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I must deny the lullaby
The skin the touch that makes me high
I must deny not knowing why
The truth has left me dumb tongue-tied
You don't feel my pain
And me I wear my heart
Like a red stain
I fear
That I am not enough for you
I just don't measure up
I fear
This constant condition
My strange strangelove addiction
--Supreme Beings of Leisure, "Strangelove
Addiction"
The luxury of discretion.
--BMW M-class promotional literature
Crawford liked Swiss pastille mints,
the kind that tasted like aniseed and herbs not readily identified.
Schuldich watched him tap out a transparent lozenge from a Victorian
wrought-silver snuffbox. It was a strange object for a modern
businessman to be carrying, but that was typical of Crawford.
He liked frivolities only if they were easily pocketed. His appearance
otherwise was perfectly sober, and expensive to boot. Real Rolex,
real Vuitton, real Savile Row... God knows how long an American
would have to jet around all expenses paid in Europe to pick
up such deceptive good taste. Yet Schuldich could read the trust
it engendered in those who were rich and tasteful themselves,
as if it were a common language they spoke in the strange land
of the unmoneyed and unassuming. Crawford was deep in conversation
with their host, Lorenz Neckermann of department store fame.
His hands' motion had the economy and unconscious grace of long
habit. Lighting a cigarette, loading an ammunition clip: like
that.
Schuldich remembered Crawford smoking.
Benson and Hedges mint filters, in a cream and gold foil package
he'd crush before depositing in the ashtray. About a pack a day,
more under stress, never in bed. He'd smoked when Schuldich had
first met him, and all through their séjour in
London. Sometime during the intervening five years he'd quit.
Schuldich had not...
Been with him then.
The futile train of thought bore teeth.
Schuldich swore at himself and pushed away from where he'd been
leaning against the wall, trying to avoid the crush of thoughts
and bodies. He didn't want to be working. The scent of gardenias
lingered in the smoke-filled air, from the greenhouse or some
woman's perfume (he remembered with sudden vividness the dark-eyed
girl from yesterday, violet blood like a cosmetic stain on her
lips), and it quickened his senses. Made him restless. His mind
brushed against the American's barriers. *Crawford.*
*What is it?* Mild annoyance, like the
warning flick of a feline ear.
*I'm sick of this place. It's a goddamned
birdcage. I don't sense him, Crawford. Do you even know if he's
going to come up?*
*If he's not here now, he will be before
midnight.* Schuldich picked up echoes of Neckermann's discourse
on currency unification. *Just keep moving. Let me remind you
that this is your job, Schuldich, a routine exercise. Try to
keep your mind on it for once.*
And he broke contact.
Schuldich swore again, softly. It would
be one of those nights.
Neckermann liked trendiness, for viewing
if not for himself. The music was loud, the crowd young and pretty.
Slatted screen-windows divided the darkened suite from the balcony
patio, casting blades of moonlight in which cigarette smoke swirled,
rising languidly in the closed-in heat. He turned away and met
the blue eyes of a girl in waiting uniform, her cheeks rosy with
warmth and movement. The staff had been picked with care as well.
She smiled and offered a Chinese- lacquered tray, twists of red
ribbon positioned starlike. Bright poppies against the black
wood.
Schuldich inhaled quickly but shook his
head, flashing her his best seductive grin as he stepped back.
(She wondered if he were money or just decorative - money being
her preference.) He snagged a shot glass off the next tray he
saw that had crystal on it.
Never again. He'd be tempted all his
life, but never again. If this hadn't been arbeit...
He had needed help getting off the needle
twice. The first time was in the beginning, not long after London
- the Organization's vaunted efficiency - and in his poetic memory
the two miseries were twinned and intimate. The second time was
after he'd been assigned to the elite operative team under Crawford,
and the American had walked in on him jabbing a hypodermic pen
into his upper arm. Schuldich had explained that it killed his
taste for crude downers as long as he kept on using it; Crawford
had nodded, said "I see," and that had been the end
of the subject for half a year. Then SS had sent them to Borneo.
It was right before they'd picked up
Farfarello and Nagi, so there had only been the two of them.
He'd read the path from their guide's mind at the outset, and
half an hour into the jungle Crawford had shot the man and turned
the jeep around. A helicopter landed on a private beach had taken
them to a treatment center in a mansion outside Jakarta. Up to
that point Schuldich hadn't even realized the detour had been
for his sake.
