0430 Hours
Thursday 9 November, 2062
Roupen's Bistro
Bloor Street
Toronto, Ontario
I would have gone for five games of pinball, but the pocket I stuffed my HCD into starts to vibrate. I juggle my hip out and flip it open. “It's me.”
“Maker.” Razorface's voice tinny over my ear clip leaves me giddy with relief, and then the pain in that voice cuts through and my stomach knots around too much greasy food.
“Face, what's wrong?”
“We gotta talk.”
Elspeth gives me the concerned look. I hold my metal hand up, cupped slightly in the universal gesture for just a sec. “All right. Where are you?” I want to talk in person. Safer.
“I'll come get you,” he says. “I've got your truck. And your cat.”
“Boris?”
“We hadda skip town. Sorry. Tell me where you're at.”
I give him directions and make my apologies to Gabe and Ellie. Gabe kisses me good night while Elspeth watches and then I zip my coat and turn off my HCD to walk through darkness to the blue truck waiting by the curb. At least that solves the problem of who's going home with whom. Which I imagine will be a subject of some quiet negotiations presently, and I need to sit down and have a talk with Leah about what's what. Because Gabe will chicken out.
Christ. This is going to suck in new and revelatory ways.
The rusted chrome door handle of the old Bradford is chilly against my steel fingers. I can't get used to having sensation on that side. I recoil, force my fingers to curl, and hook it open. Razorface sits in the green glow of the dash, motor running, as I fasten my harness and take off my ear clip and mike. I wrap them in my handkerchief and stuff them into the calf pocket on my cargo pants as Razorface, wordless, pulls away from the curb. Something meows in the rumble seat. I turn, and there's all seventeen pounds of Boris, resonating as he rubs his face against the grate of his carrier. I offer him my forefinger, which he sniffs with dignity before rumbling some more. At least I still smell like me.
“Maker,” Face says softly. “I got bad news, babe.”
Oh. He's never called me that before, and from the hitch in his voice I know better than to take offense. “Barbara? I heard. I won't weep over my sister, Face. I should have had the balls to kill her years ago.”
“She took Mitch and Bobbi with her.”
The hum of the truck's electric motor fills my ears while I try to make sense of that. God. Kids. Neither one of them was twenty-five. Why is it always the kids?
And then he speaks again, voice like hammer blows on an empty oil tank. “And Leesie, Maker. Stone bitch killed my wife.”
“Oh.”
I turn — I can't not turn — and stare at his face. It feels like a terrible intrusion. He glances over quickly, driving with both hands on the wheel. Good man. I never use the autopilot either. The look etched around the corner of his eyes is enough to make my heart skip a beat.
He turns his attention back to the road. “You know who she was working for?”
“Unitek,” I say without hesitation. “Alberta Holmes.” I'd like to tell him Valens's name as well, but I know Valens isn't behind this. I lean forward against the harness and press the heels of both hands into my eyes. “How did they die, Face?”
“Babe.” His voice…
Mary, mother of God. Razorface. Stop talking. Stop talking now. White flashes sparkle my vision. I pull my hands down and look forward. “Say it, kiddo.” I haven't called him that in almost thirty years.
“Barb shot Mitch in the back. He took the bullet for Bobbi. Bobbi and your sister… Maker, you don't want to know.”
“Say it.”
“They burned to death, Maker.”
Oh.
“Oh.”
“The hospital was good for you,” he says then, changing the subject. “You look real good.”
I forgot. Every time he turns, he's looking at the left side of my face, and the massive scars that aren't there anymore. Gone with the brush of a hand, leaving a faint mottling like the flank of a trout.
“Thanks,” I say, because I don't have it in me to explain.
“It hurt?” All that pain he'll never let though his steel teeth soaks that word.
I close my eyes and drink in his friendship. “Yeah.” And a moment later I open them and say, “Come on back to my hotel. I don't know about you, but I need a drink.”
“If you'll take your damn cat back,” he says, but I hear tenderness. Razorface would never let anybody call him sweet.
Richard, are you there?
“I hear you, Jenny.”
Creepy. Like you're still in my head.
“After a fashion, I am.”
Tell me where to find the information you dug up for me. The files connecting Valens and Holmes to Barb, and Barb to the West Hartford offices of CCP.
He gives me codes and passwords, and I take Razorface's hip away while he drives and key them in. “Face, I've got some hard evidence that ties CCP in with the killings in Hartford. Do you have somebody down there you can have handle it, still?”
“I'll find somebody,” he says. “I'm outta that scene, Maker. Getting too old. Look, I got me hooked up with some people who might be useful. I'm gonna pay back that gray-haired bitch if it's the last thing I do.”
“Razor. What sort of people?”
“The sort of people who blow shit up,” he says. “A chick and her pet thugboy. They trying to figure out how to take out Holmes and her project without killing any kids.”
“Oh, shit.” I lean my forehead against the cool glass of the window. It's twenty-five years ago, and I'm kissing a boy I'm going to get killed. A familiar old chill settles in between my shoulder blades like the return of an absent enemy, and I almost welcome it. “Can you slow them down? That project — I don't care what happens to Holmes, what happens to Valens. The project has got to come off, though. And what I gave you will take them out through legal channels. I hope.”
“Maybe.” Big shoulders rise and fall, but he doesn't take a hand off the wheel. “What the hell else I got to do? They got a nice offer to go kill some government bigwig instead, it seems. I can probably push them that way. Don't suppose you'd wanna drop a warning to whoever it is if I can get you word?”
“I probably have a way. Are they terrorists? Or assassins?” I should ask their names. But I don't really want to know them, and I don't want to make him do that. Yet.
“A little of both,” he says, and offers me a twisted grin. “Who says the law is right? Most cops aren't like your friend Mitch. And I'm getting too old for this shit.”
“We all are, Face.” I hand him back his hip. “Get that to Hartford's civilian commissioner of police. A Dr. Kuai Hua. I know Mitch trusted her. She's a straight arrow.” It's been a nice leave. A nice little honeymoon.
And now it's time to go back to the war.
5:15 AM
Thursday 9 November, 2062
Richmond Hill, Ontario
Frederick Valens let himself in the front door, expecting a silent house and darkness. Instead a puddle of light fell over the easy chair, an afghan-swaddled figure lying through it. The holo flickered in the corner, sound turned off. Valens felt around for the remote, unwilling to raise his voice to command it to darkness.
It snapped off on its own, and Valens's husband shrugged off the blanket and came across the faded Persian carpets. A sleepy African gray parrot — Valens couldn't tell whether it was Dexter or Sinister — clucked in the cage that took up the west wall of the room. “Georges,” Valens said. “You waited up.”