Hmm, Nohar thought there was a prison there.
The guy was trying very hard to have the voice of authority. “I am standing outside the offices and the laboratory of NuFood Incorporated. Today, came the surprising announcement that NuFood had been bought by a local diamond wholesaler, Midwest Lapidary. There had been speculation that NuFood had been on the verge of bankruptcy when it sold its assets and patents to Midwest Lapidary for an undisclosed amount. Shortly after the sale, NuFood’s two hundred employees were laid off in what Midwest Lapidary called in a press release, ‘a streamlining measure.’
“NuFood, you may recall from a Special Health Report earlier this year, is the company with patents on the dietary supplement, MirrorProtein. While NuFood has had success creating synthetic food-products resembling natural items, which the human body cannot process, it has had continuing problems with the FDA in getting its products approved. Sources say this created the financial difficulty that led directly to the sale of the company. No one from Midwest Lapidary could be reached for comment.”
That was a big help.
So Smith was right. He needed to start with Johnson and work back. Johnson was Binder’s campaign manager, so Nohar did a global search using both his name and Binder’s.
The pause was closer to a full minute this time. His tail fell asleep. Nohar stood up to massage the base of his tail. Cat took the opportunity to jump up on the couch and snuggle into the warm dent in the cushions.
The screen flashed the results of the search. Over six thousand items, more like it. No way he could peruse all of it on-line, so he slipped in a ramcard and downloaded the whole mess of data. He leeched nearly fifteen megs in half that many minutes.
He now had his own little database on Binder and his campaign.
• • •
By five, his examination of the public information on Binder gave him no reason to alter his first impression of the guy as a right-wing reactionary bastard. It seemed Binder had something bad to say about every group or organization that didn’t count him as a member; women, foreigners, liberals, intellectuals, blacks and hispanics, Catholics, the poor, the homeless, pornographers, the news media—the list was endless. Despite the vitriol that coated every word the man uttered, three groups in particular gained his very special attention. In order of the invective he threw upon them, they were: moreaus, franks, and all their genetically-engineered ilk, whose rights he was actively involved in trying to repeal; homosexuals, whose sexual preference Binder seemed to rank primary in his personal list of mortal sins; and the U.S. federal government—the only place Binder and Nohar seemed to touch common ground—whose propensity for spending money was only equaled by Binder’s impulse to slash any spending program he could lay his hands on.
Nohar found it hard to believe he was investigating the murder of this guy’s campaign manager.
The data on Daryl Johnson was more scattered. Nohar couldn’t get a fix on his beliefs. All he got was the fact that Johnson was loyal to Binder and had been with the congressman since the state legislature. He had been recruited out of Bowling Green in the autumn of 2040. The same time as most of Binder’s inner circle. Johnson’s three classmates were: Edwin Harrison, the campaign’s legal counsel; Philip Young, the campaign finance chairman; and Desmond Thomson, the campaign press secretary. Johnson graduated at the age of twenty-three, late. Apparently because of a shift in his major, from chemistry to political science. A bit of a jump. That would make him the ripe old age of thirty-nine when he died.
Not so ripe, Nohar corrected himself. This guy was human, so thirty-nine was barely on the threshold of middle age. Thirty-nine was better than the life expectancy of some moreys.
He was a little more familiar with the situation he was dealing with. That was all. His client wanted to find out if MLI was behind the Johnson killing. So far, he didn’t have any connection between the two, other than Smith’s assertion that the missing three megabucks came from MLI.
Time to start making some calls. Thomson looked like a good choice. The press secretary would be used to talking to people, if not actually to saying anything.
If he was going to talk to a pink, he’d better put some clothes on. He snorted. Clothes were a needless irritation that wouldn’t have been necessary on a morey case. Getting dressed, just to make a phone call, was just plain silly.
