Harmony (30 page)

Mali grinned. “That’s right, little bro. Come on up here and face it.”

“Yes, sir.” Songh crawled out and into his chair.

“That’s better.” Mali stopped laughing and none of us dared do otherwise.

Sam pocketed his trinkets, then rescued Yolanda’s chair, and joined us at the table. He caught the eye of his friendly waitress and signaled another round. Chatter on the terrace and in the main salon returned slowly to normal, but our own conversation lagged.

Finally I asked, “What was the problem at rehearsal today?”

Tua straightened out of her protector’s arms as Cris tried very hard to make his sudden interest look professional. “This director is so rigid!”

Cris and I gave the same astonished laugh. “Howie??”

“He’s always worrying about the logic of the literal moment. Life isn’t literal! Dreams happen, irrelevant thoughts, visions!”

“Excuse,” Gitanne interrupted. “May I sit for a moment?”

Sam eased out of his chair and held it for her. “
Permettezmoi
…”

“Ah!” Gi returned a coquettish smile.
“Merci!”

Mali slipped on graciousness like a glove. Tua and Sam made agreeing noises while the bad rehearsal story was trotted out and aired once again. Pen sulked in silence like a forgotten child.

“I know, the pressures,” nodded Gitanne. “My daughters are putting in their own café at Images, so the dancers will have a place to unwind. The public restaurants have been so busy lately!”

I was not liking the sound of this.

“You must come again when we aren’t so crowded. But right now I need from you a very great favor.” She paused in confusion as Mali unfurled the full brilliance of his smile. “One of my customers has threatened to report me if I serve this table another round.”

“Right,” agreed Sam. “Fruit juice all around.”

Gitanne took a breath. “Actually, under the circumstances…”

Cris was confident he understood the situation. “One more beer for the regulars and off we go.”

She smiled at Crispin sadly. “No, I’m afraid not.”

“Are you asking us to leave, Gi?” My voice sounded very small to me.

“I’m afraid I must. But don’t worry, I won’t say anything.”

“Anything to who?” Sam asked quietly.

Gitanne’s hands strayed to her bun, which was immaculate and needed no tending. “Please, you must understand…”

“I’m sure we will,” said Mali.

She focused on him entirely, murmuring secretively as if no one else was at the table. “Forgive if I speak too boldly, but we are colleagues, no? It is best for these children if they are not seen socializing with your company. You will go on, tour the world, go home, but their future is still being determined.”

“Ah, yes,” said Mali, “I do understand.”

“Oh,
cheri
, I knew you would!” Impulsively she leaned over and kissed his cheek, then smiled broadly for the benefit of her surrounding customers. “Please, you will all be my guests.”

When she’d fled as gracefully as she could, Sam remarked, “Well, the cold box at Cora’s is well stocked…”

Mali was watching us.

Cris was the first to get angry. “I don’t believe this!”

“Anyone here ashamed of the company they keep?” demanded Sam.

Mali silenced him with a glance. “You are all welcome to join us.”

“I think we will,” replied Mark slowly.

Songh nudged him. “I…”

“I know.” Mark appealed to Mali. “He’d better go, or his parents’ll never let him out of the house again.”

Jane got up with him. “I have so much work to do…”

Mali waited until they’d left, then rose, drawing Mark and me up on either side of him. “This party will repair to Cora Lee’s. The smell of fear in here’s too strong to breathe.”

“Domer sonsabitches!” Pen muttered.

* * *

And there we were again, with Mark our latest recruit, marching after our own Pied Piper through the darkening streets of BardClyffe Market, along the restaurant lanes ringing with the chime of laughter and glassware, past the busy galleries lit with neon and laser fire, beneath the Chinese lanterns of the crafts stalls open late. The Tube was still crowded, but the oddness of our party and the collective grimness of our faces encouraged tourist and citizen alike to give us a wide berth.

