9
DONNER
The next morning, I rolled my neck, trying to work out the pounding in my head.
After my oh-so touching reunion with Bart, I’d spent the night drinking. And looking at the slip of paper he’d given me. I couldn’t figure out if he’d thrown me a lifeline or a quick brush off.
I called for Maggie, but there was no response. I sat up and the world did a dipsy-doodle. I rushed for the john and almost made it. Afterward, I stared at the dead cigarettes, the empty bottles, the phone number I couldn’t work up enough courage or enthusiasm to call.
A boozer cop. Jesus, what a cliché.
The Venetian blinds sliced the sunlight into neat lines on the hardwood floor. Outside, antique horns ah-oo-gahed and people laughed and life… Life went on.
The question was, could I? I hated this new existence. I was a blind man who’d been escorted into a strange room and left to grope for himself. I couldn’t get my head around what was in store for me—growing younger, a young man, a teen, eventually being too young to care for myself, living in some reborn child care center with a child’s body but an adult’s mind, finally devolving into infancy. I’d feel my wits and memory fade as the neural pathways melted away to nothingness. It brought a thunder cloud down on me, blotting out light and air.
Lots of reborn suicides, Maggie had said. I could find a gun. The tried-and-true office-in-blue method. What point was there to sticking around?
Only one.
Still one thing I wanted. It was ugly, but I couldn’t shake it.
My blue rose. Whoever had killed her might still be out there, walking those streets. If he’d been young, or had used the juvie centers, he could still be alive. He’d be an old man, but he could still be alive. I still had a chance to…
To make him pay. To make him hurt. To make him beg for his life.
Then to make him beg for his death.
Then to grant him his wish.
That was it, then. The rest I could put on hold. When I’d sent this scumbag to the hell I hoped existed, only then it would be time to decide whether to follow him or not.
I took a walk through Prospect Park and tried to plan my moves. Got nowhere. I was the only reeb in sight. A young couple who’d been making out on a bench saw me, shuddered and fled. Fifteen steps later a stone hit my shoulder, thrown from teens who’d interrupted their pick-up game of hoops to hate me. They gave me the dead eye treatment. I sent it back half-heartedly. I had no stomach for anything more.
The cold air cleared my head a little, at least.
When I returned to the apartment, a stranger was waiting for me in my living room.
***
She sat in a corner in a cloud of blue cigarette smoke.
“Thank you for seeing me, Mr. Donner.”
I shut the door, glancing at the lock. No scratches. Unjimmied. I looked around.
“How’d you get in here?”
“Your VP let me in. I told her you were expecting me.”
“I was?”
“Mr. Hennessy referred my case to you, I believe?”
The missing persons gig. Shit. The last thing I felt like doing was babysitting some trophy wife whose hubby had run off with the maid. I’d make quick work of her.
“She shouldn’t have let you in.”
“Don’t worry, I didn’t steal anything.” She gave the room a look of distaste. The destroyed furniture, the smashed pictures. Somehow, she’d managed to find an intact chair. “Termite problem?”
I shrugged my overcoat off. “You’ll have to make an appointment, Miss… ?”
She came to her feet with a supple and dangerous grace, like a panther. As she moved into the light, I saw that her face was obscured by a hat and a veil. She wore a charcoal dirndl with a tight bodice and low neck, tailored to accentuate her waistline and curving hips, and to broaden her shoulders to well, pretty much perfection.
She offered me a gloved hand. “Nicole Struldbrug.”
“What’s with the veil, Ms. Struldbrug? In mourning?”
She raised the wisp of black lace. She was gorgeous, of course. Chiseled features, dark skin, pouty mouth. Mickey Spillane’s wet dream.
“Better?” The hint of a smile played across her lips.
I shook my head. “Beautiful women make me nervous.”
“Now why don’t I believe that?”
She settled back into her seat, and the way she did it set off my alarms again—wiggling her tush slightly, as though trying to get comfortable. This woman had been wrapping men around her finger since puberty.
“Maggie let you in?” I repeated. I looked around.
She nodded. “Is she your girlfriend?”
“What?”
“Are you two keeping company?”
“Is that a joke?”
“Some people go for that kind of thing.”
“She’s… my assistant.”
“Quite a rude one.” She took a drag on her smoke.
“I’m surprised she didn’t call the cops when you lit that cigarette,” I said.
“What times we live in.” A sigh. “The next thing you know, sex will be illegal, too.”
“That would be a shame.”
“Wouldn’t it, though?”
I leaned against the wall. “How can I help you, Ms. Struldbrug?”
“I want you to find my husband.”
“So much for the sex.”
“My, you’re easily stalled.”
“An old-fashioned model, I guess.”
“Maybe you just need a lube job.”
“Whoa, hit the brakes.”
“Poo.” She drew on her cigarette, amused.
