Finch by Jeff VanderMeer (18 page)

"There's a hole on the other side, too," his father said.

Finch turned the pipe around. Stared into another tiny piece of
magnifying glass. Black-and-white photos of twelve men and women
confronted him.

"Who are they?"

"Spies," his father said. "The owner of this pipe ran a network of spies.
The map on the other side is really a code. It tells the owner something
about the spies whose pictures you're looking at. Each one lives in a
different city marked on the map. But you have to know the code to
know which goes with which city. And what other information is being
given to you."

Finch took his eye away from the pipe to look at his dad. "How fun!"
he said, because he didn't know what to say.

"No," his father said, frowning. "No, it's not fun. Not really. It's deadly
serious." A look like he was trying to tell Finch something Finch just
couldn't understand at the time.

Finch remembers that pipe when he's working on his overlay. That
tiny view of a huge world, which makes him realize the limitations
of his map. That beyond it, beyond Ambergris, there's something
more. Though it's easy to forget.

It's the pipe he's thinking about as he enters the Spit with Wyte.
About those spies, who had led exciting, dangerous lives all across
the world. But who were still, at the end of the day, captured inside
a pipe.

Bound by rules.

Moved around a board against their will.

Or thought they were.

What's the difference?

hrough the doors of boats. Through many doors. Always with
sudden water between them. Gray, blue, black, depending on the
shifting clouds above. The distance wide enough to make them jump.
Then narrow as a line of blue. As the boats rocked, lashed together by
rope that groaned. A marsh smell. A fish smell. Mixed with the odd
old-new smell of paint curled back in a snarl or crisply flat.

Into spaces seeping water from old wounds, the texture of warped
planks beneath their feet weathered in a hundred ingenious ways.
Across decks that announced them through the creak caused by
their weight, wood singing a dull protest. Up or down steps always
too deep or too shallow.

Following the wide back of their silent guide, Wyte the worse off
for being taller, having to contort his frame into whatever shape
awaited him. The doors got smaller then larger, then smaller again.
Oval. Rectangular. Square. Inlaid with glass. Gone, leaving only
gaping doorway and a couple rusted hinges. Once, a flapping triangle
of canvas with an eye painted on it in green and red that seemed to
follow Finch's stumbling progress.

And what in Truff's name is this supposed to represent? The thought
came to Finch more than once, looking down at the whittled
wood from Bosun. The trap. The lizard caught in it. The carving
brought his thoughts to Sidle, made him feel, absurdly, like Bosun
had been inside his apartment. Who created such things? Who
had the time?

Bosun stopped suddenly, turned back to look at them from just
inside a doorway.

Wyte ran into Finch before he could stop himself. Lulled by the
stilted rhythm of their progress. Finch just able to stop falling.

"What? Are we there already?" Wyte asked, peering over Finch's
shoulder. Could feel his breath, hot and thick.

Bosun smiled. A thin smile. Nothing humorous about it.

They stood precariously outside the doorway, on a tiny deck, backs
to a cabin wall. A trough of water lapping between boats. A heron
croaking through the slate-gray sky.

"Toss your guns," Bosun said.

"Why should we?" Wyte asked.

"No guns allowed with Stark."

"Too bad," Wyte said.

Bosun said, "Drop them in the water. Or I'll leave you here."

Framed by the doorway, gray water shadows leaking all over him,
Bosun didn't look human. Didn't look real. Seemed to be receding
from them while all around the sounds of the Spit became stronger.
Like a drumbeat that faded in one place, picked up with a different
tempo in another.

Wyte said, "Again, why the fuck should we do that?"

"Because," Finch said, "we don't know where we are." And if he'd
wanted to kill us, he'd have done it already.

Bosun's smile widened while Wyte cursed, said, "Do you know who
we work for?"

We work for monsters. We work for ourselves.

As if in a dream, Finch watched himself toss his gun into the
water. It entered like a diver, head first. The water parted for it.
Disappeared without a splash. A kind of relief came over him. A kind
of acceptance. The gun had been nothing but trouble. The gun had always
caused problems.

Wyte gave Finch a look of betrayal. Hesitated. Bosun receded
further. Wyte could shoot Bosun. Then they'd be lost, in hostile
territory. Or Wyte could miss and Bosun would be gone anyway.
Or Wyte could get rid of his gun and Bosun would leave them. But
Finch didn't think that would happen.

He tugged the gun from Wyte's reluctant hands. Threw it in the
water as Wyte muttered, "A mistake, Finch. A mistake."

Finch demanded it of Bosun: "Stark."

"Stark," Bosun said, nodding.

Then Bosun was just a wide back again, a kind of door himself.
Leading them somewhere dangerous.

But a few minutes later, Bosun stopped again. This time inside an old
tugboat. Finch right there beside him, back sore from stooping. Wyte
behind them, still in the last, much larger boat. Exuding a muddled
aura of defeat.

Then he was gone. Finch could sense it. Wyte there, behind him.
Then not. A kind of wind or impact punching the air. A muffled shout.
Cut off. Finch turned and saw just the outline of doorways receding
in a ragged infinite number back the way they'd come. Nothing but
shadow otherwise. Whirled around to Bosun, deck rising and falling
beneath his feet.

Bosun stood there. Arms folded, watching.

Finch fought the urge to close the distance. To hurt Bosun. Fought
it. Knew that self-control would save his life. Maybe save Wyte's life.
Knew now, too, that Stark didn't give a shit about gray cap retaliation.
Didn't care that Heretic would be after him if he snuffed out two
detectives.

