chance to examine Smith from a closer perspective than he really wanted to.
The pear shape of the frank's head, Nohar now saw, was caused by a massive roll of flesh that drooped over the frank's collar. The roll of fat obscured any neck or chin the frank might have had. The frank was totally hairless, too, no hair at all, anywhere. No pores Nohar could see.
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The frank could have been a white polyethylene bag filled with silicone lubricant.
The reason the frank didn't blink was because he didn't have any eyelids.
Smith also didn't have any nostrils.
No ears either.
The frank was calling from an unlisted location, and the lighting only picked up the frank's white bulk, nothing of the background. 'I am glad I see you mostly unhurt from when you go to Philip Young,'
'Thanks.' Nohar immediately noticed Smith's weird accent again. It was not Afrikaans. 'Your message said you paid the hospital.'
'It is a legitimate expense of the investigation.'
'You want a progress report.'
The frank attempted a nod, sending the flesh of his upper body into unnatural vibrations.
Nohar told the frank what he knew and what he thought he knew. How Johnson was killed, who was involved, and, of course, the as yet nebulous why. Nohar had convinced himself, despite Young's unreliability, that the reason lay in the now-destroyed-and-or-missing financial records of the Binder campaign. 'Excellent progress in such a short time.'
'Now let me ask you a few things.' Nohar knew he had jumped into the case prematurely, and what bothered him most wasn't his involvement in a pink murder, or even his involvement with a murder, period. What bothered him was the absence of information on his client and his client's company.
'I render what aid I can.'
'First, you're worried about MLI being involved in the killing, and you told me you're an accountant— What's in the campaign records that could have connected back to MLI?'
'Only our heavy financing of the Binder campaign. A connection our board informs me will be severed as of our last payment—the three million Binder is missing and we are not. Our only contact with the Binder FORESTS OF THE NIGHT
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campaign is our money and suggestions on appropriate votes to take on the issues before him.'
Nohar snorted. Having a bunch of franks telling Binder what to do bordered on the absurd. 'You dictated the way he voted in the House?'
'He never votes against us. Our support is based on his closeness to our views.'
That did not ring true. A frank's views being close to Binder's? Binder was a little to the right of Attila, was for the sterilization of moreys and probably the outright extermination of franks.
However, the finance records were the only connection between MLI and Binder. That gave credence to Smith's suspicion someone in MLI was behind the killing.
Since the money trail had been sitting tight that long—fifteen years back, the way Harrison acted— if the motive was in the records it was in some incredibly obscure financial tidbit where Johnson never would have seen it in the first place, or it was in those 'suggestions on appropriate votes.'
'Second, I want to know where you and the other franks at MLI really come from.'
For the first time Nohar saw what could be the remotest trace of expression on the frank's face. Close to a nerve. The bubbling voice seemed just a little strained when Smith responded. 'I told you. We come from South Africa—'
'South Africa never signed the U.N.'s human genome experiment ban—but it's just one non-signer of at least two dozen that have the technology. One of a half-dozen that uses it. That isn't an Afrikaans accent.'
Smith let out a sound that could have been a sigh. 'I do not know if I am glad or not I hire such a perceptive investigator.'
'Don't compliment me on noticing the obvious.'
'I am afraid this information I cannot give you.'
'Oh, great-'
The sigh, it was a sigh, came again. 'Please, I ex-
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plain. Our origin must remain private. Just as we must remain unseen ourselves. It is for the company's survival. If MLI has a murderer, or murderers, in its midst, such secrets are public. But my loyalty will not permit such knowledge until I know if the guilt is there. If you can't pursue this without that information, I will let you go with the money you have earned.''
Good, you have an out. Nohar stood there, staring. He told himself he was going to say to hell with it. Drop the whole mess then and there. . . .
He thought of Stephie.
He couldn't.
He had never ditched anything in the middle.
'You know you're hobbling me when you withhold information.'
'I am sorry.'
'I need copies of those 'suggestions.' '
'They're on file. I get them. At ten-thirty Wednesday night we meet in the cemetery.'
'Comm off.'
What in the hell did he think he was doing?
He should have dumped the case when he had the chance.
CHAPTER 12
The walk past the city end of Mayfietd was nerve-racking for Nohar. His sudden concern for Stephie had hit a few buttons. He was passing Ziphead territory with Angel. He felt the gun was all too obvious under his green windbreaker, even though when he chose the jacket it had seemed up to the job of concealing the Vind.
It felt like there was a target strapped to his back and the weight under his arm didn't really help.
There were no rats around, hadn't been since yesterday. That was becoming suspicious. There were always rodents around in Moreytown, even in daylight. The streets were bare of them.
There was new graffiti under the bridge that separated Moreytown from the Circle. It was under the sarcastic, 'Welcome to Moreytown.' It read, 'The Zipperhead rules here.' The Zip graffiti was becoming too ubiquitous.
Nohar remembered the too-common slogan, 'Off the pink,' from the riots. A decade later, that slogan— Datia's slogan—had passed into general usage as a stock antiauthoritarian comment.
Nohar wondered if the people who used it habitually were consciously aware it was a call for human genocide.
It felt like he was in the Hellcats again and everything was about to explode into brimstone and shitfire. The feeling didn't leave after they passed the concrete pylons demarking the end of May field Road.
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The pink universe of Case Western Reserve University was only a few blocks from the farthest extention of Moreytown. The border was marked by the sudden shift into decent landscaping.
Angel turned toward him. 'You feel safe, Kit?'
'No.'
'Feel the shit's about to go ballistic?'
