False Hearts (12 page)

I wave vaguely, and something stills in the other girl’s face. A crease appears in the smooth skin of her forehead, tense lines deepening next to painted lips. She swallows and busies herself with the reception desk. I rub my clammy palms discreetly on my dress, avoiding eye contact with the few other hosts and hostesses who are milling around Zenith waiting for their shifts to start.

“Your client’s waiting,” Pallua says, her bright smile back in place. “Cute, too.”

“Thanks.” I smile, hoping it reaches my eyes.

The door to the back room where I’m meant to be seems to stare at me, waiting for me to enter. I pause in front of it, take a deep breath, and the scanner reads my VeriChip, identifying me as Tila.

The door swooshes open. I step through and the dim lights brighten. Detective Nazarin waits for me, perched on a luxury sofa. He must have come in the rear entrance. He looks like a thug in the dark clothing that doesn’t quite obscure his shoulder holster.

The room is simple, but everything screams of wealth. I don’t look at the round bed in the corner. There’s a well-stocked bar, and a wide expanse of polished floorboards and low-pile rugs with abstract designs. Zeal Chairs are parked discreetly in the corner of the room.

Next to him is Sal, the owner of Zenith. He’s a tall man, thin and elegant. He wears rings on all his fingers and a dark green suit, the cravat at his neck a vivid blue that matches his eyes. It looks old-fashioned, almost Edwardian, but then Tila said he was like that: picking bits of the past and interweaving them into his look. Sal is one of the few people that Tila genuinely respects. He took a chance on her by taking her on at the club, trained her up, and always treated her well. She spoke of him sometimes, over dinner. He’s meant to be fiercely protective of his employees and he prides himself that Zenith has had no scandals, no violence.

Until three days ago. I feel nervous that he knows about the switch between me and my sister. How trustworthy is Sal, really? I asked Nazarin about it earlier, right before I went up to change into Tila’s clothes.

“From all we can tell, he’s fairly clean,” he reassured me. “There’s nothing connecting him to the Ratel. There’s a chance of course that he’s covered his tracks well, but it’s a risk we have to take. For an exorbitant sum, he’s keeping very quiet.”

“Tila told me once that he prides himself on keeping his word,” I responded.

Detective Nazarin nodded. “We have to hope that’s true.”

The door closes behind me. “We thank you for your assistance with this investigation, Mr. Kupka,” Detective Nazarin begins.

He waves his arm. “Call me Sal, please. And we all know it’s in my best interests as well as yours.” He looks me up and down. “My, but you do look just like Tila. It’s nice to meet you, Taema.”

I incline my head. “It’s nice to meet you, too. Tila’s spoken well of you.”

I notice he doesn’t call my sister Echo. The man before me looks polite, and a small smile rests on his face. I glance around the room, swallowing. There’s absolutely no trace of a crime scene, but this is the room where it happened. Did Tila sit on that very sofa on the night that tore both our lives apart?

I lean against one of the pillars of the room. It’s rude, but I can’t bear the thought of sitting down. Why are we meeting in this room, and not the others? I bring up the logs again. Ah. Because all the other rooms in Zenith are booked, and even if Sal wants to help us, he doesn’t want to eat into his profit.

I look toward the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking downtown San Francisco. The bay is tinged its usual phosphorescent green, the lights of the skyscrapers blue and white. Hovercars wink and blink as they weave their way through them.

“So,” Nazarin begins, and I turn. “Was Vuk Radke a regular client of Zenith?”

“He’d come maybe once every other month or so,” Sal replies. He seems at ease, relaxed. I find that unnerving. A dead client was found in this very room, my sister covered in his blood, and he doesn’t seem to mind at all. I swallow.

“Did he often see Tila or Leylani when he was here?”

“Leylani was his favorite hostess.”

“Did he stay over when he visited?”

“Every other time. So perhaps three times a year.”

“Have you had any dealings with him outside Zenith?”

Sal shrugs a shoulder. “Here and there. I go to charity events. Sometimes he’d be there. We were on friendly enough terms, I’d say.” A flicker of emotion on his face: regret.

“Why wasn’t Leylani here three nights ago?”

Sal takes a cig out of his breast pocket and sucks on it, the end briefly glaring red. He blows out the mist. “Said she wasn’t feeling well and had to cancel her shift.”

