Hank hated waiting. Especially when it involved waiting in the hallway of the basement of the local coroner's office.
"So much for only taking matrimonial work," he muttered, forgetting to keep his thoughts silent. The two detectives sitting down the corridor lifted their heads out of the newspaper and snickered a little.
Hank ignored them, the heavy presence of death around him keeping down his temper. He tried to listen through the opened door.
Inside the morgue, Evelyn and Corvus stood over the body of Inkay. The lieutenant had the sheet drawn back. Evelyn nodded.
Corvus dropped the sheet back. He and Evelyn moved a few feet to one side and whispered, almost as though they were trying to keep the corpse from hearing them.
"--It looks like he was washed down the entire length of the runoff channel--could he swim?"
"Of course. He grew up in San Francisco."
"Obviously, the fall must have knocked him unconscious."
Evelyn nodded slightly in response. The lieutenant coughed. A coroner's assistant then wheeled the body through a door marked "autopsy".
"This alleged affair he was having--the publicity didn't make him morose, or unhappy?"
At the sound of this question, Hank rose and looked through the doorway. Drew saw him, ignored him. Evelyn did not.
"...well, it didn't make him happy..."
"But there is no possibility he would have taken his own life?"
Evelyn replied sharply: "No."
"Mrs. Inkay, do you happen to know the name of the young woman in question?"
Evelyn showed a flash of annoyance. "No."
"Do you know where she might be?"
"Certainly not!"
Corvus began to slowly move towards the door. "You and your husband never discussed her?"
Evelyn's voice began to stumble. "He... we did... he wouldn't tell me her name. We quarreled over her... of course--it came to me as a complete surprise--"
"A complete surprise?"
Evelyn hesitated for a moment. "Yes."
"But I thought you'd hired a private investigator--"
"A private investigator?"
Corvus gestured vaguely towards the door. "Mr. Redstone."
"Well, yes--" Evelyn turned around and stopped in mid-sentence. They looked at one another for a long moment.
Hank looked away, down the hall. She kept looking at him. "But I... I... did that because I thought it was a nasty rumor I'd put an end to..." She finished and stared plaintively at Hank. Corvus took two steps back, towards some other bodies. Hank said nothing.
"And when did Mr. Redstone inform you that these rumors had some basis in fact?"
Evelyn looked at Corvus, caught, not knowing how to answer him. Hank spoke for her, smoothly. "Just before the story broke in the papers, Drew."
Corvus nodded knowingly. They began to slowly walk away from the storage room, standing aside as another corpse, reeking of alcohol even in death, was wheeled out.
Corvus, with exaggerated politeness, to Hank: "You wouldn't happen to know the present whereabouts of the young woman."
"No."
"Or her name?"
"No."
They walked a few steps further down the hall.
"Will you need me for anything else, Lieutenant?" Evelyn's voice had recovered somewhat.
"I don't think so, Mrs. Inkay. Of course you have my deepest sympathies--and--if we need anymore information, I'm certain we'll be in touch."
Hank put on his hat. "I'll walk her out to the car, Drew." Evelyn glanced at him. They went through a couple of outer doors and saw several reporters milling about the main entrance, laughing and kidding about Charles' death. As the reporters saw them, one cocked his head, and like a pack of zebras, they descended on Hank and Evelyn in a flurry of white shirts and dark suits.
Hank hurried Evelyn past the thicket of extended notepads, lightbulbs, and microphones, stopping only briefly once she was safely out the door to address the crowd.
"And remember, fellas, that's Redstone. With an R."
Once they arrived at Evelyn's car, she began to fumble feverishly through her purse.
Hank looked into the car. "Mrs. Inkay?... Mrs. Inkay."
Evelyn, flushed, perspiring: "...just a minute..."
Hank gently touched her arm. "You left your keys in the ignition."
"Oh... thank you." She leaned against the side of the car, looked at her feet for a moment. "Thank you for going along with me. I just didn't want to explain anything... I'll send you a check."
"A check?"
Evelyn got in her car. "To make it official, that I've hired you." Then she drove off.
Hank looked up. Roy was looking around the parking lot. When he saw Hank, he cocked his head towards the front door, to let Hank know he wasn't free yet.
"Don't give me that, Drew, you had the sergeant drag me back in here for a statement."
Corvus shrugged. "I don't want it anymore."
"No?"
Slowly, with mock reverence: "No--it was an accident."
"You mean that's what you're going to call it."
Corvus looked at the body. "That's right." His voice tightened with contempt. "Out of respect for his civic position."
"What'd he do, Drew, make a pass at your sister?" They began to walk out of the room for the second time.
Drew stopped, looked as if he was chewing something over in his brain. "No--he drowned my sister, along with about five hundred other people. But they weren't very important--just a bunch of dumb refugees in the wrong place at the wrong time."
