The Credulity Nexus (4 page)

Rik walked
among the narrow houses and wondered how the hell Barry Ockenden
could have ended up in such a blighted place. Ockenden's house was
no worse than the rest. Set right onto the street, its crumbling
brickwork was inset with grimy windows and a door that flaked paint
when he knocked at it.

He waited
politely, and then hammered hard when it was obvious that no-one
was going to answer. He had to do it again before he heard a voice
from inside.

“Fuck off. We
don't want none.”

It was a young
man's voice; not the one Rik was expecting. He hammered again.

“I said fuck
off, willya. You've got a fuckin' nerve!”

Rik took a
quick look up and down the empty street, then he stepped back a
pace and kicked in the door. The door frame splintered and the door
slammed inwards. Rik hurried after it into a dingy hallway.

There was a
staircase on the left to the floor above and three doors on the
right, all standing open. A skinny teenage boy with a mop of pink
hair, black jeans and a loose, hole-filled jumper made a dash from
the second door along, heading for the back of the house. Rick had
him by the neck before the boy made it out of the hallway.

They struggled
in silence for a few moments before the boy seemed to realise that
he didn't stand a chance against this huge and heavily-muscled
stranger. Perhaps it had also dawned on the boy that the stranger
hadn't broken his neck, which probably meant he was safe for the
moment.

“Whatcha
want?” The boy's accent was clearly local and completely untouched
by any education the state may have tried to force into him.

“I'm looking
for Barry. Just tell me where he is and stop screwing around.”

The boy eyed
him speculatively. “You're a Yank, ain't ya? Whatcha want Barry
for?”

Rik took the
boy by the scruff and dragged him into one of the rooms. Among the
clutter that covered every surface, he found a battered old sofa
and shoved the boy onto it. “Just tell me where to find Barry. This
is his house, right?”

“What if it
is?”

The boy made a
move to get back up on his feet, but quickly subsided when Rik
shoved him down again.

Rik felt anger
rising in him. The last thing he wanted right now was to be messed
about by this scrawny kid. A snarl curled his lip and he took a
step towards the boy.

“All right,
all right. Yeah, it's Ocky's house. So what?”

“So just tell
me where he is, you little shit!”

A look of low
cunning crossed the boy's face. “What's it worth?”

It was
necessary to explain to the young man that this was not the time to
get cute. With a roar, Rik grabbed him by the front of his tatty
jumper and hauled him into the air. He swung him around
effortlessly and slammed him against a wall, pushing him so high
that his head hit the low ceiling. “Don't piss me off, you little
rat.”

“He's
dead.”

“What?” This
was not the answer Rik wanted. He pushed the boy harder against the
wall.

“He's
dead!”

“How? When?”
Already Rik's mind was running along several tracks at once. Was
Ockenden's death anything to do with the package? Where would Rik
go now? Who was there he could trust? Did this little maggot have
something to do with his friend's death? If he did...

“He was shot,”
the boy whined, finding it hard to speak with his neck bent
sideways. “He got mixed up in some fight outside the pub a couple
of weeks ago. Some fucker shot him.”

“Who?”

“How would I
know? Could've been anybody. People are always getting shot round
here.”

Ockenden was
dead. The fact began to sink into Rik's awareness like a rock
falling through dark, deep water. They'd served together in the
LAPD for five years. Partners. Ockenden was as tough as old
leather. Indestructible. And now he was dead, killed in a stupid
brawl like some street punk.

Absent-mindedly, he lowered the boy and tossed him back onto the
sofa. The lad watched him carefully but said nothing. Long seconds
ticked by.

“Who are you,
and what are you doing here?” Rik asked, remembering the boy
again.

“Skiver,” the
boy said, his expression sullen. “I was Ocky's mate. He let me
crash here. Who the fuck are you?”

Rik looked
back at the scrawny specimen on the sofa. It would be just like
Ockenden to take in some deadbeat kid and put him up. Maybe Skiver
was telling the truth. He let his anger subside a little.

“Call me Rik.
Ockenden and me used to be partners, a long time ago.”

