Poisoned Pearls (2 page)

Hunter pushed himself up, scratching at his back. He was
never going near a beach ever again once he’d served his duty, paid back his
debt to the government for all the pre-cog training. Private sector and cushy
office job for him.

Out of habit, Hunter knocked over his boots, watching to see
if a critter scurried out of them. He stood, slid on his pants over his briefs,
threw on a shirt, knocked his boots over the other way before he put them on.

Hyperman
didn’t move, but he
wasn’t asleep. Did he know? How could he? He didn’t have paranormal abilities,
hadn’t been trained like Hunter. He’d started as Hunter’s babysitter. They
weren’t friends now. Comrades, maybe. He wasn’t a true companion. Not a blood
brother.

Hunter didn’t know when he’d started searching for a blood
brother, the ones who would match his abilities. He just knew that they were
out there, and that someday, he’d find them.

“Stay out of the command center for a while,” Hunter called
out as he walked out of the tent.

Hyperman
deserved at least that
much warning.

Outside, heat pounced on Hunter like a coiled cat. He
squinted, wishing he’d thought to put on his shades as well. The far-off hills
gleamed white and brown, while the distant horizon was hazy with dust, tinged
red along the ends.

There’d been at least two weeks that spring when the desert
had turned green. Then everything had dried up again, the sand spinning on the
winds, seeping into fucking everything.

Hunter paused before he walked into the door of the command
center. He had no idea what was going on there. As a pre-cog, he should at
least have a clue. But all he got was a sense of a dark cloud, something
ominous, but at the same time, not about to blow up on him.

More sandbags lay piled both inside and outside the center.
Fluorescent lights were strung along the wall, the wires exposed. The command
center was a warren, with long halls of cheap plastic or canvas, opening up
randomly to smaller rooms where soldiers sat and relaxed or worked on computers
or even slept.

Hunter had hoped he’d been wrong, but his luck wasn’t that
good. The dark cloud was centered over the damned mess hall.

Before he went to talk with his CO, he was going to have to
deal with this.

As well as try to explain why the hell he hadn’t seen
whatever it was coming. And why his area of knowing was no longer as large as
it once had been.

Hunter pushed open the doors and walked into…nothing. Two dozen
men sat scattered at the long wooden tables, sharing breakfast, stories, and
the morning. No one fought. They weren’t trying to kill each other.

Yet, Hunter could still sense the brawl going on. The dull
thud of a fist colliding with flesh. A sharp crack of ribs breaking. Howls of
pain. Growling aggression.

In addition to the men who sat there, who Hunter could see
as clear as day, fighting men filled the room, dancing like wisps of clouds
through the tables of the mess hall.

When was the brawl going on? Was it in the future? Or was
Hunter seeing something that had happened in the past, like a post-cog? This
wasn’t happening like his usual pre-cog visions at all.

Who was fighting? Hunter couldn’t see their faces well
enough to distinguish good guy from bad. He tried concentrating on their
uniforms, but they were all just a gray blur.

Hunter jerked to the side when a man threw a punch too close
to his head. A breeze blew by his cheek.

From a great distance, Hunter heard someone calling his
name, asking if he was okay.

Hunter couldn’t reply, but he knew.

It wasn’t the unit that was fucked. It was just him.

Kyle still smelled of baby oil and cigarette smoke, though I
figured he’d been dead for at least two hours, based on the light dusting of
snow that covered his artistically torn jeans and preppy red-and-white-striped
button-down. The snow around his body was all smudged with footprints, probably
from the cops. He sat propped up against the wall in the alley, dark red bricks
supporting him, while some stupid tagger’s name spiked over his head, painted
in black, like a post-modern halo. His eyes were still open, shining a weird
blue in the stark light. He’d always been pale and blond, but now he looked
perfectly preserved, like a snow-carnival princess carved out of ice.

He’d been found slumped in the alley, next to the entrance
to Chinaman Joe’s Good Luck Parlor, the sex & toy shop where I worked. Kyle
would have been mortified to learn of his final resting spot. Homeless bums
worked the dumpsters just up the alley, digging for thrown-out noodles and rice
from
Mihn
Ho Takeout next door. They frequently used
our doorway to shelter themselves from the wind while they peed.

Two yellow cop “Do Not Cross” tape lines had been strung
across the alley on either side of Kyle, just like on all the TV shows. A white
ambulance sat at one end of the alley, blocking off traffic. The blue strobe
cast weird shadows on the remaining snow, as if it were thick enough for snow
weasels to be skittering underneath.

The grin Kyle wore freaked me out. He’d never been the
happy-go-lucky kind: he’d preferred Sartre to Kant, Bergman films to anything
modern and understandable and fun.

The only reason the cops let me near the crime scene was
because the bastard had followed through on his threat and listed me as his
emergency contact. They’d found his wallet still in his pocket.

That I happened to be working in the building that he’d been
found dead outside of was just the kind of coincidence cops loved. They were already
looking at me for the murder, I knew. Particularly if his death had been caused
by someone choking him or stabbing him or something else physical. I was tall,
particularly for a woman, almost six foot with my short, bleached-white hair
spiked up as it was. I’d always been
zaftig
,
taking after my Russian grandmother rather than my skinny, uptight Swedish
mother. The black leather biker jacket I wore probably didn’t help, or the
solid, fourteen-hole Dr. Martens that I’d tucked my leggings into.