It had transpired that SS liked to keep
their stronger espers on a chemical leash. The pharmaceutical
Schuldich had thought of as a high-end alternative to methadone
had been engineered to keep him steadily addicted without compromising
his talent; without in fact ever affecting his emotional state.
Withdrawal would have rendered his training useless and killed
him. It had taken them thirty-six hours and fifty thousand of
Crawford's own dollars to burn away the drug's hold with injections
that reprogrammed the receptors in his cerebral cortex, and he'd
been helpless against their mind-voices for the duration. A full-blown
modern medical miracle. Crawford had stayed with him throughout.
Schuldich remembered his straight-backed silhouette behind the
glass of the observation screen, and the way his gaze never turned
away from Schuldich's pain. He had no recollection of being touched,
but that presence was enough. On the third day Crawford had waived
the psychological stage of his therapy and taken him back to
the jungle. The "treasure" that time had been some
class of a statuette they'd sealed in a lead box and couriered
to Berne a week later, and as far as he knew SS remained none
the wiser. They still sent him the hypodermics with every tech
package. Schuldich made a semesterly ritual of locking himself
in a hotel bathroom, taking the cylinder apart with one of Farfarello's
stilettos and flushing the active ingredient. Then he filled
it with physiological saline and made a show of using it for
the hidden cameras every once in a while.
Crawford had regained his loyalty after
that, if not his... trust.
The spirit turned out to be Grey Goose,
not as chill as he liked. The apartment was sweltering. He downed
it and reached for something attractively golden, in a highball
glass that clinked with ice. They'd started playing techno outright:
the beat filtered through a hundred awarenesses with nothing
better to do than abandon themselves to the rhythm, that bass
heartblood pounding... The old country had spawned some sorry
shit, the Organization being high on that list, but at least
its DJs were good. Thoughts kaleidoscoped behind his retinas,
refracting into iridescent shards of coke-joy, booze-dreams,
adrenalin, discarded memory, sex. He couldn't block them without
botching the mission. Somewhere in the back of his head he wanted
the girl, last night's vampire; he wanted a beautiful stranger
who would occupy his mind for a few hours, because if Schuldich
were left alone with his own weapons for too long he tended to
hurt himself as well... If he stepped out onto the balcony he'd
be met with lush hibiscus spilling over from stuccoed containers,
and the swaying tops of young banana palms. Below were the gleaming
blue jewels of a chlorinated miniature lagoon and jacuzzi. If
he looked up he'd be treated to moonlight, and the grating whisper
of snow sliding off the angled glass roof of the greenhouse.
Firs mounded high with Christmas white dotted the condominium
lawn. The surreality and heat of the glass cage in which he knew
himself enclosed only increased his disorientation. He almost
envied Nagi and Farfarello, staking the exterior from Schuldich's
red roadster in undoubted disgruntlement. The hell Crawford was
thinking? And that girl...
*Doko ka e ikenai no? Futari de.*
Schuldich halted in his tracks. He'd
been picking through the intruding thoughts idly (routine exercise),
looking for Ikumori, but the linguistic echo gave him pause.
Hadn't that...?
Someone pulled one of the shutters back,
letting cool blue light flood into that part of the study. Schuldich
caught incoherent protests, and the echo of laughter beneath
the music. He was about to turn away when she stepped into the
light. Just for a moment. Just enough for him to recognize milk-white
skin and wide dark eyes. She was wearing a dress the color of
burgundy wine, and the curve of her lips was like a doll's.
Then the shutter swung closed again,
and darkness descended.
Schuldich stood stock-still for a moment,
then cursed and started pushing across the impromptu dancefloor.
SS made no allowance for coincidence. An urgency took him, and
he prodded with unwonted mental roughness to part the sweaty,
twisting bodies. Not fast enough. She would have moved-
There was a sort of nightlight on a stand
in the entrance hall, a curving glass sculpture that glowed rose
and gold when someone passed by. Schuldich caught a glimpse of
burgundy by that sudden illumination and spun. The girl smiled
seductively and twined an arm about that of the man by her side,
who leant in toward her lips. By the incongruous pink lighting
Schuldich recognized the craggy features of Ikumori Yutaka: Japanese
antiquarian, owner of a ceremonial jade hand axe of unclear properties
coveted by the Organization and current target of a level-one
Schwartz search-and-retrieve mission (deployment of lethal force
permitted but not required).
