Authors: Ross Harrison
‘I think you know
your way,’ DeMartino said.
Holt carried a
shock stick. He hadn’t learned his lesson. He did take a casual step backwards
as I passed though. He’d learned something.
The other two cops
congratulated DeMartino as we passed. The UPSF was about to get a dozen or so
applications thanks to DeMartino’s visit. He just grunted. He had no more time
for suck ups than I did. Not that I’d ever have anyone sucking up to me.
I was taken back to
the same interview room. Sat in the same seat. Strapped to the same table. This
time, DeMartino sat opposite me. The chair creaked.
The man was about
six feet tall. Tanned skin. Real tan. Not like Little Dick’s. His hair, face
and hands were as neat as his suit. The rain didn’t seem to have touched him. When
he spoke, it was with an accent. I recognised it from holofilms as Italian. Just
about everyone in this city was descended from Americans. We had no fancy accents
here.
He watched me. Like
Lawrence had done. I felt the nerves. More so this time. I’d known Lawrence already. I didn’t know what to expect from DeMartino. I guessed that was why I
hadn’t seen Lawrence yet.
‘What was her
name?’ DeMartino asked.
Did he mean Lucy?
‘I find it
interesting that, after protesting your innocence all morning, you didn’t once
use the victim’s name.’ He didn’t mean Lucy.
‘I never asked her
for a name,’ I said.
‘And you never
asked Detective Lawrence for it. You’re accused of her murder and you don’t
even want to know her name.’
‘Are you trying to
take some meaning from that?’
‘I find it
interesting,’ he repeated.
DeMartino reached
into his suit. Pulled out a datapad. Naturally, it was pristine. Not like Lawrence’s old, battered one. He switched it on. Read something on the screen for a
moment.
‘Sixteen,’ he said.
He wanted me to ask what he was talking about. I didn’t. ‘That’s how many times
you’ve applied for a private detective licence. And not just from the Terran
Council. You applied to the Krathans, the Ordassis, the Korellians… Is there
anyone you didn’t go to for that shiny little badge?’
‘Well I don’t know
what to say. I guess I just wanted to make a difference. Bring justice to my
little town. Be a shining beacon in the suffocating darkness of Harem.’
‘Noble.’ He wasn’t
bothered by my default setting: ‘sarcastic asshole’. ‘Why were you turned down
time after time?’
‘You know why.’
‘No, I know what
this file says. And it doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. So you tell me.’
‘Can you provide me
with some compelling reason as to why I should do that?’
‘No.’
‘Then you’re shit out
of luck. Story time was earlier. Sent Lawrence off to sleep.’
‘I’ll try to work
it out on my own then…’
‘Why?’ What bearing
did that have on this case? They were already convinced I’d killed the barmaid.
They had all the evidence they needed. Why was I back in this room?
DeMartino ignored
me. ‘You were in the police academy. Well, that’s a strong term for what Harem
has. But you were in it. You weren’t particularly adept. But you weren’t too
bad. You were average.’
In official terms,
he was right. But what else would the instructors say about someone who didn’t
respond well to authority? In reality I’d done a little better than average.
Perhaps not much better. But better.
‘Then you killed
your girlfriend.’ My eyes locked on his. I wanted to hit him. He knew it. ‘Sorry,
I mean…then your girlfriend disappeared. Under suspicious circumstances. Blood was
found.’
‘Traces.’
‘She left no note
and contacted no one about leaving. Not even you, apparently. She didn’t catch
any flight off the planet or to anywhere else on the planet.’
‘Maybe she took a
cab.’
‘Just…disappeared
into thin air.’
‘And what does that
have to do with a dead barmaid ten years later?’
‘Not very much at
all. What confuses me is that you were booted from the academy around the same
time. The same day, in fact.’ What the hell was he talking about this for? ‘Now,
it would make sense to remove you because you were under investigation. But
maybe that came first. This is a badly put together file, like most of them in
this place. Hard to tell what’s what from it. Maybe you were kicked out of the
academy and decided to take your anger out on…’ he checked the datapad, ‘…Lucy.’
