Couldn’t bring himself to say “sorry” again, so he said nothing. “Maybe you’re asking the wrong question. Bellum omnium contra omnes.” Rathven said it like an echo from another world. As if it had no meaning at all.
“How do you mean?”
“I mean, does it matter what it means? Why did he have words on a scrap of paper when he died? Pretend for a second that it’s any word. Any word you know: city, cow, apartment, saucepan, book, paragraph.”
“A code? A password?” Felt foolish for not seeing it before. “Might not mean anything at all.”
She pointed at him. “And that’s what makes it valuable.”
“But why? Why have part of it in gibberish?”
She shrugged, gave him an impish look. “I’m not the detective.”
I’m not a detective either.
“We should be detectives together.” Relaxing into their time-worn call and response.
* * *
“They’re here and then they’re there, and sometimes they don’t know the difference, and if you let them, they’ll keep making that the whole point of everything they’re doing to the city. They’ll break you down by not telling you what you already know, should already know, because that’s the way they operate. Knowledge is the lack they seek in us, and when they find it, they turn the key, open a window, and it’s all back to where we started.”
Finch endured the rant from the madman outside the hotel, then made his way back to the station.
The suspect from yesterday wasn’t in the cage. Instead, an old woman with light blue eyes staring from a face crisscrossed with wrinkles. As if from behind a fence of her own making. She could’ve been a thousand miles away for all the help Finch could give her. Ignored her as a casualty. Ignored Albin quietly feeding her questions like he was at a zoo. Continued on to his desk.
More of the same from the detectives around him. Indifference, absence, fear, boredom. Blakely and Gustat as always inseparable, whether in agreement or argument. Skinner out on a call, about to tell a man his missing wife was probably dead. Dapple drawing something on a piece of paper. Lost in another world.
Wyte had turned away from him for once and was hunched over as if Finch were trying to cheat from him on a test. He looked bulky, blotchy.
Finch leaned over. “Don’t let your pencil burn up.”
Wyte grimaced, said, “I’m busy, Finchy. Really. I am.” And kept writing. It looked incomprehensible to Finch.
“Last will and testament?” Wished he hadn’t said it.
“Shut up, Finchy,” Wyte said. Still scribbling.
“I’m not pathologically reporting on evidence I haven’t gathered yet,” Finch said, “and they haven’t come to cart me away.”
“You’re just lucky,” Wyte mumbled.
A light green stain began to spread across the back of Wyte’s blue shirt.
Finch cleared space on his desk. Brought the typewriter over. One of the best models Hoegbotton had ever made. A hulking twenty-pound monster that reminded Finch of just what Ambergris could accomplish back in the day. Hundreds of thousands had been shipped out to cities up and down the River Moth. “Combat-ready” went the slogan, and it wasn’t a joke.
Looked at his notes. Didn’t want to tell Heretic about everything he’d found. Not until he knew more about what the words meant. Discounted the symbol entirely. Even though it had burned its way into his head. “Focus on what you can control. The rest is just distraction.” Something his father used to say.
What could he report that was solid? A few moments gazing into space. Then he started to type. Stopped when he got to a part that bothered him.
Both memories contained images of a desert fortress. Both memories contained images of falling.
From a great height? Maybe.
Finch took a sip of his coffee. He’d washed the cup beforehand to make sure no fungus, visible or invisible, had taken root. Sometimes the gray caps did strange things with the mugs during the night.
Both memories contained images from the HFZ.
I think. How would I know, never having been there?
From analyzing
“My memory of…”
both memories it seems certain that the gray cap
Fanaarcessitti? Fanarcesittee? Always typos in these reports.
that the fannarcessitti was in pursuit of the man. But I don’t know why.
Then Sintra was kissing him and he was kissing her. Tongue curled against tongue. The salt of her in his mouth. His hand between her muscular thighs. A hunger. A need. Something that didn’t exist outside the sanctuary of his apartment.
Recognized the strength of that need, the danger of it, on the way to the station.
He exhaled sharply. That way lies madness.
More to the point, he shouldn’t even have been on this case. Not many people made the distinction between what detectives did and what Partials or gray caps did. Never do police work anywhere near your own area. Never let the people where you lived know your job. And yet, 239 Manzikert Avenue was only a mile from the hotel. Why had Heretic put him in charge? Didn’t trust Wyte anymore? Or was there some other reason? Leaned forward in his chair. Had to make some progress. Just dive into it.
The man’s memories had more coherence than the fannarcessitti’s memories. I could not tell if this was because the fanarcesitti’s mind had been more confused and disjointed at the time of death or because, as a human, I could more easily read the man’s memories.
Nothing during the experience brought me any closer to knowing the identity of the man.
I wish the memory bulbs had been more useful.
But he had seen one person he recognized. He leaned back and thought about Ethan Bliss. What he knew. What he didn’t know.
First, the impersonal. Bliss had fought for Frankwrithe & Lewden during the War of the Houses. Behind the scenes. No one seemed to know for sure what he did for F&L. Secret ops? Bliss had joined the political wing. Risen quickly to become F&L’s number one man in Ambergris. Had been instrumental in forging the alliance between the F&L and the Lady in Blue. Then, right before the gray caps took over, he dropped out of sight. Probably returned to his native Morrow, only to reappear a couple of years ago. Because of how Morrow had suffered from the gray caps having cut off the flow of water? Ships suddenly resting on a dry riverbed. Trade disrupted. Drinking water scarce.
This new Bliss had reverted to spying. Had connections to the Spit. But hadn’t made common cause with the rebels, according to Finch’s informants.
Although, when you paid informants in food and clothing, how valuable could your information be? More valuable? Less?
All of this made Bliss of special interest to any detective who hated foreigners messing around in Ambergris business. Finch could’ve used Bliss as a snitch, perhaps, but hadn’t. He was wary of who Bliss might be working for now. If he worked for anyone other than himself.
Second, the personal. Bliss had been at his father’s house a couple of times when Finch was maybe twelve, thirteen. He could recall looking through the kitchen window to see Bliss and his father in the garden. The smaller man compact, unmoving. His father unruly, animated, throwing his arms about, pointing at Bliss and demanding something. And yet, seeing the two figures there like that, Bliss had seemed in his silence and self-possession to be the one in charge.