Kelley Eskridge (30 page)

Crichton answered neutrally, “You enjoying
Solitaire?”

Jackal nodded warily.

“Glad to hear it. And don't look like
that, I'd have told you by now if you were in trouble. The NNA no
longer has regulations about criminal associates, mostly because there
are too many criminals in the world these days. You can't turn around
without bumping into one. So we control it at the back end. We'll add
an automatic lifer clause to your sentence if you commit another crime
with another convicted criminal. So talk all you want, but don't be
stupid. Your whereabouts are always recorded and there are plenty of
eyes watching you.”

That was interesting. Jackal wondered if
Crichton was talking about security officers hanging around places like
Solitaire, or if she was referring to the network of solo watchers. If
Jackal had Crichton's job, she would recruit as many watchers as she
could. Who better to notice behavior changes and association patterns?

Why's she telling me this?

“Now disappear.” The green eyes glinted in
the flat overhead light, but there were no answers there.

16

SHE HAD FORGOTTEN TO TELL CRICHTON
ABOUT HER
job search, but she wasn't about to go back or even
send e-mail: right now she wanted as much distance as possible between
them. And she didn't need Crichton's permission to look for a job, she
told herself, even though part of her wanted nothing more than the
other woman's approval and support, maybe the offer of a private word
in an executive ear because Crichton was so impressed with Jackal's
determination and grit. She told herself to grow up, but she daydreamed
about it on the transport back to Shangri-La.

It was time to do some work. She set
herself to analyze each company on her shortlist. It quickly became
clear that the art gallery was the best choice, because of its size and
competitive stance, and because according to the business news it was
taking on a number of major installation contracts in a short period of
time. The gallery was urgently commissioning sculpture, painting,
mobile, holographic and audio/olfactory art. Jackal didn't know
anything about sound/smell pieces, but she would bet that facilitating
the design and approval processes between artists and clients was not a
beginner's job.

She pulled the Director of Human
Resource's e-mail address from a net article. She wrote a polite cover
letter stressing her skills, describing in general terms a few of the
projects she had last worked on, and announcing her immediate
availability on a contract basis. She put everything under the name ‘R
Segura,’ and she double- and triple-checked that the
résumé was utterly professional. They might turn her
down, but they were damn sure going to take her seriously first.

She sent the e-mail before she could worry
herself out of it. Then she stood and stretched in front of the window,
enjoying the crisp blue of the sky and the precise planes of the high
thin clouds. She felt the satisfaction of forward movement.

She arrived at Estar Borja's door at seven
oh two with a brightly colored paper bag with string handles. She had
spent the rest of the afternoon shopping, agonizing over what to buy.
Something delicious: the first test. She rang the buzzer and waited.
And waited. She rang again. Somewhere over her head, a speaker fuzzed
into action. “You should be careful whose door you knock at.”

“Um…hello? It's Jackal.”

Silence.

“Jackal Segura? You said to be here at
seven…” Oh, sharks, had she misunderstood? Maybe she could simply find
a way to sink into the sidewalk so she didn't have to be so embarrassed.

Then the voice said brightly, “Segura!
Dinner. Is it so late already?”

The gate clicked open, and a tiled walkway
led her between high whitewashed walls to massive double wooden doors
that were beautifully hung and swung open with a touch. She came into a
large central courtyard that opened to the sky, elegant and utterly
private, like the old Spanish houses she remembered from visits to her

abuelo's
friends. Three
moorish-arched
doors were set into the courtyard walls, one leading in each direction:
this was a huge house, not the apartment or small wing she'd expected.

She went further into the courtyard, past
enormous plants in clay pots glazed with intricate designs, and at the
heart of the open space found a gentle fountain that plinked like
liquid chimes into a circular pool bounded by a low stone wall, perfect
for sitting. So she did, enjoying the smell of water and green growing
things. The music was louder here, but not more distinct; she couldn't
tell what it was, but it played weaving games with the notes of the
water in a way that made the garden more luxurious and exotic.

