Asimov's Science Fiction: April/May 2013 (12 page)

They got beyond that, talked about football and marathons, pain and achievement. Lots of Elefants met their demise.

After dinner the women took off up the street by moonlight, leaving Chris and Tim to clean up.

"That's what's really meant when Tim says he's cooking," Marilee grinned over her shoulder as she rolled out the door. They were gone a long time. Tim had shown Chris his bed and was in his own by the time Marilee got back. He lay quietly on his side while Marilee did her bathroom routine. He heard the whisper of her chair in the darkness as it approached the bed and heard her small grunt as she effected the transfer. Her hand was at his face, lightly touching his cheek, and he could feel her warm breath.

"Bente will be on her own over the weekend," she said. "I'd like to ask her to stay with us."

Tim had penciled in Thursday as a time for preparing the apartment and assigning stakeout and backup support to the street outside and in the building. Then there was the formality of obtaining a warrant. Tim had briefed Garrety, whose staff would take care of this. And indeed there was a handwritten note on Tim's desk when he arrived, summoning him to Garrety's office.

The Chief Homicide Detective waved Tim to a seat and started right in. The subject was not that of the arrest warrant.

"You know a Jennifer Cartwright?"

Tim took a calming breath and exhaled. "She's a former client of my wife's. I've never met her."

"She's filed a complaint. Says you called her in the middle of the night and threatened her. Did you?"

"Threatened her? No. And what's the middle of the night?"

Garrety looked at Tim intently, with no trace of weariness in his voice or manner.

"Don't play word games with me, Tim," he said. "Did you call her?"

Tim looked at Garrety straight on. "For the record, Frank—no, I didn't."

Garrety made a steeple of his hands on the desk before him and looked at it, as if the answers to life's mysteries lay within. He elevated his gaze back to Tim.

"I've known you a long time, Tim. I remember your first days in the department. You had a quizzical air about you then. You don't now. But then and now I've pegged you for an honest man and a cop who never dodged responsibility. You wouldn't lie to me, would you?"

Tim paused a moment to pick his words, something he wasn't usually good at.

"Frank, these years in a department under your command have taught me some things. One of them is that a lie in a good cause is a far lesser offense than the crimes that this new society visits on us every day. Killing is everywhere, and so is gratuitous hurt on a lesser scale. Some of us need an outlet when it impacts someone we love."

Garrety nodded. "I was at your wedding. That was a happy time."

"And at Marilee's hospital bed with me, an unhappier one. I've never forgotten that."

Garrety nodded again.

"Paul Hansill won't be so understanding," he said. "Lucky for you I'm here for another six months. Now get back to some real work."

Thursday afternoon Tim and the two Danes toured the apartment. The front door opened directly into the living room, affording a clear view and also a clear line of fire. The living room was laid out with a sofa and coffee table grouping as one anchor and a combination desk/drafting table as the other. An imposing array of scattered papers set the tone of a work place as well as one of entertainment.

The place was meant for living, with clean linens and plenty of thick towels. The early hour of their Friday appointment mandated their overnight presence. Bente and Chris opted to share the room with two beds, leaving Tim the master bedroom.

They met with the Department's logistics coordinator, who assured them that the refrigerator would be well stocked with fresh juice, milk and other breakfast essentials. Even Tim's favorite breakfast cereal and some cinnamon rolls. He raised an eyebrow at the Danes' request for croissants, but assured them that he could handle that, too.

Then came the more serious work of requisitioning power company and UPS trucks and the police personnel who would man them, setting up communications networks, and running through alternate plans of action depending on all conceivable scenarios. It was late in the afternoon before they finished and had stowed their own bags.

Time for winding down. Tim took Chris and Bente to the Buena Vista for a couple of final rounds. The sun slanted in through the large plate glass windows facing the bay and glasses held high to accept that infusion of gold. The mood maintained through dinner.

Then back to the apartment and an early bedtime. Tim turned out the bed light and called Marilee. It felt good to lie in the dark as he spoke to her. Part of him could pretend that she was just a touch away.

