Finch by Jeff VanderMeer (6 page)

A different route than that morning. Late-afternoon sun like
dark gold against brick walls. The street sloped on an incline before
following a gentle curve downward. Tight high walls of shovedtogether tenements and lofts. Hoegbotton territory, before the Rising.
Finch brushed by a man or woman covered up in robes. Another
person ducked into a doorway, face made a question mark by an old
gas mask that might or might not keep spores out. Stain of blue-green
lichen in the gutter. A rancid quality to the air.

Faintest hint of the bay from the cross street. Mostly obscured by
mansards and rubble. Glimpse of the two towers. Did the sky match?
Or was it darker between the towers? Had a bet going with the other
detectives about the purpose of the towers. To dull the fear.

A hint of shadow moved behind him as he rounded a tight
corner. It made him cautious. It made him paranoid. He stopped a
minute later. Pretended to tie his shoe. Managed a backward glance.
Nothing.

Imagined it?

Wouldn't put it past Heretic to have him followed. Or maybe it was
just some ragged kid hoping to mug a passerby. As he rose, Finch made
sure to pull his jacket back. To show his gun. Such as it was.

239 Manzikert Avenue was a dark vertical slab of stone and wood
with blackened filigree balcony railings crawling up the front. Trees left black leaves and rotting yellow berries on the steps. If the berries
had been edible, the steps would've been clean.

Ornate double doors stripped of the metal that had once served as
inlay. Steps guarded by a three-legged cat that hissed. Then hopped
away. Beyond the doors, a hallway studded with lights so dim it would've
been hard to read by them. Finch stepped inside. The feeling of being
followed shut off. Like it'd been attached to a timer inside of him.

The floor squeaked. Freshly waxed. It hadn't been waxed in the morning.
Finch smiled. Old Hoegbotton trick. Cheap security. Bell the cat. He went
squeaking to the stairwell. Already knew the elevator didn't work.

The outside light couldn't seem to push through the tiny windows
set into the walls. The stairwell got darker the further up he went.
But, gradually, more evidence of people. A dog howling. The flushing
of a shared toilet. A screaming child. A mother's raised voice. The
smell of something spicy being cooked for dinner. Filtered through
the exhausted, stale funk of a place in which too many had lived in
close quarters for too many years.

Finch knew not to start on the first couple of floors. No one liked to
live that low if they had a choice. Ambergris Rules. Better to live next to a
corpse than one floor above the gray caps' underground realm. His father
had taught him that.

Stopped at the fourth floor. Just to be safe. Fourth or sixth. Anyone
on the fifth was long gone. Either after the corpse arrived and before the
Partial came to talk to them. Or after the Partial came to talk.

Finch had a simple formula. A polite knock. Short questions, in a
friendly tone. Didn't like to go in like Blakely, guns blazing. Or like
Gustat, using threats to coerce. They got information, sure. But not
always the right information.

He worked the long line of closed doors to either side of the discolored,
torn carpet. At the fifth door, a mother answered, holding her son. Maybe
five or six, born around the time of the Rising. The mother looked worn.
Pale and thin. Probably starving herself to feed the child. Probably thought
that holding the kid would make Finch play nice. The kid's open, eager
face confounded Finch. Almost like seeing another species. Parents kept
their children hidden. Went out to forage for them. Finch's father had
done the same for him. During the wars.

"What do you want?" she asked.

Finch decided he wanted nothing. Asked a couple of easy
questions. Showed her the photo of the dead man. The woman
didn't recognize him.

Tried a couple more doors. A middle-aged man in a tank top and
shorts answered holding a frying pan. For defense? For dinner? Either
way, he didn't know anything, hadn't seen anything.

Neither did the old married couple who might've lived there for
forty, fifty years. Might even have recalled when 239 Manzikert
Avenue hadn't been a dump. The man stood behind the woman,
peering out with the kind of distant stare Finch associated with
the camps. The wife had a blotch of purple on her forehead that
might've been a birthmark or might've been fungus.

The next interview went better. A man of about sixty answered.
Slight build. Large blue eyes, accentuated by the wrinkles in his
forehead. A cultured voice. He wore a too-tight dinner jacket. The
points of the collars on the white shirt beneath stabbed the flesh
of his neck. His wrists showed from the dark ends of his cuffs. He
looked like a child in a straitjacket.

As Finch questioned him, he slowly realized the man had dressed
up for the interrogation. Had heard him at other doors down the hall.
Soon, the man was asking him to come in for tea. Polite in a way that
hadn't been common in Ambergris for years. Finch guessed violinist
or theater owner. Either that or he'd once been the doorman.

He didn't know anything about the murders. (Finch couldn't recall
when he'd started calling them murders, but the word felt right.)
Thought the man in the photograph looked familiar, but couldn't
place him. In the way people do when they're trying to help.

Then the man asked if the people living there had been of use.

"People living there?" Finch echoed.

"Yes. There were people living there. A man. A woman."

"Really?"

"Yes. I don't know their names."

Didn't know anything else, either.

Who was lying to him then? Heretic? The Partial?

Remembered Heretic's strange mood as he headed up to the fifth floor.

In the apartment, the bodies lay much as before. Except that each
had sprouted a thick, emerald-green stalk topped by a nodule. The
detectives called them memory bulbs. No one could pronounce what
the gray caps called them. Sounded like a word between loam and leer.
An aqua-colored nodule for the man. Bright orange for the gray cap.
Which meant Finch had learned something new.

