Joe Haldeman - The Coming

“That’s what you said at the hearing,” Moore said, “and voice analysis indicates you were telling the truth, or some version of the truth. It also says that you lied later, when you said you didn’t find anything interesting—I think ‘useful’ was the word.”

“Yeah, well… you know voice spectrum’s unreliable. Not admissible in court.”

“This ain’t no court,” Willy Joe said. “This is a fishing expedition, too. Look at the bait.” He reached into a jacket pocket and withdrew a hypo popper.

“That can’t be mine,” Ybor said, but he felt sweat suddenly evaporating on his forehead. “Nobody can get in there but me.”

He twirled the cylinder, smiling at it. “I don’t have to get into your private stash. Where do you think this shit comes from?”

“From you?”

“From a friend of mine. Not the guy you buy it from. What he’s called, Blinky?”

“That’s right, Blinky.” He could smell his armpits now, sour.

“Blinky don’t make the stuff. He just collects the juice and the money.” He balanced it upright on the table. “Suppose I could get you this once a week. You spill your guts for that?”

“What… what do you need to know?”

“You been followin’ this alien bullshit?”

Oh, shit. “Not much, no. I got busted the day it all started.”

“But you do know the Bell woman was behind it,” Moore said. “You were going through her files, and that pulled down the wrath of God, or at least the chancellor.”

“So what did you find?” Willy Joe said. “What wasn’t ‘useful’?”

Damn. It wouldn’t be enough. “Look. I’ll tell you all I know. But you got to get me out of here.”

“As if you were in a position to bargain,” the lawyer said.

“I’m worth a lot more to you on the outside. I can get more information where this came from.”

“Sure,” Willy Joe said. “Like you’ll get your old job back and they’ll let you hack their computer.”

“You don’t understand jaquismo,” he said quickly. “I don’t have to be at the same computer.”

“Just you let me know what you got. I’ll decide how much it’s worth.”

“Okay.” What’s the best way to put it? “Dr. Bell and her husband…”

“Dr. Bell and Dr. Bell,” Moore said.

“Yeah. They’re living a lie. Covering up his past.”

“He kill somebody?” Willy Joe straightened slightly.

“Worse than that. He got caught fucking a guy. ”

Willy Joe looked at Moore. “I told you he was a fucking mariposa.” To Ybor: “This was after the law.”

“After the state law. Before the federal one.”

Willy Joe nodded. “This ain’t much. I seen him hangin’ around with Nick the Greek. If they ain’t queer I ain’t never met a queer.”

“This wasn’t Nick the Greek.” Ybor paused long enough for Willy Joe to open his mouth. “It was a cop.”

“A cop. Which one?”

Ybor stroked his chin. “Don’t know yet.”

“What is this ‘yet’? You know it was a cop, but you don’t know who?”

“That’s right. I need more time on the computer.”

“What did you find out?” Moore said.

Ybor stroked his chin harder. “You holdin’ out on me,” Willy Joe said quietly, “you don’t get your DD. And I get you transferred to Raiford. You want to meet some fuckin’ queers.”

“All I know is the path of the data link, and the way it was stopped. And when and where he was picked up.”

“Go on,” Moore said.

“It was down at People’s Park, three in the morning. Twelve April 2022.”

“So what were they doin’? Blow job, cornhole?”

“The call-in didn’t say. Just that it was a 547, sodomy. They identified Norman Bell, but the other guy didn’t have an ID.”

“So how you know he’s a cop?” Willy Joe leaned forward. “Make it good.”

“The whole record got erased, all the way back to the call-in. It was an ‘administrative edit,’ and the authorization came from a police-department internal-security unit.”

Willy Joe tapped the DD popper on the desk, in a slow rhythm. “It got erased, but not to you.”

“I saw the hole in the data. It’s complicated. But there was an erased link to Norman Bell, and I followed it up to the hole, so to speak. From there, I just searched unencrypted chat mail for a half hour around that time. Found a guy who monitors police and emergency bands, and he was talking to somebody when the sodomy call came in.”

“I don’t see how the lack of data implicates a policeman,” Moore said. “Sounds more like Norman Bell pulling strings. He has money, or she does.”

“They did pull strings.” Ybor allowed himself a smile. “Mrs. Bell did, anyhow. The cops were glad to take her money, but the erasure was complete a good eight hours before she paid.”

“She didn’t just pay,” Willy Joe said. “Even a professor ain’t that stupid.”

“No… I just looked for a big credit transfer. The guy she paid was the police dispatcher’s father. She bought a new garage door. But no installation fee. Like she put it in herself.”

“That is interesting,” Moore said. “The sodomy charge would ruin him, and she’d go down for buying off the policeman. So your next step would be to confront them?”

“Yeah, if I had a next step. I’d just found the garage-door thing when the cop stepped in and shot me. Son of a bitch.”

“So if you was to walk out this door,” Willy Joe said, “you’d get your shit together and then go hit up the Bells.”

“Well, I guess not,” Ybor said carefully. “Guess you’d want to do that.”

“Smart kid,” Willy Joe said to Moore. He tapped the cylinder with his finger and it rolled almost to the edge of the table. “Here ya go. Have a ball.”

Ybor uncapped it hungrily and turned his back to the men. He almost caught his penis in the zipper, in his haste.

A sharp sting and the first real peace he’d had in a month. He felt the calm power glow through his muscles and organs.

He took a deep breath, and something rattled in his chest. He turned and sat down. A surge of nausea and twisting pain in his stomach. “What…”

“Y’know, I think you made a mistake there. You’re not supposed to shoot that in your dick.”

“No, he isn’t,” Moore said.

Willy Joe stood up with a bright smile. “That’s supposed to go in your pussy. ”

Ybor was doubled up in pain. “Shit. Immune… system.”

“Yeah, little mix-up. Sorry. Some girl musta got yours. No fun for her, either.”

Moore stared at Ybor’s convulsions. “They said it would be sudden and painless.”

“One outta two.” He picked up his cap off the floor.

He set the cap on his head and straightened it, looking at the mirror on the wall. He saluted whoever was behind the mirror, probably Bobón and the warden. “You wanta take it from here?”

Moore didn’t answer at first. He was watching Ybor, who had fallen off the chair, rigid, and was slowly moving his limbs around, his jaw locked open in a silent scream.

“I said you wanna take care of it?”

“Sure,” Moore said, not looking up. “Papers already made out. Bad drug reaction.”

“I’ll say.” Willy Joe wrinkled his nose at the smell. “Think I’m gonna die some other way.” He pushed the screen door open, stepped out, and took a deep breath. The golden pasture smelled wonderful, a mile or more from the early-morning highway fumes. He stepped over the white line painted on the sidewalk, the symbolic wall, and pulled out the antenna on his phone.