Ch. 3

Itachi looked at Ino's twisted features.

"That's enough," he ordered. "Go back inside. I'll take care of this."

She jerked her attention away from the sight of Kyuubi surfacing in the pool.

"Stay out of this Salter," she hissed. "It has nothing to do with you. That whore tried to seduce my son. When that failed, he murdered him."

"Ino?" Owen Czar hurried toward his wife. "What's going on?"

Ino started to cry. "That bitch came back. I can't believe it. He actually came back."

She covered her face with both hands, whirled unsteadily and rushed toward the veranda.

Owen came to a halt. He was an athletic man in his early fifties with strong features and unruly salt-and-pepper hair. Under most circumstances he appeared relaxed and confident. But at the moment he looked awkward and helpless.

Years ago Czar had helped Arashi found Glazebrook, Inc. The two men had been partners for nearly three decades until Arashi bought out Owen's share of the business. The pair were still close friends.

A year ago Owen met and married Ino. It was a second marriage for both of them. Arashi had told Itachi that Owen and Ino had met through auspices of the Society. Itachi had a hunch that the matchmaking computers at Konoha House, designed to help single members of the Society find life partners from among the community of sensitives, had failed to allow the possibility that Ino would morph into a full-blown alcoholic. It wasn't the first time arcane-match had made a mistake.

"I'm sorry," Owen said heavily. He looked at Kyuubi. "Are you all right?"

Kyuubi stood shoulder-deep in the water. "Don't worry about it, Mr. Czar."

"Are you certain?" Owen asked.

"Yes," he said, his voice gentling. "It was an accident. I lost my balance and fell into the pool."

Owen's features tightened. "Ino hasn't been herself since Kabuto was murdered."

"I know," Kyuubi said.

"I've been trying to get her to go into rehab. But she refuses."

"I understand," Kyuubi said.

Owen nodded humbly. "Thank you." He looked back toward the house. Ino had disappeared into the shadows of the veranda. "I'd better take her home."

He walked back toward the house, shoulders slumped.

Itachi waited until he was gone. Then he went to stand at the edge of the pool.

Kyuubi flung his hair out of his eyes and looked at him, hands moving rhythmically under the surface.

"Don't say it," he warned.

"Can't help myself." He crouched down on the coping. "I did warn you not to confront her."

Kyuubi made a face. "I thought consultants were supposed to do something helpful and productive in a moment of crisis."

"Right. Almost forgot."

Itachi rose, walked to the nearby cabana and opened the door. Inside he found a stack of oversized towels on the shelf. He picked up one and carried it back to the pool.

"How's this for helpful?" he asked, unfolding the towel.

"Much better."

Kyuubi took a deep breath and dove back under the water to retrieve his shoes. When he surfaced again he trudged over to the wide steps where Itachi waited.

"There's a robe inside the cabana," Itachi said, draping the towel around kyuubi's shoulders.

"Thanks."

Clutching the towel, Kyuubi made his way toward the small cabana. The black suit clung to his body, outlining his slender physique.

He stripped off his jacket just before he reached the door. The thin, pale silk shirt he wore underneath it was rendered transparent by the water. Itachi could see his back.

Kyuubi disappeared inside the cabana. He considered his options. There was no doubt now that Kyuubi Lancaster was a spanner that had just been thrown into the works of his carefully crafted scheme. He had to decide how to deal him, but first he needed more information.

The cabana door opened. Kyuubi walked out muffled from head to toe in a thick white terrycloth robe. His hair was wrapped in a towel. He carried his sopping-wet clothes in one hand and his soaked shoes in the other.

"I think the party's over for me,"Kyuubi said. He paused at the table to pick up his shoulder bag.

"Looks that way," Itachi agreed. "I'll take you home."

"Hotel," Kyu corrected automatically. "I don't live around here, remember?"

A small shock of awareness slammed through Itachi. Talk about a slip of the tongue. He had spoken without thinking, meaning his home, or rather the house he rented. What the hell was that about? Probably something to do with seeing Kyuubi in a robe and a knowing that he was naked underneath the pristine white terrycloth.

"I'll take you back to your hotel," Itachi said.

"Thanks, anyway, but I've got a car."

"It's not a problem. It will give me an excuse to leave early. Cocktail party chatter bores me."

"Why come, in that case?"

Itachi shrugged. "Arashi invited me. He's the client."

Kyuubi gave him an odd look. Kyuubi knew he was lying to him, Itachi thought. But he sensed that he wasn't going to call him on it.

Kyuubi was trying to figure him out, Itachi realized. Fair enough. He was doing the same thing to him. Itachi smiled slightly.

"What is so amusing?" Kyu demanded crossly.

"We're like a couple of fencers," Itachi said. "Testing each others defences. Looking for openings. Makes for an interesting game don't you think?"