I went to the bar, grateful to end the double entendre marathon. “Drink?” I dropped ice into a glass.
“Bruichladdich, neat, if you have it.”
Another alarm. The only bottle I had left was a fifth of Bruichladdich I’d been saving.
I prepared the drinks. “A fan of single malt, are you?”
“It’s the Hebridean spring water,” she replied.
She’d tossed the place while I was gone. It was either to avoid embarrassing me by asking for something I didn’t have, or to sell herself as a kindred spirit because we liked the same Scottish whiskey. Either way, it was way too calculating. “This husband. Dead, alive, or reborn?”
“Alive, I pray. But missing.”
I returned with the glasses.
“His last name is Crandall. I kept my own.”
Nicole seemed to remember something then, because she began rummaging through a small purse. I sipped my drink. The scotch brought instant relief. I heard Elise’s voice, saying, not a good sign.
Nicole, meanwhile, was pulling various items from her handbag and dropping them in her lap. A compact, a leather wallet, a .25 caliber handgun—
I didn’t react outwardly. Whatever game she was playing, shooting me wasn’t part of it. She could have done that when I walked through the door. She withdrew a data pebble and a black plastic tube and handed them out to me.
I nodded at the pistol. “Mind checking the safety on that thing?”
“Please. It’s almost a toy. A ‘dame’s gun,’ as you cops would say.”
“I’m not a cop. And I never said ‘dame’ in my life. And for your information, that ‘toy’ is real enough to kill.” I thought about the holes that used to be in my chest.
She wiggled her hand impatiently. I took the items.
“A few of Morris’s hairs are in the tube, for DNA tracing. The pebble has background data, plus your fee. $20,000.”
I managed to keep my eyebrows from blasting off my face.
“Don’t pretend you don’t need it, shamus,” she said coolly. “I know how hard things can be for someone re-entering society.”
“The money’s welcome,” I said. “But a smart person would’ve headed straight for one of those fancy, established outfits. The kind with three names on the letterhead.”
Her face flushed. “Maybe I’m tired of getting the runaround from firms who’re more interested in running up their expense accounts than finding my husband.”
Jesus, did this one love the melodrama! But it didn’t quite scan. Something in her manner. Like she knew the femme fatale act wasn’t working on me, but kept at it, just to be irritating.
As if to prove me right, she drew on her cigarette, French inhaling. It was a teenager’s trick, but with those ruby lips and lapis lazuli eyes, she made it dangerously interesting.
“My husband is a scientist, Mr. Donner. A geneticist.”
Which meant well-paid, but not rich. That tended to nix a professional snatch-for-cash scenario, unless…
“Do you have money, Ms. Struldbrug?”
She smiled, her tongue peeking between her teeth. “Yes.”
“Have you checked your accounts? Assets?”
“They haven’t been touched.”
“And you haven’t heard from anyone? No ransom demands?”
“No.”
“How long has he been missing?”
“Three weeks.”
Hmm. She hadn’t given my predecessors much time to work.
“Tell me about the night he disappeared.”
“That night, he called from work. He spoke to Maria, our housekeeper.”
“What time?”
“Around seven-thirty. I was out, so he tried my implant. He left a voice mail.”
“Why didn’t you answer your… implant?”
“Probably in a meeting.”
“What was the message?”
“Something about a breakthrough at work. He was excited, rushed. He said he’d be home soon. He never arrived.”
“What time did you get home?”
“Around eleven-thirty.”
“And Maria said he’d never come home?”
“Maria was gone by then. But I saw no sign that he’d come home and gone back out.”
“You said he sounded excited. Sure he wasn’t afraid?”
“I know the difference. He was jubilant, arrogant. He had reason to be. His research will change the world.”
I thought I kept my face pretty even.
“That’s not a wife’s simple pride speaking, Mr. Donner. It’s an employer’s critical assessment. Morris’ research division works for us.” I guess I looked blank. She smiled. “Don’t tell me you don’t know who I am!”
Uh-oh.
“My brother, Adam, is President and CEO of Surazal. I am the Director of Research and Development.”
After a few ticks of the clock, my mind rebooted enough for me to simply be in total shock. Why didn’t Bart warn me? I stood, poured myself a double and threw the whole thing back.
“Surazal,” I said. “The company that’s building the Blister. The company that runs this city.”
She looked weary of the question. “I think the Mayor would take issue with that.”
“But it brings me back around to ‘why me’?”
Her eyes flashed. The lady wasn’t used to explaining herself. But playacting her peon wouldn’t get either of us what we wanted.
“Ms. Struldbrug—”
“Nicole, please.”
“Nicole. With the resources you command, it seems unlikely that you would hire someone freshly reborn, someone who barely knows his way around town.”
“The police are at a standstill. The other firms have gotten nowhere. Detective Hennessy recommended you. It’s as simple as that.”
