F Paul Wilson - LaNague 02 (14 page)

           
A light
flashed above the bar, indicating that someone had a flitter waiting, and
deBloise hurried to the roof as if to escape thoughts of the horrors and
enigmatic men who could not be bullied or cajoled into line. Thank the Core
there weren’t too many of those around.

           
As he took
his seat, the flitter driver handed him a coded message disk. He tapped in a
combination that only he and a few of his closest associates knew, and five
lines of print began to glow on the black surface. The words would remain lit
for fifteen seconds, then would be automatically and permanently erased. There
could be no recall.

           
The lines
read:

           
Haas had
two visitors today.

           
Young
female named Josephine Finch.

           
Older man
unidentified as yet.

           
Both from
IBA. Any instructions?

           
There had
obviously been a leak, but that was not what occupied deBloise’s mind at that
moment. It was the name Finch. It seemed to mean something to him… and then it
came, rushing out of the past.

           
Of course.
Finch. How could he have forgotten?

           
An uneasy
feeling settled over him and he couldn’t shake it off.

           
Finch.

           
There
couldn’t be any connection, could there?

           
Of course
not. Just a coincidence. Just an awful coincidence.

           
EASLY RAN
THE FINGERS of his right hand up and down the middle of Jo’s bare back and
wondered idly how she continued to have such a disconcerting effect on him.

           
Not when
they were out in public, of course. Then everything was always cool and
professional. They both had their roles and played them well – lived them well.
She was mistress of a respected business advisory firm; he was master of an
information-gathering service. They’d meet now and then for a game or two of
pokochess and, if time permitted, perhaps a light meal afterward. They were two
self-sufficient and self-reliant individuals who enjoyed each other’s company
on occasion, but otherwise led separate personal lives. That was in public. And
he could handle that easily enough.

           
But when
they were alone, especially like this – in bed, skin to skin, tangled limbs and
breathless afterglow, communicating in the tiniest whispers, barely moving
their lips and eyes – at times like these he found himself bewildered at the
emotional bond that had grown between them. He’d never known a woman like Jo.

           
And he’d
never expected to become emotionally involved with a client. But, then,
virtually all of his clients had been male until Jo.

           
Until Jo.
So many things these days seemed to start and end with that phrase.

           
It seemed
like only just the other day that he’d received her message requesting a
meeting about a possible assignment. He had hesitated then at the thought of
taking her on as a client. He had never dealt with a woman on those terms, and
if her last name had been anything other than Finch, he might well have turned
her down.

           
He was glad
he hadn’t, for he’d found her delightful. Expecting a staid, middle-aged
matron, he discovered instead a bright, vivacious creature who could sparkle
with the best of them and yet had a laser-quick mind, strong opinions, and
unquestionable integrity. Before long he found himself looking forward to their
meetings, not just for the intriguing assignments that often developed, but for
the stimulus he derived from her company. He would search for ways to increase
the frequency of their meetings, and to prolong them once they were together.

           
Eventually,
they met for other than business reasons and quickly graduated to the sexual
intimacy of lovers. Here, again, Jo surprised him. For one so cool and
seemingly detached across a pokochess board or a dinner table, she exhibited a
passion and a lack of inhibition between the sheets that to this day continued
to leave him gasping.

           
An enigma,
this woman. Easly couldn’t decide whether she was a core of steel with a
woman’s exterior, or a vulnerable little girl hiding behind a metallic patina.
Sometimes she seemed one, sometimes the other. He was forever off balance, but
delightfully so.

           
One thing
was certain: this woman was a friend. She was a companion; she complemented
him, rounded him off, made him feel somehow more complete when he was with her
than when he was not. Especially at a time like this when they had each other
totally to themselves.

           
She was a
friend, and he wasn’t used to having friends who were women. Until Jo.

           
He had told
Jo that once, and she’d haughtily called him a typical product of the
outworlds. On the surface, he resented being called typically anything, but
inwardly he was forced to admit she was right. His view of women had been
typically and rigidly stereotyped: they were frail, lovable creatures, good for
homekeeping and bedwarming, requiring affection, protection, and occasionally a
good swift kick; their capacity for original thought and practical behavior in
the outside world was strictly limited.

           
He’d never
verbalized these concepts, of course; he owed himself credit for that. But he
also had to admit to being surprised whenever a woman exhibited prowess in any
field of endeavor outside the home, thus eminently qualifying him for the
title, “Typical Product of the Outworlds.”

           
Until Jo.

           
In the past
his relationships with women had been fleeting and superficial. Intentionally
so. Women were for huddling with, for satisfying mutually urgent physical
needs, but not for spending serious time with. There were more important, more
intriguing, more demanding things calling him.

           
Until Jo.

           
Easly knew
he would never be the center of her life; nor she the center of his, for that
matter. They each had “the business” as the major recipient of his or her
attentions. It was a subject that had never come up in discussion and probably
never would. It was understood. Neither of them was the type of person who
lived for other people.

           
Yet they
were close – as close as each could be to another person. But despite that
emotional proximity, Easly was aware that there was an important part of Jo
closed off to him. Somewhere within her psyche he sensed a hot, high-pressure
core of… what? Something raging and ravenous there, locked away from the world
and, perhaps, even from Jo herself. There were times in the too few nights they
could spend together when he’d awaken and find her rigid beside him. She’d be
asleep, her eyes closed, but her teeth would be clenched, her hands would be
squeezing his arm, and every muscle in her body would be straining as if
against some invisible force. Then she would suddenly relax and a thin film of
cool perspiration would sheen her skin.

