Authors: Paul J. Newell
Altered States (26 page)
There was no other word to describe Conner’s emotion but anger; pure seething anger. Not sadness or envy or regret, or anything else. In a way this response surprised him, but then emotions often do. He seethed for a moment, considering his course of action. He wanted with all his soul to go over there right now and talk to her. He rehearsed over and over in his mind all his arguments, exactly why this was wrong and inappropriate, and why he was being treated so unfairly. He wanted to say these things and even as he walked out of the coffee shop he didn’t know which way he was going to turn.
As it happened he crossed the road, heading for her door, got to only feet away ... and then some deeper logic circuitry seized control and steered him off down the street. After a few blocks the anger had changed, thinned out a little, to allow the anticipated despair to seep through to the forefront.
He thought of the last words Lisa had said to him: ‘You will always be wearing that badge.’ Maybe she was right. Maybe that was all that was left of him.
He walked for a while longer. Then he made the call.
‘Jaz? Where are you?’
He met Jaz on a busy street and they walked together. Conner covertly slipped Jaz fifty dollars.
‘This is worth twice that man.’
‘Whatever it is you’ve got to say, it’s worth fifty bucks. Now spill.’
‘Nah, come on man – ’
Conner snapped and pushed the informant up against the wall with a hand to the scruff of this neck.
‘Listen. I’m not on this case anymore. That money isn’t on expenses, it’s out of my own pocket. Now you either tell me what you know for fifty or you tell me for nothing, because I’ve had a really bad day and I’m in no frame of mind to be bartering with pond scum.’
‘Okay, okay, take it easy. Jeez, what have you been popping?’
Conner released his grip and started walking again, with Jaz in pursuit.
‘Now talk,’ Conner instructed. ‘What’ve you got that’s so hot?’
‘Okay, so as you know there have been a lot of shootings lately. A lot of dead gang members, both Scrips and Sanguins.’
‘Of course I know.’
‘Well, it’s not gang warfare. I can tell you that.’ Jaz paused for effect. ‘It’s a single shooter.’
Conner sighed. ‘Yeah, I’d figured that much already. You want to tell me something I don’t know? Or you want me to take that fifty back off you?’
‘Hold up, hold up. What you don’t know is this. The killer used to work for Scrips.’
‘A rogue gang member?’
‘No, not a member, just a hired hitter.’
‘And now who’s doing the hiring?’
‘Don’t know.’
‘Who’s the hitter?’
‘Don’t know.’
‘You don’t know much do you?’ Conner stopped. ‘Come on, give it back,’ he insisted, referring to the money.
‘Wait. I’ve saved the best till last.’
Conner shook his head sceptically. ‘I’m sure you have. Excuse me if I don’t wet myself with anticipation.’ He marched off at a faster pace, one that Jaz found difficult to match without adding a skip every fourth step.
‘The killer...’ Jaz said to the back of Conner’s head. ‘The killer ... is a chick.’
Conner stopped dead in his tracks, then turned to face Jaz’s crooked grin. He didn’t say anything as he started to consolidate facts in his mind. After a moment he took another fifty dollar bill out of this wallet and held it up in front of Jaz.
‘This one’s not for you. This one’s for your kids. Make sure they get fed this month, right?’
‘Sure.’ Jaz snatched the note and skulked away.
Conner knew that appealing to the conscience of a man who rats on his brother for money was next to useless. But such was his way.
He ran through the facts as he knew them. The New Meadows rug trade was an almost exclusively male domain – equality laws haven’t yet filtered all the way down to the streets. Similarly, the Guild of Professional Hitwomen and Thugesses was pretty low on membership. So, the fact that the rug dealer shooter
and
Conner’s attacker were both women was too much of a coincidence. They had to be one and the same. So, this seemed to be the state of play. Someone, or some group of people, was trying to stir up trouble between the two rival rug gangs of New Meadows. The same party was not adverse to employing intimidation tactics on the police officers who were investigating the incidents. Yet they were also bright enough not to kill any cops, which would take this thing to a whole other level. It also seemed certain that the same people had managed to set up Bigby, a key link in the rug trade supply chain and who freelanced for both Sanguins and Scrips.
To achieve all this meant the guilty party had some serious resources behind them, particularly to frame Bigby and to pull off the stunt with Mila in the lock-up.
As Conner rounded a corner in one of the glitziest, most bedazzling sections of the Strip, an advertisement caught his eye, in the way that an advertisement does when it’s flashing out from a one hundred and seventy foot video screen. Predictably it showed the immaculate forms of Rubeck and Winters plugging the forthcoming Igneous event. But this time it didn’t draw Conner’s attention. His mind was locked on the puzzle.
Some party wanted to mess with Scrips and Sanguins and didn’t want a little thing like the law getting in the way. Indeed, they actively wanted to discourage the law from playing any part in it. All facts considered, it was as if there was a third rug trading gang operating on this turf. One that was immensely resourceful and powerful, and yet so well hidden or disguised that they could conduct their business under the noses of the police and remain completely unknown. They could sell directly to the public and yet rouse no suspicion.
Conner began inspecting every face on the street with distrust.
A third gang.
Trading on this very street.
Placing goods in the hands of knowing or unknowing consumers in exchange for cash.
So much cash that the gang would resort to extreme tactics to protect their market.
Whoever they were, they were ingenious.
And then Conner stopped dead as if he’d walked into an invisible wall, causing several cursing pedestrians to almost pile into the back of him. But he was aware of no one.