Estar came around the side of the pool,
wearing a long raw-silk dress that reminded Jackal of mediterranean
sand, the color and the way it moved as if individual tiny grains
flowed endlessly over one another. Estar's feet and arms were bare; as
if she read Jackal's thought, she put out one arm and said, “It's cold.
Come inside.”

She led Jackal into the wing to the left
of the main entrance. Jackal tried to orient herself—right now she was
walking toward Perdue Street—until she stepped into the first room and
any sense of direction disappeared in wonder.

She had never seen anything like it. Each
wall was fully covered, floor to ceiling, by a different, vivid mural.
The first one stopped her speechless: a photo-realistic pair of french
doors opened onto a balcony that overlooked a wild seacoast under a
turbulent sky; the water had receded from the beach, stranding sea
creatures and revealing disturbing objects—a golden mask, a rusted car
with algae-filmed windows, a set of tossed human bones entangled in a
net. On the horizon, a huge wave swelled toward the viewer.

“Oh, my,” she said, and stepped forward
for a closer look, only to be distracted by the next, a
quasi-expressionistic rendition of a bullring, all swirls and
suggestion, where the matador was a small girl in a plain white shift,
her sword nearly as big as her body, surrounded by a dozen circling
bulls with bright blue eyes and human teeth.

Ugh, she thought, and turned to the right
to find a painted extension of the garden she had just left, that led
from planted beds and disappeared down a tiled path into a jungle. The
tangle of green and black parted slightly at the curve in the path to
show golden animal eyes peering through.

Estar was waiting at the door into the
next room. “Come along. If you stop to look at everything, we'll never
get our dinner.”

Multicolor rugs layered the wooden floor,
piled three deep in some places, so she had to step carefully. She also
had to navigate the furniture: it was large and stuffed and there was a
great deal of it, chairs and couches and ottomans positioned for
conversation or quiet contemplation of the artwork, or in a corner
under a bright reading lamp. Muted music played from concealed
speakers, sitars and some kind of reed instrument wailing at each other.

“It's just so—” Jackal began, and then
opened her hands to show she had no words for what it was.

Estar took her down a short hallway past
several rooms stuffed with color and texture and sound, the same
technique of decorative overload. Different music drifted from each
open door, loud enough to fill its particular room and blend into a
gentle stew in the overlap areas: now Jackal understood the muddle of
sound she always heard outside the gate.

The kitchen was at the end of the hall, a
large L-shaped room with a thick dark wood dining table at the far end.
There was a cooking island in blue and orange tile; on racks and
shelves, copper-bottomed pans competed for attention with patterned
dishes, thick-stemmed glasses in dark berry colors, crockery jars, an
entire rack of glass spice containers. An opaque golden film covered
the kitchen window and made the room seem bathed in olive-oil light.
The walls were painted in a checkerboard of egg-plant and kale green
and nectarine. More music, this time a deep, throaty female voice
accompanied by acoustic guitar. Something bubbled on the stove: Jackal
breathed in garlic and sautéed onions.

“It's fantastic,” she said spontaneously.
“I am completely happy to be here.”

Estar looked pleased. “So,” she said,
“reward me for being so clever as to have invited you. Show me what you
have brought.”

She studied each item that Jackal
produced: a bottle of rioja and one of barbaresco, wines that would
taste of earth and sun and, Jackal hoped, would complement whatever
meal she was offered in this wonderful, mad house; a container holding
two steamed artichokes wrapped to keep warm, with little pots of garlic
butter and herb mayonnaise; a loaf of banana bread, homemade and only
slightly burned in one corner; a bunch of cheerfully ragged sunflowers.

Estar opened the pot of mayonnaise and
sniffed it, then wrinkled her nose. “This is foul,” she said. “The rest
is very nice. You'll find a corkscrew in that drawer.” She waved a hand
towards a sideboard near the table, and then began to arrange the
flowers in a tall blue vase. Jackal opened the barbaresco and poured a
taste for each of them while she set the rest aside to breathe.

