A/N: Just a quick note of thanks to everyone who's read and commented on this thing. I should be more conscientious about responding individually, as, absolutely and always, kind words are the fuel that keep this sorry engine ticking along, but I've been swamped with work (and, more excusably, maybe, with writing), and all in all I'm an utter bum, no hallelujahs about it. Here's a monster chunk of a chapter by at least indirect way of apology. Enjoy...!
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Fischer's first mistake was in trying to stand up. When he heard the siren, his subconscious mind told him to acknowledge authority (even that of public servants), to straighten, to make himself presentable. As his father would want him to do.
His subconscious and his father were fools.
Misjudging his equilibrium was his second blunder. Bluntly: he stumbled. Into one of the officers alighting from the white checker-striped Ford police sedan. Who caught Fischer, who panicked and windmilled with his arms, and who was then pinned facedown on the Ford's stubby boot.
His third mistake, which compounded his flailing, however unintentional, was the fact that he smelled like a whole bottle of rum. The smell, if not the flailing, earned him a handcuffing.
The septuagenarian good Samaritan who had squinted out past her porch light to the tree-befuddled shadows on the sidewalk and phoned in the assault had spoken only of a man attacking a woman. One man. She hadn't seen one man run off after beating a second to the ground; in going for the phone she hadn't, in fact, seen the woman herself escape. When the police arrived, they found, ostensibly, one half of the equation. That being one man.
Or, more simply, it came down to this: when in doubt, arrest the one you can catch. The one who stinks of alcohol. Even if he's wearing a decidedly upscale suit and has blood dribbling down his chin.
#####
The Surry Hills police station. A sluicegate of concrete slabs slicing into the bruised night sky. Like the levels of a parking garage tipped on end. The two arresting officers, male, grim-faced, efficient, and, most unlike their charge, well-balanced, hauled Fischer by his upper arms past the ticket-booth exterior, the windows staring blankly and blackly back at the rain, through the sliding glass doors.
He might easily have come across as unstable mentally as he was physically; in any case, his two escorts stood with him at the booking desk. The booking officer, whose name tag eluded the present scope of Fischer's visual focus, was balding, heavy-browed, otherwise fine-featured. The contrast was disconcerting. The light from the monitor before him lent a blue tinge to the man's skin.
"Name," he said.
"I'm Robert Fischer."
The booking officer hoisted his substantial brows. Inquisitively, Fischer thought.
"Of Fischer-Morrow Industries, Unlimited," he offered, by way of annotation.
"Of course you are. And I'm Father Christmas."
"I'm chipped, officer." Fischer thought he could feel the plates of his skull warping in time to his pulse. He hoped the word "officer" hadn't sounded as much like a tonal surrogate for "you idiot" to the policemen as it had to him.
"If, by 'chipped,' you mean 'thoroughly pissed,'" the officer muttered to Fischer's booking screen.
"I'm entitled to a scan," Fischer heard himself say.
"That you are." The speaker was a woman, uniformed, short, square through the shoulders, her pony-tailed hair dusty blonde in the light from the fluorescents. "Mister—"
"Fischer," flatly, from the booking officer.
"—Mr. Fischer, I'm Senior Constable Towne, the station's custody manager. I'm going to inform you of your rights."
Fischer nodded as he was thus informed. Or thought he nodded. He might have been absolutely stationary; the room itself might have been on gimbals. They moved him to a black vinyl-cushioned chair, very stable on heavy steel legs, while Towne droned her recitation of the legal contract between the constabulary and the confined, detainors and detainees.
"You appear to be intoxicated, Mr. Fischer," she said in conclusion, Fischer having heard maybe one word in three of the speech that came before. "Do we have permission to draw a sample of your blood?"
Fischer offered another nod, numbly.
"We'll do the scan in addition to the draw. Won't take but a minute."
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In a tiny examining room away from the traffic of the booking area, Fischer, post-needle-prick, post-sampling, removed, in addition to his dirty suit jacket, his mojito-soaked shirt. The station medic found the Genochip right where Fischer said it would be, below his left shoulder blade, where kidnappers would have a tough time getting at it without killing him.
Two minutes later, while Fischer washed his bloody face and made his permitted phone call, one of the arresting officers drifted past the booking desk and said, drolly: "I'll take a pony for Christmas, Santa."