They kept walking, reached the stairs, past a poster that read <<The Courier Delivered. Shouldn't You? Buy Bearclaw Bonds Today>>. "Now beat it. You don't come out of this smelling like a rose, you know."
"Oh yeah? Can you think of something to charge me with?"
"When I do, you'll hear about it." Both men chuckled a little. Then Corvus turned and walked down the hall.
Hank turned around and nearly tripped over a stretcher. It was the alcohol-smelling body, being pushed by a fat, jolly man wearing a black apron and hood, like a cross between Santa Claus and the Grim Reaper. A cigarette dangled from one corner of his mouth.
"Hank, what're you doin' here?"
"Nothin', Morty. It's my lunch hour, so I thought I'd drop by and see who dropped dead lately. Say, how are you?"
"Never better. You know me, Hank."
"Yeah--so who you got there?"
Morty pulled back the sheet--both men recoiled from the smell, overwhelmed--then quickly dropped the sheet back in place.
"Sammy Schulbert, local drunk--used to hang around Fenway Alley--" Morty brushed some sand from the man's face, laughed. "Quite a character. Lately he'd been living under a bridge--had a bureau dresser down there and everything."
Hank had already lost interest. He started to move for the stairs. "Yeah."
"Drowned, too."
Hank stopped in mid-stride. "Come again?"
"Yeah, got dead drunk, passed out in the bottom of the riverbed."
"The Aradesh River?"
"Yeah, under Ranger's Point. What's wrong with that?"
Hank moved back to the body and began to examine it closely. "It's bone dry, Morty."
"Well--it's not completely dry."
"Yeah, well he ain't gonna drown in a damp riverbed either, no matter how drunk he was. That's like drowning in a teaspoon."
Morty shrugged. "We got water out of his lungs, Hank. He drowned."
Hank walked away, mumbling. "Jesus, this town..."
Hank parked his bike on the bridge, under a sign bolted into a concrete support column that read
Ranger's Point. He looked down into the riverbed below.
From the bridge, Hank could see the muddy remains of a collapsed shack, its contents strewn down river from the bridge. Below him, lying half over the storm drain and one wall that was on the bank of the river, was a sign that proclaimed EDEN TOWERS -- THE FUTURE HOME OF CRIMSON CARAVANS AND MINES, which was used as a roof of sorts. Downstream, there was a dresser, an oil drum, a Chryslux seat cushion, a Sunset Sarsaparilla crate--the trashy remnants of Schulbert's home.
Hank scrambled down the embankment and landed in ankle-deep mud. His shoe made a soft slurping sound as it was pulled out. He began to walk a little further downstream when he heard the vaguely familiar squishy clip-clop of something. Clearing the bridge, on the opposite side was the little Legion boy, again on his skinny Brahmin, riding along the muddy bank.
The two looked at one another a moment.
Hank spoke first: "You were riding here the other day, weren't you?"
The boy didn't answer. Hank spoke again: "Speak English?... Loqui English?"
The boy finally nodded. "Ita."
"You were talking to a man a few days ago..." Hank pointed to his eyes. "...he wore glasses, he--"
"Yes."
"--uh, what did you talk about, do you mind my asking?"
"The green water."
"What about the green water?"
"When it comes."
"When it comes? What did you tell him?"
"It comes in different parts of the river. Every night a different part." The brahmin snorted. The boy rode slowly on.
Hank climbed up the embankment, slowly, noting the direction the storm drain by Ranger's Point took. It was headed above, towards the Westin Hills, where the sun was setting.
--
It was dark now, the rays of the evening sun slowly being unseated by a rising moon. Hank drove more slowly. The bike headlight threw a thin beam across the drainage channel, forming dancing shadows on the rocky hills behind the foliage growing out of the ditch. The whine of the motorbike was louder this time. Hank guessed that he would have to replace the fission battery soon.
He rounded another bend. The road became unpaved, a crunching of gravel added to the engine whine. The plant life suddenly became lush, almost overwhelming. Heavy clusters of oak, ferns, and eucalyptus were everywhere. It was all quite still. Another turn, and Hank glipsed a pie-shaped view of a lake of lights in the city below. Then, a final turn, and the road became straight, rocky hills replaced by concrete cladding.
He almost missed the channel exit. Hearing a bubbling noise, Hank killed the engine and stepped off the bike to investigate. A lone halogen light overhead on some high-voltage tension wires was the sole illumination. Beneath the hard sodium-orange glow, Hank could make out the mesh of a chain link fence topped with razor wire.
He followed the fence to the ditch--no luck, the fence extended downward another six feet to fully seal the entrance. But the section of fence above the ditch was missing its razor teeth. Hank looked around one last time, saw no one, and climbed over. His feet landed on asphalt.
He walked for fifty more yards in the darkness. His eyes were beginning to adjust, and he could make out the outline of a huge, seemingly deserted research and production facility. Here and there, smokestacks and pipes extended forth at crazy angles, almost as if they had been tossed about by a giant. Hank looked to the ditch, which was now wider and shallower. It seemed to lead into a massive flat area around one hundred yards ahead, darker in color than the surrounding mountains, yet softly aglow, seemingly from some deep source under the surface.
