Noir

“Ah.” He could just about see it all now; the relaxation in McNihil’s bones and muscles was echoed by a similar expansion in time, the appreciable gulf between one second and the next. Just as the would-be pirate kid’s senses must have gone into slow motion as soon as the snaring hydro-gel had leapt up from the plastic cup; the way the small animal in the triggered leg-hold trap must have been able to study every tooth of the metal jaw slicing down toward its pelt and flesh. “And why… just why… would his name be here in your copyright tracking?” As if he couldn’t figure it out, already. “What’s that mean?”

“Other than that you’re totally screwed?” Turbiner sounded almost sympathetic, as though he were in fact sorry to see the trap snapping shut. “But you know that already, don’t you?”

“I know all sorts of things. Some of them I just learned.” He looked at Turbiner, as though seeing him for the first time, unoccluded. In the flat’s musicless silence, McNihil could almost hear the blood singing in his own veins. “I’m just interested in these particular details, that’s all.”

“You can work it out.” Turbiner shrugged. “It’s all there. I keep very accurate records-you know that. Just read the listing.”

He hardly needed to; nothing on the little screen of the card came as a surprise to him. Not now. McNihil scrolled across the tiny words and numbers, the black marks like legible flyspecks beneath his fingernail. Beside the kid’s name was a coded list of properties, old thriller copyrights of Turbiner’s early writing days; McNihil was familiar enough with the account at the agency to recognize them without using the hyperkeys. He knew which tides matched up with the numbers: they were all the ones that the Wyvitz kid had been peddling.

McNihil drew his fingertip to the end of the line. The date for the licensing of the copyrights was barely forty- eight hours ago, the day that he’d gone up north on the rim to take care of this business. To do this favor for Turbiner. There was even a time stamp for the transaction: exactly when he’d been sitting in the theater with the kid.

They were watching me, thought McNihil. “They” being the ones Turbiner had been working with, cooperating on setting up this little sharp-toothed trap. McNihil already had a good idea who they were.

“The kid didn’t know.” McNihil looked up from the card and its info. “Did he? You used him.”

A moment passed before Turbiner gave another nod. “Somebody did.” He reached over to take the card from McNihil. “I wasn’t in on that part.”

“I’ll just bet,” said McNihil, “that the timing is exactly right on this one.” He laid the card in Turbiner’s outstretched hand. “A short-term licensing of your copyrights-what, ninety days?”

Turbiner shook his head. “Thirty. I don’t like to let go of them for too long.” He opened his wallet and tucked the card back inside. “If I can help it.”

“And it was all set up to go through with the push of a button, I imagine. Soon as they saw how the deal was going to go down with the kid.”

A nod this time. “They got it on tape.” The wallet returned to Turbiner’s hip pocket. “I’ve seen it. You know, you really should’ve checked around for surveillance gear. Even before you walked in there.”

“Well, I guess I didn’t know.” McNihil leaned back against the couch’s upholstery. “I didn’t know what I was walking into. I thought I did. But I was wrong.”

“You were wrong.” Turbiner’s agreement was a simple stating of fact, uninflected by emotion.

“Because if your records there are correct-”

“They are,” said Turbiner. “Unfortunately.”

“Then that means I murdered the kid.” He could feel his heart opening up, as though to some perfect, damnable grace. So this is what it feels like, thought McNihil. Absolutely. He could almost understand how people got into it, enjoyed the element of control being stripped away from themselves. At least you know where you stand. It might be rock bottom, but it was certain. In this world-he supposed it was in fact, had been all along, the kind of world that Turbiner and the ones like him had always written about-there was a certain comfort in that knowledge. “And I thought,” said McNihil with the barest fragment of a smile, “that I was doing you a favor. Something I didn’t have to do, but just because I wanted it that way. Por nada-or maybe just because I liked your books.”

“Actually, you did do me a favor.” Turbiner picked up his own glass and then set it, empty now, beside the other one on the low table. “I got paid for the rights. Not by the kid, of course; as you said, he didn’t know what the hell was going on. He got used as much as you did. But the people who set the whole deal up-they had to pay me.”

“Not just for the rights, though. They paid you for keeping quiet. At least until I was through getting connected over.”

“But you’re not through,” said Turbiner. “There’s more to come. Once somebody is in your position, there’s always more to come.”

McNihil didn’t need to be reminded about that. Even though there was still a part of the Wyvitz kid living, the cortical matter imbedded in the trophy cable, the little wanna-be pirate was legally dead. Or illegally, as the case now seemed to be. If the kid had had the rights to the old Turbiner titles licensed over to him-even if the kid hadn’t been aware that he had the rights, even if he mistakenly believed he was a thief and was bragging about it-then carving him up for the desired bits wasn’t a sanctioned agency operation. It was as much murder as if McNihil had gone out on the street and put the muzzle of his tannhauser against the brow of the first person he ran into, and pulled the trigger.

Real bad news for someone like him; fine distinctions like this made the difference between being an asp-head and an asshole, someone who’d stuck his foot so far into it that there’d be no extraction short of sawing it off at the hip.

“You know… I was ready to leave a while ago.” McNihil pushed himself up from the couch. “Now I’m way ready.” Whatever buzz had been imparted by the alcohol had burned out of his system; a cold sobriety, cheerless as a gray post-insomnia dawn, crept through his veins. “It’s been… interesting talking to you. I don’t think we’ll be doing it again anytime soon.”

“I can understand that.” Turbiner nodded slowly. “This sort of thing is pretty corrosive on friendly relations.”

No shit, thought McNihil. There were other things he wanted to ask the man, things he could’ve said to him. But now there wasn’t time. By the sheer force of will, whether it left him one-legged or not, he’d managed to get both himself and the surrounding universe started up again; McNihil could even sense his heart speeding up, as adrenaline trickled into its fibers. Which meant that if he started running, the things pursuing him would kick into high gear as well.

How much of the actual substance of time was left to him, he didn’t know. McNihil supposed he’d find out soon enough.

“Take care of yourself.” Halfway between the flat’s living area and the front door, McNihil stood and gave a nod toward the other man. “You’ll have to. After this, I won’t be doing it for you.” He buttoned his jacket, as though in expectation of the chill winds he’d find outside. “I’m gone.”

“Don’t leave just yet.” Another voice spoke, from the mouth of the unlit corridor that ran to the back of the flat. “As a matter of fact, we’ll really have to insist on your staying.”

It was the voice he’d been expecting to hear. McNihil brought his gaze up from the figure in the sweet-spot chair. “Harrisch…” He nodded slowly. “Why am I not surprised?”

Still seated, Turbiner glanced back over his shoulder. “Should I take a walk?”

“Why bother?” Bearing his unpleasant knife-blade smile, the exec sauntered out into the living area. “You’ve been so helpful already; I’m sure you won’t be in the way. Besides-” Harrisch gave a shrug. “You live here, after all.”

McNihil heard the front door open; he turned and saw other corporate types, a pair of them, come in. Not execs like Harrisch and the ones who’d been there that other time, standing around the late Travelt’s wide-eyed corpse. But thugs, refrigerator-sized and similarly intelligenced. They came to a halt, forming a wall with cheap suits and badly knotted neckties between McNihil and the exit. Small sullen eyes below bullet-headed brows fastened onto him and waited.

“Well… I’m not going to connect around.” McNihil looked over at the smiling exec. “If I were carrying, it’d be different. But I left the tannhauser at home.” He tilted his head toward the others, now standing with their arms