Inescapable (23 page)

‘Good start,’
Fox said, grinning. ‘Kit, get the details on that and anything else
you can find with Emerson’s name attached to it. Let’s see where
that gets us.’

28
^th
April.

The Manhattan
Conservation District was just not Fox’s kind of area. Not the area
up around the park anyway, which always looked as though someone
had set the place in amber. Except that they had done it a little
late: the period being conserved was not really that old having had
a lot of work done in the thirties and forties.

The museum was
just as it always had been and the park was just as Fox had seen it
in movies from the last century. At one time, Central Park had been
considered a high-crime zone, but now there was no crime recorded
at all. NAPA’s figures for the MCD suggested exceptionally low
instances of most crimes, but a number of private security groups
operated in the district and there were frequent suggestions that
they did not always hand arrested criminals over to NAPA for
processing.

The Great Park
Club occupied the top three storeys of a four-storey building with
the ground floor occupied by a rather sedate coffee shop. It
pretended to follow the model of the old coffee houses in London
which had been places to conduct business and had essentially been
the start of the London Stock Exchange. Smoking in the place was,
of course, banned, but it had the right sort of smoky atmosphere
despite that. Fox almost felt like there should be hookahs bubbling
on the tables, though the high-collared suits which were in fashion
among the rich and very rich were possibly partially responsible
for the impression: there were a lot of men in the room and far
fewer women.

The man in the
high-collared suit who met her at the door certainly did not seem
especially pleased with her arrival. She had the feeling he was
supposed to
greet
her, but the look of mild disgust as he
surveyed her battered jacket pushed any thought of greeting from
her impression of him.

‘May I be of
some assistance… madam?’ the man asked, and the pause before the
title just said it all.

‘Yeah, I have
an appointment to see a Mister August. I’m Tara Meridian. Hang on,
they gave me some cards…’ She knew exactly where the cards she had
been given were, but she fumbled a little in her jacket before
producing one of the slim pieces of plastic and handing it to
him.

He focused on
the card and she had no doubt he was scanning the holocodes on it
to verify the identity. He blinked and his entire face shifted into
obsequious mode as though someone had flipped a switch. ‘Miss
Meridian, CIO of Palladium Security Services. Mister August is
expecting you, of course. If you would follow me?’

Harper August
sat in a booth at the back of the room near a door with a ‘private’
sign which probably led to the upper floors. He looked calm,
serene, and very confident as he sat there with his little cup of
very dark coffee, but then he had, by Fox’s estimates, three armed
bodyguards sitting at nearby tables. That was not suspicious at
all. He did not get up as she arrived at his table.

‘Mister
August?’ Fox asked. She was about to get another card out, but the
maître d’ placed the one she had given him on the table and left.
‘Mister Harper August?’

August’s grey
eyes flicked to the card. ‘Miss Meridian, what can I do for you?’
He had a warm voice, pleasant on the ear, but he had not asked her
to sit and his eyes, when they rose to her face, had little warmth
in them.

Fox smiled and
slipped into the booth. She noticed both the movement of the man on
the opposite table and the rise of August’s hand to still him. ‘I’m
assisting NAPA with enquiries regarding the recent sexual homicides
of five young women.’ She saw him relax slightly: he had been
expecting a different line of enquiry.

‘I’ve seen the
reports, of course, but I fail to see how I could–’

‘It’s simply a
matter of getting a picture of the victims,’ Fox said, interrupting
him because she was moderately sure it would annoy him. ‘Naira
Emerson, the last victim, helped to raise money for a project you
were part of here in the Manhattan Conservation District. Wonderful
to see people putting money into their local area, helping the
community. I was wondering whether you could shed any light on Miss
Emerson’s work, how she behaved, any personal interactions you’re
aware of. No one seems to know whether she had a boyfriend.’

There was a
slight pause. Fox watched the irritation draining out of his eyes
as he pushed it down. ‘Miss Emerson was one of a number of people
involved in that project. I met her, obviously, but I did not
really know her. She was a dedicated young woman who should not
have met the fate she did.’

