A third voice, high-pitched and whiny, like a teenage boy’s, had sounded as if it’d been coming over a wire, crackly with static and sunspot interference. That one had been even less intelligible to November, though she’d been able to pick up on the rapid, stammering urgency in its words.
She’d been relieved to find McNihil all by himself. Unconscious, passed out on the shabby bed in one of the rooms nearly to the top of the hotel. A dead radio sat on a little table beside the bed, a thick, metallic-sheathed cable dangling out of its back like a baby boa constrictor with bare, unattached wire for a head. The room itself and the rest of its furnishings were scorched by the long-ago fire, but not completely destroyed; enough of the original carpet showed that November’s ash-muddy boots could leave prints on it. No video equipment, but no mystery woman, either, though a trace of scent, tobacco mixed with a cheaply heady perfume, filtered through the airborne cinders. As November stepped forward from the doorway, the toe of her boot dislodged a cigarette butt from the rubble on the floor. Fresh gray ash fell from the tip. Either somebody had been here with him, or McNihil had taken up smoking since she’d investigated his personal habits. She doubted the latter.
“Let’s go,” said November. “One foot in front of the other.” She pressed a hand against McNihil’s chest, trying to keep him from toppling over on her. “You can do it.”
“Where we going?” The trickle of blood from McNihil’s mouth had gone all the way down his throat and under his shirt collar. “Maybe… I don’t want to go…”
“Sure you do, McNihil.” She pulled him toward the hotel room’s doorway. “This place sucks. Not first-class accommodation at all.”
“Wait a minute.” He halted, planting himself unmovable in the middle of the room. His heavy-lidded eyes gazed at November with half-conscious obstinacy. “How do you know?”
November sighed, feeling his weight growing more oppressive against her. “Know what?”
He touched the side of his mouth, took his hand away, and stared uncomprehending at the blood on his fingertips. His gaze refocused on her. “How do you know… it’s me?”
“What’re you talking about? I’m looking right at you. Of course it’s you.”
“But… I’ve got a mask on…”
“Connect you do.” November swung him around toward the room’s chest of drawers; he swayed unsteadily against her as she halted. “Take a look for yourself.”
The mirror mounted on the chest was just clear enough to reflect McNihil’s image back at him. The asp-heads on either side of the glass peered at each other, bending slightly forward, eyes narrowing to slits. Suddenly, McNihil tilted his head back and laughed, hard enough to make the mirror shiver.
“Those sonsabitches…” He wiped his mouth, smearing the blood across his chin and fingers. “That’s really good. They really had me going there…”
November braced herself, keeping McNihil upright. “Who? I don’t know what you’re-”
“It’s what you get for going to a Snake Medicine™ clinic. You wind up getting connected, one way or another.” McNihil pulled himself up straight, maintaining his own balance for a moment. “That sneaky little Adder clome-he was in on it, along with everybody else on that side.”
“That side of what?”
“Never mind.” McNihil shook his head. “It’s a Wedge thing. You don’t need to understand.”
November figured she understood already. I was born knowing. If not the specific details, then the general picture.
“The anesthesia’s worn off,” said McNihil. With one hand, he poked himself in the side of his face, fingernail digging in to leave a little bloodless crescent-moon mark. He winced-unnecessarily-at the self-inflicted pain. “That I got shot up with at the clinic.”
“I don’t see any marks.” November still had his arm slung around her shoulders. “Except what you’re doing to yourself.”
“That’s the way it always is.” The eyes in McNihil’s face had cranked open another couple of increments, though the gaze inside them didn’t look much less muddled. “You remember stuff happening-they make you remember-and that’s supposed to be enough.” He looked over at November close to him, bringing her into focus. His expression turned puzzled, as though he were trying to remember who she was. “Why’d you come here?”
“I’m beginning to wonder,” said November sourly. The guy was getting on her nerves again, the way he had before, when she’d had any contact with him at all. Her skin might’ve been replaced at the hospital burn ward, but nothing had been done to her own memories, the ones that were coming back to her, like the furnishings of the ruined hotel. It didn’t make any difference that the skin she wore was McNihil’s money transubstantiated-it was still too thin to keep her from feeling annoyed. “Why I bothered. I was told there was some bad shit that was about to happen to you. That you didn’t even know what kind of trouble you were in-”
“Maybe.” McNihil rubbed his thumb across his bloodied fingertips. “But I found out soon enough.”
“I must’ve thought I owed you one.” She watched him smear the blood off onto the front of his shirt. “You bought this much help from me.”
“Who told you I was in trouble? Was it Harrisch?”
She nodded. “At the hospital-he came by to brag, among other things.”
“Yeah, well, he’d know, all right.” McNihil gave his head a shake, as though trying to dislodge the last remnants of sleep. “Since most of this particular bad shit comes from him.” He almost had to admire how thoroughly the DZ exec had made himself the latest incarnation of a long line of corporate evil-mongers. There’ll be others after him, thought McNihil. “Though this much bad shit-Harrisch must have problems keeping track of it sometimes.”
“Not when I talked to him.” November slid out from beneath McNihil’s arm. The guy still looked wobbly, but at least he didn’t appear to need help standing up anymore. “Harrisch seemed pretty on top of his affairs. At least to hear him tell it.”
“How long ago was that?”
November shrugged. “Maybe… about twelve hours or so ago.” She’d lost track; the only way she could calculate it was by figuring how long the journey up to this section of the Gloss might’ve taken. “Something like that.”
“Then he should be showing up pretty soon.” Using the sleeve of his jacket, McNihil wiped the rest of the blood from his chin and the side of his mouth. He turned away and spat a red wad out into the rubble on the floor. “Count on it.”
She believed it as well, but wanted to hear how McNihil could be so sure. “How do you know?”
“Because,” said McNihil simply, “the job’s done. That I came here to take care of for Harrisch. It’s all nailed down for him, but he’ll still want to hear all about it. That’s how his mind works. He wants to look straight into my eyes and have me tell him. That’s his kind of trophy. Bragging rights. He can’t just have what he wants; everybody’s gotta know about it, too.”
That was also true, November figured; it was probably part of the reason that Harrisch had come by the hospital and bent her ears about what he was planning on doing. Something wasn’t quite right about the explanation, though.
“Wait a minute.” November set her hands on her hips. “How would Harrisch know that you succeeded? The job he wanted you to do was to find out what happened to that Travelt person-the whole business with his prowler and where it disappeared to.” She studied the figure in front of her more closely. “Even if you did find Travelt’s prowler-how would Harrisch know that?” November’s gaze swept around the hotel room. “Is this place wired or something? Hidden watchcams?” She didn’t see any signs of it, any telltale lenses glinting among the cinders. “Or did Harrisch put some kind of tracking device on you, a bug so he’d know what you were doing?”