The door opened, and closed.
***
Schuldich felt the pain in the room before
he even walked in.
He'd followed on instinct. Twenty flights
of stairs had only put him behind by a minute or two. Crawford
was the only one who had a key to Ikumori's fifth-floor apartment,
but the plan was shot any way Schuldich looked at it, and he
had no desire to explain himself. His blood was up; if the door
had been locked he would have gone over the balcony.
It wasn't.
Ikumori kept his rooms furnished in traditional
Japanese style. The girl knelt on the tatami in the middle of
the living room, the papery skirt of her wine-coloured balldress
spread out about her. It rustled at her slightest move. Ikumori
sprawled with his head on her lap and she gazed down into his
face, ruffling his hair tenderly. It made a touching picture
until one noticed the lay of his body wasn't quite right.
Spine, Schuldich thought, surveying the
scene with a trained eye. Not a technical kill - Ikumori's agony
and terror were a sweet buzz at the back of his brain - but sever
between the right vertebrae and everything goes. Gets you every
time...
"You know," he said, "guys
are big suckers for pretty girls. I bet you could get one to
lie down in your lap without having to knife him."
The girl turned luminous brown eyes on
him. "I remember you," she said. "I saw you last
night."
Schuldich realized that he was unarmed.
The knowledge sent a thrill through him.
"Score one for the young lady,"
he said. "I believe you just might have."
"Are you following me?" Ikumori made a desperate, constricted
sound, and she patted his cheek absently. Her accent was even
worse than Nagi's.
"Not a bit. Amazing, isn't it? I
guess we're just destined to make each other's acquaintance,
fraulein-"
"My name is Eiko," she said.
"Eiko-san. The pleasure's entirely
mine." He scanned her mind, but she didn't seem to notice
any more than she did the previous night. Again he met a void
edged with normality. She laboured to recollect social pleasantries
in German, and her name really was Eiko. Makoge Eiko. Whoever
had put her together had done a good job. He laughed.
"Would you prefer speaking in Japanese,
Eiko-san? I've had to pick it up."
She inclined her head, biting her lower
lip in coy indecision. Her hair fell over the white swell of
her decolletage. "Perhaps yes," she admitted finally.
"Doitsu-go wa taihen muzukashii wa ne... it is very nice
of you."
Schuldich grinned at her. The layout
of the room was actually identical to that of Neckermann's condo
upstairs, but its lines were obscured by the custom glass-fronted
display shelves lining the walls. They all seemed to contain
bits of ceramic or tarnished bronzes, nothing that gleamed like
jade. Though a place like this should at least have a... ah.
Yes.
He lifted the kodachi from its ornamental
stand. Too ornamental by half, but freeing a few centimetres
told him it was well-oiled and sharp. These things were best
for enclosed spaces, too. He was in luck.
Now about that axe...
"Do they let you out often, Eiko-san?"
he asked in Japanese, hefting the slender weapon. The pain in
the room was rising to his head with the alcohol he'd just consumed;
he would have to take care. "I mean, you're quite the heartbreaker.
Not to mention other body parts."
She giggled. "You're cute."
"Oh, I know. Even cuter than I'm
nice." He circled the room in cautious sidewise steps, flanking
her without quite turning away. "You should see me in pigtails
and bobby socks: I out-cute Hello Kitty any day of the week."
She was overly delightful. He couldn't read her motivation, because
she'd been given none. No memories to get hold of, no conscious
control to twist...
He wondered if she remembered how to
hurt.
Ikumori's breath rasped suddenly in his
throat. Schuldich stilled.
Eiko finished rolling the Japanese man
onto his stomach and bent over him, jerking the jade axe free
from where it had been imbedded at an angle in his back. Schuldich
caught her intent a moment before she swung it with short-ranged
precision, sending near-violet blood gushing from Ikumori's severed
carotid. Just enough time to step back and get his dress shoes
out of range.
Yappari,
as Nagi would say: they'd been on the same mission after all.
She didn't drink the way she did the
night before. Schuldich supposed the appetite he'd witnessed
was still half-sated. Instead she cupped her hand by the gash
in Ikumori's throat, raised it to her lips and sipped. All that
time her eyes were on him, and her other hand tight on the carved
grip of the axe.