Simple as that. Except she was full of shit.
Then I had it. Duh. “And maybe you want a reeb.”
Her eyes twinkled, but she issued neither a confirmation nor denial. “Morris was close to unraveling the secrets of reborn DNA when he disappeared.”
“And you believe the nature of his work will give me what? An added incentive to find him?”
She leaned in and her perfume, expensive and subtle, closed the gap between us. “I thought your type was keen to prove you’re not monsters.”
“I know what I am,” I said, without letting too much heat into my voice.
“I thought you were a detective,” she said, giving me another once-over. “You’re certainly dressed like one.” I was wearing the suit from the processing center. A double-breasted pinstriped affair with lapels a mile wide. Topped off with a suede fedora, wing-tipped shoes. I hadn’t had a chance yet to find something more to my own tastes.
“Don’t you like my clothes?” I said.
“Au contraire. You look yummy.” She shifted gears smoothly from amused to worried. Her lips trembled just the perfect amount. “Since another member of my genetics team has been murdered,” she said, “you can see—”
“Wait a minute. Who was murdered?”
“I thought Detective Hennessy briefed you about all this.”
“Apparently there’s a lot he skipped.”
“Dr. Smythe. He was also on the Reborn DNA Project with Morris. He was found dead two days before Morris disappeared.”
“They work in the same lab? How do you know your husband didn’t kill this Doctor Smythe and then flee?”
A laugh. “Morris, violent? Please. He’s a ninety-pound weakling.”
“What were they working on?”
“As I said, reborn DNA. Beyond that, I don’t really know.”
“You don’t know?”
“Surazal is a multi-trillion dollar operation with fifteen major divisions, Mr. Donner, including research, security, drug manufacturing, Blister construction, and civil administration. My R&D department alone has over fifty-seven active projects. Forgive me if I don’t know the details of every one of them.”
“No,” I replied. “But certainly the project your very own husband was working on.”
She just looked at me.
“What’d you give him for his last birthday?”
She hesitated. Then a slow smile broke over her face. “Fine,” she said. “He’s not my husband.”
“Thanks for coming by,” I said.
She didn’t move. “I’m sorry I lied,” she said, without a flicker of remorse. “But I had to test you.”
“Thanks for coming by,” I said.
“You don’t want to pass up this opportunity.”
“I have to trust my clients.”
“If you couldn’t sleuth out my true relationship with Morris, you wouldn’t be the man for the job, now would you? But you passed with flying colors.” She gave me a look that made me glad my clothes were fire resistant. “Everything else I told you is true. Oh, please. Can’t we start over? Dr. Crandall’s work is vital to my company.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s possible we could cure the Shift!”
“That would cost you, though, wouldn’t it? All those juicy contracts for magnetic domes and security?”
“That’s an incredibly cynical statement.”
I rubbed my face. “Who can give me the details about this DNA project?”
“Dr. Maurice Gavin oversees the project directly. I can arrange an appointment.”
“Good.”
“Then you’ll take the case?”
I had no patience for liars and game-players. But I needed a stake. And if said no, it might hurt Bart. She had the juice and black widow malice to make things tough for him. So I nodded, already feeling trapped.
“Do you think he’s still alive?” she said.
“Might be as simple as he ran off with a woman.”
Her laughter was musical. “Oh, you can rule out anything as tawdry as that. Morris’s work was his life. Utterly.”
“Drugs? The ponies?”
“No, as I said, he was a real straight shooter.”
I unplastered myself from the wall. “Okay, Ms. Struldbrug. That’ll get me started.”
I escorted her to the door. She turned and moved in, abruptly too close. Apprehension filled her face. I could feel her heat, smell her cinnamon breath.
“Two of my people, missing or murdered, Mr. Donner. What if I’m next?”
“You have security,” I said.
“The best in the world and worthless. You know that.” She was right. A fanatic could always beat protection, no matter how good. All it cost was his own life.
She radiated anxiety like a furnace. Somewhere, my alarms went off again. Her lids fluttered. “It’s so hot,” she said. Then she was sagging against me. I grabbed her to keep her from sliding to the floor. Her breath washed across my neck. I pushed her back, but she clung, lips rubbing across the angle of my jaw. I pushed her away more strongly. Her feet found purchase and she took a step back, straightening her blouse. She reached out and wiped lipstick from my cheek. I flinched like I’d been touched by a snake.
“Something to remember me by,” she said.
“The money’s enough.”
She smiled then, unreadable, and slipped out the door.
Slowly, very slowly, I leaned against the door jam.
I didn’t kiss her, Elise, I didn’t kiss her.
I walked over to the cracked mirror, found an intact piece, and scrubbed the remaining lipstick from my face, feeling like territory that had been marked by a predator.
I stood that way for a while, smoking and looking at my shattered reflection.