office. I dropped myself into my chair, and immediately winced against the pain. I set my gun on the desk blotter. I lit a cigarette, and momentarily fought the urge to open the blinds. I won, darkness would do. I flicked on the desk lamp. I waited.
Chapter 67
I was drawn from my daze by the steel grinding sound of an Authority Transport pulling up in front of the building. I smiled. I heard the characteristic repetitive horn as the rear ramp opened. I thought of Willieboy's hideous end and shivered. There followed the heavy tromp of boots on pavement. I waited. A quick sweat broke out on my brow. What if I was wrong? That was a possibility, after all, and I believed everything to be possible. I shrugged, when I heard a single set of footsteps hit the stairs. If I were wrong, I would be dead soon-or Tommy would be. Really dead though, no way back. Maybe just darkness and the silence of the singing soul. Maybe stars, and light, or Pearly Gates. Maybe fire and brimstone, maybe more Greasetown. At that moment, I didn't care. What would be would be. Having fixed my mind on that rather dismal prospect, I began to get downright cocky. If the worst doesn't matter to you, how can you lose?
The door to the waiting room opened. I heard footsteps cross the carpet. The feet that made them weren't heavy and steel-shanked, I could tell that much. I saw a shadow appear in the pebbled glass window. It looked familiar. The door opened. Mary Redding pushed it aside, wearing the long black coat of Authority. I smiled, rather pleased with myself. I gestured to the company chair. Redding smiled. Then took it. Dark slacks hid her calves. Her feet were covered with crepe-soled shoes. I had a feeling I wouldn't be seeing her toes curl up in orgasm for a while. She took off the trademark fedora of the inspector and dropped it beside her chair.
'How did you know?' Her voice was clear but a little defeated.
'A number of things. But one clinched it.' I offered her a cigarette, but she declined. She pulled one of her special brand from her overcoat.
Redding smiled then. 'Goddamn it! You surprised a lot of people.'
'I'm glad. Of course, a lot of those people surprised me.' I lit my cigarette and pulled hard on the hot smoke. It reminded me of the fire in the Galaxy Tower. It reminded me of death. I put it out. I offered her a drink that she declined. Instead, she sat watching me.
'Did you get Van Reydner?' I asked.
'Yes. And what was left of that other guy. Van Reydner told us he, Tobias, and Adrian, were the masterminds of the whole operation. She said they came up with the method of collecting clients for Simpson's, and she said they were the ones who planned to sell the Regenerics Secret to the highest bidder. I guess she said a lot of things. I guess she'd pretty much sing like a bird right now, if we asked her to.' Redding smiled and blew some smoke. 'She's rather anxious to get into a preservation treatment of her own. Don't worry; we'll hurry that, just for her. Unfortunately, I won't believe much of what she's saying until she's been out of Blacktime for a while,' she chuckled, then went silent again. 'How did you find out about me?'
'I thought you were a reporter, and nothing more. I only began to get suspicious about some of the things you said, after I visited the Gazette. I noticed people acting a little strange around you. Then, you lied about Morris-the librarian. He just about jumped out of his skin when you took me into the morgue, you must have forgotten who he was so you made up that story about him being a volunteer. And Morris reacted like you had a lot more authority than you should have had. That was the hard part of your role as a reporter, you know. You get to work on murder assignments; yet, you have to cover your ass by saying that you haven't worked there long. You mentioned Malcolm Aird to me, and for the longest time I couldn't remember who he was. Then I got a mental picture of this short guy with gray hair and a black moustache. He was the editor of a newspaper. I can't remember where I met him, but I do know he was easygoing enough to share a few drinks with a clown. One of his biggest complaints was that since everyone was immortal, it was hard as hell to get any cub reporters to do the little stories. Everyone had too much experience. When you told me you had only been there two months, and were already working crime-it just didn't sit right with me. You also mentioned you had job security, which didn't wash.' I tried another go at a cigarette. It worked this time. 'Still, that could have been explained. You could have been the editor's girlfriend, or you could have come from a prestigious magazine. No, I wasn't positive.' I squeaked my chair. 'But the things that sold me were the things that happened here.'