"Eiko-san."
"Uun?" Blood dripped from her
wrist and ran into the blue shadow between her breasts. She sucked
each of her fingers clean in turn, her full lips pursed chastely.
Schuldich had a sudden vision of those lips that had nothing
to do with precognition, and it made his breath speed up. He
shifted his weight, bringing the kodachi up in an angled preparatory
stance.
"Let's play a little game together,"
he said softly. "Shall we?"
She smiled and came at him. Fast. If
he hadn't been expecting something out of her momentarily he
would have lost his sword arm, and as it was he had to dodge.
And dodge again. He caught her third swing on the blade of the
kodachi, and as he expected the jade failed to shatter the way
it should have. He shoved her away and she jumped back, crouching
defensively. Her skirts fluttered and settled about her in a
whisper of silk.
His blood was in her mind now.
Schuldich ran the tip of his tongue over
his lips absently. Then he attacked.
The sword was not his primary weapon,
but he'd sparred with Farfarello often enough that he knew the
rhythm of a blade's dance. She parried his first blow, but he
was faster than she and his second left her open to the reverse
stroke. Schuldich laughed aloud and scissored her legs from under
her. He caught her by the wrists as she fell; she kicked upward
and he dived to one side, throwing them both to the floor. Before
she could break his grip he reversed his hold on the kodachi
and stabbed the blade through the palms of her hands, pinning
them to the tatami.
She made a sound in the back of her throat,
too choked to be a scream except in thought.
After a moment Schuldich pushed himself
up, sitting astride her hips. She was trembling with shock, spasms
so strong they translated to his body, but she said nothing.
Makoge Eiko... to think she must have had a will of her own once.
Her mind was a whirlpool, the emptiness disturbed, but he could
catch nothing of who had sent her. That he'd have to go deeper
to find. The jade handaxe had fallen to one side, and he reached
for it.
"My axe," she gasped. Schuldich
felt the corners of his mouth turn up. Oh, if Farfarello were
here to see this. If Crawford...
He paused, a peculiar rage rising within
him at the sudden constriction in his chest. Then the reminder
was banished. The axe was warm and sticky in his hand; he set
the serrated edge against the neckline of her dress, letting
it press into her skin with the heaving of her respiration.
"That's right, Eiko's pretty axe.
You know, there's this buddy of mine I'm real sorry I can't call
up here. You've got quite a common language..."
He dragged the blade downward, shearing
through her dress with a sound of renting fabric. Her bared flesh
glowed like porcelain, the nipples shiveringly erect. Such a
pretty puppet. He bent down, licking between her breasts where
the blood had gathered and dried. She struggled and he forced
her legs apart. At the same time he sliced deeper into the void
of her mind, pushing in, letting himself fall. There might be
a trace of light at the bottom. Some clue or hidden memory he
could run through his fingers. From far away he heard himself
laugh: an angry, satisfied sound. Oh, she hurt, yes, not so that
she understood it but she hurt, not like his pain but she...
She screamed, her back arching.
Someone caught Schuldich by the back
of his collar and tossed him halfway across the room. He landed
badly, rolled and came to his knees just as three silenced shots
rang out with their dampened sound. Crawford stood over the girl,
his mouth tight and his gun arm still extended; from Schuldich's
angle he could only see the disjointed sprawl of one white leg,
like a doll that an earthquake had knocked off a collector's
shelf. That and the extra splashes on the wall.
Her blood was arterial, and brighter.
***
They said nothing to each other as they
left the condominium complex. As soon as they'd pulled onto the
autobahn Schuldich reached for the M5's stereo controls - and
Crawford caught his wrist before the movement was half completed,
without looking.
"Don't," he said.
The surface of his mind was devoid of
feeling. Schuldich contemplated struggle. If he goaded Crawford
into using force he would have an excuse to strike back. To draw
blood, if he got lucky. His nails dug into his palms.
The hesitation cost him. Crawford flung
his hand away as if it were a foreign object. Schuldich let go
of the breath he hadn't realized he was holding, and it burned.
"Say it, you fuck," he said.
"Go ahead and say it."
"I don't see that there's anything
so pressing."
"Fuck you, Crawford. I did the work.
I got your fucking art object." And despite the interfering
designs of... whom? He'd never gotten to find out. God, he was
still hard. The afterimage of Crawford's fingers around his wrist
was like a taste of hell. "I wasn't finished with
her-"
"We were finished."
