Authors: Tony Strong
Glenn nods thoughtfully. 'That's a wonderful thought, Mr Hopkins, and I sure am glad you shared that with me.'
'Harold, please,' Harold says, arranging the zippered bag so that it frames the old lady's face attractively.
She arranges to meet Henry in a bar at lunchtime. Then, remembering the problem with Henry and bars, she changes it to breakfast at a diner.
He looks older than the last time she saw him. The lines on his face have deepened and the bags under his eyes have filled with fluid. Even at this hour, she can smell the stale alcohol on him.
'I thought you'd forgotten me,' he says as she slides into the booth.
'I know, I'm late. I'm sorry.'
'That's not what I meant, Claire.'
She looks at his once handsome face, the hurt in his eyes, and thinks,
Not you, too. Don't make me carry your pain as well.
Gently she says, 'I've been preoccupied.'
'A boyfriend?'
She shrugs.
'I hope he knows he's a lucky man.'
'I need your help, Henry.'
'Why's that?'
'Remember a client called Stella Vogler?'
'Of course. Firstly because she was attractive, secondly because she was killed, and thirdly because she was just about the last damn client I ever had.'
'Christian Vogler is the main police suspect. I'm helping them to find out if he did it.'
He looks at her in a strange way. 'How?'
'Like before, sort of. As a kind of decoy.'
He whistles.
'The thing is, I'm not sure he did it.'
'The cops have no proof?'
She shakes her head. 'This operation… there's something strange about it. There are these crazy FBI psychologists holed up in a building in Queens. There's a cop who's… well, I think he's jealous of Christian and me. I think he may
want
Christian to be guilty just to get him away from me.'
He nods. 'What can I do?'
'I need a good investigator.'
'And you thought maybe I could recommend someone?'
She smiles. 'I thought maybe, if you're not too busy, you might help me out yourself.'
'I'm not a good investigator,' he says flatly, and she knows better than to lie to him.
'Maybe not. But you're cheap. And, well, it sounds crazy, but I know that you're who you say you are and not an actor.'
'What do you mean, not an actor? I have eighty-seven programme credits to my name.'
'I mean, not an actor now. Everyone else I speak to somehow turns up in
Spotlight.''
He thinks for a moment. 'OK,' he says. 'What do you need investigated? Though I have to tell you now, if it's a missing pet, you're on your own.'
'Christian had a previous girlfriend. I don't know her name, but it shouldn't be too hard to find her; they were engaged for a while.
Apparently she accused him of drugging her and using her in some kind of passive sex ritual. It's the only real lead the police have. If she's lying… And then there's Stella. I want to know why their marriage ran into difficulties.'
'Real detective work, in other words?'
'Real detective work. Will you do it?'
'For a dame like you,' he says, 'I'd sunbathe naked in an erupting volcano.' He winks. 'See? I still know all the lines.'
===OO=OOO=OO===
She does the legal research herself.
At the public library she buries herself in law books — first year students' textbooks to begin with, then, as she finds the references she's after, casebooks, books of precedent and international law.
It's the end of the day by the time she tracks down what she needs.
===OO=OOO=OO===
That night, she meets Christian at a bar on Mercer. It's just round the corner from his home.
'Do you want to come back?' he asks at the end of the evening.
And she knows she shouldn't —
since she's been told the necklace microphone has a limited range -knows she ought to entice him back to her apartment, with its cheerfully anonymous Swedish furniture, its drawers full of underwear she didn't even buy, its cupboards full of watchers and policemen and lies.
'It's a bit soon for that,' she stalls. 'You know, the place you shared with your wife.'
He flinches. 'Of course. Let's go to yours.'
===OO=OOO=OO===
Back at the apartment, he shows her a game.
She has to lie completely still while he traces the letters of the alphabet on her clitoris with his tongue, and say each letter out loud as he does it.