All of a sudden, there were two loud gunshots from atop the hills; Hank felt the rounds pushing through the air behind his shoulderblades. Immediately dropping to one knee, Hank dove into the ditch while unholstering a pistol from his jacket pocket.
The ditchwater splashed around his shoes; even in the dim moonlight, Hank could tell that something was wrong with it--too chunky, almost as if someone had poured a box of Cinnabix gruel into it and let it sit for a full day. Hank heard the sound of men scurrying through the brush, coming near him, so he cocked his pistol in a very noisy fashion. The footsteps began retreating.
Hank waited. The men seemed to have passed him by. But there was another sound now, no longer a gentle bubbling, but a growing, echoing, almost growling sound. It puzzled Hank. He started to lift his head to catch the direction.
The next few seconds seemed to pass by in a series of stutter-step frames. First, below him, the trickle of water began to rise, then, to his left, a splashing noise, then, a wall of water came crashing into him--and he now he was surrounded by the chunky water.
Hank scrambled to maintain his footing, but it was too late. He was picked up and began to tumble downstream, bouncing painfully against the twists and turns in the channel, stopped only by the fence he had climbed over earlier. The blow nearly knocked him unconscious, but Hank retained enough presence of mind to firmly hook his left hand through one of the chain links. Pulling with all his strength, he managed to tear himself away from the torrent of water.
Sitting by the edge of the ditch, against the fence, Hank took a moment to regain his breath. His suit was now dyed bright green, and dripping more of the green liquid. One of his shoes was gone. His Pip-boy screen was cracked in two, and no matter how he tried to adjust his posture, it seemed like he was rubbing up against a bruise.
At least his gun was still there. Hank checked it, made sure the inside was clean, and then flipped the safety back on. There had been no accidental discharge. Hank felt lucky. Then he remembered that whoever had shot at him was still out there, somewhere, and he quickly stood up, ignoring his aching muscles.
He began to climb over the side of the fence. He was midway up when a voice sounded out behind him.
"Hold it there, kitty cat." The voice was nasally, displeasant, and had a tribal accent.
Hank felt a hand on his shoulder. He debated for a second whether to try and wrestle with the man behind him, but then a gun barrel wormed its way into his right ear and settled that argument. Hank let go of the fence and put his hands up.
The man turned him around and pinned his arms behind his back. Hank looked up and saw a familiar face--the brown paper bag, Lee Cabrioni--and an unfamiliar one, short, almost a midget, in a white suit, red bow-tie, and disproportionately large two-tone shoes--an outfit that made him look like a circus clown. Cabrioni let Hank get a good look at both of them, then gave him a sucker punch. Hank doubled over in pain.
"You're right. I don't drink the water. But at least I can breathe the air." Then he hauled Hank up. Hank heard the rattle of a butterfly knife.
"Cabrioni, Jesus." Cabrioni didn't reply--only smiled and nodded at the smaller man, cocking his head in a "go-ahead" gesture.
The smaller man walked right up to Hank's face, and stuck the knife into his nostril. The blade threw an orange glare into Hank's eye. He winced.
"You're a very nosey fella, kitty cat... you know what happens to nosey fellas?"
The smaller man smiled and shook a little with excitement.
"Wanna guess? No? Okay. They lose their noses."
With a quick flick the smaller man pulled back on the blade, laying Hank's left nostril open about an inch further. Hank screamed. Blood gushed down onto his shirt and coat. He bent over, instinctively trying to keep the blood from getting on his clothes. Cabrioni and the smaller man stared at him.
"Next time, you lose the whole thing, kitty cat. I'll cut it off... and feed it to my bloatfly, understand?"
Cabrioni gave Hank a hard kick in the groin. "Tell you understand, Hank." Hank was now groveling on his hands and knees.
He mumbled, "I understand." Hank could only see his tormentor's two-tone brown and white wing-tipped shoes--lightly freckled with his blood.
The two men turned and walked away.
Eddie was trying not to stare. But to be honest, there wasn't much else on the face to stare out. An enormous bandage was spread-eagled across Hank's nose, making it look twice the size it normally was.
The phone rang. Hank tapped a button on the intercom.
"Yeah, operator."
A metallic voice responded. "A Miss Wilcox calling."
"Who?"
"Joan Wilcox."
"Don't know her--take a number."
Eddie spoke up. "So some contractor wants to run a Floramin field and he makes a few payoffs. So what?"
Hank turned slowly to Eddie. He lightly tapped his nose. Eddie continued. "So you think you can nail Cabrioni? They'll claim you were trespassing."
"I don't want Cabrioni. I want the big boys that are making the payoffs."
"Then what'll you do?"
