Finch by Jeff VanderMeer (23 page)

The Photographer would be coming up soon. Finch had knocked
on his door on the way up. Thin shadow through slit of door. Pale face
rising from someplace submerged to meet his request. Told him that
what he wanted would take thirty, forty minutes.

Too restless to sit. Hands in the pockets of his jacket. Left hand
clenched around a piece of paper, a timeline:

Stark arrives-disappearing door-gray cap tortured-two murdersstrange phrase on scrap of paper-Bliss-men murdered-Bliss
disappears-two towers near completion-Stark gives us informationHeretic presses re the case ...

How much of it was really connected?

Agent #2: For the record, the Subject drew a symbol on the table. In
some sort of golden dust. Kind of a half-circle then a circle then a line
with another line across it. Then two more half-circles at the end. I'll
draw it later.

Now he had to reconsider the gray symbol on the torn piece of
paper. Had preferred the case when it all seemed to be about Bliss.

Within the hour, he'd know the identity of the dead man. Part of
him wanted to know. Part of him thought he wasn't going to like
the answer.

He'd included almost everything in the report for Heretic except
the tortured gray cap. Put some heat on Stark. And nothing about
Rathven. After all, Finch hadn't even spoken to her yet. But he'd
had to mention the words on the piece of paper. Called it a possible
password.

Wyte had returned before Finch had filed the report, with nothing
to add but a bad mood. Looking like shit again. His informant had
found nothing at the address, because the building had burned to
the ground. No witnesses. "Nothing except this." Wyte had tossed a
carving onto Finch's desk. Crudely like a gray cap. Along with some
information from his informant: Bosun was Stark's younger brother.
Known in Stockton as a brawler and boozer. Interesting, but what to
do with it? Stark was still a question mark.

The hatch behind him opened. Out unfolded the gawky frame of
the Photographer. Once upright, he walked across to Finch. Holding
something that seemed to absorb the light in his long fingers. Compact.
Functional. Deadly.

"Here, take it," the Photographer said. As if Finch needed
prompting.

Finch loved the weight as his right hand closed over it. Had a
cold, comforting heft. A Lewden Special: a vicious snub-nosed semiautomatic. He'd used one during the wars. Taken it off a dead man.
Liked it. Liked it almost too much. Could reload quickly. Accurate fire.
Used bullets that ended things. Bullets that exploded inside the body.
Would cause even a gray cap an acute case of indigestion. Finch hadn't
expected something this good.

Gave the Photographer a sly look. "What, exactly, did you do before
the Rising?"

On the Photographer a smile looked grim. "I took photos." No
other information was forthcoming.

Finch looked at him for a moment, then dropped it. "Ammo?"

"Yes," the Photographer said. Handed over ten clips. Twenty
bullets in each.

Finch's eyebrows rose. He'd only asked for five clips. Looked at the
Photographer as if to say What do you know that I don't?

"How much?"

"Nothing now. Maybe a favor, later."

"Just make sure to ask while I can still grant favors." Wry laugh.

"Or while I still need them." The Photographer's expression revealed
neither humor nor the lack of it.

Listening with only one ear. Thoughts wandering back to the
transcript. The two towers. A strange door. The rebels have a weapon.

Which rebels? came a question from a voice in his head. The ones in
Ambergris or the ones in the HFZ?

They turned to watch the city at dusk. The unexpected
phosphorescence in places. As if the sun's death throes. The now-dull
green glow rippling from the bay. The towers were still being worked
on nonstop. Finch could almost imagine them complete now.

"What do you think the towers are for?" Finch asked the
Photographer.

A gleam of interest entered the Photographer's dead black eyes.
"Sometimes I dream. I dream it's a giant camera. And it's taking
pictures of places we can't see."

Rathven let him in without a word. She locked the door behind them
quickly.

"There have been strangers in the building the last couple days," she
told him.