Kyuubi went very still. "I didn't come here to play games."

"I know. But sometimes the game finds you."

"I don't know what you think you're doing, Itachi Salter, but whatever it is-"

Itachi took his arm. "Let's get you back to your hotel."

"I told you, I'm fine. I can drive myself."

"Be reasonable." Itachi steered him toward the veranda. "You're soaked to the skin. You've had a long day. You've been through some family drama and a major scene with a woman who seems to hate your guts. On top of that, you probably don't know your way around Phoenix very well. Let me take you back to your hotel."

"No, thank you." Polite but determined.

"You're as stubborn as Arashi."

They reached the veranda. Kyuubi halted abruptly and looked at the open doors.

"I'm not going to go back inside," he said, glancing down at his robe. "Not like this."

"No," Itachi agreed. He tightened his grip on Kyuubi's arm and drew him along the veranda. "We'll go this way."

Itachi walked him around the side of the house. When they reached the crowded driveway Itachi saw the parking attendant. The young man was hovering over Kyuubi's rented compact.

"Looks like my car is blocking another vehicle," Kyu said.

"That would be mine."

Kyu gave a small start and then smiled ruefully. "What are the odds, huh?"

"I figure maybe it was psychic karma."

"You believe in psychic karma?"

"Didn't until tonight," Itachi admitted. He didn't like the way the attendant was studying Kyuubi's car. "I think we may have a problem."

"What?" Kyu looked up, keys in hand.

They were close to the compact now. Itachi could see the spiderweb of cracks in the windshield. Kyuubi noticed them a couple seconds later.

"Oh, damn," Kyu whispered. "That rental agency is not going to be happy about this."

The attendant saw Itachi. "I was just about to go talk to my boss."

"What happened?" Kyuubi asked.

"Mrs. Czar came outside a little while ago," the attendant said unhappily. "She wanted to know which car had arrived in the last half hour. I told her that it was this one."

"Good grief," Kyuubi said. "What did she do to my windshield?"

"She, uh, smashed it with a rock," the attendant said.

"Where's Mrs. Czar?" Itachi asked.

"Her husband came after her. Said he was going to take her home. He apologized and said to tell you that he'll make things right with the rental company."

Itachi released Kyu. "That settles it. You won't be driving yourself back to the hotel tonight." He took the keys from Kyu's unresisting fingers. I'll move your car so we can get mine out."

Kyuubi sighed, resigned now. "Okay. Thanks."

"Psychic karma, remember?" He opened the door of the compact and got behind the wheel.

Kyuubi waited, his hands stuffed into the pockets of the robe, while Itachi switched the positions of the two vehicles. When he had reparked the compact, he settled Kyuubi into the front seat of the BMW and went around to the driver's got behind a wheel and drove down the drive and out onto the road that looped through the gated golf course community. The security guard waved him through the massive wrought-iron gates.

Kyuubi looked out of the window, evidently absorbed by the night and the lights of Phoenix in the distance.

"I knew that Kabuto McAllister was murdered six months ago," he said after a while. "Arashi mentioned that the cops believe he interrupted a burglary in progress at his home here in Stone Canyon."

"That's the official theory." Kyuubi did not turn his head away from the inky-dark view. "But as you may have noticed, Kabuto's mother is convinced that I murdered her son. She's had several months to promote her theory. I understand she's been quite successful, although Naruto assures me that most people in Stone Canyon are very careful not to speculate too loudly in Arashi's hearing."

"Arashi sure as hell wouldn't want that kind of gossip going around."

Kyu turned his head to look at him. "The police did question me, you know."

"Be surprising if they didn't. You were the one who found the body."

"Yes."

Itachi glanced at him. Kyuubi had gone back to studying the night.

"Must have been bad," Itachi said quietly.

"It was."

Itachi said nothing for a moment. "How did it happen that you were first on the scene?"

"I flew into Phoenix that evening to see Naruto. There was a mixup with a message I had left for him. He thought I was due in the following morning. He was out attending a reception for Stone Canyon Arts Academy when I arrived. I drove straight to his place. The front door was open. I walked in and found Kabuto's body."

Itachi didn't need his parasenses to pick up the lingering traces of shock and horror under the simple, straightforward words.

"Arashi told me that the safe had been opened," he said. "It certainly sounds like an interrupted burglary scenario."

"Yes. But that hasn't stopped Ino from concluding that I was the killer. She thinks I was having an affair with Kabuto and that I murdered him because he refused to leave Naruto."

"Naruto and McAllister were separated at the time. Any idea why he was at Naruto's house that evening?"

"No." Kyu said.

He did not want to ask but the hunter in him needed to know.

"Were you sleeping with McAllister?" Itachi asked without inflection.

Kyuubi shuddered. "Lord, no. There's no way I could have been atrracted to a guy like him. Kabuto McAllister was a liar."

