Conscience of the Beagle (16 page)

Fumble up from the chair.

“Dyle? I read her file. She was smart and careful. Lila went into that alley with someone she trusted.”

Kanz? No, not Kanz.

I push past Tal Hendrix. Blunder through the door. Can’t see. Run into Beagle’s workstation, nearly knock the table down. The kitchen. Have to get to the kitchen.

“Dyle?” Beagle behind me.

Hit the heel of my hand against a drawer. It pops open. Hit it again. Harder. Harder. Feel the shock of the blows in my shoulder. Silverware jingles.

My mind is sharp. Quick. A small knife. That’s what I need. A knife good for getting in tight places.

“What are you doing?” Beagle asks.

I see it. So clearly. Short, sharp blade. Perfect. Slip the knife up my sleeve.

Beagle grabs me and the blade bites.

Kill him. If he doesn’t let me go, I’ll kill him. Dots of blood on my sleeve. Bright in the glare of the kitchen.

He sees my face. Releases me. “Where are you going with that? What are you going to do?”

“Cut Vanderslice’s eyes out.”

I turn. He wraps his arm around my neck. Drags me backward. “Get the trank packs out of Szabo’s room!” he shouts at Tal. “Go on! Do it now!”

HF killed Lila. Killed her to make Vanderslice Chosen of God. Kanz? Not Kanz. He was crying. I didn’t cry. Not me. But maybe Gonzales. His head lowered when he saw me. No. Couldn’t have done
—
None of them could have done that. But he’s right. One of them lured her there.

Tal is back. Unbuttoning my sleeve. The knife falls to the floor. Blood-streaked blade. Red runs in a small stream down my arm. Beagle’s so strong. I can’t
—

A slap. The trank pack. My knees go weak. I slump in Beagle’s arms. “Kill him,” I whisper. Slide down his broad chest to the floor. What’s happening? What was I about to do? Oh, that’s right. “Cut out his goddamned lying tongue.”

I LIFT MY
head
from the pillow. Beagle’s standing at the end of the bed.

“Go back to sleep, Dyle. You’re still stoned.”

Blanket over my feet. Five round bruises on my arm where Beagle held me. Pale square of skin above. The trank patch. I try to sit up. “Where is she?”

“Taking a nap. You wore the woman out this morning. Horny you.”

The clock is blinking 4:12. Sunlight is at ebb tide, sucking back from the blinds. The room is beached in sandy-colored glow.

“You knew who killed Lila all the time.”

“I’ve known for a while now, Dyle. Patterns. They’re my habitat.”

“Earth killed Lila because of him.”

“Vanderslice? I’m beginning to doubt it. Although, even if they did, he wouldn’t have known.”

A bell chimes. Szabo passes the open doorway of my room, shoulders hunched, cadence deliberate and slow.

Beagle looks up, worried. “There’s a speaker next to the bell. Why didn’t our visitor use it?”

I stumble out of bed. The room swims. Brace myself on the doorjamb, the wall. Shuffle into the kitchen. Vanderslice. In the living room. Duffel bag over his shoulder. Distracted look on his face.

Where’s the knife? The goddamned knife? Go to a drawer. Hammer it with my fist. Peelers. Apple corers. Measuring spoons.

Then Beagle grabs me from behind. Pins my arms against my sides.

Vanderslice comes into the kitchen. Looks at me. At Beagle. Crosses to the bot and thumbs the power button. The bot halts, arrested by the sink, can of cleanser in one pincher, sponge in the other.

Vanderslice pulls something from his pocket. Beagle’s grip so tight I can’t breathe. Remote control. Vanderslice has some sort of remote control.

He points the remote at the window. Faint, flat tink. Like a single note of music. Beagle lets me go.

Vanderslice turns, smiling. “Sexy, huh? This gadget stiffens the glass in the window so the passive ears stationed outside can’t pick us up.”

Beagle puts a warning hand on my arm.

“The active ears are in the bot. A little trick I picked up at a conference a couple of years ago. Sweepers confuse the bot’s signals with the ears’ electronics. Can’t spot the surveillance worth a damn.”

Listening to us all the time. Did he hear what went on in the bedroom? In the bath?