To begin with it seems easy, almost non-sexual, as simple as charades or any other guessing game. But gradually, the act of concentrating so hard on the tiny sensations heightens them unbearably. The anticipation itself becomes something exquisite, each tiny movement etching itself onto her nerve endings almost before it happens. She has to clench her legs to stop herself from pushing against him, demanding more.
When they get to Z her whole body's shuddering, waiting for him to take her with his tongue and whisk her into oblivion.
'Wait,' he breathes, and starts to write something else. The letters aren't in order now. She realizes he's spelling something out, letter by letter.
'Could you tell what it was?' he asks, much later, when they're lying on the floor.
She shakes her head. 'I couldn't concentrate by then.'
Which is a lie, because she's actually pretty certain that what he wrote with his tongue on her body was this: I
want you for ever.
===OO=OOO=OO===
He stays the night, so it's late morning before Connie and Frank can talk to her.
She opens the door to them, says, 'Oh, it's you,' and walks back into the living room, leaving them to follow.
'You don't seem very pleased to see us,' Connie says. She fishes in her pocket for a pack of cigarettes and puts one in her mouth.
Claire reaches across and pulls it out, tossing it onto the table. 'Actually, I'd rather you didn't smoke in this apartment. And no, I'm not pleased to see you. I didn't get much sleep.'
'Neither did we,' Connie says meaningfully.
'You've come to inspect the sheets, have you?' Claire mutters.
'Claire, look. Last night was good—'
'For me, too, honey,' Claire interrupts.
'—in many ways. But to be honest, we're not getting the
momentum
we were hoping for.'
'It was pretty momentous from where I was standing,' Claire drawls. 'And lying, and crawling, and kneeling, for that matter.'
Connie ignores her. 'He's not opening up any more than he was. In fact, now that you're spending less time talking, we're probably getting less material than we were before.'
'And that's a problem?'
'What do you think, Claire?'
She shrugs insolently.
'Let me put it this way,' Connie snaps. 'He's hardly going to confess when he's got your pussy rammed into his mouth.'
'Do I detect a note of jealousy?' Claire murmurs. 'Is the psychologist perhaps in need of a little therapy herself?'
Connie makes an exasperated gesture. 'Claire, I understand the conflicts you're experiencing. On the one hand you feel used and soiled by this operation; on the other, this man seems to be offering you love and self-esteem. But if the operation is to be of any use at all, you've simply got to park those feelings and get on with the job.'
'But is it?'
'Is it what?'
'Is the operation any use?'
Frank shoots Connie a warning glance.
Claire goes on, 'I went to the law library yesterday and found out some interesting stuff. Ever heard of Kessels versus The People, a Supreme Court ruling from 1984? No? Well, let me give you the gist. Any recording made without the knowledge of the suspect and without the suspect's agreement cannot be admitted as testimony'
'That's true,' Frank admits.
'So what's all this for?' she hisses at him. She gestures at the walls, at the microphones, the cameras, the invisible wires that surround her like a filigree cage. 'Why am I doing this?'
'Wait. Yes, you're right. If Christian confessed on tape, it wouldn't necessarily be admissible. But it
could
be used in interrogation. And, crucially, it would enable us to prove within the department that he is a viable suspect.'
'And my role ends up on the cutting-room floor.'
'Claire,' Frank says. 'What you're doing is invaluable. He's ready to crack, I know he is. All you've got to do is push a little harder.'
'I need to take a shower,' she says abruptly, getting up.
'You already took one,' he says without thinking.
She shoots him a furious look and slams the bathroom door.
That afternoon, she closes all the curtains and sits in the dark, watching the TV with the sound turned up high.
===OO=OOO=OO===
'What's she doing up there?' Weeks asks, when he comes to take over from Frank at the end of the afternoon.
'Nothing much. Watching reruns of old movies, from the sound of it. Crying. Walking up and down.'
'Well,' Weeks says, thumbing between channels, 'that's star temperament for you.'
===OO=OOO=OO===
She logs on to Necropolis. The glow of the screen is the only light in the room.
>>Victor?
