One of Us. Michael Marshall Smith
‘Why would you do that?’ she asked, when she'd finished.
‘You were going to die otherwise. As it is, you're not allowed to go bungee jumping. Want some chicken soup?’
She stared at me. ‘I'm a vegetarian.’
‘Right – your body is a temple. Full of money-changers like vodka and smack.’
‘Look, who are you?’
‘Hap Thompson,’ I said.
She was out of the bed with a speed I found frankly impressive, though once on her feet she swayed alarmingly. ‘The front door's locked, and the windows don't open,’ I added. ‘You're not going anywhere.’
‘Oh yeah? Just watch me,’ she said, as she pushed past and swished out into the living room. Deck looked up, and she glared at him, face pale. ‘Who the hell are you?’
‘Deck,’ he said, equably. ‘Friend of Hap's.’
‘That's nice. Look, where are my clothes?’
I picked my coat off the end of the sofa and fished in the pockets. Two bras, a pair of panties, and a dress of some thin green material. I held them out to her. Laura looked at me as if I'd offered to crack a walnut between my buttocks.
‘And?’
I shrugged. ‘It's all I could carry.’
‘And my purse is where?’
‘Back in the hotel room.’
‘Are you some kind of monster? You kidnap a woman and don't bring her purse?’
Deck grinned at me. ‘She's real friendly, isn't she?’
Laura turned on him. ‘Look, fuckhead – do you mind if I call you that? – kidnapping's a federal offence. You guys are lucky I'm not on the phone right now, talking to the police.’
‘Memory dumping's a crime too,’ I said. ‘Not to mention murder. You and I both know the last thing you're going to do is get in touch with the cops.’
Her eyes went blank, and she did a good impression of total lack of recall. ‘What murder?’ she said. For a moment it was hard to believe this was someone I'd fished out of a bloody bath in the small hours. She looked like the kind of bank manager who could make you shrivel to a raisin with a raised eyebrow. Either Woodley had done a superb job in patching her up, or she was as tough as all hell.
‘Nice try,’ I said, holding her eyes, ‘but it's not going to work with me. I do this for a living. You lost the event itself, but you still know what you lost. You'll remember seeking me out, and you'll remember why.’
‘You took the job. You got paid.’
‘You lied. And I only got a third of the money.’
‘I'll get you the rest.’
‘I'm not sure I believe you have it, and I don't want it either way. Don't worry – you'll get a refund. Judging by last night, it looks like the dump didn't really work out for you anyway.’
Laura glared at me, then marched over to the front door. She gave the handle a tug. It was, as advertised, locked. ‘Open this door,’ she commanded.
‘Coffee?’ Deck asked me, poised with kettle in hand over in the kitchenette.
Laura kicked the door, nearly toppling herself over in the process. ‘Open it.’
‘Lovely,’ I said. ‘Think I've got some mint mocha left somewhere.’
She stomped back to me. I thought I was going to catch a slap in the face, but she just snatched her clothes and banged off into the bathroom, where she slammed and locked the door. I decided ‘tough as hell’ was the answer to my question.
‘She going to be okay in there?’ Deck asked.
‘Unless she can break the window and absail ten floors.’
‘No,’ he said, patiently. ‘I mean – okay.’
I knew what he meant. ‘I think so.’ I suspected that trying to kill yourself first thing in the morning, with a hangover and two men annoying the hell out of you, was a different affair to doing it in the small hours with no-one around.
Deck found the coffee, poured it into a cafetiere. I used to have a coffee machine like everybody else. You tell them where the coffee beans are, and how to use the tap, and it's ready whenever you want it. But through a design error the hole the coffee comes out of is rather closer to the machine's posterior than you would hope, and after seeing the little biomachine squatting over a cup, grunting with effort, I tend to go off the idea of a hot beverage. When it goes wrong, as they invariably do, the result tastes very strange indeed. Mine got sick, with what I suspect was the coffee machine equivalent of food poisoning, and I just couldn't have it in the house any longer. I put it in the alley behind the building late at night and it was gone the next day. Maybe it made its way down to Mexico to be with its comrades. If so, it must have been in a different group from the ones I'd passed on the way to Ensenada. They tend to hold grudges, apparently, and between them they could easily have forced me off the road. Maybe they just didn't get a good look at my face.
Deck handed me a cup. ‘She's not going to just take it back.’
‘No kidding.’ Having met Laura Reynolds properly, I was now wishing I had woken her up with a pointy stick. I was also finding it hard to believe I'd ever expected things might go differently. ‘So we go with that time-honoured favourite, Plan B.’
‘Which is?’
‘Exactly the same, except we just have to keep her locked up while I get hold of the transmitter.’ The sound of water and occasional bad-tempered stomping made it clear that Laura was now taking a shower. I was looking forward to being harangued when she got out for not bringing her shampoo and cotton balls.
‘By the way,’ Deck said, ‘that weirdo called. Quat.’
My next move, on a plate. ‘Shit – why didn't you say?’
Deck shrugged. ‘Didn't know it was important, and he was done before I could pick it up. You set a callback, apparently. Just said he was around, you wanted to talk to him.’
I started moving. ‘Can you do me a favour?’
‘Absolutely not. Fuck off.’
I waited.
He grinned. ‘Baby-sitting, I assume.’
‘I have to go see him.’
‘Why not just call?’
‘He won't do business that way.’
‘How long will you be?’
‘Very quick.’
Deck settled himself on the sofa, pointed a finger at me. ‘Better be. I suspect Laura Reynolds is a person who's going to take some handling when she gets mad. Going to take your charm and winning ways.’
‘Half hour at most,’ I said.
The lobby downstairs was quiet, just a few people setting up their stalls. During the day most of them sell arts and crafts – inexplicable things fashioned out of pieces of wood originally used for something else, which you take home and move from room to room until you realize the attic is the best place for them. Someone else's attic, preferably. It is my firm belief that in the afterglow of our civilization, when all we have made is come to nought and our planet slumbers once more, home only to a few valiant creatures – bugs, probably – who have the courage to struggle through whatever nemesis we have wrought on Mother Nature, some alien race will land and do a spot of archaeology. And all they'll find, particularly in coastal areas, is layers of mirrors made from reclaimed floorboards with homespun wisdom etched on them with a soldering iron, or pockets of driftwood sculptures of fishing boats which rock when pushed, and they'll nod sadly amongst themselves and