CHAPTER TEN
I’d seen Selene do her magic many times over the years, but it never ceased to amaze me. She started at the left end of the desk, going through each stack of paper, sniffing at each page. She continued to the right, methodically checking the papers, the wood and brass of the desk proper, and even a picture frame perched on top of the desk that showed a seascape framed by three half-lit moons. I stayed well back out of her way, half of my attention on her and the rest on the closed door Tirano had disappeared behind. If I’d been hunting for something, and if that search had been rudely interrupted by a couple of unhappy Patth, I’d find an excuse to wander out here and see if my rescuers had come up with the grand prize.
But the door remained closed. Selene finished with the papers and desktop, then stooped down and sniffed at each of the drawers. A quick tug on the handles to confirm they were all locked, and she straightened up. “Well?” I prompted.
“Tirano started here,” she said, pointing to the right edge of the desk. “Going through all the papers. He reached this spot before stopping.”
She shifted her finger to a stack of papers near the center of the desktop, a stack that was noticeably less neat than all the others. “Interrupted by the door slamming open behind him, I assume?” I suggested.
“I think so, yes,” Selene said. “Up to this point his touch had been very orderly, holding down the left edge of each stack and rifling through the papers from the right-hand side.”
I nodded. It was a standard way of looking at each page while leaving the stack in the same position and with mostly the same neatness as it started with. “But being startled that way threw off his precision.”
“Exactly,” Selene said. “He tried each of the drawers, too, but doesn’t seem to have gotten into them.”
“That probably would have been the next step after checking the desktop,” I said. “What about Kiolven and Venikel?”
“That’s one of the curious points,” Selene said. “As far as I can tell, they never came over here.”
“Really,” I said, frowning at the desk. “They came all the way to Lukki’s place and broke in and didn’t even look?”
“If they did, I can’t find any indication,” Selene said. “There’s no smell of gloves, either.”
“Curious, indeed,” I said. “You implied there were other such points?”
“Only one, but a very big one,” she said. “Galfvi was also here, before Tirano, and was also searching the desk.”
“Was he interrupted by Tirano?”
“I don’t think so.” Selene traced out an arc through the air that went from the left-hand side of the desk to about a third of the way to the right. “He started at the left side and stopped right here. In fact”—she picked up that stack of paper and pulled off the top three sheets—“this is as far down as he got.”
I took the three pages, frowning as I looked over them. They were real estate tax invoices: two of them for buildings inside Bilswift, the third for a parcel of land in the forested area south of town. I peered at the top sheet of the stack Selene was still holding and saw that it was another invoice. “So he was looking for some building or land Lukki owned,” I said. “Should be straightforward enough. We take all of them to the local tax office and see which one is missing.”
“I’m afraid it won’t be that easy,” Selene warned. “Each invoice has a different owner name on it.”
I took another look. She was right. “Well, isn’t that convenient,” I growled. “So Lukki used multiple names and multiple accounts to keep her assets hidden, and in general to be a pain in the butt.”
“Yes,” Selene said. “Still, it’s nice to see someone still using the classics.”
“I suppose,” I said. Back in our bounty hunter days we’d spent many a tedious hour digging through targets’ assets, accounts, and holdings in search of the bedrock that would finally give us a lead on where they were holed up. “But hey, if it works, it works. So: Bottom line is we don’t know where this chunk of real estate is, we don’t know what name it’s under, and we don’t know why everyone wants it.”
“Not everyone,” Selene corrected. “Just Galfvi and Tirano.”
“Just Galfvi and Tirano?” I asked, frowning at the papers. “There aren’t any other scents here?”
“There are a few in the room,” Selene said. “Detective-Sergeant Kreega and Badgeman Zilor were here within the past couple of days.”
“Checking for clues at the victim’s home,” I said, nodding. Standard practice, and you didn’t need a warrant to look through the victim’s home and effects. “Anyone else?”
“Your late friend Willie was here, as were three others,” Selene said. “One was probably Ms. Parsons herself—there was the same scent in the badgeman office where they took her body when we went to examine the knife that had cut Galfvi. The other two were probably either associates or clients. But the latter scents are at least a week old, and none of them are on these papers.”