>>Claire. I was hoping you'd come back.
>>Victor, I need a favour.
>>Anything, my angel.
>>You're not going to like it.
>>Try me. I'm surprisingly broad minded, for a pervert.
>>I want to meet you. Properly, I mean. ITRW.
There's a long silence. She can almost hear the hum of telephone wires, the low-level buzz of interference, the whistles and beeps of modems as their silence bounces across satellites, streaks from computer to computer, crackles down the endless telephone cables that line deserted highways.
>>Victor?
>>Is this a date, Claire?
She thinks how many men she's led on, how many men she's acted for, become a chimera, a figment of their dreams.
>>Sorry. Just friends. But believe me, it's important.
Another long pause. Or just some random time lag at the server?
>>Where are you?
>>New York. You?
She waits.
>>Near enough.
>>Where's good for you?
>>There's a cyber cafe in the East Village, on St Mark's Place. I could meet you there at seven.
>>How will I recognize you?
>> Log on to the site. I'll tell you then.
>>Thanks, Victor. I wouldn't ask unless I had to.
>>I know that, babycakes.
She gets to the cafe fifteen minutes early and settles herself at a PC in the corner.
Next to her, two Japanese girls are engaged in earnest cyber-chat. A businesswoman types a report energetically, banging her keyboard with two fingers. A teenager is playing a computer game.
There's a smattering of tourists; an older guy with a ponytail who looks as if he's writing code; a woman in a leather jacket with a pile of books next to her; some students, working, and a shifty-looking guy in a long raincoat, fiddling with a coffee mug that's already empty.
She logs on and asks:
>>Victor, you here?
>>I'm here, Claire.
>>Here in the website or here in the cafe?
>>Both. Tell me what you look like.
>>I'm twenty-five. I've got short blond hair. I'm wearing a black sweat top from Gap and Levi's. I'm in the corner.
>>You didn't tell me you were beautiful.
She looks up. The businesswoman smiles ruefully.
===OO=OOO=OO===
'But would you ever hurt anyone?'
Victor, whose real name is Patricia, says, 'In my fantasies, I dream about sexual domination. But I also dream about world peace, living with Kate Moss and being a professional guitarist. I acknowledge my obligations to society, Claire. I want to live amongst people, and that means that, like anybody else, I have to regulate my wants.' She shrugs. 'It's true that good submissives are hard to find, particularly if you're a fat old dyke. But my straight friends don't seem to have it any easier.'
Claire nods.
'Tell me what this is about,' Patricia suggests.
Claire holds back some of the details, but even in outline it's a pretty weird story.
'What are you going to do?' the other woman asks when she's done.
Claire sighs. 'I don't know. I just want to be certain one way or the other, I guess.'
'Then why not stick with the plan? Work with the police until they either arrest Christian or eliminate him?'
'When I started this thing,' Claire says, 'it seemed… crazy, but possible. Now, I'm not so sure.' She thinks for a moment. 'You know, until I did that stuff for Henry, I never understood how much control a woman has over a man, how easy it is to insert yourself into their fantasies. I'm convinced Christian was pretending to be into all this weird stuff just to keep the relationship going.'
'Speaking as someone who's into that weird stuff myself, I'd say he's a pretty lucky guy.'
'Sorry. I didn't—'
She brushes Claire's apology aside. 'Don't worry, I know what you meant. So how can I help, anyway?'
'According to the police, Christian visited Necropolis. I'm just wondering if there's any way. of checking up on that.'
'He's unlikely to have used his real name. Even if I've come across him, how would I know?'
'Well —
you both have an interest in Baudelaire, if that helps.'
'Hmm.' Patricia thinks. 'There was someone. It was a while ago now. Last fall? She called herself Blanche.'
'She?'
'Yes. Which isn't to say she was female, of course. Gender distinctions aren't very rigid in Necropolis, as you've probably gathered. Men pretend to be women, women pretend to be men. After a while it stops mattering. You just accept people on their own terms.'