The kid eyed
him curiously. Then he got off the sofa and went over to a chest of
drawers. From the top drawer, he pulled out a reader. He fiddled
with the thin, plastic sheet for a moment and then showed it to
Rik. The scratched and scuffed display showed a picture of two men
leaning against a police cruiser in the bright California sunshine.
Both of them were smiling.

“That's you,
innit, with Ocky?”

“You got any
booze, kid?” Rik's eyes stayed on the picture.

Skiver shook
his head. After a while he walked to the door. “Come on,” he said,
and Rik followed him out of the house.

The Pigeons
sagged with age and neglect. Surrounded by crumbling, low-rise
apartment buildings on Romford Road, the pub presided over a paved
courtyard dotted with tree stumps and empty tables. Inside, Skiver
led Rik to the bar and ordered two large whiskeys. The room was
dark and oppressive and stank of stale beer.

“Is this where
it happened?” Rik asked.

“Yeah. Out
there.”

“Any of these
guys the shooter?” A dozen, scruffy men lurked in the dismal room,
drinking alone or in murmuring pairs.

“Fuck
knows.”

The drinks
arrived. Skiver and the barman looked at Rik until he paid. They
took the drinks outside, despite the cold and the overcast sky, and
sat at one of the wooden tables. Rik placed the picture on the
table and raised his glass to it, downing his drink in one swallow.
The boy did the same.

“Barry had
something of mine,” Rik said, getting back to business.

Skiver was
immediately defensive again. “He said I could have his stuff – if
there was ever an accident or something.”

Rik's jaw
clenched in irritation. The boy was lying. Ockenden was just not
the kind of man who thought that way. Rik couldn't imagine him once
mentioning the possibility of his death, let alone who should get
his things. He was about to snap back something to this effect, but
when he looked at the anxious boy in his ragged clothes, a wave of
sadness washed through him that Ockenden's few sticks of crappy
furniture and his dump of a house could be worth clinging on to for
this creature.

“Don't worry.
I don't want his stuff. It's all yours. All except for one thing,
and that's mine.”

Skiver blinked
at him. Rik could see he was trying to make sense of this turn of
events, trying to find an angle so he could get something out of
it.

“Ocky and me
was close,” the boy said. “You know what I'm saying? Very
close.”

Rik's face
darkened. He frowned at the boy in a way that made the youngster
swallow hard.

But Skiver
pushed on defiantly. “We was lovers. He looked after me. He'd have
wanted you to do the right thing and help me out. You know what I'm
saying?”

Rik glared at
him for several uncomfortable seconds. “You must be the most
stupid, ungrateful little sewer rat it's ever been my misfortune to
meet.” He got to his feet. “Stand up.”

Skiver's eyes
widened in alarm. “You can't do nothing to me out here. They'll
call the cops. I'll have you locked up.”

“Stand up,
moron. We're going back to the house.”

Still Skiver
didn't move. “It's true. I was working the streets and Ocky was one
of my regulars. He took me in 'cause he said he loved me.”

Rik leaned across the table,
his eyes burning into Skiver's. His finger stabbed at the picture
that was still lying there. “Do you think I didn't know my own
partner? Listen, you piece of shit, I have no doubt you were
working the streets, or selling dope, or stealing pension money
from old ladies, or all three. But when Barry Ockenden took you in
and showed you kindness, it was because he was a big-hearted,
generous man, one of the most open-handed and damn-fool
giving
men I'll ever
know.”

That big rock
was still falling inside Rik, falling through the cold, dark
depths. He slapped his hand on the table and pumped up his anger to
stave off the grief that was building.

“Don't you
dare abuse that man's memory for the sake of one of your sordid
little money-making hustles. Do you understand me?”

Confusion was
written all over the boy's face. Strange emotions struggled behind
his eyes. In the end, a grudging remorse won out. “Yeah,” he said,
looking away. “He was a good bloke. I didn't mean nothing.”

Rik grunted in
contempt. He turned and walked back to the house, and Skiver
hurried along behind.