"I know," he said. Some of them may even have been here to visit
you. Glad of the weight of the gun in his jacket pocket. Trust wasn't
something Finch gave up lightly. But he was willing to give it up.

"Why do you think they're here?"

"No idea." Not entirely true.

The water had receded for the moment. Leaving odd marks on
the floor and walls beyond the main room that gave evidence of
tides and eddies. Remains of minerals. Remains of books that hadn't survived. A broom leaning against the wall, used to sweep away
water. The stacks and stacks of books. That odd darkness of a tunnel
leading ... where? And where did she sleep?

Rathven took two books from an old sofa chair. Put them on the
table. An old oil lamp flickered across the books, which were tattered
and stained. Mold and worms had been at them. A thick mustiness
made Finch sneeze. The gray caps' ridiculous list lay sprawled beneath
the table.

She asked him to sit. He didn't like that the chair was so comfortable.
Felt like he could fall asleep in it. Wanted to ask, in a conversational
way, "So, did a man named Bosun visit you? Maybe a man named
Stark?" But didn't. That conversation could wait. As for warning her,
she had plenty of reasons to be careful already.

She pulled up an old wooden chair. Turned it around, leaning
her arms against the back. Looking tense. Unsettled. The straight,
unflinching stare she gave him undermined by quick glances toward
the tunnel. Was she expecting someone to appear?

"Do you need tea or coffee?" she asked. He only liked tea now for
some reason, but wanted neither at the moment.

"I'm tired, Rath. I'm not in the mood. What did you find out?"

Rathven winced. "Just the information, right?"

"What's wrong?" he asked, feeling he'd insulted her. "Something's
wrong."

She stared at him with those large hazel eyes. "You're not going to
like what I found out."

Finch laughed. Until the tears came. Doubled over in the grip of
the chair. "I'm not going to like what you found out? I'm not going
to like it?"

Glanced over, wiping at his face with his sleeve. Saw her confusion.

"Rath, I haven't learned anything I liked since Monday. There's
nothing about this case that I've found likable. Nothing. This morning I
went out to interrogate a suspect and came back without my socks, my
shoes, or my gun."

That brought a curling half-smile, but her eyes were still wary. As
if the idea was both funny and horrible to her. "Your socks? Walking
around in your bare feet? In Ambergris?"

He nodded. Sobered. "So, what did you find out?"

A deep breath from Rathven. She looked like a creature used to
being in motion stopped in midstride. Asked a fundamental question
about its own existence.

"Yesterday, I read all of the names on your list. That took a long
time. Then I made a much shorter list of any names I recognized."

"Like?"

"People with any historical significance. I didn't recognize anyone I
knew personally. But there were a few names from the past. A minor
novelist. A sculptor. A woman who was a noted engineer. I thought
I'd look them up in various histories. See if they had connections to
anyone in the present."

"A long shot." But he admired her for having a process.

"Yes. At the same time, I also started checking names from the past
thirty years with what city records still exist. But I didn't get far."

"Why?"

Rathven leaned forward, balancing on two chair legs. "Because I
came across information about one of the names on the list. Someone
who lived in that apartment a long time ago."

"Who?"

Rathven said the name. It meant nothing to him, but rang in his
head like a gunshot.

"Duncan Shriek," he repeated. "Who was he?"

"Good question. It took some research, but I thought I'd heard the
name before. Not sure where. I had to borrow a couple of books to
find out."

"And?"

She seemed reluctant to answer, which made Finch reluctant, too.
As if he needed her to go slow to protect himself. From a feeling that
had begun to creep up from his stomach. Tightening his chest.

She sucked in her breath, continued: "And I did-I found out a
lot about him. Shriek was a fringe historian. He had some radical
ideas about the Silence. About the gray caps. They wouldn't seem
radical to us now. They'd seem mostly right. But by the time anyone
would've been able to see that, he was gone. Disappeared. Over a
hundred years ago."

Suddenly, Finch felt disappointed in her.

"What's the connection to the here and now? How does this
help me?"

