Conscience of the Beagle (14 page)

I WAKE UP
, arms
flailing. Catch my breath, and let my heart slow. Dreaming. Did I make a sound? No one comes to see. I watch sun track a path up the mounded covers.

The scent of coffee lures me from bed. I check my face in the mirror. The swelling is down. The Slimcast is blue. I peel it off and flush it. Electrodes have left a series of dirty circles across my ribs that don’t come off in the shower.

I dry off, pull a uniform from the Wash & Press, and walk into the kitchen. Tal Hendrix is sitting at the table. Her presence stuns me.

“Hello, Major. I made coffee. Can I get you a cup?” She starts to get to her feet.

“No.”

Silence as I take down a mug and pour my coffee. It’s a good silence. A comfortable, homey one. “Are you angry?” she asks.

“No. Why?”

“You snapped my head off just now. Bad night?”

I turn. Did she hear me cry out in my sleep? “Don’t ever get coffee for anyone. Not for me. Not for Beagle. We’re not goddamned Tennysonians.”

“All right. Fine. I just thought
—
Well, how’s your face feeling?”

I put my hand to my cheek. Ashamed. How she saw me. Weak.

“Beagle told me about your wife. I’m sorry. It must have been terrible, seeing
—”

“Yes.” Her presence makes the room too hot. I can’t breathe. A tingle where her eyes touch me. “Where’s Beagle?”

“On the patio.”

I walk quickly out of the room, and find I can breathe again.

Beagle is sitting outside in the shade of the overhang. Szabo is up, dressed and standing ankle-deep in the purple groundcover, feeding squirrels.

I sit at the patio table and sip my coffee. Squirrels, eager for food, make a semicircle around Szabo, a cautious distance of about two feet. A miniature no-man’s land.

Tal Hendrix in my kitchen. A short walk away. I could go back in there, if I wanted to.

“You feel up to a little excursion?” Beagle asks. “I tracked Greel Iovinelli’s partner to Gilead. Thought we should talk to him.”

Greel Iovinelli’s partner in Gilead. But Tal Hendrix in my kitchen. “I think someone should stay here and keep an eye on things.”

“For the Hendrix woman? Szabo’s up and around now. You can leave her with Szabo. He won’t seduce her.” Beagle’s arms are crossed over his barrel chest. Between us stands a barren space like that between Szabo and the squirrels.

“I’m not worried about that. I’m worried about Colonial Security. About Vanderslice. About her goddamned safety.”

“I thought you gave her a self-defense lesson. Interesting. Sort of a foreplay thing, right? Why don’t you let her in on your interrogation techniques next? You could slam her around a little. You could
—”

“Shut the fuck up!” Half rise to my feet. Hands clenched. I want to slam my fist into his face. No use. No nerves. Metal underneath. Never loved. Never contemplated suicide. Nothing can hurt Beagle.

“Look, Dyle. You’re the big-shot interrogator. I need you on this. I’m just a numbers cruncher. I can’t read people as well as you do.”

But what if I came home and found her like Pearcy?

“It’s not an overnighter. They’ll be okay here alone for a few hours.”

“I’ll be all right.”

That voice. I turn. She’s standing in the open patio door. How much did she hear?

“I have people looking after me. Go on. Take your trip.”

Who? Who looks after her?

“Well, that’s settled.” Beagle gets to his feet. “I’ll call a cab.” He walks around her into the house, and we’re alone.

I turn quickly. Look at Szabo.

“Don’t you want anything to eat before you go?”

I shake my head. Look at my coffee. Feel her eyes on me. “Where were you going last night?” I ask.

She doesn’t answer.

“When we got to your apartment, you were already packed. Who told you about the murder? Where did you plan to go?”

“Is this an interrogation?” she laughs. “Are you going to slam me around?”

No bone, no metal barrier, to stop it.

“Sorry.” Her eyes lower. “The revolutionaries take care of me. I thought I explained that.”

I wanted her to need me. “No. You never did.”

“They’re just some friends of mine. And Paulie’s. They’re careful. Don’t worry. They know what they’re doing.”

Secret little meetings. They know what they’re doing. Who’s lying? Vanderslice or her?

