“We don’t know who that was. Claimed to be her. Looked like Rae Archer. Had her fingerprints.”
“But—”
“But the real Rae Archer is still in California. We talked to her. She claims not to know anything about this, and I think we believe her.”
They were joined by an attractive woman whose tense face was as pale as her ash-blonde hair. She was tightening a bandage around her right hand. “This is Mr. Sutton?”
“Yeah,” Swanwick said. “He’s a little confused.”
“Like we aren’t.” She was the same height as Russell and fixed him with her large gray eyes. The pupils were pinpoints from medication. “My name is Angela Smith.”
“And you’re a spy?”
“An investigator.”
He stared at her weird eyes. “And this is not a movie.”
“I wish to God it was. We could strike the set and start over.” To Swanwick: “You’re going to have to go with the police in a minute. There should be a lawyer by the time you get to the station.” She swiveled back to Russell. “You knew Rae Archer better than anybody else. You were intimate with her.”
He nodded cautiously, and then shook his head. “Look, she couldn’t do this. Not at all.”
“So maybe it wasn’t her,” Swanwick said quickly. “Whoever it was is pretty damned dangerous, and on the loose.”
“We have to talk but can’t go up to the room,” Angela Smith said. “Get in the way of the cops.” She gestured toward the bar with her bandaged hand. “Uncle Sam will buy you a beer.”
One of the few tables in the small bar was unoccupied. The bartender came over and took their order. The window that looked out over the park and the harbor showed a growing crowd of curious people, held back by two policemen in incongruous parade uniforms.
“Just for a minute, try to think of Rae as a spy,” Swanwick said. “Did you ever get the feeling she was pumping you for information?”
That had an annoying alternate interpretation. “Not really,” Russell said with some asperity. “We’re both working on the same thing. We talked about it all the time. So does everyone else on the project.”
“Think about it this way—ow!” Gesturing, she had bumped her bandaged knuckle. “She’s supposed to be an astronomer. Did she seem like one to you?”
“No doubt about that. You’d have to ask Dr. Dagmar to be absolutely sure; she’s our top astronomer. But Rae seems to really know her stuff, a lot more than me. I’m just a marine engineer, but I’ve been into astronomy all my life.”
Swanwick nodded. “Did she show any special interest in defense or military applications of this thing? The artifact?”
He thought about that for a moment. “Defense? I can say no almost without exception, since that’s an angle I’m not interested in. I’d remember if she tried to ‘pump’ me on that.”
A policeman came into the bar, holding a sawed-off double- barreled shotgun in a heavy plastic bag. Swanwick stood up.
“Did you shoot that woman with this?”
“In self-defense. She was—”
“Ya, ya.” He gestured to a big officer behind him, who came around quickly with handcuffs.
“That won’t be necessary,” Swanwick said, but the big man spun him around roughly and snapped them on. “She had a gun,” he said.
“And you had this in your room for the little mice,” the first policeman said. He turned to Russell. “Dr. Sutton, please wait here with your lady. A man will take your statement soon.”
They watched the three of them leave. “He shot her … with that?”
“Hit her, too. Blew off her arm.” There was a moment of dead silence. The people at the other tables were looking at them. She let a breath out in a puff. “Speaking of ‘ladies’?”
He pointed. “Behind the gift counter, down the hall to the left.”
She picked up her purse. “I’ll be right back.”
Unsurprisingly, he never saw her again.
—40—
Once on the other side of the reef, the changeling stayed in the relatively deep water, plying west slowly toward the airport at Faleolo. There was a plane out the next day, to Honolulu.
It would take human form and come ashore after dark. Hide for awhile and then walk into the airport. Then go about the problem of getting a ticket, without passport or credit cards. It could create counterfeit cash, but even under normal circumstances, it would look suspicious to try to purchase an expensive ticket with cash. Maybe a Samoan could get away with it, but it didn’t know the language well enough to pass among Samoans.
Eighty or ninety years ago, it would have just isolated someone, killed him, and used his identity and ticket. That was repugnant now. Maybe the man who shot Rae’s arm off. The world might be a better place without him.
By the time it got to Faleolo, it had a better plan. Not without risk, but it could always escape into the water again. They’d eventually catch on to that. But it had escaped from a few jails in its time, too.
It went a half mile past Faleolo, to get away from the light. The moon, not yet first quarter, was no problem. The changeling sat in the shallows and changed.
About a pound of its substance became a plastic bag full of circulated fifty- and hundred-dollar bills. Another twelve pounds, a light knapsack with a change of dirty clothing and a wallet that had enough Samoan tala for a few cab rides and a night of drinking, with an American Universal ID and a California driver’s license, matching the persona it painfully built. Newt Martin, a common type of denizen in this corner of the world. Young, restless; escaping from something. Money enough for food and drugs and a flop, and maybe a little more. Maybe a lot.
It made a passport that would pass visual inspection. The computer at passport control wouldn’t be fooled.
At about eight thirty it crept ashore, squeezed the water out of its long blond hair, and walked down to the airport. It got into a cab and told the man to take him to the clock.
It was a simple plan of action. Find a young American desperate enough to temporarily “lose” his wallet and passport and ticket out, in exchange for a lot of money. The kid wouldn’t find out until later that there was a little more than that involved.
“The clock” is an early-twentieth-century tower in the center of town, the main landmark. The changeling paid off the cab and walked down Beach Road toward the harbor. It knew there were some seedy-looking bars about halfway to Aggie Grey’s, but it had never been inside one. “Rae Archer” wouldn’t have done that. Newt Martin definitely would.
Bad Billy’s looked promising. Smelled right even from the sidewalk, spilled beer and stale cigarette smoke. Loud rap music from twenty years ago. The changeling sidled in through a mass of people standing in the door, for the air, and went to the bar. There were only two other customers there, the rest of the clientele either shooting pool or sitting in clusters of folding chairs around small tables full of drinks, talking loudly in two languages. Its keen hearing picked up a third, a French couple away in a corner, whispering about the scene around them.
One of the English conversations was about the strange goings- on at Aggie’s today. One of the Samoans had a friend in the police, and he said that he said it was an industrial espionage deal that had gone bad.
Right, somebody said—shotguns and old Jackie Chan superspies. It was just a publicity gag for the movie.
Wanting to draw attention, the changeling ordered a double martini. It had to explain what that meant, and wound up with a half-liter glass of cheap gin and ice with a quarter lime floating on top. (Having been a barmaid itself, it knew the smell of cheap gin. This stuff came in big plastic recycled soft-drink bottles from a distillery outside of town.)