“I have fourteen years experience in corporate security—”
“And you haven’t learned a thing from any of it except how to dot your i’s.” Dryke crossed his arms over his chest and shook his head in disgust. “Get him out of here.”
Mikhail Dryke studied the picture on the security monitor—a high corner view of Brian Elo White slouched with arrogant casualness in the sole chair in Interview 3, Transit Division, Houston Police Department.
“Cocky,” Dryke said at last, looking up at the soft-faced, hard-eyed woman standing beside him.
“He’s street,” said Lieutenant Eilise Alvarez. “Country manners and city morals. Good ol’ boy with an attitude.”
“How did you find him?”
“We picked his fingerprints out of the blood smears on the plaz,” Alvarez said. “He won’t dean on the other two, though. Not even with four years in front of him and a Victim’s Lien waiting for him when he comes out.”
“How is the Martinez woman?”
“Last I heard she was still in intensive care. She got racked.”
Dryke nodded and looked back at the screen. “This one have family?”
“No. Just relatives.”
“Any leverage at all?”
“No,” she said, and shook her head. “Twenty-one and as cold as they come. I don’t think you’re going to get any help from him.”
“I want to be alone with him.”
Alvarez nodded. “But the monitor stays on. I can’t sanction any hands-on. He’s in our custody. He’d walk. And you don’t want that. Besides, this kind has thick calluses.”
“I understand the rules.”
“Okay,” she said, standing. “Let’s go.”
Alvarez led him down the hall to the guard station at the interview suite, and the guard in turn escorted Dryke into Interview 3. White looked up lazily as he entered.
“So you’re the fuck that’s cheating me out of my sleep,” the youth said, his mouth twisting into something that was half-sneer, half-scowl.
“Yeah,” Dryke said, advancing toward the table. “I’m the fuck.”
“You’re no cuff,” White said, squinting. “Must be collar.”
“I’m both,” Dryke said. “Allied Transcon security.”
White pursed his lips and waggled his hand in a mocking gesture. “Little cuff, big collar,” he said, folding his arms across his chest and closing his eyes. “Nothing to me, beershit. Not worth my sleep.”
“I can get you out of here,” Dryke said.
“Scammer.”
“I can. Tonight.”
In a vaguely reptilian manner, the youth’s left eye opened slowly and regarded Dryke curiously. “Why?”
“That’s the magic question,” Dryke said. “Why?”
The other eye opened, wary. “Why what?”
“Why you and your friends came out to the observation platform Monday and racked the starheads.”
White pulled himself up out of his slouch and twisted on his chair until he was facing Dryke. “You cute cuff psych, want to draw a pretty of my head?”
“I told you who I am. Why’d you do it?”
“Didn’t.”
“Scammer. You’re not here for the food.”
A shrug. “Fagging cuffs can lie from A, who catches ’em? It’s their world.”
“Fine,” Dryke said, straightening. “Nice talking to you.” He started for the door.
“Hey,” White called. “Hey, collar. What d’you care?”
Dryke turned and regarded the youth coolly. “It’s none of your business why we care,” he said. “All you need to do is listen to the questions and roll out answers. You scam me, I walk. You help me, you walk. Choose.”
A self-satisfied smirk spread across White’s face. “Sure. Sure, we racked the ’heads. Pure gold Olympic. Fagging top jazz.”
“Whose idea was it?”
“Who d’you think, scammer?”
“What gave you the idea?”
White shrugged. “Saw the hit on the wire, looked like good jazz. Thought we’d join the party and make our own hit.” He laughed to himself. “ ’Heads seeing stars now.”
Dryke’s face was a mask. “Tell me about the ’heads.”
“Bore.”
“Tell me.”
“D’you know what I hate?” White said, coming up out of the chair, his body suddenly a coiled spring. “ ’Heads got going-away eyes.”
“What do you mean, going-away eyes?”
“Like they’re with you but they’re already gone. You seen ’em. They got their fagging noses in the air and their eyes blind with Starshine and they don’t see you. Like you’re a fagging ghost.” His face was hard and prideful. “Well, we made ’em see us. We gave ’em a proper good-bye.”
“They aren’t the ones who are going,” said Dryke. “The pioneers haven’t even been selected yet.”
“They’re all the same,” White said. “All the same to me.”
“Tell me about Homeworld.”
“Nothin’ to tell.”
“What about ‘For the Homeworld’ on the window?”
The youth sank back down into his seat and his casual slouch. “Jeremiah is cool jazz. You know brotherhood? He and me see the straight together.”
“Who is Jeremiah?”
“You know—Jeremiah. Man, he is the fucking Avenger. The knife in the night. And sweet. You can’t touch him.”
“You believe what he believes?”
“You hurt anybody who hurts you or yours. I believe that, aces.”
“Who did the starheads hurt?”
“They’re so fagging greedy. They get nine zeros handed to them and don’t even think about us,” White said. “What makes one of them worth a billion chits, huh?”
Months ago, a popular satiric comedian had added the Project to his list of favorite targets. Taking a recently published—though inaccurate—estimate of the cost per colonist to build and launch Memphis, he began asking his audiences, “So—what did you do with your billion dollars?”
It was inaccurate. It was unfair. Within Allied Transcon, at least above the work circle level, it was worth your life to admit that you found it funny. But outside the company, especially among those under twenty-five, the routine struck a chord. It had taken the comedian from the club circuit to the big arenas, and the question had joined the slanguage as a catch phrase.
The catch phrase had in turn spawned a hundred variations, from “When I get my billion…” to “He/she must have gotten my billion by mistake…” So it wasn’t much of a surprise for Dryke to hear another variation from Brian Elo White. But it wasn’t much of a pleasure, either, and Dryke had to fight off the temptation to give a sharp answer.
“Do you want to go?” he asked instead.
White snorted. “Hell, no.”
“Are you sure about that? What if I came here to offer you a chance to leave on Memphis?”
“Scammer.” White scowled. “You’d never take someone like me.”
“What if, Brian?” Dryke persisted. “Do you want to go?”
For a brief moment, White hesitated, caught between hope and skepticism. His eyes softened enough to admit a hint of wonder, and his face became that of a pensive child. Then the scowl returned, a cloud across the sun.
“You think I’m like them, beershit?”
“Do you want to go?”
“Spend the rest of my life with a bunch of ’heads, going nowhere fast? The hell with that. Fag ’em, fuck ’em, and rack ’em up. That’s all they’re good for. You understand?”
Nodding, Dryke said, “I understand.” Then he sprang forward, catlike. His right foot lashed out, catching the knee of the youth’s left leg and driving it downward. With the limb pinned between floor and chair, the knee hyperextended, then shattered with a horrible wet tearing sound that left the leg bent backward and started White screaming.