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Browning showed up with Ian Redmond, one of the company's senior attorneys, slender and energetic, impeccably suited in black, with fierce gray eyes in a weathered sixtyish face, a stormfront of gray hair swept back off his high forehead. It might have been half past a stale midnight, but Redmond looked as if he'd been caught immediately following a brisk and refreshing mid-morning walk. He joined Fischer in one of the station's interrogation rooms at one side of a bolted-down metal table. An officer by the name of Monroe seated himself opposite them. He had a forty-something face, broadly handsome, eyes like shale, a mouth that was slightly too wide. Kiwi-brown hair that would likely remain at the same point of thinning for the rest of his life. Redmond introduced himself as Fischer's lawyer. He then asked, in the deferentially apologetic manner of a man who had just missed the ordering of cocktails:
"With what, might I ask, is Mr. Fischer being charged, Sergeant?"
"Detective Sergeant."
"Ah: the V.I.P. treatment, Robert," Redmond said, his expression, like his tone, blancmange-smooth.
Detective Sergeant Monroe frowned at him. "Mr. Fischer is being charged with assault, possibly in the course of attempted robbery."
"And who is the complainant?"
D.S. Monroe hesitated. Fischer opened his mouth to speak; Redmond calmly waved him silent.
"She hasn't come forward as of yet," Monroe said.
"Ah. Difficult to prosecute assault charges with no victim, wouldn't you agree? Also: I find it odd that Mr. Fischer is being charged with robbery when it appears that it's his wallet and watch that have gone missing." Before Monroe could reply, Redmond asked: "Is there anything else, Detective Sergeant Monroe?"
"Mr. Fischer exhibited behavior leading us to believe he might be intoxicated—"
"Which accusation the test of Mr. Fischer's blood has already disproved. I ask again, Detective Sergeant: will there be anything else?"
"I have several more questions regarding the incident in the pub. If Mr. Fischer is willing to answer said questions, of course."
"I believe Mr. Fischer has had enough for one—"
"No, Ian." Fischer sat forward, placed his forearms on the table. "I'd like to finish this tonight."
Monroe met his eyes, nodded. "The girl at Gilliam's: would you recognize her if you saw her again?"
"Of course."
"The barman told the investigating constable she threw a drink in your face."
"No. She poured it on me, quite calmly."
Two looks: a mildly incredulous one from Redmond, a skeptical one from the Detective Sergeant. "Explain," Monroe said.
"I misinterpreted her presence, I made a callous remark, and she poured her drink down my shirt."
"Were you trying to effect an assignation with her, Mr. Fischer?"
Fischer felt his aching face go hot. "Such elegant phrasing for an officer of the law," Redmond murmured. "Bravo, Detective Sergeant."
"No," Fischer replied. "No, I wasn't."
"Would you like to swear out a complaint against her, Mr. Fischer?"
Fischer thought he'd misheard. A too-quick turn of events for his pounding skull. "I beg your pardon—?"
"Detective Sergeant Monroe is asking whether you'd like to have her tracked down and arrested for assault, Robert," said Redmond. "Aren't you?" he asked Monroe.
Monroe ignored him. "Mr. Fischer—?"
"No. That won't be necessary."
"Which leads us to a related question," Redmond said. He trained a sudden, hard stare on D.S. Monroe. "To what extent are your officers responsible for Mr. Fischer's injuries, Detective Sergeant Monroe?"
D.S. Monroe bristled, tried unsuccessfully not to wince.
"Then I think we're done here," Redmond said. "Is Mr. Fischer free to leave?"
It really wasn't a question. "Yes," Monroe said.
Redmond took Fischer discreetly but firmly by the upper arm as they rose. Until that moment, nearly leaning into the man's stabilizing grip, Fischer hadn't realized how unsteady he still was, how hard he was shaking.
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Browning had a driver and a black Mercedes company sedan waiting outside. Redmond had his own car, an ancient and water-sleek Aston Martin that crouched in the rain in the car park like a silver android panther.
"Thanks for meeting us on such short notice, Ian," Browning said.
Redmond shook the offered hand. "Quite all right, Peter. That's what retainers are for."