My phone vibed. “Hold that thought,” I said, pulling out the phone and looking at the ID display. The number wasn’t one I recognized, but with the kind of life Selene and I led unidentified numbers were hardly uncommon. I keyed it on and held it to my ear. “Roarke.”
“Detective-Sergeant Kreega,” an all-too familiar voice came back. “I trust I’m not interrupting anything important?”
“No, not at all,” I assured her, wincing. Not quite the last person in the Spiral I wanted to talk to right now, but pretty high on that list. “We were just out sampling the Bilswift nightlife.”
“Were you, now,” Kreega said, her tone one of polite disbelief. “Where are you right now?”
“Just wandering the streets,” I said evasively, trying to visualize the city maps I’d looked at earlier. My phone was gimmicked to show its location as half a kilometer northeast of where it really was, which could come in handy if someone with hostile intentions toward me hacked into it.
On the other hand, if Kreega had obtained a warrant to track my phone, and if that track currently showed us standing in the middle of the river, there were likely to be a few awkward questions.
There was a movement at the corner of my eye, and I looked over as Selene swiveled her info pad around to face me, its display showing a map of Bilswift. In the center of the map was a glowing spot where she had marked my phone’s ostensible position at the eastern edge of the Wellington district. A little far out, but still within city limits. “I can see a little park across the street,” I added, noting the listing on Selene’s map. “Don’t know which one.”
“Not important,” she said. “You wouldn’t happen to have dropped by Javersin Brothers Seafood this evening, would you?”
I squeezed the phone a little harder. Had someone seen us go into the place? “We drove past it,” I said, picking my words carefully, “but it was already boarded up for the night. Why? Did Tirano or Galfvi come back?”
“Interesting question,” Kreega said, her voice going grim. “If one of them did, I’d very much like to talk to him. Darnell and Bicks Javersin have both been shot.”
“Shot?” I echoed, lacing my tone with surprise and disbelief. “How did—? Are they all right?”
“Hardly,” Kreega said, and I thought I could hear a hint of disappointment in her voice. Probably hoping I’d be focused so much on my dramatics that I’d make the rookie mistake of forgetting which details I wasn’t supposed to know. “They’re dead.”
“Damn,” I breathed. “What happened? Another robbery?”
“We don’t know,” she said. “We’ve got a call in to the Poconos Barline dealer in Tranlisoa to get the factory override combination for the shop’s safe, but until we hear back from them we’re basically stuck. Unless you think your partner could open it for us?”
“I don’t know,” I said, pretending I was thinking through a brand-new idea. “I remember she said it was doable, but that it would take time to run all the possible combinations. You want me to ask her if she wants to try?”
“No, we’ll hold off on that for now,” Kreega said, again a bit reluctantly. Wanting to watch Selene in action, I guessed, but with the side concern about inviting a potential suspect into a crime scene. “If the dealer hasn’t gotten back to us by tomorrow morning, maybe we’ll give it a go. I just wanted to know if it was an option.”
“We’re happy to help in any way we can,” I assured her. “Let me know if you change your mind. You obviously already have my number.”
“Does that bother you?”
“Not at all,” I said. “I assume you got it from the spaceport maintenance people. I was just surprised at your call, that’s all. But I do appreciate you letting us know about the Javersin brothers.”
“Well, you do seem interested in what’s happening in that part of town,” Kreega said pointedly. “I looked up your record, Mr. Roarke. You have a habit of leaving messes in your wake.”
“Correlation doesn’t necessarily imply causality,” I pointed out. “It’s usually more a matter of trouble gathering around me than it is of me generating it.”
“Either way, Bilswift has enough problems of its own without you adding to them,” she said. “I suggest you finish whatever business you have in our town as quickly as possible and then leave.”
“We’re doing our best,” I promised, resisting the urge to point out that she’d also told us not to leave the planet and ask her to make up her mind. “Anything else?”
“Not at the moment,” she said. “Enjoy your walk.”
“We will. Good night, Detective-Sergeant.”
“Good night, Mr. Roarke.”
I keyed off and put the phone away. “You heard?” I asked Selene.
She nodded. “She’s in over her head,” she said quietly.
