Even his life story turns into an econ lecture. “What,” I ask, “every economy ends up as a Dutch tulip bubble?”
“You know about that?” he says, his surprise quickly transitioning into an academic tangent, “Actually that wasn’t a bubble. The peak prices for unique tulip bulbs got so high because dealers were willing to pay a premium to be first to market with seedlings. Like buying a manufacturing blueprint, or the rights to publish a book.”
That makes sense, I think, and it’s interesting. Kind of. Changing the subject, I ask, “You really think you’re gonna solve Brink’s big question, Brady? You’re risking your life almost as much as I am, and there’s no commission in it for you.”
“Almost as much?” he laughs flashing a white-toothed grin I can’t help but find a little bit charming. “If I wasn’t so surprised at you calling me by my first name, I’d be insulted.”
“Sure.”
“I work for the good of the planet. For humanity as a whole.”
“Sure.”
“I mean it, actually, whether you believe me or not.” His smile fades as he looks me in the eye, calm and serious. “You seem to think that your purpose is to make it off Brink, and maybe it is. I know what mine is, and it’s setting the numbers right.”
I scoff slightly, not ready to buy it. “You’re just chasing a promotion.”
“Success comes in many forms,” he says, sardonic. “You go where the money goes. So do I.”
“I can get behind that,” I agree. “And there’s money where we’re looking. There has to be. You don’t blow up a lawyer’s office for fun.”
“How many lawyers have you met?”
“Ha.” I take a swig of the cheap but refreshing bottled drink. Though it’s been sweetened, the bitter and biting flavor of blush cactus is about as Brinker as it gets. On the news, the pundits are debating whether impending wars on Earth and continued immigration to Farraway from the worlds closer to the galaxy’s edge will affect the Commerce Board’s leverage for a better deal, what the numbers might be and how they’ll affect the markets. The woman with the big hair gets in the last word before an ad for a pay-for-teeth service that gives a lifetime guarantee on their plastic-composite replacement sets. “The question is,” I think aloud, “what did the lawyer know?”
“How the doctor got the weevils would be my guess,” Brady says.
“That’s what I’m thinking, too.”
“You think Sales was the supplier?”
“No. One three-thousand-unit payment wouldn’t be nearly enough. Though I suppose they could have done other transactions off the books.”
“So why would he even be involved?”
This is something I’ve been wondering about, and my suspicions on it solidify as I think out loud, “What if Chan got the cultures through blackmail?”
Brady bites his lower lip, intrigued. “Explain.”
“Sales grilled me about how Chan died, seemed really wound up in the details of it, the how and the why. Maybe Chan gave him info, maybe he even gave him proof… to reveal in the event of his own murder.”
“That is a deep rabbit hole you’re going down.”
Rabbit hole? “I’m not familiar with that expression.”
Brady takes a pensive sip from his drink, brow furrowed. “So why not kill Sales right after Chan died? Why wait two days?”
“Because to kill the guy with the smoking gun, you have to know where that guy is.”
Brady sits up suddenly, as if struck in the face with ice cold realization. “We were followed.”
I nod. “We led them right to him.”
“I was wondering why whoever wanted Sales dead didn’t try with a drone first. This explains it.”
Something occurs to me for the first time, as though talking through all the obvious stuff has led me down a path to a conclusion I’ve somehow missed. “The bomber didn’t know what Sales told me, so he tried to take me out too. That’s why he didn’t run when he had the chance.”
Brady sits back on the couch, lost in thought for a few seconds. He finishes his drink, places it softly on the coffee table, and looks back to me. For a brief instant, his eyes dart slightly downward like he’s checking me out. I think I look pretty good in the little exercise princess getup I’ve borrowed from him, but he looks away, maybe embarrassed, maybe intimidated. I know I’m intimidating, and I’m glad for it. Fraternizing with this guy is not part of the path off this world, and it’s not part of my battle plan for the weevil problem, either.
“So what’s the next step?” he asks, breaking what’s felt like a long silence.
“Sleep,” I answer. “I’m tired.”
“After that.”
What is the next step? I’m not sure I know. Presumably there’s still someone out there who wants to kill me, and I’m not sure it’s safe to even go to Myra again for the info that’s coming in on the investigation. Finishing my Simphon-e and placing the empty metallic bottle on the coffee table, I stand up and walk to the semi-tinted window wall, staring out at the city. Brady’s got a great view of downtown, eye to eye with the tops of the arcologies of Rumville, the lush, tiered greenery calm and dim in the ambient light of the city center. From up here, Oasis is a beautiful town.
“Chan could have paid Sales under the table,” I muse, “but he didn’t. The record’s on his account. I think it must have been a failsafe of some kind, left there for us to see.”
“To lead us to Sales in case Sales didn’t come forward on his own?”
“That would make sense, under the blackmail hypothesis. Sales tries to stab Chan in the back and horn in on his source of weevils, the money trail leads the authorities straight to Sales. Mutually assured destruction.”
“Except only Chan ended up getting destroyed.”
“We’ll see about that.” Outside, a flightlift cruises by, about at eye level, tilting hard forward through the air on its two front rotors until it passes out of sight, in the direction of Drillville, I think. “We’ve got to get the rest of Chan’s records, see if he left anything else.”
“How?”
“Myra should be able to get them.”
Brady steps beside me. “Hey,” he says softly, as though genuinely concerned, “you all right?”
I avoid eye contact, watching clogged traffic crawl through the streets below. “I’ve been cool enough not to ask you that.”
He puts his hand on my shoulder. Stopping my instinct to swing a forearm up and defend against a grab, I wonder if I’ve been in this job too long, if maybe the violence has permeated me to the center. Brady turns me to face him and looks me in the eye. He moves toward me slightly, perhaps to comfort me with an embrace, but I don’t let him get that far, pushing him aside.
“Go to bed, Brady.”
He steps back, hiding hurt or embarrassment. “You’re hiding something,” he says. “I’m no detective, but I can tell.”
“I’m hiding a lot, Kearns.”
“This is personal for you,” he states, judging. “This is not just business.”
“Everything is just business to you, isn’t it?”
“Why don’t you just tell me what’s going on?”
I take in a deep breath. I have no idea why, but I want to say it out loud. That painful shard that’s been buried in me for so long is suddenly pressing its way through my skin, and I can’t see the point in keeping it below the surface any longer.