair, suit, bag, a regular executive type. My compliments.”
“What time Thursday?”
“Eight-fifteen.”
“She’s the new help. Jak got reassigned. Wait—are you saying Jak came in Wednesday?”
“Yeah. Your OA. That’s who I meant. But I’ll make a note that she’s not your OA anymore.”
“All right, thanks, Bruce.” I ended the call. Jak hadn’t left a time card for any time on Wednesday. There were some noises out in the office; citizen Ramirez had evidently and as usual finished her errand in record time. I thought for a few minutes and double-checked a few items on my computer. Then she appeared in my doorway with a mug of syn-caf, and a tress of dark hair beginning to fall down over one eye. The eye I saw was looking at me.
“The link is still down, citizen,” she said. “What … else can we do?”
“You said the link went down at four yesterday, citizen, but you stayed another hour. What did you do during that time?”
“Part of it was spent attempting to restore the ‘netlink. When that proved impossible, I took the liberty of initiating some routine office optimization procedures. Your videophone system’s memory is virtually full, inviting the danger of slow performance. There were months of old call records.” She took a sip from her mug. “Yesterday I began, and this morning I finished, some analysis of call patterns in order to be able to set automatic memory cleaning. I noticed that some days you have heavy call volume, and other days virtually none. Tuesday there were over twenty calls—then yesterday, only one. A memory cleaning—“
“Excuse me, citizen,” I interrupted. “One call from here yesterday? Can you show me that record?”
“But of course. May I?” She swayed over my desk on her high heels, set down the mug on the deskpad, and punched buttons on my ‘vidphone. The call record for yesterday showed one call made from here, at one-fourteen p.m. It had lasted thirty-eight seconds. The call had been made to a number I knew as General Distributing.
“Thank you, citizen,” I said, sitting down.
Her dark eyes sparked. “Is there something … unsatisfactory, citizen? If I may ask?”
“Yeah,” I said, catching a whiff of sandalwood. “No.” Old, bad habits die hard; I felt a sudden stab of desire for a nick stick. “Nothing that you would be able to assist with, I’m afraid. Except …”
She cocked her head slightly.
Some instinct made me glance at my watch. Citizen Ramirez was, it appeared, going to be saved by the bell. “I need to be on my way,” I said. “I doubt very much I’ll be back today. Are there backlogged files that can be processed?”
“There is some work there. There is also a quantity which you had flagged for further study.”
“Finish what you can,” I said. I had her for another day, so I might as well use her. “I’m expecting some communication from ConSec about the matter on Monday. I would also like you to undertake some research for me. I would like you to build me a dossier on Citizen John Preston. Everything you can find, excluding redundancy.”
“May I inquire, citizen …?”
“He is an old acquaintance and former co-worker,” I explained. That was true enough. “We are planning a reception for him. A commemoration. I’d like to review facts in case I’m called upon to speak.”
“Very well, citizen,” she said, straightening her skirt. “I shall endeavour to include anything … interesting.”
“Thank you, Garcia,” I said. I followed her out, and while she fired up the computer I closed my office door and adjusted my coat.
“If I may presume, citizen,” she said without looking up, “you may want to fit something in your right pocket for balance. Your weapon is making the left side hang crooked. Or, if you carry regularly, there is some tailoring that can improve that.”
“Noted. Thank you, citizen,” I said. “Tuesday, then. Please hold my calls.”
“Thank you, citizen,” she said, flashing me another modest smile.
I went out.
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I rounded the corner of East Ninth a few minutes ‘late,’ and had a seat on a park bench. I waited for about twenty minutes, observing the passers-by, and those who were lingering as well. There were two or three on benches, and one standing by a concrete sculpture a hundred feet away. The one standing was a young woman with a hat and overcoat, and there was something familiar about her.
A citizen walking by me gave me a nod of acknowledgement. When he had gone fifty feet or so, I stood up, stretched, and began to follow him. The woman moved after us.