Itachi's stomach clenched. He probably hated liars.

"Everyone lies at one time or another," Itachi said. Including me.

"Well, sure." Kyu sounded startlingly casual about that simple fact. "I don't have a problem with most lies or the people who tell them, at least, not since I learned how to handle my talent. Hell, I tell lies myself sometimes. I'm pretty good at lying, actually. Maybe it goes with having a gift for detecting lies."

Itachi was dumbfounded. That did not happen very often, he reflected wryly. It took him a couple seconds to regroup.

"Let me get this straight," Itachi said. "You're a human lie detector and you don't mind that most people lie?"

Kyu smiled slightly. "Let me put it this way. When you wake up one morning at the age of thirteen and discover that because of your newly developed parasenses you can tell that everyone around you, even the people you love, lie occasionally and that you are going to be driven crazy if you don't get some perspective, you learn to get some perspective."

Itachi was reluctantly fascinated. "Just what kind of perspective do you have on the subject?"

"I take the Darwinian view. Lying is a universal talent. everyone I've ever known can do it rather well. Most little kids start practicing the skill as soon as they master language."

"So you figure there must be some evolutionary explanation, is that it?"

"I think so, yes," Kyuubi said, calmly serious and certain. "When you look at it objectively it seems obvious that the ability to lie is part of everyone's kit of survival tools, a side effect of possessing language skills. There are a lot of situations in which the ability to lie is extremely useful. There are times when you might have to lie to protect yourself or someone else, for example."

"Okay, I get that kind of lying," he said.

"You might lie to an enemy in order to win a battle or a war. Or you might have to lie just to defend your personal privacy. People lie all the time to diffuse a tense social situation or to avoid hurting someone's feelingsor to calm someone who is frightened."

"True."

"The way I see it, if people couldn't lie, they probably wouldn't be able to live together in groups, at least not for very long or with any degree of sociability. And there you have the bottom line."

"What bottom line?"

He spread his hands. "If humans could not lie, civilization as we know it would cease to exist."

He whistled softly. "That's an interesting perspective, all right. I admit I've never thought about the subject in those terms."

"Probably because you've never had to think about it. Most people take the ability to lie for granted, whether or not they approve of it."

"But not you."

"I was forced to develop a slightly different perspective." Kyu paused. "What I've always found fascinating is that the vast majority of people, nonparasensitive and sensitive alike, think they know when someone else islying. That's true around the world. But the reality is that the research shows that most folks can detect a lieonly slightly better than fifty percent of the time. They might as well flip a coin."

"What about the experts? Cops and other law enforcement types?"

"According to the studies they aren't much better at picking out liars, at least not in a controlled lab situation.

The problem is that the cues people assume correlate with lying, such as avoiding eye contact or sweating, generally don't work."

"You can't count on Pinocchio's nose growing, huh?"

"It's not a total myth," Kyu said. "Physical cues do exist but they vary a lot from one individual to another. If you know a person well, you've got a much better shot at picking up on a lie, but otherwise it's a crapshoot.

Like I said, lying is a natural human ability and we're all probably a lot better at it than we want to admit."

"You said that Kabuto McAllister's lies were different."

"Yes."

"What did you mean?"

"Kabuto was a different kind of liar," Kyu said quietly. "He was ultraviolet."

"Ultraviolet?"

"My private code for evil."

"Heavy word."

"It was the right one for Kabuto, trust me. The ability to lie is avery powerful tool. In and of itself, I consider it to be value-neutral, sort of like fire."

"But like fire it can be turned into a weapon, is that it?"

"Exactly." Kyu folded his arms. "You can cook a meal with fire or burn down a house. In the hands of someone with evil intent, lying can be used to cause enormous damage."

"What makes you think Kabuto McAllister was evil? From all accounts he was a devoted husband who stuck with Naruto through his nervous breakdown."

Kyu whipped around in his seat, suddenly fierce and furious. "That image was the biggest Kabuto McAllister lie of all. And it really pisses me off that it still stands, even though that bastard is dead."

Itachi absorbed that. "What did McAllister do to make you dislike him so much?"

"Kabuto didn't stick by Naruto while he went through his nervous breakdown. He caused Naru's breakdown. But Naruto and I have given up trying to make anyone, including Arashi and Tyrra, believe that. As far as the whole town of Stone Canyon is concerned, Kabuto was a heroic choirboy right to the end."

Itachi gave that some thought. "Okay, what's your theory of the murder?"

Kyu hesitated and then sank slowly back into the seat. "There doesn't seem to be any reason to doubt the cops' version of events. Kabuto probably did interrupt a burglary in progress."

"Now who's lying? You don't believe that for a minute, do you?"

Kyu sighed. "No. But I don't have a better answer, either."