‘That’s an
impressive skill. Scanning over a file and knowing the ins and outs like you
were there. Now I’ll try to work out something relevant. You brought me in
after my so-called “escape” and dragged me straight back to this room. Not a
cell. Not out to Anshan. Here. To sit and wag your chin at me. Lawrence already went through as much questioning as any court would need to convict. So my
guess is: you’re not as sure as you were this morning. Something’s happened.
Something’s changed. Suddenly no one knows what to think. Is Jack Mason the
killer…or not?’
‘Not bad for
average.’
‘So what happened?’
DeMartino just
looked at me for a while. He didn’t want to tell me. Didn’t have a lot of options
though. ‘We have a girl in the next room who swears blind that Richard Webster
killed the barmaid. She says she saw you go out and him go in. Then he came out
quick, covered in blood, and got into his father’s car. She has…pictures.’ He said
the word carefully, almost as though he didn’t believe it.
I thought about it.
Had Little Dick been in my apartment? I’d already considered the possibility.
But I’d also dismissed it on the grounds that even he wouldn’t be stupid enough
to steal whatever daddy Webster wanted from the girl. For the third time that
hour I wondered if Little Dick was working on something behind Webster’s back.
Maybe he was working to move the old man out of office.
‘What girl?’ I
asked. ‘What pictures?’
‘I can’t divulge
that information, Mr. Mason.’
‘We’re back to “Mr.
Mason” again, are we?’
I didn’t know of
any girl living close by me. I liked that street because it was full of old
people. Less trouble. Besides, old people could be as good as security cameras.
They watched everything. If anyone ever came snooping around my place, they’d
never think some fragile old coot would be a threat to them. But that old coot
would pass on what they saw to me. The real threat. But that hadn’t worked this
morning. I’d left at pretty much the only time of the day that not a single one
of my neighbours would have been watching. Which meant Little Dick, or whoever
it was, had got into my apartment also without being watched. Except apparently
this girl
was
watching. But why?
‘Who broke you out
of custody, Mr. Mason?’
‘People with guns
and masks.’
‘I think I’m
beginning to like you, Mr. Mason, but you’re not very bright. There’s a very
slim chance that you might actually beat a murder rap, but you’d rather play
coy. You need to tell me everything you know if you want that slim chance.’
‘A second ago, it
was a very slim chance. Seems my odds are increasing by the second.’
‘So you don’t want
to tell me who helped you?’
‘I wouldn’t say
they helped me. They tried to teach me to swim, but I never much liked the
water. And it’s real hard with your hands tied behind your back.’
‘So someone broke
you out to kill you. Who? Why?’
‘They wanted
something I couldn’t give them.’
‘And what was
that?’
‘I don’t know.
That’s why I couldn’t give it to them.’
‘They broke you out
of custody, took you to the lake to half drown you because they wanted
something that either you have or they think you have, but they didn’t think to
mention what that thing was?’
‘When you put it
like that, it almost sounds made up.’
‘It does, doesn’t
it?’
‘Why don’t you ask
Holt?’ This might not have been wise.
‘Holt?’
‘Officer Holt just
happened to pick the perfect moment to switch off the camera, release my
restraints and shock me. Just in time for some goons to burst in and take me. It
seems quite convenient. How is Officer Holt? I noticed they didn’t give him much
more than a love tap…’
DeMartino seemed to
be considering what I was saying. I didn’t know if he’d look into it though. He
was more likely to than the cops here, but he had no reason to believe that
Holt had done any such thing. The man had probably come up with some story
about how he heroically tried to stop the breakout but was incapacitated by the
intruders.
I could be off
anyway. Why would they have made a show of hitting him when the camera was dead
and they expected me to be the same way within hours? The whole thing was
confusing.
‘Are you going to
answer my question?’
‘Which one?’
‘Which came first?
Lucy’s death or your expulsion from the academy?’
‘My mind gets a
little fuzzy around the five year mark. That was ten years ago.’
‘Your mind gets a
little fuzzy around the time the woman you were meant to be in love with
disappears. Or dies. I notice you’re not too bothered about me saying she’s
dead. Almost like you know she is.’
‘You can say whatever
you want. Doesn’t bother me. Plenty of people have said plenty of things in ten
years. I have no reason to explain myself all over again to you.’ I had no
reason to explain why she was dead. Not to him. It was me that needed it
explained. Just about every time I caught sight of myself in a mirror.
