Daylight Runner (5 page)

“We'll take it from here.”

“I'd like to sit in, if you don't—” Mercier began.

“That won't be necessary, thank you.”

Sol glanced back at Mercier, understanding the insistent note. Mercier—an inspector in the CIS—had just been
tasked with delivering him. It was the Industrial Security Section that was in charge here. The inspector's face was frozen into a carefully neutral expression. He nodded and left, closing the door behind him. Sol turned to face the three men.

“Have a seat, Mr. Wheat,” the first one told him. “I'm Inspector Ponderosa; this is Sergeant Koenig and Detective Collins. We just want to have a word.”

Sol sat down in the chair nearest him; the sound of its legs scraping across the floor was very loud in the small room. Sizing up the officers as if they were opponents in the ring, Sol let his eyes wander from one to the next. Ponderosa was a middleweight, his athletic build accentuated by the wine-colored uniform and its black and silver trim. Under close-cropped, dense black hair, his rugged, good-looking face was spoiled by a mouth with the thin lips of a wound. Koenig was a light heavyweight, narrower than Ponderosa in build, but taller. Collins was short, squat, and burly, a heavyweight red-haired barrel of a man. The three officers studied him, and Ponderosa gave him a warm smile and took the chair opposite. He leaned forward, putting his elbows on the table.

“As I'm sure Inspector Mercier has told you, we're looking for your father,” he began. “When was the last time you had any contact with him?”

His voice had a slightly high-pitched quality to it. Sol could imagine it getting annoying very quickly.

“Wednesday morning—I told Mercier that already. I haven't seen him since then. Who's accusing him of murder?”

“I'll ask the questions,” Ponderosa chided him gently.

“Can't have you stealing my thunder, now can I? You saw him Wednesday morning, before you went to school, is that right? He was on his way to work? And if I'm not mistaken, he didn't come home that night or the following night. Am I right?”

Sol nodded.

“What about last night?”

“He…he didn't come home either. I didn't see him.”

Ponderosa's face was almost expressionless. There was still a smile playing on the corners of his mouth, but it was no longer a friendly expression.

“Have you had any contact with him at all since Wednesday? A phone call, a note to say where he was? Nothing?”

“No.”

The room was stifling. There was nowhere to look that wasn't solid and gray. Only the door: flat, featureless, and closed.

“You must have been worried when he didn't show up.” Still the semismile from Ponderosa, with no trace of humor in sight.

“He stays out some nights,” Sol said softly.

“Ah, yes. The ratting dens. I believe he's a regular vis
itor to the fights in the Filipino District as well. Likes to bet a bit, your father, doesn't he?”

Sol looked down at his hands then glanced toward the door. They weren't supposed to be allowed to interrogate him on his own like this, he was sure of it. He knew he should challenge them, but he couldn't summon up the nerve.

“We don't care about that kind of crap, Sol,” Ponderosa said with a dismissive wave of his hand. “We're just interested in anything your father might have said to you in the last few days. I can't believe he wouldn't have sent you some kind of message in that time. Not even a note? No phone call?”

“I said
no
.”

“What about his friends? Have you talked to any of them?” The ISS man stood up, walking around the table to bring his face closer to Sol's. “Who is he most likely to confide in, do you think? I'd like you to give us a list of his friends, workmates—anybody your father trusts. He's in real trouble here, Sol. We can help him, but we have to find him first. We think he's fallen in with some very nasty people. Help us find out who he might have talked to, and you'll help him.”

His father didn't trust anybody. Not really. He had a few friends, but Sol couldn't think of anyone who…Murder. His father was being accused of killing somebody. It hit home for the first time. Sol couldn't believe it;
Gregor got into fights sometimes—he was difficult to get along with—but he wouldn't kill anybody.

“How did it happen? The…the death,” Sol asked falteringly. “How do you know it was my dad? He wouldn't kill somebody, he just—”

“At four sixteen
P.M
. on Wednesday afternoon”—Ponderosa cut him off—“three witnesses say they saw your father severely beat Tommy Hyung—a fellow dome-maintenance technician—before throwing him off a catwalk into a piston well. The pistons were not operating at full speed, which is how they were stopped in time to save enough of Mr Hyung's body to be positively identified. Well, from his dental records, anyway.”

