Forests of the Night

CHAPTER 21

The wait while Bobby's electronic gears whirred into motion gave Nohar a chance to think. For the most part he thought about Daryl Johnson. He now had a connection, however tenuous, between Johnson and the Zipheads.

But then, there was so much junk in Johnson's system when he died, he had to be hooked on something. It was too bad flush addiction didn't show up on an autopsy unless they looked for it. That's what it must mean—had to be flush. Bobby had traced one of Nugoya's financial threads and it led back to, of all people, Johnson. There were only two reasons why Nugoya would be receiving money from Johnson. Since Nugoya only pimped female morey ass, it probably wasn't sex.

Nugoya was ofled for reselling the flush he got from the Zips.

Johnson was buying that flush.

Was he? Nohar wondered. If he was, Young had taken all trace of that drug from Johnson's ranch. Bobby had only found three weekly payments—if it was tiie sign of an addict, it was a recent one.

Blackmail? No, the deposits were much too small for Nugoya's taste had he known anything damaging. There was plenty of information that was damaging. .

It was another piece of the puzzle that didn't quite fit.

1 f:

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The comm beeped. It was time for Bobby's ride to show up.

A familiar Nissan Tory pulled in front of Manny's house, Ruby again. It would be a long time before Nohar would trust a remote van. Nohar opened the front door and waved at the cab. Then he turned to Angel and Stephie. Stephie had somehow made some of Manny's clean clothes fit her even when the proportions were all wrong.

She still looked good in them.

"You both know what you're supposed to do?"

"Sure, Kit, no prob."

Nohar shook his head. He was trusting the rabbit, but he wanted to be sure she got it right. "Let me hear it."

Stephie and Angel looked at each other. Stephie cocked her head and motioned with the palm of her hand, Angel first. "Right, Kit, urn, we go to the Hertz counter at the airport—"

"Hopkins."

"Lady above, I know that. There's a prepaid '51, ah-"

"Maduro, it's a black, General Motors Maduro sports coupe." Stephie gave him a critical look and Nohar reined himself in.

Angel rolled her eyes so the whites could be seen. "Lemme finish the rundown,

Kit. Paid for with Pink— Stephie's—new name." The little scar pulled into a smile at Stephie's expense. Stephie didn't seem to mind.

The name was Bobby's doing. He had programmed a shell identity over Stephie's card. It wouldn't fool a real close scrutiny. However, it would run up false data trail on any casual ID scan. It was a total software construct—Bobby didn't even need to see the card. The software would self-delete when its usefulness was expired.

"—then we blow to the other end of the country, and shack up together across

the line in Geauga—she

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drives so pink law don't stop us. Woodstar Motel is in Chesterland, off highway 322."

"Good enough. I'll get word down as soon as the shit clears."

Nohar smiled at the rabbit, and, to his surprise, he got a full smile back.

He piled them into the Tory and paid Ruby. The cabby must have been getting used to moreys. She didn't even comment on Angel, who was buried in one of Nohar's old concert T-shirts.

Stephie mouthed, "I'll miss you," out the window as Nohar shut the door.

The cab drove west, toward the airport. Nohar was left alone in front of Manny's house. He kept looking down the road long after the Tory had passed from view.

He yawned, walked back into the house, and planted himself next to the comm. The chair still smelled of his blood.

Tonight was the meeting with Smith. He'd pretty much decided he was going to tell that blob of flesh to go straight to hell if he didn't get the full story on MLI. Things were too dangerous now to cater to his client's sense of secrecy. Smith's lockjaw might have already cost a few hundred people their lives.

He stretched and tried to make sense out of it all.

Johnson's death had an air of precision and forethought about it.

Staring with the 4th, the deaths in the Binder campaign were loud, messy, and seemed to fit into a nationwide spree of violence by the Zipheads. Violence that seemed engineered to resonate with the riots of eleven years ago. Up to and including starting the violence on the generally accepted anniversary date, August 4th. It was a coordinated effort by the Zips to scare the pinks shitless.

Nohar raked his claws across the armrest of the chair. The upholstery ripped. The Zips weren't making sense. The Zipperheads FORESTS OF THE NIGHT

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were drug dealers, not terrorists. What kind of profit would there be in encouraging the pinks to clamp down? If there's a new wave of morey riots, nobody wins.

Somehow, it also seemed MLI was involved with the Zips. That made little sense either. It was also hard to deny. The rats'd kept showing up, ever since he'd discovered Hassan. He wouldn't be surprised if MLI was using those green remote vans to smuggle the rats back and forth. Especially after he saw that van shooting out of Thomson's building. There was also no denying that there was some higher authority than the Zips, represented by Hassan. From Angel it sounded like Terin was under somebody's thumb—her supplier?

Was it MLI?

And, even embedded in a wave of rodent terrorism, the deaths were going to focus everyone's attention on the Binder campaign. If there was some information buried in the campaign they—Young's nebulous them— were trying to cover up, this would be counterproductive—wouldn't it?

Nohar fell asleep feeling like he had forgotten something.

Manny woke Nohar up. He was home early.

"Where are the girls?"

Nohar yawned and sat up. "I sent them to a motel out of town, out of harm's way—"

"As opposed to you . . . and me."

Nohar was stung by that. "IVe been trying to keep you out of this. That's why I sent them—"

Manny sighed and sat down on the couch, across from him. Manny formed his engineered surgeon's hands into a peak before the tip of his nose. "Has it ever occurred to you that I don't want to be left out?"

