Nicola Griffith - Always

All that work, all that risk, and now she cut fruit for a living. Maybe she was good at it, but did it ever make her smile like the sun?

I looked up. Suzanne, eyes tired and cynical, held out the check. “You forgot to date it.”

I took it. “So I did. Do you have—” She handed me a lime green plastic pen. “And what is today’s date?”

“May seventeenth. Holy shi—I mean, are you okay?”

“Absolutely. Yes, fine.”

I watched as though from the wrong end of a telescope while she picked up the piece of splintered pen that had skittered across the glass-topped table. Where I had snapped it, the lime green plastic had turned milky pale, like the sepals that protect new tree blossom in spring.

“My apologies for that,” I said. “I will of course reimburse you for the damage.”

“It’s a pen,” she said, and bent to pick up the rest of it from the carpet. I got another from the laptop case, took off the cap, tested it on the back of the check. Blue. I turned the check over, aligned it carefully with the edge of the table, and wrote in the date. My hand didn’t shake. I capped the pen, returned it to the bag, refused to look at the photo of the woman who still smiled because she hadn’t lost anything.

“Excuse me,” I said, and stood. “Please see yourself out.”

I stood with my back against the bedroom wall until she left, thinking nothing.

I WALKED TOthe waterfront. Waves slapped and seagulls squabbled, as at any other beach, but traffic fumes wafted over the grass. It was crowded with smiling people wearing sandals and shorts, even though it was only in the mid-sixties, and they seemed unreal, though I couldn’t put my finger on why. I walked north, to the Seattle Aquarium, but I remembered pictures from the guidebook and couldn’t bear the idea of being trapped beneath the surface with marine otters swimming ceaselessly from one side of their tiny concrete tank to another. I kept going north, the water to my left. Past the Edgewater— I wondered what Dornan was doing today; I should call him and invite him to move to the Fairmont—past the Pacific Science Center, which on another day would be interesting, and on through Seattle Center, the theater district. At some point I found another park with fewer people. Instead of gulls, this one was full of crows. One strutted along the path in front of me. In the sunshine its feathers shone with a dull, oily sheen, as though carved from slate.

I watched the water and the sky, where cumulonimbus massed on the eastern horizon, zinc and pewter.

After a while, I headed back south and then east, down more of a gradient. For the first time that day I found myself panting slightly. A few days, Loedessoel had said. I slowed, and breathed more easily.

South again, Boren Avenue, Howell Street, where the city began to look like any inner urban wasteland: empty blocks, patched pavement. In Atlanta the air would have felt heavy and tired; here it was light and capricious, as contradictory as the waterfront park.

It was as I was walking past a low, industrial-looking building with the unlikely name of Re-Bar that I realized I was being followed: a white man sixty or seventy yards back. About forty, my height, casual dress, not an athlete but moving easily enough. Usually I was the one doing the following. I stopped, and pretended intense interest in the sign that said, Open at Eight. The man slowed, took out a phone. I shook my head at the sign in mock regret, and started back south, but slowly, hoping he would close the gap. He didn’t.

A professional, which made it unlikely I had been picked at random. Which raised a very interesting question. Was he connected to the people who were steering the warehouse mess, the people who were systematically reducing its value? Time to start getting answers.

I turned, as though going back to something I’d just seen. Once again, he slowed. I kept walking. He stopped. He put his phone away.

I ran at him.

After a split second, he ran, too. He ran with concentration, no backward glances, no tension in his shoulders, but I began to cut the distance. Fifty yards. Forty. My lips skinned back in a grin. Thirty. Soon we’d find out what was going on. Twenty. Then we hit a hill. In five seconds I was breathless and in fifteen he was gone.

It took me half an hour to get back to the hotel. No one followed me. I wasn’t sure what I would do if they had. I thought of the laptop as I’d left it: Kick’s smile as brilliant as burning magnesium. I’ll get it back for you, I’d said. No one could ever give her that back.

THE CONCIERGE,whose name was Benjamin, was African-American, which surprised me, and I realized what had seemed so unreal about the crowds by the waterfront, and nearly everyone I had seen in Seattle so far: they had been ninety-five percent white, with a handful of Asians and a sprinkling of Hispanics and Native Americans. Nothing like Atlanta, where more than half the population was black.

I introduced myself. He smiled—he had a tiny birthmark just to the left of center on his bottom lip—said he knew who I was, and asked how he could help me this morning.

I didn’t like the idea of anyone knowing my name.

“I’d like to arrange for the delivery of a large floral bouquet, today. Special delivery, if necessary.”

“Certainly.”

“Whatever’s in season will be fine.”

“A particular occasion?”

“A thank-you.”

“Formal or informal?”

“Formal. And a note, to read, My apologies once again for the disturbance. Thank you for your kindness. Best wishes, Aud Torvingen.”

“Return address?”

“No.” And that was that.

I DELETEDthe search results and Kuiper’s picture flicked out. I read Rusen’s file for five minutes, then closed it. I hadn’t even been able to understand that Seattle was almost wholly white. There was absolutely no point scanning a document in the hope of spotting an anomaly. I simply didn’t know the city well enough. I shouldn’t have come. In Atlanta, I knew law enforcement and criminals, journalists and politicians; I understood the lines running between money and power. Here, I knew nobody; nobody knew me.

Perhaps I could do something about that.

BENJAMIN LOOKED UP."Ms. Torvingen. More flowers?”

“No. Something else.” He smiled, to indicate that he was sure that whatever it was, it was within his capabilities. I wondered where concierges went to school to learn that responsive, intelligent attentiveness. “This is my first visit to Seattle and I don’t know a soul. I was hoping you might help me overcome that.”

“Of course.” Face still open, still attentive, but eyes speculative. “Perhaps you could be more specific.”

“This evening I’d like to relax privately here at the hotel in the company of someone attractive and discreet.”

“Attractive and discreet. Certainly.” I could have been asking to rent a car. “Should your companion have any specific attributes?”

I pondered. “I require a certain level of maturity. A grown-up.” Someone who paid attention to the world.

He nodded courteously. “What time would it be convenient for him— or her?—to visit?”

It was about two-thirty. “I’d like her to be here as soon as possible.”

“Very good. And for how long would you like the pleasure of her company? ”

How does one time such things? “Perhaps she should be prepared to devote the entire afternoon and evening.”

“I’ll make arrangements and fax them to your suite.”

WHEN I GOTback to my suite, paper was churning silently from the fax machine: Four-hour sessions max. available, $1,100 per. Poss. negot. consecutive sess. at time of payment—cash preferred, credit card accepted. Meeting scheduled 4:30 pm.