Noir (19 page)

McNihil remained silent, knowing that there wasn’t any answer required. The other man was way ahead of him.
He must’ve been rooting through the agency files
, thought McNihil. Or else DynaZauber itself had a direct line; maybe DZ had bought out the Collection Agency somehow, and was operating it as a wholly owned subsidiary, just as they were apparently doing now with the rail network. It could happen; Dyna-Zauber was one of the big predators in the corporate world, and the Collection Agency was going through a headquarters shake-up, at least according to McNihil’s own longtime contacts inside.

There was another possibility.
Maybe
, thought McNihil,
the information came from the other side
. That was something to be considered: that DZ was forming its partnerships and strategic alliances from among the bad guys, the technically, legally bad guys.
Wouldn’t be the first time
—McNihil dredged up a reference from ancient history. It’d be like some sort of Hitler-Stalin pact of the intellectual-property sphere, the collusion of entities that were supposed to be at each other’s throats.

“Whatever.” He turned away and looked across the rubbish-strewn
landscape. His distaste for the conversation extended, permeating everything he saw before him like a bad smell.
This is what I get
, thought McNihil grimly. For getting involved—for
letting
himself get involved—with all this happy horseshit. Enough morning sunlight spilled over the distant mountains that the world’s details were even more depressingly revealed to him. The scavenger dead were already out, creeping away from the ashes of their tiny, perfunctory campfires; the scrabbling, black-nailed hands had begun their owners’ hunchbacked rituals of turning over each crumbling leaf of trash, looking for something, anything, that could be converted to the usual small profit. McNihil felt as if he had already joined their number.

Then again … maybe he wasn’t the only one. He looked over at Harrisch, having suddenly realized something else. “You wouldn’t be talking about Verrity,” said McNihil, “unless she was important to you, too. If you’ve lost something … she must be the one who has it.”

Hanging on the cross, Harrisch looked even more uncomfortable. “Well. We don’t know that for sure.”

“But that’s what you suspect.”

The exec shrugged. That was answer enough.

“So what is it,” said McNihil, “that she’s got of yours? You must want it back awfully badly. Or otherwise you wouldn’t be putting up with my shit.”

“God, that’s true enough.” Harrisch rolled his eyes up toward the sky, then sighed. “What we lost is one of our own. We lost Travelt.”

“No, you didn’t. We were all standing around looking at him, back there at his cubapt.”

Harrisch shook his head impatiently. “That’s what’s
left
of him. The outside part. We lost the inside part of him. That’s what we want back.”

For a few seconds, McNihil mulled that over. “Why?” he asked at last. “What’s so valuable about a junior exec? They’re not that hard to replace. Promote one out of the copy room, you need one so badly.”

“Look, pal. You don’t need to know
why
we want him back. Maybe we’re sentimental at DZ—”

That’ll be the day
, thought McNihil.

“All you need to know,” continued Harrisch, “is what. And where. You go and do the rest.”

Dream on, connector
. “Just what inside part of Travelt do you think I
should go looking for? The package I saw back there at the cubapt seemed just about ready to be picked apart.”

“Shouldn’t be all that difficult.” Harrisch’s irritation appeared to have simmered down. “For somebody of your talents and experience. Except that it’s still walking around. Not in the Gloss per se. But in the Wedge.”

McNihil wasn’t surprised. “What you’re talking about,” he said, “is a prowler. You want me to go find the prowler that your little junior exec was using. Gone missing, has it?”

“That’s right.”

“So what?” McNihil had started to get a crick in his neck from looking up at the exec on the cross. “It probably didn’t come wandering home, because there’s no reason for it to do so. Its user is dead. Who’s it going to come back and down to? The refrigerator?”

“We don’t care if it downs to anybody—or anything.” Harrisch was way past smiling anymore. “Matter of fact, we’d prefer if it didn’t. If it just disappeared into the Wedge—if it disappeared off the face of the connecting
planet
—that’d be fine by us. But unfortunately, it’s still out there somewhere. And it’s causing us a little embarrassment.”