Cora Lee’s fairy castle was set in a wooded glade cleverly shared with several other mansions in a way that made it appear to be all her own. It was dark under the trees, though the path was studded with ground lights. Cora’s entrance was a trefoil Gothic arch set in a pale stone wall, grilled with frothy metalwork from the same workshop as Harmony’s own Gates. Beyond, a miniature drawbridge spanned a moat of black water dotted with water lilies.

Mali stopped within the soft light from a round filigree lantern hung in the arch. He dug in his jeans pockets for the key, then noticed the gate was ajar. “Didn’t Moussa close this when we left this morning? Cora must be home early.”

Sam did an odd thing. He lunged forward and caught Mali’s wrist as he reached for the iron grille. He stepped between Mali and the gate and herded us back to the path among the trees. His easy jocularity had vanished. “Sit tight and don’t move.”

“Sam, it can’t be,” Mali said. “Not here.”

“You think trouble doesn’t travel? You want to take the chance?” Sam hunkered down and studied the gate. “Wish I had my damn bag of tricks.”

“Thought you never got caught without it,” muttered Pen, looking sober for the first time since he’d walked into the Brim.

“That’s only what it says on my resumé.”

“What is it?” demanded Cris. “What’s the matter?”

“He thinks the gate’s been wired,” Mark whispered.

“Wired?” I asked.

“Wow,” Cris murmured.

Mark joined Sam in his crouch. “This is, um, a smart-gate. There’s a telltale on it, you know.”

“No, I didn’t. Where?”

“You usually hide them behind a bush somewhere.” Mark moved forward and searched carefully among the thick vines climbing the wall. “Here it is—looks brand-new. It says the gate’s clean.”

Sam went to see for himself. A tiny box the color of the surrounding stone housed a panel of LEDs. “I’ll be damned.” He brushed the ivy back in place. “A little easy to find, though.”

“Only if you know what to look for,” said Mark. “Don’t want the consumer losing his own marker. It’s a popular brand, ’cause you can have the gate material shaped to your own design, so it doesn’t look smart. You can get remotes if you don’t want to get too close.”

Sam studied him. “Where’d you get to be such an expert?”

Mark shrugged diffidently. “A man I knew at home had one.”

“Just some guy?” Mali urged. When he turned those grave, trust-me eyes on you, it was hard to resist.

“My, um, my father.”

Mali laughed mirthlessly. “A rich man’s son!”

I was amazed that after three years I still hadn’t known this. With Crispin you could tell right away, and if you missed it, he’d let you know.

“Get to know this kid,” Sam advised. “He could prove useful.”

“He already has.”

“Let’s find out.” Sam was at the gate and through it before anyone could stop him. Several steps onto the drawbridge, he halted in a stage magician’s presentation twirl. I pictured the long black satin cape swirling behind him. “So far, so good,” he called.

Mark paced Mali step for step. “Did you guys get to be this careful on Tuatua?”

“There’s a war on,” snapped Pen. “Maybe you heard.”

Mali draped an arm across Mark’s shoulder. “The planters never mind there being one or two less Station Clansmen around.”

“Our news services still call it a ‘domestic conflict,’ ” said Cris. “They don’t say anything about killing.”

“Would you let them if you controlled the media?” said Pen.

“Then forget the media. I’m the best source of real news about Tuatua around here.”

“That so?” Pen had dismissed him already.

“If I can’t coax it out of the files, nobody can.”

Tua caught up with him. “Programmer?”

“Among other things.”

She slipped her arm through his. “Me, too. What hardware?”

Cris reeled off numbers and letters.

“Can I come play on it sometime?”

“I’m glad there are no wars in Harmony,” I murmured, mostly to myself, figuring no one was listening.

But Mali was listening. “There are always wars. Some just lie quiet longer than others.”

At the far end of the drawbridge, a long, barrel-vaulted passage hung with tapestries mounted a shallow flight of stone stairs. Sam moved ahead, signaling us to stay back. On the top step, he stopped abruptly. “Damn!”

We rushed the steps two at a time. Sam held us at the doorway, then eased into the room.