He pulled a button-down shirt from a small pile in the corner of his bedroom. The storm had reduced the light in the apartment, so Nohar couldn’t quite make out the color of the shirt. It was either a very light blue, or a very off white. Nohar put it on, claws catching on the buttons, and decided to forgo the pants. The comm was only going to show him from the waist up, as long as he didn’t stand up.
He ducked into the bathroom and looked in the mirror. Pointless, really. What did a pink know about grooming anyway? Still, Nohar licked the back of his hand and ran it over his head a few times, smoothing things out.
After that, he sat on the couch, shooing Cat away. He set the comm to record and told it to call Desmond Thomson at Binder campaign headquarters. He routed the call through the comm at his office so his credentials would be shown up front.
Oddly enough, though it was only a little after five, no one at Binder headquarters seemed to be answering. After nearly a minute of displaying the Binder Senate campaign logo, the comm at Binder headquarters forwarded his call to Thompson’s home. Nohar shrugged. It didn’t matter as long as he got through to Thomson.
Thomson surprised the hell out of him by being black. In fact, Thomson had been the bearded pink that had tricked Nohar’s eyes into seeing a morey in the crowd at the funeral. Thomson’s hair and beard were shot with gray. He had the bearing of a pro wrestler and the voice of a vid anchorman. “Mister,” Thomson’s gaze flicked to the text on his monitor, “Rajasthan?” Thomson’s voice had begun on a high note, indicating some surprise at Nohar’s appearance. However, by the end of Nohar’s name, the tone of Thomson’s voice had become smooth, friendly, and utterly phony.
“Yes, Mr. Thomson?”
“I am. I see your call has been forwarded from our campaign headquarters. I presume you wish to talk to me in my capacity as Congressman Binder’s press secretary?”
The man talked like a press release, and Nohar couldn’t get over the fact that Thomson was black. It made about as much sense as having a Jewish spokesman for the Islamic Axis. Nohar nodded.
“I would like to ask about your late campaign manager—”
“Of course. I’ll help as much as possible. We’ve been quite free with what we know about the tragedy. However, things are quite chaotic in the organization with the loss of Mr. Johnson. We’ve had to give the whole campaign the week off so we can sort out the mess. So my time is limited. I’m sure what you need has already been told to the police or the press.”
Nohar could smell a brush-off coming from a mile away. “I only have a few questions. They won’t take long.”
“Would you mind transmitting your credentials?”
Either Thomson didn’t trust the label from Nohar’s office comm, or he was politely looking for an excuse to hang up. Fortunately, Nohar’s wallet with his PI license was sitting on top of the comm and he didn’t have to stand up to get it. He slid his license into the fax slot on his comm and hit the send button. Thomson nodded when he saw the results. “I can give you ten minutes.”
At the length this guy spoke, that wouldn’t give Nohar much. “When did Johnson die?”
“I am given to understand the time of death was placed sometime in the middle of the week of the twentieth—”
“July twentieth?”
“Of course.”
“When was the last official contact with Johnson?”
“As we have informed the police, he attended a political fund-raiser Saturday the nineteenth. He didn’t come in to work the following week—”
“Didn’t this strike anyone as odd?”
Thomson was undoubtedly irritated by Nohar’s interruptions, but he hid it well. “No, it is an election year. It’s common for executive officers to be pulled away from the desk for trips, speeches, press, and so on. Johnson was the chief executive under Binder, he often did such things on his own initiative—”
“Do you know what he was doing?”
“No. If it wasn’t dealing with the media, it was not my department. Now, if you don’t mind, the time—”
It didn’t feel like ten minutes to Nohar. “One more thing.”
Nohar thought he heard Thomson sigh. “What?”
“About the three million dollars the police believe was stolen from the campaign—”
Thomson interrupted this time. “I am sorry, but I do not have the authority to discuss the financial details of the campaign.”
Ah, Nohar had finally run into the brick wall. “I am sorry to hear that. You see, I have conflicting information. I simply want to know if the three million was physically in Johnson’s possession, in cash—”
“I said, I can’t discuss it.”
