Nicola Griffith - Always

“I’ll take it under advisement.”

“…top priority as our landlord. You’ll what?”

“I’ll think about it.” The sun slid out again, making the rain-spattered window glitter and sparkle. I began to see a fairground: painted horses and Ferris wheels… I blinked it away. “Meanwhile, I’ve been meaning to talk to you about security for the set. That security guard. You should fire him.”

“I’m not sure—”

“I’ll find someone more suitable.” Sticking a pin in the yellow pages would probably yield a better candidate. I thought of the man who had followed me the other day. “Fire him. I’ll have someone there this afternoon. And, Rusen.”

“Yes?”

“Your lease depends on talking to OSHA. So talk to them. Before you do, ensure that the paperwork of the young employee we discussed the other day is in order.” I didn’t want to remind Finkel of his dead son through discussion of the living one. “Four o’clock is good for me.” And maybe Kick would be there. I thought about calling her, but decided to wait. She’d said she’d call me.

I put the phone down and reopened the laptop. Download complete. I now had a mirror of Corning’s desktop.

Follow the money. I opened her password file in one window, and then scanned her browser bookmarks. There it was, Capital One Visa. I smiled, and scrolled through her passwords. Under COVisa was Richbitch and covisaword001. I entered the information and logged in to her account.

It was a platinum card linked to frequent-flyer miles. She used it for everything, from buying lattes to paying for dry cleaning to her parking. And there, front and center, was a payment, dated yesterday, to Hilton Hotels. I opened a search box. There were Hiltons in Bellevue and by the airport. Immediately following the hotel payment was one for Tiffany’s, in Bell Square. Easy. Corning was at the Bellevue Hilton.

In another day or so she would be nicely fear-marinated.

I minimized the Visa account window, then searched for and opened her correspondence files. I found myself humming. This was a rich vein: offers to owners of property adjacent to mine. Letters to and from her attorney about loans and collateral and some complicated tax maneuver. Nothing to or from Bingley. With luck, that wouldn’t matter.

There was too much here to absorb in one session.

I leaned back in my chair again and pondered the question of security for the warehouse.

I had spotted the man trailing me on the seventeenth. I maximized the Visa account window and searched debits between the fourteenth and twentieth. Most of them were easy enough to identify: QFC, a wine merchant, a drugstore, an M.D., Chevron… There were three I couldn’t initially place: Leith, Bankersen, and Heshowitz; Turtledove; and Sandewski’s. Then I recognized the first as the law office I had called when looking for the identities of JB and ETH. Turtledove sounded like a place that sold flowers and chocolates.

I dragged out the white pages and leafed through the end section, found Sandewski’s. Dialed.

“Erotic Bakery,” a pleasant female voice said.

After a moment I said, “Is this Sandewski’s?”

“Yes. Sandewski’s Erotic Bakery. Do you want to place an order?”

“No. Thank you.”

An erotic bakery? I had an unpleasant image of Corning opening wide to bite a pink, phallus-shaped cake. The imagination is like a plasma screen: pictures burn in too easily.

I tried to think of pink elephants, which led to worse pictures.

I leafed forward a few pages. Turtledove, D. H. and P. T., Discreet. Direct. Determined. Est. 1991. They were in Fremont, less than a mile from Hardy’s offices.

IT WASa storefront place. Tasteful grey carpet; comfy chairs; potted plant; Formica countertop, which, not coincidentally, was chest height: too high for most people to vault over easily.

A lean, relaxed-looking man in his early forties looked up when I walked in. He knew me instantly. He stood, then carefully, consciously shrugged the tension from his shoulders.

“Turtledove,” I said. “D. H. or P. T.?”

“D. H.,” he said. “Deverell. Philippa is my wife.”

“You know who I am.”

“Yes.”

His hair was very dark brown, trimmed in a close, stylish cut and stippled with grey around the temples. I couldn’t see his hands but from his stance he was simply waiting. His shirt was a deep plum linen. “I have a job for you. If you’re available. May I step into your office to discuss it?”

“You understand I can’t divulge information about a former client?”

Former. “I understand.”

“Okay.” He stepped to the counter, unlatched something, lifted the top, and motioned me through. The inner face of the partition was quilted. I nodded at it. “Personal protection?”

“Kevlar. Enough to stop anything that leaves the muzzle under a thousand feet per second. Not proof against gas, earthquakes, biological agents, or anything more than a handgun.”

“Every little bit,” I said. We nodded approvingly at each other.

GARY WASonce again hovering by the door. His shirt shone distractingly white and stiff. Obviously I was getting too used to the Seattle Eddie Bauer/REI dress code. His lips were bright red from biting at them. He ushered me into Corning’s office, where he had coffee waiting, with a bottle of iced water for good measure, a brand-new yellow legal pad, and three different pens laid out carefully in the middle of the desk. He hesitated, unsure at which side to sit.

I took the customer side. Looking scared but determined, he took the other.

“I need you to negotiate some deals for me.”

Now he looked terrified, but he gamely picked up a pen, the red one, and nodded.

“The federal government will soon be selling the plot of land adjacent to mine. Assuming that in the few days she’s been out of the office the deals she was negotiating with the owners of the two plots north of mine have not closed, I want to buy those, quietly, from the owners.” I had no idea what I’d do with it. I just wanted to make sure no one else could destroy it while I decided.

“But that’s… We’re talking two, two and a half million dollars at least.”

“Double it and you’ll still be off the mark.” At least according to Corning’s correspondence. “I’ll authorize up to eight million. Are you up to it?”

He nodded and wrote $8,000,000 carefully in red ink on the pad. His flush was now a waxy pallor.

“A tip,” I said. He looked up. His eyes were the same soft brown as those of the security guard who probably had been fired by now. “If we’re going to do business, you’ll need to learn a shorthand way to write ‘million’.”

He stared at the rows of naughts. Just as the waxy look began to go pink again, as he began to understand what his percentage of eight million might look like, I said, “Of course, as you’re not fully qualified, I think a reduced commission is in order. Say forty percent of the customary amount. And we’ll have to work more closely than usual with a reputable real estate lawyer. Your usual attorney is Leith, Bankersen, and Heshowitz, yes? When we’re finished here, get me the direct line of whichever partner Corning usually deals with.” Madison Leith. “I assume that you’re free the rest of the week, and available for appointments?” He nodded so violently that I thought his teeth would fly out.

We talked it over for a while. Corning’s data was useful but it would take time to go through it, and it was no substitute for personal knowledge. I didn’t know the right palms to grease for a project this size, what was customary. “I want you to set up the kind of lunches, or dinners, or drinks Corning would have organized.”