‘None of them
should have. It’s unfortunate really. The district is known for
being virtually crime-free and now five murders in rapid
succession. I understand part of this project was the funding of
another private policing unit directed by you.’

‘Evidence would
suggest that NAPA is incapable of policing this district
effectively. I’m sure you are aware of the movement to privatise
policing through the metro regions, and I must say that I believe
things would be significantly better if–’

‘Two of the
victims lived in houses within private patrol areas in the MCD.
Miss Emerson was killed in her weekend house, which is in a
privately guarded, gated community.’ Fox smiled as though thinking
of a perfect example. ‘Why, a friend of mine inherited a house
recently because the previous owner had been murdered, at home, by
unknown assailants. One of your own security units patrols that
area, or seems to.’

‘Seems to?’

‘We’ve seen
them on security feeds walking past a number of times, and I know
you own a lot of property around that area. Hell’s Kitchen, as
was.’

‘I own a lot of
property, Miss Meridian,’ August replied. ‘I do not operate a
policing unit in that area.’

‘My mistake.
Next time I see them checking doors, I’ll have them arrested.
Clearly imposters. Thank you for your time, Mister August.’ She
slipped out of the booth and started for the door.

‘Did you do
that purely to annoy him?’ Kit asked inside Fox’s head.

‘Um… yeah. The
link to Emerson gave me an in which had nothing to do with Sam, and
I wanted to poke the hornets’ nest.’ Exiting the building, she
turned left, heading down the street toward the maglev line over
West 81
^st
. It was a little over a block, across one
junction, though there was no traffic to disturb her now: even in
the MCD, personal transport was almost unheard of and autocabs were
not common.

Still, it was
one of the rare ground vehicles, an autocab carrying someone who
looked to be well over a century old down Columbus Avenue, which
caused her to stop and look around, and notice the man coming up
behind her. She saw the stun baton dropping out of his sleeve as he
rapidly closed the distance, waited a brief second as he lifted and
swung, and then she ducked under it. As his arm sailed over her
head, she slammed her fist into his right thigh. He let out a
shriek as the thin blade lanced into his leg and the limb went out
from under him.

That was when
she saw the second one moving in. He was pulling a similar baton
from his coat and Fox did not like the odds if he closed the
distance. Her blade retracted and she reached back, under her
jacket. Planting a foot on the fallen man’s side, she lifted her
pistol and aimed it at the second man. ‘Take a second to think
about it,’ she said. ‘Cops are going to be here in pretty short
order. You know how they react to violent crime in this area.’

There was a
moment of indecision, and then he was running. Fox let him go and
lowered her gun to point at the man on the floor. She could already
hear the roar of vertol engines which indicated one of the heavy
patrol drones was inbound. She sighed. ‘This is going to be a real
waste of my afternoon, Chuck. You better be worth it.’

~~~

‘So we’re going with
“attempted mugging?”’ Fox said. She did not sound particularly
surprised, or unhappy. It was making the two uniforms with her a
little nervous because it was fairly clear that it was
not
a
mugging and they had some idea who she was.

‘The man you…
arrested is one Philip Constance.’ The speaker was Detective
Drewry, who was just about old enough to have a detective rank and
had been saddled with dealing with the case because he had not
stepped back fast enough. ‘He worked for Augustine Property
Services until two weeks ago, at which point his contract was
terminated. Apparently, he turned to crime as a result.’

What neither
Drewry nor the two uniforms could see was Kit, who was practising
sucking the earpiece of her glasses in a thoughtful manner. That
was keeping Fox amused. ‘Augustine Property Services is owned in
its entirety by Mister August,’ Kit said, in case Fox had not
guessed.

Fox smiled at
Drewry. ‘Yes. I’d imagine he was still waiting on his severance
package. I don’t plan to press charges. I think Mister Constance
has learned his lesson and I’m sure that adding him to the
population of Rikers would just further his decline from an upright
citizen to a denizen of the underworld.’

Drewry blinked
at her. ‘Sorry?’

‘It’s my
prerogative. He swung at me, missed, and I struck him in
self-defence. I don’t believe anything would be gained by bringing
this to trial. I’m not pressing charges. If NAPA wishes to take it
further, that’s your problem. You have my recording of the
scene.’

‘Oh… Well then.
I’ll take that to my captain.’

Fox got to her
feet and patted him on the shoulder. ‘You do that, Detective
Drewry.’ Then she stalked out toward the elevators. ‘Kit, I want a
cambot on station to follow Constance as soon as he’s released. I
want him followed everywhere. Go over the employment records, if
you can get them, and see just exactly
when
he was kicked
out of Augustine Property Services. Oh, and check their employee
records for someone matching the second man in my memory.’

‘I’m already
working on the last one,’ Kit replied as she strode along beside
her owner.

‘Very
efficient. And the glasses thing is really coming along. Try
looking a little more dreamy when you do it.’

‘Dreamy?’

‘Yeah, kind of
stare into the distance and let your eyes unfocus.’

‘My eyes are
never actually focused, Fox. I’m always looking through your eyes
or visual sensors.’

Fox took a few
strides in silence and hit the button for the elevators. ‘I’ll show
you what I mean when we get back to the apartment.’