The bodies still looked peaceful. Even with the dull light streaming
through the open window. The man looked better preserved than
when Finch had seen him that morning. Sometimes death did that.
For a time.

A figure stepped out of the back room. The Partial, grinning.

"Shit." Finch's gun appeared in his hand. Heart pounding.

"I'd aim that somewhere else if I were you," the Partial said. Fungal
eye blinking and blinking. Recording.

Finch transferred his gun to his left hand. Shook his right. Green liquid
hit the floor. Goddamn gun. Wiped his hand on the side of the couch.

"Did you follow me here?" Finch demanded.

One eyebrow arched. "Getting paranoid? Afraid you'll be found out?"

Snarled, "Why do you keep saying that?"

The Partial smiled. Triumphant. "Everyone has something to hide."

"Why didn't you tell me two people lived here?" he asked the Partial.
"A man and a woman. Did you question them? And where are they?"

A preternatural calm to the Partial as he countered with, "Tell me
what was in the dead man's hand."

Finch stepped back. Took in the narrow face, all slab of tongue
and uncanny black-green left eye. Right eye atrophied from the
repurposing. Dull orange lichen lived there now. The tongue moved
like Finch's pet lizard's tongue. Tasting the air. The amount of energy
that went into the eye meant they had to suck on gray cap-provided
mushroom juice seven or eight times a day. Looked like green pus.
What was their name for themselves? A gray cap word. Sounded like
grineeknsenz or something just as ugly. Rumor had it they'd made a
pact with the gray caps. That soon they'd be made more like the gray
caps, in return for their service.

"Nothing important," Finch managed finally.

"Isn't that for me to decide?"

"It's for Heretic to decide. It'll be in my report."

"I hope it is." The Partial's gaze was cold and dark. "We notice more
than the gray caps, Finch. And we're more prepared to use what we find
than they are."

That surprised Finch. Was the Partial criticizing Heretic? Safer to
ignore it.

"What did the people who lived here tell you?"

"Nobody lived here."

Finch chewed on that for a moment. Was the Partial hiding
something from Heretic? He patted his satchel. "I've got the entire
list from Heretic of anyone who lived here." Idiot. "You're saying it
won't include the two who lived here?"

"They don't live here," the Partial said, a hint of warning in his
voice. "They don't live anywhere anymore. They didn't know anything
important."

Dead, then. Disappeared into the abyss of history.

Appalled, Finch said, "Heretic knows this?"

The Partial nodded, folding his arms. "Don't take anything from the
bodies this time except for the memory bulbs. I'm supposed to guard
them. I've been here all day. Someone will always be here."

The way the Partial said this made Finch think the man, the
abomination, was applying for martyrdom. Did the Partial think
Finch was weak just because he hadn't allowed the gray caps to
take his eye? Part of Finch wanted to hit the Partial in the mouth
for that. Instead, he squatted next to the man's body. Looked so
peaceful.

Was he alive for a time? In the room? Was he fighting the gray cap?
Fleeing him?

The Partial, from in front and above him: "I'll watch. Just to make sure."

Make sure of what?

"Stay where I can see you."

"Such distrust," the Partial murmured.

Finch knelt beside the man's body. Pushed aside the matted hair
on the man's head to get a good grip on the stalk. Held the bulb in his hand. Sticky, porous, rubbery. Gently twisted it off the stalk. A
pock sound as he detached it. He put the bulb in his pocket. Pulled
the stalk out at the root. Left behind a round indentation about a
half inch deep. Blood began to fill the small wound.

That'll leave a scar.

Let loose a yip of nervous laughter. Shut it down.

But the Partial still noticed it. "I knew you didn't want to eat
their memories."

Finch ignored the Partial. Repeated the process for the gray cap. No
blood, no pock sound.

"You might be the first person to ever eat a gray cap's memory bulb.
Aren't you the lucky one."

Finch rose to face the Partial. "Pathetic idea of security, by the
way. One Partial. First thing any intruder will want to do is shoot
out or cut out your eye. Followed by cutting off your head to make
absolutely sure." Said each word slowly. Savored each.

The Partial wasn't smiling now. The eye twitched. He advanced on
Finch until he stood inches away. Finch looked into that ruin of a face
and tried not to turn away in disgust.

"Finch. Finchy. Whoever you are. You're not as smart as you think.
I'm not the only one here. We've got this whole building staked out.
If anyone comes here, we'll see them. The spores will see them."

Bellum omnium contra omnes. "Never lost" in a dead man's hand.

"Who would come here? And why?"

"Followers of the Blue." The Partial seemed on the verge of saying
more. Caught himself.

But Finch had heard enough. A grin broke across his face. Didn't
turn back soon enough. He gave the Partial a last poisonous stare.

"What? Nothing more to say?" the Partial called after him as he
headed down the stairs. "I'm disappointed, Finchy . . . Someday,
though, Finchy, someday. . ."

Out onto the street, amid the black leaves. The rotten fruit. A
memory bulb in each pocket. Looking now for the signature of the
rebels in every figure that he passed.

Followers of the Blue ... The Lady in Blue.

A thousand tales told about her by now. Told by old men to young
men. Told by mothers to sons and daughters. Most are about her voice.
No one agrees on where the Lady in Blue came from, but everyone
agrees that during the worst of the War of the Houses her voice was
heard coming from courtyards, buildings, even underground. Or
seemed to. Some thought she was an opera singer transformed by grief
over a slain lover. That she was in some way the voice of the city,
coming up from the earth. Believed this even though it could not be
true. None of it could be true.