Authors: Laura Anne Gilman
She took out a thin wallet, and offered it to him, letting the flap drop open.
Sergei sighed, and put his gun away, but didn’t relax or let down his guard. “How can I help you, Agent…
Chang?”
“Anea, please.”
Sergei eyed her carefully. “Agent Chang. Your reason for accosting me in the middle of my walk?”
She was tall, for an Asian woman. The last name suggested Chinese, but her features made him think Thai, and her eyes, huge and dark, were almost Amerindian.
Her hair was short, thick, and had interesting reddish highlights in the blackness. And her first name…
“Heinz 57,” she said, obviously used to people trying
to size her up. “Chinese father, Irish-Cherokee mother. Like yourself, proof that the genetic pool works better when stirred regularly.”
He grinned. She was attractive
and
sharp, apparently.
“Please. A few moments of your time.”
Attractive and sharp didn’t automatically earn trust, especially when they came with a badge.
“A few minutes may be more than we need. Am I in trouble of some sort? Did Lowell screw up a customs invoice?” He put on his best Important Businessman face, his voice promising dire results for any peon who ruined his afternoon with misfiled paperwork.
“This isn’t about the gallery, Mr. Didier.”
“Di-dee-eh,” he corrected her. She took it in stride.
“Thank you. Please. I would like to ask you a few questions about your other business. And your associate, Ms. Valere.”
Any pretense of sociability evaporated as his suspicions were confirmed. Agent Chang had been the government sniff Danny warned them about. Idiot, to have made the assumption the agent was male. The fact that Wren and P.B. did the same was no comfort.
“Genevieve? What has the girl gotten herself into now? I’m afraid that while we are close, I’m not—”
He stopped. Agent Chang was smiling at him and he got the feeling that she was resisting the urge to applaud.
“I’m not here to bust you, Didier.” She got the pronunciation right, this time. “Or your partner, for that matter. If I wanted to do that I would not have come alone, or without the appropriate paperwork without which you would be savvy enough to shut me down.
I’m not interested in either of you as such, and have no intention of causing trouble.”
“Officially.”
She smiled again and shrugged. “Officially, I’m not even in Manhattan.” The smile faded. “That can change, if I feel the need. But I’d rather keep this all…civilized. A mutual friend of ours suggested that I contact you. He seemed to think that we could be of…shared benefit.”
There was the sound of a pinecone dropping, somewhere behind him. Sergei resisted the urge to look up. He had a pretty good idea what was lurking overhead, and while he appreciated the implicit offer of help, somehow he didn’t think that an aerial piskie attack was going to help matters.
“This mutual friend…he wouldn’t happen to—” He was about to ask if he had horns and hooves, but stopped himself in the nick of time. Danny wasn’t outed to everyone, despite what it seemed like sometimes. “To be a former NYPD officer, currently masquerading as a pain in the ass?”
Her smile became a little warmer. “That would be Danny-boy, yes.”
Sergei relaxed, a little, at the same time making a mental note to throttle the Fatae for his miserable sense of humor. A Fed sniffing around—because that damned faun
set
her to sniffing! And the bastard had to move them around like chess pieces rather than making like a yenta and introducing them formally. Oh, yes, Danny was going to suffer for this one.
Although, to be fair, it seemed unlikely he would have agreed to just meet, if Danny had suggested it. She
must have been trailing him…how long? Never mind, it didn’t matter.
“Do you think Uncle Sugar will float us a cup of coffee then, if we’re being civilized?” he said, moving forward, out of the potential range of aerial assault by overanxious piskies, and forcing her to keep her attention on him. No matter who sent her, she was still Federal, and therefore to be kept as far away from the
Cosa
as he could manage. For her own safety, as well as theirs.
She obviously knew she was being herded, but thankfully kept her attention at ground level, casting a quick and almost-unobtrusive glance around before returning her full attention to him. She wasn’t expecting flying small-and-uglies, then. A fact to remember.
“I’d rather not sit anywhere we might be overheard, Mr. Didier. And I suspect that you feel the same. So let us continue your walk, by all means. Merely two people joining steps on this lovely day.”