Try another tack. “Who has access to the campaign’s financial records?”
Thomson was shaking his head. He even grinned a bit, showing a gold tooth that had to be decorative.
“Me, the legal counsel, the campaign manager and his executive assistant, and the finance chairman, of course.”
“Thank you.”
Thomson chuckled. “I’m afraid they can’t help you. No one but Binder has the authority to release confidential financial data. Except, of course, disclosures required by law.”
“Or a subpoena,” Nohar muttered.
“I would call that a disclosure required by law. Now, as I said before, my time is limited. I really must go.”
“Thanks for your help,” Nohar said, nearly choking on the insincerity.
“You’re welcome. It’s my job,” Thomson replied, just as insincere, but much more professional.
The line was cut and Nohar was left staring at a test pattern.
Nohar ran through the record of the conversation a few times. It irritated him that Thomson was right. Nothing was in the conversation he wouldn’t be able to get from the police record or the news. Reviewing the tape didn’t tell Nohar anything more, other than the fact Thomson lived in a ritzy penthouse overlooking downtown—Thomson’s home comm faced a window.
The comm told him it was fifteen after. It was time to call Manny down at the pathologist’s office. Nohar wanted to set up a meeting for tonight. One he hoped would be more fruitful.
Chapter 5
During the night, the rain turned into a deluge. Nohar didn’t feel half as uncomfortable under the sudden thunderstorm as he had in the misting drizzle in the cemetery. The dark violence of it suited him.
Coventry suited him.
The three block area was a ragged collection of bars close to the East Cleveland border. It was far enough away from the heart of Moreytown to see the occasional pink in the area. As always, there were two patrol cars, the riot watch, one on either end of the strip. Nohar passed one of them at the intersection of Coventry and Mayfield, and, while it was too far for him to see it, he knew its twin was parked in the old school parking lot, three blocks away.
Like Nohar’s neighborhood, Coventry was blocked off from car traffic by three-meter-tall concrete pylons left over from the riots. Graffiti wrapped around the rectangular blocks, as if the strip were trying to escape its arbitrary confines by oozing through the gaps.
The rain hadn’t slowed things down. Ten-thirty at night and the street was packed with the backwash of Moreytown. The downpour couldn’t remove the omnipresent smell of damp fur.
Nohar made his way down the center of the old asphalt strip. He passed canines, felines, a knot of rodents in leather vests and denim briefs—he avoided the slight scent of familiar perfume—an unfamiliar ursine, a loud lepus shouting at a rapt vulpine congregation. The people around him only made the briefest impression. A few shouted greetings. Nohar waved without quite noticing who they had been.
His destination, Watership Down, was one of the few bars on the Coventry strip that was actually owned and operated by a morey proprietor—Gerard Lopez, a lepus. The reason Nohar chose to frequent this particular bar, out of the two dozen on the strip, was the high ceiling. This was one of the few places he could get fully toasted and not end up bashing his head into a ceiling fan or a light fixture.
Nohar entered the bar, shook some of the rain out of his coat, and took his regular seat, a booth in the back that had the seats moved back for people his size. The table was directly underneath a garish framed picture someone had once told him was an original Warner Brothers’ animation cell. It was a hand drawn cartoon of a gray bipedal rabbit in the process of blowing up a bald, round-headed, human. Lopez had mounted a little brass plaque under the picture. It said, “1946—Off the Pink.” Even if it was a joke, Nohar was glad that most humans didn’t come down to Coventry.
Manny was waiting at the bar. He bore down on Nohar’s booth carrying two pitchers of beer. Alert black eyes glanced over Nohar as the quick little mongoose put the pitcher on the table. “Nohar, you look like hell.”
Nohar’s mind had drifted off the case and on to Maria. He was at once irritated and defensive. Manny was the only real family Nohar had. The mongoose had come to America with Nohar’s parents, and had been there when Nohar’s mother had died. When he was younger, Nohar had resented him. It was still hard for Nohar to accept Manny’s concern with good grace.
