“Jay, you take the cover, I’ll take the personnel files of the other staff.”
“Wouldn’t have wanted to say it in front of Cally, but the captain has some damn fine architecture,” Jay said appreciatively.
“Yeah, but her nose is a tad off-center and she’s always going to need makeup to darken her eyebrows and stuff,” Tommy commented.
“You noticed her nose and eyebrows?” Jay sounded disbelieving. Papa O’Neal just shook his head.
“Briefly. Very briefly,” Tommy grinned.
“You guys keep working. I’ve got something to take care of. I’ll be back in a few minutes.” Papa had a stubborn look on his face.
Johnny Stuart was not a morning person. Unfortunately, the Coburn girl had the morning off to go to the dentist and, like most kids, Mary Lynn was an early riser. Which is why he was sitting up in a rumpled bed, rubbing his eyes, while a wriggling five year old climbed into his lap.
Mary Lynn had the dark brown curls of her mother, but his own facial features. They just looked better on her. After the cancer had taken his wife, three years ago, the doctors had told him that it raised Mary Lynn’s risk considerably. If he’d had some pull, he might have been able to get the new drugs to save her, but Sue hadn’t much held with pull, and the cancer had come on sudden and before he could do anything, Sue was gone and him left to do the best he could by Mary Lynn. He didn’t understand much about the numbers in what the doctor said, not having got much past high school algebra, but what he did understand was that he owed it to Sue never to be in a position to be unable to help his sick kin, their daughter especially, again.
So he had set about going to work for the people with the most pull he could find, getting a reputation for resourcefulness and the willingness to get things done no matter what it took. And plenty of times it had taken things that were way outside the normal rules. But a man who wouldn’t break a few rules for his own was no kind of man at all. That was the best thing about his recent promotion. If he could pull this off and keep the damned aliens happy, he and Mary Lynn would never lack for the best of care again.
“How’s my Sunshine this morning!” He began tickling her ribs mercilessly, until she squirmed away from him and off the bed.
“Silly Daddy,” she said. “I’m hungry. Where’s Traci?”
“Traci had to go to the dentist, Sunshine. Just you and me this morning. Let me make some coffee and I’ll see if we can find some cereal.” He yawned.
“Lucky Charms!” She ran off towards the kitchen, giggling.
“Okay, I think we’ve still got some,” he called, pulling up his worn cotton pajama bottoms a bit as he got out of bed. Probably ought to get around to replacing those. He trudged into the kitchen and made coffee, taking out two bowls while it dripped through the old-fashioned appliance. He was really just back in Silverton winding up his affairs. The promotion meant moving them to Chicago and a lot of travel for him. He was going to hate being away from Mary Lynn so much, but it was for her own good, so he could protect her better. It was hard, but she’d understand when she was older.
He had tried to get Traci Coburn to move with them, so Mary Lynn wouldn’t have to change babysitters, but Traci hadn’t wanted to leave her family. He could understand that. It took a real cosmopolitan individual to deal with city people and country people alike. And if there was one thing Johnny was, it was good with people. The trick was to tell them as much of what they wanted to hear with as few actual lies as possible. He’d always been gifted that way, but in the years since Sue’s death he’d gone to it with a will and developed it to a high art.
He set the bowl down in front of Mary Lynn and sat down with his own breakfast, having his AID pull up his morning e-mail. He could see right away today was going to be tricky. The Tir’s secretary had left a message asking what he had turned up on Worth’s death, and the bald truth was that despite a week and a half of trying, he had squat. So the task of the day was going to be coming up with something that, while it might not be accurate, would be convincing enough that it would do until he could start finding the real thing. He sent her an e-mail telling her he’d be sending a report first thing Monday morning. Best not to put them off any longer than that.
Smart money was that it was a hit, of course. But he wasn’t going to keep his new job by restating the obvious. He needed something and he needed it now. Maybe a little misdirection would help. People died all the time. If he couldn’t find anything about Worth’s death, maybe he could find something about some other death and claim that they were linked. It didn’t really matter if they were or not. Paranoia always played well, and it was like that numberology con — you could link anything to anything else if you tried hard enough. Some of his best rumors had been built that way. Besides, if he turned up anything later that contradicted the link, chances were it would give him something real about the Worth business, and he’d just be doing a good job. And if he didn’t turn up anything contradictory, well, then there would be nothing to detract from his story, would there?
Once Mary Lynn was safely occupied by the big pink and black bumblebee surrounded by a mob of smiling children that seemed to have taken over their vidscreen, Johnny opened a tray table and had his AID project a virtual keyboard and a holographic screen. The trick was to find anyone else who had ever worked for the Darhel and died, preferably since Worth bought it, but before would do in a pinch.
“Leanne, I need you to search the database of people who have done work for our organization. List me anybody who’s died or disappeared between May ninth of this year and now,” he said.
“Worth, Charles. Reported missing as of May thirteenth, death is likely. Fiek, Samuel. Missing as of May thirteenth, death is likely. Greer, Michael. Dead as of May fifteenth, purposeful termination of contract. Samuels, Vernard. Dead as of May nineteenth, car crash. Petane, Charles. Dead as of May twenty-first, drug overdose. List complete,” it recited.
Okay, Fiek and Worth were almost certainly linked, which meant they disappeared after six forty-five p.m. on May tenth, when a boy remembered delivering a pizza to a man at Fiek’s apartment. The pizza boy had picked Fiek’s face out of a slideshow of images, after he handed him a half dozen twenties.
Fiek had no known reason to have a particular grudge against Worth, and vice versa. More to the point, the Darhel had checked their local bank accounts, and their personal numbered bank accounts in discreet countries, that each man had set up secretly, and their money was untouched since Worth had drawn out a modest amount of cash on the morning of the tenth. It was almost inconceivable that someone who would work for the Darhel would run without their money.
If he’d just had to guess, he’d have said whatever happened was at Worth’s Chicago apartment. Fiek lived in the same building, and although Worth didn’t actually live there most of the time, he frequently used the place when he was in town. He’d searched both apartments himself, along with a cousin who used to work in the sheriff’s department in Silverton. Bobby had said that Worth’s apartment looked a little too clean to him, and pointed out the lack of dust and fluff, especially below the wall with the kinky crap bolted onto it. And what his dead boss had done with that, Johnny hoped he’d never have to know. At least, not unless it was just business.
Getting his cousin set up had been the kind of thing he’d taken this job for in the first place, and it made him proud. A man liked to be able to take care of his kin. And after Bobby got himself fired for being high on the job, Johnny had seen the opportunity in the situation and had helped Bobby out, getting the nanodrugs to get the monkey off his back as well as getting him an income his ex-wife couldn’t get her hands on. That was a situation he was glad to fix. Brenda was a two-bit whore and that was Jimmy Simms’ kid, not Bobby’s, and everybody in town knew it. The judge just also knew Jimmy was a worthless drunk who still lived with his momma and so had stuck poor Bobby with the bill for the cheating bitch’s brat. Johnny liked kids as well as anybody, hell, he’d do anything for Mary Lynn and damned near had, but a thing like that just wasn’t right.