I followed the citizen several blocks and into a shopping complex. I let him go. Positioning myself in a shop with a convenient window, I looked for the woman to enter the complex. I wasn’t disappointed.
On a stab of intuition, I flipped open my PDA and punched in Irina Madour’s number.
A few seconds later, the woman checked her stride and pulled out her own PDA, checking the screen. I cut off immediately. She flipped her device closed and looked around. It was Irina Madour all right.
I walked out of the shop in the opposite direction from her, then turned to look at a news kiosk. Apparently suspecting something, she turned and began to walk out of the complex, and I became the follower. She took me through a maze of alleys and sidestreets, occasionally doubling back and circling at least once, stopping briefly to make a call on her PDA. I wasn’t sure if she was trying to shake me or if she was just lost. She was doing a good job avoiding major streets, especially intersections, where there were advanced cams that could detect—it was half-joked—whether or not you had brushed your teeth that morning. We stopped for a drink once, went through a ‘ware store and a boutique, and along some more streets. Finally, she hired a pedicab.
I looked around. I got a ‘phone number off the pedicab. As it moved off down the street, I caught sight of a taxicab. I explained to the ‘cabster that I’d arrived on a transpo and wanted to see the town. I had him just drive, telling him where to turn and when to hold off. Luckily, she didn’t go very far, alighting in a mostly residential neighborhood. She walked a half-dozen blocks along tree-lined streets and turned into a large separate residence which had evidently been converted into some kind of office space. The sign on the front read: “Hawthorne House.” I gave it some time, then went in.
I looked around what was now the lobby. There were a few stuffed chairs, a couch, pictures on the walls—a very pre-War look. There was a rack of leaflets and literature devoted to health issues, particularly the health of the Librian ‘race,’ whatever they meant by that, as well as alternative medicine, how to birth children outside of approved medical facilities, and a couple of potted plants—real plants, some kind of miniature palm trees. There was material on the history and mission of, and FAQs about, the Earthlight Center, and how to contribute and/or join. There was also a skinny guy with a ponytail and an Adam’s apple that stuck out painfully. He was typing at a terminal. Then he tried to type and watch me at the same time. Finally, apparently lacking thorough keyboard training, he gave that up and just watched me. After a minute, he said: “Can I help you, citizen?”
I walked up to the counter and said: “I’d like to see Irina Madour, please.”
His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. “I’m afraid I don’t know who you’re talking about, citizen.”
“Let me put it another way. “I’d like to see Star Bright. Some people call her Irina Madour. Either way, I’d like to see her, please.”
“I have no idea who that is.”
I palmed my PDA, flipped it open, and showed him Irina. “All right. I’d like to see this person, please.”
His Adam’s apple shot up so fast that it must have rebounded off his hard palate, because his tongue seemed to thicken like it had something caught fast. “Citizen, I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”
I put down the PDA and grabbed a double handful of his turtleneck sweater. “Citizen, I’m going to have half the cops in Libria here in ten minutes if I don’t get to see who I want to see.”
He was beginning to make a noise when a cool voice spoke out behind us. “That’s alright, Greg. Citizen Slater may come in.”
A side door had opened, and citizen Lisa Preston stood in the doorway, She’d evidently come straight from her gym, with a three-quarter-length coat and scrunchy rubber-soled suede boots pulled on over her blue unitard, her bag still over her shoulder, and brown hair still in a braid. “Come along, citizen,” she said. “You already know more than you should. You might as well learn the rest. Dying with an unanswered question on one’s mind isn’t something I’d wish on my worst enemy.”
She stood aside while I put down citizen Greg, put away my PDA, and preceded her through the hallway and down a flight of stairs. At the bottom, a large basement had been fitted out as a sort of lounge. At a table off to the side, in a sort of kitchenette area, sat citizen Matsuya, her
naginata staff, bladed on one end, leaning nearby but still handy, and citizen DiLeone. At another table nearby, her coat off to reveal a red dress, sat Irina Madour.
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Next: “Stand down! Stand down!”[/i]