Veracity (33 page)

"Uh-huh." I try to swallow but have no spit.

"Once we're through processing, it's all smooth sailing. We'll watch the debriefing from a remote monitoring station, then I'll take you out the rear exit." Fletcher puts the squad in gear and drives us away from Lilly's car. "It's okay, Harper. You're supposed to look scared."

The bullet-proof glass that separates us gives me a good look at the back of his neck and another set of scars. Three more scratches, horizontal beneath the hairline. "What if we get stopped on the way out?"

Fletcher turns the rearview mirror so I can better see his face. "Then we'll have to pretend you're with me, which wouldn't be unusual. Do you understand?"

"Yes."

"Good."

The next turn puts us on a road that has yellow stripes down its middle and tall streetlights along its side. They're just now starting to flicker. The sun I've missed so much is already setting.

"It's okay, Harper," Fletcher says. "People think what they're told to think. As far as they know, you're a hooker busted on an All Equals charge."

I look out the window. I'm terrified by the lights of a medium-size city coming into view. We're out in the thick of
a six-lane road, the traffic coming over us like a wave. A tear slips down my face but my hands aren't free to wipe it away.

Fletcher sees. "I'm on your side, Harper. Can't you do your thing? Check out my colors or energy or whatever you call it. See for yourself."

I shrug. Laugh lightly, for his benefit. I don't tell him that, as has been my problem with John and, for good or for ill, it doesn't work like that. I can't so quickly get past the color of his suit.

I keep my head down as instructed. Take the steps carefully, Fletcher's hand on my back. Inside the foyer, other Blue Coats approach. I watch their shoes as they discuss my case, the points of their toes darting around mine like fish. They whisper awful things in my ear. Some call me
whore,
half in jest, whole in earnest. They pinch me. Reach across Fletcher to grab at my breasts while talking about their days. Who they've brought in. What their wives are making for dinner.

We skip the manual scans. Instead, I'm patted down vigorously by a man with bunions large enough to bend the leather of his sandals around them. He enjoys the intimacy that doesn't cost him any credits. Hums in my ear as his hands move. Then it's all high heels and polished wing tips as we walk the wide sweep of a laminate breezeway that leads to the interrogation rooms.

Fletcher opens a door near the hall's end and removes the cuffs from my wrists. "Lazarus tells me you've been in one of these before."

It's just like the office from which Mr. Weigland and I watched Lucille. Fletcher turns on the panel's instruments and the fuzzed window clears. Jingo and another man are already sitting in the far room. The interrogator is a small, thin man with prematurely gray hair. He's splayed out. Smiling and making jokes. Jingo looks pensive. Arms crossed, legs bouncing beneath the table.

"The interrogator's with us," Fletcher tells me. He taps against the glass and the man's gray head pivots. "He'll give us time if we need it."

The interrogator smiles at us from his casual seat. Legs up on the table, heels overlapping. He unravels his arms and flips a switch on the wall. "We good to go?"

Fletcher turns to me. "You ready?"

Here is Fletcher, waiting on me. And Jingo Skinner, from the other room. "Yeah."

Fletcher presses the intercom button. Tells the interrogator to start when he's ready, then turns to me, nodding at the bank of controls. "Move the cameras anywhere you like."

I put up three images. Close-ups of Jingo's head, hands, and feet.

In the other room, the interrogating Blue Coat scoots closer to Skinner. He opens two packets of sugar and taps them into a Styrofoam cup. "Officer Skinner, yesterday morning you were presented with an unregistered vehicle on Route 50 outside Bond. Is that correct?"

Jingo smiles into camera one. "Yes, sir." He likes talking about this. It relaxes him.

I settle in. Focus.

The interrogator is a naturally gregarious man and his sparkling cloud bank of light blue is all over the room. Jingo's tentative. He wears his aura closer to the body, like a suit made of burgundy-colored cotton candy.

"You called regulation numbers on a suspected member of the resistance named Benjamin Dean, is this correct?"

Skinner flares with the memory, producing sparks of red. "Yes, sir."