His expression, though, as he turned for Fischer's handshake, seemed to stop just short of disapproving. Fischer looked into Redmond's intent eyes and saw You, young man, on the other hand—
"Was I wrong in not having her brought in for questioning?"
Redmond's face stilled to an almost-imperceptible frown, as though young Fischer, despite being the son of an eminently powerful man, had said something too obvious to be in good taste. "For questioning? If you ask me, she ought to be brought in and flogged." He smiled then, slightly, diplomatically. "I hope the remainder of your evening is more pleasant, Mr. Fischer. Good night."
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As he settled into the back seat of the Mercedes, Browning emitted a morbid snort. "Hell, Bobby, you should have gone straight home. You look like the loser in a curb-kick contest." A sniff, a grimace. "What the hell— Is that mint? Were you chewing gum?"
Fischer ignored him. He reached into his breast pocket for his phone, found it missing. Of course. Shit. He looked in frustration to Browning, who handed him his phone. Fischer dialed through to his after-hours personal assistant. "This is Robert, Therese. Cancel my credit cards and my license, please—"
Browning shook his head. Trace, he mouthed.
"—scratch that: Cancel and re-issue the license; put a trace on the cards."
"We'll get them," Browning said, as Fischer handed back his phone. "They won't get far."
"Just one, Uncle Peter." He sat back, felt his remaining energy dissipate as he did. He found himself mumbling around his swollen and blood-sour lip what he'd mumbled to the police: "There was just one. Caucasian male, dark hair, twenty-five to thirty-five, six feet tall, a hundred and seventy pounds—"
"You're babbling. There's never just one, Robert. Sons of bitches," he added, taking a longer look at Fischer's face. As he did, his expression conveyed genuine concern, something he preferred to keep far from the boardroom. He tapped the comm button. "Phil—"
Yes, Mr. Browning.
"Swing us past Mr. Fischer's private clinic."
Yes, sir.
"I just want to go home," Fischer said.
"You might need stitches for that lip," Browning replied.
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Browning waited for him at the clinic. Doctor Weller, bony-framed, thin through the face, his shock-blue eyes possessed of the slightly desocialized intensity common to those who'd worked too long on the nightshift, checked Fischer for concussion, did indeed stitch his lip, told him that he was lucky still to have all his teeth. He sent Fischer back to the Mercedes armed with half a bottle of painkillers. Browning accompanied Fischer to his Gloucester Street flat, made sure he got settled. Fischer was too tired and numb to tell Browning not to treat him like a child.
He asked, filtering himself a glass of water at the kitchen tap and downing a pain pill: "Does my father know?"
"Yes. He's already issued a memo."
A memo.
Fischer, glass in hand, crossed to his office space, woke his Mac, leaned in, read from his Fischer-Morrow in-box:
Robert Fischer, whilst making a selfless attempt to aid the victim of a robbery in progress, etc.
"Selfless": nice touch, Dad. More et ceteras regarding identity or identities unknown and suspects remaining at large, culminating in
Mr. Fischer's injuries will not impair his performance of company-related duties. Not even a "We are relieved to say" or "Join me in wishing him well." If anything, Maurice was more concerned with heading off a scandal, and in milking a few drops of goodwill and publicity from the situation.
Browning waited until Fischer looked away from the screen. "What he's actually saying is he thinks you let yourself walk right into a trap."
"Do you believe that?"
"I ought to," Browning said. "I'm the one who suggested it to him."
"Thanks. Thanks so much."
"Sounds a little bit better than 'Golden-boy Bobby got himself plastered and attacked a woman he met in a bar,' doesn't it?"
"He needs his accountant to tell him when his son might be in trouble." He caught himself, seeing the sudden hurt hardening in Browning's expression. "I'm sorry, Uncle Peter. That was out of line."
"It's okay. You've had a hell of a night." Browning for a moment stood at the main-floor wall of window. A calm breath, one, two, as he looked north to the city lights, the darkness, the deeper blue-black of the water of the harbor. "He does care for you, you know."
He managed not to make it sound rote. Fischer didn't reply.
Browning asked, as he went to the door: "Do you want Security to find out who she really is?"
"No. That won't be necessary." Fischer turned from the computer, looked at his godfather. He swallowed around a sudden tightness in his throat. "Thank you for— for—"
"You'd bail me out, too." With a grip on the door handle, Browning smiled, shrugged. "Goodnight, Robert."