But I couldn’t tell what had killed Kyle. His hair still
seemed artfully mussed, he wasn’t bleeding anywhere, and I didn’t see any
bruises on his neck or face. He could have
OD’ed
on
something, maybe tried some new street drug. However, Kyle generally wasn’t that
stupid.

The only thing that appeared wrong, besides the fact that he
wasn’t moving, was that his pants were undone and his dick was hanging out.

I looked at it critically. I knew they got bigger and I
shouldn’t judge Kyle based on what I was seeing now. I’d seen dicks
before—I worked in a sex & toy shop and had reviewed an awful lot of
videos—but I’d never been up close and personal with one.

I was a gold star lesbian, never been with a man. And proud
of it.

“That’s him,” I told the detective—Ferguson, I think
his name was—identifying the body for him. The cop had a face made of
slopped-together concrete, all hard planes and bulging brow. Tiny black eyes
stared out at me from his pudgy face. He wore a dark blue down jacket. It was
too short for him. Someone his size and shape should always wear longer
coats—hell, even a parka—or too many references could be made to
the Michelin Man.

The detective indicated I should follow him further down the
alley, out of the light, closer to the street. He even held up the tape for me
to duck under, like some kind of modern gentleman. When we stopped and I
glanced back, I saw that the emergency workers were already swooping in.

Going to carry away the body and brush the snow clean.
Nothing happening here, folks, nothing to see.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” Ferguson told me, his voice
gruff. Or maybe that was just the arctic wind, coming direct from the North
Pole into Minnesota. From what I’d seen on the news earlier, it wasn’t going to
be ending anytime soon, not pausing for Christmas next week.

I shrugged, opened my mouth to comment, then closed it
again. Kyle and I had been really good friends. Maybe even
besties
.
I was kind of in shock. I remembered one drunken night when he’d tried to teach
me dirty dancing, failing spectacularly, both of us laughing our asses off. My
hips just didn’t move like that. Plus, though I was just smidge shorter than he
was, I had at least fifty pounds on him. Maybe more.

I dug out a cigarette pack from inside my leather jacket,
shook one up and offered it to Ferguson.

He pressed his fat lips together and shook his head. I think
he would have spat in disgust if he’d been able.

I lit it with a cheap blue
Bic
and
took a deep, calming drag. Cooling smoke filled my mouth and trickled down my
lungs. Stupid bastard. Both Kyle and the detective. Finally, I nodded at the
cop, letting him know I was ready.

“So what can you tell us about Mr. Magnusson?” Ferguson held
up a pen in one fat-fingered gloved hand for me to speak into. Damn thing probably
took biometrics as well, could tell if I was lying.

“He worked down at Richard’s place,” I told the officer. No
sense in lying about that kind of thing. It was easy enough to find out.

Not like his parents would have known. I doubted they’d even
seen their son for the last six months.

Probably one of the reasons why he’d listed me as his
emergency contact.

“Bartender?” Ferguson asked.

I held back my snort. Ferguson must have been new to the
area not to know what type of place Richard’s was.

“Stripper. Though he preferred the term ‘exotic dancer.’”

Richard’s specialized in male strippers, catering to a
female clientele, unlike Kitty’s, right next door, that had female strippers.

“Was he also a prostitute?” Ferguson asked, his face
carefully blank, trying hard not to show his judgment.

“Not professionally,” I said. Kyle didn’t need the money
that badly. “He plowed his way through guys regularly enough, and I’m sure he
always accepted whatever they gave him, but he made enough in tips at Richard’s
that he didn’t have to be hardcore about it. He just tricked a little.”

“I see,” the detective said. He looked thoughtful for a
moment. Then he tugged off one of his gloves and pulled out an actual notebook.

Must have been important—he was risking frostbite by
exposing his flesh that way.

After glancing through a few pages, Ferguson paused and
pressed his fat lips together again.

“What?” I asked after a few moments. He obviously wanted to
ask me something.

“Do you know a Helen Eaton?” Ferguson asked.

The name sounded familiar. “Nope,” I told the cop easily.
Was he asking about Helen of Troy? That had been her street name. She’d been a
working girl, coming in for “free” samples of condoms every once in a while.

Tough broad. Had to be, to work the streets of Minneapolis
in December. I remember overhearing her and a couple of the other girls
laughing about how the cold froze even their lube.

But I didn’t want to be involved. Didn’t want to give the
cops a reason to bring me into the station. Would have meant closing the shop
for the night. Chinaman Joe would have docked my wages, and I couldn’t afford
to miss a night of pay.

Ferguson seemed to take my word as he quickly put away the
notebook and covered his fingers again. “Did Mr. Magnusson take drugs?”

I gave him a noncommittal shrug. “Nothing serious.” Like
most of my friends, Kyle smoked pot and took the occasional hit of speed or E
or such. He was too pretty to dirty up his body with needle holes, too broke to
afford anything else.

