Elizabeth Moon - The Speed of Dark

“What happened, buddy?” It is Danny Bryce, the policeman who lives here.

“My tires are flat,” I say. “I don’t know why. I checked the air yesterday.”

He comes closer. He is in uniform; he smells like mint and lemon, and his uniform smells like a laundry. His shoes are very shiny. He has a name tag on his uniform shirt that says DANNY BRYCE in little black letters on silver.

“Somebody slashed ’em,” he says. He sounds serious but not angry.

“Slashed them?” I have read about this, but it has never happened to me. “Why?”

“Mischief,” he says, leaning over to look. “Yup. Definitely a vandal.”

He looks at the other cars. I look, too. None of them have flat tires, except for one tire of the old flatbed trailer that belongs to the apartment building owner, and it has been flat for a long time. It looks gray, not black. “And yours is the only one. Who’s mad at you?”

“Nobody is mad at me yet. I haven’t seen anyone today yet. Mr. Crenshaw is going to be mad at me,” I say. “I am going to be late for work.”

“Just tell him what happened,” he says.

Mr. Crenshaw will be angry anyway, I think, but I do not say that. Do not argue with a policeman.

“I’ll call this in for you,” he says. “They’ll send someone out—”

“I have to go to work,” I say. I can feel myself sweating more and more. I can’t think what to do first. I don’t know the transit schedule, though I do know where the stop is. I need to find a schedule. I should call the office, but I don’t know if anyone will be there yet.

“You really should report this,” he says. His face has sagged down, a serious expression. “Surely you can call your boss and let him know…”

I do not know Mr. Crenshaw’s extension at work. I think if I call him he will just yell at me. “I will call him afterward,” I say.

It takes only sixteen minutes before a police car arrives. Danny Bryce stays with me instead of going to work. He does not say much, but I feel better with him there. When the police car arrives, a man wearing tan slacks and a brown sports coat gets out of the car. He does not have a name tag. Mr. Bryce walks over to the car, and I hear the other man call him Dan.

Mr. Bryce and the officer who came are talking; their eyes glance toward me and then away. What is Mr. Bryce saying about me? I feel cold; it is hard to focus my vision. When they start walking toward me, they seem to move in little jumps, as if the light were hopping.

“Lou, this is Officer Stacy,” Mr. Bryce says, smiling at me. I look at the other man. He is shorter than Mr. Bryce and thinner; he has sleek black hair that smells of something oily and sweet.

“My name is Lou Arrendale,” I say. My voice sounds odd, the way it sounds when I am scared.

“When did you last see your car before this morning?” he asks.

“Nine forty-seven last night,” I tell him. “I am sure because I looked at my watch.”

He glances at me, then enters something on his handcomp.

“Do you park in the same spot every time?”

“Usually,” I say. “The parking places aren’t numbered, and sometimes someone else is there when I get home from work.”

“You got home from work at nine” — he glances down at his handcomp — “forty-seven last night?”

“No, sir,” I say. “I got home from work at five fifty-two, and then I went—” I don’t want to say “to my fencing class.” What if he thinks there is something wrong with fencing? With me fencing? “To a friend’s house,” I say instead.

“Is this someone you visit often?”

“Yes. Every week.”

“Were there other people there?”

Of course there were other people there. Why would I go visit someone if nobody but me was there? “My friends who live in that house were there,” I say. “And some people who do not live in that house.”

He blinks and looks briefly at Mr. Bryce. I do not know what that look means. “Ah… do you know these other people? Who didn’t live in the house? Was it a party?”

Too many questions. I do not know which to answer first. These other people ? Does he meant the people at Tom and Lucia’s who were not Tom and Lucia? Who didn’t live in the house ? Most people did not live in that house… do not live in that house. Out of the billions of people in the world, only two people live in that house and that is… less than one-millionth of one percent.

“It was not a party,” I say, because that is the easiest question to answer.

“I know you go out every Wednesday night,” Mr. Bryce says. ‘Sometimes you’re carrying a duffel bag — I thought maybe you went to a gym.“

If they talk to Tom or Lucia, they will find out about the fencing. I will have to tell them now. “It is… it is a fencing… fencing class,” I say. I hate it when I stutter or maze.

“Fencing? I’ve never seen you with blades,” Mr. Bryce says. He sounds surprised and also interested.

“I — I keep my things at their house,” I say. “They are my instructors. I do not want to have things like that in my car or in my apartment.”

“So — you went to a friend’s house for a fencing class,” the other policeman says. “And you’ve been doing it — how long?”

“Five years,” I say.

“So anyone who wanted to mess with your car would know that? Would know where you were on Wednesday nights?”

“Maybe…” I don’t think that, really. I think someone who wanted to damage my car would know where I lived, not where I went when I went out.

“You get along with these people okay?” the officer asks.

“Yes.” I think it is a silly question; I would not keep going for five years if they weren’t nice people.

“We’ll need a name and contact number.”

I give him Tom’s and Lucia’s names and their primary contact number. I do not understand why he needs that, because the car was not damaged at Tom and Lucia’s house, but here.

“Probably just vandals,” the officer says. “This neighborhood’s been quiet for a while, but over across Broadway there’ve been a lot of tire slashings and broken windshields. Some kid decided it was getting hot over there and came over here. Something could’ve scared him before he did more than yours.” He turned to Mr. Bryce. “Let me know if anything else happens, okay?”

“Sure.”

The officer’s handcomp buzzes and extrudes a slip of paper. “Here you are — report, case number, investigating officer, everything you need for your insurance claim.” He hands me the paper. I feel stupid; I have no idea what to do with it. He turns away.

Mr. Bryce looks at me. “Lou, do you know who to call about the tires?”

“No…” I am more worried about work than about the tires. If I do not have a car, I can ride public transit, but if I lose the job because I am late again, I will have nothing.

“You need to contact your insurance company, and you need to get someone to replace those tires.”

Replacing the tires will be expensive. I do not know how I can drive the car to the auto center on four flat tires.

“You want some help?”

I want the day to be some other day, when I am in my car and driving to work on time. I do not know what to say; I want help only because I do not know what to do. I would like to know what to do so that I do not need help.

“If you haven’t had to file an insurance claim before, it can be confusing. But I don’t want to butt in where you don’t want me.” Mr. Bryce’s expression is one I do not completely understand. Part of his face looks a little sad, but part looks a little angry.

“I have never filed an insurance claim,” I say. “I need to learn how to file an insurance claim if I am supposed to file one now.”