robert Charrette - Arthur 02 - A King Beneath the Mountain (43 page)

"I believe that we need to cut our losses. We need to minimize the Keiretsu's exposure in this affair, but the monster must be eliminated. Given the proper spin on the backstory, I believe we can disassociate the Keiretsu from responsibility for the monster and dump this problem on the police."

"If that is the way you wish to deal with it, I cannot stop you."

"That is the way I wish to deal with it, Mr. Hagen." Hagen nodded slowly. "In that case, I have a suggestion that may minimize the damage."

She liked this dwarf much better than Sorli. He was more manageable. She listened with interest to his suggestion.

Charley broke his usual pattern of reading his morning E-inail by going straight to the anonymous transmitters. He'd had a feeling he'd have one from Caspar waiting, and he was right.

>>21.10.19 * 13.02.13.79 *
xxxxx.xxx

log #1019.49

TO: GordonC@NECPOLNET*0004.13.00*874334

FROM:

RE: Modus 112.

MESSAGE:

Add crime file 33*10!8*F103

He asked the computer to pull the file and got, "Stored as preliminary report only."

"Pull it anyway," he ordered. Being a detective had some privileges; when he was a street cop, he would have had to wait until the final was filed.

He added the file to the 112 dossier, scanning it as it went through on fast feed. One of the flashing datapics caught his eye. He froze the scan and backed it up. The morgue pic showed a Japanese who had died shit-faced scared. There was something about the guy that was familiar, but from where?

The prelim listed the guy's name as Ryota Nakaguchi and his carp as Mitsutomo. He was from the home office according to the lapel pin listed in the property section of the prelim. The report said he was a junior level exec, but that didn't seem right.

Charley scanned the property list more closely. All quality stuff, expensive stuff. Too fancy for a junior suit. Nakaguchi wasn't what the prelim said he was.

How come the investigating officers hadn't caught that?

While Charley was pondering that, Manny came into the cubicle they shared. He made a sour face at his empty coffee mug. "You're slacking off, Gordon."

"Johnston didn't have the pot on when I got here," Charley lied. He was trying to remember where he'd seen Nakaguchi's face before, and didn't want to argue about coffee.

"Sure, blame your sins on someone else. You want some?"

"Okay." What he
wanted
was to know who Nakaguchi really was.

As Manny left, Charley's memory flashed him a vision of Nakaguchi's face—not hardened into a rictus of fear, but stony and self-important. Same suit, same pin. There was a Mitsutomo logo behind his head.

That logo was in the lobby of the Settawego Building, and Nakaguchi had been the guy who'd come out of the elevator behind Pamela Martinez the day that Caspar had sent Charley to the Settawego Building. The late Mr. Nakaguchi was not a junior suit at all, if he ranked the head of Mitsutomo NAG.

So who was he?

A simple request to Mitsutomo public relations got him an answer that fit Nakaguchi's position in that elevator. According to public record, Ryota Nakaguchi was a
kansayaku,
an auditor, currently on assignment to Mitsutomo North American Group.
Kansayaku
was a fancy
Nihongo
name for a corporate hatchet man. Not a junior position at all.

Heart failure, huh? Nakaguchi was the kind of guy who
gave
heart attacks.

Either the corp PR hacks had gotten overconfident or Charley had managed to slip in before they'd finished painting over the stain.

Manny brought the coffee and Charley did the usual chatty partner things, but his mind was on Nakaguchi, his connection to Modus 112, and the
kansayaku'
s sudden death. "Hey, Manny, you know anybody down in thirty-three?"

"Thirty-three?" Manny had to think about it. "Yeah. I know somebody down there."

"Put me onto him, will you?"

"You're not gonna get us in trouble again?"

"Nah. I just got a question on a report from down there."

"What's up?"

"Tell you if it turns out to be anything."

Manny's somebody was able to put Charley onto somebody else who knew somebody else who got Ramierez onto the line. Ramierez was investigating officer on 33*1018*F103. He wasn't happy to find out that Charley was from SIU.

"What do you want, Mr. Spook? Ain't no need for ya to come messing around in this."

Charley tried to keep it friendly. "I just read your prelim and I thought it looked kind of odd, you know. Four heart cases and not a one over forty."

"Look, this ain't none of your business."

"Sounds pretty special to me."

"We got it covered."

One more try. "I just thought you might need some help."

Ramierez's face scrunched together like he'd just been told his wife was screwing around. "How much ya want?"

Now the misidentification of Nakaguchi made sense; there was a cover-up in progress. "Look, I was just wondering if there might be a connection between this multiple and something I'm working on. I'm not looking for a piece of anything that might be floating around. Just trying to do some police work."

"We ain't got nothing spooky here, got it? We got us a bunch of suits been playing rough with each other and too dumb to do it on their own turf. Corp wants it shut up, is all. There's not a lot in this, so don't get greedy."

Charley wasn't looking for a piece of the hush money. "Forget it."

Ramierez got suspicious. "What's your angle, Gordon? I swear, if you're with Internal Affairs, I'll eat your guts for supper."

"Relax, Ramierez. I'm not LA, and I'm not doing them a favor. I'm just doing my job. Do me a favor and send me a copy of the final report."

"Pull it yourself," Ramierez said, and cut the connection.

Fine.
Charley set the computer to pull a copy.

Corp cover-up, huh? Made sense for a junior involved in some messy stuff, but Mr. Junior Suit Nakaguchi wasn't really a junior. There had to be more to this than a simple corp shadow affair.

He wondered what Pamela Martinez would have to say about her auditor turning up dead in District 33. Or was she the one arranging the cover-up?

The comp buzzed with an incoming call. He checked the caller ID. There was definitely something spooky going on, because the computer said that the caller was Pamela Martinez.