Rathven leaned back again. "Take a look at the two books on the
table."

The feeling in his stomach got worse. Finch looked at her. Looked
at the table. Back at her. Straightened in the sofa chair. Picked up
the books gently. Felt the dust on his hands. Turned to the title
page of the first. Shriek: An Afterword, written by Janice Shriek with
Duncan Shriek.

"Janice? His wife?" A strange emotion was rising now, unconnected
to the feeling of dread. A formless sadness. A watchfulness.

"No," Rathven said in a flat tone. "No. His sister."

"Is it fiction? Nonfiction?"

"A kind of memoir by Janice with comments by Duncan. She was
an art gallery owner. A major sponsor of many artists back then. She
went missing, and so did her brother. Both around the same time. But
it's the other one you really need to look at."

Finch put down Shriek: An Afterword, picked up the other book.
"Cinsorium & Other Historical Fables," he read. "By Duncan Shriek."
Felt a twinge of irritation or resentment. Couldn't she get to the
point?

"Look at the inside back cover. Of the dust jacket," Rathven said.

Turned to the back. Found the author's photo staring out at him. A
confusion overtook him that snuffed out rational thought.

The man could've been forty-five or fifty, with dark brown hair, dark
eyebrows, and a beard that appeared to be made from tendrils of fungus.

"Fuck."

The man laughed again. Blindingly, unbelievably bright, a light like the
sun shot through the window. The night sky torn apart by it.

The photo was ancient. Stained. Falling apart. But it didn't lie.
The face in the back of the book matched the face of the dead man
in the apartment.

Lightheaded. Cold. He sat back in the chair, the books in his lap.
Cinsorium closed so he didn't have to look at the photo. Never lost.

"When did he live there? Show me the entry."

Rathven reached down to get the list. "It's already folded right to
it." Handed it to him.

SHRIEK, DUNCAN, OCCUPANCY 17 MONTHS, 5 DAYS, 15 HOURS, 4
MINUTES, 56 SECONDS-WRITER AND HISTORIAN; LEFT SUDDENLY,
DISAPPEARED AND PRESUMED DEAD.

"That's impossible," Finch said, letting the list slither out of his
hands to the floor. "That's impossible."

Felt exposed. Vulnerable like never before. The semi-automatic at
his side was no protection at all. Stark, lips drawn back in a leer. Bosun
and his psychotic carvings. Bliss as a young F&L agent staggering across the
Kalifs desert. A dead man talking to him, flanked by a cat and a lizard.

Rathven nodded. "It's impossible. But it's him."

The books felt too heavy in his lap. "Or his twin. Or his great-greatgrandson."

"Do you really believe that, Finch?" Rathven asked.

"No."

No, he really didn't. Not in his gut.

Suddenly, the double murder had a sense of scale that expanded in his
mind like Heretic's list. A timeline almost beyond comprehension.

How to escape this?

I am not a detective.

He understood Rathven's look now.

Haunted.

Being haunted had started for his father during the war against the Kalif's
empire, in the engineering arm of the Hoegbotton army. Something
had gotten into his lungs during that time. The doctors at the clinic,
toward the end, still couldn't find a solution. Something about dust.
Different kinds of dust. Dust from the road to empire, thousands of years
old. Dust from the retreat. Dust from trying to hold Ambergris together.
Dust from betraying it.

Earlier on during the campaign there had been a feeling of optimism, a
heady confidence. House Frankwrithe had been beaten back to Morrow. The gray caps seemed once again in decline, and because of the war effort
Ambergris now had a powerful military.

As his father had said once, "They didn't want it to go to waste.
And they feared that the young officers might be too ambitious left at
home. And there was this kind of claustrophobic restlessness hard to
understand now, perhaps. People wanted to be part of Ambergris, but to
be out of it at the same time. They felt cramped, hemmed in-and the
eastern flank of the Kalif's empire was so close, and the Kalif spread so
thin, defending all of that territory. It was too tempting. Too easy."