           
“What’s
your secret?” he whispered to her.

           
“Mmmh?” Jo
lifted her head and opened her eyes.

           
He shook
her playfully. “What dark mystery is enshrouded within you? C’mon… tell me!”

           
She rolled
onto her back and threw her right forearm across her eyes. She was naked, quite
unselfconsciously so.

           
“Sacre
bleu! Tu es fou!” she moaned, lapsing into Old French, the second language of
Ragna.  After a moment or two of silence, she uncovered her eyes and rose
up on one elbow. “You’re really serious, aren’t you?”

           
Easly
nodded, holding her eyes with his.

           
“Some
nerve!” she snapped. “You’ve never even told me what planet you were born on,
and don’t tell me Ragna ’cause I know you weren’t born here.”

           
“How can
you be so sure?”

           
“You don’t
speak French.”

           
“Maybe I
just pretend I don’t.”

           
“Maybe you
pretend a lot of things, Larry. Maybe that isn’t really your name. But before
you try your deductive powers on me, better do a little talking about
yourself!”

           
Sitting up,
Easly leaned his shoulders against the headboard and reached for a cigar. He
favored the dry-cured type, toasted crisp in the ancient Dutch method. He
picked a torpedo shape out of a recess in the wall behind him, squeezed the tip
to ignite it, and was soon puffing away. Regarding the white ash, he said,
“Nice aroma. Reminds me of a story. Want to hear it?”

           
“I’m ready
to settle for anything by now,” Jo replied sharply. “Stop fooling with that
foul-smelling roll of dried leaves and start talking.”

           
“Soon as I
get comfortable.” He drew his legs into the lotus position and leaned back,
puffing leisurely. “Can’t do this in that float bed of yours,” he remarked.
Easly used to have a deluxe, anti-gravity float bed with laminar air flow and
all the other accessories. But he’d found himself waking every morning with a
stiff back.

           
“Okay.
Where shall I begin? How about the name of the planet on which the story takes
place?”

           
“Good
start!” came the sarcastic reply.

           
“The planet
is Knorr and the story concerns a love triangle of sorts. The woman’s name was
Marcy Blake and the man’s was Edwin – Eddy –
Jackson
– typical names for Knorr since most of the original colonists there were of
English extraction. Marcy was young, beautiful, and had inherited a personal
fortune of a couple of million Knorran pounds. She was unattached, too; which
might seem strange, considering her appearance and wealth. But anyone who knew
her personally did not think it strange at all: besides being of borderline
intelligence, Marcy’s personality was totally obnoxious. She was an incredibly
boring woman whose voice and manner always managed to set people’s teeth on
edge.

           
“Eddy
Jackson was as handsome as Marcy was beautiful, as crafty as she was stupid,
and as poor as she was rich.”

           
Jo
interrupted: “And so he decided to marry her, have her killed, and inherit her
fortune. What else is new?”

           
“Just have
a little patience, my dear. You’re jumping way ahead of me.

           
Eddy toyed
with the idea of marrying her but never quite had the courage to take the
plunge – which will give you an idea of what Marcy’s personality was like. He
did keep company with her now and then, however, just to keep his options open.
And he noticed that she made a few visits to the neurosurgical center in
Knorr’s capital city. A little bribe here, a little bribe there, and he learned
that Marcy had a unique, idiopathic degenerative disease of the central nervous
system. The prognosis was death in two years or so.

           
“Then he
decided to marry her, especially since Knorr’s common law provided certain
advantages in the area of survivor’s rights. Eddy figured he could put up with
anything for two years, after which he would be a bereaved but wealthy widower.

           
“So he
figured. But marriage seemed to have a beneficial effect on Marcy’s condition.
Two years passed. Then three. By the time their fifth anniversary rolled
around, Eddy was near the breaking point. Marcy had controlled the purse
strings for those five years, keeping Eddy on a strict allowance, and talking,
talking, talking. He finally confronted her physicians, who informed him that
the disease seemed to have undergone a spontaneous remission. If her progress
continued at its current rate, she would probably have a normal lifespan.”

           
“That’s
when he decided to kill her,” Jo stated confidently, but Easly shook his head.

           
“No. That’s
when he decided to leave her, money or not. He took what money he had saved out
of his allowance and traveled to the city to see what kind of luck he’d have in
the casinos. He was sure he could parley his winnings into a good-sized stake,
and then he’d say good-by to Marcy.

           
“Naturally,
he lost every cent and had to return home in disgrace. And then, a miracle – or
what seemed like one. Eddy entered the house and noted the faintest aroma of
cigar smoke; it was particularly strong in the bedroom. Cigar smoke! Neither he
nor Marcy smoked at all, and few of their friends did since tobacco wasn’t
plentiful on Knorr. He asked Marcy if anyone had stopped by over the weekend
and she very innocently said no… too innocently, he thought.

           
“Eddy was
flabbergasted. Incredible as it seemed, Marcy was cheating on him! Infidelity,
as I’m sure you know, is the rule rather than the exception on the Sol system
planets. But on outworlds like Knorr, it remains scandalous. Not that he cared
– it was just a question of whom. The why of it was conceivable: she was
undeniably attractive and, he supposed, bearable in small doses.

           
“He decided
to learn the identity of her lover and even went so far as to tip a rookie
flitter-patrol cop to watch the house and see who came and went when Eddy
wasn’t there. He planned to threaten Marcy with exposure and disgrace once he
had his proof, and allow her to buy his silence with a nice chunk of her
fortune.