The Nicholas Linnear Novels (224 page)

White-faced, the Scoundrel went into Killan’s minuscule kitchen, poured himself a stiff shot of Suntory scotch while he tried to digest everything he had heard on the tape. Talk about incrimination, he thought. But then, he wasn't the only one incriminated. There was Kusunda Ikusa, as well. Christ!

The Scoundrel downed the liquor, hurriedly poured and drank another. Then he went back to where the tape recorder sat on Killan’s free-form ferroconcrete coffee table like a malevolent beast, waiting to be unleashed. He played the whole thing again.

He was sitting, his face in his hands, staring at the beast, when Killan walked through the door.

“Howzit, Scoundrel,” she said. If she was surprised to see him, he couldn’t tell it. Anyway, they were always popping up at each other’s places. “What d’you have there?”

“Our pasts,” he said, not taking his eyes off the black metal shell of the recorder. “Also maybe our futures

He played her the tape.

Killan said nothing until it was over. He could read nothing on her face; it was as if she were dead, or concentrating. Then she said into the silence, “Where in the hell did you get that?”

He looked at her. “Had no idea you were being tagged, did you?”

“Shit, no.” She pointed at the beast. “Whose is it?”

He shrugged. “It belongs to me now. I found it next door. In the deserted apartment.” He told her of the sound he had heard while she was over, the
thunk!
like a melon hitting the pavement from a height. “Or a man’s head being smashed into the wall.” He told her what he had found, the dried blood and human matter in the hole in the wall.

“Must have taken a lot of force to do that to a human head,” Killan said.

“Yeah. A whole helluva lot.” He could see her brain working overtime even as he said it. “Hey,” he said, “what’re you thinking?”

“I’m thinking about what could have gone on in there—and who could have been strong enough to smash a human head hard enough to break through the wall. Brute strength rather than finesse.”

“You mean you know someone who could do that?”

“Maybe,” she said. “Yeah.” She gestured. “You figure out what you’re going to
do
with that tape?”

The Scoundrel said, “I was thinking of giving it to someone I know.”

“Yeah? Who?”

The Scoundrel hesitated. He had been dreading this moment. “Tomi.”

“Ugh! That bitch?” Killan cried. “No way. I’ve got a better idea.”

“Yeah? Better for me or for you?”

“You’re too cynical sometimes,” Killan said, sitting down beside him. She smiled. “Are you having second thoughts now, after all this time? Whatever I do, it’ll be what’s best for both of us.”

“I don’t know about that.”

“Why did you come here, if it wasn’t for my help?”

“I needed a safe place to play the tape. I couldn’t tell if the surveillance on me was still in force.”

Killan looked from him to the microrecorder. “The tape tells us that you weren’t the only one being monitored,” she said. “In other circumstances I suppose I’d think having my sexual couplings taped was kinky.”

“Jesus, d’you think this apartment’s being watched?”

“I have no idea.”

“I was very careful.”

Killan laughed. “Sure. I know you. The last detective.”

The Scoundrel grunted, contemplating the beast on the table. “So,” he said at last, “what do you want to do with it?”

“Take it to the person who’ll want it most.”

“Who’s that?”

Killan’s eyes began to spark, and there was just the hint of a smile on her lips. “Kusunda Ikusa,” she said.

The Scoundrel jumped just as if she had struck him with a live wire. “I always knew you were nuts,” he said. “But I didn’t know until now just how nuts.”

“Calm down and think about it,” Killan said. “Ikusa will give us everything we want for that tape. And why not? It’s bad enough that his affair with me would come out if it were made public, but the evidence of his manipulation of Nakano Industries for his own ends would destroy him utterly.”

The Scoundrel got up, paced back in forth in front of her and the dully gleaming beast on the ferroconcrete table. “You know, I remember once years ago when you were just a kid and wanted to hang out with us on the street, one of us dared you to put your hand in a fire. We thought you’d chicken out and we’d get rid of you.” He reached out, turned her right hand palm upward. His thumb traced the old raised scars there. “But you called our bluff. And we let you run with us. We called you Bad Company then. But Killan, that was then and this is now. We were all so young, we didn’t know any better. Now we do.”