“I don’t see why. Prowlers are legal. Technically.” McNihil reached up and rubbed the back of his aching neck. He wondered if this idiot’s arranged train wreck had given him whiplash. “As long as you don’t get caught doing something stupid with one. If you think it’s bad for the DynaZauber corporate image that one of your junior execs got himself one—”
As if anybody cares
. “Hey.” McNihil dropped his hand and shrugged. “Tell ’em you fired the guy’s ass before he got into trouble.”

“Travelt didn’t ‘get’ himself a prowler. He was
given
it. By me.”

“Ah.” That didn’t particularly surprise McNihil, either. “That was nice of you. Seems to have wound up getting the poor bastard killed, but what the heck. Does everybody at DZ get one? Must really play hell with the personnel department.”

“It was a present,” said Harrisch stiffly. “A bonus. A little token of my esteem. Travelt had done … particularly well on some of his assignments at DynaZauber.”

“I bet.”

“So he’d earned himself … a little something extra. And at the same
time … he needed it.” Harrisch made the words sound reasonable enough. “Travelt was a hard worker; perhaps a little too hard. Too serious. All work and no play. He needed something … for relaxing. Bringing a little … variety into his life. He was valuable enough that I didn’t want him burning out on me too soon.”

“Of course not,” said McNihil. “Just soon enough.” Nothing in the exec’s spiel surprised him.
Why he had me check out the corpse
—so it would be obvious that prowler usage was involved. And even … approved of, as Harrisch might say in that arch manner of his.
Because they’re all doing it
. All of Harrisch’s flacks and flunkies, the various ranks of business suits that had been hovering around there at the cubapt—they’d all had that look about them, smug and conspiratorial, in on something good. Something better than regular people ever had. It was the same look that baggies and other chem’d-out types radiated, at least on the upslope of their crash-and-burn biographies. They’d all had it … except for Harrisch himself. He was on to something even better. Control was the best drug, the spark better than anything that could be gotten out of a prowler’s mouth.

“I didn’t think … he could hurt himself with it.” A little actorly remorse slid across Harrisch’s face. “For most people … they’re harmless.”

“Sure they are. And for other people … they’re even profitable.”

Harrisch drew his head back against the top of the cross. “What do you mean?”

“Come on. Prowlers are manufactured by a DZ subsidiary. If nothing else, you got it at cost.”
Cheap bastard
, thought McNihil. “A box of chocolates would’ve run you more.”

“Maybe you’re right,” said Harrisch. “Maybe that’s what I should’ve done. But it’s too late now. And besides … we were sandbagged. Somebody connected with the prowler that I gave to Travelt. Altered it, outside of its original specifications. That’s where the trouble comes from.”

“How do you know that?”

“Perhaps if I gave you proof?” Harrisch’s voice resumed its usual oily ease. “Or at least some evidence. Then maybe you’d give some proper consideration to what I’ve been trying to tell you.”

“Sure.” McNihil glanced up at the other man. “Lay it on me.” He didn’t have very high hopes.

With a nod of his head, Harrisch signaled to an assistant lurking nearby, possibly the same flunky that had led McNihil to the dead man’s
cubapt; he couldn’t tell any of them apart. The assistant walked over to McNihil and dug inside his jacket, finally extracting a couple of sheets of paper, which he deposited in McNihil’s hand.

“What’s all this?” The papers had the look and feel of inexpensive photocopies. McNihil unfolded them and turned them right side around. “Receipts? For what?”

“You can read,” the assistant said sourly.

McNihil held the papers toward the advancing sunlight. Now he could make out the logo and words at the top of the first sheet of paper. “That’s great.” He shook his head; this, at least, he hadn’t been expecting. The receipt was from the central L.A. branch of the Snake Medicine™ franchise. McNihil held the papers out at arm’s length, not so much to read what was on them, as from some instinctive, deeply rooted aversion.
Cheesy sexual services
, he thought glumly. At the low end of the business, which was probably where the company made most of its profits. “What’s this for? The little novelty items for the Christmas office party?” McNihil wondered if the Adder clomes at the SM clinic handled that sort of thing; streamers and other decorations, little party hats, all with some sort of grossly obscene motif. He didn’t know; he’d never been inside one of the shops, or boutiques, or whatever they were called. A fragmentary image came into his thoughts, of Harrisch and his coterie of ass-kissing junior execs, bedecked with wobbling phallic headgear—at best—and blowing hideous flesh-colored noisemakers at each other. “You know … I wasn’t aware that you and your bunch were such fun guys.”

