"The Transgenic Falcon"

My ride turned out to be the three nit-wits who’d kidnapped me. When I’d walked up with Kent they had all looked rather abashed. I had guessed they had been on the hot seat for how they carried out their plan.

I took pity on the fools and asked Kent to go light on them. They might have abducted me, but they did it by diving in to a mob ready to pull me limb from limb and then dance on my corpse. I’m not so ungracious as to treat it like nothing.

He agreed and opened the front door for me. I climbed in and shut the door. I rolled down the window as the driver started the van up.

“Hey, Kent, tell your boss thanks for the shirt. I promise I’ll get it back to him.”

“Oh, don’t bother, Hunt. It was a left over from a costume party. I’m sure Mr. Logue will never wear it again. Some jokes are only funny once.”

I can not be the only person who likes aloha shirts! They are available everywhere, in all kinds of fabrics and designs! I let it go and rolled up the window. If someone obviously wants the last word like that, it’s best to just give it to them.

They’re all obviously jealous anyway.

Of course that heap of a van didn’t have auto-drive, so we had to fight through rush hour traffic in the age old stop-and-go (mostly stop) pattern. I had decided I wanted go to my place rather than go back to G-T right away. I’d learned some important facts and I wanted to be able to think them through by myself in an environment that didn’t rub every nerve I had raw.

The driver was not nearly as chatty as the other two in the back, which was fine with me. I sat there, squinting into the setting sun, because my sunglasses were in little pieces on the pavement in front of Gen-Tech, and brooded.

I didn’t even notice I’d fallen asleep until someone shook my shoulder.

“Mr. Hunt, we’re here.”

I opened my eye. Yes, only one. The other was puffy enough that it would take a determined act of will to open it, and right that second I wasn’t up to it. I groaned and grunted like an old fat man, but I managed to get out of the van and shut the door all by myself. Yea me.

I gave the van a couple of pats on the side and the three stooges drove off to wherever they lived. I silently wished them well.

I trudged up the stairs to my apartment. Three flights had never seemed so long before. The hallway is never very brightly lit, but even if there had been a bank of full spectrum floodlights I probably wouldn’t have noticed the person standing near my door. I walked over and put the key the lock.

“My God Eamon, where have you been?”

I spun around fast and put my back to the door. It would have been a much cooler move if it hadn’t also unbalanced me and knocked my poor head on the door. A small flood of adrenalin rushed into me. It was all I had left after this day of ups and downs, but it was there, ready to help me in the event of a fight. It was wasted.

“Hi, Belinda.”

She stepped out of the shadows. From the looks of her, my Angel hadn’t been having a great day either. For the first time since she walked back into my life her hair was less than perfect, showing signs of hands running through it repeatedly. Her eyes were greener than usual, the contrast from the red of the sclera. Had Belinda been crying? Surely not. It was probably just allergies or something.

“What happened to you? Where have you been? I’ve been so worried!”

Two days ago I’d have given anything to hear that, now it just made me even more tired.

“Do you mind if we do this inside? It’s been a hell of a day.”

She had the sense not to argue, instead giving me an earnest nod. I turned back to my door and finished unlocking it and turning off the security system. I went in and saw the mess the place was in. A part of me wanted to be embarrassed for Belinda to see it this way, but the rest of me was too beat to work up much worry.

“I need a drink, care to join me?” I asked over my shoulder as Belinda shut the door behind us. She nodded again in reply.

After fishing some clean glasses out and filling them with a couple of standard type ice cubes, I plopped down in my recliner and poured a couple of fingers of what I was finding was cheap booze into them. I offered one to Belinda. I took a long sip from mine then, held the cool glass against my bruised eye. It felt as good as anything had recently.

Belinda took a polite sip, then set her glass carefully on the crowded coffee table.

“Do you need to see a doctor?”

“No, I’ve seen one already. Contusions and a mild concussion, that’s the list. I’ll be fine in a few days.”