Vanderslice reaches into the duffel bag. Oh, no. He’s got a softgun. Hardened the window so no one can hear our screams. Cold spills up my spine. I lunge, but Beagle stops me. Another softgun. Another. Laying them on the counter.

“Take it easy, Major. There’s one for each of you. They have your initials on them. Got your fingerprints and DNA matches from your files, so arming them wasn’t much of a trick. Carry them at all times. Somebody should stay awake from now on. I guess that would be you, Dr. Taylor, since you don’t need the sleep. Someone slipped past the body-sound alarm last night. If it hadn’t been for infrared, he would have gotten through.”

Surveillance net outside. Got us trapped. Nothing we can do.

“Who?” Beagle asks.

“We don’t know. He had a body muffler. No cardiac rhythms, no intestinal sounds. Luckily the body heat soaked through.”

“You lying son of a bitch.”

Green eyes meet mine.

“Earth killed my wife because of you.”

Vanderslice shakes his head. “Okay, Major. I know what you think. But Earth is after me, too. All of a sudden this thing has gotten personal and dirty. Harvey Piper was killed last night with a softgun.”

“Rooter,” Beagle says.

A bewildered glance. “Anyway, Marv and the council are giving me these sidelong glances I don’t particularly like. Two softgun murders. And only Internal Safety carries softguns. Don’t you see? Dr. Taylor. Come on. Explain it to him, will you?”

“Vanderslice isn’t part of it, Dyle. As soon as the woman was murdered on God’s Gift I had that figured out. Vanderslice wouldn’t have been stupid enough to use a softgun.”

He nods. “Okay. So that’s understood. I’m going to show you mine now, and I’ll want you to show me yours. A tall red-headed man made the Hebron-to-Gilead run at 4:00 in the afternoon, just about the time you were on your way back. He rented a cab at the port, drove over to Piper’s house and shot him. Your fingerprints, Major, your sweat, have been found in and around Piper’s work area, so I had to step in and keep the Gilead cops from putting out an arrest warrant on you.”

“Now you give us softguns. They can find a murder weapon.”

Vanderslice rolls his eyes. “God, Major. Once you get an idea in your mind, it just gets glued there, doesn’t it? I got the Gilead cops to leave you alone because I had a beacon implanted in your ribs during your hospital stay.”

Bastard. Tagged me like a petty thief.

“I knew you were both in Gilead. You were followed to Piper’s. If either of you had shot a softgun the beacon would have gone off.”

“Take it out.”

“It’s not hurting you or anything, is it? Sometimes they plant them wrong
—”

“Get it out!”

He’s mystified. “You feel really strongly about this, don’t you?”

Pulse fast in my temple. I turn. Look at Beagle. “Goddamn it. You knew, didn’t you? Knew about Lila. Knew about everything. What the fuck are you pulling? Are you in on it with him?”

“Dyle? Calm
—”

“You picked up the signal! You had to.”

“No way. I completely fooled him.” So proud of himself. “The electrodes on the Slimcast leave a residue. Dr. Taylor would have confused the beacon with that. And I’m not having it taken out. The beacon’s so handy, really. Now. Fun’s over. I want to know who this red-headed man is. He’s not an EPAT. Never been one. So I know he’s not ours. He’s an Earther.”

Beagle nods.

“I’ve heard you talk about him. Colonial Security, right? But I thought you knew about my surveillance . . .”

Beagle says, “Didn’t pick up any signals inside, so . . .”

So brilliant. But never knew.

“Really? No kidding. Great. Wasn’t sure what kind of game plan you were following. Whether you were involved. But this morning
—
well. We’re better than I thought, then. That’s good. Now. The drunk. Why was Pearcy important enough to be killed? And why did they cut out his eyes? Major? Does the murderer know what happened to your wife?”

Vanderslice knows about Lila. Read my file? No. Heard Beagle and me talking.

“What’s going on?”

My breath stops. Tal’s voice. Tal in the kitchen doorway. Looking at the guns. At Vanderslice.

He smiles. She comes to him. Don’t. Don’t. Too close. He could reach out and . . .

Arms fold around one another. His head lowers to her shoulder. His eyes close and he holds her tight. “God, I missed you.”