Crawford's voice was still level, but it carried a whetted edge.
"Actual acts become superfluous in certain situations, Schuldich.
Whatever variation on rape and asphyxiation you had in mind can
be saved for an audience less... inured... to the charm of predictability.
There's the small matter of biological evidence as well."
"You fuck," Schuldich repeated.
It came out as a whisper.
"The sentiment is mutual. I'm tired
of guarding the mission against your screw-ups. You could stand
to develop some self-control."
It felt as if something broke. A lock,
a barrier, bulletproof glass.
Schuldich stared at the American, letting
the incandescent rage sweep over his sight. It didn't drive out
the other ache. The bastard, the motherfucking bastard in his
perfect tailored white, eyes cool behind his Armani frames and
hands steady on the wheel. He still remembered what those hands
could do. What the fuck did Crawford know about self-control?
He didn't even feel himself move.
Crawford threw up a deflecting arm out
of assassin instinct when Schuldich touched him, and the car
swerved violently. He jerked the wheel back with an oath. Schuldich
gave a sharp laugh, arching his back to mold himself against
Crawford's side, drawing his long legs up out of the way of the
gearshift. So he didn't always see it coming. He buried his lips
in Crawford's throat where Oxford cotton met skin.
"No visions, Herr Crawford?"
"Get off me."
"No." He couldn't read anything
from him. He licked at the lobe of Crawford's ear experimentally,
and caused only the tiniest hitch in the other's breathing. God,
he wanted to break him. It wouldn't be payment enough.
"I'm giving you three seconds,"
Crawford said tautly.
"Three seconds what? To put my seatbelt
back on?" He undid buttons without looking, slipped his
hand under Crawford's dress shirt. A conflicted surge skittered
along the surface of Crawford's mind before he blocked it; Schuldich
drank it like liqueur, reckless with anger and the sweetness
of that thought. "Keep your eyes on the road, love. Self-control,
remember? You're supposed to be good at it."
"Schuldich, if you're trying to-"
"Pull over if you want to free your
hands; I'd appreciate that. Or you could just ignore me."
*See if you can,* he added mentally. He slid his other arm around
Crawford's shoulders, the pale fabric of the jacket bunching
under his fingers as the other man tensed. There was no more
swerving, though, and the speedometer held steady at a hundred
eighty clicks. Oh, Schuldich would choke him with his self-control!
He tilted his head, kissing Crawford's
throat, the line of his jaw, the flutter of his pulse. Brief,
sweet, messy kisses. He wanted to take Crawford's glasses off,
but - he bit his lip - that would send them off the road too
soon, and the danger effervesced like Moët-Chandon in his
blood. He wanted Crawford's mouth on his. His hand ghosted over
Crawford's chest, feeling for the heartbeat.
"You'll regret this, Schuldich,"
Crawford said. Angry? Oh, yes. Crawford's threats were never
empty, no matter how calmly he delivered them. Schuldich took
a deep breath, filling his world with Crawford's scent, his taste.
"Pull over then," he said.
"Make me regret it."
And he thumbed the catch of Crawford's
seatbelt, releasing him.
Crawford jerked back when Schuldich began
to tug at his belt buckle; he caught the redhead by the front
of his shirt, ready to toss him back into his seat. Schuldich
fought him, hanging on, and the short but vicious struggle that
ensued saw the M5 veer into the passing lane and nearly over
the yellow line. Crawford, snarling, had to release him. He wrenched
the car back into its proper lane just as an Alfa Romeo roadster
shot past in a blast of angry horns. Schuldich laughed again,
breathless, tossing his hair out of his eyes and draping himself
over Crawford's lap. He didn't have to read Crawford's mind to
know he would never pull over.
*Don't let us fall under a hundred sixty,*
he thought at Crawford, uncaring whether the American's self-imposed
block allowed him to hear. *Wouldn't want to obstruct traffic...*
Rage, lust. He'd never felt so alive.
A good yank got the belt out of the way,
and Crawford's trouser button followed, slipping irretrievably
into some crevice in the leather. The American stared out the
windshield, disregarding Schuldich's ministrations, but his breath
came rapidly between gritted teeth.
Schuldich touched him, his sure fingers
making a mockery of pretense.