Beagle’s suddenly in the doorway, just behind her. “Cab’s here, Dyle.”

I get up. Stop at her shoulder. By the smell of her perfume, the heat of her skin. “You’re sure you’ll be all right?”

“I’m sure.”

A blue cab is waiting. Like the one that melted during the bombing. We get in. The ride to the port is silent.

Still silent, we buy our tickets. We file onto the plane and take our seats. I say, “If you want control of the team, just tell me.”

The doors close. The steward walks quickly to the back of the cabin. A restraint lowers over my lap. Over Beagle’s. Metallic clicks as they lock.

Beagle stares out the window. Gray tarmac flashes by.

WARNING. WARNING. TAKE OFF MODE. Foot-high red letters on the wall. A bang from the rear of the cabin and the plane shudders. Gravity sits on my lap.

“I don’t give a shit about who gives the orders. It doesn’t matter anymore.” By Beagle, a window. In it, a divided world: the blue of Tennyson’s atmosphere; the black of space.

He looks out.

“What do you want from me, damn it?”

“A little help might be nice. I didn’t lose my wife. I didn’t lose my former lover. But I’ll tell you something . . .” He turns. Behind him, blinding white cloud and cobalt ocean. “You’re fucking up the case, Dyle.”

I start to say
—
What? Then the plane is buffeting in for a landing. A moment later, we’re down.

When the restraints release, Beagle is on his feet. I rise and follow.

It’s raining in Gilead, a dismal, slow rain. The air smells of the sea. Beagle dodges a luggage carrier. He selects a red cab from the gaily-colored loaves at the front of the port. We get in. He gives it Greel Iovinelli’s address.

Gilead is a tourist trap with blocks and blocks of shops. We pass people lunching under a canopy. The cab climbs the shoulder of a green mountain, slows and rolls to a stop. Beagle slips his card through the reader. The doors open.

The office is a glass box perched on the side of the hill. Below it are black wet rocks and turbulent sea. Beagle rings the buzzer. A young man opens the door. He has on a pair of yellow shorts. A purple shirt open to the waist. His blond hair stands up in odd spikes around his head. There’s a squeegee in his hand.

“Mr. Piper?” Beagle asks.

“Hey.” He flashes a dim-wittedly cheerful smile. He looks at my face and his grin wavers. Questioningly, he turns to Beagle.

“I called you this morning about the death of your partner, Greel lovinelli?”

The smile dims. “Yeah. What a rooter, Greel slipping out like that. Get in, okay?” And he steps away from the door.

He leads us to his workstation room. Walls of glass. Great view of the ocean.

Beagle tells him so.

Piper nods. “I don’t know if I can keep up the payments on this place now. Such a rooter, but what can you do?” Then Piper brightens. “Hey. Mind if I keep working? Got a deadline.”

“Go ahead,” Beagle says.

Piper sits at his screen and applies the squeegee to the screen. He’s building a bookcover for something called
The Ascension Murders.
A greenish body lies in the foreground, half in, half out of an alley. It’s surrounded by a pool of cherry red blood.

I look quickly away. “How well did you know Paulie Hendrix?” I ask.

Piper lifts his unoccupied left hand, presses the first and second fingers together. “Glued. I did most of his artwork.”

“But Greel was working on something for him when he was killed.”

He bobs his head. Drops the squeegee. Runs his hands through his hair, leaving the greasy blond strands on end. Then he recovers from his artistic fit and picks up the squeegee again.

He punches in a darker red, starts working on the shadows. “Had another assignment. Paulie called me at the last minute, and, hey, a rooter, but I was deadlined. I asked Greel if he could handle it. He got the commission.
Godly Science
didn’t pay well, but they always paid on time. Somebody’s going to get a lot of neg-E for slipping out Paulie.”

“Can we see what Greel was working on?” I ask.

Without lifting the squeegee from the screen, Piper jerks his head toward the neighboring unit. “Log on WINTERIZE. Check in the directory under GS.”

I one-handedly tap out the logon. I wait.

Gray rain drums the windows. On the far wall is a flat painting of a man and a woman on a beach, drinks in their hands, hats pulled over their eyes. They look either very relaxed or asleep. Under the picture the words: WINTERIZE ME.

