Part 15 (1/2)
”And you bought it?” I asked, incredulous only because half a gla.s.s of red was breaking down the barriers between my brain and my mouth. And let's be honest, those barriers aren't exactly reinforced concrete under the best of circ.u.mstances.
He didn't quite sneer, but the look he made wasn't pretty. ”Of course I didn't buy it. But congratulations, you tracked me down. And while you were at it, you led them right to me, didn't you?”
”No!” I objected instantly. ”I have no idea how they found their way to you, but I've survived under the radar for nearly a century, thank you very much, and it was only when I stumbled over the trip wire of your sister's project that anybody in any black suit and any s.h.i.+ny car ever had any specific interest in me, personally.”
”I find that difficult to believe,” he said.
To which I replied, ”Yeah? Well I don't give a s.h.i.+t. I don't have anything to prove to you.” And I didn't tell him anything about Ches.h.i.+re Red, or the half dozen international agencies that had wanted me for decades.
”Then what are you doing here?”
”What?”
”You,” he said pointedly, picking up the gla.s.s again and aiming it at me. ”What are you doing here, if you don't have anything to prove?”
”Oh, I've got work to do and things to prove, just not to you, you,” I insisted. ”My investigation accidentally stumbled across across you, which is not at all the same thing. I wandered into your circle by hunting down the military records for Project Bloodshot. In case you're unaware, those records effectively vanished, years ago. But I bet you aren't unaware. I bet you know you, which is not at all the same thing. I wandered into your circle by hunting down the military records for Project Bloodshot. In case you're unaware, those records effectively vanished, years ago. But I bet you aren't unaware. I bet you know exactly exactly where they are, because I bet where they are, because I bet you're you're the one who took them.” the one who took them.”
His eyes simmered over the highball gla.s.s. He downed the last couple of drops and acted like he wanted more, but was too smart to ask for more-much less drink any more. He said, ”Yeah. I took them.”
”I knew it!” I said, and it sounded sloppy. Which somehow didn't stop me from finis.h.i.+ng the gla.s.s of expensive old red. I was wound up tighter than an E-string, and I needed to get a grip on myself before dawn came up in a handful of hours. So I drank.
”I have no idea how you got so lucky,” he said. I liked the Spanish roll to his vowels, and I liked the hateful simmering. I wanted to p.i.s.s him off more, and keep him talking. I wanted to pin him down and demand that he say, ”My name is Inigo Montoya-you killed my father, prepare to die.” But I suspect that would've been deeply inappropriate in any number of ways. I told you, alcohol hits me hard and fast. I can't help it if my mind wanders.
And h.e.l.l, yours would've wandered, too, if you'd seen that body of his attired in fishnets and spangles. He was a good-looking man-maybe even more so than he was a good-looking woman. Good bone structure, that s.h.i.+ny blue-black hair with a faint, pretty wave...I wondered if he was gay, but I didn't dare ask. Don't ask me why; all I can say is that it was on the tip of my tongue and it took every ounce of remaining self-control to keep that query to myself.
Instead I told him, ”I'm not lucky, I'm persistent.”
”And whose records do you want?”
”It wouldn't matter if I told you. He isn't mentioned by name, just a serial number.”
”All right.” He signaled to me that he wanted more scotch, twitching his finger my way as if I were a bartender. ”Then what do you hope to find when you score those records?”
I serviced him anyway. I mean, you know. I topped off his drink, and let mine stay dry. And I figured that possibly, given the circ.u.mstances, honesty was the best policy. Veiled honesty, but honesty all the same. My inner choir girl sang.
”One of the other victims of the project is a client of mine. He needs his medical records.”
”Medical records? Can we really call them that?”
”I don't see why not,” I all but snapped at him. ”His body was experimented upon, and there are records of it. What else would you call it?”
”I don't know. Necropsy?”
”f.u.c.k you very much. Dead we may be, but still we bleed,” I said, trying to quote something and bombing it. I cleaned up my fumble with a lazy, ”You know what I mean. You wouldn't want someone cutting on your eyes either, I a.s.sume. Or”-I went for the heart of the matter as soon as I remembered where it was-”you wouldn't want anyone doing it to your sister. sister.”
”No, I wouldn't,” he said with a flare of something hot and hateful.
”Then don't begrudge my client his humanity either. a.s.shole,” I added.