"Sue the shit out of 'em."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah--we find 'em, sue 'em, and make a killing. We'll be having cocktails at Dean Domino's twice a week and pissing on ice for the rest of our lives."
"Sue people like that and they're liable to be having cocktails with the Judge who's trying the suit."
The phone rang again. Hank looked irritated. "Miss Joan Wilcox again. She insists you know her."
"Okay." Hank picked up the phone reciever. There was a click, followed by the hiss of a new phone line.
"Hello, Miss Wilcox. I don't believe we've had the pleasure."
A matronly voice responded. "Oh yes we have... are you alone, Mr. Redstone?"
Hank replied with a deadpan. "Isn't everybody? What can I do for you, Miss Wilcox?"
"Well, I'm a working girl, Mr. Redstone--I didn't come in to see you on my own."
"When did you come in?"
"I was the one who pretended to be Mrs. Evelyn Inkay, remember?"
Hank's arm gave an involuntary jerk, dumping a mug of a lukewarm coffee into Eddie's lap. Eddie gave a short yelp.
Hank, to Eddie, barely covering the phone reciever. "Shut the fuck up!" Then back to the phone, playing it cool. "Yes, I remember--nothing, Miss Wilcox, just going over a detail or two with my associates... now, you were saying?"
"Well I never expected anything to happen like what happened to Mr. Inkay." She paused, then resumed with a pleading tone. "The point is, if it ever comes out, I want somebody to know that I didn't know what would happen."
"I understand... if you could tell me who employed you, Miss Wilcox--that could help us both--"
"Oh no. No, no, no. Never."
"...Why don't you give me your address, and we can talk this over in private?"
"No, Mr. Redstone--just look in the obituary column of today's newspaper..."
"The obituary column?"
"You'll find one of those people."
"Those people? Miss Wilcox--"
She hung up. Hank looked at Eddie, coughed a little. Eddie pointed to his lap and shook his head.
The lounge had rich, redwood paneling almost over every booth, cut into undulating patterns by the soft overhead glow of salvaged Old World lighting. A velvet voice drifted across the floor, drawing an admiring look here, teasing out a smile there. A pleasant place. Hank even had to rent a car to make the dress code.
He was seated with his back to the door, at an angle where anyone coming in could be seen through the reflection on the glass of whiskey in front of him. He flipped through the paper until he found the obituary column--scanned it, looked up--and abruptly tore the column from the paper and put it in his pocket. He then closed the paper. This time, the headline was not about him:
[big]
Bond Issue Passes Council[/big]
Twenty million cap referendum to go before the public.
Evelyn Inkay suddenly appeared through the side door, from the kitchen. Hank nodded, nonplussed, and rose, allowing her to sit. He watched her remove her gloves, slowly. Her hands were delicate, like that of a bird. She was wearing a dove gray gabardine--subdued, tailored to her petite frame. The only indication she was in mourning was a black translucent veil over her face.
"Thanks for coming... drink?"
The waiter appeared. Evelyn was looking at Hank's nose. She turned her head to the waiter. "Tom Collins--with lime, not lemon, please."
"And for the gentleman?"
"Gimme another scotch on the rocks."
The waiter responded crisply--"One Tom Collins with lime, one scotch on the rocks"--and exited into the kitchen.
Hank pulled out a torn envelope. The initials EMI were faintly visible in delicate print on the corner of it.
"I got your check in the mail."
"Yes. As I said, I was very grateful."
Hank slid the envelope across the table and coughed, slightly. "Mrs. Inkay, I'm afraid that's not quite enough."
Evelyn responded, a little embarassed. "Well, how much would you like?" She began to reach for her purse.
"Stop it. The money's fine. Its generous, but you shortchanged me on the story."
Evelyn's voice dropped a few degrees. "I have?"
"I think so. Something besides your husband's death was bothering you. You were upset, but not that upset."
Evelyn replied, like an Alaskan winter. "Mr. Redstone..." She flashed her eyes at Hank, who pretended not to notice. "...don't tell me how I feel."
The drinks came. The waiter set them down. Hank picked up his scotch and took a long pull, drinking nearly half the glass.
"Sorry about that. Look, you sue me, your husband dies, you drop the lawsuit like a hot potato, all of it quicker than the wind from a duck's ass--excuse me. Then you ask me to lie to the police."
Evelyn, sheepishly. "Well it wasn't much of a lie."
"If your husband was killed it was." Hank pulled the check back towards his side of the table. "This could look like you paid me to withhold evidence."
"But he wasn't killed."
Hank smiled in response. "I think youre hiding something, Mrs. Inkay."
"--Well, I sup...pose I am... actually, I knew..." Evelyn searched for the right word. "...about the affair."
"How did you find out?"
"My husband."
"He told you?" Evelyn nodded. Hank continued. "And you weren't the slightest bit upset about it?"
"I was grateful."
"You'll have to explain that, Mrs. Inkay."
"Why?"