#####
Not surprisingly, he spent the rest of the night alone.
Shortly before Fischer's eighteenth birthday, Maurice Fischer had determined his son to be heterosexual. Not through the usual channels of inquiry and observation, the sifting of the security reports that detailed his boy's nocturnal activities, no: Fischer, like God setting the energy state of a subatomic particle through the simple act of divine observation, had decided Robert's sexual preference. Accordingly, shortly after Robert turned eighteen, Maurice had arranged for him to lose his virginity at the capable hands and assorted feminine orifices of an employee of Maurice's preferred escort service. Safer that way. Sensible. The thought of his son embarking on a series of random carnal encounters disturbed Maurice not from a moral standpoint but from a pragmatic one: the idea of dealing with (and he employed the term loosely, with an eye both to scandal and the potential use of extreme measures) a string of young women with toddlers in tow, ready to gnash with their peg-like milk-teeth on the Fischer empire and fortune, was the stuff of headaches, if not nightmares.
So: Robert could for now sow his wild oats safely amongst the ladies of the agency. Then, in five years or so, at Maurice's suggestion, he would parse the pages of the social register linked to the Fortune Global 500 and choose a bride suitable to perpetuate the Fischer name.
Best to keep one's intimate connections clean and easily severable. If he had been a praying man in addition to a widower, Maurice Fischer might have asked God never to let his son learn why that was true.
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Said son read no mother-issues into his dealings with the girls of the agency. Nothing Freudian, nothing Oedipal. He neither sought out nor avoided women with soft brown hair, full lips and wide cheekbones, eyes the color of clear blue glass.
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He'd never minded the arrangement. Honestly, he hadn't cared enough to mind. A girl came to him periodically, or he called for one, and she saw to his needs. Briefly or languorously, in ten minutes' time or all night, roughly or gently: he had only to choose.
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The thought of such choices had never bothered him before. Now, with the painkiller drawing him off to sleep, Fischer found the idea somehow chilling.
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Had he been inclined to seek scapegoats, or had he been less exhausted, drugged, and sore, he might have blamed the girl in Gilliam's.
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Fischer was proud of himself. Despite his skull, which was doing a credible impersonation of an active construction site, he was up for his ten dozen pushups and his morning run. He was showered, shaved, in his office at his usual self-designated start time. Then, after the ten a.m. meeting of the Fischer-Morrow cabinet, while broken rain clouds seemingly on level with the floor-to-ceiling windows at either end of the hall fled like refugees of war across a cold blue sky, his father stopped Fischer outside the main conference room. Maurice placed his hand for a moment on his son's right shoulder, as gently or as carelessly as he would if he were reaching for a piece of lint. "You might concentrate on your private duties for a few days, Robert," he said quietly.
"Yes, sir."
Fischer didn't realize what his father meant until Fischer, Sr., had walked away. Maurice wasn't counseling rest, speaking out of concern. He was telling Robert to keep himself hidden until he looked less like a man who had been in a bar fight.
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Up, and working. Behind the red oak door of his office, cloistering his bruised cheek, his swollen lip, the blackened socket of his right eye, from the apparent disapproval of the Fischer-Morrow corporate environment. Seated at his desk, Fischer caught movement to his left; thinking it was Nancy Crawford, his solid, sensible, sharp-eyed administrative assistant, he turned his head so as to hide the right side of his face.
It wasn't Nancy. Other than she and Fischer's father, only one other denizen of the Fischer-Morrow world would walk in without knocking.
"You should be in bed," Browning said.
"You saw the memo," Fischer replied, coolly. "Mr. Fischer will not be impaired in the performance of his duties. Maurice said so himself."
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Browning continued to be more than usually solicitous for the remainder of the day, which concern manifested itself even as a hounding throughout lunch. Fischer ate in the Mojave-esque expanse of his office; with his typical bullish tact, Browning invited himself to join him.
"They were setting you up, Robert," he said, chopping at the hardboiled egg in his Cobb salad. "Dream-girl and the guy outside Gilliam's."
Fischer picked at the tofu hiding amongst his own plateful of greens. "I don't believe that, Uncle Peter."
"Come on. She was the bait, you fell for it, and he was waiting for you."