Estar rolled the wine in her mouth for
three or four seconds, closed her eyes and breathed the fumes out
through her nose. “You chose well,” she told Jackal. “Tell me where you
found this adventurous wine.” So Jackal told her about the little shop
in a ripe-for-gentrification zone just within walking distance; how the
shop owner noted whether customers came in from the east or west of the
shop and treated them accordingly, and how satisfying it was to subvert
his expectations by choosing better wine than the middle-class customer
he was being nicer to; how he'd approved of her choice in spite of
himself. Estar was curious about every detail. At some point she poured
the wine and served the artichokes in eggshell porcelain bowls with a
matching platter for the discarded leaves, all the while asking
questions. How did Jackal know where to find such places? How did she
feel about being taken for, how did they say it here, a risky element?

And Jackal was somewhat astonished to find
herself answering honestly: “It made me feel bad about myself. And that
made me mad. I spent more than I meant to just so he would treat me
with respect.”

“Ah. Then who has won?”

“We both did. He got more money and I got
better treatment and some great wine.”

“Pah. He got more money and you got a
snide remark behind your back as soon as the door closed on it. The
merchant classes are the same everywhere, bourgeois and stupidly
elitist because it is the only thing they have to cling to.”

Jackal said admiringly, “You say the most
outrageous things with such authority.”

Estar snorted. “I say everything with
authority. Why not? And outrageous thoughts harm no one. History is not
shaped by such thoughts, no matter what the sociologists say. Only
needs make history. You don't agree?” She smiled beautifully. “Imagine
if I had only thought about killing all those people, if I had not
needed to make my vision real. But for me it is never enough to keep
the picture in my head. As you see.” She waved in a gesture that
included the whole house.

Jackal didn't know what to say to that.
Her mouthful of artichoke turned to string on her tongue.

“You understand, of course,” Estar said,
eyes half-lidded like a lizard across the table.

“Of course,” Jackal said, and Estar
grinned like a child who has just been told, Yes, I'll be your best
friend. “

Bueno
!” she said. “More
wine.”

After dinner they walked to Solitaire.
Everyone noticed them come in together, and Scully again put on that
peculiar expression. Jackal would have gone to the bar, but Estar put a
proprietary hand on her elbow and said, “You have never been upstairs?
You must come. Wave politely to Scully and see him later.” So Jackal
waved as if to say,

what can I do with her,
she's determined
! and allowed herself to be drawn upstairs.

Dozens of eyes watched them go; it was a
relief to pass behind the closed louvers and shed the weight of all
that attention. The shutters dampened the noise as well. The space was
dim except for a few wall sconces over the padded bench along the wall,
and more of the hanging pinlights spilling faint pools over the floor.
It seemed as if she had walked into a maze of light and shadow; then
she saw that folding screens were set around some of the tables, giving
the effect of a puppet show as shadowy shapes moved behind them. Other
solos had chosen to remain visible, and there were several tables with
two or three people talking in low voices, looking in her direction as
she paused behind Estar.

“Over there.” Estar pointed to several
chairs grouped in front of a viewscreen. Five other people were already
watching the news-feed, the largest group of solos Jackal had ever
seen. No one exchanged names. For the most part, they watched silently,
with occasional, usually cynical comments that neither required an
answer nor opened any doors to real conversation. The program concerned
Steel Breeze, and Jackal didn't enjoy it. She tried to dampen her
restlessness; finally, she leaned over and whispered to Estar, “I'm
going to go get some coffee. Do you want some?”

Estar waved her off without answering,
intent on an interview with a woman named Sheila Donaghue who was
precisely and dispassionately justifying the most recent Breeze
atrocity in Cairo. Jackal was glad to get downstairs.

It didn't take Scully long to come out
with what was bothering him. He said, as he poured the coffee, “You
know who she is.”

“Well, sure.”

“You know what she did.”