Hank's voiced became dipped in sarcasm. "Look, I do matrimonial work, it's my métier. When a wife tells me she's happy her husband is cheating on her, it runs contrary to my experience." He looked knowingly at Evelyn. "Unless..."
Evelyn responded. "Unless what?"
"Unless she was cheating on him too." Evelyn didn't reply. "Were you?"
Evelyn was clearly angry, but controlled it.
"I dislike the word 'cheat.'"
Hank, dryly. "Did you have affairs?"
"Mr. Redstone--"
"Did he know?"
Evelyn was indignant. "Well I wouldn't run home and tell him whenever I went to bed with someone, if that's what you mean."
Hank finished his drink.
"Is there anything else you want to know?"
"Where were you when your husband died?"
"I can't tell you."
"You mean you don't know where you were?"
"I mean I can't tell you."
"You were seeing someone, too."
Evelyn looked squarely at Hank. She didn't deny it.
"For very long?"
"I don't see anyone for very long, Mr. Redstone. It's difficult for a woman. Now I think you know all you need know about me. I didn't want publicity. I didn't want to go into any of this, then or now. Is that all?" She phrased her last sentence as a exclamation rather than a question. Hank nodded, then picked up the envelope.
"Oh, by the way. What's the 'M' stand for?"
Evelyn stammered slightly. "Mac... Maclean."
"That your maiden name?"
"Yes... why?"
"No reason."
Evelyn leaned closer to Hank.
"You must've had a reason to ask me that."
"No, I'm just a snoop."
"You seem to have had a reason for every other question."
Hank coughed. "No, not for that one."
"I don't believe you."
The parking attendant stepped out the drivers' seat in Hank's car. He then walked over and opened the passenger door for Evelyn.
"Oh--no. I've got my own car. The cream-colored Chryslux."
The attendant dutifully started for her car. Hank turned to him. "Wait a minute, sonny." Then, to Evelyn. "I think you better come with me."
"What for? There's nothing more to say." She turned to the attendant. Get my car, please." The man resumed running towards it.
Hank leaned on the open door of his car and stared into Evelyn. He talked quietly, but spat the words out.
"Okay, go home. But in case you're interested, your husband was murdered. Somebody's dumping tons of Floramin out of the city reservoirs when we're supposedly in the middle of a famine, he found out, and he was killed. There's a waterlogged drunk in the morgue--involuntary manslaughter if anybody wants to take the trouble which they don't. It looks like half the city is trying to cover it all up which is fine by me. But, Mrs. Inkay--" now, leaning inches from her "I goddamn near lost my nose! And I like it. I like breathing through it. And I still think you're hiding something." And with that, Hank got into his car.
Evelyn steadied herself on the open car door. She stared at at Hank for a long moment. Then Hank gently tugged the passenger door closed.
"Mr. Red!--" She caught herself, decorum restraining her mid-shout. "--stone."
Hank drove off into the mid-afternoon traffic, leaving Evelyn looking after him.
This time, Hank knocked.
The secretary responded. "Come in!"
Hank walked through the door. The secretary was not happy to see him.
"H. H. Redstone to see Mr. Yelburton."
The secretary immediately went up and into the Inkay's old office. Hank turned and strolled around the office a moment--his eyes settled on a photographic display entitled
The HISTORY OF THE DNR - THE EARLY YEARS, along the wall. He stopped as he spotted a photo of a man with the same silver cane Hank had seen in Eddie's series of pictures--he was standing high in the mountains, near a pass. The caption read
TOM MCLAFFERTY - 2268.
Hank immediately pulled out the envelope containing Evelyn's check. He looked at the corner of it, his thumb pressing down under the middle initial M. Then he looked back to the photos.
The secretary returned. "Mr. Carlson will be busy for some time."
"Well, I'm on my lunch hour. I'll wait."
The secretary raised her voice a tick. "He's liable to be tied up indefinitely."
Hank smiled in response. "Well, I take a long lunch. All day sometimes."
Hank pulled out a cigarette case, offering the secretary one. She refused. He lit up and began to hum Sinatra's 'Blue Moon', strolling along the wall looking at more of the photographs. He began with a few photos of a much younger Inkay, along with Tom McLafferty. One of the captions read:
CHARLES INKAY AND TOM MCLAFFERTY AS THE LAKE TAHOE MINE COMES TO LIFE - 2270. Hank, still humming, turned to the secretary.
"Tom McLafferty worked for the natural resources department?"
The secretary stammered for a second. "Yes. No."
"He did or he didn't?"
"He owned it."
Hank stopped humming in surprise. "He owned the natural resources department?"
"Yes--in a sense. He used Crimson money to restart the mines and factories left from the Great War."
"He owned the minerals supply for the entire NCR?"
The secretary replied, exasperated. "Yes."
Hank was genuinely surprised. "How did they get it away from him?"