“I’m so glad to hear that! I was so worried when you disappeared in the riot.”

After the way we’d left things I was mildly shocked to hear such genuine worry in her voice. I felt a warmth in the pit of my stomach that had nothing to do with the booze.

“So it turned into a full blown riot?” I lowered the drink to the armrest of the recliner and closed my eyes. Oh my, that felt good. I’d had just enough sleep in the van to want a whole lot more, and soon.

“Yes, we arrested a hundred or so people. It’s all over the news tonight. Round is ecstatic; he finally has the excuse he needs to move them further away from the main entrance. The protesters on both sides are pointing the finger at each other, and as long as that continues, Round will push to keep them as far apart and away from the acrology as he can.”

“Good for Johnny. No cop is happier than when he can stick it to the riff-raff.”

“We looked for you when it all broke up. I tried calling your cell phone and the handheld we issued you, but there was no response. Even on the security footage we couldn’t find you once you went under the tide of people. How did you escape?”

Now there was a question that was a bit of a problem. How much could I tell Belinda? If I explained about the A.T. it would lead to Ashton Logue. Not what I wanted, at all. So, I was going to have to tell some straight up lies. Why not? After the shitty things I’d said earlier, what’s a little lie or five?

“I had some friends in the crowd. They rescued me and took me to see a doc.”

That was the truth as far as it went. Always stick as close to the truth as you can when you lie. It not only makes things easier to keep track of, but it makes it more believable.

“Friends? What friends?”

Maybe it wasn’t that believable after all.

“Just friends, people who know me. They saw I was in trouble and came in. I don’t really remember that part. For me it was a lot of fists, then I woke up in their car. Why do you care anyway?”

When you’re in trouble with a lie, change the subject, fast. There was a moment of silence.

“That’s not fair, Eamon. We might not be a couple, but I still care about you at the level of another human being, if nothing else.”

I opened the eye that wasn’t sore and looked at her. Maybe she’s a consummate liar, maybe not, but she sure looked hurt that I might thinks she didn’t care.

“Sorry, you’re right, that’s not fair. It’s been a really shitty day. Did you come by just to make sure I was among the living?”

Her face changed. The pain and fear for my safety went away and a smooth professional appeared. Huh, Belinda has her own cop face too. Who knew?

She smoothed her skirt down, and took a deep breath.

“That was the major concern, but not the only one, no. While you’ve been gone there have been some decisions made. Mr. Johnson, Johnny Round and I have been in conference and we are going to go forward with charging Mick Taylor as Cho’s killer.”

It wasn’t unexpected, but it was not what I wanted to hear.

“You have to know he didn’t do it, Belinda. Sure, he has acted suspiciously, but that’s all you have. You still don’t have a murder weapon or method, and without that its hard to establish opportunity.”

“It doesn’t matter. Taylor has some high powered lawyer. He is insisting we charge his client, or let him go when the 24 hours we can legally hold him, is up. Johnson has what he needs. Now he can arrange a plea deal to keep the whole thing from going to trial.”

Knowing what I did about the Taylor and Logue agreement, she was right. Manslaughter was five-to-ten in Texas, and Mick had signed up to serve it with a nice payoff at the end. Everyone would get what they wanted.

“Johnson is very happy with your work,” Belinda continued, “You can come and collect your check any time tomorrow.”

Well, there it was the bribe for my silence; a big fat check to set me up well, and keep me from making a lot of trouble. That’s why Johnson’s fixer was really here. To tie up lose ends that might be embarrassing.

“Great, thanks,” I said and shut my eyes again. I didn’t want to see Belinda like this, it was just too hard.

She sighed and stood. There was silence, and it stretched on and on, her looking at me; me hiding behind my eye lids. Finally I couldn’t take it anymore. I cracked my eyes open to see her standing there looking at me, some emotion I couldn’t name plain on her face.