Missed you. Missed you. The room takes a half-spin to the right. Nothing to stop it. In Vanderslice’s face that . . . joy. I should be there, standing in her heat.

Dive for the softguns. Which one, damn it? There. The DH on the butt. It molds to my hand. Senses me. Tingle tells me it’s charged. Waited so long. So damned ready.

“Dyle!” Beagle shouts.

Arms drop. They spring apart, guilty. Not sure which one I’ll kill until Vanderslice pushes her away.

The barrel follows him. Beagle out of the corner of my eye. Frozen in horror. Nothing can stop me.

Vanderslice. Hands up. Palms out. Not so dangerous now, is he? Is he? He looks toward the door.

Beagle says, “Don’t! Don’t run. He’ll shoot.”

Vanderslice goes pale.

“He’s part of the revolution,” Tal’s saying. Voice breathy. “The contact high up in the government. John’s the one.”

John. Doesn’t call me by my name. Not ever. Sweat on my hand. Skin slides on plastic. Sweat on us. Covered both of us.

“Wait a minute. Wait a minute,” Vanderslice says. “I get it. But Tal and I
—
we’re just friends.” His voice is squeezed, as if I have my hands on his throat. Want to watch him, how softgun victims topple and curl. Fists to chin, trembling. Like she trembled. “Is that what this is all about? We’re just friends.”

Saw her arms around him. God, her arms were around him. Have him sweat like she sweated. Like she cried out.

“Tal and I . . . We work together, Major. We have for years. Paulie. And Tal. And me.”

No.

“Damn you!” Tal screams. “You’re messing everything up! It’s not John at all! It’s not his fault! Earth is behind all this.”

Can’t hold on. Vanderslice cringes. Hands to his face. He cries out. One syllable.

And I whirl and fire. Shot goes wild. Into the living room. A chair quivers. The armature crackles. Pale stain on the cloth where the material fused.

“Damn it!” Throat raw from my shout. “Goddamn it!” All this time. Never really meant it. Never loved.

I let the gun drop. It clatters against the tiles.

Noise at the door. Banging. Shouts. Three men in suits crash into the room, softguns raised. They look at Vanderslice. At me. At the chair.

“I’m all right,” Vanderslice tells them. “Just put the guns away.”

Panicked. And out of breath. “We tried to see what was going on, sir. But you were in front of him the whole time. Blocking our view. I tried to get a bead on him
—”

“It’s all right, Stu.”

They put their guns back in their jackets. Look at me again. Shift nervously on their feet.

Vanderslice stands at my shoulder. Awed eyes on the chair. He says weakly, “Good God, Major. You’ll never get your rental deposit back.”

Tal laughs. He probably always makes her laugh. It was what I loved about Lila, that laughter. And I’m not a happy man. No use. I leave. Leave them all. Go to my bedroom and stare blindly out the window.

Then
—
tink. Tink.

Vanderslice there behind me, putting away his remote control. “I wanted to talk to you alone.”

So sad. The purple lawn abandoned. Empty of Szabo and his squirrels.

“Look at me, Major. Don’t speak into the window. This stiffens the glass, but it doesn’t insulate sound altogether.”

I take a breath. Face him.

“On the south side I was watching Tal every second of every day. After the murder, I called her. Was going to take her to a safe house. But you interfered. Look. I know about your wife. I know how you
—
well, damn it. You deserve the truth. Tal only went with you, Major . . .” Eyes shift. His. Not mine. So embarrassed he might not finish the thought. Then he says, “because I didn’t trust you.”

“Hey, look. It’s my fault, really. Her idea, though. I shouldn’t have told her. Sometimes my mouth just gets away from me. She cried when I said the revolution was failing, and that it was all your fault.”

She spied on me.

“So. There you have it.” Not embarrassment. Pity.

My face in such tight check that it hurts. Everything hurts. “No hard feelings? We need each other now. I thought we might get together, you and me. Get to know each other better. Brainstorm a little. Come on over to my house tonight about seven-thirty. My men will pick you up. It’s secure and we can talk as long as we like.”

He hikes the duffel bag over his shoulder. He walks to the door. In the hall, he stops. “Don’t bring the softgun.”