George Effinger - When Gravity Fails

“From Nikki?”

Seipolt shook his head. “Here and there in the city. You know how Arabs like to gossip.”

I smiled. “I didn’t realize I had such a reputation.”

“It’s nothing to get excited about, kid. Now, what makes you think this Nikki, whoever she is, is here? This letter?”

“Your house seemed like a good place to start looking. If she’s not here, why is your name so prominent in her plans?”

Seipolt looked genuinely bewildered. “I don’t have any idea, and that’s the truth. I’ve never heard of your Nikki, and I don’t have the least interest in her. As my staff will attest, I haven’t had an interest in any woman in many years.”

“Nikki’s not just any woman,” I said. “She’s a simulated woman built on a customized boy’s chassis. Maybe that’s what’s been stirring your interest during those years.”

Seipolt’s expression grew impatient. “Let me be blunt, Audran. I no longer have the apparatus to get sexually interested in anyone or anything. I no longer have the desire to have that condition repaired. I have found that I prefer business. Versteh ’?”

I nodded. “I don’t suppose you’d allow me to search your lovely home,” I said. “I needn’t disturb you while you work: don’t mind me, I’ll be quiet as a jerboa.”

“No,” he said, “Arabs steal things.” His smile grew slowly until it was an evil thing.

I don’t taunt easily, so I just shook that one off. “May I have the letter back?” I asked. Seipolt shrugged; I went to his desk and picked up Nikki’s note, tucked it back in my shoulder bag. “Import-export?” I asked.

Seipolt was surprised. “Yes,” he said. He looked down at a stack of bills of lading.

“Anything in particular, or the usual odds and ends?”

“What the hell difference does it make to you what I—” I waited for him to reach the middle of his outraged reply, then swiftly hit the inside of his right forearm with my left hand, swinging the muzzle of the needle gun away, and slapped him across his plump, white face with my right hand. Then I tightened my grip on his left wrist. We struggled silently for a moment. He was sitting, and I was standing over him, balanced, with momentum and surprise on my side. I twisted his wrist outward, abusing the small bones in his forearm. He grunted and dropped the needle gun to the desk, and with my right hand I swept it all the way across the room with one motion. He made no attempt to retrieve it.

“I have other weapons,” he said softly. “I have alarms to summon Reinhardt and the others.”

“I do not doubt that,” I said, not relaxing my hold on his wrist. I felt my little sadistic streak beginning to enjoy this. “Tell me about Nikki,” I said.

“She’s never been here, I don’t know a damn thing about her,” said Seipolt. He was starting to suffer. “You can hold the gun on me, we can fight and wrestle around the room, you can battle my men, you can search the house. Goddamn it, I don’t know who your Nikki is! If you don’t believe me now, there isn’t a damn thing in the world I can say that will change your mind. Now, let’s see how smart you really are.”

“At least four people received that same letter,” I said, thinking out loud. “Two of them are dead now. Maybe the police could find some clue here, even if I couldn’t.”

“Let go of my wrist.” His voice was icy and commanding. I let go of his wrist; there didn’t seem to be much point in holding it any longer, anyway. “Go ahead and call the police. Let them search. Let them persuade you. Then after they leave, I will make you sorry you ever stepped onto my property. If you don’t get out of my office right now, you uncivilized idiot, you may never get another chance. Versteh ’?”

“Uncivilized idiot” was a popular insult in the Budayeen that doesn’t translate well. I was doubtful that it had been included in Seipolt’s daddy vocabulary; I was amused that he had picked up the idiom in his years among us.

I cast a quick glance at his needle gun, lying on the carpet about a dozen feet from me. I would have liked to take it with me, but that would be bad manners. I wasn’t going to fetch it for Seipolt, though; let him have Reinhardt pick it up. “Thanks for everything,” I said, with a friendly look on my face. Then I changed my expression to the very respectful, dumb Arab. “I am obliged to you, O Excellent One. May your day be happy, may you awaken tomorrow in health!” Seipolt only stared at me hatefully. I backed away from him — not because of any wariness, but only to exaggerate the Arabic courtesy I was mocking him with. I passed through the office door and closed it softly. Then I stared up into Reinhardt’s face again. I grinned and bowed; he showed me out. I paused on my way to the front door to admire some shelves filled with various kinds of rare artworks: pre-Columbian, Tiffany glass, Lalique crystal, Russian religious icons, ancient Egyptian and Greek statuary fragments. Among the hodgepodge of periods and styles was a ring, obscure and inconspicuous, a simple band of silver and lapis lazuli. I had seen that ring before, around one of Nikki’s fingers while she played endlessly, twisting the locks of her hair. Reinhardt was studying me too closely; I wanted to grab the ring, but it was impossible.

At the door, I turned and began to give Reinhardt some Arabic formula of gratitude, but I didn’t have the chance: this time, with great relish, the blond Aryan bastard flung the door shut, almost breaking my nose. I went back along the pebble drive, lost in thought. I got into Bill’s cab. “Home,” I said.

“Huh,” Bill grunted. “Play hurt, play with pain. Easy for him to say, the son of a bitch. And there’s the best defensive line in history waiting for me to twitch my little pink ass, waiting to tear my head off and hand it to me, right? ‘Sacrifice.’ So I hoped they’d call some dinky pass play and let me rest; but no, not today. The quarterback was an afrit , he only looked like a human being. I had him spotted, all right. When he handed it off, the ball was always hot as coals. I should have guessed something was up, even back then. Fire demons. A little bit of burning brimstone and smoke, see, and the referee can’t see them grabbing at your facemask. Afrits cheat. Afrits want you to know what it’s going to be like for you after you’re dead, when they can do anything they want to you. They like to play with your mind like that. Afrits . Kept calling off-tackle plunges all afternoon. Hot as hell.”

“Let’s go home, Bill,” I said more loudly.

He turned to look at me. “Easy for you to say,” he muttered. Then he started his old taxi and backed out of Seipolt’s drive.

I called Lieutenant Okking’s commcode during the ride back to the Budayeen. I told him about Seipolt and Nikki’s note. He didn’t seem to be very interested. “Seipolt’s nobody,” said Okking. “He’s a rich nobody from reunited Neudeutschland.”

“Nikki was scared, Okking,” I told him.

“She probably lied to you and the others in those letters. She lied about where she was going, for some reason. Then it didn’t work out the way she’d planned, and tried to get in touch with you. Whoever she’d gone with didn’t let her finish.” I could almost hear him shrug. “She didn’t do a smart thing, Marîd. She’s probably been hurt because of it, but it wasn’t Seipolt.”

“Seipolt may be nobody,” I said bitterly, “but he lies very well under pressure. Have you figured out anything about Devi’s murder? Some connection with Tamiko’s killing?”

“There probably isn’t any connection, buddy, as much as you and your criminal colleagues want there to be. The Black Widow Sisters are the kind of people who get themselves murdered, that’s all. They ask for it, so they get it. Just coincidence that the two of them were postmarked so close together.”