“Has she missed any work since?”

“No, she came in yesterday. I haven’t told her anything about this.”

“Can you tell us more about what happened three nights ago?”

Why am I here?
I want to ask them. I don’t want to listen to this. I don’t want to hear this slick, shiny-suited man dispassionately explaining the night my sister’s life fell apart—and mine, as a side effect. Yet I’m curious, too, and find myself drifting closer. Adrenaline courses through my veins. I force myself to calm down.

“I found her. The room sensed the blood on the floor and it triggered an alarm. My employees are protected—they are never to be harmed. Fantasies like that are reserved for the Zealscape, but even so, we don’t allow violent sexual fantasies unless the host or hostess consents to it. Tila was always very clear she was not interested in that, and their engagement that night was not likely to be sexual.”

My shoulder muscles are so tense they feel like they could shatter.

“So I was concerned, obviously, and came in personally. There was Vuk on the floor, with Tila sitting next to him, covered in blood.”

I close my eyes, but the vision is too vivid. I open my eyes to see Sal’s blue ones focused on me, curiously watching my reaction. I release the tension in my body, but cross my arms over my chest.

“Did she say anything to you?” Nazarin asks.

“She did.”

I frown, and Nazarin nudges him. “What was it?”

Sal pauses, as if trying to remember. “Ah. Yes. It was something like, ‘He is the red one, the fair one, the handsome one. He came from the Earth and now he returns. The faces keep changing.’ I had no idea what it meant. And I still don’t. I wasn’t sure if she actually saw me, or was muttering it to herself. Does it mean anything to you?”

“No. Not yet. Why didn’t you tell the police?”

He looks down, slipping the cig into his pocket. “Slipped my mind.” Clearly, it hadn’t. It reminds me uncomfortably of Tila. I wonder why he’s giving it to us now.

I can tell Nazarin wants to play the hard cop, but restrains himself—that wouldn’t work with Sal. “What did you do next?”

“Called the police. And it was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. I debated letting her go, you know. I don’t mind admitting that. Tempted to let her wash herself off and disappear into the night. Dispose of the body. Clean up the blood.” He sighs. “But I knew I’d never get away with it, and much as I care for Tila, I didn’t care to sacrifice my livelihood for her. So I locked the doors and pinged the police, instructing them to come in the rear entrance and make as little fuss as possible. But then Tila threatened me with the knife, so I let her go. She grabbed Vuk’s coat by the door to cover up her blood-soaked dress and escaped out the back. I think Pallua saw something, or realized something was wrong, but she hasn’t said anything.”

That explains her nervousness around me, at least.

“Is Leylani here tonight?”

“Her shift should start soon, yes. Will you be telling her what happened?”

Nazarin shakes his head. “No, I don’t think so. No need. But we’ll probably observe her and the other clients briefly before we go home.” He nods at me. “She’s going to work a shift like you agreed. Try her hand at being her sister for a few hours. Let the other hosts and hostesses know that she’s going away to China with her sister. Then she’ll be gone.”

“But Tila’s never returning,” Sal says, his voice bland.

“No, I find it unlikely she’d return to your employ, or that you’d let her.”

Sal considers me again. “Very well. This will be interesting, I suppose.” He tilts his head and points at his eye. “I’ll be watching.”

He smiles, but I’m not reassured.

“It’ll be interesting to see how similar you are to your sister,” he continues, standing and making his way to the window as well.

I say nothing. What is there to say?

“We appreciate your cooperation, Sal,” Nazarin says, standing.

Sal looks around at the room and sighs. “I’ll have to redecorate. I got all the blood out, but the memories are still here. All of this will have to go.”

The blood drains from my cheeks. Something terrible happened here last Thursday, but the idea of it all disappearing and being replaced with more bland, expensive furniture is hard to take. The room that changed everything for me will continue to be just another back Zeal lounge in the Zenith nightclub.

“One last thing,” Nazarin says. “I recommend you check your Zeal supply.” He nods to the Chairs in the corner.

Sal starts. “Why?”

“I can’t give details, but we have reason to believe that someone may be responsible for tampering with Zeal in certain lounges. If you find any anomalies, buy fresh stuff. Check it every time.”

“We’ve had people plugged in since Friday morning. Why didn’t you tell us this?”