"Bastard," he murmured, his
hand sliding around Crawford's ready length. Stroking. "You
goddamned fuck." His hair brushed against Crawford's chest.
Emotion flashed through Crawford's untouchable barriers, searing
Schuldich's synapses like heat lightning when he opened to it.
Too fast for him to read. "I'll give you self-control. You
make me so fucking hard..."
The ache was too familiar. Without thinking
he pushed himself off the sculptured upholstery, sliding down
until he was kneeling on the floor of the car, his upper body
pressing against Crawford's knee. It was his pedal leg; he felt
the sudden acceleration in his bones.
"Schuldich," Crawford said,
no longer steady. Schuldich sensed him struggling to barricade
his mind. He grinned, gaze lowered so his lashes shadowed his
eyes.
"Use your talent, damn you,"
he said. "Watch for oncoming."
Then he lowered his head and took Crawford
into his mouth.
Crawford's curses died on his lips.
The sedan leapt forward, responsive to
every vagary of handling. Schuldich paid no attention, pressing
closer in greed. His lips slid over Crawford's erection easily,
wanton and wet. The American swore again, his words clipped and
unintelligible. Then he opened himself to prescience and let
his defenses fall.
His mind read as a mirror image of Schuldich's
own: a roil of hatred and vengefulness and aching want. The redhead
moaned softly as the contact broke over him, clutching Crawford's
shirt for purchase with one hand. The other went down between
his own legs. He threw the sensation at Crawford as he touched
himself, his hair falling over his face as he worked Crawford's
shaft with his mouth, and received the raw mental edge of a snarl
in return. There was a sudden flash of headlights, and the M5
swerved again to the side. Another car. Crawford was steering
on sixth sense and body instinct, but instead of slowing down
he was accelerating. They must be going over two hundred now.
Two hundred and ten?
He felt Crawford's hand tangle in his
hair, tugging painfully.
We're going to crash, he thought. But
he couldn't bring himself to care. He'd die sooner or later anyway;
wouldn't it be fine to go like this, with Brad Crawford's fingers
in his hair and his cock shoved into his mouth. Gott in Himmel,
he was burning up-
Crawford said his name again, whispered,
almost pleading, and pushed harshly against him. Making Schuldich
take it deep as he came, spurting hot and sweet against the back
of his throat.
Then he slammed on the brakes.
German racecar engineering and a no-doubt-foreseen
lack of other vehicles were all that saved them. Schuldich's
head flew back, slamming against the wheel hard enough that he
was dazed. For a vertiginous second all the night followed them
into a tailspin, then they were sliding down the snowy embankment,
still miraculously upright.
Crawford wrenched the gearshift into
neutral. Schuldich had doubled up over his knee, coughing. He
grabbed the redhead by the collar again, dragging him up and
sending him sprawling over the front seats of the sedan. Then
he kissed him.
It lasted a long time.
Schuldich blinked up at him when they
broke apart, washed up on an ebb tide of adrenalin. He tried
to speak, failed.
"Who the fuck asks for a Bimmer
without airbags?" he croaked finally. But of course a prophet
might. A prophet who drove a sedan with four hundred ponies
and a stick shift. If he laughed now he thought he would pass
out.
Crawford gazed into his eyes searchingly,
one hand still pinning him by the throat with casual killer-ease.
It was Schuldich's turn to wall himself away. A careless thought
was as a careless word with him, and he didn't trust himself
like this.
He still wanted Crawford.
It hurt.
A moment later Crawford had released
him. He was unreadable again; Schuldich could not tell if he
had found what he wanted. If he did, it didn't make him smile.
"Get out of my car," he said.
***
Too cold to be tired. Too tired to be
horny. Too horny to be riled - anymore.
Why couldn't he just get over it?
Schuldich let himself into the house
and found Nagi still up. The Japanese teen was curled up at one
end of the black leather sofa they'd inherited from the previous
inhabitants, swathed in a polar fleece throw blanket and nursing
a steaming mug. The banked fire glowed, and the room was redolent
of spiced wine toddy.
It felt homey. Though anywhere warm would
when one's feet were half-frozen.
"Good little boys should be in bed,"
he said, kicking off his shoes. The salt slush on the roads had
just about ruined the leather.
"Fuck you, Schuldich," Nagi
returned evenly.
"There's my day in review. Any more
where that came from?"