I ask for the directory. Find GS. Hit enter. And study the screen. “It’s not here.”

Piper looks up. “Should be. We download from the master. The original always stays with us.”

“There’s an entry for GS in the directory, but no data.” He gets up. Looks at the screen himself.

“Any way that could have happened accidentally?”

“Not that I know of.”

“What was Greel working on?”

“I don’t know. Hey. I don’t do science. Paulie just gave me the specs and I filled them in. Greel worked that way, too.”

“Did Greel Iovinelli know John Vanderslice?”

Piper looks glumly into the drizzle. Below us waves hurl themselves against the rocks. “Greel and I were on the list.”

“What list?”

“The
list.
You know. Of subversives. Greel wrote this bump-and-grind article about Vanderslice in
Journal of Art.
Greel told me he walked up to him at an exhibition once and tried to introduce himself. He told him what hole he could fill.” He returns to his work as if real mysteries don’t interest him.

Beagle asks, “Have you ever met Vanderslice?”

“No. Hey. But I’d like to tell him what hole he could fill, too.” Piper leans back. Studies his handiwork.

“Why’d you do the corpse that color?” I ask.

“Rotting, you know?”

“Dead bodies are pale. They’re sort of colorless. And in the shadows blood looks black.”

He turns. “It’s a bookcover. Got to have color.”

“When the blood pools at the point of lividity, the rest of the body turns dingy yellow.”

“You sure?”

“You ever see a corpse?”

“No.”

Cold pale wax. What’s left when the blush on the cheeks is gone. And it was like I didn’t know her anymore. “Dead bodies are dingy yellow.”

Piper’s hair has begun to sag. He pulls at it until it’s standing on end. He stares in dismay at the nearly-completed screen. “Rooter,” he says.

ON THE RIDE
back
from the port I tell Beagle, “Everything’s coming to a head. We’ve got to have a meeting with Marvin.”

“Crap. And show him what, Dyle? What proof do we have?”

“We don’t need proof. We can tell him what we suspect.”

“Unzip your pants, for Christ’s sake. Your brain needs air.”

Rain clouds have sailed to Hebron and set anchor. The trunks of the pines are damp black, the needles brilliant green.

“Vanderslice is going to assassinate him, Beagle. He’s going to make us look like assholes.”

“Destiny will make us assholes.” He hits the window release. The cab fights a small war with him. Beagle wins by hitting the override button. Cool air and an aerosol of rain wash into the cab.

“How long do we have, you think, before the Chosen’s assassinated?” I ask.

“If he’s going to be hit, and that’s starting to look like a big if, we have a little time. Otherwise they wouldn’t have bothered trying to get rid of us.”

“Why a big if?”

He shrugs.

“The God’s Warriors have to have explosives somewhere.”

Beagle stares at the rain, the green lawns, the houses. “A division of the God’s Warriors is in charge of road building and maintenance.”

“That’s it, then. Maybe Marvin visits the Division of Highways and the building goes up. Let’s check his itinerary.”

“Look. I’m not sure anymore if Vanderslice has anything to do with this. The scenario has the counterfeit feel of a Tennyson blow job. Vanderslice wouldn’t have to kill Marvin. He could just leak enough about his insanity to politically drown him.”

“But what about the planted conspiracy angle? He’s guilty. We can prove that. No one else could get into those DEEPs.”

“Don’t be too sure. Besides, I’m afraid we have a no-winner anyway. Even if Vanderslice is implicated, Marvin wouldn’t move against him. Don’t you imagine Vanderslice has a file on Fat Boy? Wouldn’t you like to know what’s in it?”

“But
—”

“But we don’t know enough yet to tell the Chosen anything. That’s that.”

The cab stops in front of the neo-adobe. “What if you’re wrong? What if Vanderslice is cleverer than you think he is? What if he’s managed to fool you?”

“Dyle. Nobody’s that clever.” Beagle climbs out of the cab. Leaves me to pay.

I follow Beagle to the door. Tal Hendrix greets us. Tells us she has dinner waiting.

I go wash up. I’m the last to enter the dining room. One empty chair, and it’s next to her. I sit down next to the heat of her body. Watch how her fingers fold over the handle of the knife.