"Were you able to question Mr. Dean?"

"Briefly. Until Officer Gage showed up."

"Did you confirm a relationship between Ben Dean and the resistance?"

"Yes."

"Can you elaborate, please?"

Jingo shrugs. "He had a kill pill on him."

"On him or in his mouth?"

"On him. In a pouch in his right front trouser pocket. I threw it out, not that he was likely to take it."

"So he hadn't attempted to abort his run?"

"Nope."

Lazarus told Mary that Ben's pill had been lost in the melee before he could remove himself from the equation. I won't tell her anything different.

"What did you discover about this resistance?"

A mist of orange-brown floats up from Skinner's tightly reigned colors. It's the one I was hoping for, the hue of regret.

"It's not far, I can tell you that."

"And you know that how?"

"There was less than a quarter tank of gas in his car. And the lab found trace amounts of local soil embedded in the tread of his tires."

"He was driving through. Wouldn't that stand to reason?"

"Could, I guess."

"Did Mr. Dean tell you anything about the resistance?"

Jingo's right foot begins to tap. "No." His suit of energy expands. Bleeds into the interrogator's, who retreats to a corner of the room.

"Did Mr. Dean tell you what his purpose was or where he was going?"

"No."

"Do you have any idea where this local chapter of the resistance might be located?" The man is easy with his questions. His affiliation with our side completely opaque.

Jingo runs a hand through his hair. "He was on a fast clip toward Bond when I pulled him over, about four miles up from the interrogation site. If he was a runner, he was definitely on his way to the pickup and not heading home. There was nothing in that car. I'd say he was coming from Antioch. It would match the gas usage."

"So Antioch might be our target."

Skinner's face doesn't move but his colors spark, the energetic equivalent of a smile. "That's what I'm thinking."

Fletcher leans over, grinning in admiration. "God bless Ben. As soon as he knew Skinner had him, he dumped his goods. We found some of it alongside the highway. Thank God it was a medical run and just a few bags he could pitch into the culvert. If he'd been out for food, they'd have had everything between here and Bond dug up by now."

In the other room, our man retrieves a manila folder from the table. "Can you tell us what happened? Starting with the time you came upon Mr. Dean."

Jingo nods at the file in the man's hands. "It's just like my report says. I got a call from a Service Manager out at the Banger Petroleum Station. The suspect was able to enunciate one of the new Red Listed words without event, then fled when the Service Manager attempted to keep him in custody until I could get there."

"How did you intercept Mr. Dean?" the interrogator asks.

"Shot out one of his tires. Then followed until he lost control of his vehicle and put it in a ditch."

"Was the suspect hurt when you retrieved him from the vehicle?"

"He had a pretty good gash on his head. That's about it."

"So he was lucid?"

Jingo smiles. "Oh, yeah."

"Where did you take him for the interrogation?"

A shrug. "There's a shed the city keeps for vehicles." He keeps this response brief.

"And what happened at this interrogation?"

Jingo's face falls. His vibrant red aura dulls. "He refused to answer questions. And then fucking Gage walks in."

"We'll get to that in a minute, Officer Skinner." The interrogator taps his stylus against his notepad. "First, let's talk about what happened with the suspect."

"He wouldn't talk, so I cut him." Jingo's remorse is a surprise. It rises off him like mustard-yellow steam.

"That's it? He refused to answer and so you cut him?"

Jingo looks up at the interrogator. "We meet people in the field all the time that just aren't going to talk. Femoral artery was accidentally cut and that was pretty much it."

The interrogator clears his throat. "My report tells me that your partner, John Gage, encountered you delivering Dean's fatal wounds. That after you deployed one shot that struck Officer Gage in the side, he was forced to pull you away in order to try to preserve Mr. Dean for future interrogation. Can you tell me, in your words, how Officer Gage became involved?"

Again, Jingo's feet begin to bob. His energy flares red in time with his pulse. "Gage came onto the scene without having been called. I know that much."

"So you're saying you would have preferred it if he hadn't."

