Kat Richardson: Greywalker

"Miss Blaine. Sergeyev. I am calling again. Would you have interest in recovering my heirloom?"

I sat at my desk and grabbed a notepad. "Possibly. It would depend on the circumstances. Perhaps we could meet to discuss it?"

He laughed. "No. I am not in Seattle now. But I would pay very well. Two thousand American dollars up front, as you say. And more to retrieve it to me."

"Then I'm interested. Has the item been stolen?"

"Misplaced, only. So many disruptions here. It has gone astray."

"Where are you?"

"I last saw it in Switzerland. Ingstrom, I think, took the cargo to Seattle, 1970, 1980…"

I was getting confused by his odd speech patterns. I tried to put him back on course. "What is the item?"

"A furniture. A parlor organ. Can you find it? It is not rush."

I jotted down what he'd said so far and looked at it. "Your information is pretty skimpy. Do you have any other leads?"

"I shall consider on it and express you papers with the check. We are agreed?"

"Yes, but it may take some time…"

I thought I heard a chuckle and then, "If you'd like to place a call, please hang up and dial again."

I glared over at Quinton, just rising from kneeling by the phone jack on the wall. "What just happened? I lost a client and I don't have his number!"

"Wasn't me. The line's fine. Maybe he'll call right back."

But he didn't. After a few minutes' waiting, I shook my head. "Damn."

Quinton frowned at the phone. "You think he's not calling back?"

I was miffed. "Not right now."

"I only have to do one more thing. I'll need the phone for a couple of minutes. You have a pager?"

"Yeah."

"What's the number?"

I looked sideways at him and felt a little dizzy, then looked away. "Why do you need it?"

He held up a birthday card in a clear plastic envelope with the words "Record your own greeting!" on it. "I'm going to program the chip to call you with a code if someone breaks in here."

"Oh." I rattled off the number.

He stripped a small, dark object out of the card and placed it next to the phone. Then he placed the handset next to the chip and dialed my pager number and an extension, then hung up. In a moment, my pager went off at my waist, vibrating silently.

"Did you get it?" he asked.

I read the page. "Nine-nine-nine."

"That's the code you'll get whenever the door or window opens. Just ignore it if you do it yourself. I should be able to get a better sys-tem up for you in a day or two. Just a couple of quick things and we're done, for now."

He made several strange-looking connections to my phone and electrical system, covering them neatly with white tape so they were invisible to a casual glance.

"That'll do it," he said, putting his tools away and picking up the backpack.

"How much do I owe you, Quinton?"

"How 'bout dinner? I've got a couple of other questions about the permanent system. If you're still interested?"

I thought about it. "I guess I am. Can you make a ballpark estimate?" I asked.

"I don't make estimates as sloppy as that." His eyes were twinkling over a smothered laugh.

I gave him a suffering look.

I got an apologetic grin in return. "Unless the parts have gone up a lot, it'll be under two hundred, including the stuff I used today."

It was only a small gamble. "OK. We can talk over dinner. What do you want to eat?"

"Some kind of dead animal will do me fine," he answered. "I like veggies well enough, but I'm too much the carnivore to give up meat."

I started picking up my things. "Good. I was leaning toward a steak, myself."

"Sounds great."

We walked up First to the Frontier Room. It's divey, kitschy, and the menu runs to barbecue and stiff drinks, but they have a good steak and it's cheap.

"So," Quinton started, separating brisket with his fork, "what situation am I dealing with on this alarm? You don't seem like the type to lock the barn after the horse is gone, to drag out a cliché. Are you expecting more trouble?"

"I'd rather not take the chance."

He glanced at me from the side. "OK. I assume you don't want the cops on your doorstep every time the alarm goes off. Right?"

"Yes. And I don't want this to be out of my control or open to prying by some security company. My clients pay for confidentiality, but I still need records if someone does break in again."

Quinton nodded, a comma of barbecue sauce lending him a quirky smile. "Quiet, reliable notification—no false alarms to the cops—and admissible in court. I think I can do that pretty easily with the setup you've got. I may have to drill a few holes, though. Is that a problem?"

"The manager's a bit of a jerk, but I'll get around him. The owner couldn't care less, as long as he gets his tax credit."

We hammered out a few more details, but by the time we'd finished eating and were chasing the meal down with coffee, the conversation had gotten onto other topics. Maybe it was the glass of wine I'd had, but I felt comfortable. Quinton made easy conversation, and a business dinner turned into just hanging out.

We walked back toward Pioneer Square afterward. Quinton stopped at First and Columbia.

"This is it for me. I'll get in touch as soon as I've got the parts. And… thanks for dinner. That was good."

"Yeah, it's a pretty good place."

He grinned and started down Columbia toward the waterfront, turning back to wave before disappearing below the freeway ramp on the steep downgrade.

I strolled on, heading for the Rover a few blocks away, feeling warm and full and a little drowsy. It was getting colder, as I'd expected, though. As I passed my office building, a swirl of clammy steam licked up from the street. The cold slither of the mist around my ankle made me shiver and raised the hair on my nape.

I looked around, feeling observed and started arguing with my paranoia. It was just steam. All the steam covers leaked a little wisp into the cooling air and made tiny ghosts dance a moment on the cobbled street. But this steam slunk up a shape in an alley nearby.

I gave a start. Someone was standing, shadowed, in the alley, watching me. I turned and strode toward the gleam of eyes. The shadow moved, flickering through light from a window above. A female shape and a flash of wine red hair, then she was gone around the next corner without a sound.

I started after her, pursuing the Cabernet gleam of her cropped hair. Alternating heat and cold rushed over me. I darted around the corner into indeterminate light and a deep, low thrumming. Everything was shrouded as if within a dense snow cloud, always moving, almost revealing… something, then closing up again. The light— hazy gray and impossible to look at as sun-glare in the desert—wiped out detail in a fuzz of visual noise. Shapes seemed to surge and stream just at the knife-edge of perception, flickering with black dots in the corners of my eyes.

I stopped short and whipped around. More of the same. I quailed, gripped by vertigo, and swiped at my eyes as if I could wipe my dimming vision clear and find the way out.

I turned again, but the alley had become an unending plain of cloud-stuff.

I shouted, "Where are you? Where are you!" Panic rushed my breath. I staggered backward in circles, panting and calling.

Something murmured, "Be quiet or it will hear you."

I spun toward the whisper. A face had formed out of the thick atmosphere, glowing with a pale, internal light—a soft-edged human face, but with no defining factors and no real color, just a thicker, more luminous density of the wavering not-mist. My heart stuttered in my chest.

I shook and stammered, "Who are you?"

"I am… I. I am… he. I am she…"

I didn't care about philosophy. I waved a shaking hand in front of the face. "Strike that. Just get me out of here."