Szabo takes a bite of spinach. Stares into his plate. “Corpses aren’t green.”

My fork drops. Ziti and carrot slices spill over the table. Szabo’s eyes are wide. “I don’t know why I said that.”

“Endwrapping,” I say. “Damn, you guys get weird when you start endwrapping. You’re not going to be doing a lot of this, are you?”

“I see flashes of things, but I can’t tell whether they’re from the past or the future. Milos comes and goes a lot. An old woman is standing by the sink.” He points to empty space. “See
her?”

“Szabo. Stop it. There’s nothing the hell there.”

“I’ve been seeing a lot of dead people lately. Something terrible is going to happen.”

Angry now. And fearful. I push my plate away.

“Remember the time Mars’ Helena colony blew out?” Szabo looks around the table. Tal Hendrix isn’t eating. Beagle chases a ziti with his fork.

“I saw it. I heard the screaming. I told HF, too. But a psychic only sees so much. I couldn’t tell them when. Couldn’t tell them where. Three days later the dome went. That’s when I understood why the ground I saw in my vision was red.” Szabo cuts a square of steak and leaves it sitting, a cubic mountain, on the white plain of his plate. “It’s like that now. Just pictures. You and Beagle and a lot of darkness. That’s all I know.”

Tal gets up. Leaves the bot to clear her plate. Beagle shoves away from the table casually as if he’s on his way to the couch and a program on the vid.

I tell Szabo, “I don’t want to hear about it.”

“Milos says you have to.”

I leave. Go to my room.

In the bath, I take off my shirt. Wash my face. When I walk into the bedroom, Tal is standing there.

She holds up a tube of Dermagro. “You need to put some of this on.”

“All right.”

She looks at me doubtfully. Then at the tube. “You really need to put this on. It’ll take the rest of the swelling down.”

Swelling already, and we’re not even touching. Tell-tale twitch in my pants.

“You’re not going to, are you, Major. I can tell. You’re hard-headed.”

Hard. Hope she doesn’t notice. “I’ll be fine.”

She opens the tube. Puts ointment on her fingers. Comes over and grabs my wrist. Strong grip. Strong for a woman. I turn, but she pulls me around. Nearly stumble. Facing her now. So close. The scent of her perfume. Her hair.

She lifts her hand to my face. I jerk back. “Don’t.” Don’t deserve her concern. God. Don’t want her pity.

I back away, around a chair, the bed. She follows, laughing at me. A low chuckle in the back of her throat. I’m startled. Hurt. And then
—
all of a sudden it’s so funny.

Stumble over my feet and I’m falling backward. Twist of my body, and my hand hits the carpet first. She falls on top, warm, straddling me. Straddling me, but
—

Sharp thing against my bare stomach. She isn’t laughing anymore.

“Slide the knife up,” she says. “Isn’t that right?”

Afraid to breathe. Point barely grazing my skin. Her watchful eyes. Keen eyes. Like the leopards’.

“But what happens if I slice down?”

Down. Down. Stomach. Navel. Not cutting. Doesn’t hurt really. It feels
—
a fingernail. That’s what it is.

Lingers for a moment at the top of my pants. I know she can feel how hard I am. Just cloth between us, and I’m hard enough to split the seams.

A flick of her fingers. My pants’ clasp parts. Down. Excruciatingly slow. Spreads the smooth edges of the zipper.

And she halts. Just the edge of her finger.

She moves fast. Gets up to leave. Going away, up and over the bed. I seize her ankle. Her shoe drops off, and I climb her. Legs. Ass. Her pants slip. Pale skin. Pink heat underneath. Dimple at the top of her buttocks. Fighting. What if she’s not playing?

Slaps me. My ribs. Slaps hard. Trying to sit up. I straddle her this time. Thin cloth between us. She’s strong, but I’m stronger.

Pants around her hips from our struggle. Line of curly blond hair. Darker than on her head. Just a shade darker. Like
—

But her eyes are brown. And wide. Scared. Or is she? What if she wants me to stop?

Fingernails rake my hips, pull my slacks
—
Oh, Christ
—
the rest of the way. I spring out so hard I wonder how the cloth contained it. The room’s hot. So hot I’ve started to tremble. She’s kicking her pants off now. Pulling off her sweater. She’s frantic for it. Heel of her foot bruises my leg.