"Practically out in the open? And why didn't they max the cards, then? They've had plenty of time."
"Maybe they knew the cards would be traced."
"No."
"Anyway, we know who she is."
"I told you not to check into her."
"Here." Browning picked a black plastic folder from his briefcase, slid it to Fischer's side of the table. "We got her on a facial match. CCTV camera outside the bar." He opened the cover of the folder, and Fischer found himself looking at the girl from Gilliam's. She looked back at him in crisp digital color. Her dark hair was pulled back; her serge-blue eyes were serious. Or troubled, hollow, a little lost. He didn't look farther. "Recruitment photo," Browning said. "Royal Air Force. She's ex-military, Robert."
"I don't care."
"Then maybe I'll have to care for you. She could be part of a terrorist group. Kidnappers. I should have her picked up right now—"
"You'll do no such thing." Fischer stood, stared Browning hard in the eyes. "You tell me I'm too soft, Uncle Peter: fine. You're to take no action with regard to that woman without express authorization from my father, which said authorization I will need to confirm in person. Is that understood?"
"Understood." A moment later, Browning broke eye contact. A moment after that, he was trying to hide a chuckle by clearing his throat. "Sorry— I can't help it." Appropriately serious, he looked back at Fischer. "Very nicely done, Mr. Fischer. Don't be afraid to use that in the boardroom."
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Fischer swallowed another painkiller, skipped dinner, and continued to work through the afternoon well into the night. A blend of anger and frustration, at his father, at himself, at the girl, fueled a wavering but implacable momentum. Finally, he was alone on the executive floor. Joe Bartel, having assumed that Robert, following his experiences on the previous evening, wouldn't be trying to slip past Security and his driver again any time soon, had called his goodnight from the door of Fischer's office and gone home. That had been an hour ago.
With the northern European regional statistics and related projections and his notes regarding same spread across his three monitors, he lost a handful of seconds to the backs of his eyelids. He started awake. His body said Sleep. The sofa was right there. Ten minutes, fifteen. He could set the alarm on his watch.
His stolen watch.
The onyx-faced Oris he wore was practically the twin of the Oris that had been pulled from his wrist last night. It, like its lost twin, had an alarm.
Fischer saved his work, stood up. He began to set the alarm. He looked at the face of the Oris and paused. He thought Do you want my watch?
He unclasped the band, slid the watch bumping over his knuckles.
I said, Do you fucking want my fucking watch—?
He clenched the Oris in his right hand. He snarled, silently—
You fucking bastard.
Fischer swung toward the window behind him, gripping the Oris like a baseball, and hauled back his right arm—
He stopped. Nearly stumbled, catching himself right before the watch flew at the night-black glass. "God," he whispered.
He set the wristwatch on the edge of his desk and left his office. The break room that served the floor's executive-assistant staff and doubled as refreshments prep for one of the secondary conference rooms was right across the way. He found the pods, a mug, brewed himself a cup of coffee from the single-serve machine. Took a sip and hissed in pain: the liquid was like lava on his stitched lip.
He crossed back to his office, mug in hand, set the coffee to cool by the Oris while he went back to work.
After ninety seconds, a hundred, he reached again for the mug. Sipped.
Worked. Forty-five seconds later, he drank again, set the mug down.
Fifteen seconds after that, he was fast asleep.
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The security cameras on the floor that housed Fischer's office were gazing inwardly at a looping digital file that showed nothing but empty hallway. The cameras didn't see the three janitors dressed in FMI royal-blue uniform tops and trousers or the wheeled black recyclables bin they were trundling between them. They didn't see that one of the the janitors was a slight, pale young man with straight black hair and light hazel eyes. They didn't see that his first companion, not unlike the man whose knuckle-prints Robert Fischer bore in the form of a yellowish-green fist-sized bruise on his right cheek, was a dark-haired Caucasian male, twenty-five to thirty-five, a shade over six feet tall, roughly one hundred and seventy pounds.
They didn't see that the third janitor was the young woman from Gilliam's.
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"We'll have to be sure to clear out the rest of those pods," said the larger of the men. "It might look suspicious if all the coffee-drinkers fall asleep at the next board meeting."