He suspected mockery, but her almond-shaped eyes were clear and met his gaze without hesitation.
“You’re leading in this dance,” he said, if less than graciously, and indicated that they should proceed.
“It has, indeed, been a dance. I have been looking for you for several years now.”
“I’m in the phone book. Well, the gallery is anyway.”
“That is only useful if one has a name or an identity to start with. I did not. All I had was—”
“A photograph,” he said, deciding not to waste any time tap-dancing.
“Yes.” She took his comment with only a slight hitch in her step, and none at all in her voice. There were fewer joggers passing them by now; only an occasional mother
with a stroller, or an older couple power walking. “Although those came later, after I had already developed an interest in, shall we say, a certain number of interesting occurrences, here and elsewhere in the States?”
“You can say whatever you want,” he told her.
“Yes. Well, I started looking into those occurrences as part of my day job. You specifically only came into play when a number of eyewitness reports placed you and your companion on location during a number of incidents in which certain branches of the government have a more than passing interest.”
“Certain branches whose interests you represent?”
That surprised a laugh out of her. “No. I’m not quite that spooky. Mr. Didier, I am not your enemy. Our mutual friend would not have put us together if I were.”
She had a point. He nodded, acknowledging that.
“The official position of my office is that you and your people do not actually exist, and anything you and your people may or may not be involved in does not exist, and therefore no investigations can actually be opened into that which does not exist.”
“Officially,” he said again.
“Officially or unofficially. We’re in a political purge year, Mr. Didier. The books are open for audit and the consciences are clear. Next year?” She made a “who knows” gesture with her hands. “Next year may be a different story. But for now, this is entirely off the books.”
“And what is this, off the books?”
“Curiosity. And an offer.”
Sergei had been approached with offers before. The Silence had made an offer to him, not so long ago: bring Wren in as a freelance agent, in exchange for protection
from the Council. In the end, the Council had turned out to be a much lesser threat than the Silence itself.
The desire was there to tell Agent Chang to take a flying leap off a short pier, Danny or no. Desire was clubbed with common sense, and stuck in a corner for the moment. “An offer of what?”
Agent Chang kept her poker face on. “I don’t know. Yet. But I suspect that we can work something out. As we go along.” She turned to look at him, her height allowing them to be eye to eye. “I’m curious by nature. That’s why I ended up where I did, doing what I do. Very little is known, even unofficially about your…people. The people who do know are not talking. Being able to join that fraternity of knowledge is something I want, very badly. Badly enough to spend two years of my life on it, Mr. Didier. Two years of using my agency’s computers and off-hours footwork, just to track down a name to go with the rumors. And even then, it took more time to be able to do anything with that name.”
“That doesn’t say much for your investigational skills.” He meant the barb to sting.
“I’ve been a little busy,” she said, properly stung. “This has been a side search. My agency does not merely sit on its thumbs watching radar screens and closed-circuit televisions all day.”
“Rebuke taken. But you did finally track me down. Now what?”
“As I said. Curiosity. Perhaps the possibility of mutual aid: when, as and if needed. Our mutual friend agreed this would be a good time to offer that.”
She seemed to be under the impression that he, Sergei, was a Talent. That amused him, but he thought
it better not to correct the misapprehension. Not yet, anyway.
“Originally I meant to contact you simply to exchange business cards, if you will. In the past week, however, my contacts have turned up a new whisper. Someone else is looking at the…unusual communities in this city. Not for you, or Ms. Valere, but something that might be associated with you—or you with it.”
“And you thought to warn us? How nice.” Damn. They were all connected, then. That ulcer absolutely had his name on it.
She stopped, turned and glared at him. “I am not a fool, or a little girl to be patted on the head and dismissed, Didier.” Her voice had gone cold, and her expression could have given P.B. frostbite. “If you didn’t already know that something was up, you would be much less efficient than I expected, and a sore disappointment to me.”
She started walking again, this time faster. He had to stretch his legs slightly to keep up.