Breasts larger than Lila’s. I put my hand there. She knocks it away. But Lila
—
she grabs me. Squeezes. Please, tighter. And her hand moves. Up and down. Have to hold it in. Not this soon. Then her head lowers against my stomach. Tickle of silky hair. My hips strain. Strain for her mouth. Want to let go, but can’t have her like that. Not faceless.

Push her against the bed. Her eyes fly open. Brown. Have to remember that her eyes are brown. Her breasts so large. Nipples puckered and pink. Find the spot. Find it blind. She’s tighter than I thought. So tight that waiting aches. It’ll all get away from me. Ruin it for her. And I want it to be perfect.

She doesn’t understand why I stopped. Shoves me into her, like she wants everything I have. Like she wants more.

Legs clasp my ass. Burning tracks on my back from her nails. She wants me so bad.

Christ. Can’t hold on anymore. Plunge into her violent and quick. She shivers like there’s cold steel in her, not flesh. Her smell. Sweat and perfume and the sea. God. A dark rush coming. Drive so deep my muscles lock. A pump, the first one easy. The second quivers up my thighs, shoots into the base of my groin. Powerful as the explosion of the bus. She shivers. Shivers. Her body goes so limp that for a moment
—
afraid. What did I
—

Then she sighs and everything’s all right. Everything’s okay. I kiss the rapid pulse at her throat. Lay my head on the slick sweated skin between her neck and shoulder. Breathing in gasps. We both are. I could lie like this all night, inside her. Go to sleep like this. Just the two of us.

She moves. Limp now. I slide out and fall away. Want the comfort back. Like safety. That’s what it’s like. Just knowing she’s there. If I was hard again . . . but no, she’s so tired. Wouldn’t bother her like that. Don’t think I even could. Just want to lie inside.

She inches out from under me and rolls over, stopped by the tether of my arm. Won’t she tell me how good it was? At the base of her skull her hair is damp. I kiss behind her ear. The back of her neck. Taste salt sweat and bitter dregs of perfume. Her eyes are closed. Her mouth is parted, breathing.

Never loved him. And he never loved her. Only someone who cherishes could love like I just did. Didn’t she feel it? So tender, really, in a way. Like the leopards.

I slip my arm around the mound of her belly and close my eyes and see the leap of the cats. Remember how my heart leaped too, and I shouted a warning. But the man at the cage ignored me. The leopards pounced. Pounced. And pushed their heads against the bars until he scratched behind their ears. Greedy for affection.
It’s all right,
the man told me.
I’m their vet.

Claws and teeth. They could have torn him apart, but they didn’t. She let me love her like that.

Won’t she tell me how good it was? But it must have been, because she’s already asleep. I put my ear to her bare shoulder and hear the pump of her heart. I pull the blankets up around her and she stirs a little. Careful not to wake her.

Paulie Hendrix never loved her like I did. I gently lift her damp hair from her shoulders and spread it out on the pillow.

My arm wants to stay. Wants to hold her there
—
at the bars. In the cage. But I get out of bed. My back burns where she scratched me. I pull my slacks on and walk out the door.

Look back once. Asleep in the glow of the lamp. Face relaxed. Mouth barely parted. Claws sheathed. I close the door and go to the living room.

Beagle’s not there, but his workstation is up. I punch in the Hendrix file and read. There. A picture. So old. Thank God. So old. Weak bland eyes. Bland face. Paulie Hendrix never loved her like I did.

Hungry all of a sudden. I go to the kitchen, grab a box
—
the shrimp
—
from the pantry and put it in the oven. While it’s heating, I get cheese out of the refrigerator and bite right into the block. Crackers next. Onion flavored. Only after half the package do I wonder if she’ll smell it on my breath.

A sound. I turn. Beagle’s standing in the doorway.

The oven blats. I pull my dinner out, rip the package apart. Crisp breading. Sweet meat inside. When I turn again, he’s still watching me, disapproving.

“You need to put something on those scratches, Dyle. Your back’s a mess.”

I eat. I eat. When I look up again, he’s gone.