Between them,
it took two hours of painstaking searching to find what Rik was
looking for – a small metal cash-box containing documents, credit
strips and a chip wrangler. Rik pocketed the paper and plastic, and
held the wrangler where he could see its little display. He flicked
through a couple of menus until he found the program he wanted,
then held the device to his temple and hit the go button. It
beeped, then beeped again. He queried his cogplus and nodded to
himself. It confirmed his new identity.

He tossed the
wrangler on the floor and stamped on it, grinding the pieces into
the floorboards. He headed for the door.

“Hey!” Skiver
almost fell over himself in his haste to catch up. “What about
me?”

“What about
you?”

“Take me with
you.”

Rik couldn't
help laughing.

“No,
seriously, mate,” the boy insisted. “I can help. I can...” He
hesitated, seeking inspiration. “I can, like, run errands, and get
stuff. I can – I don't know – do stuff. Just take me with you, all
right?”

Rik stepped
out into the street and Skiver hurried after him.

“I don't want
to hang around here no more,” the boy whined. “Just look at it.
It's a fucking dump. I'd rather go with you, Rik. You look like a
handy kind of bloke. I'll make myself useful, you see if I
don't.”

Rik walked
straight past his hire car. It was useless now. Since he'd
reprogrammed his identity the car would no longer recognise him as
its driver. Once its hire period was up, it would drive itself back
to the nearest company depot, if it lasted that long, parked on a
street like this.

“Come on,
mate. Just give it a go. Look, I'll get you a cab. Where do you
want to go?”

Rik stopped
and rounded on the boy. “Get lost. If you're still around in thirty
seconds, I'm going to throw you through the nearest window. Got
it?” He turned back and carried on walking. This time Skiver stayed
where he was.

“It was all
right with Ocky,” the boy called after him. “He got me off the
shit. Kept me off the streets. I don't want to go back to that.
Please, just–“

But Rik had
turned the corner and was gone.

Blake Bonomi
was brewing coffee when the door bell rang. He took a quick look at
the toast to see how long he had and hurried to the door.

There was a
young woman in shorts standing on his doorstep, carrying a small
package in a bright plastic envelope. "Blake Bonomi?" she
asked.

Blake looked
past her to where her courier truck was parked at the bottom of his
drive. Beyond that, the cool morning light and clear skies promised
another sunny day in suburban Los Angeles.

He took the
package from her and she held out a contact strip. "Sign here," she
said. He held the strip between his thumb and index finger while
she held the other end, and his cogplus negotiated his proof of
identity with the courier's systems.

The strip
glowed green. “Thank you, sir. Have a nice day.”

“Who's that?”
His wife, Brie, came into the hallway in her dressing gown as he
closed the door.

“It's a
package,” Blake said, turning it to see the sender's address. “From
Rik.”

“Rik? Why's he
sending us packages?”

“Dunno. He
sent it from Berlin.”

“What, Berlin,
Germany?”

Blake pulled
the silver box out of the envelope and turned it over in his hands.
He walked back through to the kitchen and set it on the worktop. He
tossed the envelope into the recycler and it – and the scribbled
note inside – was whisked away to be converted into reusable gasses
in the household plasma incinerator.

“Is there a
note?” Brie asked.

“Shit! I
probably just recycled it.”

His wife shook
her head and went over to rescue the breakfast. “So what is
it?”

“Holy mother
of God!”

Blake had the
box open and was staring at the six small phials of liquid inside.
Six phials with biohazard warning labels clearly displayed. He shut
it at once and pushed it away from him.

“What the hell
is he playing at? That sonofabitch, sending something like that to
my house!”

They argued
about it while their coffees went cold. Brie wanted Blake to take
it in to the police. Blake was a police officer, after all. That
was the right thing to do. Whatever was in that package could be
really dangerous. Blake couldn't help agreeing with her, but he
owed Rik, and he didn't want to do anything that would get his old
friend into trouble.

“Look, just
leave it to me,” Blake said in the end. “I'll get it sorted.
OK?”

They were both already late for work, so
it
was
OK.