George Effinger: When Gravity Fails

He stared at me until I realized he wasn’t going to say anything more until I quoted a price. “I get a thousand kiam a day and expenses,” I said. “Pay me now for three days in advance. I’ll give you an itemized bill after I find your son, inshallah .” If Allah wills, that is. I had named a figure ten times my usual fee. I expected him to haggle me down.

“That is entirely satisfactory.” He opened a molded plastic briefcase and took out a small packet. “There are holotapes here, and a complete dossier on my son, all his interests, his vices, his aptitudes, his entire psychological profile, all that you will need.”

I squinted at him across the table. It was odd that he should have that package for me. The Russian’s tapes were natural enough; what struck me as fishy was the rest of it, the psych profile. Unless Bogatyrev was obsessively methodical — and paranoid to boot — I didn’t see why he’d have that material prepared for me. Then I had a hunch. “How long has your son been missing?” I asked.

“Three years.” I blinked; I wasn’t supposed to wonder why he’d waited so long. He’d probably already been to the city jobbers and they hadn’t been able to help him.

I took the package from him. “Three years makes a trail go kind of cool, Mr. Bogatyrev,” I said.

“I would greatly appreciate it if you would give your full attention to the matter,” he said. “I am aware of the difficulties, and I am willing to pay your fee until you succeed or decide that there is no hope of success.”

I smiled. “There’s always hope, Mr. Bogatyrev.”

“Sometimes there is not. Let me give you one of your own Arab proverbs: Fortune is with you for an hour, and against you for ten.” He took a thick roll of bills out of a pocket and sliced off three pieces. He put the money away again before the sharks in Chiri’s club could sniff it, and held out the three bills to me. “Your three days in advance.”

Someone screamed.

I took the money and turned to see what was happening. Two of Chiri’s girls were throwing themselves down on the floor. I started to get out of my chair. I saw James Bond, an old pistol in his hand. I was willing to bet it was a genuine antique Beretta or Walther PPK. There was a single shot, as loud in the small nightclub as the detonation of an artillery shell. I ran up the narrow aisle between the booths and tables, but after a few steps I realized that I’d never get near him. James Bond had turned and forced his way out of the club. Behind him, the girls and the customers were shrieking and pushing and clawing their way to safety. I couldn’t make my way through the panic. The goddamn moddy had taken his little fantasy to the ultimate tonight, firing a pistol in a crowded room. He’d probably replay that scene in his memory for years. He’d have to be satisfied with that, because if he ever showed his face around the Street again, he’d get jammed up so bad he’d have to be modified to hell and back just to pass as a human being again.

Slowly the club quieted down. There’d be a lot to talk about tonight. The girls would need plenty of drinks to soothe their nerves, and they’d need lots of comforting. They’d cry on the suckers’ shoulders, and the suckers would buy them lots of drinks.

Chiri caught my eye. “Bwana Marîd,” she said softly, “put that money in your pocket, and then get back to your table.”

I realized that I was waving the three thousand kiam around like a handful of little flags. I stuffed the bills in a pocket of my jeans and went back to Bogatyrev. He hadn’t moved an inch during all the excitement. It takes more than a fool with a loaded gun to upset these steely-nerved types. I sat down again. “I’m sorry about the interruption,” I said.

I picked up my drink and looked at Bogatyrev. He didn’t answer me. There was a dark stain spreading slowly across the front of his white silk Russian peasant blouse. I just stared at him for a long time, sipping my drink, knowing that the next few days were going to be a nightmare. At last I stood up and turned toward the bar, but Chiri was already there beside me, her phone in her hand. I took it from her without a word and murmured Lieutenant Okking’s code into it.

The next morning, very early, the phone started to ring. I woke up, bleary and sick to my stomach. I listened to the ringing, waiting for it to stop. It wouldn’t. I turned over and tried to ignore it; it just kept ringing and ringing. Ten, twenty, thirty — I swore softly and reached across Yasmin’s sleeping body and dug for the phone in the heap of clothing. “Yeah?” I said when I found it at last. I didn’t feel friendly at all.

“I had to get up even earlier than you, Audran,” said Lieutenant Okking. “I’m already at my desk.”

“We all sleep easier, knowing you’re on the job,” I said. I was still burned about what he’d done to me the night before. After the regular questioning, I’d had to hand over the package the Russian had given me before he died. I never even had a chance to peek inside.

“Remind me to laugh twice next time, I’m too busy now,” Okking said. “Listen, I owe you a little something for being so cooperative.”

I held the phone to my ear with one hand and reached for my pill case with the other. I fumbled it open and took out a couple of little blue triangles. They’d wake me up fast. I swallowed them dry and waited to hear the fragment of information Okking was dangling. “Well?” I said.

“Your friend Bogatyrev should have come to us instead. It didn’t take us very long to match his tapes with our files. His missing son was killed accidentally almost three years ago. We never had an identification on the body.”

There was a few seconds of silence while I thought about that. “So the poor bastard didn’t have to meet me last night, and he didn’t have to end up with that red, ragged hole in his shirt.”

“Funny how life works out, isn’t it?”

“Yeah. Remind me to laugh twice next time,” I said. “Tell me what you know about him.”

“Who? Bogatyrev or his son?”

“I don’t care, either or both. All I know is some little man wanted me to do a job. He wanted me to find his son for him. I wake up this morning, and both he and the kid are dead.”

“He should have come to us,” said Okking.

“They have a history, where he came from, of not going to the police. Voluntarily, that is.”

Okking chewed that over, deciding whether he liked it or not. He let it ride. “So there goes your income,” he said, pretending sympathy. “Bogatyrev was some kind of political middleman for King Vyacheslav of Byelorussia and the Ukraine. Bogatyrev’s son was an embarrassment to the Byelorussian legation. All the petty Russias are working overtime to establish their credibility, and the Bogatyrev boy was getting into one scandal after another. His father should have left him at home, then they’d both still be alive.”

“Maybe. How’d the boy die?”

Okking paused, probably calling up the file on his screen to be certain. “All it says is that he was killed in a traffic accident. Made an illegal turn, was broadsided by a truck, the other driver wasn’t charged. The kid had no identification, the vehicle he was driving was stolen. His body was kept in the morgue for a year, but no one claimed it. After that … ”

“After that it was sold for scrap.”

“I suppose you feel involved in this case, Marîd, but you’re not. Finding that James Bond maniac is a police matter.”

“Yeah, I know.” I made a face; my mouth tasted like boiled fur.

“I’ll keep you posted,” said Okking. “Maybe I’ll have some work for you.”

“If I run into that moddy first, I’ll wrap him up and drop him by your office.”