"Mr. Inkay felt that the public should own the display--I mean, the minerals. If you'll just read the display--"
Hank glanced back, hummed a little, then-- "Inkay? I thought you said McLafferty owned the department."
The secretary threw down her pencil. "--Along with Mr. Inkay."
"They were partners."
"Yes. Yes, they were partners." She got up, annoyed, and went into what was Inkay's inner office.
Hank went back to the photographs. He heard a scratching sound, apparently coming from just outside the outer door. He moved quickly to it, hesitated--then swiftly opened the door. Two workmen looked up at Hank with some surprise. They had been scraping away Inkay's name on the outer door.
The secretary returned, seeing the workmen looking at Hank with some confusion.
"Mr. Carlson will see you now."
Hank nooded graciously, dropped the secretary a small box of chocolates, and headed on in to see Carlson.
The first thing Hank noticed was a subtle but perceptible difference Carlson's posture. He was now head of the department.
"Mr. Redstone, sorry to keep you waiting--these staff meetings, they just go on and on--"
"--yeah--must be especially tough to take over, under these circumstances."
Carlson smiled ruefully. "Oh yes. Charles was the best department head the country ever had." He then paused for a second. "My goodness, what happened to your nose?"
Without missing a beat, Hank replied: "I cut myself shaving."
"You ought to be more careful. That must really hurt."
Hank smiled. "Only when I breathe."
Carlson laughed, a deep belly laugh. "Only when you breathe... don't tell me you're still working for Mrs. Inkay?"
Hank continued smiling. "I never was."
Carlson stopped smiling. "I don't understand."
"Neither do I, actually. But you hired me--or you hired that whore to hire me."
"Mr. Redstone, you're not making a whit of sense."
Hank sat down. "Well, look at it this way, Mr. Carlson. Inkay didn't want to build a production field--and he had a reputation that was hard to get around. So you decided to ruin it. Then he found out that you were dumping Floramin every night--and then he was drowned."
Carlson folded his arms and narrowed his eyes. "That's an outrageous accusation. I don't know what you're talking about."
Hank stood back up. "Well, Jimmy Parker over at the Times will. Dumping thousands of gallons of fertilizer down the toilet in the middle of a famine--now that's, as they say, news." Hank began to head for the door.
The department head stood up. "Wait--please sit down, Mr. Redstone. We're... well, we're not anxious for this to get around, but we have been diverting a little production to fertilize mutfruit and pinyon nut orchards along the Long 15. As you know, the farmers there have no legal right to our product, and since the famine we've had to cut them off--the Core Region comes first, naturally. But, well, we've been trying to help some of them out, keep them from going under. Naturally, when you divert Floramin--you get a little runoff."
Hank blinked. "A little runoff."
"Yeah."
"Where are those orchards?"
"Like I said, along the Long 15."
"That's like saying they're somewhere in Arizona."
The department chief held up his hands and shrugged. "Mr. Redstone, my field men are out and I can't give you an exact location..."
Hank nodded knowingly. Then he spoke up, a friendlier tone. "You're a married man, am I right?"
Carlson was puzzled. "Yes...?"
"Hard working, wife and kids?"
"Yes..."
Hank put his hand on Carlson's shoulder. "I don't want to nail you--I just want to find out who put you up to it. I'll give you a few days to think it over." Hank handed over a card. "Call me. I can help. Who knows? Maybe we can lay the whole thing off on a few big shots--and you can stay head of the department for the next twenty years."
Hank smiled and walked out the door, leaving an unsmiling Carlson.
Hank decided to make dinner at home. It had been ages since he cooked, but he still remembered how. He went back to Art's diner.
"Say, Art--you got any surplus ingredients I could buy?"
The fat man shrugged, then said: "I'll see what I can find. Since when do you cook?"
"Since I made the mistake of agreeing to try your attempt at a wasteland omelette."
"You're a riot, Hank." Both men chuckled. Art disappeared into the storeroom. When he reemerged, he was holding a large paper bag marked "Brahmin Flank Steak", two onions, three carrots, some garlic, a jalapeno, a broc flower, and a bag of potatoes and xander roots.
"Enough for a beef stew. Just remember to char the beef in the--"
"--in the fireplace for two minutes before I throw it in the stewpot, right."
"How'd you know that?"
"C'mon, Art. Don't you remember? I served at Forlorn Hope. Of course I learned how to cook Legionnaire's Stew. It's the only thing worth eating out there."
At the mention of Forlorn Hope, Art grimaced a little. "Heh. Oh, right."
Hank immediately apologized, coughed a little. "Look, I'm sorry--I didn't mean to bring up your daughter's--I mean, Penny's--"
"It's ok. You can say the word. Death. Why are we all so afraid of it? After we die, it's not like we end up feeling anything--and--" turning hopeful "--you get to meet your dead relatives, just like she met her mother." Then, the man bit his lip. "Only hurts for the living, left behind."
