K Jeter - Noir

“You’ve got a corpse already,” said McNihil. “If that was all that was on your mind, you could’ve buried Travelt and gone on with your business. Your TIAC business. Except it’s not just TIAC anymore, is it?”

“What’re you talking about?”

“Come on.” McNihil’s shoulder brushed against the contamination barrier, sending ripples through the transparent membrane. “Like I said before. That little Adder clome at the Snake Medicine™ clinic that you sent me over to see-he’s a real talkative sort. More than you might even have expected. He told me all sorts of interesting things.”

A new sense of unease percolated through Harrisch’s remaining nausea. “Like what?”

“It’s not TIAC now. Your canned turd is ancient history.” Something less than a smile turned the corner of McNihil’s mouth. “A whole other acronym. A little more exotic-sounding. Almost oriental… but not quite the same. TOAW-with a W on the end. Right?”

The unease flashed to anger, like a match on spilled gasoline. “You’re not supposed to know about that.”

“You wanted me to find out stuff.” McNihil glared straight back at him. “You can’t complain now, just because I’m doing the job you wanted me to do. If you want the lid taken off the box, you’d better be happy with what somebody else finds in there.”

“TOAW,” said Harrisch with teeth-gritted fury, “is not any of your business.”

“It wasn’t any of your little Adder clome’s business, either. But he knew about it.”

“I’ll take care of him later.” Connecting sonuvabitch -Harrisch didn’t know exactly to whom he was referring, inside his head. The clench in his gut tightened, a response to the specter of losing control over the situation. “He’s my problem, not yours. Plus…” His brain finally dropped into gear, producing the right line to take. “Let’s face it. The guy was lying to you. He’s deranged; it’s probably one of the inevitable hazards of the business he’s in. Somebody like that, with the kind of work he does-there’s no way he wouldn’t wind up nuts. Inventing stuff to tell people like you. It’s all crap. TOAW-there’s no such thing. Not really.”

“Sure. That’s why that blue vein on your forehead is about to break open.” McNihil emitted a quick, harsh laugh. “Then again, if you’re going to work yourself into a stroke, you’re in the right place for it. Want me to call a nurse in here?”

Harrisch ignored the other man. For the time being; his thoughts had sped up, sorting themselves out, in regard to what McNihil had just told him. If some sort of leak had sprung open, in the form of that nonstop blabber over at the Snake Medicine™ clinic, then that would have to be shut down, and soon. When he got back to the DZ offices, he’d have to arrange for a damage-control team, a crew of silent heavies, to make their way to the clinic; whatever was left after their operation, including the Adder clome, would be in pieces small enough to be swept up with a dustpan and broom. No big loss, especially to the DynaZauber bottom line; the division would have another SM clinic-with an Adder who could keep his lips zipped-up and running in a matter of days. The customers would hardly be inconvenienced. Connect ’em anyway , thought Harrisch. The lag time between a bunch of perverts’ desires and fulfillment of the same was not a big issue for him.

Though what would also have to be determined-Harrisch saw it now-would be where the Adder clome had gotten his information. The TOAW operation files were locked down tight inside DynaZauber, with only a few of Harrisch’s most-trusted subordinates having even the most rudimentary access. If one of them has been talking , vowed Harrisch, his ass is mine . Or the researchers down at the DZ neurology labs-it could’ve been a white-coat directly on the payroll, even though they were all supposedly laced up with various secrecy and nondivulgence agreements. Some of the top researchers, the ones with the most TOAW pieces inside their heads, had death-pact employment contracts-the DZ human-resources department had paid plenty for the constitutional-rights waivers on those-or somewhat grislier surgical-extraction modules already wired into their skulls. Unauthorized talk would bring about tissue-loss results ranging from idiocy to corpse-hood. For somebody in the labs to have spilled, the person would have to be either suicidal-not impossible; long-term TOAW work tended to corrode morale among even the most blithely scientific-or high-pressured by outside forces. One of our competitors? Inside or out? -Harrisch kept a short list inside his head of enemies belonging to other corporations, rivals in the various DZ branches, and divisions not directly under his control or adequately in liege to him. Any one of those names could be seducing or leaning on the TOAW technicians; if somebody inside DZ, they could’ve learned the techniques from watching Harrisch himself, the way he’d cracked McNihil. Harrisch supposed that was something of a personal tribute, but it still meant ferreting out the parties responsible and eliminating them, one way or another, either shipping them off to the Kamchatka regional office or laying them in the ground with bloodied lilies clenched in their teeth.

Anyway , decided Harrisch, it doesn’t matter right now . That was all housekeeping stuff, things that would have to be cleaned up later. The nausea ebbed lower in his gut, like a brown sea’s low tide, when he considered just how well things were going. If a hospital’s human charcoal ward wasn’t his favorite place for a conference, so what? McNihil wouldn’t even have wanted to come here to talk if he weren’t caught on this particular hook, too tight to wriggle free.

“You’re hosed,” said Harrisch aloud. He enjoyed saying it. “Those burning corpses should just about be cinders by now.” The seizure of corporate poetry in his soul overrode any doubts about whether the asp-head still dreamed or not. “You connecting jerk.” Fierce adrenaline was as good as any white-powder pharmaceutical. “I could’ve met up with you in the boneyard, if that was what you wanted, and it still wouldn’t have changed anything.” These psychological-warfare ploys were useless, at least when they were directed at him. “I don’t care what you know about TOAW. If you know anything at all.”

“Simmer down,” said McNihil. He glanced over his shoulder toward the room’s door. “You’ll have the hospital security up here in a minute.”

“Who cares?” The seizure had morphed into a spasm of self-congratulatory elation. The feeling returned, the one he’d had when he’d seen McNihil bruised and bleeding on the floor of that old writer’s place. Absolute control, the future on rails, speeding directly into the embrace of his heart. What God feels , thought Harrisch as he closed his eyes. When He’s rolling dice at some infinite Vegas . One of the archangels could’ve handed Harrisch a free drink then, with his life written on the little paper parasol sticking out of it, and he wouldn’t have been surprised. “I can deal with them, the same way I’ve dealt with you.” He wondered vaguely if it was possible to get drunk off repeated hits of adrenaline. If so, it was happening to him; Harrisch felt the same giddiness and lack of regard for whatever happened next. Whatever he might say to this poor sorry bastard standing next to him… it didn’t matter. Because I’ve already won , thought Harrisch. Pleasure beyond smugness filled his body, like the bubbling light of the transfigured saints. And-almost as nice-the other man had lost. McNihil not only didn’t see the way things were in the real world-the asp-head was effectively blinded by his cut-up-and-stitched eyes, with their optical load of crappy old movie sets and shadowy lighting-but he was blind as well to what had happened to himself. He’d been connected over, poisoned and contaminated- And he doesn’t even know it , thought Harrisch with complete satisfaction. McNihil had embraced blindness as a way of life; the real world wasn’t good and darkly poetic enough for him. He had to have something else, see some other world more to his liking, with retro Warner Bros, shadows and-even more retro-tough-outside, tragic-inside women, just as if those had ever existed anywhere at all except in the movies. That was what he’d wanted, and so now he’d have no reason to complain about the consequences of his own self-generated ignorance, the chosen way of life turned to one of death. “You just don’t know…”