"On the stove." Schuldich moved
past him into the kitchen and found the saucepan on low heat.
Nagi had made it, he supposed; he ill imagined Farfarello or
Crawford in here, dicing oranges and spooning sugar at two in
the morning. As for those last-
*Gone,* Nagi thought when Schuldich reached
out for the relevant memories in his mind. He rarely blocked
outright, but he had a way of parrying rummaging with conversation.
Schuldich paused. *Both of them?*
*Farfarello went out again as soon as
we got back here. So did Crawford when he showed up.*
Nagi allowed him a brief glimpse of Crawford striding out the
front door in a different suit, impeccable again except for the
shadows under his eyes. "He's gone to Berne," he added
aloud. "Said he saw they had another mission for us."
Schuldich set his mug down carefully.
"How long ago was that?"
"About an hour ago. He should be
over the border by now." Nagi twisted to look at him, indigo
eyes cat-bright with reflected firelight. "He said you'd
be back though. Said to make you something; that you might be
cold."
Schuldich assimilated this for a few
seconds, then he started laughing. He laughed so hard he shook
and dropped to his knees on the kitchen tile, bracing himself
against the counter to keep himself upright. When he tried to
stop he found he couldn't.
Nagi regarded him steadily for a while,
then kicked away his blanket and approached. He tugged at Schuldich
until he was forced to stand and half-dragged him back to the
sofa. Using his talent probably, but Schuldich couldn't tell:
his body was as exhausted as his nerves. Nagi dumped him on the
seat, threw the blanket over his legs and went back to the kitchen
for Schuldich's mug and an extra coaster. By the time he returned
Schuldich's laughing fit had died away to weak chuckling, and
he was sprawled over the leather with his arm thrown over his
eyes.
"I must be going insane," he
said. "How about it, Nagi? You think I'm going insane?"
Nagi deposited the coaster on the polished
Jugenstil coffee table. "I don't know. Are you looking for
me to be nurturing or realistic?"
Schuldich peered up at him from under
his arm. "Nurturing? You have a nurturing side?"
"My nurturing side says shut up
and drink this swill before it gets cold, given that I waited
up with it for you." Schuldich made a face at him but took
the mug. Nagi picked up his own, retreated to the other end of
the sofa and stuck his feet under the common blanket. *Schuldich.*
*Yeah?* The toddy warmed him up quick.
He figured he'd managed to evade pneumonia, which gave him good
odds on surviving the backlash of the night after all. Unless
Crawford took the opportunity to have him kicked off the team,
which came in marginally worse than death in Schuldich's book.
*You set yourself up every time. You
do realise this.*
*Oh, spare me.* Schuldich leant his head
back on the armrest. *The hell you know about what I do, kid?*
Nagi sipped at his drink. *You drive
Crawford up a wall. The rest of the world doesn't even know how.
I'd be cheering, but I happen to have to live with you people
- and one of these days I'm going to let Farfarello take care
of you after you screw up. Fair warning, Schuldich.*
"Nagi," Schuldich said aloud
with deep feeling, "go fuck yourself."
Nagi gave him a malicious look. "Screw-up
doesn't cover it tonight, does it?"
"Not even in the same order of magnitude."
Schuldich lifted his head enough to drain his mug and set it
on the table, missing the coaster by a couple of inches. "I
can't help myself. I mean, it's so much fun working for a jerk
who fucked you over in a job you can't quit. Everyone should
try it."
Nagi swung his legs down and stood. "Credit
me for the eyes in my head, Schuldich. You wouldn't leave if
Crawford threw you out."
"Am I still looking at the nurturing
Nagi Naoe?" The supine position made him sleepy. He felt
Nagi pull something else over him that he couldn't identify,
but that was blissfully warm. "You got anything in realistic
mode to say?"
He felt, or imagined, a hand brush his
hair from his face.
"Realistically speaking," Nagi
said, "it's late in the day for any of us to be worrying
about going insane. Now let me go to bed."
Schuldich closed his eyes.
Kulchur notes:
- 1) Doko ka e ikenai no, futari de: "Can't
we go somewhere? Just the two of us."
- 2) Doitsu-go wa taihen muzukashii wa ne: "German
is awfully difficult, isn't it." (Not that Sabina's Japanese
is all roses either.)
- 3) 180 clicks (km/h) = 110 mph ^^;;
-
--Montreal,
January 2001
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