"Yeah." Hank felt guilty. "Tell you what. Close shop early tonight. I'll cook." Then, trying to cheer him up, Hank said: "C'mon, you gotta make up for feeding me that omelette sometime."
"So I says, why don't you stay fashionable. And then the little boy says--he walks up real close to him, see, as close as you are to me--"
Hank finished washing the last of the dishes, and began his drying his hands with a plain white towel. "What does he say, Art?"
"Fuck you, clown!"
Both men snorted with raucous laughter. Hank poured Art another glass of rye. They were drinking from a massive crate of vintage Wright family liquors. The production dates acid-etched into the bottom of each bottle started at 2235 and ended at 2251. Art turned one empty bottle sideways, noted the numbers, and gave a whistle of admiration.
"Whoo-wee! We're drinkin' some good stuff right now. Say, my boy, how did you end up getting your grubby little fingers on something like this? I thought only guys like Mc"fag"erty and Lee Oliver could touch this stuff."
Hank chuckled. "You're not too far from the truth, old man. I won it from a big shot. A hand of poker."
"Really. You stared down Babylon and lived to tell the tale?"
"Heh-heh. That I did. We were celebrating the victory at the Dam in New Vegas, see, and this guy comes walking in wearing a suit of Enclave power armor with this floating robot following him like a pet dog. Sits down at the poker table, and then proceeds to clean everybody's clock. I mean, at one point, he had a stack of chips in front of him so high the other players at the table couldn't even see his face--well not that anyone could see through that armored mask, but you get the point."
"Uh-huh." Art hiccuped. "And?"
"Well, I went in there, and with my tiny little stack, I took him down. Near the end, he was reduced to just his original wager--this crate of liquor here, those Deathclaw horns you see on my bookshelf, and this funny-looking metal casino chip that he said he didn't need anymore." Hank jostled the ice cubes in his cup. "And then he stood up, said he wasn't playin' anymore, either--turned to me and asked if I had any ammunition. Well I said 'of course', since the war was over and I wouldn't be shootin' anytime soon. So this other trooper and I gave him all our 5.56 rounds, and he got the chip, while I got the rest of the stash."
"No shit." Art took a swig from his whisky glass.
"Yep. No shit. Was a good time."
Art's face turned thoughtful. "Y'know, you never did tell me about your time in the service. I guess I can't blame you--you must have been trying not to upset me, after hearing about what those Legion bastards did to Penny. But today, don't worry about it. If you offend me, I won't remember a thing tomorrow." Art smiled. "I'll be fine. Except for the pounding headache, of course."
Hank smiled back. "Well, I guess I should start from the beginning. I enlisted in the fall of 2078. The potato harvest up near my dad's farm had failed, and we didn't have enough food or money to feed all five of our family through the winter. The enlistment bonus would go a long way to solving that problem, so I took it."
Art nodded. "Go on."
"Well, when we first got to basic I scored well on marksmanship, so they put me in a sharpshooter training course. Not that it was really that much different--back then the military was so depleted of manpower, the training course length had been cut in half to get more men out the door. Anyhow, I was assigned to the sharpshooter duty with the 173rd Regiment--that was Penny's regiment, too--and we spent a year just waltzing around the Mojave. It was a good time."
Art replied wistfully. "Yeah, those were the good old days for me, too. Would get a letter twice a month from Penny, telling me all about how she was helping folks there live a better life. I had my own cafe in Downtown Shady, business was good since it was so close to the rail depot. Saw hundreds of young folks smiling as they had one last cup of NCR joe." The fat man looked down for a second. "But many of them, I never saw again."
Hank lowered his head. "Yeah." Then he picked his head back up again. "After the year was up we got an urgent order to go to Forlorn Hope. Apparently the Legion raiding parties had thinned them out a bit and we needed to reinforce." Hank paused. "Do you want me to go on?"
Art nodded. "Tell me, Hank. Tell me how she died."
"Well, I wasn't on the patrol team--the sharpshooter company was kept in reserve. From what I remember, Penny volunteered for the first patrol of the regiment. She didn't make the cut because she fell ill. The first patrol made it back home safe. She got sent out on the second patrol--they weren't so lucky." Hank paused, looked at Art. The fat man seemed to be doing fine, with the exception of a flush from the alcohol. "The second patrol--they were all killed or captured. That's when we got called out to rescue them. We did beat the enemy back, but by the time we'd found Penny and the others, they'd all been... been..." Hank suddenly found it difficult to finish the sentence.
Art finished it for him. "...they'd been raped, repeatedly, both the men and the women. And then strangled. And then nailed to crosses. Is that right?"
Hank nodded, hesitantly.
"Well don't just stop there. Go on. You still have a year and a half left in your story."
Hank coughed. "Yeah. Well, after that patrol, the C.O. ordered a change of tactics. We were to hunker down, and only launch raids into the surrounding territory when we found the enemy beforehand. In order to find the enemy, though, we would take some riflemen and sharpshooters and put them into two-man scouting teams to cover the area." Hank opened another bottle, this time of mutfruit cognac. He poured both of them a glass.
