Warren Ellis - Gun Machine

Tallow knew his history. Not deep history, but certainly city history. He knew there had been mines all over the area. Staten Island, contrary to popular belief, wasn’t built on landfill garbage. The Dutch had mines there early on. His mind was jumping around, looking for fingerholds.

“Anything else?” he said.

“Blue clay. Crushed clamshells for white. They’d sun-dry things, or burn them, to get the colors they wanted. Charcoal, obviously. Tree sap, berries. Why?” She opened her eyes and looked at him.

“Just keeping you talking,” said Tallow. “You had a shock, after all. Where’s your dog?”

“I have a dog walker for during the day. She took the dog out, I went for lunch. My husband walks the dog at night.”

Emily seemed to be sliding into a state of…he wouldn’t say emotionlessness, but certainly distance and apathy. Her voice came from somewhere deep inside her, somewhere dusty that was a long drive away from being present in the world. The same remote point that he had sometimes, in rare self-aware moments, heard his own voice coming from over the past few years.

The past two days had put Tallow back in the world. Two days ago, he would have pretended he wasn’t police in order to safely walk past shrieking Emily and get in the car with his lunch. In the time before two days ago, he did everything differently. Which was to say, he did as little as possible. Cases got taken care of because nothing was hard.

He was back in the world, thinking energetically, engaged with people, and, he realized with a cold empty feeling in his gut, it was this that was making the scattered fragments of this awful, career-ending case slowly push together. His gut got icier and sicker as he kept thinking.

“So who was the man,” Tallow said, quietly.

“What?” She was far away, and fear was suddenly spoiling the scenery out there.

“The homeless guy who scared you. Who did you think he was?”

“Nobody,” Emily whispered, and turned her face from him.

Tallow steered into the Aer Keep. The front gate was a concrete checkpoint that wasn’t shy about its Cold War look. Tallow showed his badge to the security guard there, noting that the woman was wearing the same Spearpoint insignia as the drones at Vivicy. The guard bent over and peered into his car. “Mrs. Westover,” she said, “is everything okay?”

“Yes, Hannah, I’m fine. I felt ill, and this kind police officer said he’d drive me home. Is my husband here yet?”

“Yes, ma’am. Do you need anything? Should I send the building doctor up to your apartment?”

“I’m fine, Hannah, honestly. I probably just forgot to eat or something. But thank you.”

The guard gave a smile that said she hoped she’d done enough because someone who controlled her employment would certainly be asking her that later, and the gate rose to accept the car into the Keep.

“You go down into the garage,” said Emily. Tallow drove to the mouth of it, where it descended into the bowels of the Keep, and stopped. He wriggled his wallet out and took one of his cards from it. He slipped his notebook pen from of his inside pocket and wrote his cell phone number on the card.

“Take this,” he said, pressing it into her hand. “The number I just wrote down gets my cell phone, day or night. And I don’t sleep much. If there’s anything you ever want to tell me, anything that’s ever worrying you, anything happening that you need help with, call that number. That number’s your new 911, okay? Even if you just want to talk about history. That number.”

“Okay,” she said. “Okay.” She zipped the card into one of the peculiar vestibules of her jacket.

Tallow drove down into the island. It was lit down there, and Tallow thought of mines again. The roadway forked; he went right, which took them along a curve to the shining doors of the main foyer. There were more guards there, and one stepped to the car as Tallow got out.

“You can’t park here, sir.”

Tallow showed the man his badge. “Yeah, I can.”

“Actually, sir…” he began, but Tallow was already walking around the car to let Emily out. The guard saw her; his features creased with frustration, and he was compliant in voice only. Tallow knew when someone was memorizing his face in order to do something medieval to him later, and the guard was taking a good long hostile look. Tallow gave Emily her purse and, with a smile, her sandwich. He took her elbow, gently, and guided her past the guard. Tallow took a good look at the guard too, and gave him a shark’s dead-eyed smile, just for the hell of it.

The shimmering glass of the foyer frontage slid open to accept Tallow and Emily. Just inside, a solid man a few inches shorter and a mile fitter than Tallow stood talking to an athletically slim younger man in a sleek black suit and a Bluetooth earpiece. Two steps into the foyer, Tallow saw the Spearpoint insignia on a discreet pin on the younger man’s lapel.

Jason Westover greeted his wife with a warm, understanding “Car keys?”

Emily fumbled them out of her purse and passed them to Westover, who threw them to the younger man. The younger man nodded to Westover, discreet again in a small obsequiousness that stood in for the tug of a forelock, and left swiftly.

“You’re Detective…Tallow,” said Westover. Tallow’s skin prickled. Something had just gone very wrong, and he wasn’t sure what.

“That’s right. And here’s your wife, safe and sound.”

“Of course,” said Jason Westover, and reached a hand out for her. Not unlike someone who had just been informed that he’d left his cell phone on the table, Tallow thought. Westover was checking her over with the eyes of a man examining a bottle for leaks.

“Just curious, Mr. Westover. What business are you in?”

“I run Spearpoint Security. Founder and owner. Why?”

“Like I say, just curious. Lucky you could get away from the office on such short notice. But when you own the office, I suppose it’s easier. Well, your wife’s in one piece. Frankly, she’s been terrific company, and it’s been a pleasure to meet you both.”

“You’re very kind,” Westover lied.

“I’m just glad I was there to help. Your wife had quite a shock, and I really was worried about the wisdom of her driving home afterward. I understand there’s medical staff in the building? It couldn’t hurt to have someone check her out. Shock can be nasty. It can sneak up on you.”

“Yes,” said Westover flatly, taking Emily’s arm and turning away. “Well. Thank you, Detective. We appreciate it.”

“Yes,” said Emily, trying to keep her eyes on Tallow as she turned. “Thank you.” He made sure she saw a smile on his face that said it was okay and turned to leave himself with a “Have a good day.”

Tallow let the doors slide open so that the sound was in the air, but he stopped to watch Westover quickly guide his wife to the elevators. He was speaking tightly and insistently to her. Tallow saw the hand of her free arm twist into a fist.

Tallow went to his car. The guard was still standing by it. Tallow smiled again, and shook his head. “I was dropping off a resident,” he said. “No reason to get uptight, okay? I’m heading out.”

“We got laws in here,” the guard said, straightening and expanding his chest.

“Laws?” said Tallow, laughing. “In here? You sound like this place isn’t part of New York City, pal.”

The guard, to Tallow’s amazement, stepped to him. “It’s not. Just happens to be standing on a piece of it. And it’s my job to keep the laws in here. Pal.”

Tallow stopped walking. The guard took another step toward him. “Listen,” Tallow said, “you know what the difference between you and me is?”