Death & the City Book Two (54 page)

I'm not thinking about that exactly. I'm thinking how weird it would be if the Monopolies Commission got onto head office's case, and they were forced to allow a bit of healthy competition into the business, making their own marketing commercials. Musical ones, featuring dancing hit-men, lovable animated ninjas, and comparative hockey-mask ratings showing body-count productivity against other Deathrunner companies. I'm trying to picture how many more advertisements are already out there, posted online by other individuals, edited or otherwise. Makes a change from the old Hollywood hit-man image, sitting alone at the bar, trying to attract work his way by body-language, image and charisma.

"The only problem with advertising that you're a wolf-killer when you're not, promoting the idea that there's a wolf problem around, is it attracts a whole other bunch of wolf-fans," he mutters. "Next thing you know you've got wolf-huggers, and wolf trophy-hunters, and people who want to employ or collect wolves, or stick them under a microscope, or breed them, or distil them, or start a wolf religion, or buy into the brand. Then I get called up to fix whatever the original problem is, and end up with Wolf Rights activists on my case claiming I'm persecuting them. And the occasional actual wolf, which turns out to be a sick puppy. And it's usually just some guy trying to impress a girl by howling at every full Moon, loud enough for everyone to hear."

Sums it up, I think to myself. I wonder how literally he meant it. Sounds like Scarecrow Dorothy and her Wolf Boy-friend. Everyone I've dealt with recently seems to be less than five degrees separation from an undead werewolf-tale right now.

It also makes me think about whether Connor's ambivalence towards relationships has more to it, than just an issue with women who behave like stalkers. Maybe romance to him has too many other people's agendas waiting to latch onto it, turning a private matter into some twisted and complex set of missions. It all gets confused in my thoughts of Deathrunner commercial advertising. Crazy undead stalker fan advertising…

"That other grave we found in the woods," he continues, scattering my imaginary singing Shao-Lin monks with baseball bats, dancing with women in wolf-hair extensions. "Had an embalmed corpse in it. You'd think if something's been buried, the last thing you'd want is for it to be preserved. I think someone was hoping to prove something by it. Possibly by its 'accidental' discovery on one of these theme parties."

"That's a new one on me." I admit. "Was the body modified in any way? I've heard of fake alien corpses and dinosaur fossils turning up. Scientific analysis usually picks up on the joins fairly quickly."

He shakes his head.

"Not so much as a false canine," he says. "Just bog standard human. Female, between twenty and thirty, blood drained, organs removed, some minor surface butchery – as if to remove distinguishing marks or tattoos, but can't be sure yet."

"Jack the Ripper," I comment.

"Nah, she was put back together a bit too neatly. Like someone used her to practise cosmetic stuff on, as well as the mummification." He picks up the wooden stake again from the vet's, turning it between his hands thoughtfully. "Anyway, you should know better than to call me Jack. It's Connor, remember?"

"Yeah, how come you haven't slipped up and used my real name yet?" I joke in turn.

"Because I'm smarter," he teases. "Or maybe because it doesn't mean anything to you. Not this version of you."

"I don't get it."

"You don't identify with intimacy yet, it's not sentimental to you. There's no response value in using your real name. You'd just correctly assume it was an attempt at a macho-brained short cut to empathy."

I shrug and slide down in the chair a little, not entirely involuntarily. I adjust my feet's prop position on the desk, in order to get more comfortable.

"Good point," I agree. "So when I say the name Jack, what happens, you hear other echoes of it, or it reminds you of things?"

"Something like that." His arm goes around the back of my chair and he twists my ponytail through his fingers thoughtfully. "Better you don't say it."

I try to figure out if this means it triggers memories that are mostly negative or mostly positive, but positive in a way than he and I aren't on full terms with yet. However, my own thoughts are sliding away too easily themselves, due to tiredness, and him playing idly with my hair.

"Wake me up if anything good happens," I murmur, wondering if the distraction is intentional, now it seems to be working.

"I do sometimes think about what takes up all that space in your head, that other people fill up with memories of relationships and pattern-matching stuff," he says.

I smirk a little wryly to myself.

"I rent it out to other people as spare storage," I tell him.

"What's that like?"

"Annoying, when they change their minds about their memories over who did what to who, and still expect me to agree or sympathize." I stretch my arms around the back of the chair, and clasp my hands, loosening my shoulder-blades in the process. "Takes quite complicated processing and cross-referencing, when it didn't happen to me. I usually just default the explanation for it as 'hidden agenda' meaning they want to influence their public image for some other reason, like affect a new romantic prospect, or increase someone's attachment, or emphasize a retrospective connection, or a synchronicity that wasn't evident before. A couple of my friends change their minds about men, and relationships, and what's meaningful by the hour. There's a guy or two at work like that as well. Every time a new barmaid shows up, suddenly they're rewriting their whole romantic history, to make room for the latest instalment."

"What, they change their memories as well?" he asks.

"Depends who they want to make an impression on," I say. "It's usually the emotional context of the memory that changes, more than the facts. You probably see that a lot in police statements. I know it happens a lot quicker around alcohol and adrenaline in fights. One minute they're instigating the fight and egging on everyone in it, the next they're crying saying he doesn't love them. Depends on who's listening, and what the punishment or reward value is likely to be."