As he spoke, he crossed the sand-colored carpet to where Robert Fischer sat slumped before his trio of computer monitors, deeply asleep. He drew Fischer's chair back slightly from the desk; with quiet, powerful efficiency, he picked Fischer up and carried him to the sofa. The smaller man was there already with the recyclables cart, trying to wrest something the size and shape of a primitive portable sewing-machine case from the dry, sliding grip of a concealing heap of office paper.
"Need a hand, Nicky?" the first man asked, as he laid Fischer on the sofa.
Nick tried not to grunt as he lifted the case clear of the cart. Like the first man, he spoke clearly but barely above a murmur: "Screw you, Chris."
"As always, Nicholas, in your dreams. Susan—?"
The girl from Gilliam's was at the wall control for the room's panoramic windows, judging the amount of light and detail Fischer's office was broadcasting to the night sky from fifty floors up. She left the opacity setting where it was, pulled on a white cotton glove before pushing the button for the thermal curtains. She crossed to the sofa as the sliding panes whispered shut, knelt on the floor by Fischer's side. Nick was already loosening up the case's innards: dials, wires, IV lines running off a reservoir of golden liquid.
Susan touched Fischer's bruised cheek with ungloved fingertips. "Did you have to hit him so hard, Chris?"
"You know the process works better when the physical components are convincing."
"The process works better when the subject can physically wake up. You might have put him in a coma."
"What she's really saying, Chris," said Nick, as he dabbed Fischer's left wrist with odorless disinfectant and deftly slid the tip of an IV needle beneath the skin, "is that she thinks you get off on roughing up these rich corporate weasels."
"She gets off on fucking them. What's the difference?"
"Oh, a lawsuit, that's all." Susan's anger was sudden, sickening, and harsh. For a moment she clamped her jaw so tightly shut that she thought she felt her molars shift in her gums. "Maybe even prison time. The liability waiver doesn't cover permanent physical impairment."
"Now you tell me."
"Don't be stupid, Chris. Miles could end up in terrible trouble. We all could."
She glared up at him. Chris stared stonily back at her.
"Behind door number one, ladies and gentlemen, a stalemate," murmured Nick. He held up dual sets of IV lines as he split a look between his teammates. "Would the owners of the clashing egos care to get to work?"
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Fischer was back at—
— it had to be— no, it was— a new place, very much like Gilliam's, one with a twisty name. A name that, to his embarrassment, he couldn't quite recall. Nor could he quite recall arriving. He'd been too tired to drive. Phil must have brought him.
After he'd ordered his first vodka tonic, from a bartender who might have been Bill Doherty's cousin, she eased in next to him. The girl from Gilliam's. She was wearing a deep gray dress tonight, again short-sleeved, again agreeably modest. A piece of amethyst hung on a silver chain snuggled in the hollow at the base of her throat. "I wanted to apologize about last— Oh, my God. Your face—"
Until that moment, Fischer hadn't thought about his injuries, the night before, being robbed. Now the memory rekindled the pain in his cheek and jaw. Nonetheless, he found himself smiling. "It's alright. Nothing broken. Are you okay—?"
"Yes."
"Can I buy you a drink? One that you actually drink-drink—?"
She smiled back at him, though her eyes remained shy of his wounds. "Of course."
#####
Even in the time it took for her drink to arrive— and, again, she ordered a mojito— the bar grew noisier, stuffier, more crowded. "Should we get some air?" she asked.
Fischer hesitated, feeling a twinge of uncertainty as he recalled Browning's suspicions.
"Come on," she said, smiling for him as she stood. "It's a lovely evening."
She took his hand. Almost a shock at the contact, though not an unpleasant one. Fischer felt his heart-rate spike. Her grip was warm and firm. He paid for their drinks, and she led him through the press of the crowd, out into the cool night air.
#####
The sky was clear and black, spiked with stars. A chilled breeze blew from the south. He realized he had no idea where he was. The area looked familiar but unspecified. Likely he'd driven through it before, en route to somewhere else; no doubt he'd heard the bar recommended and given the name to his driver tonight on a whim. Phil's knowledge of the city rivaled that of the most seasoned cab driver. They passed shops still open or closed for the night, coffee cafes, restaurants, a pocket-park like a stage set dressed with grass wispily overgrown, lamps on black iron poles casting soft light onto a paved walking path and the bark-tread of oaks.
