“You mean the slave camps,” I said, and shuddered. I hoped it didn’t show. I got the feeling that Phoneblum was subtly boasting, that he just couldn’t help showing off.
“Yes.”
“I’ve heard that rumor,” I said, regaining my poise. “Personally I don’t see much difference between the big freeze and crypto-life with a slavebox on your skull. But if I see Angwine again, I’ll ask him which he prefers and let you know—maybe you can arrange something.”
I was ready to leave, and I started leaving. I was over to the elevator before I realized there was a keyhole where the button should have been.
“It’s rude of you to suggest I could arrange such a thing,” said Phoneblum, ever coy. But when I turned around, I saw he wasn’t smiling anymore. “But then, I’m learning to expect that of you. You’re rude generally.”
“Thanks.”
“Now you want to leave.”
“That’s right.”
“I’d like to hear you say you’ll leave the case alone.”
“I’d like to be able to say it.”
Phoneblum frowned. He picked up the phone on the desk and pressed a single button. “Yes,” he said immediately. “Send Joey downstairs, Mr. Rose. Our visitor is ready to leave.”
He put down the phone. “Please—have another drink while you wait.”
I didn’t get a chance to refuse his offer. The elevator door opened behind me, and before I could turn, something dull and heavy smashed itself into the back of my neck. I had long enough to think: the kangaroo had found his chance. Then the floor peeled up in a curl to embrace the sides of my head, and the weave of the carpet spiraled up to tickle the inside of my nose. It was a very interesting sensation.
CHAPTER 17
I CAME TO IN MY CAR. I COULD THANK THEM FOR THAT. They put my keys back in the wrong pocket, so I knew they’d gone through my clothes, but otherwise it was pretty much as if I’d fallen asleep in the car on a stakeout—except for the pulse of pain in my neck and the ringing in my ears.
I was alone. I toned my head slowly, experimenting with my neck, and looked out the passenger window. The holographic house stood still and dark and peaceful, looking very much the same as when I’d first approached it. I’d learned a few of its secrets since then, but they didn’t show on the house. With a little luck the world could end, and that house would still be projected onto the crest of the hill, still and dark and peaceful. It was almost comforting.
I looked at my watch. It was ten. I’d spent two hours with Phoneblum, and maybe half an hour out cold in my car. I was hungry and I needed a line of make, and after that I might need a drink—I wasn’t sure yet. I needed to sort out what I’d learned from Phoneblum and figure out where it left me. The big man had his fingers all over the case, but I didn’t see any clear-cut culpability for the murders, not yet.
All I knew was that I had to go back two and a half years, to when Celeste met Maynard Stanhunt, and Pansy Greenleaf acquired her baby and her house. What happened then, whatever it was, set the stage for everything that followed.
I’d also grown more than a little curious about the exact nature of Phoneblum’s racket. If he supplied Pansy with her illegal Blanketrol, it would explain one of the key lines of influence. And if he really had as much sway with the Office as he suggested, I needed to know—to protect myself.
Other, more basic questions remained unanswered. What had Maynard Stanhunt been doing in that motel room? I could have laughed at myself, but I wasn’t in a laughing mood.
I took a minute to rub the back of my neck, then started the car and drove, aimlessly, down into the flats. I had a feeling the Office would be waiting for me when I got home, and I wasn’t quite ready to face them. They would want answers I didn’t have, to questions I would rather ask than be asked. I’d left them Angwine gift-wrapped, but I had a feeling it wasn’t as easy as that.
There was some kind of factionalism going on between Morgenlander and Phoneblum and their separate spheres of influence, and until I understood how things had shaken out, it was best to stay out of the Office’s hands. If I knew the Office machinery, they’d seize on the killing of the sheep as the last nail in Angwine’s coffin—but I had to wait until the news came out tomorrow morning and made it official. A closed case would be harder to solve, but I’d step on fewer toes trying.
Everything pointed towards spending some time in my office. I could order a sandwich and lay out some lines and wait for the stakeout in my apartment to get tired and go home. If the inquisitors wanted me, they could find me:—I wouldn’t be hiding, just cooling my heels. I liked the place at night; cool, dark, and no dentist. Maybe I’d get some thinking done.
I guess I should learn that it’s never that simple. When I left the elevator, I smelled perfume, and it got stronger as I went down the hallway to my office. There wasn’t anybody in the corridor, but the door to the waiting room was unlocked, and inside, sitting cross-legged on the couch, was Celeste Stanhunt. I must have surprised her, because she quickly swung her legs off the couch and arranged her skirt down over her knees. It didn’t matter. I don’t possess an eidetic memory, but I had a picture of her knees—and the creamy inches of skin above them—burned into my consciousness from the brief flash as I walked in. I could draw on that for reference if I needed to.
“Metcalf,” she said, and it sounded like she’d been practicing while she waited.
“How’d you get in?”
“I came earlier—”
“The dentist.”
“Yes. Don’t be angry.”
“I’m not angry,” I said, and I crossed the room and unlocked the door to my inner office. “I’m tired and hungry and my head hurts. I’m tired of talking.”
She followed me in. “Pansy said you’d been to the house.”
“That’s right. I was working.”
I sat down behind the desk and wiped at the wooden surface with my forearm, took out the vial of new make, and sprinkled a healthy portion of it onto the desktop. I guess Celeste figured out that for the moment she wasn’t the primary focus of my attention. She sat quietly in the chair opposite the desk and waited while I snorted up some lines.
“You hungry?” I asked.
She shook her head as if the question frightened her. I called downstairs and ordered a pizza. I had to wheedle a bit to get them to put mushrooms on a small, but they finally came around. I put down the phone and leaned back in my chair and savored the feel of the make flushing through my system. Like looking at the world through a rose-colored bloodstream, or something. Celeste arranged herself in the seat and ended up showing knee again, which quickly refocused my attention.
“Where were you when I came by the house?” I asked.
“You ask too many questions. It makes me nervous.”
“Try answering one. I hear it helps.”
She blinked at me. “I—Grover Testafer called me. We met for lunch.”
“What for?”
“He wanted to talk about the practice—the settlement of Maynard’s share. He wanted to talk about Pansy’s brother, and about you—”
“Do you stand to benefit from Maynard’s death?”
She looked at me sharply, and I got a momentary glimpse of the tough girl who confronted me the first time, on Cranberry Street. Then she smoothed her feathers back down and her voice came out pretty. “Not really. I’ll probably turn it over to a lawyer to handle. I don’t want anything to do with it. Maynard had a substantial income but very few assets…”
“You sound like you know what you’re talking about.”