“Multiple murders will do that,” I agreed. “Especially when you have no idea who or what in Bilswift is worth killing this many people over.” I stared at the desk again as I put my phone away. “Maybe it’s time we met that someone.”
Her pupils frowned. “What do you mean?”
“I mean there’s someone whose scent ought to be on those papers besides Galfvi’s and Tirano’s,” I said. “Why don’t you head to the bedroom area and find someplace to sleep? Preferably where you can also keep an eye on Tirano.”
Her pupils shifted from uncertain to suspicious. “Or I could just stay out here with you.”
“I’d rather make sure Tirano doesn’t go missing again,” I said. “Don’t worry, I’m not expecting any trouble. At least, nothing I can’t handle.”
“All right,” she said reluctantly. She clearly didn’t like where this conversation was going, but also knew it would be useless to continue arguing the point. “You’ll be staying here?”
“Yes,” I confirmed. Or at least I’d be staying if the person I was expecting to show up decided instead to go to bed early. But there was no point worrying Selene with such details.
“All right.” She pointed at my phone. “Do let me know what’s happening when you go out later.”
I huffed out a sigh, wondering why I even bothered trying. “Sure,” I said. “Just get some rest, okay? And keep an eye on Tirano.”
“I will,” she said. “Be careful.”
“Always.”
She headed through the doorway to the rear of the apartment, closing the door behind her. I crossed over to the main door, unfastened the deadbolt, and turned out all the lights. Finding a comfortable spot behind the couch where I could watch both the door and the desk, I wadded my raincoat into a slightly damp pillow and settled down to wait. It had been a long day, and I should at least be able to get some rest before the evening got interesting.
But before I could do so, there were a couple of modifications I had to make to my phone.
Selene had asked me to keep in touch if I went out tonight. But as my father used to say, Promise them whatever they want, give them whatever they think they want, then go ahead and do whatever you want. Odds are they won’t even notice.
* * *
I’d been resting for about an hour, and was starting to doze off, when I was snapped back to alertness by the sound of the door across the room being stealthily opened. I sat up, staying out of sight while the wedge of light spilling in from the hallway disappeared and was replaced by the smaller glow of a flashlight.
I moved to the other end of the couch as the glow crossed the common room. If he started to open the door leading to the bedroom area, I needed to have a warning shot set up and ready to fire.
I lined up my plasmic on the door. Actually, given that there were already four murders connected to this case, I might not even bother with a warning.
Fortunately for him, the light stopped at the desk. I heard the sound of rustling papers and cautiously eased my head around the side of the couch.
Standing framed in the backwash glow, his expression one of intense concentration as he leafed rapidly through the stack of real estate invoices, was my old human pinball buddy Braun.
I smiled tightly. Exactly as I’d hoped and expected. Of all the people who should be interested in this unknown chunk of the late Lukki Parsons’ property, her close associate Braun should be at the top of the list. The fact that his scent hadn’t already been on the papers offered two possibilities: one, that he already knew all he needed to about the location, in which case he’d probably already cleared out whatever made it interesting in the first place; or two, that he’d been lying low but would eventually join the parade of people digging through his boss’s desk.
I’d told Selene earlier that evening that Lukki didn’t strike me as the trusting sort. Apparently, that lack of trust had extended even to her two bodyguards.
I watched as Braun leafed his way through that first stack of papers and then moved on to the next, and the next, and the next. From the quickness of his scan it was clear he knew what he was looking for, but wasn’t finding it. He went through everything on the desk and then stopped, playing his light on the locked drawers. He tried each in turn, then paused a moment. Possibly wondering if he could force them quietly enough and deciding against it.
Abruptly, he spun around and headed back across the room. Again, as I’d expected. He’d hoped to find the missing paper on Lukki’s desk, had looked through the stack it should have been in, had gone through all the others where it might have been misfiled, and had come up dry. Stashing away a single paper by itself in a locked drawer might seem like a good option, but he clearly knew that it was instead the perfect way to draw unwanted attention to it.
He reached the door, opened it to another flood of hallway light, and slipped out. I waited thirty seconds after the door closed behind him, then grabbed my raincoat and hat and followed.