"I was in one of those two man teams. We shot lot of things out in the bush. The my old partner died and they put me up with another one. And then another one. I was on my third partner when I ran into that Drusius guy I told you about."
Art raised an eyebrow. "Drew was Legion?"
"Yeah. The rest of his cohort was about to kill him. Apparently he was a decanus--that's like a corporal or sergeant--and he refused to booby-trap his own wounded men, so the centurion--that would be a lieutenant or a captain--ordered him to be crucified and whipped to death."
Art shook his head. "Bastards. Animals."
Hank nodded in agreement. "Anyhow, we cut through everyone else in the cohort and saved him. Unfortunately, my partner was lost in the engagement. We never found his corpse." Hank took a sip of the cognac. "When I hauled Drew back to camp, everyone wanted to kill him, revenge for what the Legion had been doing to us, but the C.O. and I kept them from doing that. Slowly, Drew earned the respect of everyone at the camp. Washing toilets, fixing weapons, that sort of thing. So when my fifth partner got killed, I took him along. Everyone figured that with my lucky streak, Drew would end up dead within the month. But that didn't happen. Instead he taught me all about Legion tactics, and what I--and the rest of the regiment--was doing wrong."
"So you became friends."
"Well, I never could fully trust the guy. But we still worked together well, since he owed me a life debt. When the war finally ended and we were both looking for work, it was his idea to apply for the Shady Sands police. I thought he was crazy. Could you imagine an ex-Legion guy handing out parking tickets to NCR folks?"
Art chuckled. "He'd be mighty lucky not to get shot."
"No kidding. But somehow, Drew made it. He worked harder than anyone else on the force. I was lazy. I did as little as possible--but Drew, he
tried. And now he's a detective lieutenant in Homicide, and I'm doing matrimonial work."
"Aw, come on. It ain't that bad. You've got a nice apartment, you're doing well for yourself--all you need is a girl and you'd be complete."
Hank chuckled. "Yeah, a girl. Got Dear-John'd four months after enlisting. When I last stopped by my hometown, she was already on kid number three."
Art nudged him in ribs. "Better hurry up on that, son."
"Yeah, yeah. Anyhow, that's my story. Ain't much else to tell." Hank paused for a second, looked into his cognac. "The war--the Mojave--taught me a lot. Taught me how to play caravan, and why I shouldn't. Also taught me how to walk, talk, and shoot my way out of trouble." Hank took a sip. "Sometimes, though, I get in to too much trouble."
At that moment, the phone rang. Hank reached up to get it. Art dropped his forehead down to the table and began to snore.
"Henry Redstone."
The voice on the other end of the line was scared shitless. It was Eddie. "Hank, Hank. Listen. That b-b-b-blue monster, he's come back and he wants to k-k-kill you."
Hank wrinkled an eyebrow. "What? Why? Did we not pay him enough?"
"N-no." Hank heard a soft sob. "He said something about killing people who defy the Boulder God. I didn't believe him, so he took out a chainsaw and began to tear up the place."
"What? He's at the office?" Then Hank glanced at the watch. "It's nearly one o' clock, Eddie. Are you still there?"
"Yes. I've been trapped here for the past six hours. He has a stealth boy. I blinded him with a laser pistol, though, so we both can't see each other. I can still hear him pacing around the room. Please. Do something, Hank." Then, there was a whining noise in the background, followed by a mutant's childlike, yet menacing voice. "I have you now, my pretty. Come to papa!" And a crash, followed by silence, as the chainsaw bit into the phone receiver.
Hank hung up. Then he called the police.
"Yes?"
"Operator, I'm calling to report a code-41 involving an NK, probable double-P, at Eighteen-Eighty-Five Bearpaw Street, Suite Six-C. NK is armed with a chainsaw and has cloaking, I repeat, has cloaking." Hank paused, heard a pencil furiously scribbling in the background. When the operator had finished writing it all down, Hank spoke again.
"I will be arriving on the scene shortly. Pursuant to Citizens' Self-Defense Act No. 75, I will be voluntarily bringing armor and a firearm to help apprehend the suspect. Please tell the lead officer at the scene that I will be dressed in a black trench coat and Combat Armor Mark Two, and will be wielding an automatic riot shotgun..." Hank heard the operator gasp, slightly, then-- "...and some fragmentation grenades." Though Hank knew he couldn't be there for another twenty minutes, he also knew that the mere threat of a massive shootout erupting between a heavily-armed civilian and an invisible supermutant in downtown Shady Sands would guarantee a visit from the Tactical Situations Unit. He hoped that would keep Eddie alive.
Before she could protest, Hank hung up the phone. He kicked the wastebasket next to Art to catch any vomit, then placed a blanket over him and walked over to his closet.
It had been years, he thought. But the lucky streak just didn't seem to end.