Sometimes the best place to hide is in plain sight.
He turned slowly. And looked up. And there was the answer, staring him in the face, flashing out at him from a one hundred and seventy foot video screen.
It was not a gang selling counterfeit gear.
It was a gang selling the real thing. The biggest gang of them all.
This was big, Conner concluded.
Too big for him alone.
Answers
Old Friend
Something about being back in New York set my disposition on edge. I stood apprehensively on the doorstep of the apartment, trying to summon the courage to announce my presence. It was not forthcoming. Eventually, more through fatigue than courage, I managed to raise a nervous finger to the doorbell.
There was some movement from inside, then the door opened. I let the moment bed in for a while before I released my feeble offering of an opening syllable.
‘Hi.’
She didn’t speak straight away. Still trying to shift herself into the right context. A context that I fitted into. Then finally she spoke.
‘There’s a face I didn’t expect to see again.’
‘Is it a face you’re going to slam the door in?’
She shrugged. ‘I don’t think you’re a bad person Aaron. Relationships break down. I understand that. I’m not going to judge.’
She was judging, of course, but it was nice of her to say that. Felicity was Gemma’s best friend, a teacher at the same school. I knew her and her husband quite well back then. We used to spend time together. Meals and drinks and all that couply stuff.
I liked Felicity, she was a good sort. But then I would expect no less from a friend of Gemma; she had high standards – generally. I knew Felicity from the Gemma period of my life, post-death you might say. So when she saw me standing there it wasn’t like she was seeing a ghost, but almost as good as. I hadn’t seen her for the best part of ten years so I knew it would still be quite unexpected. But if there was anyone that could answer my questions it would be Felicity. She was there when I was not; when I left. Gemma would have confided in her.
‘Do you mind if I come in? I need to talk to you about something.’
Felicity beckoned me in and shut the door behind us. She did the whole hospitable offering of hot beverages but I declined; just wanted to get on with it. But I wasn’t so rude as not to do the small-talk bit. Actually, that’s being overly-harsh on myself. I was genuinely interested.
‘How’s Trent?’
‘He’s good. He’ll be sorry he missed you.’
I smiled. I studied the family portrait on the mantelpiece: Felicity, Trent and two young children. ‘Two little ones then?’ I enquired.
‘Not so little now; five and seven. Jim and Beth.’
It genuinely made me feel good to know they were doing well.
‘So, what’s going on?’ Felicity put to me as she took her place on the sofa.
I sat down in an armchair facing her.
‘It’s about Pearle.’
‘
Pearle
?’ Felicity was taken aback a little by this. She wouldn’t have expected me to know anything about Pearle. ‘What about her?’
‘I’m not entirely sure yet. What can you tell me about her?’
‘Well, she wasn’t planned. The guy she was with was a bit of a jerk and he soon vanished when Gemma fell pregnant.’ Felicity’s eyes darted off to one side in recollection. ‘Pearle was ... different.’
‘How so?’
‘Well, to begin with, when she was very young, it seemed like she was a bit withdrawn or slow or something. But it wasn’t that at all. She was confused.’
‘At what?’
‘At why we were lying to her.’
‘Lying?’
‘In the way adults do when kids are first getting to grips with language. Virtually everything adults say is nonsense. Most of it is either fiction or downright lies. Like “Oh, do you think teddy is hungry?”. And all the tooth fairy and Easter bunny and Santa Claus stuff. Anyway, this confused Pearle, even at the age of three. Not because she knew this stuff wasn’t real, but because she knew we were lying to her.’
I listened silently.
‘After a while it got better. By the time she was five, she understood the subtle difference between fiction and lies. She understood the role played by fairytales and make-believe. That’s what five-year-olds are good at after all. So she played along, and things were much easier. But one thing was still true...’
‘What?’
‘You couldn’t ever fool her.’
This was all sounding familiar.
‘But you want to know what the weirdest thing was?’
‘Go on.’
‘Gemma said she took after you.’
I didn’t look as surprised as Felicity expected me to. I didn’t understand it but I’d seen this coming. I nodded slowly. What I’d just heard had utterly confirmed one thing: I had no clue what was going on.
‘This was what you’d come to hear wasn’t it?’ Felicity asked. ‘How did you know?’
It was my turn to speak.
‘When Gemma and Pearle got the virus I came to see her. I spoke to her just before she lost consciousness. She said that Pearle had my eyes. She seemed really concerned that I knew this fact, but I didn’t know why. I didn’t realise this was what she meant.’ I thought for a moment before my next question. ‘Did she have any idea as to how this could make any sense?’
Felicity shook her head. ‘No. At least, not as far as I know. Eventually, she went to one of those new-fangled companies that sequence people’s genomes. She spoke to someone there, but I don’t know what she found out. It was just before ... you know.’
‘Do you know who she spoke to?’
‘Well, she emailed me a link to the company website one day. Hold on, I’ll dig it out.’
Felicity stood up and left the room. A few minutes later she returned with a print-out.
‘Here. This was the place, GenieTec. And this was the guy she spoke to, Dr Venton.’
‘Thanks.’ I studied the print-out quickly. The GenieTec office was in New York.
‘I guess you know where you’re going next.’
I stood. ‘Yeah, guess I do.’
‘Say hi to Trent for me,’ I said as we walked to the door. Then I turned to Felicity, feeling that I owed her something. A lot in fact. ‘Listen ... I’m glad you were ... you know ... there for her. I...’