It had taken finding his real father to allow Nohar to appreciate Manny.
“Maria dumped me.” Nohar poured himself a beer and downed it.
Manny slid into the opposite side of the booth and chittered a little in sympathy. “That’s hard to believe. After the last time I saw you two together, it looked like you finally found the right one.”
“I thought so myself. Always do.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“I want to talk to an M.E., not a psychiatrist.”
Manny gave his head a shake and poured himself a beer. “Are you sure you want to talk business right now?”
Nohar glared down at Manny. “I didn’t ask you to meet me for a counseling session.” Nohar reined in the outburst. “Sorry. Been a tough day. Did you bring the database?”
Unlike Nohar, Manny couldn’t form a smile, but between them a nose-twitch on Manny’s part served the same purpose. Manny took a notebook-sized case and put it on the table and flipped up the cover. There was a pause as it warmed up.
“What happened to your wallet computer?”
Manny gave a brief shrug. His voice held a tone of resignation. “The Jap chip blew. It was a prewar model, so the county couldn’t replace it. So, I got this new bug-ridden Tunja 1200. Soon we’re going to be back to manual typewriters and paper records . . .”
Manny’s head shook, accompanied by a high-pitched sigh. In a few seconds, the screen began to glow faintly and the keypad became visible. “I updated it from the mainframe after you called. Do you have a name for the stiff you’re looking for?”
Nohar poured himself another beer. “Yes, but this isn’t a normal case—”
“But you want records for a stiff, right?”
“The name’s Daryl Johnson.”
Manny’s whole upper body undulated with a momentary shrug. “Off hand, I don’t remember that name. What species?”
“Human.”
Manny froze; the sudden absence of motion was eerie on the mongoose. “What?”
“I need the complete forensic record on the murder of a man named Daryl Johnson.”
“What the hell?”
Nohar could see him tense up. He could almost see the vibration in Manny’s small frame. Nohar could smell Manny’
s nervousness even over the smell of the beer. “You can access those records?”
“Nohar, you said human, you said murder.”
“I said it wasn’t a normal case.”
Manny was silent. His black eyes darted from Nohar to his little portable computer and back. Nohar was a little surprised at his reaction. They’d worked together and had shared information ever since Nohar had gotten his license.
But then, until now, it had simply consisted of Nohar making sure the moreys he’d been hired to find hadn’t ended up in the morgue.
After nearly a full minute of silence, Manny finally spoke, “Nohar, I’ve known you all your life. You don’t ask for trouble anymore. You’ve never interfered with a police investigation. You’ve never messed with pink business.”
“You slipped, you said the ‘p’ word.” Nohar regretted it the instant he said it. Manny had to work with humans. He was one of perhaps a half-dozen moreaus in the city with medical training, and they would only let him cut up corpses. Only morey corpses at that. Manny was always open to the accusation of selling out, being pink under his fur. Nohar just rubbed Manny’s nose in it.
“Forgive me if I don’t want to see you mixed up in something that might hurt you.”
“Sorry. It’s just a case. An important one. I’m trying to find out who killed him.”
Manny closed his eyes. His voice picked up speed. “You are trying to find out who murdered a human? You know what’d happen if word got on the street? You know what happens to moreys that get too close to humans—”
“I still need your help.”
Manny made an effort to slow down. “I’m not going to change your mind, am I? I’ll call up the file, but first—” One of Manny’s too-long hands clasped Nohar’s wrist. “Remember, my place is as far from Moreytown as you can get.”
Nohar nodded.
Manny held Nohar’s gaze for a brief moment. Then Manny looked down at his computer and started rapid-fire tapping on the screen. For a terminal with no audio, Manny handled it very efficiently. His hands were engineered for surgery, and their gracefulness permeated every gesture.