Killan, looking directly into the Scoundrel’s eyes, said, “How can you talk like that? Or are you blind to how you’re being exploited by Kusunda? He’s the real power behind Nakano Industries; my father is history. You’re being paid shit for your work, and it’s Kusunda’s doing. You’ve created MANTIS, and what do you have to show for it? Nothing. Worse, there will never be anything
but
nothing for you. How many times do I have to remind you? You work like a dog for Kusunda. And for what? Who’s profiting from what
you
create? Who
should
be profiting from it?”

She gave him a cynical look. “Besides, I
love
those scars. They’re a part of me—an
important
part, like a badge or a medal. They say I didn’t back down then; they say I was as good as any
boy
on the street, I was as tough, and a whole helluva lot
smarter
.”

“Crazier, too.”

She laughed. “But I
survived.
It’s my karma to survive. I’ve got the brains to beat them
all,
Scoundrel.”

“But Kusunda Ikusa.” He shook his head. “He’s different. Hasn’t it occurred to you that Ikusa might be smarter than you?”

Killan shook her head. “Uh-uh.” Then she grinned, in one motion pulled away from him and scooped up the microrecorder. “Trust me.” She kissed him lightly on the cheek. “This is our ticket to the promised land. Everything we ever wanted.”

The Scoundrel looked down at the empty table. In a moment he said, “I have everything I want.”

But Killan was already gone.

The police came for Shisei, polite, deferential, even. She was expecting them, and went with them without fuss. A bearded, porky detective questioned her concerning her whereabouts during the night before. Shisei watched his eyes, which were intelligent and penetrating. He inhabited a crumpled, ill-fitting suit the way other men wore robes; he was comfortable, relaxed. Shisei, dressed in a short black skirt, wide black cloth belt, and a fire-red cap-sleeved blouse, spent some time taking him in.

He was eating a sloppy meatball hero while they talked, but Shisei got the impression this was trapping, like a good actor using a bit of stage business. She wondered whether he was trying to put her at ease or attempting to catch her off guard.

They sat at a scarred wooden desk set in the center of a featureless room painted a dull institutional green. A water cooler stood in one dusty corner, a greasy hot plate with a glass pot of coffee in another. There were heavy metal grills across the windows.

Although the detective, who told her his name was Albemarle, did not say it, it was clear by the direction of his questioning that Branding had given her as his alibi. Albemarle said that the police had received an anonymous tip about the body in Branding’s car. Nothing was known about the caller other than he had a male voice. Right now, he said, they were holding Branding for the suspected murder of David Brisling. Because of the much publicized, often rancorous enmity between Branding and Howe, there was cause to question Branding at length. Shisei understood the implication that the police still needed to establish motive and opportunity. Which was why they wanted to question her.

Of course, they would never discover the truth. The call she had made from her house on the night she had killed Brisling had been to a support group whose number she had memorized when she had first been given the assignment to help infiltrate the Hive Project. She had left for them a copy she had previously made of the ignition key to Branding’s car.

While Shisei and Branding were at the State dinner, the group had taken the car, deposited Brisling’s corpse into the trunk, and driven it back. They had left their car in Branding’s parking space so that his car would be just where he had parked it at the beginning of the evening.

Shisei answered all of Detective Albemarle’s questions as fully as she was able, omitting only her discovery of Brisling in her house when she went back for her purse. But she did tell him about the oversight because she wanted him to see that she was giving him everything she had. Also, she didn’t know how full a statement Branding had made, and there was no point in giving him a discrepancy that he would start thinking about.

“You and Senator Branding are good friends,” Albemarle said after a while. He did this while wiping tomato sauce off his lips.

“We went to the State dinner together,” Shisei said. “It’s not the first time we’ve been together after business hours.”

Albemarle took a long look at her. He grinned, showing a set of broad teeth. “I admire the senator’s taste.”

“Excuse me, but how is our relationship interesting to you except from a voyeur’s standpoint?”

Albemarle laughed to show that he had a serviceable sense of humor, but he sobered up fast. “You’re the senator’s alibi.”

“Are you implying that I would lie for him—out of love?”

The detective shrugged. “It wouldn’t be the first time.”

“Two hundred and fifty other people saw Senator Branding at the State dinner.”