"Where's my partner? Where are you taking him?" Tried to keep his
voice level.

If you hurt him ...

Bosun shrugged, said, "Doesn't want to see him. Just you. Wyte's
not safe. We don't know where he's been. You'll see him later. Take
off your shoes."

"Take off my shoes?" It was unexpected enough to make Finch forget
Wyte for a moment.

"Shoes and socks. Need to see your feet. That going to be a
problem?"

"Why the fuck would I care about my shoes after giving up my gun?"

Over the side went Finch's shoes and socks. Stood there, hopping,
as he showed Bosun the bottom of first one foot, then the other.
Wondering where this would end. Furious, worried, scared.

Another part of him looked down from a great height, puzzled.
When did being a detective mean this? He was investigating a double murder. He was working for an occupying force that could make Stark
disappear in a burst of dandelion-like spores. And he didn't have his
shoes. He didn't have his socks. He didn't have his gun.

"Are we done?" Finch asked. "Is this almost over?"

Impassive bullet of a head swiveling toward Finch. Dark eyes
glinting. "Turn out your pockets."

"Why?"

Bosun pulled out his gun. "No good reason."

Finch raised his left arm, palm up. "I'll do it. I'll do it."

There was a lot more than he'd thought. A copy of the photo of
the murder victim. A folded up note from Sintra, the first and almost
only thing she'd ever written to him. Dear Finch-I made you coffee.
Thanks for a great night. Love, S. His current identity papers. A few
semi-worthless paper bills from before the Rising. A strange coin,
notched along the edges, that he'd kept for luck. A scrap of paper
with nonsense words written on it, an odd symbol on the back.

In the end, Bosun returned all of it to him.

"Worthless."

But he'd lingered on the scrap of paper. Far longer than necessary to
read it.

hirty minutes? Longer? Finch lost count of the doors. Lost count
ar didn't care. His back throbbed from hunching over. From
crawling, then climbing, Bosun's form always ahead of him. They
were in the heart of the Spit now. Bigger boats-almost ships-lay
near the center, places where you could forget you were on the water.
Masts rose up like barren trees. Warrens of rooms, through which
Bosun walked sure-footed, never losing his bearings.

Passed through a bar of sorts, with homemade booze in reused bottles.
Women flirted with dull, rumpled men with beards and strange black
hats. A few loners with a calculated threadbare appearance. Beyond
the bar, the sound of spirited bartering in back rooms for black market
goods. Selling guns, food, maybe even information.

Where was Wyte now? How far behind or ahead? Still alive, or
thrown over the side to follow their guns? Began to wonder if Wyte
would wind up like Bliss or like Bliss's men. Nailed to a wall? Bleeding
fungal blood?

Even stranger ideas began to enter his head. That Rath in her
basement, doling out information, was someone he'd made up out
of convenience. That Sintra had no mysterious life beyond his own.
That he'd written the words on the scrap of paper pried from the dead
man's hands. That the soreness around his neck came not from the
skery but from sleeping in the wrong position. That he would wake
up to find Sintra was his wife. The gray caps had never Risen. He still
worked for Hoegbotton & Sons as a courier, but Wyte was an obedient
wire-haired terrier he'd bought for Sintra. There was no Spit. No bay.
No towers.

Instead, they reached Stark's headquarters: through one last doorway,
hinges splinters of wood, the door missing. Ripped apart? How long ago?

Bosun straightened up, Finch beside him. Stepped into a room
aboard some kind of ferry. Passenger seats stripped out leaving the
metal skeletons of chairs. The high, curving ceiling showed in faded
paint a scene from an opera, people in balcony seats applauding. Below
that hung a chandelier from which almost all the glass was gone.

A long wide space stretched out before them. Like a dance floor.
Timbers stained with dark red swirls and smudges. The soft smell of
soap couldn't dull the sharp assault of the blood.

At the far end: a couple of chairs, a desk, and a large figure hanging
a painting on the wall. As they approached, Finch recognized the
painting as a reproduction. It showed the Kalif of another age
demanding fealty from a defiant Stockton king. Back when Stockton
had kings. Hunting dogs stood in the foreground, but fiendish, with
forked tongues and jowls curling back to reveal metal daggers. The
composition more surreal than photographic. All of it the echo of a
time lost to the present.

The large man nodded to them even as he kept moving the painting.
Trying to catch it on the nails in a wall covered with bullet holes and dark
bloodstains. Splatter had swept across the divide between wall and floor.

Finch noticed now the dark sheets in the farthest corner. Roughly
man-sized.

"You found Bosun, I see," the man said. A deep voice. "Or he found
you. Either way, you're here. Finally." The painting caught on the nails.
Held. "There."

The man turned toward them. "You can call me Stark."

Stark made a tall space look small. A height that warranted a girth
that could have been muscle or fat. Or both. The truth of it hidden
by a trench coat. Frankwrithe & Lewden army issue. With old medals
from the Kalif's empire pinned there: black glint with a hint of gold
against the steep gray of the trench coat. A hawk face, with dark pupils
swimming in too much white. A strong nose and a chin that jutted:
two halves of the same beak. A knife in his left boot sheathed in a
silver scabbard that shone as if polished every hour. Finch mistrusted
that knife immediately. Reminded him of the squeaky floors at 239
Manzikert Avenue. Look at the knife while the blow comes from somewhere
else. What else did the trench coat hide? A sword?