~~~

‘I managed to find your
second attacker,’ Kit said, pasting an ID picture up on the window
beside a still taken from Fox’s memory. ‘Ninety-nine point three
per cent match. This is Mister Albert Dwayne Overt. Interestingly,
he was employed at Augustine Property Services until two weeks
ago.’

‘Good work,
Kit,’ Fox said, and then she turned to Sam. ‘What do you
think?’

Sam was
watching Kit as she thoughtfully played with her glasses. ‘Yeah,
she’s really got that about right. A little more practice maybe,
but… yeah.’

‘Did you
actually hear what she was saying?’

‘Yes. Albert
Dwayne Overt, worked for August. I’m a professional sex worker. I’m
partially immune.’

‘Keep
practising, Kit. Anything else on Overt or Constance?’

‘Well, the body
types are a match for our two unknowns at Sam’s house,’ Kit said.
‘The match is, obviously, limited, but the two working together
does tend to make for a higher probability. If they are, in fact,
the same people, this means they were working for Augustine
Property Services at the time so they were potentially involved in
Mister Kenan’s murder.’

‘They didn’t
backdate the severances far enough,’ Sam said, his voice soft but
carrying a hint of menace.

‘Well,’ Fox
said, frowning, ‘yes, but it would still be pushing it to prove
that they were doing anything under August’s orders unless we can
get them to talk.’

‘They were
willing to attack you in broad daylight on the street having had
their link to their employer revoked. They’re not going to talk
either because they know they’ll be taken care of or they’re too
scared.’

‘Or both. Yes.
We’re going to have to catch someone doing something
really
bad and hope we can make them more scared of that than they are of
August.’

‘Meanwhile you
need to catch a murderer.’

‘Uh-huh. Which
reminds me, Kit, could you contact Ivers about that banking
information? Meanwhile, Sam, you should get ready for Alice Vaughn
coming over on Friday. Palladium’s wooing you over the house, so
make the most of it.’

‘It seems like
it should be mutually beneficial,’ Sam began.

Fox held up her
hand. ‘Agreed, but do me a favour and see if you can get Alice in
bed. The girl really needs to get laid.’

Sam gave a
slight shrug. ‘I’m a little insulted. “See if” I can get her in
bed?’

‘It’s a figure
of speech.’

‘How’s Alice’s
figure?’

Fox grinned. ‘I
don’t think you’ll have anything to complain about.’

30
^th
April.

‘I think she’s
blocking,’ Fox commented silently as she rode the maglev to the
MarTech building. ‘I don’t believe the bank would be that
difficult.’

‘I agree,’ Kit
replied, ‘but why would she?’

‘Because we
shared the data on why we wanted the bank to open up, she’s
followed through and believes she has a target, and she wants the
collar.’

‘Oh. Well, I
suppose the important thing is to get the killer off the
streets.’

‘That depends
on
what
the killer actually is. If she grabs some financial
advisor, but this… nomad AI just moves on, all we have is a
psychologically damaged guy in a cell. How about August?’