Valentine's Exile (39 page)

Pictures of particularly outstanding Vanguards and their Ordnance sponsors filled the back. Valentine more than half believed it all. The Churchmen knew how to keep their flocks all moving in the same direction—straight to the slaughterhouse.

The male-female ratio equalized a little when a pair of local Churchmen arrived with a contingent of single women. Their clothes and stockings marked them as city girls, looking like peacocks dumped in a headwater barn-yard, and smelling of desperation. Or perhaps that was just the name of the perfume. The Churchmen divided the group in two parts and led their subflocks around, making introductions.

“Take a heck of a lot more than applejack to get me to take a run at one of those boxies,” one of the security men said to his mate.

“Try a blindfold,” another agreed from behind a thick mustache.

Valentine sidled up to the trio. “I've got an untapped bottle of Kentucky bourbon, if you like.”

Thick Mustache sneered. “Take a hike, cowpuncher.”

“My—” Valentine began.

“Get lost, quirt,” the one eyeing up the women said. “You're not making yourself look good, you're making us look bad.”

Valentine felt the room go twenty degrees warmer. “We could talk more outside, if you like.”

“I'll share your liquor, new man,” a female voice said in his ear.

Valentine startled. Six feet of creamy skin stood barefoot next to him, her heels dangling loose from one hand and a clutch purse in the other. She was at least a decade older, but high-cheeked and attractive in a shoulder-padded dress. Or simply more skilled with makeup and clothing than the rest of the women in the gym. Valentine wondered if she'd come in by a different route— she'd neither arrived on the buses nor been escorted in by the Churchmen.

"Looking hot, Doc P,” the security man who'd called Valentine a “quirt” a moment ago said.

The woman cocked her head, an eyebrow up. Even Valentine, thirty degrees out of the line of fire of the stare, felt a chill.

"C'mon, you 'bot,” Thick Mustache said, pulling his companion away.

“What's your name?”

“Tar. Tar Ayoob.”

“Tar? Like in ‘nicotine and . . . ' ”

“Short for Tarquin,” Valentine said.

She transferred her shoes to her purse-holding hand. “Fran Paoli. I work up at Xanadu too.”

“I'm liking it better and better there,” Valentine said, shaking her offered hand. She laughed, but lightly.

Valentine showed her the bottle.

“That's real Kentucky Bourbon, I believe,” she said.

“Care for a snort?” Valentine asked.

“With water,” she said. “About 5ccs.”

“How much is that?”

“A shot glass.”

When Valentine returned from the refreshment table with two ice-filled plastic cups of water, she stood next to a paper-covered table festooned with balloons reading “Happy Birthday.”

Valentine set his glasses down and held out the chair for her. “Why did you take your heels off?” he asked.

“I can be sneaky that way. Besides, it makes me feel sexy.”

It also makes you two inches shorter than I am,
Valentine thought. “I didn't know we'd have any doctors in attendance. ”

“I'll be it. Oriana and I came down to the waterfront to do some shopping.”

“And you just couldn't resist the music and the decor?” Valentine passed her drink to her. She sipped.

Fran rolled the liquor around in her mouth, and swallowed. “No. I wanted to meet you.”

“You're very direct.”

She looked up as the liquor hit. “Whoo, that takes me back. I did a term with a field hospital down your way.”

“Wanted to meet me?” Valentine insisted.

“When you get a few more years' . . . oh . . . perspective on life, let's say, you run short on patience for gamesmanship. ”

Valentine watched more uniforms flow in. Couples began dancing, doing curious, quick back-and-forth movements, one part of the body always touching. Hand gave way to arm that gave way to shoulder that gave way to buttock that turned into hand again. He felt like a scruffy backwoodsman at a cotillion.

Good God. Ali's here
.

She wore a plain woolen skirt and a yellow blouse that flirted with femininity, but went with her flame-colored hair. Lipstick and eye makeup were making one of their rare appearances on her face. A soldier who looked like a wrestler's torso on a jockey's legs was introducing her to one of the Churchmen. Valentine wondered if he was looking at an infatuated boy or a dead man.

