would have tried to make it to Hawaii in his boat. Instead he went without me. I never saw him again. And it cost me three years’ worth of promotions. I was lucky that that was all.”
“I didn’t know about the guy in San Diego,” Andy said.
“Why should you? It wasn’t your business. You took my money, you were supposed to get me my pardon. That was the deal.”
Her eyes were gray with golden sparkles in them. It wasn’t easy for him to look into them.
“You still feel like killing me?” Andy asked. “Are you planning to have me executed?”
“No and no, Mickey. That isn’t your name either, is it?”
“Not really.”
“I can’t tell you how astounded I was, when they brought you in here. A pardoner, they said. John Doe, new in town and working the Pershing Square area. Pardoners, that’s my department. They bring all of them to me. That’s what they reassigned me to, after my hearing: dealing with pardoners. Isn’t that cute, Mickey? Poetic justice. When they first assigned me to this job I used to wonder if they’d ever bring you in, but after a while I figured, no, not a chance, he’s probably a million miles away, he’ll never come back this way again. And then they pulled in this John Doe, and I went past you in the hall and saw your face.”
There was no hiding from the vindictive gleam in those gray eyes.
This called for desperate measures.
“Listen to me, Tessa,” Andy said, letting a little of that useful hoarseness come back into his voice. “Do you think you could manage to believe that I’ve felt guilty for what I did to you ever since? You don’t have to believe it. But it’s God’s own truth.”
“Right. My heart goes out to you. I’m sure it’s been years of unending agony for you.”
“I mean it. Please. I’ve stiffed a lot of people, yes, and sometimes I’ve regretted it and sometimes I haven’t, but you were one that I regretted, Tessa. You’re the one I’ve regretted most. This is the absolute truth.”
She considered that. He couldn’t tell whether she believed him even for a fraction of a second, but he could see that she was considering it.
“Why did you do it?” she asked, after a bit.
“I stiff people because I don’t want to seem too perfect,” he told her. “You have to stiff the customers once in a while or else you start looking too good, which can be dangerous. You deliver a pardon every single time, word gets around, people start talking, you start to become legendary. And then you’re known everywhere and sooner or later the Entities get hold of you, and that’s that. So I always make sure to write a lot of stiffs. One out of every five, approximately. I tell people I’ll do my best, but there aren’t any guarantees, and sometimes it doesn’t work.”
“You deliberately cheated me.”
“Yes.”
“I thought that it must have been deliberate. You seemed so cool, so professional. So perfect, except for that dumb try at making a pass at me, and when you did that I just thought, oh, well, men, what can you expect? I was sure the pardon would be valid. I couldn’t see how it would miss. And then I got to the wall and they grabbed me. And then I thought, that bastard purposely sold me out. He was too good just to have flubbed it up by accident.” Her tone was calm but the anger was all too evident in her eyes. “Couldn’t you have stiffed the next one, Mickey? Why did it have to be me?”
He looked at her for a long time, calculating things.
Then he took a deep breath and said, putting all he had into it, “Because I had fallen for you in a big way.”
“Bullshit, Mickey. Bullshit. You didn’t even know me. I was just some stranger who walked in off the street to hire you.”
“That’s just it. It happened just like that.” He felt an inspired improvisation coming on, and went with it. “There I was full of all kinds of crazy instant lunatic fantasies about you, all of a sudden ready to turn my nice orderly life upside down for you, write exit passes for both of us, take us on a trip around the world, the whole works. But all you could see was somebody you had hired to do a job. I didn’t know about the guy from San Diego. All I knew was that I saw you and you were gorgeous and I wanted you. I fell in love with you right then and there.”
“Yeah. Fell in love. That’s very touching.”
So far, not so good. But you can do this, he thought. Just let it come rolling out and see where it goes.
He said, “You don’t think that’s love, Tessa? Well, call it something else, then, whatever you want. It was something that I had never let myself feel before. It isn’t smart to get too involved, I always thought, it ties you down, the risks are too big. And then I saw you and I talked to you a little and right away I thought something could be happening between us and things started to change inside me, and I thought, Yeah, yeah, go with it this time, let it happen, this may make everything different. And you stood there not seeing it, not even beginning to notice, just jabbering on endlessly about how important the pardon was for you. Cold as ice, you were. That hurt me. It hurt me terribly, Tessa. So I stiffed you. And afterwards I thought, Jesus, I ruined that wonderful girl’s life and it was just because I got myself into a snit, and that was a fucking petty thing to have done. I’ve been sorry ever since. You don’t have to believe that. I didn’t know about San Diego. That makes it even worse for me.”
She had not said anything all this time. Her implacable stony stillness began to get to him. To puncture it Andy said, “Tell me one thing, at least. That guy who wrecked me in Pershing Square: who was he?”
“He wasn’t anybody,” she said.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“He isn’t a who. He’s a what. An it. An android, a mobile anti-pardoner unit, plugged right into the big Entity mainframe in Santa Monica. Something new that we have going around town looking for people like you.”
“Oh,” Andy said, stunned, as if she had kicked him. “Oh.”
“The report is that you gave it one hell of a workout.”
“It gave me one too. Turned my brain half to mush.”
“There was no way you could have beaten it. You were trying to drink the sea through a straw. For a while it looked like you were really going to do it, too. You’re one goddamned ace of a hacker, you know that? Yes, of course you do. Of course.”
“Why do you work for them?” Andy asked.
She shrugged. “Everybody works for them, one way or another. Except people like you, I guess. Why shouldn’t we? It’s their world, isn’t it?”
“It didn’t used to be.”
“A lot of things didn’t used to be. What does that matter now? And it’s not such a bad job. At least I’m not out there on the wall. Or being sent off for TTD.”
“No,” he said. “It’s probably not so bad. If you don’t mind working in a room with such a high ceiling. Is that what’s going to happen to me? Sent off for TTD?”
“Don’t be stupid. You’re too valuable.”
“To whom?”
“The network always needs upgrading. You know it better than anyone alive, even from the outside. You’ll work for us.”
“You think I’m going to turn borgmann?” Andy said, astonished.
“It beats TTD.”
She couldn’t possibly be serious, he thought. This was some game she was playing with him. They would be fools to trust him in any kind of responsible position. And even bigger fools to give him any kind of access to their net.
“Well?” she said, when he remained silent. “Is it a deal, Mickey?”
He was silent a little while longer. She was serious, he realized. Handing him the keys to the kingdom. Well, well, well.
They must have their reasons, he supposed. He’d be the fool, if he said no.
He said, “I’ll do it, yes. On one condition.”
She whistled. “You really have balls, don’t you?”
“Let me have a rematch with that android of yours. I need to check something out. And afterward we can discuss what kind of work I’d be best suited for here. Okay?”