“We’re not. Take a closer look.”

McNihil saw now what the exec meant. This particular receipt was obviously for some kind of high-end merchandise; McNihil glanced at the dollar amount at the bottom of the right-hand column, and was impressed despite himself. “Was all this for you, or one of your friends?” He tried to hand the papers back to the assistant, but without success.

“Come on.” Harrisch didn’t rise to the bait. “Look at the address. Where the merchandise was delivered.”

“Travelt’s cubapt.” It took less than a second for him to make the connection. “So this is for the prowler you gave to him.”

“Correct. As you said, chocolates would’ve been more expensive. But that’s not what I wanted you to see. Read the next page.”

McNihil shuffled the two pieces of paper, bringing the second one
up on top. This one also had the Snake Medicine™ franchise logo on top, and the same order reference number as the other paper. “What’s all this?” The additional words and numbers didn’t make any particular sense to him. “Am I supposed to know what this means?”

“I’ll tell you,” said Harrisch. “It’s the catalog information for the modifications that were made on the prowler, before it was delivered to Travelt. Modifications I didn’t order.”

“What were they?”

“
That
… I don’t know.” A spark of anger flared up in the exec’s voice again. “The numbers don’t correspond to anything in the regular SM catalog. Or the secret one, which they don’t even keep under the counter. The one they make available to just their top corporate customers.”

“Like you.”

“Like me,” said Harrisch.

What the connect could it’ve been?
wondered McNihil. Hard to imagine; the commercial clomes at the Snake Medicine™ clinics, the owner-operators fronting the business establishments, made a point of advertising their full range of services. That was their shtick, why they were all surgically altered into the idealized sleazy image from some old semiforgotten book, the doctor with the knife sharp enough to deliver whatever the customer wanted, sex-wise. From a simple stay-in-one-place tattoo, all the way to a Full Prince Charles job; you made the appointment with whatever Adder clome had set up shop in a low-rent storefront in your zone of the Gloss, and as long as you had the money for it, you could have your own little doorway into the Wedge carved into your body. The Snake Medicine™ clinics were even more legally tolerated than prowler usage, though the Adder clomes always tried to make it seem that they were operating right on the edge of the law, at least in part. McNihil had always figured that was just the usual faux rebellious ad spin on the clinics’ regulated, safe-’n’-sane merchandise and services.

“Why not call them up?” McNihil lowered the sheets of paper in his hand. “Talk to the clome in charge. Ask him what these modifications were. If you’re paying the bill, you’ve got a right to know.”

“No can do.” On the cross, Harrisch shook his head. “This item was paid for out of a corporate slush fund. If I initiate a billing-error inquiry, all hell breaks loose in the accounting department. Believe me, it’s easier
to go outside the loop, have somebody like you poke into the matter. Besides—I don’t need to know exactly how this particular mess was created. I just need it cleaned up.”

“Your lost property?”

“Exactly. The sooner it’s back in my hands, the happier I’ll be.” Harrisch’s ugly smile reappeared. “And when I’m happy … I make sure everybody else gets happy, too.”

I’d be happy
, thought McNihil,
if you’d get off my ass
. “You still haven’t told me what this inside part of Travelt is, that you’ve lost.”

“Travelt … knew things.” Harrisch nodded, slowly and thoughtfully. “He’d have to have, he’d worked himself up in the corporation pretty well. He really knew the TIAC project inside and out. Close to being my right-hand man on it. As a matter of fact …” The exec shifted uncomfortably on the cross. “There were some things only Travelt was completely knowledgeable about.”

“For somebody who wound up dead,” remarked McNihil, “he sounds pretty smart. There’s nothing like making yourself indispensable.”

“True. He wasn’t an idiot. As it turned out … neither was the prowler I gave him.”

McNihil tilted his head, trying to catch an angle into the other man’s eyes. “What do you mean?”

“Something happened,” said Harrisch. “Between Travelt and the prowler. That we weren’t expecting. It’s always a very …
tight
relationship between a user and his prowler; intimate, you might say. And the one between Travelt and his prowler became more than tight; it apparently started to overlap. Big time. Instead of an essential separation between the two, a unity started to form. Transference occurred.”