“Do you want to dance?” Valentine asked.

“You don't look like the slinky-slide type.”

“Is that what that dance is called?”

“It was when they were doing it in New York ten years ago. God knows what it's called out here.” Her thin-lipped mouth took on a grimace that might be called cruel.

Valentine tried a tiny amount of bourbon, just enough to wet his lips and make it appear that he drank. “So how did you know you wanted to meet me?”

“Moonshots.”

“Is that something else from New York?”

“No,” she laughed, a little more heartily this time. “Have you been in the Grands yet?”

“The four big buildings? No.”

“I have a corner in Grand East. Top floor.” She said it as though she expected Valentine to be impressed. “Apartment and office. I've got a nice telescope. Myself and some of the nurses have been known to take a coffee break and check out the hands. We call a particularly attractive male a ‘moonshot.' It's hard to get a unanimous vote from that crew, but you got five out of five. The hair did it for Oriana—she's the tough grader.”

“There's not a bet having to do with me, is there?”

“Admit it. You're flattered.”

“I am, a little.” He picked up his drink. “Don't go anywhere. ” He took a big mouthful of his drink, headed for a corridor marked “bathrooms,” and turned down a cinderblock corridor. He found the men's. An assortment of student- and adult-sized urinals stood ready. He went to the nearest one and spat out his bourbon, thinking of an old Wolf named Bill Maranda who would have cried out at the waste.

Alessa Duvalier tripped him as he exited. He stumbled.

“You're a rotten excuse for the caste,” she said, keeping her voice low and watching the hallway. “Have you found her?”

“No. Just as tight on the inside.”

“So how do you like pillow recon?” she asked. “Is she tight? Or is the bourbon loosening her up?”

“Haven't had a chance to find out, yet.”

“According to my date she's big-time. You be careful. I've moved to the NUC women's hostel, by the way. My would-be boyfriend was horrified by my accommodations. Bed checks.”

“I've got a chance at an upgrade too, methinks.”

She pressed a piece of paper into his hand. “Phones work around here, but you get listened to,” Duvalier said. “If you need to run, leave a message at the hostel that your migraines are back. I'll get to the motel as soon as I can and wait. Do they allow inbound calls up there?”

“I think there's a phone in our rec center. I'll call with the number.”

“Good luck.” She made a kissing motion in the air, not wanting to leave telltale lipstick. She dived into the women's washroom, and Valentine went to the bar for more ice.

He chatted with Fran Paoli for thirty minutes or so, learned that she'd been born in Pennsylvania and educated in New York. She found the Ordnance “dull enough to make me look forward to
Noonside Passions
,” evidently a television show, and wouldn't discuss her work, except to say that it required specialized expertise but was as routine as the NUC social. But it promised her a brass ring and a Manhattan penthouse when she completed her sixteenth year at Xanadu.

She couldn't—or wouldn't—even say what her area of medical expertise was.

Paoli waved and another woman approached, with the purse-clutching, tight-elbowed attitude of a missionary in an opium den.

“Oriana Kreml, this is Tar, our moonshot babe. Tar-baby! I like that.”

“The market was a joke. ‘Fresh stock in from Manhattan' my eye. Are you done presenting in here?”

“Oriana's a great doctor but a greater prig,” Fran Paoli laughed. “Would you like a ride back, Tar-baby?”

“Thank you,” Valentine said.

“Then let's quit the Church. Crepe paper gives me a rash.”

They took Valentine outside to the parking lot. A well-tended black SUV huffed and puffed as its motor turned over. It was a big Lincoln, powered by something called Geo-drive.

“Would you like to drive my beast, Tar?” Fran Paoli asked.

“Would you forgive me if I wrecked it?” Valentine said. “I'm not much with wheels.” Valentine liked cars, the convenience and engineering appealed to him, but he didn't have a great deal of experience with them.

He climbed into the rear seat. The upholstery had either been replaced or lovingly refurbished. A deep well in the back held a few crates of groceries. Valentine smelled garlic and lemons in the bags. The women in front put on headsets.