"I'm saying he wouldn't have gotten shot if he'd announced himself!"

"So it's Officer Gage's fault he was shot--"

"Hell, yes! And how come we're not talking about how Officer Gage just happened to show up when he did? You don't think it's strange? Him just
being there
?"

"Were you aware that Officer Gage had been assigned watchdog duty?"

Jingo pauses. Shifts in his seat. "Yes."

"Did you disclose to Officer Gage that you were . . . just a minute . . ." The interrogator flips through his folder. Holds up a page to the fluorescent lights. "Let me read this . . . 'I think about it all the time . . . I dream about it. I wake up and all I want to do is go out and bust somebody just so I can call a number on them.' Did you say these things to Officer Gage?"

Jingo's lips turn white. "You're telling me I'm being watched?"

"That's why we call it
watch
dogging."

The interviewer nods sympathetically. "Rules is rules, Officer Skinner." He picks up a box of cigarettes from the table and shakes the pack toward Jingo, who quickly pulls one free. "What I do find odd is that you haven't asked how your partner's doing."

Skinner leans forward and looks the man in the eye. "'Bullet went clean through the distal right flank with no organ or significant tissue damage.' I saw the report."

"So you checked up on him?"

Skinner looks away. "Am I done?" he asks. "Can I get back to real work now?"

"Well, it's nice to know you care." The interrogator lights his cigarette and blows a smoke ring toward the camera. He shrugs.
We ready?

Fletcher turns to me. "Well?

I nod. "Yeah."

Fletcher gives him the okay and the interrogator waves Skinner toward the door. "If you feel you're ready, get yourself back on patrol. We have what we need."

Jingo tucks his unlit cigarette behind one ear and responds on a quick beat out the door, "Goddamned right I'm ready."

Fletcher reaches past me to turn off the equipment. "You're absolutely sure Skinner was being honest?"

"Yes." Honesty is an eccentricity of pure rage. "He doesn't know a thing."

Fletcher hauls me along behind him too fast. I can't match his pace and keep stumbling. By the time we're to the car, I've bloodied my knees and torn Lilly's skirt. Fletcher tells me he's sorry but we had to make a hasty exit. And it didn't hurt either, my falling down. Looks normal that way. It would have been strange, him opening doors for me and the like.

Inside his squad car, Fletcher offers me moist towels from his first aid kit. I wipe the smeared blood off my legs and reassemble my face and hair in the rearview mirror. Fletcher
tells me I'm to stick to the same route going back as I took coming in. Should keep it just a mile or two above the speed limit. Too slow and I'll draw attention. There's a gas station in Antioch, west side. I'm to fill up there.

I can't stop thinking about Jingo. He's already out on the roads, patrolling. I may pass him on my way back home. We may pass him on the way to Lilly's car. Everything Fletcher's told me has already spilled out of my head.

I don't remember digging up Lilly's keys or sliding them into the ignition or saying good-bye to Fletcher. Or leaving the soft earth for the paved road. I keep having to check for my final turn. It's dark and I'm worried I've missed it. I can't remember the number of my exit, so I watch for the cluster of trees I've memorized. Three of them. Tall, thick firs in front of a row of deciduous. In the dark of night, they all look the same.

My turn comes up fast. I'm in the wrong lane and have to jog over quickly. No traffic, but still I'm sweating. A Blue Coat would have pulled me over for the offense. I drive for an hour, fighting to stay lucid under this moonless night. It's a giddy rush of relief when a sign for Bond erupts into view. At the same time, a light the size of a thumb goes on beneath my left sleeve. I sit forward, nearly knocking my head on the windshield.

I forgot to fill up in Antioch.

There are two bays. I choose the one nearest the road. The pump is a relic with old-style gauges that turn over, numbers clicking into place on black wheels. There's no outside slot for the pay card Lilly gave me. Not out here, six miles north of Bond.

I can see someone watching from the office. A man wearing the white shirt and black tie of a Service Manager. I wave and smile. Put in ten credits' worth of gas, a third of a tank. Walk easily to the door.