They'd all set their alarms, Tim the earliest. Bed was something to be cherished on days like this. He had given himself enough time to lie in bed in wakefulness, giving some thought and focus on Marilee and his love for her. He replayed in his head a memory of a Trinity Alps backpacking trip and its lovemaking session by a cataract and the still pool at its base. Tastes and feel of salty skin, slick and pheromone-laden juices, and a cold plunge after.

Two more clocks buzzed and clanged almost in tandem. More evidence that the two Danes thought alike. Tim threw off the covers. Time for an urban shower and its concluding cold needle spray to set him on the treacherous path of the day.

Coffee, cinnamon rolls, and croissants in the kitchen. Meanwhile, an array of plainclothes cops reported in from their sites within and outside the building—pretend UPS drivers, PG&E repairmen, building janitors.

"These carpets really do need cleaning," Juul said, eyeballing a coffee stain and matching it to the brew in his hand. "Maybe we should let our man do the job before taking him."

"Not funny," Bente said, and paused a moment. "Or maybe it is."

At 8:50 Sandowsky's voice crackled over the radio from the PG&E truck. "Our man's here. Found a parking place right in front and is starting to unload his gear."

"Got it," Tim said. "Juul's going to headset now, and is taking it with him."

"A parking place!" Bente said. "He probably thinks it's his lucky day. Let's hope it's not."

Juul pushed himself away from the table and took his plate to the sink. He refilled and held onto his coffee cup. "Time for me to disappear into the bathroom."

Tim took his coffee over to the desk and sat down in the architect's chair behind it. A sheet of paper drifted over the edge as he cleared off space for his coffee cup, and he picked it up and pretended to study it. The doorbell rang.

Bente rose and went to the door.

"Mrs. Abramson? I'm Pat Roberts from Atlas."

Tim looked up from his paperwork at a face he'd seen before, perhaps a bit more weathered, perhaps a bit more pouchy under the eyes. Lips as thin as he remembered. Same shortwaisted jacket, with a different patch.

Tim laid down his busywork and stood up.

"My husband, Tim Abramson," Bente said, standing aside as Roberts moved forward.

"Hi," Tim said, arm outstretched and his mind in takedown mode. "I'll get my papers together and be out of your way. Late for the office."

"No problem," Roberts said, reaching for the handshake. Tim took the hand, pivoted on his right foot, and slid his left hand toward Roberts' elbow, going for a reverse arm bar. Roberts grunted, stumbled forward toward his knees, but planted himself and recovered. He pulled free, pivoted and delivered a sidekick to Tim's belly.

Time and motion slowed for Tim. A solar plexus hit and momentary paralysis. Tim hoped it was momentary. His body was frozen but not his mind, and that centered on one thought:
Shit! This guy does karate!

Behind Roberts Bente had slammed shut the front door and put her back to it. Juul burst out of the bathroom, gun in hand. Roberts dove over the coffee table to meet him, battering his way through pottery and glass. Juul fired once. The two men went to the floor in a heap, Roberts' charging momentum putting him on top. Juul's gun skittered away, bouncing once on the shattered wreckage of the coffee table and then to the floor.

Tim found himself on his knees willing himself to get up, paralyzed and without even Marilee's skill to overcome it. He was looking at an unscripted replay of the Telegraph Hill scene of eight years ago.

Juul and Roberts were thrashing around on the floor. Roberts may have been hit, but it wasn't stopping him. He was on top of Juul, his hands inside his shirt collar in a crosshands grip, torquing his wrist bones across the Dane's carotid arteries in a choke. If he could hold it for ten more seconds, Juul would black out.

A flash of color. Bente Flindt was past Tim, moving fast. She had the gun, stepped up and leveled it at the back of Roberts' neck. She shook her head, lowered her aim and shot Roberts in the back of his left knee. He grunted and released his hold, reaching instinctively behind him and turning around.

Bente shot him again, in the right kneecap. This time Roberts shrieked, a bull's bellow of pain and rage. He rolled around, trying for escape from the agony and finding none. His cries continued, short and gasping and high pitched.

Juul was on his feet and beside Bente with Tim—able to move at last—at his shoulder. Bente handed Juul his gun without looking at him, like a relay runner making a blind pass of the baton. She had no thoughts or empathy for Tim or Juul in this moment. Her eyes were her recording device. They fixed intently on Roberts, and they never wavered.