Nohar didn't respond.

"Why do you think I told you you could come here if things got rough? Why do you think I help you with all those missing persons investigations? Why do you

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think I took that slug out of your hip?'' Manny shook his head. "When you left home and disappeared with that gang, I knew there was no way I would ever talk sense to you. But I have the right to know what you get mixed-up in. I promised Orai I'd keep an eye on you."

Manny stopped talking. The only sounds now were the faint buzz of a fluorescent and Nohar's own breathing.

"I've already involved you in enough to lose your job—"

Manny cast a glance out the window, toward the driveway where the van was parked. "I was trained to save lives. Today, we had an emergency, the 747. So damn many bodies to identify. We needed all the help we could get. They dismissed me from the scene because there weren 't any morey dead. You think I really care about conflict of interest?"

Manny deserved to know.

Nohar told him everything, including the money, the frank, Hassan—everything. Manny didn't interrupt, didn't ask for elaboration. He just sat and listened. Nodded a few times. Fidgeted a little with his hands. Otherwise he let Nohar explain the last week—

By the time Nohar was done, the sky outside had turned blood-red.

Manny seemed to weigh his response before he said anything. When he spoke, it was in the even tones of his professional voice, as if he was describing a corpse he had dissected. "You're right. Your frank is not from South Africa. All their franks have been cataloged since the coup d'etat in Pretoria. What you describe isn't anything they came up with, and it doesn't sound Israeli or Japanese. On the other hand, the way you describe Isham, it's pretty clear she's a Mossad assassin strain, something they co-opted after the invasion of Jordan. Hassan's Afghani, a strain they abandoned after the war, likes killing too much—"

Manny put his hand to his forehead and stopped FORESTS OF THE NIGHT

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talking. "I knew this would be bad. You should have seen that 747—"

"Are you all right?"

"I'll be fine, it's nine-thirty, you better read your messages if you want to meet your client on time. I'll drive you to Lakeview.''

Nohar had forgotten about the messages he'd had the cabbie fetch for him. So much had happened since—

He turned on the comm and got the ramcard out of his wallet. He put it in the card-reader. He called up the messages. There was a predictable—and out of date—message from Harsk about how, if he turned himself in, things would go easier for him. In retrospect, Harsk wasn't lying. Then there was a message from the late Desmond Thomson, the press secretary.

Thomson's face was sunken. The skin looked hollowed out and the vid anchorman's voice had turned into the voice of a jazz musician who smoked too much. "I have no idea what your interest in this is. Whatever you've uncovered, I am supposed to request that you refrain from making it public until Congressman Binder's press conference tomorrow."

Damn, if Term copied this message some time Tuesday night, when they wrecked his home comm . . .

He played the next message. It was John Smith, the frank, in the same unidentifiable location.

Light was glistening off the frank's pale polyethylene skin. The glassy eyes stared straight ahead. A pale, mittened hand adjusted the comm. Manny stared at the screen, fascinated by the figure of Smith.

*'It is worse than I think before. We meet in Lake-view and we must go public. I discover it is not one individual responsible. The whole company is involved and condones the violence. I cannot let them do this, the organization is not supposed to physically intervene. MLI is corrupted and we must make it known who they are and what they do here. I bring all the evidence I can carry to the meeting tomorrow."

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Nohar sat back. It looked like he didn't have to threaten the guy to get the full story.

Manny was looking at him now. "Didn't you say these Zipperheads had probably copied your messages off your home comm?' *

Oh shit, Terin had that message! They knew the meeting was at Lakeview, today. They blew a 747 to get Binder. They'd certainly be willing to ambush the frank—if MLI hadn't dealt with him already.

"Manny, we got to get to Lakeview now!"

The green Medical Examiner's van sped down the Midtown Corridor. Manny drove. Manny had wanted in. He was in, and God help him—Nohar caught the thought and told himself what he had told Stephie, figure of speech.

He almost missed telling Manny where to take the turn. It was the opposite side of Lakeview that he was used to using. Nohar yelled, and Manny skidded the van into the driveway of the Corridor gate. There was an immediate problem in that this was the Pink entrance, so the gate was closed and chained shut. No-har's normal entrance was the gate on the Jewish section, which was rusted open.

It was ten-fifteen. They didn't have time to circle around East Cleveland to get to the right gate.

In a pinch, Manny's van could double as a rescue vehicle—a half-assed rescue vehicle, but a rescue vehicle—so, it had its share of equipment to deal with these situations. Nohar pulled a pair of bolt cutters and got out of the van. He walked up to the wrought iron gate and looked through.

No pinks, no security, nothing but darkness, graves, and the surreal image of a tarnished-green bronze statue of a natural buck deer. It stared at the Corridor gate. Nohar cut the chain. They had twelve minutes to beat the frank. He pushed the gate open and waved Manny into the cemetery. The headlights targeted the FORESTS OF THE NIGHT 227

statue, and for a moment it looked like luminescent jade.

Nohar jumped into the passenger seat—pain shot through his right leg—and started yelling directions at Manny.

Lakeview was a large place, and it was a good thing Nohar knew its layout by heart. They were racing through at the maximum safe speed, and it felt to Nohar as if they were crawling up the hill that formed Lakeview's geography. When they crested the bluff where President James A. Garfield resided in his cylindrical medieval tomb, it was ten-twenty.

They rounded the turn on the other side of the concrete barrier on the Mayfield-Kenelworth gate, and Nohar saw a familiar green van in the distance. The bastard was early.