The other two men were standing against the walls on either side of Sol now, and he threw furtive looks up at them. He glanced at the door again. It was the only way out of the room, and all three men were between him and it now. The balls of his feet were pressed against the floor, his legs bouncing up and down restlessly. He had his fingers knotted together and he stared down at his hands, crushing his fingers against one another.

Mercier had said there was nothing to be scared of. Why had he said that? Sol wasn't being accused of anything; why would he be scared? His swollen nose itched, and he scratched the bridge of it, trying not to touch it where it was broken.

“I'm asking you for names, Sol.”

When he didn't look up, Ponderosa grabbed his chin and forced his head up.

“Listen to me when I'm talking to you!” the inspector snapped.

There was the sound of angry voices outside, and the door swung open. There was Ana Kiroa, with outrage written across her face. Mercier stood behind her, looking sheepish.

“What the hell is going on here?” she snarled. “This boy is sixteen years old! Who do you think you are, interrogating him without a guardian present? I'm going to have you all up on charges, you goddamned fascists! I want the name of your superior—I'll have the mayor herself down on you for this! Come on, Sol. You're getting out of here. These goddamned bullies can't question you without an adult here to represent you and they know it. And I'll be damned if I'm going to give them the chance after this.”

Sol was already standing up. Ana looked young and small standing among all these men, her outrage fierce but brittle. Her voice was shaking as she spoke. She could only be a few years older than he and yet she had put them all on the defensive.

At first, he couldn't understand how she had got there, but then he realized Mercier must have led her through.

“A clerical error, miss,” Ponderosa said, unabashed. He threw a hostile glare at Mercier. “We're sorry if there's been any misunderstanding. The boy was just—”

“The
boy
was just
leaving
!” she barked. “Come on, Sol.”

He let her lead him out, looking back just once at the three police officers.

“Keep walking,” Ana muttered under her breath.

“We'll be in touch, Mr. Wheat,” Ponderosa called after him. “Once all this has been cleared up.”

“Keep walking,” she repeated.

She had her hand on his elbow and was striding toward the entrance. They passed the desk, drawing a few curious looks, and then came out onto the street.

“Mr. Wheat!” Mercier shouted, and Sol turned around.

The inspector was holding his school bag.

“Your bag. You almost forgot your bag.”

“Thanks,” Sol mumbled, taking it from him.

The gun was still in the bottom of it—he could tell by the weight. They hadn't searched it.

“Apologies about the, eh…the mix-up,” Mercier said humbly. “Should've ensured a proper procedure. I was assured that the ISS had permission from the school and it was all aboveboard. Regrettable mistake. It won't happen again.”

“You've got that right!” Ana snorted.

They walked away, looking for a tram stop.

“Thanks,” Sol breathed. “I wasn't sure what to do. I mean, they were police…and I…” He was shaking, and his voice was catching in his throat. “They said Dad killed somebody.”

“Jesus. Those jerks really did a number on you.” She shook her head. “They can't question you about a library fine without a guardian present, let alone a goddamned murder! Goddamned fascists!”

He suddenly noticed that she was breathing hard too, and she was sweating. She was frightened. He realized it must have taken some nerve for her to barge right in there and confront those cops in their own station.

“How did you know where I was?” he asked her.

“A man called the school, said you'd been picked up. He said you'd been taken here.”

“Who? A cop?”

Ana frowned. “I don't know; at the time I assumed he was, but now I'm not sure. He didn't sound like somebody who thought much of the police.”

Sol thought about the gun in his bag. And the note from his father. He and Ana came to a tram stop and looked down the road. Sol slipped his hand into his school bag and found the hard shape of the gun wrapped in the scarf.

“Where
is
your father?” Ana inquired. “I presume they haven't got him?”

“No. And I haven't seen him since Wednesday. That's when they said…they said he did it. He killed a guy.”

“We'll go back to school until dismissal,” she told him. “You shouldn't be on your own. Do you have any family you can stay with?”

Sol shook his head.

“Well, you'd better stay with me, then. Those thugs might try to pick you up again. They're not above tossing your rights aside if they think they can get away with it. You can sleep on the couch.”

“Okay. Thanks.” Her back was turned to him as she looked down the road for the tram, so Sol allowed himself the barest hint of a wry smile as he spoke. He was finally getting to spend the night at Ana Kiroa's, and all it took was his father to be accused of murder. It was turning out to be an insane week.