He picked up his gla.s.s like he'd like to empty it further, or maybe whap me upside the head with it, but he did neither of these things. He sat it back down again and leaned against the counter, raising his hands to his face and rubbing his eyes. ”It's been so d.a.m.n long,” he said. ”She's been gone all this time, and I've been invisible. And then you. you.” He shot me another napalm glare, but it surprised me by cooling into something more sorrowful. Mercurial, this one. I liked it. It was hot.
”I guess it doesn't matter. If you didn't lead them to me, someone else would have, eventually. Or I would've screwed up, or someone would've recognized me, somewhere.”
”Does that mean you aren't mad at me?” I asked, just in case.
”I didn't say that. But it was probably a question of when, not if. Hey,” he said suddenly, in a whole different tone. Then he began patting himself down, running his fingers inside the seams of his clothes. Only then I remembered-they weren't his clothes. He told me, ”I nicked these off one of the guys who was chasing us.”
”Like I didn't figure that out.”
”I just wanted to make it clear that I didn't mug any innocent bystander.” He grabbed his own a.s.s and then, with a victorious flourish, produced a very slim wallet. It was not the world's most promising wallet. It almost looked like a pair of leather credit cards bound together, which led me to guess what it actually was. An ID folder.
I sidled up to him, sneaking in close to look around his arm and over his shoulder. ”What does it say?”
”It says I mugged Peter Desarme.” He brandished the badge so I could see it in all its glory. ”CIA agent.”
”Wait. What?”
”That's what it says,” he noted redundantly.
He let me swipe it out of his hand. I examined it up close and personal. It looked real. ”I don't get it.”
”What's not to get?”
”I figured these were army guys. Or, high-ranking, suit-wearing...I don't know. Men in Black. In my head I'd been calling them feebs. But CIA? That's really out of left field.”
”There's no good reason men in black can't be CIA agents. And besides, it's not that that crazy,” he objected. ”Project Bloodshot was closed. Maybe it was reopened as a civilian operation.” crazy,” he objected. ”Project Bloodshot was closed. Maybe it was reopened as a civilian operation.”
”How do you know it's closed? I mean how do you really really know? We're talking about the know? We're talking about the military military. It's a whole organization of left hands dedicated to not knowing what the right hands are doing.”
”You may be right, but I bet you're not. Some a.s.shole with money might've picked up where the army left off. It happens sometimes.”
”You can't be serious.”
He said, ”Think about it-all that money and research and effort, all dumped into something that winds up blacked out and shredded. It happens all the time. And every now and again, a private corporation will take an interest, and take another stab at it. They use whatever's left of the military doc.u.mentation to seed the new experiments, picking up where they left off. Sometimes they even look up the former researchers, engineers, and scientists. Anyone who took part in it.”
”Then where does the CIA come into it? Doesn't the very presence of CIA operatives mean it's not a civilian operation? Or...” I reconsidered my words. ”Or at least that it's a different kind kind of official operation?” of official operation?”
”Nah,” he said. ”CIA guys are wild cards. They're allowed to freelance, and a lot of them do.”
”Like mercenaries?” I asked.
”More or less. People are always talking about setting guidelines for what they can and can't do, but n.o.body ever does. There's plenty of...let's say 'conflict of interest' going on where they're concerned. But...” He shrugged. ”There's no regulation. So they moonlight wherever the money's good.”
”Huh.” I handed the ID back to him, but only after noting for the record that Adrian deJesus and Peter Desarme bore no resemblance whatsoever, and we wouldn't have any luck repurposing the official cards. ”You learn something new every day.”
He said, ”Yeah. I'm learning a bunch of new things today, for example.” Then he dropped his hands and slapped the wallet onto the counter. His gaze went back and forth between the floor and the scotch gla.s.s, respectively. Quietly he asked, ”So let me see if I can learn one more thing, while we're talking. Did you know my sister? Is there any chance of that?”
”No,” I said. ”But there's a chance my client did. They were in the same program, anyway. Can you tell me a little about her? Something I can use to refresh his memory?” Or satisfy my own curiosity, as the case may be.
He sighed. ”Isabelle ran away from home to go live with a boyfriend-a useless piece of s.h.i.+t she'd met someplace downtown. Our parents wouldn't have it; they threw her out.”