“New hands, the best. Go somewhere, not here. Only I need paper for police. You know?”
“Indeed I do. Wait a minute.” Skip clicked an icon, scrolled, wrote on a pad, and tore off the sheet. “Can you read this?”
Achille glanced at the sheet. “Sure, mon. Miguel Fonseca.”
“Correct. He may be able to help you. Tell him I sent you.”
“I got it, mon. What cost?”
Skip considered. “It should be under two hundred. He’ll ask a lot more if he knows how much you have.”
“You say him?”
“No. Of course not.”
“I don’ neither, mon.” Achille rose, grinning. “I got hands, know what I do here? I hold gun, you give me noras, an’ I run.”
“Would you really do that? I don’t believe you.”
Achille shrugged. “Maybe. I don’ know. Merci pour votre aide, mon. Get new hands, papers, go new place. Go Cayenne, maybe. You know Cayenne?”
Skip shook his head.
“I don’ neither. Maybe nice place for me. Only I don’ see you no more.” Achille held out his spiked hook.
Skip rose and shook it. “It’s possible we’ll meet again. I doubt it, but you never know.”
“Is so, mon.”
A minute or more after Achille had gone, Skip sat down. For a still longer time, he stared at nothing, sitting quietly with both hands flat upon the polished surface of his desk.
At last he picked up one of the compact telephones there. “Dianne, there’s a legal arm down at the south end of the city that represents all the armed services; I think it may be called the Judge Advocate’s Department. I want to talk to somebody there, a receptionist if I have to, or a liaison with the civilian justice establishment, if they have one.”
He was silent for a few seconds, listening.
“Yes, whatever you can get. I don’t know who I should be talking to, but I’ve got to start somewhere.” He hung up.
Another telephone chimed at once, and he answered it. Boris’s long, worried face filled the tiny screen. “I’ve been looking for Stanley Zygmunt, Christine Vergara, and Wendy Kaya, sir.”
Skip nodded. “What have you got?”
“Stanley Zygmunt is dead, sir. That was why I called. His body turned up this morning. As of now, I haven’t been able to find out where it was or how he died. Or even what condition it was in. They’re being very closemouthed about the whole thing.”
“I see.”
“The women seem to be missing, sir. Both of them. The police have them listed as missing persons.” Boris cleared his throat. “There’s no investigation of missing persons, sir. I’m sure you know. They just wait for something to show up on the computer.”
“Correct. Discontinue your inquiry—I don’t want to lose you.”
For a moment Boris was quiet; then he said, “Thank you, sir.”
“You’re welcome.” Skip hung up.
REFLECTION 19: Cobblestones
Someone once said that to destroy a man one need only bring his work to naught. I would say instead that to destroy a man the Fates need only grant his wish. For me—
What of Chelle? She went into space, saying that when she returned she would have a rich contracto and I a young and beautiful contracta. Chelle hasn’t been destroyed, nor would I wish her to be. As for me … Well, I wished more deeply. For Chelle on Johanna or Gehenna or wherever it was, there can only have been the wish to live. That wish, and that wish alone, if not always at least on many days. She will have wanted life and natural sleep, and no death, no pain.
She very nearly died. Without Jane Sims, she would have died, perhaps; she can’t have thought a lot about Earth and a rich contracto. I dreamed of Chelle for hours, almost every day. Granted one wish, I would have wished for what I got, Chelle stepping out of the shuttle, Chelle in my arms.
Yes, even though she did not know me.
I knew then what I had known earlier, although I was loath to admit it. I knew I’d have to win her again, win her a second time; and I told myself that as I had won her once I would win her again, and that I’d begin my second courtship with enormous advantages I had lacked for the first: wealth, position, and a contract already in force.
They have not availed. Should I give up? To give up would be to welcome death, to agree to it, to surrender to it. I will not. My wish has never changed. “If wishes were cobblestones there would be no grass.” Cobblestones could not hurt more.
I never welcomed death on the Rani. Some hid and some cowered, and I understood both all too well. The courtroom had given me so much practice, putting on a brave face for clients I knew would perish, pressing each argument with every fact I could lay hand to—and every sophistry. With conviction, above all. Conviction is the seed of passion, and before nine juries in ten passion will carry the day. How often have I won cases I knew were lost?
Ellen Woodward had a rifle that might have served some soldier fifty years ago, Connell a pistol Ellen had to explain to him, and Auciello a kitchen knife. I told all three to follow me and I kept my game face, though my heart pounded and my bowels had turned to slop. They followed. Ellen’s bullet took their leader in the face as he aimed at me, and we won.
I won’t surrender now. Third time’s the charm, they say. Once more, just once more, and I win. Omnia vincit amor.
20. ’TIL THEN
Winter had ended, spring had forgotten the city, and the heat had come. A lanky young woman with mismatched hands sweated beside two open windows, under a sodden sheet.
* * *
There was a street carnival, and it was already very late. She dodged a man with the pale face of an absentminded angel; he was juggling too many things to count, balls of silver and gold, painted eggs, a black-and-white kitten, a little brown rabbit that looked dead. The crowd jostled her and she jostled back, glad she was on skates when they had none.
A fire-eater lit his torch with a great puff of orange flame; and the rockets came in as if it had been a signal, rockets that flew without a sound, the explosions throwing stones and bodies high into the air. No one in the crowd paid the least attention. She tried to hit the dirt, to fall facedown and take what shelter she could from the cobblestone street; but the crowd pressed her too tightly, the big, fat, frowning, moon-faced man shoving her aside.
“Where’s Mick?” She had intended a demand and voiced a plea. An exploding rocket shook the ground and somehow harmed her head. “Where’s Mick? I know you know. Please tell me! I’ve got to find Mick.”
The moon-faced man seemed not to hear her and pushed past again, his expression intent and inscrutable.
“Mick! Skip! Skip!”
Someone had opened a cage of white doves, a cage that must have held thousands. They fluttered above the crowd, which fired on them.
“Don! Donny! Where are you, Donny? Where have you gone?”
Something was shaking her shoulders. She trembled, her teeth chattering, as a wounded dove spattered her feet with blood.
“Wake up, Chelle.”
Her face was wet. She blinked.
“That’s better. I’m right here, darling. Don’t be afraid.”
He lifted her, sat beside her, and put his arm around her. “What were you dreaming about?”
She wiped away tears with the edge of the sheet, and for a moment failed to recognize him.
“You were talking in your sleep. Then you started crying, and I thought I’d better wake you up.”
“I’ve got a headache.” Pressing her temples eased the pain, but only a little.
“Sure, darling,” Mick Tooley said. He left, and returned moments later with white tablets and a tinkling glass. Chelle swallowed the tablets without protest and sipped from the glass. Soda water.