S. Swann - Forests of the Night

He couldn't.

He had never ditched anything in the middle.

"You know you're hobbling me when you withhold information."

"I am sorry."

"I need copies of those 'suggestions.' "

"They're on file. I get them. At ten-thirty Wednesday night we meet in the cemetery."

"Comm off."

What in the hell did he think he was doing?

He should have dumped the case when he had the chance.

The walk past the city end of Mayfietd was nerve-racking for Nohar. His sudden concern for Stephie had hit a few buttons. He was passing Ziphead territory with Angel. He felt the gun was all too obvious under his green windbreaker, even though when he chose the jacket it had seemed up to the job of concealing the Vind.

It felt like there was a target strapped to his back and the weight under his arm didn't really help.

There were no rats around, hadn't been since yesterday. That was becoming suspicious. There were always rodents around in Moreytown, even in daylight. The streets were bare of them.

There was new graffiti under the bridge that separated Moreytown from the Circle. It was under the sarcastic, "Welcome to Moreytown." It read, "The Zipperhead rules here." The Zip graffiti was becoming too ubiquitous.

Nohar remembered the too-common slogan, "Off the pink," from the riots. A decade later, that slogan—Datia's slogan—had passed into general usage as a stock antiauthoritarian comment.

Nohar wondered if the people who used it habitually were consciously aware it was a call for human genocide.

It felt like he was in the Hellcats again and everything was about to explode into brimstone and shitfire. The feeling didn't leave after they passed the concrete pylons demarking the end of May field Road.

134

S. ANDREW SWANK

The pink universe of Case Western Reserve University was only a few blocks from the farthest extention of Moreytown. The border was marked by the sudden shift into decent landscaping.

Angel turned toward him. "You feel safe, Kit?"

"No."

"Feel the shit's about to go ballistic?"

"You, too?"

"When the players absent all of a sudden, you know the situation is going to ground zero on you.''

Nonar shrugged. "I've got a meeting to go to."

"Right. Whatever it is, it ain't us."

Nohar let it go with an insincere nod. He knew Angel didn't believe that. Neither did he. He didn't believe in coincidence. He thought it pretty damn likely the absence of Zips had a hell of a lot to do with them.

They made the coffeehouse at a little after twelve. The aroma of exotic, rare, and engineered coffees overwhelmed Nohar's sense of smell—at least it removed Maria's ghost-odor from Angel's clothes.

It was a college lunchtime crowd, with only one other morey—at least he and Angel weren't the only ones—a graying red vulpine who was engaged in a chess game with a black pink. Some of the patrons gave the new pair a few stares. Nohar, being a rather singular morey, got more than his share. Nohar was relieved to see Stephie in the back. She had chosen a table with enough room for him to maneuver around.

Nohar walked straight to the table and sat down. Angel hovered a second at the counter, until she seemed to realize she didn't have any money. Stephie was looking at Angel, but she directed her question to Nohar. "Who's your friend?" "She's a lead from the Johnson killing."

"She?"

Sometimes pinks weren't quick on the uptake when it came to morey gender.

Nohar supposed it had to do with the lack of prominent breasts.

Angel turned a chair around and sat on it backward.

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She rested her chin on the back, and scratched the base of her scar—her nose twitched. "Name's Angel, Pinky. Kit here's my bodyguard."

"Ah, hello. My name's Weir, Stephie Weir."

Odd, Nohar thought, now she was acting like he'd expect a pink to around morey. It was usually one of three things—fear, condescension, or this vague nervousness that was now spilling off of Stephie in waves.

"You wanted to talk. What about?"

She took her eyes off the rabbit and looked at Nohar. "I've been offered my job back—"

Nohar gave her a close-lipped smile. "Congratulations—"

Stephie interrupted him. "—aren't in order. It was conditional I didn't talk to you. That kind of job security I don't need. I've been let go once, like excess weight on a ballistic shuttle. I'm not going to be blackmailed into helping in a cover-up."

Angel chuckled. "Good for you, Pinky. Fuck the PTB."

Stephie looked confused. "PTB?"

Nohar felt his claws digging into the table. He un-tensed his hand and tried to stare Angel into shutting up as he explained. "P. T. B. Powers that be. Terminology from the riots—When did you get this offer?"

"After I gave you the lift from the hospital. It was waiting on my comm when I got back home. I never liked Harrison that much." She smiled now. "I called his house the minute I got the message. I got him out of bed at two in the morning to cuss him out and tell him what to do with his offer. He gave me a raise twice. I told him, at this point, not even if I supported Binder.''

That nagged at something. The Binder campaign was riddled with that kind of inconsistency. "I want to know why the campaign has people like Thompson, Young, and Johnson in it."

"I never probed too deeply into that. I told you I

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137

was just window dressing. It was a money thing. I admit it. I sold out. They needed me for Derry. Anyway, there are precious few women in my age-group that are for Binder. Those that were might have had some principles."

He appreciated the fact she wanted to tell him about Harrison's offer. It also reminded him about his worries earlier today. "Who'd you tell about our meeting?"

Stephie shrugged. "No one, not even Harrison— though I was tempted to tell him he was too late with his little job offer. Just to make him stew."

Angel beat Nohar to the next question. "Why not?"

Nohar glared at her as Stephie answered. "It's my business. Why should I have told him about it?"

There's the anger again, Nohar thought, just like that lesbian comment. It was laced with confusion, too, but less of it. It felt like she had come to some sort of decision.

Oh, well, let Stephie be pissed at the rabbit. "Stephie, you told no one?" "Right."

"Not boyfriend, girlfriend, family, your mother?"

"I said, no one—" She gave a weak smile. "Not even my nonexistent boyfriend." Now Nohar had reason to worry. Young's self-destruction and the Zip attack on him had been just too well-timed.

"Someone found out. You're being watched."

"What?"

Nohar glanced at Angel, and gave Stephie the story. Nohar briefly wondered if he should be doing all this exposition in front of Angel, but she was involved in this—however tangentially—and she was getting the short end of it as well. After the brief rundown, Stephie looked thoughtful. "You might be right. I think Phil could handle the strain of losing Derry. But if he thought himself responsible. If he actually was responsible ..."

Stephie shook her head. "But I do not understand why you think the black hats from Phil's conspiracy are watching me. Of all people, I am—was—the least significant person in the Binder organization."

Angel dived in again. "Pinky, do they know that? Overheard your story, and the whole point was to make you look like honcho's squeeze and his second. Like, this is what pissed you in the first place, right? You just looked high-mighty when your real job was to make mister rump-ranger look like an upstanding pink hetro."

Angel was crude, but right. Nohar jumped in before Stephie could say something to Angel. "As Johnson's 'executive assistant,' you 'officially' had access to all the finance records Young torched. They might not .;' realize your only function was to cover for Johnson's t; homosexuality. Also, Young started destroying records,