Cora Lee’s beautiful great hall had been trashed. Her fine leather furniture was overturned, cushions tossed aside. The precious tapestries woven from her own designs had been torn off the walls. The giant vases of flowers, Cora’s pride and joy, were tipped and scattered across the priceless Oriental rugs. A huge oil mural, her own work, hung askew over the great stone fireplace.

“Cora?” Sam opened the door to the music room, shut it, and continued his circuit of the room. “Everything’s all right in there. Cora? You here? I hope she didn’t surprise them at it.”

“They wouldn’t…” worried Tua.

Mali called louder.
“Cora?”

Pen said, “I think she had an OutCare meeting tonight.”

Cris waded though the confusion to the fireplace. A sheet of paper was pinned to the wooden slab of mantel with a nondescript pocket knife.

“Don’t…” called Sam from across the room.

“… touch it. I know.” Cris leaned in to read the scrawled writing. “Just more stuff about subversives and dangerous radicals. ‘Anarchy stalks the streets of Harmony.’ Wait, listen to this… ‘How long will we allow it? We have
eyes
enough of our own!’ ”

The Tuatuans converged on him as a group.

“There’s more… wow!”

I shoved a chair out of the way to get to him.

Cris read: “ ‘The fugitive felon hides among his sympathizers! Close the Door on the Conch!’ ”

Mark’s gasp beside me was as quick and silent as my own.

Cris straightened. He gazed at the actors breathlessly. “Are you guys hiding the Conch?”

Mali reached languidly for the paper and jerked it free of the knife blade. He scanned it, passed it aside to Sam. “Do you believe everything you read, young brother?”

“No, I—”

“If he does,” said Sam, “imagine how readily the rest of Harmony will believe it.”

Tua took the paper from Sam. “The next e-mail widecast.”

“The truth won’t matter one way or the other,” said Mark.

“It rarely does,” Mali replied. “Well, my bros, let’s think. Is the purpose of all this to scare us into leaving or Cora Lee into evicting us? Should we clean it up or make it public?”

“Clean it up, of course,” said Cora Lee from the entry stairs.

“Cora, thank the good powers!” Mali spread his arms in welcome.

“Were you worried, my Mali? I’m flattered.” Cora bustled in, a plump, immaculate Asian woman in close-cut green silk. A diamond-studded comb sparkled in her tightly bound black hair. “Of course we should clean it up. What earthly good would it do to show the world we’re vulnerable?”

“The sympathy vote,” suggested Tua.

“Phooie,” said Cora. She tossed her jeweled purse down on the back of an overturned armchair and looked around. “What a mess! I may have to start using that fancy alarm system Cam sold me to go with the gate.”

“I’d say you’d better.” Sam surveyed the wreckage with what seemed to me a very practiced eye. “I don’t think they’ve actually damaged anything. Somebody’s been rather careful.”

“Of course. They want
you
out, not me. I pay taxes.” Cora stalked a little circle in her green silk pumps. “Damn, I hate being muscled! I came here to get away from that!”

“And therefore you wish to clean it up and ignore it?” chided Mali softly.

Cora planted her feet. “If you can ignore people shooting at you, I can ignore this! Besides, who said I’m going to ignore it?”

Mali captured her tiny, well-ringed hands and smiled at her. Her nose came barely to his breastbone.

“I’ve stayed away from the struggle long enough.” She tore her hands away to gesture impassionedly. “Tried to pretend I was free from it when it’s been here brewing all along. Now, before we put this room back to rights, is anyone hungry besides me? A three-hour meeting about how to feed the starving and they can’t even provide us with a little snack!”

Cora sailed off to the kitchen with the Eye in tow. Mark and Cris and I stood in the middle of the ravaged hall, staring at each other. Mark was pensive, I was struggling to put it all together, but Cris had one thing only on his mind.

“Is it possible?” he whispered, “Could they actually be hiding the
Conch
?”

CRISPIN’S RESEARCH: ANOTHER CONCH STORY

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