W
ITH
M
S
. K
IROA GONE
, her students had a free class. The principal had told them to study, but as soon as he left, they had proceeded to have a lively discussion about why Sol might have gotten busted.

“This is a symptom of the authoritarian system,” Ube Lamont declared.

“My ass,” said Faisal. “I bet he's been done for dealing.”

“I've never even seen him
smoking
, let alone dealing,” Cleo responded.

“Not stem, I mean gulp. I bet he's running a still. Or his dad is. His dad's into all sorts of stuff.”

“You don't even know his dad,” one of the other students put in.

“My uncle knows one of the guys his dad works
with,” Faisal replied. “And he says Gregor Wheat's always down in the lower levels. They all are, those daylighters. They work hard and they play hard. I say more power to 'em.”

“Who'd believe what your uncle says?” Ube grunted.

“I've seen him out on the dome platforms on Sundays. He's a Dark-Day Fatalist.”

“So what if he is?” Faisal snapped defensively. “Doesn't mean he isn't right!”

Cleo listened to the discussion bounce back and forth across the class as Sol's reputation was remolded to suit his new place in the criminal fraternity. There was an unmasked respect for his new status as a wanted suspect, but also a malicious glee at the trouble he was facing.

She and Sol had been real friends once, back when they both did gymnastics. Not childhood sweethearts or anything like that, just two kids who had a good laugh together. But he'd changed after his mother and sister had died. These days he was…Well, he was all right. He just didn't really click with anyone, didn't trust anyone. Which made him all the more mysterious now that he had been busted.

She couldn't help herself; she was dying to know the full story.

“Listen to you, all of you!” she cried out, standing up to get their attention. “You're like a bunch of old women,
the way you're going on! Sol's probably just broken one of the thousands of damn rules they stick us with, and they've dragged him off to make an example of him as a warning to the rest of us. It could have been any one of us. They just want everyone to be scared, so we'll behave the way they want us to. It's not about
him
; it's about controlling the way
we live
.”

Some of the others nodded. Many of them felt that their lives were being manipulated by the people in authority. It was a common subject of Cleo's music, and she knew it always touched a nerve. She loved the way they looked at her when she talked like this; with passion and respect in their eyes.

“Look at the way we were cut out of the end-of-year gig,” she continued. “Why? Because they don't like our music. And why don't they like it? Because when we're singing our songs, we can say what we damn well please. Sol's just the latest victim.”

“Maybe it's not the police at all,” Faisal spoke up.

“Maybe he's been ‘disappeared' by the Clockworkers.”

“Oh, shut up, Fai. God, you're worse than Ube sometimes.”

There was a lull into silence as the class tried to come up with a new subject for conversation.

“Hey, you said Sol's dad is a daylighter?” somebody piped up.

“Yeah.” Ube sighed.

“Wasn't there a daylighter murdered the other day? Somebody threw him into a piston well. He got all mashed up!”

Suddenly the subject had been reopened, and a new flurry of theories ricocheted around the room. By the time Ms. Kiroa had returned with Sol, the image of his father had already been re-formed: a player in the twilight underworld who had crossed the city mafia and earned himself a swim with the pistons. And now his son was carrying his debt, his card marked, his days numbered, his life lived by the ticking of a clock.

When he walked in with Ms. Kiroa, the class looked at him with a newfound respect and a profound sympathy.

 

Sol circled his father in a clear space on the roof of their building. Barely twelve years old, he was already up to his dad's shoulder, and strong for his age. He had his guard up, chin down, elbows tucked as he darted back and forth, trying to find an opening in Gregor's guard. Once, this would have been a one-sided game, but his father was having to work now. It was just touch-sparring, and Sol was getting quicker. They weren't wearing gloves, and Gregor's big meaty hands were open and loose. Sol tried a jab, and then an uppercut, but Gregor knocked them away.

“You're too tense,” he told his son. “It's slowing you down. Loosen up.”

Sol feinted a left hook and nearly got a right hook to Gregor's temple.

“Better!” said his father, smiling.

They moved around each other, both light on their feet, both relishing the game. Sol pulled his fist in close to his head, and Gregor's left hand whipped out and slapped his son's right. Sol's hand caught his own temple, and he winced.

“Don't hold your hands too close to your head, especially when you're not using gloves,” Gregor told him.