I knew the cop would be contacting the local dealers. I
wasn’t about to warn
Csaba
or any of the others. They
could just figure that out on their own. But my friends—I was going to
have to let a bunch of people know to keep their heads down for a while, watch
who they were buying their shit from. Narcs were going to be everywhere,
looking for some kind of drug connection to Kyle’s murder.

“What else can you tell me about Mr. Magnusson?” Ferguson
asked.

I gave the detective Kyle’s address, ’cause I didn’t think
it was accurate on his driver’s license. Kyle had moved a lot. I also told
Ferguson that Kyle was generally well liked, if a little depressing sometimes.
He didn’t have any paranormal abilities, either. He’d tested negative on the
PADT—Psychic Ability and Distribution Test—like ninety-five percent
of the population. Kyle also swore he had an aunt who merely had to look at you
to know your whole past, present, and future. Didn’t think the cops needed to
know about her, though.

I’d never taken the PADT, even though Mom had sent me
through a bunch of pre-testing. All of which showed I had no abilities. I had
the genes, but something else was missing: whether it was the personality, or
environmental stimulus, or that I hadn’t been born on a Tuesday. Frustrated the
hell out of all the scientists that they couldn’t accurately predict psychic
ability based on DNA.

More memories came up while I talked. Kyle wearing a
ridiculous red bowtie and white suspenders holding up his gold
lamé
underwear that one Valentine’s Day party. The morning
we’d all decided to have chips, salsa, and margaritas on muscle beach at Lake
Calhoun, despite the fucking rain. How I’d never bothered to learn any of
Kyle’s boyfriends’ names: they never lasted more than a few months at most.

After Ferguson took my information, he assured me they’d get
back in contact with me if they had any news.

“Why’d you ask me about that other person?” I asked after I
stubbed out my second cigarette. “Helen?”

Ferguson shook his meaty head. “No reason.”

He was a terrible liar. You’d think a cop would be better at
that sort of thing.

Didn’t matter. Even if he’d told me the truth, I would have
started asking around myself, looking for a connection.

What could I say? I was a nosy bitch. And Kyle had been my
friend.

***

Before the cops finally let me go, one of the post-cogs who
worked with the police came to the site. She wore a long mink coat and an air
of superiority that only the
blessed
have, that sense that they’re better than us plebeians.

She was blissfully unaware that we plebeians referred to her
kind as the PA—not for
paranormal
ability
but for
pain-in-the-ass
.

Her skin was as pale as Kyle’s, though I’d bet hers came at
the cost of surgery as well as a daily regime of rejuvenation creams and makeup
slapped on with a stick. She wore her dark hair soft and loose around her face
and was pretty enough, with a pert nose and wide lips, though not really my
type. At least she had sensible brown leather boots on underneath that coat.

I’d never seen a post-cog at work—not in real life,
just on TV cop shows. She didn’t stalk dramatically around the site, flaring
her coat around her, nor did she drop to her knees and spread her hands out
over where Kyle’s body had been, shaking and muttering to herself. She simply
walked over to the spot, stood there with her eyes closed for a moment, arms
crossed over her chest.

I wasn’t sure what she was supposed to be doing, exactly.
Post-cogs worked on different frequencies—some read people, others read
places or things. Was she getting a read on the alley? Or a sense of the last
people who’d been there? Was she able to figure out the weapon that had been
used? Or maybe she was good enough to focus in on the killer, though I doubted
she’d be working for the Minneapolis cops if she was that good.

When she opened her eyes, they connected immediately with
mine. It wasn’t a shock, not like how the magazines claimed. A bolt of
electricity didn’t pass through my soul.

But
something
happened. More like a chill. Like a ghost walking over my grave. She also
seemed to recognize me, though I didn’t know her from Eve.

Then she stalked toward where Ferguson and I were standing.
Shit
. Ferguson’s face had gone carefully
blank again.

I knew that thinking about the multiplication tables was
bullshit—there wasn’t anything that could keep a really strong telepath
out of your thoughts. And she was probably just a post-cog, not a telepath.
Though the government (and the rich) had tried for years, people almost always
only had a single ability: Telepathy, telekinesis, pre-cognition, or
post-cognition.

Still, I automatically started going through my numbers as
she approached.
Three times two is six.
Three times three is nine
.

“How do you know the deceased?” she demanded when she got
close.

Ferguson gave a loud sigh. “Ms. Monroe, this is Ms. Lewis.
She isn’t a suspect at this time. She’s listed as the deceased’s emergency
contact.”

Maybe Ms. Monroe’s skin really was that pale, because even
in the dim light of the alley I would have sworn she blushed.
Three times five is fifteen
.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” Ms. Monroe said, sounding mostly
sincere. “So the deceased was a friend of yours, then?” she continued, giving
me the once-over that in another time and place would have had me offering to
buy her next glass of champagne. Didn’t matter if she wasn’t my type. There was
something about her that set my pulse pounding.

“Yes,” I said shortly. No sense in giving her more material
to work with, worm her way inside my skull. Especially since she seemed to
already be there.
Three times six is
eighteen
.