K Jeter - Noir

“‘Kayak?’” Out of the blue; that puzzled him. “You mean, like Eskimos used to paddle around in?”

“Bigger than that.” Amused, Harrisch shook his head. “It’s an acronym. Tee… eye… ae… see. Any idea what that is?”

“Not a one.”

“You should,” said Harrisch. “It has to do with your new job. With the late Travelt. And a lot to do with what happened to him.”

“Ah.” Could’ve guessed that much , thought McNihil. “So I take it that this TIAC thing… it’s got something to do with DynaZauber? Maybe it’s a DZ project of some kind? That seems like the kind of code designation that you and your friends would be fond of.”

“Very good,” Harrisch nodded. “It’s DynaZauber’s baby, all right. And mine, in particular. I’ve been in charge of it for a long time. Exclusively; I don’t have any other corporate responsibilities at the moment.” A shrug. “Well, almost none.”

“Really?” With one hand, McNihil gestured over toward the tracks. “What about all this rail stuff?”

“A little diversion, is all. I’ll be handing it back to the exec who’s actually in charge.” Harrisch’s smile widened. “Let’s just say I borrowed it for a little while. Just to make a grand entrance.”

“Whatever.” McNihil felt more weary than amused. “So this TIAC thing. The letters. So what do they stand for?”

“Actually,” said Harrisch, “you have no need to know. And in fact, perhaps it’s just as well that you don’t know.” The smile disappeared. “All you really need to know is that it’s something that belongs to us. To DynaZauber. And we don’t like losing things that belong to us. Or having them taken.”

“Really?” McNihil wasn’t surprised by that. “How’d you lose it? Or to put it another way… who took it?”

“Those are very good questions.” Harrisch turned his cold gaze around, like aiming a gun. “That’s the reason we hired you, Mr. McNihil. To find out exactly that.” The two black holes at the centers of his eyes were as deep and reflectionless as the surrounding night. “We figured-or I did, at least-that it would be the kind of thing you’d be very good at finding out. Somewhat perfect, actually.”

“Why’s that?”

“Simple.” A few empty seconds passed while Harrisch regarded him. “Where it’s lost, is someplace you’ve been. Someplace you know all about. Rather a specialized area of knowledge for you.”

McNihil said nothing. He had a premonition of where this was all going.

“The Wedge.”

He looked over at Harrisch. “You’ve been misinformed,” said McNihil. He kept his voice quiet and controlled. “I don’t go there.”

“Not anymore?”

“Ever.”

“How interesting.” One of Harrisch’s eyebrows lifted in mock surprise. “My sources are very reliable. And they tell it differently. You had some big times in that little district. Famous times. People are still talking.” The bad smile again. “You don’t hear them, but they are.”

McNihil felt his own anger stacking up inside himself. At this point, after those words, he didn’t care if the other man had his corporate flunkies and thugs all around. I’ll unload on him , swore McNihil, letting the hands dangling at his sides tense in fists. I don’t care what happens . Not anymore…

“I seem to have upset you,” said Harrisch smoothly. “My apologies.”

“Don’t bother.” McNihil supposed that the vein he could sense pulsing at the corner of his brow was the dead giveaway about his emotional state. “You can go back and congratulate your sources. They’ve got it right this time.”

Ancient history. It felt that way, like something engraved on rock-faced stelae on the mountainsides, the records of fallen empires. Though the only thing that had fallen was McNihil himself. A bad fall, the kind that you survive. But I wish I hadn’t , he brooded. Another night, older and deeper than this one, folded around him.

The truth of the matter: any line McNihil handed out about not working as an asp-head anymore was pure shuck and jive. He knew the score; it was burned into not only his personnel file back at the Collection Agency, but into the file he carried around inside his head. The file marked both Learn to Forget and Not to Be Forgotten.

“You have to expect things like this.” Harrisch’s voice slid into his thoughts. “You have to expect that I’d know all about what happened. Back then.”

“Big deal,” growled McNihil. “So you know I didn’t leave the agency voluntarily.”

“That’s one way of putting it. Another would be to say that they canned your ass.”

“Whatever.”

“Look at it this way.” The exec’s voice needled farther under McNihil’s skin. “Forced out of one job, forced into another one-it’s a wash. I’m giving you a golden opportunity.”

He turned a heavy-lidded glare toward Harrisch. “To do what?”

“To finish what you started.” The smile went lopsided as Harrisch tilted his head. “That’s what you want, isn’t it?”

McNihil went silent again. A few seconds ticked away before he spoke. Then, quietly: “How would you know what I want?”

“Come on,” said Harrisch. He spread his unstigmatic hands apart. “It’s human nature. You might not think I know anything about that, but I do.” One hand lifted, as though in preparation for laying a benediction on McNihil. “More than you might imagine, as a matter of fact; it’s kind of a speciality of mine. So when I say that you’re still pissed about what happened to you-what went down in the Wedge-I’m pretty sure I’m right.”

The man was right; that was the problem. McNihil coldly regarded the DZ exec. “Human nature,” said McNihil, “isn’t the problem with the Wedge. It’s the inhuman parts that screw people up. You think you’re clued in on that as well?”

“Enough. Enough to know what happened to you.” Harrisch’s voice went monotone and level, a deliberately flattened recitation of facts. “You were the head of the Collection Agency team that was going to sort out the Wedge. That’s how high up in the agency you were; you had total control over-and responsibility for-the operation.”

“That’s right.” McNihil nodded. “I reported straight to the agency director. No levels, no organizational hierarchy, between me and the top.”

“You even initiated the operation. It was your idea. So when things went wrong-and they did, badly-there was nobody to take the fall except you. Nobody to blame but yourself.”

Also true. The Wedge, that amorphous zone of sexual license, existing everywhere and nowhere simultaneously, in the human mind and in flesh and somewhere in between-it was only to be expected that a place and a concept like that would become the home for other excesses, other crimes. If not against nature, then at least against property. Specifically, the kind that the Collection Agency was supposed to protect. Copyright infringement as sexual stimulation; that was to be expected as well. One perversion always led to another. Where Eros linked up with Thanatos; the fact that in the daylight world, the social universe outside the Wedge, that kind of screwing around led inevitably to one’s death, or worse, only ratchetted the thrills up even further.

“All right,” said McNihil. “That’s all true. I took the fall… and I deserved to. If for no other reason than because I was the guy in charge. But I don’t have any regrets about it. I’m sorry about the way it turned out, but I still believe we had to do it. We had to give it a shot.”

“‘Sorry’?” That got a laugh from Harrisch. “ You’re sorry? Hey, there were people who died in that little fiasco. I’ve seen the body count. Your fellow agents; some of them came back in bags, others didn’t come back at all. No wonder your reputation went to shit inside the Collection Agency.”