Throttling back and gearing down.

Sounded like a country music refrain.

Well, they were in the country now, and doing their best at it with a Sunday picnic lunch in the Napa Valley. Behind them was a Saturday of kayaking. Bente had kayaked in Greenland and Patagonia, and appreciated a vista lacking the hazards of ice floes. They'd finished with an outdoor dinner on the piers of Tiburon, an occasion used by the women to map their Sunday morning run. Tim still held clear in memory the visual shard of Marilee's tight copper curls and Bente's fine ash blond hair almost touching as they bent over a topo map to lay out their route. And, later, the flushed, laughing presence that they shared and exuded on their return.

Tim poured the chardonnay.

"You must do this winery tour with every visitor from outside California," Bente said. "Don't you get tired of it?"

"No. How was the run?"

"Great," Marilee said. "We got to talk a lot, too. One of the things we worked over was getting you and me to talk more. Then we met Betty Chow on the trail." Her voice took on a sharp edge. "She got me thinking about getting you to talk less."

Tim looked at her. He started to speak, thought about those last few angry words, and shut up. Where did this unlooked for burst of rage come from? He was about to find out.

"Betty told me that Jenny Cartwright is mouthing off to everybody that you called her in the middle of the night and cursed her out. And that she's filed a complaint against you with the Department. Why did you do such a thing? And why didn't you tell me about the fallout? I mean, I'm your wife, aren't I?"

A lot of questions there. Tim settled for answering the last two.

"You sure are my wife. The only one I love. I didn't want to burden you."

Marilee nodded. The tight lines at the corner of her mouth softened.

"Bente made me realize something I hadn't thought about," she said. "You've got concerns, maybe even fears, and I haven't been paying attention."

"Your job isn't to worry about me," Tim said. "It's to work your way back."

"And what's your job?"

"To support you. To keep you up."

"And to shield me from the world?"

"The jerks, and thoughtless idiots, yes."

"You can't do it, Tim. They'll always be there. They were there before I was shot."

"But they couldn't hurt you the way they can now. Look what that asshole Jenny Cartwright did!"

"So I was pissed and a little down. That's short term. I can handle Jenny Cartwright. I don't need you to do it for me. The Jenny Cartwrights of this world will never drive me over the edge, and that's what Bente thinks you fear. That I'll kill myself."

There. It was out, an unwelcome specter at the feast. Tim found it hard to say the words. But he tried.

"Yes. There's been moments when I've been afraid that you might... do that."

Marilee reached over and took his hand. He responded by gripping it fiercely.

"My love—I'm
not
going to do that. It's not the way I react to a challenge. I can tell you that it's not how the other paras at the rehab center think, and its not how Bente tells me paras think at all."

"That's right," Bente said. "Would it surprise you to learn that few paras and quads think of suicide as a viable option? You hear that view from people who've never been there, so how would they know? The kind that'll say, 'you know, if I couldn't move my legs or have sex'—and they don't know anything about that either—'I wouldn't want to go on.'"

Tim nodded. "I had a 'friend' tell me that I should prepare and strengthen myself if Marilee should want to kill herself, and not hold it against her."

Marilee snorted. "Some friend! That's not how I think."

"Maybe not ten years ago," Tim said. "But now we're assured of a new life coming up down the timeline. It's not a choice between this life and none. Millions ask themselves why they'd linger on in poverty or sickness, and opt out."

"And millions don't because there's zest and value in what remains. People we love and care about—like you. New challenges. Doing a marathon—on legs or in a chair. Tomorrow's sunsets. Today's wineries and sourdough lunches and new friends like Bente that we'd never enjoy if we opt out early. And I won't!"

Tim wrestled with the turmoil. For the first time in his life he didn't try to hide it. "I was so afraid of losing you."

"There are always losses," Bente said. "Wouldn't you expect Marilee to go on if she lost you?"

"I'd want her to."

"Well, she'll go on without the use of her legs. That's Marilee."

"I've lost my legs," Marilee said. "How do you think I'd handle losing
you?
That's the stuff that scares me shitless. You're busy saving lives—trying to get creeps like that rug cleaning bastard to trial alive rather than dead—and you almost get yourself killed."