‘So let’s talk
about your…abduction. Would you call it that?’
‘I wouldn’t call it
a dinner date.’
‘You won’t tell me
who took you or why. Okay. I know where. But that doesn’t help me much. And if
it doesn’t help me, then it doesn’t help you. It’s the why that interests me
the most. Shall I tell you what I think about all this?’
‘You do a lot of
thinking for someone in such a nice suit.’
‘I think they took
you because you know something. Something big. Something useful to me.’
‘Maybe I was hasty
with the lots of thinking crack.’
‘Why were you in
that club?’
‘Huh?’ I hadn’t
expected the sudden shift in topic.
‘Why were you in
Webster’s club last night?’
‘What does a man
usually do in a club? I was drinking and watching the twenty-year-olds gyrate.’
‘With a fake badge?
In a place like that? Not really your kind of scene, is it? I spoke to the cab
driver. He remembers the victim probing you about an investigation. What
investigation was she referring to, Mr. Mason? What does a civilian without a
PI licence investigate?’
‘I was
investigating several claims concerning The Web.’
‘What claims?’ I
nearly felt sorry for DeMartino. He tried not to show it, but he actually
thought he was getting somewhere now.
‘That they make the
best appletinis in the city.’
‘Isn’t that a
girl’s drink?’
‘I’m secure enough
that I’m not afraid the kind of liquid I put in my glass will change my gender.
I usually prefer whiskey though.’
‘I prefer coffee
myself.’
The hell were we
talking about?
The door opened.
DeMartino’s face gave nothing away as he watched the newcomer.
‘Hello again, Jack.’
It was the man with a first name for a last name. ‘Glad you came back to
visit.’
‘Afternoon,
Detective. Or is it evening now?’ I couldn’t keep track of the time today.
Unconsciousness didn’t help. I glanced around for windows or a clock. There was
neither.
‘You’ve been busy
today, Jack.’ Lawrence stayed somewhere behind me. I expected him to drop
something heavy on the table again at some point. I’d probably jump again. At
this point it would probably send me into a fit of giggling. Then a fit of
rage. I was like that sometimes. ‘First you kill a sweet little barmaid. Then
you break out of police custody. Then you go and kill two more men.’
DeMartino raised an
eyebrow at that. ‘Does this mean we don’t need Mr. Mason to tell us who took
him from your precinct?’
‘I think it does.’
The file hit the desk before I registered the movement. I jumped at the bang in
made. I didn’t laugh. ‘Agent DeMartino, say hello to Richard Webster. Shot and
dropped in the drink.’ They’d worked fast to find him already.
‘Little Dick
Webster,’ I said with a small sigh. Shame he’d had to die. He could have aided
my investigation. He
was
my investigation. ‘Actually
he was dropped in the “drink” and then shot. What century are you from again?’
‘“Little Dick”,’
DeMartino repeated with a smile. ‘That’s why I like you, Mr. Mason. Your wit is
so very clever.’ I suspected sarcasm. ‘So your investigation was into Webster
junior? That interests me greatly. Doesn’t that interest you, Detective
Lawrence?’
‘What interests
me,’ Lawrence said, ‘is putting Jack here in chains and personally driving him
up to Anshan to watch him die a killer’s death.’
DeMartino didn’t
respond to that. ‘I happen to believe the Websters are – or were in the case of
“Little Dick” – involved in something highly illegal.’ Now it was my turn to be
interested. He hadn’t come here for me. He’d come for Webster. ‘I think the
mining operation is a front. That’s why I’m here. So, again: what was it you
were investigating?’
I looked at him for
about a minute, trying to decide whether to talk or not. I didn’t have much to
say, but I needed it to sound like a lot. There was no point in me continuing
to try to be clever if landed me in Anshan.
‘This city’s lack
of colour.’ I could tell he thought I was being funny again. ‘Haven’t you
noticed? You won’t find a single person in Harem who isn’t white.’ DeMartino
frowned. He’d be running through all the faces he’d seen since he arrived.
Trying to find something a little darker than the paper in Lawrence’s file. I
couldn’t see Lawrence’s reaction.