“They can hurt you as much as your opponent's can. It's all very well if you're both wearing nice big soft gloves, but with bare knuckles, give yourself space. Got it?”

Sol nodded. He loved this; it was only when they were training that he got to spend time alone with his dad. The apartment was so small, he and Nattie were still sharing a room, even though she was fourteen now and showing far too much interest in boys. Gregor would come home after work, and they would have dinner, and he would sit and browse the web for a while. He might talk to Sol, but it wasn't the same. It was family talk: “How was school?” or “What did you get up to today?” And he never talked about his day at work. They didn't ask either; nobody was very interested in what a crane driver did all day.

Sol moved his hands out from his head a little, and they circled for another few moments. Then he aimed a touch at Gregor's exposed forehead.

Gregor's head came forward at the same moment, and Sol's knuckles cracked painfully against the bone of his father's brow.

“Ow!”

“Oh, sorry, son. Show me your hand….” Gregor examined his knuckles. “You'll be all right. You have to be careful hitting the forehead—it's the hardest part of the head. You can break your hand on it. In the prize-fights, some of the guys actually head-butt fists to do just that. Maddest thing you ever saw. Come on, let's call it a day. Your mother'd have my ass if you came down with a broken hand.”

Putting an arm around his son's shoulders, Gregor steered him toward the stairs.

“Have you ever been in a prizefight, Dad?” Sol asked.

“Naw, fighting for money's a mug's game, son. You'll always lose more than you gain. Always use your head first; I don't want to hear about you using this stuff in school, you hear me? You only fight when you have to, but you need to know how, and that's why I teach you.”

Sol nodded. He'd already been in a few fights in school, and he'd won them all, but now he thought it would be better if Gregor didn't know about them.

“You have to learn to look after yourself, because nobody's going to do you any favors in this life,” Gregor went on. “You've got your family, but apart from that, you're on your own. You can't rely on anybody. You
should never give your trust freely, Sol. You've got to make people earn it. You hear me?”

“Sure, Dad.”

 

Four years later, in Ana Kiroa's apartment, Sol lay awake, his mind racing. Mixed in with older recollections were tumbling images of the events of the last few days: the crane accident, the attack in his apartment, the interrogation at the police station, and, most of all, his father's “alleged” crime.

Part of him believed it. Gregor got into fights sometimes; he knew that. He took arguments seriously, and he hung around with men who got physical when things didn't go their way. Maybe this one had gone too far; Gregor wouldn't murder somebody, but if that guy Hyung had pulled a knife or something, then Gregor might have had no choice.

Sol could imagine his father killing under those circumstances, and despite himself, he felt a little thrill of excitement at the thought. His father could be a killer. Part of Sol had always wanted that kind of reputation: the reluctant killer. “I didn't want to kill that man, but it was him or me.” That was what it meant to be hard. And he had always known Gregor was a hard man.

Sol was always a little uneasy sleeping in somebody else's place. It wasn't insecurity; it was the idea of being indebted to somebody. Accepting hospitality meant you
weren't going it alone. And going it alone was important to Sol. He thought of Ana asleep in her room and tried not to let his imagination run away with him. It had been awkward earlier in the evening, with her roommates. An evening with three teachers. One of them, Candice, was quite cute. Dark, and with a mass of black hair around a lively face. But not as beautiful as Ana.

They were funny, the three women. At first they'd tried to act like teachers, all strict and proper. But being at home was obviously too much for them, and they'd relaxed and changed completely, chatting and making one another giggle. Maybe living with Gregor meant Sol was only used to a man's world, but really, they were so…
girlie
.

He thought back to the time when he'd first seen Ana like that. He'd been out running late one night, and as he passed the entrance, he'd seen her coming out of a nightclub. She was dressed in a tight short skirt and a white blouse that showed her full figure. She was laughing with friends, all of them sweating from dancing in the hot atmosphere of the club. He had watched them walk away as he stood in the shadows with his hood up.

Memories continued to weave through his mind as he slowly drifted off to sleep. It was Sunday tomorrow. He would go up to the West Dome Depot and talk to some of the people his father worked with. Maybe they would be able to tell him what had happened to Gregor—perhaps
one of them was a witness to the fight. Sleep came in an unsettled churning of wrecked machinery and claustrophobic, gray walls. Dark figures silhouetted against the living room window faded to nothing, but the sense of their presence continued to hang there, long after they were gone.