Harry Turtledove - The Case of the Toxic Spell Dump

He stared at me out of black, deep-set eyes. “I might even wish you spent more time at your desk. Inspector, provided that time was the period you have instead set aside for harassing legitimate businesses such as mine.”

“Investigation is not harassment,” I said, and stared right back. Persians of the lean variety tend to look like prophets about to call down divine wrath on a sinful people, which gave Bakhtiar what I thought of as an unfair advantage in that land of contest, but I held my own. “And we can’t afford to take a spill from this dump lightly. In aid of which, may I see the decontamination facility you mentioned?”

“I shall take you there,” he said. “I expected that would be your next request.”

Sensibly, Bakhtiar kept his decontaminators off the main shop floor and in a chamber of their own. That both minimized any corruption that might interfere with their work and made sure their procedures wouldn’t weaken the sorcery that went into the instruments.

“Inspector Fisher, allow me to present Dagoberto Velarde and Kirk McCuDough, the decontamination team for Bakhtiar’s Precision Burins,” Bakhtiar said. “Bert, Kirk, this is David Fisher of the EPA. They think we’re responsible for a leak at the Devonshire dump.”

I didn’t bother denying that any more; I’d seen I wasn’t going to convince Bakhtiar and his crew. The decontaminators glared at me. Velarde was short and copper-brown, McCullough tall, gaunt, and red-haired, with the light of religious certainty shining in his hard gray eyes. “Just carry on, gentlemen,” I said. “Pretend I’m not here.”

By their expressions, they wished I wasn’t. They made an odd team, one you wouldn’t find everywhere, but they worked smoothly together, as if they’d been doing it for years. They probably had. One of the guys from the shop floor—no, I take it back, it was a woman in hard hat, overalls, and boots-wheeled in a vat on a dolly. She slid it off, nodded to the decontaminators, and headed back out Bert Velarde broke open an ampule of holy water, sprinkled it over the vat to neutralize as much of the goetic power in there as it could. Holy water is efficacious if applied by any believer, and, while you can’t always tell by looking, I would have bet two weeks’ pay he was Catholic.

But prayers by Catholic layfolk aren’t as potent as those from priests. Velarde didn’t pray. That was Kirk McCullough’s job. He had a deep, impressive voice and a thick Caledonian burr. He hardly bothered looking at the Book of Common Prayer he held in his big hands; he knew the words by heart. That didn’t mean he was just reciting by rote, though—he put his heart into every word.

“Kirk is an elder of the Church of the Covenant,”

Bakhtiar told me quietly. The diversity of Angels City has its advantages.”

“I’ll say,” I agreed. Ishaq Bakhtiar was one sharp operator.

The distinction between clergy and laity is much less in Protestant churches than in Catholicism; the prayers of an elder, who presumably was among the elect, were as likely to’ be heard as a minister’s. And Bakhtiar could hire two laymen for less than he’d have had to pay one who was consecrated.

Like I said, a sharp operator.

He was also sharp enough to say, “And if you have any doubts whatsoever, Inspector Fisher, as the whether the decontaminators are fully employed, come back to my office with me now and I will show you complete records of their activity since we moved into this building.”

I had no doubts, but I went with him nonetheless. He rummaged through his files, plopped a handful down in front of me. I looked through them. They showed me what he’d said they would. This left me unsurprised: how often will the head of a business voluntarily show documents that don’t paint him in the best possible tight?

But if anything was wrong at Bakhtiars Precision Burins, you couldn’t have proved it by me. All his procedures were what they should have been; his decontamination team might have been unorthodox (in the nontheological sense of the word), but it was effective.

“Anything else, Inspector?” he asked when I’d worked my way through the last folder. Rather pointedly, he asked his watch what time it was.

The little horological demon’s answer showed I’d already devoured fifty-five of his precious and irreplaceable minutes, where I’d promised to make do with a mere forty-five. I guess I was supposed to wail and abase myself and swear never to sin in that particular way again. Living in a large city, though, has a way of coarsening you. When I said, Tm sorry I took up so much of your time,” I put just enough bureaucratic indifference into my voice to let him know I wasn’t the least bit sorry.

He glared at me again. This time, I didn’t bother glaring back, which only irked him more. I got up. “I think I can find my own way out.”

“No, you mis—” He caught himself. If he was really rude to me, who could guess how much trouble I’d cause him?

Persians understand about revenge. He tried again: “No, Inspector, you forget the door. It is active in both directions.”

So, no matter how much he didn’t care for me, he had to escort me out so I wouldn’t alarm his door (and in case you’re wondering, I hadn’t forgotten). He gave me some insincere parting pleasantries and let me walk up the hall by myself.

Cyndi Mendoza hit me with a dazzling smile when I came out to her desk (I’d forgotten about her—Bakhtiar could have won the exchange if he’d called her back to his office to bring me out, but that would have cost him an extra couple of minutes of my presence, and I suppose he was too efficient to think of it). She said, “Do you remember that opening spell?”

Which was, no doubt, intended to get around to asking if I thought it would work on her. I forestalled that, though: I said, “Tm sorry, no—I make it a point never to remember anything.” I walked out while she was still staring.

When I got back to the Confederal Building and went up to my office, I found on my desk a note from Rose in big red letters: David, come up to Bea’s office immediately. Wondering what sort of trouble I’d managed to get into while I was gone, I went up to Bea’s office.

In the anteroom sat Rose—the real ruler of the domain—and a fussy-looking little fellow with a big nose and a loud cravat. He was looking through one of Rose’s stationery catalogues, which meant he was either madly meticulous or bored stiff: the latter, if a couple of little faint spots on his shirt meant anything.

“Hello, Dave,” Rose said to me, and then, “Here he is, Mr. Epstein.”

The little man bounced to his feet. “You are David Fisher, Inspector, Environmental Perfection Agency?” he asked, running my name and job title together.

“Yes,” I said. “Who are you?”

“Samuel Epstein, subclerk of the courts. Angels City, Barony of Angels.” From under the stationery catalogue he drew out a piece of parchment so splendid with calligraphy (it’s mostly done by automatic writing these days, as with the quills inscribing symbols on the silk instrument covers at Bakhtiar’s, but it stffl looks mighty impressive) and gaudy with seals. “I hereby deliver unto your person this summons to appear in the court at the day and hour incvited hereon in the matter of The Constabulary of Angels City vs.

Ctiauhtemoc Hemandez.” He presented it to me with such a gorgeous flourish that I half expected to hear a ruffle of drums.

I read the parchment. It was what Epstein said it was. “I’ll be there,” I told him. “Sorry to keep you waiting here so long. Couldn’t you just have left this on my desk?”

“Not in cases involving thaumaturgy in the commission of a first-degree felony,” he answered. “In such cases, the chain of transmission of summonses must be as tightly controlled as that concerning the transmission of evidence.”