“We only just found out about it. And it’s unlikely, but I wanted to warn you to take precautions.” I am pretty certain the thought has only just occurred to Nazarin. The lines around his mouth are tight. I wonder if he’s thinking about the night he had to provide security to the off-grid lounge. Tila told the SFPD she hadn’t been asked to lucid dream within Zenith yet, but it’s only a matter of time. Was Vuk sent here to tamper with the supply, and is that why Tila came to blows with him?

“I’ll check the Zeal daily myself,” Sal says.

“Good. Please let us know if you find anything unusual and send a sample directly to us for testing. No one else.” His voice sharpens.

“Of course not,” Sal says, all smooth charm.

With a last look out the window at glittering San Francisco sprawling below, the owner of Zenith walks away, and Nazarin and I are left alone.

“Are you OK?” Nazarin asks.

“Yes, I am.” It’s not a lie: my fingers shake a little, and I really want to get out of this room, but I’m holding it together. Mana-ma’s training is in full effect, and I’ve dampened my emotions enough to function. I ask if he thinks Vuk has tampered with the Zeal here and mixed or replaced it with Verve.

“I don’t know. I don’t think so, but I’d rather warn Sal than risk the supply being contaminated.”

“Right. So am I to stay for the whole six hours of Tila’s shift?”

“We’ll see how you get on. If you like, we can leave early.”

“Are you going to be posing as a client?” I ask.

He pauses and turns to me. “Yes. I’ll be watching along with you. It could be someone here knows more than they let on. Pallua, maybe.”

I nod. “OK.”

He moves close and slings an arm around me, and I start in surprise.

He leans close enough for me to feel the heat from his skin. “We have to sell it, don’t we?”

I consider, and then nod, pressing my hip against his, resting my hand against the warm dip in his waist. It feels strange, to be touching a near-stranger like this. It happens so rarely for me, these days. It’s also a comfort. I want to lean closer to him, breathe in the scent of his skin.

In the Hearth, there was a lot of touching. Not necessarily sexual—people just touched each other more. Greeted each other with hugs, or casually threw an arm around someone else. Here in San Francisco, people are more reserved. Maybe that’s why so many feel the need to come to places like Zenith, where they can pretend the barriers between people are thinner.

I shake my head, patting my shorter hair and trying to gain a bit of composure. The door swooshes open. We sidle through, still touching. Nazarin settles into his role with an ease I envy. He laughs, warm and deep in his throat, his hand lingering on my hipbone. I feel the strong ropes of muscle on his back beneath his shirt. I resist the irrational urge to stroke my hand down his spine.

We make our way through the club, which is busier now. Beautiful men and women with perfect bodies, perfect faces, perfect clothes, laughing their perfect laughs and drinking their perfectly delicious drinks. The minty mist of cigs fills the air, mingling with the flattering blue and purple lighting. There’s that
sameness
to so many people in San Francisco and the rest of Pacifica. When anyone can choose to alter their appearance at will, so many tend to go for the same bland, symmetrical features. Now I feel like I’m a little more like them.

I still miss the simplicity of certain aspects of the Hearth. Knowing that if you looked at someone, it was the face and body they were born with, shaped by their experiences. Everyone in San Francisco wears a mask.

Having said that, there’s plenty about the Hearth I don’t miss one little bit.

We perch at a round table. I access my brainloaded info and lean toward Nazarin to say, “What’ll it be to drink?”

“Gin and tonic,” he replies.

I go to the bar and order two drinks, which will be added to Nazarin’s tab. The bartender’s name is Ira, and he smiles at me as he gives me the glasses. We chat for a bit, but Tila didn’t give much information beyond his name, so I’m glad when other hosts and hostesses come up with their drink orders.

I take my gin and tonics to the table. It’s synthetic, like all alcohol in the city. No damage to the liver, non-addictive, no hangovers. I pass Nazarin his, and we clink our glasses together.

I take a cautious sip and fight the urge to make a face. It lacks the peppery, juniper punch of the true stuff. Not that we had that much of it at sixteen in the Hearth. But at the start of each season, anyone could have a glass or two (or ten, in the case of Mardel) of whatever had been brewed for the celebration. The blueberry vodka from the summer we were fourteen was my favorite.