'I didn't walk properly for a week…' She smirked, and then surprised me by blushing.
'Beside that, which I'm not knocking. The fact that you were at the scene of the Adrian murder so quickly. The fact that you would come home with me in the first place. The fact that you happened to be the only reporter to discover both the murders at the Morocco. And when we were here, talking murder, you kept mentioning justice, as though it was really important to you. Reporters can be interested in justice, but any that truly believe it can be found wouldn't work for the Greasetown Gazette. You talked about it, as though you believed it existed out there. And you asked me about it enough to give me the feeling that you were checking me out for reasons other than simply to determine whether or not I would be a good lay.' Mary Redding blushed again, and crossed her legs. 'There is also this,' I said pointing to my face. 'The clown makeup doesn't do a lot for me. Any woman that is turned on by it is suspicious in my books.'
Redding chuckled and butted her cigarette in the ash stand to her left. 'What clinched it for you?'
'I don't know if you remember, I suppose after a while it comes to be second nature, but I heard you say something that I heard someone in Authority and someone I suspected of being in Authority say.'
'I can't imagine.' Redding shook her head.
'What's a clusterfuck?' I grinned and knocked ash from my cigarette. 'I heard you say it and I've been called a clusterfuck by Cane, and by Willieboy. I never asked what it meant, I just kept noticing it.'
Redding burst out laughing. She doubled over, then looked up at me and burst out again. I tried to take it all in stride. Redding had a lovely laugh. She raised a finger and struggled over the last of her chuckles.
'In basic, in Authority-basic training-we get the once over on graduation day by the Inspector General. He has a cluster of oak leaves on his collar. We call grads, clusterfucks, because their collars are clean. They have clusters of fuck-all.' She started to giggle. 'I don't suppose it's a nice thing to say to anyone.'
'Well, it put me onto you.' I fell silent a moment to sober her. 'Where did your people come in at the Galaxy Tower?'
That hit the spot. The serious line between her eyes tightened up enough to set a silver dollar in. 'We lost a lot of good people.' She fell silent. 'God, that's such a cliche, but we did. I guess I say it because good people are rare.' She struck another match and lit a cigarette. 'We came in through the roof-got there late. You see I didn't spend all of my time at the Gazette. For reasons I'll explain later I had Mary Redding's extension hooked to my office at HQ. Whoever took the message either tried to obstruct me on purpose or it was a real oversight, it didn't get it to me for thirty-five minutes. Almost too late. When we did get there we saw all the Authority vehicles, so I was a little uncertain of what to do. I knew the King's men would be there, and the Twelve Stars. Both those groups employ hard-assed Enforcers who fight like demons. They have terrible punishments for disloyalty, I'm told. I didn't have enough people with me to take both groups on at once. But, there was no turning back.
'We had a little trouble in the lobby with an Enforcer stationed there. But we took him out and then found a woman tied up behind her desk. She told us that everyone had gone up to the penthouse. I wasn't sure how to deploy my people. I just didn't want to lose too many. So, we went up in a service elevator to try a forced entry through the roof. We have sensing equipment, echo-radar, to be certain no one is killed when we blast, so our munitions expert popped a hole in the ceiling twenty yards from echo sources to minimize bystander casualties. Down we went.' She took a long drag on her cigarette, and her eyes seemed to cloud up momentarily. 'Of course, Cane's people were coming up through the floor at about the same time. Of the forty Enforcers I went in with, only eighteen made it out. That fucking helicopter was unexpected! God damned maniacs took out the whole top floor, and wasted some of their own people too. A couple of us kept our heads after the concussion, we were pretty well protected by our armor but the concussion can knock you out. I was down but my people saw a group of Enforcers come in, meet up with Willieboy, then watched them taking you out. A few shots were fired, but no kills. We had you followed to the King's castle. It took us a while to get our shit together after the blasts. We had to identify forces and our casualties-call in reinforcements and medics.'
'Was Cane still there?' I sat forward now, hands set flat on the desk blotter.