“What do you want from me Belinda? You just told me the case is over. I’m getting paid, you get your man and everything is hunky-dory.”

“What did I want from you? I wanted the man I knew ten years ago. I wanted the brilliant guy who thought around corners and came at things from a different point of view. That’s what I wanted when I hired you. But it’s clear that man isn’t available anymore.”

Ouch. No one can wound you like a former love. She had me dead to rights. If I took that money, just let this go, then I wasn’t the man I thought I was. But isn’t that something everyone faces? Isn’t there always a time in life when you have to betray your ideals in the face of unremitting and crushing reality?

Is that what growing up really is? If so, it sucks. I wanted to say a lot of things, to explain everything and show her that I didn’t have any good choices. Only ones that were grades of crappy. I sat there as she burned out any good opinion of me, probably forever. After a moment she turned to leave. If this was the last time I would see her I couldn’t leave it like this.

“Belinda” I said and she stopped with her hand on the doorknob, but didn’t turn. “That place? Gen-Tech? Its no good for you or anyone. You’ve changed in ways that are not for the better and I swear it’s that damned place. Maybe it’s the isolation from the rest of the city or maybe it’s Johnson; but everyone there thinks their beyond the rules. When that happens, when people start to believe it, things tend to go horribly wrong. This murder is just the start, not the end.”

“Everyone changes, Eamon.”

“Yeah, they do, but they don’t always see how they are changing. Promise me you’ll think about leaving there, think hard about it. If not for me, then for the man you thought you were hiring.”

She nodded her head slowly. “I will,” she said, then opened the door and left. Is there anything lonelier or more final than the sound of a door closing?

I sat there a long while, not moving, not thinking, just hurting; emotionally and physically. I didn’t have a better solution, I just didn’t. I was so sure that I’d solve this damned puzzle box of a mystery! I could feel all the pieces jumbled up in my head. Something was telling me I had the solution, if I could only see it. It simply wasn’t there.

Maybe if I’d had more time. Maybe if we’d found the murder weapon; if Taylor had told the truth; if Cho hadn’t been such a scum-bag; if Ferguson had been more direct. Maybe, maybe, maybe! It all came down to that damned place! Everyone there broke the rules, and that made it a morass that I couldn’t cut through.

Everyone broke the rules.

Something about that phrase made the hairs on my arms all stand up at once. I felt dizzy, but at the same time there was a sensation of pieces falling in place, locking together.

Then I saw it, all of it, in a flash of genuine mental illumination. I jumped to my feet, my aches and pains forgotten.

“Son of a bitch! Everyone breaks the rules!” I shouted to my empty apartment. I wanted to run in all directions. I wanted to sprint down the stairs and see if I could find Belinda and tell her! I was the guy she remembered!

My subconscious had been churning on this problem for the last two days. It had been taking up more and more mental space as it tried to fit the pieces together. Until that overhead burden was gone I hadn’t even noticed it. Now, though, I had plenty of space to think. I was sure I knew who the killer was, and why they killed Cho. But did it make a difference?

There were very powerful people and interests tied up in this case. If I didn’t walk the line just right, bad things could happen to me, up to and including being disappeared. I hunted through the debris on the coffee table until I found a notebook and a pen. I needed to think through what I wanted.

I’d promised the Eolin-I Mother that I would bring the killer to justice. That was number one. I needed to get out of this with my independence intact, not to mention my life. I wanted as many of the rat-fuckers as I could to take a big bite of the shit sandwich. Was that all? No, I wanted to shield Belinda as much as I could. I knew it was long odds that she’d walk away from Gen-Tech on my say so. Right, plan for that and give her as much cover as I could.

Now that I had my priorities straight, it was time to get to work nailing everything down. I only had until tomorrow morning, and it all had to be exactly right. I pulled out Cho’s handheld and the slip of paper with the password. I logged on and started reading. It might have been twenty minutes later when I realized I was happily whistling.