I stubbed put the butt and looked back up at Celeste. She was standing in front of the desk with a faded expression on her face, her hands pressed together over her heart like a schoolgirl making a promise. When she realized I was looking up, her eyes focused again and her lips moved together soundlessly.
“What are you afraid of?” I asked again.
She looked at me with wide eyes, and for a moment the mask fell and she was naked and honest, and for all of that moment I wanted to hold her and kiss her again, but then it was gone, vanished, replaced by the version that was hard and cynical.
“I’m not afraid of anything,” she sneered.
“I see.”
She scooped the money off the desk and curled it back into her pocket. “I don’t know why I came here,” she said.
“I guess that makes two of us.”
“We’ll never be two of anything.” She knew it was a good enough line to leave on, and she turned to the door. I didn’t see any reason to stop her. She shut the door firmly behind her, and I listened as her footsteps trickled to silence in the corridor.
I went back to my pizza, but the cheese had clotted. I picked off a few more mushrooms, turned off the light, and went down to my car.
CHAPTER 18
INQUISITORS KORNFELD AND TELEPROMPTER WERE WAITing for me at my apartment. I looked around for Morgenlander but he wasn’t there. The apartment looked okay—if they’d gone through things, they’d done it gently—and Angwine was gone, all trace of him removed. The inquisitors had left depressions in the couch where they’d been sitting, but when I opened the door, they were on their feet. The depressions weren’t so close together that I had to feel left out of something; if Kornfeld and Teleprompter tussled, they didn’t do it on company time, or at least not on a stakeout. I would have preferred to think Catherine Teleprompter kept clear of the Office clowns, but it really wasn’t any of my business.
“Out late,” said Kornfeld, too jauntily. “On a case?”
“Not really,” I said. I was tired, despite the fresh infusion of make, and I wasn’t in the bantering mood. I wouldn’t have minded talking to Catherine, but Kornfeld seemed to want to express himself verbally for a change.
“You must have been somewhere,” he said. “We’ve been waiting since eight.”
“Thanks, it makes the place feel lived in. I really appreciate it.”
“You’ve been warned off this case. More than once.”
“I’ve been warned off this case even more than you think. It’s getting pretty dull.”
The door was still open. Kornfeld went around me and closed it. “We don’t really want to talk about the case. The case is closed. We wanted to let you know that Orton Angwine is karmically defunct. As far as we’re concerned, that’s the end of it.”
“Great.” I turned away from Kornfeld and faced Catherine Teleprompter. She seemed smaller and less formidable out of the Office, which didn’t stop me from wanting to grab hold of her—it just made it seem more possible. She had her black waterfall of hair pinned back with a clasp this time, and it gave me a nice view of her throat. I watched it bob as our eyes locked, but she didn’t say anything.
“There’s just one more piece of business,” said Kornfeld from behind me. “I need your card.”
“Who gets credit for the nab?” I asked as I dug in my pocket for my card. “Morgenlander?”
“Morgenlander was transferred off the case this afternoon,” said Kornfeld. “He wasn’t familiar enough with the beat. It was a mistake bringing him in.”
I handed him my card. Kornfeld took it and switched on his magnet. I assumed this was the part where they built me back up to an acceptable level as closure to the case. Sort of a payoff for swallowing their interpretation of events without gagging too loudly. The red light on Kornfeld’s magnet blinked, and he ran it across my card, then handed the card back.
“How’d I do?” I asked.
“You’re down to twenty-five points, Metcalf. Your file is up for review. Don’t ask me any more questions or I’ll be forced to cave your face in.”
I was stunned. I put my card in my pocket and sat down on the couch, oblivious to Catherine Teleprompter, the case forgotten. My karma hadn’t been this low since I first dropped out of the Office. It made me feel nauseous. I could tell myself it was just a scare tactic, that karma didn’t really mean anything anyway, that all I cared about was having the minimum so I could walk the streets—I could think all those things, but it still made me sick to my stomach to have it get so low. I could feel the moisture on my tongue evaporating.
Catherine stepped past me like I was some kind of car wreck and went to join Kornfeld at the door. I barely had the heart it took to look back up. Kornfeld’s paw was on the doorknob, but he wasn’t going anywhere yet, just watching me suffer on the couch, and when our eyes met, he smiled.
I’d underestimated him. I assumed anyone who started out gut-punching you in an elevator couldn’t have all that much else in his arsenal. For instance, I had no idea he could smile, let alone at such an inappropriate time.
“You’re a big man, Kornfeld,” I said. “But not too big to fit in Phoneblum’s pocket. He really knows how to pick ‘em. You and the kangaroo.”
“You’re talking off the top of your head,” said Kornfeld.
“And you’re talking through a buttonhole on your shirt collar. The whole thing stinks of Phoneblum’s last-minute patch-up. Only the plaster won’t hold over a gap this big.” The first thing that goes is my sense of metaphor. “You brought Morgenlander in for show and even he knew it wasn’t clean. What you did to my card just shows how bad you’re scared.”
“What I did to your card came from the top,” said Kornfeld evenly. “I don’t make karma decisions. You ought to know that.”
“Don’t make me laugh. You’re the inquisitor on the case. Morgenlander is out—you said it yourself.”
“The order came from higher up. It’s not my problem if you forgot how to play the game, Metcalf. The rules haven’t changed.”
I looked at Catherine. She didn’t want to look away, but that meant she ended up blinking to break the tension. “You heard him,” I said to her. “It’s a game. You don’t have to feel bad about it. I forgot how to play.”
She still didn’t say anything.
“How’d you end up riding around with Kornfeld anyway?” I asked her. “Didn’t you work the day shift?”
“I expressed interest in the case,” she said.
I couldn’t help smiling. She looked like she wanted to say something but couldn’t in front of Kornfeld—or maybe that was just wishful thinking on my part. There was half a minute of awkward silence and then she opened the door and went out into the hall. Kornfeld closed it again and said: “I didn’t take away your license.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“No,” he said. “I mean I meant to. Hand it over.”
I gave him the license. He folded it into his jacket pocket along with his magnet, and straightened his coat on his shoulders with a tug at the collar. He looked at me with a deadpan expression for what I guess he thought was the last time, then shrugged and reached for the door.
I almost let him leave, I swear to God. But something took over in me and I came out of the couch and converged on him, grabbing his collar where he’d just adjusted it and pinning him against the door with my elbows. His face turned red and his mouth opened to speak, but he didn’t move except to squirm, and nothing came out of his mouth. I could feel the pulse of his neck against the base of my thumb. It felt nice and soft. “I’ll cost you everything you cost me and more,” I said. “I’ll break you wide open. That’s a promise.”