It was the sort of thing that could make a person believe in magic.

CHAPTER

25

A guy named David Beryle showed up, all worried and anxious, about an hour after the brawl with Quetzal. When Beryle first got out of the elevator John thought that he might be Dr. Spae's partner, like Holger Kun had been, but her greeting made it plain that she was involved with the guy. For a few awkward minutes, John was left standing there feeling more than a little embarrassed.

At least he and Sue had done their clinging in private.

After breaking their clinch, Beryle insisted on being told everything about the incident with Quetzal. John had never met this guy before and wasn't sure he liked him, but Dr. Spae seemed to trust him; she certainly didn't hold anything back from him. John went along, telling them about how the warning bit was Bennett's idea. When Dr. Spae started asking detailed questions to try and figure out what had been going on between John and Quetzal, Beryle bowed out of the conversation, claiming he was going to bed.

Shortly thereafter, Spae's questioning veered off into the "catching up" she'd said they had to do. Their talking took them well into the night. Before disappearing into her room— the same one Beryle had entered hours ago—-she pointed John at one of the suite's other bedrooms.

The room was luxurious by his current standards, even by his old standards, but it was a cold bed. He should have been elsewhere, but knew he didn't have any way to get back to the slump before morning. Maybe he could have gotten back if he had been able to enter the otherworld by himself and whistle up an elven steed, but that was a trick Bennett kept to himself.

In the morning the doctor insisted on seeing Bear right away. She wanted to see Bennett, too. John couldn't do anything about the second—she'd see Bennett if Bennett wanted to be seen. He could, however, take her to see Bear, despite some misgivings about her working for the ECSS—for which, naturally, she said she no longer worked. He decided to take her; he wasn't sure he was going to be able to get Bear straightened out and living in the twenty-first century by himself, and he didn't know anyone else to turn to.

When Beryle heard the doctor's decision, he jumped in with both feet.

"So when do we leave?" he asked.

John frowned at him. He didn't care for the way Beryle just assumed he'd be going along to see Bear. "We?"

"Yeah. When do we leave?"

"It was the doctor I asked," John said.

"If she's going, I'm going," Beryle announced.

The doctor didn't agree or disagree; she just watched John, a neutral expression on her face. What was he supposed to say? He was already committed to taking Dr. Spae back to the slump. Was this some sort of test?

"That true, Doctor?"

"I think it would be a good idea," she said. "I'd be more comfortable."

"Fine," Beryle said as if that had settled everything. "I'll rent a car."

John had assumed they'd take pub tranz. "And what are you going to do with it when we get there?"

"Is the parking bad?"

Beryle was clearly not as slick as Kun; the doctor's previous associate would have gotten the message right off. "Not too many rental cars around there."

"I think it's the neighborhood that's bad, David," the doctor said.

Beryle nodded. "I'll arrange something that won't attract too much attention."

John decided that maybe Beryle wasn't a total loss when he saw the junker that the guy had gotten for the trip. The vintage Hernando™ was all mismatched paint and bare Meshglaz™ patches; John had seen lots of its relatives near the slump. Somehow Beryle had even been lucky enough to get one with Rhode Island plates.

Or had it been luck? The ECSS had connections in the States; John had learned that from Kun.

It took three hours to drive the distance that John and Bennett had covered in less than an hour on elven steeds. Beryle parked where John directed, and grumbled about it for the last three of the four blocks of their walk to the factory. John ignored his complaints; the Hernando might look like it belonged in the neighborhood, but he still didn't want it parked in front of his slump.

Faye met them at the loading dock with a warm greeting for John. As he sometimes did when there were other people around and he wanted to talk to her, John turned his head away from them and mouthed his hello.

"Bear's been asking for you, but he's asleep right now. Gorshin's watching him. Bear hasn't been awake much; I hope he's ail right," Faye said. "I'm glad you're back. He said you'd be coming back with company. These are sunlit folk. Should Gorshin hide?"

Her question went right by John; he was stuck a little farther back. "Wait a minute," he said aloud. "
Who
said I'd be back with company?"

"Bennett."

Who else? He should have known.

"Hello, Faye," Dr. Spae said.

John's mouth dropped open in astonishment.

"Hello, Doctor," Faye said tentatively.

"You can hear her?" John asked.

"Certainly," the doctor said. "I'd hardly be talking to her otherwise."

John wasn't sure how he felt about this new development; Faye had been his private friend. He felt a little cheated, somehow; as if a confidence had been violated.

"Can you see her?" Dr. Spae asked.

When John admitted that he could not, she hmm'ed meditatively.

"What are you two talking about?" Beryle asked.

Dr. Spae looked at him curiously. "Oh, of course. You can't hear her at all, can you, David?"

"Hear who?"

"This is really very interesting. It raises a number of questions. I wonder if—" Dr. Spae paused for a moment, clearly thinking about something. "Faye, I'd like to try some experiments. Would you be willing to work with me? I would like to—"

"Elizabeth!" Beryle didn't sound amused. "We didn't come here to conduct experiments."

The doctor gave Beryle a hot look. John knew from previous experience that she didn't like to be interrupted. To cool things down, John said, "Bear's upstairs."

He led them to the office that had become Bear's room.

The morning sunlight slanted in through the room's grimy window, making little impression in the gloom. It would get brighter later in the day, but not by much. Bear lay on the couch, asleep. Someone had covered him with a blanket. Faye had said that Gorshin was watching Bear, but John thought the batwinged lizard-ape had abandoned its post, until he spotted a lumpy form huddled in the darkest corner of the room. He ignored Gorshin and started across the room to check on Bear. He'd only gotten halfway there when Dr. Spae shouted.