The heavy rain Selene and I had slogged through earlier had slowed to a light and intermittent drizzle. The sun had long since set, but the night was still young and the Bilswift citizenry had resurfaced to patronize the shops, restaurants, and tavernos, filling the streets and walkways with a comfortable sprinkling of people and vehicles.
Which, from my point of view, was about as good as it ever got. Trying to follow someone along a deserted street was as obvious as carrying a sign to that effect, while attempting the same in a pressing crowd offered a wary target an abundance of opportunities to slip their leash. Bilswift’s traffic was the perfect medium, allowing me to stay anonymous while easily keeping Braun’s imposing bulk in sight. I stayed a cautious half block behind him, watching his confident stride and hoping he wasn’t headed for a car. If that happened, my evening was over, because our rental was parked too far away for me to get to it in time to continue the chase.
Still, the urgency I’d sensed in his search of Lukki’s desk, not to mention the risk involved in sneaking into a place he clearly suspected was occupied, suggested that he was running a tight schedule. Given Lukki’s untimely death, plus her self-adopted title as a dealer in exotics, that in turn pointed to a meeting with one or more of her clients.
And if Galfvi had indeed helped himself to the golden ticket, as Selene’s analysis seemed to indicate, there was a better than average chance the young Patth would also be at the meeting, invited or otherwise. If so, I ought to be able to grab him and finally get some answers.
My initial encounter with Lukki had been at Panza’s Café, which seemed to be her primary spot for meeting new clients and doing business with established ones. But I’d dealt with enough underworld figures to know that they always had another, more anonymous place for the truly dark transactions. I was expecting Braun to be heading to such a place, and I wasn’t disappointed. Barely three minutes after leaving Lukki’s apartment he arrived at what looked to be a low-class taverno with a faded sign identifying it as THE BLACK ROSE. Bypassing the main entrance, he headed down the alley along the building’s western wall to an unmarked and unlit side door. He tapped twice, someone inside opened the door, and he disappeared inside.
I’d known a few bounty hunters who would have responded to a situation like this by boldly walking up to the side door, knocking, and politely asking for the person they were tailing. But as my father used to say, Bluffing is your emergency fund. Don’t spend it unless you’ve run out of all your other cash. Ignoring the side door, I went instead to the main entrance and walked in.
The taverno was smaller and considerably darker than Panza’s, with an overall sense of furtive edginess. Not just low-class, but probably a watering hole for some of Bilswift’s criminal element. Probably didn’t have decent barbeque, either. Out of the corners of my eyes I could see the patrons at the various tables and booths watching me as I made my way toward the bar at the back. Most of the clientele were human, but I spotted one table occupied by four Saffi and another hosting a pair of Narchners.
And near the back, at a table beside a door that probably connected to the room Braun had disappeared into, were two Ylps.
I gave them that single glance, then deliberately turned my eyes away. Perrifil had said a Ylpea ship was supposed to come in later this week. Was this that group, having decided to land elsewhere and come to Bilswift via aircar or shuttle? Or was the incoming ship some kind of backup?
Either way, Ylps being on Alainn at all was definitely a curiosity. The Ylpea homeworld was at the other end of the Spiral, and its people spent the majority of their time in that general region. I’d only dealt with a couple of them over the years, but each time I’d come away from the encounter wishing they spent more of their time at home. They tended to be arrogant, condescending, quick to anger, and generally unpleasant to deal with. More so even than the Patth.
I’d heard other nonhumans speculate that the main reason humans and Ylps didn’t get along was that Ylps simply out-humaned us. I wasn’t sure I agreed with that, and was definitely sure I didn’t care.
On the other hand, there was that Narchner song about some ancient Ylp dynasty skinning its enemies. It would probably be a good idea to avoid them.
The bartender had spotted my approach and positioned himself at the spot where I would reach the bar, his face neutral but watchful. I started a mental run-down through my opening spiel—
“Roarke, isn’t it?” a quiet voice came from behind me, the question punctuated by the gentle pressure of a gun muzzle against my back.
So much for my spiel. “Hello, Braun,” I said. “I was hoping I’d run into you.”
“Yeah, I figured that when I saw you following me,” Braun growled. “What do you want with me?”
I sighed to myself. Unless you’ve run out of all your other cash . . . “What do you think?” I replied. “I’m here for the meeting.”