Fran Paoli turned on the lights and the parking lot sprang into black-shadowed relief. Music started up, enveloping Valentine in soft jazz. She turned the car around and drove down a side street until she reached the river highway. Two police pickup-wagons motored west. Valentine wondered how many unfortunates they carried to the Reapers. Two each? Three? Nine? Valentine stared out the window as the red taillights receded into demon eyes staring at him from the darkened road. They blinked away.

“You and your hobbies,” Oriana said quietly.

Fran Paoli turned up the music, but Valentine could still hear if he concentrated. “So I like to go to bed with more than a good book.”

“Someday it's going to bite you.”

“Mmmmm, kinky. But don't fret. I can handle this hillwilly. ”

“He's after status and that's it. Don't fool yourself.”

Valentine looked for Reapers in the woods as the truck approached Xanadu, but couldn't see or sense them. The security guard hardly used his flashlight when the SUV reached the gate. Fran Paoli waggled her fingers at him and he waved twice at the gate, and the fencing parted in opposite directions.

She drove up a concrete, shrub-lined roadway and pulled into a gap under the south tower. “Two-one-six, entering, ” she said into her mouthpiece, working a button on the dashboard, and a door on tracks rolled up into the ceiling. The SUV made it inside the garage—just—and parked in the almost-empty lot. A few motorbikes, a pickup, some golf carts, and a low, sleek sports car were scattered haphazardly among the concrete supporting pillars like cows sleeping in a wood. A trailer with an electric gasoline pump attached was set up on blocks near the door.

“You'll like the Grand Towers. You mind helping with the groceries?”

Valentine took two crates, Oriana one.

They walked past a colorful mural, silhouettes of children throwing a ball to each other while a dog jumped, and Fran Paoli passed her security ID card over a dark glass panel. An elevator opened. It smelled like pine-scented cleanser inside. Soft music played from hidden speakers.

“Home,” Fran Paoli said, and the elevator doors closed.

“You don't have to hit a button?” Valentine asked.

“I could. It's voiceprint technology. A couple of the techs on the security staff like to tinker with old gizmos.”

“I wish they could get an MRI working,” Oriana said.

Valentine looked in his boxes on the ride up. Foil-wrapped crackers, a tin of something called “pâté,” a bottle of olive oil with a label in writing Valentine thought looked like Cyrillic, artichokes, fragrant peaches, sardines, a great brick of chocolate with foil lettering . . .

The elevator let them out on a parquet-floored hallway. If there was a floor higher than twelve the elevator buttons didn't indicate it. Lighting sconces added soft smears of light to the maroon walls.

Fran Paoli held Oriana's groceries while she let herself in. “Good night. Call if you want your rounds covered.”

“Thanks, O.”

Oriana thanked Valentine as she took her box of food-stuffs—slightly more mundane instant mixes and frozen packages with frost-covered labels. Her door had a laminated plate in a slide next to it: ORIANA KREML, MD.

“I'm at the end of the hall, Tar-baby,” Fran Paoli said.

She led him down, putting an extra swivel in her walk. Valentine clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth in time to her stride. She twirled her keys on their wrist loop.

The door at the end read EXECUTIVE MEDICAL DIRECTOR. She opened it and Valentine passed through a small reception office—a computer screen cast a soft glow against a leather office chair—and a larger meeting room with an elegantly shaped glass conference table. Floor-to-ceiling windows reflected only the darkness outside and their faces. Lights came on as she moved through the space to a frosted-glass partition. Valentine marked a telescope at the glass corner she passed.

A casual living space and then a kitchen. Valentine set the boxes down on a small round table, and extracted the fresh fruits and vegetables.

“Stay for a drink?” Fran Paoli asked.

Fran Paoli snored softly beside him in postcoital slumber.

Her makeup was on the sheet, him, and the oh-so-soft pillowcases, and she gave off a faint scent of sweet feminine perspiration and rose-scented baby powder. She made love like some women prepared themselves for bed, following a long-practiced countdown that evidently gave her a good deal of pleasure.