“I came today to offer my assistance. Should you so desire it.” She shrugged. “If you don’t…I walk away, having gotten what I wanted—verification, and a contact with someone who is—how shall we put this?”
“Bluntly usually works.”
“Bluntly then. A contact with individuals who have proven to be significant players in a game I’m interested in.”
“If I say no, you actually walk away, no strings attached?” He was deeply dubious.
“Oh, for the love of God. I’m not the bad guy here. I’m not even a player—yet. Right now all I want is to
know what the game pieces are, and how they can be moved. In case I ever have a reason to join the game.”
“Unofficially.”
“Or otherwise. I am a government agent. If you know something that can aid me in my sworn duty, I won’t not ask. I am presuming that a warrant might inconvenience your day-to-day activities but not disrupt…whatever else it is that you do.”
The government could kill his gallery, and she knew it. Especially now that he had broadened into non-American artists and imported works. But no, he didn’t think long-term she could do anything to hurt Wren. It would make Margot, Wren’s mother, furious, though.
Given otherwise even odds, he’d back Margot Eliza-beta Valere over Agent Chang. No hesitation.
But…the back-scratching could go both ways, too. Danny, damn him, had been right.
Sergei had to sell his decision a few hours later. “Your mother could take her. In a fair fight, anyway. I’m not sure FBI agents play fair.”
“Neither does my mom, when she’s pissed,” Wren said. They were sitting at the back table at Marianna’s, the chalkboard menu of specials off to one side, ignored. There had been a time they ate here so often the waitress knew their quirks individually. It had been a while; when they came in tonight, they didn’t recognize the waiter, a young, slightly hyperactive Latino man who seemed to be wearing uncomfortable shoes.
Time passed. Things changed, even in your own backyard. Wren was depressed just thinking about it. She hoped that Callie had gone on to better-tipping venues.
The waiter came back, and hovered. They had been talking too long.
“I’ll have the veal piccatta,” she told him. “And a glass of the rioja.”
Sergei nodded approvingly at her choice of wines, and she felt the urge to kick him. She hadn’t been drinking Ripple when they met, after all. All right, she had been under legal drinking age when they met. But she wasn’t Galatea, he wasn’t Pygmalion, and he could keep his damned approval to himself Even as she got cranky, Wren recognized that she was overreacting. It had been a long day: the workout at the gym had left her feeling achy rather than invigorated, Karl had left a note for her saying that the debt was paid off except for his having to listen to an afternoon’s worth of wild fish stories, and he’d get her for that, and every attempt to find a place to practice her break-ins had been too crowded to really consider, if only for the risk of tripping over someone. And now, when she’d hoped to be pleasantly wiped out and smug in victory she was instead being told that they had a new player in the game and her partner wasn’t even sure what the damn game was.
And Callie wasn’t here to snark at them.
The food had better still be good, was all she was thinking.
“I’ll have the New York strip with tamarind, and a glass of the same,” he told the waiter. “And could we have some more bread, please? Thank you.”
The bread, at least, was still good. Wren allowed herself one more stick, refusing Sergei’s offer of the tiny
pot of garlic butter, the memory of the gym still fresh in her mind.
“And she wants to meet with us.”
“That was strongly implied. She’s curious. She wants to be counted among the Players in her office, and she thinks that knowing us will get her there. Or at least be a building block to where she wants to be.”
“You’re the one with all the people skills. What’s your take? Is she playing straight with us?”
“No.” He didn’t hesitate on that. “But whatever game she’s playing, she’s treating us like teammates. Right now, anyway.”
Wren waited, chewing on the bread, but he left it at that.
So. This was in her lap, then.
“Danny thought she’d be useful to us, otherwise he would never have given her our contact info, prank or no prank. And you think her information is solid.” If he didn’t, he wouldn’t have told her about the meeting.
Or maybe he would have; things had changed in the past few years, a lot of it at her insistence. Something like this, she’d have been pissed if he didn’t tell her. And he knew that.
“I think she believes that it is. But someone might be playing her playing us.”