Harry Turtledove - The Case of the Toxic Spell Dump

“Do you want to stay the night, or do you think you’d be safer going home now?” I asked her.

“I’d intended to stay,” she said. “I stuck a change of clothes in your closet” She did some very visible thinking. “If they’re interested in me—whoever they are—they have to know where I live. They could be waiting for me there as well as here. I’ll stay.” She made a face. “Oh, I don’t like this! Having to think about everything before you do it—is it safe? is it risky? I don’t like it at all.”

“Me neither,” I said. “But I’m glad you’re staying. I wasn’t what you’d call keen on being here by myself. I think I’d probabfy wake up every time a cat screeched or a dog barked.” Was that selfish? Well, yes, probably. It was also very true.

I did something else then: I went into the hall closet took out my blasting rod, and put it under the bed where I could get at it in a huny. Judy watched without saying a word, but nodded soberly when I was done.

Judy and I woke up once in the middle of the night with a horrible start when the sylphs in somebody’s carpet started screaming because the anti-theft gear was violated—or maybe because they thought it was, or maybe for no reason in particular. You never can tell with spirits of the air. Their nocturnal screams are a sound you hear fairly often in Angels City or any other good-sized town, generally when you least want to. At last whoever owned the carpet went down there and made them shut up, or maybe the thief flew away on it. Anyway, quiet returned.

“Jesus,” Judy said.

“Or Somebody,” I agreed. We both settled down and tried to go back to sleep. It took me a long time, and by the way Judy was breathing, she had as much trouble as I did. What had happened to me left both of us jumpy.

The horological demon in the alarm dock I’d bought at the swap meet caterwauled to get us up a little past six. The noise it made was so awful, I figured the Siamese exported its land so they wouldn’t have to listen to ’em. But at least it had the courtesy not to laugh as Judy and I woke up and untangled—we’d drifted together after we finally drifted back off, and were sort of sleeping all over each other.

Shower, shave (for me), dress, breakfast, coffee. We’d spent title night at each other’s flats often enough that we had a routine for it. What wasn’t routine was the way I walked Judy out to her carpet, looked around to make sure nobody was lurking nearby, and watched till she was out of sight Then I went back to the garage, gave my own carpet a careful once—over before I got onto it, and finally headed for work.

I got there unscathed, shut the door to my office, and got on the phone. The first person I called was Legate Kawaguchi. He heard me out, then asked, “This occurred where? On The Second past Anglewood, you said?”

“That’s right.”

“This location, unfortunately, is not within the jurisdiction of the Angels City Constabulary Department, Inspector Fisher. I suggest you contact the Hawthorne constables and report it to them.”

So I did, feeling foolish. People always say “Angeles City” or “A.C.,” but the metropolitan area has lots of other municipalities, some large like Long Beach, others minuscule, but all of them jealously hanging onto as much autonomy as they can. The Hawthorne constables took my report and promised they’d look into it, but I didn’t have any great faith in the promise. Unlike Kawaguchi, they had no feel for the kind of case in which I’d gotten myself involved. The decurion at the other end of the line asked if my flying could have angered the two men who dropped the earth elemental on my carpet He wanted to keep things inside a simple framework.

When I finally got off the line there, I called Charlie KeDy in D.St.C. I listened to the imp at the far end squawk. It sounded very far away. I know you’re going to tell me that’s nonsense: thanks to the ether, no two points are more distant than any other two. I don’t care; I’m teDing you what I heard.

“Charles Kelly, Environmental Perfection Agency.” Took him long enough to answer his bloody telephone, I thought “Good morning, Charlie,” I said; it was still morning back in D.StC., with half an hour to spare. “This is David Fisher, out in Angels City. A couple of men tried to kill me last night Charlie. As far as I can tell, the only reason anybody would want to do that is the toxic spell dump case I’m working on—your toxic spell dump case. Don’t you think it’s about time you gave me the gospel truth, Charlie?”

“David, I—” There was a long, long silence on the other end, then a tiny sound, and then more silence. Even though it was reproduced through two phone imps, I recognized the sound: it was a handset going gently back into its cradle.

Charlie had hung up on me.

I didn’t believe—no, I didn’t want to believe—what that meant. Maybe, I told myself, Charlie’d had somebody important walk in and he’d get back to me later. Back in D.St.C., there were lots of important people, and even more who thought they were. I fooled with the parchment on my desk for fifteen minutes, then called back.

The phone squawked even longer than it had before.

Finally I got an answer “Environmental Perfection Agency, Melody Trudeau speaking.” It was a woman’s voice, all right not the gravelly tones that made Charlie identifiable in spite of phone imps.

“Mistress Trudeau, this is David Fisher, from the Angels City EPA office. I’m looking for Charlie Kelly. I was on the phone with him a little while ago, and we got cut off.” That was more than giving him the benefit of the doubt but I still thought I might as well.

Then Melody Trudeau said, “I’m sorry, Mr. Fisher, but Mr. Kelly left for the day about fifteen minutes ago. Would you like me to take down a message for him?”

The kind of message I wanted to give him, I couldn’t send over the phone. I said, “No, that’s all right; thank you for asking,” and hung up.

After that I just stared at the phone for about five minutes. I needed that long for what had happened to soak in.

As far as I could tell, Charlie Kelly had told me he didn’t give a damn whether I lived or died. I know the Confederation has been only remotely feudal since not long after we broke away from England, but I still thought supervisors owed subordinates something in the way of loyalty, especially when they were the ones who’d got their subordinates into the mess in the first place. Go ahead, call me naive.

I started to go up front and dump my troubles on Bea, but stopped about two steps away from my door. What was I supposed to tell her? “I’m sorry, boss, but I may not be in tomorrow because someone will have murdered me”? That didn’t do the job, and what point complaining to her about Charlie Kelly? She couldn’t do anything she was junior to Charlie, too. She’d think he was contemptible, sure, but I already thought he was contemptible.

I stood there, halfway between my desk and the door, getting madder by the second. Then I turned around and stomped back to my chair. If Charlie wouldn’t listen to me, Henry Legion would.

Seems logical, right?. Getting hold of the CI spook wasn’t as easy as I thought it was going to be. Central Intelligence wasn’t in the D.StC. telephone directory, apparently on the assumption that if you couldn’t figure out how to reach them, you really didn’t need to talk to them.

After I’d scratched my head for a minute or two, I called Saul Klein. He works for the Confederal Bureau of Investigation; his offices are a couple of floors above mine. I’d gotten to know him on the elevator and in the cafeteria. He’s a good enough fellow. When he answered the phone, I said,

“Saul? How are you? This is Dave Fisher down in the EPA.