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211
There was a silence in the room. It stretched out for a long time. "What are you getting at, Harsk?"
Harsk shook his head. "You blind SOB. Do I need to spell it qut for you? Six people in the department and two National Guardsmen were with your dad when he croaked. He mentioned you. His ramblings are in the official transcripts. It's just that no one has cross-referenced them yet. It is only a matter of time before someone in the Fed is going to see how closely this Ziphead thing was engineered to look like the riots, and look up your dad. Poof, all hell breaks loose."
Harsk stood up. "Does the word scapegoat mean anything to you? What you think Mclntyre and Conrad would do if they knew this?"
Nohar felt the world slipping away from him. "They'd think I was . . ." "—running the show, you shithead. It's damn lucky me and the DA know different. Though, if it wasn't for two things, I'd lock you up just to be on the safe side."
"What two things?"
Harsk sat back down. "Me and the DA think you'd make a great martyr. If you get locked up, or shot, or anything, and word got out of your parentage, that could be the spark that blows everything up again. Right now, we have to deal with the rats—that's enough."
Nohar could feel his own past bearing down on him. It felt like he had spent a decade running away from his own tail. "You said, 'two things.' "
Harsk turned the chair away from Nohar. "The other reason is your typical interagency departmental screwup. Agent Isham seized your weapon and didn't turn it over to property. Somehow the Vind got lost in the shuffle and never got tagged as evidence. You can't have a weapons charge without a weapon—" Nohar looked at his gun, laid out on the table. He didn't need more of a hint. He bolstered the Vind and pocketed the magazines. "Is that it?"
212
S. ANDREW SWANN
"Fucking enough, ain't it? Do me a favor and stop being one of my problems." Nohar left Harsk's office.
When Nohar got to the lobby, dawn was breaking across a slate-gray sky. He was glad that they didn't make people pass through the weapons detectors on their way out.
The public comms in the lobby of police headquarters were in better than average condition—which meant maintenance spent at least one day a week cleaning off the piss and graffiti.
He called Manny collect, hoping to catch him before he left for work.
Angel answered the phone. "Fuck you be, Kit?"
"What the hell are you doing answering the phone? Nobody's supposed to know you're there—"
"Chill, Kit." Angel looked chastened. "Whafuck happen to you? Pinky's been up all night—" Nohar felt guilty for the way his spirit lifted when he heard Stephie was worried about him. "—and Doc's been riding a pisser ever since he got back last— Speak of the devil."
Manny came on the comm, pushing Angel aside. "Do you have any idea how lucky you are? I told myself I shouldn't ask where that hole in your hip came from—I was just about out the door to do more autopsies on rodents you shot—"
"Sorry, only place I could go."
Manny sighed. "I know, and I can't well turn you away. I hear that no one is pressing charges."
"It was self-defense."
"Next time would you go through the process? Where are you? You look like hell."
"Is that a professional diagnosis?" Nohar was still coated with algae. He probably smelled like the pit, but his nose had long ago gotten used to it. "When am I going to get the full story on what's going on?"
FORESTS OF THE NIGHT
213
"You don't want to know if you like to sleep nights. How's Stephie?"
Manny shrugged. "Better than most humans around a group of moreaus. She's been asking me a tot of questions, about you mostly." Manny looked off to the side of the screen and lowered his voice. "Stupid question, but did you—"
"Yes." And he'd do it again in a minute. Manny took a few seconds to respond.
"Damn." There were a few more seconds of silence while Manny recovered. "Well, did you know that they've reopened the Daryl Johnson murder investigation? Internal Affairs got wind that the Shaker division dropped the ball on purpose. Congressman Binder might get called before the House Ethics committee. Half the cops involved rolled over on him. It's all over the vids." "I got some idea of that from Harsk."
"My office is pissed. They've been given a court order to exhume Johnson's body, even if it wasn't the autopsy that got fugged."
They talked for about ten more minutes. The rest of the conversation consisted mostly of Nohar's stories of the DEA, and Manny's inquiries after his injuries. Neither of them raised the subject of Stephie Weir again.
Then Nohar called for a cab. He specified one with a driver.
Fifteen minutes later, a familiar Nissan Tory pulled up in front of the building. Same driver as yesterday— Autocab probably only had the one.
" 'Spected it was you."
Nohar climbed in the back and slipped his card into the meter. She pulled the cab away and started west toward the Main Avenue bridge. "Busy night. Clocked in this mornin' and, whoa, the rumors. Narcs bust into dispatch and take over a remote. They ain't no drivers. They trash the van with some poor fool inside it. Never trust those remotes ..."
214
S. ANDREW SWANK
The patter went on and Nohar dozed off.
She woke him up when they got there, probably after copping a few dollars from the timer. He didn't begrudge her and gave her a fifty dollar tip. "Thanks.
Any time you call you can ask for me special. Tell 'em you want Ruby. Shit, you're not bad—for a moreau."
Nohar stood in front of the whitewashed bar with no name and watched the Tory go. The heat was beginning to bake the early morning pavement, as well as the algae caked in his fur. But, for once—though clouds threatened—things were dry. He paused a moment where they had parked the Antaeus. The only trace of the car was one of his own bloody footprints on the asphalt.
He walked to Manny's and had barely limped up to the door when Stephie yanked him inside. Nohar followed, stumbling slightly. He could smell fear and excitement as she pulled him into the living room. Angel was there. Manny had already left for work.
Stephie was breathless. "They started broadcasting it five minutes ago. It's on all the stations. All over the comm—"
Angel pushed her away from in front of the comm. "Shhh-"
Nohar watched the newscast. There was a pink commentator standing in front of the video feed. "We are now going to see exclusive footage of the disaster.
Tad Updike, our Channel-N weatherman for the Cleveland area was on the scene. We now give you the uncut video as we received it."
The commentator faded, leaving Tad Updike there, in a safari jacket. He looked like a weatherman, slick black hair, insincere smile. He seemed to be standing on top of one of the terminal buildings at Hopkins International Airport, on the far west side of Cleveland.
"—it promises to be another record scorcher. Today, a high close to 33, and the National Weather Service is announcing the third UV hazard warning this FORESTS OF THE NIGHT
215
sum—cut it." A plane was approaching, rendering Updike nearly inaudible, "[bleep] damn planes, didn't anyone look at the flight schedu—"
The cameraman had panned to the plane, over Updike's right shoulder. It was a 747 retrofit, the huge electric turbofans clung to the reinforced wing like goiters. Something streaked up from the ground and hit the plane, behind the front landing gear—
A cherry-red ball of flame engulfed the lower front quarter of the aircraft.
It was still over a hundred meters in the air. The nose of the 747 was briefly engulfed in a cloud of inky-black smoke. The right wing dipped and the camera