K Jeter - Noir

“Are… are you all right?”

McNihil didn’t open his eyes so much as let his interior sight shift focus, from the gelling world outside to the clinic office’s rummaged interior. He saw the Adder clome looking up from where he crouched on the floor; the expression on the man’s face showed he was wondering whether McNihil was about to flip out even more violently, or whether he was connected-up enough that a quick escape was possible.

“I’m fine.” McNihil reached down and, as reassuringly as possible, took the Adder clome’s hand, pulling him upright. The vision he’d been granted was already fading, leaving him with a certain exhausted peace. “Don’t worry about it.” He stood the Adder clome up in front of himself and patted him gently on the cheek. “But I’d like to think that we understand each other better now. That’s important.”

“Oh…” The Adder clome rubbed his throat, where McNihil’s fist had been jammed. “Oh, yeah. Right.” He quickly nodded. “Yeah, we understand each other.”

“Because what I’m getting from you-” McNihil held a single finger in front of the other man’s eyes. “Is that you really do know more than you’ve been letting on. To either me or Harrisch. Now… Harrisch isn’t here. Right? So we don’t have to worry about him for the moment. About what he thinks. And you don’t have to worry about me getting you in trouble with him. I don’t work that way. Besides…” He let his own smile show. “What would there be in it for me? Better we should let our little… understanding remain a secret. Right?”

The Adder clome didn’t look any less scared because of McNihil’s soothing tone, as he gave another fast nod. “Sure-”

“Good.” Even with the adrenaline leaching out of his bloodstream, the world McNihil saw still seemed real, or at least real enough to work with. “So why don’t we start by you telling me exactly how you know what some dead guy’s tattoo looked like. Where-or maybe who-you got that info from.”

Silence. Another fear shifted behind the Adder clome’s eyes.

“But I know that already,” said McNihil. “You found out from her. From Verrity.” McNihil tilted his head, studying the figure in front of him. “Naturally, you would-because you’re working with her. And that’s what you don’t want Harrisch to know.”

“If DynaZauber hadn’t put the screws on,” the Adder clome said sullenly, “I wouldn’t have had to go with her. But DZ’s cut the margins so tight-”

“You don’t have to explain it to me.” McNihil shrugged. “Either I understand already, or I don’t care. All the same to me. Besides… I don’t really think it’s a money issue. People get involved with Verrity for other reasons besides profit. That’d be too rational. Verrity deals with the irrational side of things.”

“True enough,” said the Adder clome. “I wish… I’d known that sooner.”

McNihil could hear the bitterness of regret in the other man’s voice; it touched a string tuned to the same pitch inside himself. “I know how you feel. I found out too late, myself. That’s the problem with self-destructive behavior. All the benefits are front-loaded; the bad shit comes after.” He brushed a dark speck of dirt from the shoulder of the Adder clome’s white coat. “But getting back to specifics,” he said. “This is why you were connecting around with me, isn’t it? All that talk of figuring out why Harrisch sent me here in the first place, and then your little list of services and products-that was all just stalling for time. Right? You were hoping maybe I’d get so tired and disgusted that I’d just go away. Without getting what Harrisch had already ordered up.”

“You’re so sure about that.” The Adder clome had regained some of his composure. After dabbing away a trace of blood below his mouth, he smoothed his jacket’s lapels. “If that’s the case, why don’t you tell me what Harrisch wanted you to get from me. Or maybe you don’t really know.”

“Oh, I know well enough. I know what Harrisch is pushing for. What he’s been pushing for all along.” McNihil felt a cold rock form and harden in his chest. “That’s what the real job is. Harrisch knows that the only way to find out what happened to Travelt-what happened to Travelt’s prowler-is for somebody to go where the prowler went. Down in the Wedge.”

The Adder clome’s gaze shifted away nervously, then inched back toward McNihil. “That’s right,” he said. “Harrisch wants you to do the pink dive. He wants you to go down there, in your own body. Your own flesh. Not by way of some proxy; not with a prowler bringing back the information to you.” The Adder clome’s voice went low and intense, as he laid a hand on McNihil’s arm. “ This is what you’d use.” The hand squeezed tight through the sleeve. “Nothing between you and the Wedge.”

McNihil didn’t push away the other man’s grip. “That’s not a very inviting prospect.”

“Some people-some of my customers-would love to do it. If they weren’t afraid.”

“They’ve got good reason to be.”

Inside the office of the Snake Medicine™ clinic, the air temperature seemed to drop a few degrees, as though from a night breeze too soft to be felt. McNihil’s skin prickled at the sound of his own words, the skin of his arm contracting tighter beneath the Adder clome’s hand. Good reason … He and the Adder clome knew what that was. Death, mainly, and not in a particularly pleasant way. McNihil’s colleagues at the Collection Agency, the ones who’d been part of the operation years back against Verrity, weren’t the only ones who’d gotten chewed up by the Wedge’s seductive teeth. There were still bloodied bits and pieces washing up on the shore of McNihil’s memory, if not his conscience.

The Adder clome dropped his hand. “You’re right, though.” He nodded slowly. “That’s what Harrisch has wanted all along. Or at least since Travelt was found dead. How else is he going to find out what happened? Or get back his… property.”

“More that than the other,” said McNihil wryly. “Harrisch couldn’t give a rat’s ass about what happened to Travelt. Something of his got lost, and he wants it back. That’s all. And he thinks I can go get it for him.”

“But not without my help. Not without what he paid me to do for you.”

One more thing I know . McNihil regarded the Adder clome for a moment longer. “There was something else… about Travelt’s tattoo. It wasn’t just a letter V . There was a banner with a word, some kind of a name in it.” McNihil tilted his head to one side, watching the other man. “ Tlazoltéotl . You know what that means?”

The Adder clome returned a gaze somewhere between suspicion and offense. “Maybe… there are some things you shouldn’t try to investigate.”

The clome’s response brought back a memory. Of a room even darker than this one, with himself and one other in it. McNihil had gone to the Bishop of North America and Central America by Proxy, asking questions and getting not much in the way of answers. The word Tlazoltéotl had turned up there as well, on the screen of the bishop’s monitor. With the same attitude on the part of the bishop as McNihil had caught just now from the Adder clome. Like some religion, it seemed to him, with observances both shame-filled and fiercely devout.

“I don’t have a choice,” said McNihil. “About whether I investigate or not. I have a call.”

That hit the mark. He saw the resentment behind the Adder clome’s eyes shift to grudging acceptance. “Maybe you do. I’m not the one who’d decide about that.”

“And who would be? Tlazoltéotl?”

The Adder clome was silent for a few seconds. Then his words were soft, almost a whisper. “You’re a lucky man, McNihil. More than you know. You’ll come out on the other side of your questions… or you won’t. Either way, things will be different for you.”