“But according to your statement”—Albemarle’s eyes flicked down to the note pad on which he had been writing—“you and the senator arrived at the White House at approximately eight-thirty. Is that right?”

“Yes.”

“Well, the doc said Brisling was iced anywhere from seven to nine
P.M.
That leaves a lot of time before eight-thirty.”

She was aware of how long he had withheld that information from her. “We were together from a quarter to eight on.”

“Couldn’t have taken but, what? Three minutes to murder Brisling,” Albemarle drawled. “Give me your best guess. What did Branding do for the other forty-two minutes?”

Shisei could feel Albemarle baiting her. They had come to the crucial time in the interrogation. He was tired of sparring with her. He had taken off his gloves; it was time for her to do the same. “Senator Branding didn’t murder David Brisling,” she said.

Detective Albemarle’s brow wrinkled, the sole sign that she had surprised him. His eyes held steady on hers, as if they could detect a lie at twenty paces. Shisei thought that might be precisely what he believed. “Now how would you know that for a certainty?” Albemarle drawled.

“Why would he carry Brisling’s body in the trunk of his car all night? He’s not stupid and he doesn’t have a death wish.”

“He’d want to dump it somewhere. He didn’t have time to do it before he went to pick you up.”

“You told me he had forty-two minutes.”

Albemarle said nothing, but his eyes said he wasn’t giving ground—yet.

It’s too convenient, too like a setup, Shisei wanted to say, would have said to a detective less discerning than Albemarle. But she had to be careful not to let him see her do too much of his work for him.

She reached into her pocket, drew out an audio cassette. “Do you have something to play this on?”

Albemarle stared at the cassette for a long moment, then, as if making up his mind, he grunted, reached into a drawer of the scarred wooden table, pulled out a tiny tape recorder. “You’ve been singing for the birdie.” He grinned, snapped out a cassette of his own. “I don’t trust my shorthand. It’s been so long since my Kelly Girl courses.”

He inserted Shisei’s cassette, pressed the play button.

“Brisling was expendable,” Douglas Howe’s voice said. “He was never content with what I gave him, he always wanted more.”

Albemarle stopped the tape. “Who’s this?”

“Senator Douglas Howe.”

“Ah.” Albemarle nodded.

Shisei liked this man. She didn’t have to tell him that Howe was Brisling’s boss or that Howe and Branding spit at each other every time they met. He knew all that.

Albemarle’s finger stabbed out. “I was setting him up as a buffer,” Howe’s voice continued, a disembodied voice at his own trial. “I didn’t want to be traced to the investigations I had ordered into Branding’s Hive advanced-computer research people at the Johnson Institute.”

“Why the investigations?” Shisei’s voice said.

“Isn’t it clear to you yet?” Howe replied. “I’ll do whatever I have to in order to destroy him utterly. This isn’t a game I’m playing with Branding. I think you understand.

“I’ve distanced myself from the operation. It’s strictly Brisling’s baby. I’ve got plausible deniability. But that didn’t work out. You were right about that, I never should have tried it. Branding got wind of it. This is better—much better! Branding
and
Brisling dealt with in one preemptive strike!”

Albemarle stopped the tape. “How’d you get this?”

“I’ve worked for Howe on and off,” she said. “Nothing official. I liked the money, I admit that. But this thing between him and Senator Branding was getting out of hand fast, I could see that. I tried to warn him, to stop him, but he simply wouldn’t listen. Howe was obsessed with his feud. All he could think of was destroying Branding. I wanted out before Howe did something really stupid.”

“Like murder his assistant and try to pin it on Branding.” Albemarle tapped his forefinger against his lips. “What exactly did you do for Howe?”

“When my environmental interests and his overlapped, as they sometimes did, we pooled resources, got bills passed up on the Hill. That sort of thing.”

Albemarle nodded. “Go on.”

She leaned over the desk, started the tape running again.

“Forget the environmentalists you work for, Shisei,” Howe’s voice went on. “That mind of yours is wasted there. When the vote for the ASCRA bill is over—and I know it’s as dead as Branding’s political career—I want you to sign on with me. I could use your talent on a permanent basis. You’ll insulate me from any danger; you’ll guard my domain like a well-trained mastiff. You’ll scare the shit out of anyone who tries to cross me.”