Warren Ellis - Gun Machine

This, he knew, was what he’d been avoiding. Seeing other people live lives. Something as mundane and utterly dull and ubiquitous in the world as watching one person cook for a loved one was crushing his heart in its plain little fist.

“You look miles away,” said Talia, putting a plate in front of him and sitting to his left, between him and Scarly. Tallow looked up and realized he wasn’t completely sure where the last two minutes had gone. But there was food in front of him now, and Bat and Scarly were both giving him that slightly scared look that in the past few days he’d learned indicated that he was being strange.

“Sorry,” Tallow said. “Lots to think about.”

“Try your food,” Talia said, not unkindly.

He did. It was incredibly good, and he said so.

“There,” said Talia, turning to Scarly. “Now, don’t let me hear another goddamn thing about how John brings you the best steak sandwiches ever. I make the best steak sandwiches ever. Got it?”

“Got it.” Scarly grinned.

Tallow tried the beer again, tasting it this time, and he found it to be equally good, big and hoppy, a well-chosen partner to the food.

“So,” said Talia. “Tell me what you have to think about. And don’t even consider saying that it’s an active case and you can’t talk about it, blah-blah. That doesn’t work in this house, okay?”

“Okay,” said Tallow and, between bites, gave her a rough overview of the case to date. Partway through, he noticed that Bat and Scarly weren’t interjecting or expanding on anything. Talia ran the household. It occurred to him that he himself was falling into step and seeking her approval in some abstract way.

Even the broadest brushstrokes of the case, however, had a certain power, and Talia rocked back in her chair as she absorbed its kicks.

“Wow,” she said, eventually. Looking at Scarly, she said, “You’re right. He’s good. But I don’t see where you go from here. He just said there’s no investigative chain from the cigarette butt that’d stand up in a court.”

“That’s provided,” said Tallow slowly, “that you think this’ll end up in a court.”

Talia’s eyes widened a little at that.

“Here’s what you don’t know,” Tallow said to Scarly. “Assistant Chief Turkel pretty much told me that I’m a dead man walking. If I’m right about everything, Turkel’s never once gotten his own hands dirty. That means that our guy—”

“CTS,” said Bat with a dark wry smile.

“—CTS, then. That means that CTS is going to be given a new job by Turkel. Which also supposes that Turkel knows where to find him. Which probably also means that Westover and Machen know where to find him. But shelve that for a second. It means that the guy we’re coming after will soon be coming after me. Given the acceleration of certain aspects of the case, I think soon could mean as early as tonight. And let’s be honest: it’s not like Al Turkel doesn’t know where I live.”

“I’ll make up the sofa,” said Talia, and drained the last of her bottle.

“That’s very kind,” said Tallow, “but there’s no need. I’ll be going home tonight.”

Talia brought the bottle down on the table like a gavel. “No way in hell. After what you just told me? Look, I don’t know you, but if these two say you’re good, that’s halfway enough for me, and you haven’t exactly disgraced yourself tonight. And even if you had, it would not be fucking human to send you back to somewhere that’s being staked out by some insane hit man.”

Tallow then told them what he and Bat had done earlier in the evening. It seemed odd to him that no one seemed any happier afterward. Not even Bat, who’d done the work.

“Come on,” he said, “it is at least a plan, right?”

“Coffee?” said Talia, rising and stepping to a forbidding chunk of technology on the far corner of the kitchen counter.

“Thank you,” said Tallow.

“You haven’t drunk it yet,” said Bat.

“Bat, you have the digestive system of a runty, poisoned squirrel. John is clearly made of stronger stuff. Even if he is quite nuts.”

“Why does everyone call me crazy?”

Talia, at the machine, said, “Has it occurred to you for just one moment that you could have spun this whole thing into promotions for yourself, Scarlatta, and probably even Bat?”

Tallow jolted forward in his chair. “What?”

“You could have easily just said to this assistant chief, Okay, I know what your game is—what’s it worth to you to ensure no one finds out? You could have said, I want to be an inspector, or a lieutenant, and my good friend Scarlatta would like a supervisory role and a big fat raise. And Bat would like to lose his virginity. See to it, and all this goes away. You could have done that. Did you ever think of it, John?”

“No,” he said, sitting back. “Not once.”

“Now that you’ve thought about it,” Talia said, “do you wish you’d done it?”

After some length, Tallow quietly said, “No.”

“Crazy.” Talia smiled. “But okay. You can still sleep over. I tell you, though, I imagine your life as a detective has been unnecessarily difficult over the years.”

“Not really,” Tallow said, mostly to himself. “Not until now.”

His cell phone rang.

THE HUNTER ate a little more, sat within a dark stand of trees in order to gather himself for a short period, and then slept for a while.

He awoke from troubled sleep with a shock, as if a dream had run him through with a spear.

Looking up and quelling some trembling in his hands, the hunter found a few stars and the moon to judge the time by, and he calculated that his appointment was imminent. He took his bag and checked through its contents—even with the gun and some things appropriated from the hardware store, he still felt worriedly undertooled—and then rose and began to walk, shaking the damp cold from his legs with some difficulty. Once his thighs and calves loosened up, he slipped into the deep growth abutting the designated meeting point, shifting to the slow and exaggerated steps of woodcraft training and approaching in silence and invisibility.

There were three people at the meeting point.

The hunter smiled. They still huffed and shuffled like three nervous boys in their early twenties. The meeting was obviously going to be more protracted than he would have liked, but it looked as if it’d make up for it in amusement.

He emerged onto the path, allowing them to see him. Their joint reaction pleased him to an almost guilty extent.

“Hello,” he said. “The gang’s all here, I see.”

They all looked sick to one degree or another.

“It’s been a very long time since we all stood in the same place,” said the hunter. “I wonder why you have all arrived to make me feel so special tonight.”

Westover slowly extended a hand, a slip of paper in his fingers. The hunter, regarding him with condescending humor, took it, slowly.

“That,” Westover said, “is the name and address of the police officer in question.”

“Do we know anything about his habits?” the hunter asked, noting that the location was a good two hours’ walk away.

“No social life,” said Turkel. “He spends his nights reading and listening to music, apparently.”

The hunter pocketed the slip. “Excellent. So, shall I be on my way?”

“I think we have to talk about how this ends,” said Westover.

“How it ends? With the death of the man whose address you just gave me.”

“Really? That ends all this?”

“That depends,” said the hunter, “on what you mean by all this . What I mean is that I expect this man’s death to hamper the investigation to such an extent that it effectively concludes it.”