Justin curled his lip in irritation. Of course he didn’t want the woman on euphorics. The woman’s happiness was not what he had in mind.
‘Get rid of her,’ he said.
‘I can’t … I can’t do….’
‘You can. Or I’ll have someone call on your wife, Doctor Michael. Maybe you’d like to have her in room six?’
The doctor was silent.
Justin turned to go.
‘Mr. Justin….’
‘What!’
‘I’ve been here for a year….’
‘So?’
‘You told me after I’d been here for one year, you’d consider letting me see the children….’ Now the face betrayed the man. A certain liquid glaze of the eyes. A quiver at the corner of the mouth.
Justin’s lips curled once more, this time with a deep and abiding satisfaction.
‘Yes,’ he assented very softly and lovingly. ‘I certainly will do that, Doctor. I certainly will consider it.’
The man’s face broke. ‘Are they…. are they all right?’
‘Why wouldn’t they be?’
‘Please, Sir –’
‘Doctor!’ The voice was a whip crack.
The man bowed his head, wordlessly.
‘Your being a good boy,’ said Justin, licking his lips, ‘is what keeps your family the way it is.’
There was no response. Justin left him there, shaking very slightly, his finger still in the open pages of the book.
Justin talked to himself, quietly and convincingly. He was well rid of the woman. She’d been a disappointment, so forget her. What he’d really wanted to do was prove a point, and he’d done that. Nobody said no to Harward Justin and got away with it. As for the doctor, he would give the man a little hope. Not much, just a little. Make him think his family’s life was connected to what he did, how he acted. Make him believe that. Maybe show him a holo of his wife and kids. It would have to be faked, of course. Since one didn’t want wives running around asking inconvenient questions, the doctor’s wife had been dead since the day Geroan had picked the doctor up. As for the children….
His ruminations were interrupted by the murmur of a well-known voice coming via annunciator from the reception hall, four stories below. Justin started and swore. Think of the devil. The voice on the annunciator was that of Spider Geroan. He was on his way up.
‘Well, Spider.’ Justin greeted him with a twisted smile and an affable squint of his slushy toad’s eyes. ‘Nice of you to come and let me know the job’s done.’
‘Unfortunately, no.’
There was a silence, more uncomfortable than ominous. Spider Geroan had no fear of Justin’s displeasure. A physical anomaly made him immune to pain, and he could not remember ever having felt affection or feared death. He was proof against threats. His only pleasures were both arcane and agonizing for others; his only reason for living was a narrow but persistent curiosity. His motionless face betrayed no interest in what he had just said, but then it never betrayed any interest in anything. It was one of the things Justin liked about Geroan.
So now, Justin asked in the sympathetic tone one might use in inquiring after the health of a dear and valued friend, ‘I’m sorry to hear that, Spider. What happened?’
‘You wanted Don Furz’s killing to look like a Crystallite attack?’
‘I did. I do, yes. She’s very well-known, something of a cult personality. Her killing will be the final outrage that will move the Governor to lock up the Crystallites.’
The assassin nodded. ‘I sent a small group of well-trained men armed with knives. Your little man in the Priory boggled a set of orders, just as you directed, and got the Explorer sent up into the Redfang. My men were ready to take her as soon as she got far enough out that she couldn’t retreat back among the Presences. While we waited for the appropriate moment, someone else went for her. Four of them. My men joined in, but a bunch of armed Tripsingers came along and drove them off.’
‘Tripsingers! Armed? How many?’
‘My men said six. I doubt that. There were probably three. From the descriptions, one of them was likely Tasmin Ferrence, from Deepsoil Five. He was in Northwest City just hours before, and he mentioned to a truck driver that he wanted to meet Furz. There were two acolytes with him, probably his own. They were carrying at least one rifle. I don’t know how or why they were armed, not yet, but I’ll find out.’
Justin sucked on his teeth impatiently. ‘So, what happened?’
‘Several of my men were killed; the rest were driven off. Furz and the Tripsingers retreated into the Redfang Range.’
‘She got away again!’
‘They got away.’ There was a slight emphasis on the they. Geroan had been paid to get the woman, but now he wanted them all. ‘Only temporarily.’
‘You sent someone after them?’
‘Of course. You’ve paid to get rid of her, and you’ll get what you paid for, Justin. It’s ridiculous that it should be requiring so much effort. I’ve already sent some of my people into the Redfang after them, along with a couple of hired Tripsingers.’
‘If you get to Furz, you’ll have to kill Ferrence, too, and the Tripsingers won’t stand for your killing their colleagues.’
‘They won’t be asked for their approval.’ His voice was almost weary, as though the subject bored him. No muscle of his face quivered, and Justin found this stoniness admirable. Still, he persisted. Justin sometimes dreamed of evoking surprise on that face, just once.
‘They may attack your people.’
‘If they do, they’ll be disposed of.’
‘Then your men won’t be able to get out!’
Geroan turned his back. So, the men wouldn’t be able to get out. They were expendable.
Justin subsided. ‘Who were the men who beat you to it?’
‘One of them lived for a short while. I asked him.’
‘And?’
‘He said he got his money from the Crystallites, but it came originally, so he understood, from Honeypeach Thonks.’
‘Thonks’s whorelady? Why would Honeypeach want to kill Donatella Furz?’
Geroan had wondered the same and had been sufficiently curious to institute a few inquiries. ‘I’m told the Governor’s lady was enamored of one
