Robert Bennett - The Company Man

Hayes was quiet as he considered this. “Then who were they made for, originally?” he asked.

Andersson just shrugged. The two men drank their black ale in silence for a bit. Then Andersson sat forward, leaning over the table. “Some of the men in Telecommunications,” he said softly, “they say that some of the things they build, they talk to them.”

“What?” said Hayes. “What talks? The machines?”

Andersson nodded dourly. “Yes. Talks to them.” He tapped his temple. “In their heads. Whispers to them.”

“Well… What are they saying?”

“They cannot tell. They only get the feeling that they are talking. The machines want something from them, they guess. But maybe they are crazy. Who can say?”

Hayes thought quickly. “These machines… Do they have little crystals? Are they like lamps, that light up blue? Some big, some little?”

“Lamps?” said Andersson, confused. “No, they did not say they were lamps.”

“Are you sure? No little lights, nothing like that at all?”

“No, I’ve never heard of that. They just said the machines whisper to them, if they spend enough time around them.” He drained off the last of his beer. “Perhaps you are right, though,” he said. “Perhaps it is just marketing.”

“Maybe so,” said Hayes, disturbed, and then he thanked the big Swede for his insight and paid and left.

When he returned to the Southern Office the interview room was empty except for a single note on the table that said, YOU COULD HAVE TOLD ME. Hayes smiled and put it in his pocket and found a semi-decent restaurant with a phone station. He put a call through to Garvey and left a message with the number for the station. Then he ordered a drink and downed it and wadded up his coat and used it as a pillow and slept in the booth. A waiter came and asked him to kindly clear the hell out and Hayes shoved a ten-dollar bill into his hand and told him to bring him a sandwich and another drink. As he ate the phone rang and Garvey answered, his voice faint and exhausted.

“Listen, I have a favor to ask you,” Hayes said.

“Oh, boy.”

“Mickey Tazz has gone underground.”

“What?”

“Tazz has gone underground. After the murders.”

There was a pause. “How’d you find that out?”

“I know a few people.”

“Huh. Where’d he run to?”

“No idea. Sort of the point, really. I don’t like it, though. This would be a rallying point, wouldn’t you say? Everyone else is seeing McNaughton’s hand in it, why isn’t Tazz crying it in the streets?”

“For God’s sake, Hayes, I don’t know anything about this Tazz guy,” said Garvey.

“I know. But I do, a little. And I’d like to know more. You still have that friend up in Savron?”

“You mean the guard? Weigel?”

“Yeah. Yes, I mean Weigel. He still there?”

“I think so.”

“Check out Tazz’s record there for me. I understand that was where he was penned up. Did you know that?”

“No. No, I didn’t. You got that from the guys you interviewed?”

“That’s the rumor,” said Hayes. He grinned in the booth and tossed his sandwich away. “Garv, my boy, I’m going to give you a positive payload. I’m going to give you the gold. I’ll give you everything I have on Tazz, and then I’m going to go down and identify your canal John Doe for you.”

“What?” said Garvey. Hayes could hear him sitting up on the other end. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“I don’t have anything certain. Not right now. I just know some people who may recognize his face, I think. I’ll talk to Samantha tomorrow and have her package up what I have on Tazz and ship it to you. Then we’ll go and see what we can find about your tattooed John Doe.”

There was a pause. “Does Samantha know she’s doing this?”

“Not yet.”

“Does Evans or Brightly?”

“No. I don’t plan for them to, either. Ever since the Red Star the oversight for our investigation’s been slackening, so I don’t think it’ll be noticed.”

“Jesus. Why the hell are you doing this, then?” said Garvey.

Hayes thought for a moment, then said, “Don’t know. Talk to you later, Garv,” and he hung up.

When Samantha returned home that night she was surprised to find Garvey leaning up against the wall outside her apartment building, reading the paper. When she approached he looked up, smiled, and said, “I’m glad you’re here. They tend to hustle a guy along if he’s wearing a suit this cheap in this neighborhood.”

“Even if he’s a policeman?” she asked.

“Especially if he’s a policeman.”

“What would a policeman be doing out here, anyway?”

“This particular policeman just wanted to check in on you. See what’s up.”

“With Mr. Hayes? Well. Mr. Hayes was surprisingly difficult today.”

“Yeah,” said Garvey slowly. He pushed his hat back and scratched his head. “That was mainly what I wanted to talk to you about, Miss Fairbanks. He’s probably going to make tomorrow difficult for you, too.”

“What makes you say that?”

Garvey summarized what Hayes had told him on the phone, trying to fill in for the leaps of logic Hayes tended to make. Samantha was silent for a good while as they stood outside her building.

“Oh, yes. The McClintock interview,” she said softly.

“What?”

“Mr. McClintock was the first man we interviewed about the sabotage cases. He was the one who listed most of the men in the Bridgedale trolley. Hayes chummed up with him and they talked about women and friends and family. He gave us a dozen names, at least. Friends, family. All of them the men who’ve been murdered. They all seemed to run in the same circles. If the man in the canal is connected with the Bridgedale murders, I suppose it’s likely one of the people McClintock listed knows him. Well. Knew him. We might even have his name already, we just don’t know it’s him.”

“And I was never sent any of that? Any of that information?”

“I believe Mr. Hayes originally sent you a few files…”

Garvey shrugged. “It wasn’t much. Just enough to start a case. To let me know something was going on.”

“Yes. We’ve been told to keep our distance from the police. There’s too much implication there, they say, though they’ve hardly been paying any attention since what happened in Alaska. Besides, I think it may have just slipped our minds in the recent chaos.”

“Beautiful,” said Garvey.

“Is it that important? One murder in the wake of so many?”

Garvey was silent for a while. Then he said, “Yes. The man in the canal, I think he’s a real victim. I smelled it on him when I first saw him.”

“A real victim? How do you mean?”

“A lot of the bodies we pick up didn’t die innocent. They died doing something they shouldn’t have. Robbing a store, or making tar shipments. But others die minding their own business. For no damn reason at all. Those are the real victims.”

“I see,” said Samantha quietly.

“Yeah. And he had a kid.”

“Did he?”

“Yes. I’d like to find out what happened to him. What he did when his dad didn’t come home one day.”

“Oh,” she said, and thought. “Well… If you can get me a sketch or a picture of the man you found in the canal, I’ll try and see if I can help Hayes in whatever silliness he’s going to try.”

“I’ll make sure to get you that,” said Garvey. He pinched the bridge of his nose and shook his head. Then he took a deep breath. “You know what, I don’t even want to talk about the case anymore. Nothing about the union, nothing about Hayes.”

“What do you want to talk about, then?”