"Not even a tiny theory?"

"All I know is that Kabuto was evil. Evil people collect enemies. Maybe one of them tracked him down and killed him that night."

"But you have no motive, aside from the fact that Kabuto was not a nice person."

"Sometimes that's enough."

"Yeah," Itachi said. "Sometimes it is."

There was a short silence.

"By the way,"Kyu said after a moment. "We need to keep and eye out for the Indian School Road exit."

"Why?"

"Because my motel is on a street off Indian School Road." Kyu said patiently.

"Thought you said your hotel was out at the airport."

"I lied."

The best that could be said about the Desert Dawn Motel was that it made no pretense of being anything other than what it was: a run-down, low-end, budget-class establishment from another era. The two-story structure was badly in need of a coat of paint. Rusted air conditioners thundered in the night.

Most of the landscaping had died back in the Jurassic. Only a few hardy barrel cacti and one wilted palm had survived. The letters in the red and yellow neon sign snapped and crackled and blinked annoyingly.

Kyuubi felt a distinct pang of embarrassment when Itachi eased the BMW into a parking space near the entrance to the lobby. Kyu sdurpressed it immediately.

Itachi turned off the engine and regarded the limp palm tree that graced the cracked croncrete sidewalk.

"You know," he started, "if you had mentioned that you were coming into town this evening the Glazebrook travel department would have been happy to make reservations for you at a slightly more upscale hotel. I'll bet they could have found you something where the bathroom isn't down the hall."

"There's a bathroom in my room, thank you very much." Kyu gritted out as he got out of the car.

Itachi followed suit and took Kyu's wet clothes from the trunk.

"Mind telling me why you chose this place?" He asked politely.

"Maybe you didn't know that I was fired from my job six months ago. I haven't had much luck finding a new position. So I'm on a strict budget these days."

"Your father is one of the wealthiest men in the state," Itachi pointed out mildly.

"I don't consider Arashi Glazebrook to be my father in anything but the biological sense."

"In other words, you're too proud to take money from him."Itachi shook his head, amused. "The two of you sure have a lot in common."

He pushed open the grimy glass door. Kyuubi went past him into the postage stamp-sized lobby.

The desk clerk stared at Kyuubi, taking in the sight of the bathrobe and towel turban.

"You okay, Mister Lancaster?" he asked uneasily.

"Late night swim,"Kyuubi said.

"I'm going to see Mister Lancaster to his room," Itachi said.

The clerk sized him up and then shrugged. "Sure. Whatever. Just keep it quiet, will you? There's a couple from the Midwest in the room next door."

Kyuubi frowned. "What are you talking about? Why should I care if there are people next door."

The clerk rolled his eyes.

Itachi grabbed Kyuubi's arm and hauled him toward the stairs.

"What's going on here?" Kyuubi asked, bewildered. "Am I missing something?"

Itachi waited until they reached the next floor and started down the dingy hall before answering.

"The guy at the desk thinks you're a tramp who is using this motel to entertain clients."

"You being the client?"

"Yes."

"I suppose the bathrobe gives a poor impression."

Kyu stopped in front of room 210. Itachi took the key from him and inserted it into the lock.

The door to room 208 opened. A middle-aged woman with a helmet of gray curls peered disapprovingly through the crack.

Itachi nodded politely. "Evening, ma'am."

The woman slammed the door. Itachi heard voices through the walls. The door opened again. This time it was a balding, overweight man dressed in a pair of plaid Bermuda shorts and an aging white t-shirt looked out. He stared hard at Kyuubi through the opening.

"Nice night, isn't it?"

The man shut the door without saying anything. Itachi heard the light snick of the deadbolt sliding into place.

"I don't think the night clerk is the only one wondering about your career path."

Kyuubi sighed. "Little do they know I don't even have a career at the moment."

Itachi opened the door.

The interior of the small room was as unprepossessing as the exterior. At the far end cheap glass doors opened to a small balcony which overlooked a small pool. Kyuubi switched on the weak overhead light.

Itachi spotted a single, roll-aboard suitcase on the night stand.

"Doesn't look like you packed for an extended stay."

"I'll give Arashi one day to explain to me why he dragged me down here. As long as I'm here I'll spend some time with Naruto. But after that I have no reason to hang around."

"Going back to San Fransisco?"

"I'm job hunting. Six months of unemployment has put a dent in my savings. I don't want to have to start borrowing from my mother and aunt again. I need to find work."

Itachi nodded. "Probably for the best."

"Thanks for the ride," Kyuubi said. "It has been an interesting evening, to say the least."

"My dates say that a lot."

Kyuubi smiled. "In case you didn't notice, this wasn't a date. You were just doing your job. Taking care of problems for Arashi Glazebrook."

Kyuubi closed the door very gently but firmly in his face.