Harry Turtledove - The Case of the Toxic Spell Dump

At last we went out to the parking lot and buckled ourselves onto my carpet. Before we took off, I leaned over and gave her a kiss. She grabbed me. We hugged for a while.

Before I puddled up, I started flying her home. I took everything slow and easy, keeping in mind how tired I was. It was the middle of the day, so traffic was easy. Practically everybody at her block of flats had gone to work. We had to use my entry talisman; she didn’t have hers.

“Oh, God, it’s good to be here,” she said when we went in.

The curtains were open; she shut them. Then she went into the kitchen and opened the icebox. I heard her duck in distress: “Have to throw most of this stuff out. But oh, good—there’s still some beer in here.”

“Beer?” I echoed.

She clucked again, this time at my foolishness. “For the cup of roots,” she explained, as if I weren’t very bright (and at the moment, I wasn’t). She came back into the front room, where I was standing like a lost soul. She did her best to remedy that; this loss she gave me… well, if my eyelids were window shades, they’d have been flapping on their spindles from being yanked up too hard.

“Here’s what I’m going to do,” she said, ticking off points on her fingers, neat and organized as usual: Tm going to drink the cup of roots. I’m going to get out of these clothes, never ever put them on again, and take a shower to help me forget I was wearing them. Then I’m going to put on something I hope you’ll think is more interesting and try and thank you property for getting me back from the Nine Beyonds. How does all that sound?”

“Wonderful,” I said hoarsely.

“Good. It sounds wonderful to me, too.” She gulped down the cup of roots, then took off her clothes right there in the middle of the living room. When I tried to grab her, she skipped back away from me. “Go sit down,” she said. “I do want to get clean. I won’t be long, I promise. All right?”

“All right,” I said, and went over and sat down to prove it. She nodded in approval and headed off toward the bathroom. The water in there started to run.

I fell asleep on the couch.

Judy eventually forgave me, though she hasn’t let me forget about it. All I ever wanted, from the minute I landed in the Devonshire dump case, was to get tilings back to normal again. Brushing the edge of Armageddon is for saints and heroes, not a working stiff like me.

I have to say I’m making progress. Judy and I set our date, and I solemnly promised to stay awake for the wedding and the night after, too. “You’d better, or I’ll have it with somebody else,” she told me. But we were both joking and we both knew it, so that was all right.

I still haven’t caught up on all my work. I’m gaining, but I’ve spent so much time in court lately that I haven’t been at my desk as much as I’d need to dig out from under the backlog. But helping give the people who kidnapped Judy and almost wrecked Angels City (plus God knows how much of the rest of the Confederation) just what they deserve has its own satisfaction.

And, for that matter, I won’t be out of court even after those trials are done. One thing I did manage to accomplish was the report on the environmental impact of introducing leprechauns into Angels City. I didn’t see any problems with it, especially after the Chumash Powers became irrelevant to the prognostication. After Bea read the report, she said nice things about me in Monday staff meeting (or so I’m told; I wasn’t there at the time—somehow I bear up under the disappointment).

But Save Our Basin decided to contest my findings, so that case should drag on more or less into eternity. My guess is that any possible damage the Wee Folk might cause would cost less to fix than all the litigation about them, but I’m just a dumb inspector; they don’t pay me to make policy.

And I’ve been working on one other thing. Not long after all the commotion I’ve been talking about here, I happened to notice a tiny item in the Times to the effect that one Charles Kelly, an assistant administrator with the Environmental Perfection Agency back in D.StC., had resigned and been replaced by a chap named Gupta Singh.

Did Charlie jump or was he pushed? I didn’t know then and I don’t know now. I looked at the little story and thought about how much trouble had come about—and how much more could have come about—from the way he’d handled the Devonshire dump case. Not only had he given it to me informally, he’d been coy about feeding me information I needed like anything, and then he’d fled like an exorcised demon when I counted on him most People had died in part because Charlie didn’t handle his job the way he was supposed to. Even more to the point as far as I was concerned, I’d almost lost the most important person in my life. I know that on a cosmic scale my priorities there are skewed, but I don’t weigh myself on a cosmic scale.

And what had happened to Charlie because he’d screwed up and chickened out? He’d left his job, and he might not even have been forced out of it. That was all. It didn’t seem enough, somehow.

I know what you’re thinking: you’re thinking I took out a compact on him. Sorry, no—bloody vengeance isn’t my style.

Besides, I don’t know any mages who know that kind of demon, and I didn’t care to go looking for one. Charlie wasn’t worth jeopardizing my soul for, either. But still—I left it in the back of my mind, the place where things stew while you take care of more immediate concerns.

Finally, just before I got called to the witness box one day, I had an idea I liked.

Unfortunately, doing something about it didn’t prove as easy as I’d hoped. The first time I called back to D.StC., I couldn’t get the information I needed. Frustrated but not, I resolved, beaten, I put the idea back into the stewpot and let it simmer while I went on with the rest of my life.

A couple of days later, while I was gulping down a burger at the courthouse cafeteria (better than the one at the Confederal Building, but not much), I knew where I could get my answer. Once you’ve made connections, you’re a fool if you don’t use them.

So I called Central Intelligence, identified myself, and asked to speak to the fellow who’d let me know Henry Legion had shuffled off this mortal coil. I didn’t have a name with which to identify him, but I hoped CI would be able to get around that. Sure enough, inside a minute he was saying,

“Good day, Mr. Fisher. I’m glad everything worked out well for you and your lady.”

Well, I shouldn’t have been surprised that Central Intelligence knew about such things. Thanks,” I managed.

“What can I do for you today?” he asked.

I told him what I wanted and why I wanted it “I’ll only use it the once,” I promised. “If you like, I’ll take a formal oath on that.”

“No need, Mr. Fisher,” he said. The phone imp in my ear reproduced a curious scratchy noise I identified as a chuckle.

“Just between you, me, and the wall, I’d say you’ve earned the right to use it any way you like. Don’t stay on the ether now; I’ll call you back in a couple of minutes with what you need.”

I hung up. Pretty soon, just as promised, the phone yarped. I answered it, wrote down what the chap from Central Intelligence gave me, thanked him again, and hung up.

Then all I had to do was wait Since I was doing this for my convenience, not Charlie’s, I waited till Saturday night my Sabbath was over, so I could use the phone without the slightest sin, and I didn’t have to get up early and go to work the next morning. That counted, too, for what I had in mind.

I was yawning when I picked up the phone at my flat, but I didn’t care. I called the number I’d gotten from Central Intelligence: Charlie Kelly’s home phone. I listened to the racket it made.