"Or the sympathy level," he agrees. "Histrionics. There's a bit of that going on with the Taylor incident with his girlfriend, but it's not clear which way around it is yet. Whether she exaggerated in the first place because of the humiliation of finding he'd put photos of it on the internet, or she's playing it down now withdrawing the issue from police attention, to avoid being labelled a squealer, and regain trust from men as serious relationship potential. Unless Taylor's promised her some other incentive to shut up about it, like a big flashy wedding her friends can't match, or paid her off some other way."

"The only thing I know about her is she's a big
SATC
fan," I tell him. "So if he was buying her silence, it's going to be way out of his normal doorman's price range. It's going to be designer label price tags and private jet fares all the way. How do you think he's going to come into that sort of money?"

"You could have a point," Connor muses. "It'd be one good reason to keep an eye on him, seeing whether the notion of contract hit-man was just a passing fantasy he was indulging or not. If his girlfriend's blackmailing him with a police statement she's already given and put on hold, it could be quite an expensive commitment for him to fulfil."

"Why is it that women who are always acting hardest to please get all the attention anyway?" I ask, letting my eyes close.

"Squeaky hinge gets the oil," he quotes. "Sounds like your brain's been quite busy, analysing everything that everyone else considers to be within the range of a normal pattern of guilt and forgiveness, and turning-over-a-new-leaf in relationships scenarios."

"If you mean corruption and manipulation, and getting away with murder, then it's all the same to me," I reply with a sigh. "Don't know why. I don't have the more subtle social engineering applications for those skills in my toolbox. It's all criminal activity being covered up, as far as I can make out."

"You just haven't been in a relationship in which to learn how they're used in everyday life," he says. "You expect it to be something different to your everyday life when it happens. All trust and honesty. Makes you defensive when someone tries to find a sneaky way in, without the right to be there. As if you think they're hoping to find out your secrets, once they get a look inside your head, that they can then use against you. Your relationship patterns, what your type is, what your weaknesses are."

"Yeah, how's that going for you?" I ask, and hear him chuckle. He doesn't deny it. Sounds like the way Kaavey Canem brainwashed his women into thinking they were all sub-contracted CIA operatives instead of hookers. "What did you think my brain was full of, instead of useful stuff like that so far, then?"

"If I told you, I'd have to kill you."

"You're just testing me," I mutter. "Same as everyone else does."

"Damn right." He tickles my ear. "Yours was decaf, by the way."

"I guessed." I wonder if I've been talking too much compared to usual, and whether he put one of his truth drug cocktails in the coffee as well.

But I don't feel any different to how I normally feel after work. Just tired, basically. Under pressure of expectations for work this coming week. I'm kind of glad to hear he's likely to be doing the same. At least, unlike head office and WXYZ Logistics, he isn't voicing assumptions about my brain being full of stuff about cars and shoes, which is only true when I get time to myself in which to enjoy acting like a normal human female.

A very small amount of time, it feels like at the moment.

"Whenever I try to picture what's in your mind," I say thoughtfully, consulting mental files and images, "all I see is a bunch of skeleton keys that you keep for any given scenario you can think of."

"There's a difference between keeping skeleton keys and actually using them," he says, after a pause. "It doesn't take that much intelligence to knock first."

"That does, however, rely on somebody being home to answer," I joke, opening my eyes to blink and rub my contact lenses into a more comfortable spot on each eye, and finding he's turned the lights down to dimmest setting in the office. It seems more considerate than most people, and I feel a bit guilty for not giving him as much credit so far for that sort of thing. "I mean, for normal interaction to occur."

"I know what you mean." He's still watching the CCTV, and I can't tell what he's thinking or not, so I choose not to say anything else. As I close my eyes once more, having got more comfortable, I feel his arm move from where it was still resting across the back of my chair, and I open them again just as he leans forward and hooks my feet off the desk into his lap instead, my chair swivelling to align correctly without resistance. Strangely I still feel safe enough to let my eyes close again as he rests his arm across my shins. Or maybe I'm just shuttering out the intimacy of facing him rather than sitting parallel. "Is that what you're worried about, that I'm just going to pull a bunch of brainwashing stunts on you - because you don't have an existing relationship personality to negotiate with?"

"Pretty much sums it up," I admit. "Sorry about that."

"No, it's all right," he says. "Other people's relationship expectations, and patterns they're constantly replaying, all complicate things too much anyway. We're always competing with invisible deadlines and comparisons they're carrying around in their heads, which have nothing to do with us. Do I seem that judgemental to you?"

"Sometimes."

"You know it's not about you, don't you?"

"Yeah," I murmur. "Ditto, what you just said."

He doesn't say anything else, but his hand runs up and down my shin reassuringly, which is the last thing I remember before falling asleep.

I discover myself dreaming about giant bulldozers uncovering mass graves, full of mummified tramps made to look like Tutankhamen, and zombie pole-dancers buried alongside as their attendants into the spirit world.

Weird.

My watch alarm wakes me, which is a strange retro-Eighties experience. I only ever wear a watch for work, and watches frequently disappear on me, having taken them off half-asleep arriving home, and left them on top of the bin, or in the bathroom, or on a random windowsill. There's a clock in my car, a clock on my phone screensaver and a clock next to my bed, for the time of day any time I'm not standing around, waiting for the end of my shift at work. And I would only ever set my watch alarm for something I needed to be awake unusually for - like today, sorting myself out to catch a plane to Vegas tonight.

Makes a change, from planning a
rendezvous
with the roof of a local City Council office block, dressed as a Halloween skeleton.