Chapter Six

Chapter Six

 

            On the third dial she picked up, her voice was cool like a slice of cucumber in a gin and tonic. 'Hello?'

            'Lynn, it's me - Darvish.' I was sitting at a round table of poly-oak drinking a mug of synthetic coffee. It was kind of like drinking hot water stained brown by cigarette butts. 'How are you? Have you left the hotel?'

            'Why would I leave? It's nearly six in the morning, darling, the sun isn't up. I'm not meant to be awake,' she purred.

            'Why do I have the feeling that you haven't slept a wink tonight,' I said, taking a sip of joe. Lynn didn't have time to answer, I kept talking. 'Listen, things are hairier than I'd first thought. Lawrence wasn't so much out of line in the eyes of Caribez as he was stuck between a rock and a hard place.' I paused. 'You said that you weren't with a security agency, but who came to collect the body when you reported Lawrence murdered?'

            I listened to Lynn's breath, so slow and gentle, like a finger running through your hair. 'I rang the government police,' she said. 'But a collection team from a private agency came for the body, they scanned the apartment as well, took photos - said they would hand them on to the government...'

            'What company were they from?' I asked, though I knew the answer.

            'Argo Security, I think,' she said.

            'Of course they were.' The cold lump in my stomach was ignoring all the coffee and booze I was splashing it with, and just then it grew colder.

            'What's happened?' she asked, suddenly alert. I think she might have heard the long night in my voice, I don't know.

            'Listen to me, Lynn, don't leave the hotel. I am going to come round this afternoon, between now and then, though, you should sleep. I'm going to close my eyes and think of summertime and beer for a few hours; I'll see you around lunchtime, say one o'clock.' I hung up the phone and drank the rest of the pot.

            I went to my desk and typed for three hours, drank more coffee and ate a slice of toast. After that it was about 9:00. I had a cold shower, washed my hair and shaved. I rolled two cigarettes and enjoyed them each slowly, watching their little embers crawl to my lips like they wanted to kiss me.

            You might wonder why I smoke. Times are tough and many people in Slim-Nacre have taken up tobacco again, despite the cost of cancer preventatives. Maybe we smoke in defiance of common sense. Maybe I just want a little more warmth in my life.

            At 9:30 I left the apartment. A yellow truck coming down my street. With a magnetic cable it was pulling my old fastback sedan behind it. When the driver stopped out the front of my door the black plastic window slid down and a fat man with grey hair and dark glasses looked down at me. 'Your car?' he said.

            'Yeah, you pick it up off Muir and Stratton?'

            The guy nodded.

            'How much do I owe you?' I asked, though I had my suspicions.

            The man pressed at the wheel-screen, the cable connected to my car - a thin metal tether charged with a magnetic pulse to keep it strong - slackened and withdrew into the truck. 'Nothing, I just have something for you to thumb.'

            A panel slid open beside the car door and a screen was revealed beneath. I scanned over the information on the screen. The service had been paid for by a company called Passalos Finances. Another gift, I thought. I held my thumb to the screen, verified the form, and thanked the driver.

            Almost certainly the car was bugged. But they had given me a new lead, something I could pursue from my apartment. I parked my car in the garage tower at the end of the street and requested it to be washed at the clerk screen.

            At my desk again, I researched Passalos Finances. It was a subsidiary company of Argo Security, it seemed. From what I could ascertain, Passalos Finances headed the company's off-world investments but had been effectively dropped after the ansibles had stopped working. The Passalos Finances site was dated, the animations giving offers at investment opportunities as if the world were still one with interplanetary commerce. The face of a young blonde with pink glossy lips smiled at me from the screen. 'Passalos Finances,' she said. 'We invest in the stars.'

            There was something in this, I knew, but I just couldn't understand what.