She asked, before Fischer had the chance: "Don't you think it's too much of a coincidence, us meeting again like this?"
"There's no such thing as coincidence," he replied.
"Don't tell me you believe in fate."
"No. Something my godfather says: some decisions are made subconsciously. He also says that if will were truly free, then everyone could afford it."
A tactfully mild frown, which Fischer saw out of the corner of his eye. "That's... interesting," she said, finally.
"Do you want to say 'elitist'? Go on, no one's watching." He listened to her laugh; he smiled. "You're not from around here. I'm guessing London."
"Very good." They drifted closer together; her right shoulder nudged his left upper arm. Not quite by accident. "You haven't asked my name."
"You haven't asked mine," Fischer countered.
"You're Robert Fischer."
Of course she knew who he was. Like anyone else, she must read newsfeeds, watch TV. What Fischer felt, coldly centered under his sternum, was best described as disappointment. Not fear: Browning's warnings about dark spaces, traps, being lured out, were far from his thoughts.
She looked, saw the new stillness in his expression. "I'm sorry. I should have pretended I didn't know."
"No." Fischer stopped, caught her by the hand, stopped her, too. Again, now, came the feeling that he didn't quite recognize the street. But he couldn't know every street, could he? He wasn't a gazetteer; like many men of wealth and power and pretension, he was both too quickly on the move and enslaved to the means of that too-quick motion: fast cars, GPS, drivers like Phil, whose seamless efficiency turned every trip into a simple pairing of departure and arrival.
None of which, excuse or fact, seemed important right now. He looked into her troubled blue eyes and said, gently: "I'm glad you told the truth."
"But—"
The breeze picked up, caught at her long dark hair. Fischer, still holding her hand, felt her shiver.
"Here." He shrugged out of his suit jacket, put it around her shoulders. As he did, he noticed for the first time that it was the same jacket he'd been wearing the night before. Clean now, completely unsoiled. "That's odd—"
"What is?"
"Nothing." When her eyes remained on him, friendly but inquisitive, he added: "You were right. I do have a very good dry cleaner."
They were beginning to circle back toward the bar. "So: names," she said, drawing Fischer's jacket more snugly around her shoulders. "I'm—"
"Can I guess?" Fischer asked, softly.
A bemused glance. "Sure."
"You're Susan Gaumont."
She responded, without hesitating but without accusation, either: "Turnabout being fair play?"
"I must have seen it somewhere. A memo, a press release. Corporate profile, maybe."
"It's tough staying invisible these days."
"Tell me about it." For a second, a second only, Fischer saw in his mind a black plastic folder, a name below a woman's photo. The second passed. The night air felt refreshing, not too cool, through his dress shirt. "Here's an awful thought: you work for one of our competitors. Worse: you work for us."
"Why would that be worse?"
"House protocol. I wouldn't be able to—"
"— to—?"
Almost shyly: "— get to know you better."
"No sleeping with the boss?"
Fischer felt himself blush. "You're very direct, aren't you?"
"Yes, I am. And, if it comes down to that, we're in luck. I work for a private security consultant."
"Which accounts for the toned arms, then."
Again, she laughed. A low, soft sound, as heady and sweet as casked cream sherry. "That makes a change. Most guys would be looking at my tits."
Her words were meant to shock but not to wound; she spoke to him intimately on this odd winter night, on this street he was just shy of recognizing; and Fischer asked, feeling no longer shy in fact but daring now, even impulsive: "Is this a dream?"
Beside him, walking with her arm touching his, she hesitated.
He wasn't voicing a cliche´. She didn't pretend that she thought he was. She looked at him frankly and said: "Yes, it is."
Fischer went thoughtfully quiet.
She gave him ten paces' time before she prompted, gently: "Tell me, Robert."
"I was just wondering: is it my dream or yours?"
They were nearly back to the bar, passing along a stretch of rough brick outer wall. An alley opened to the right, about twenty feet ahead. Susan smiled slightly, possibly, Fischer thought, with admiration, and said, in lieu of reply, "My car's just up ahead."
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Passing the alley, Fischer felt himself shrinking inwardly, as though its greater darkness were that much colder than the darkness all around. Almost as if he could feel it pressing like packed ice against his right side.
And which made it all the more frightening when the man's voice came from directly behind them. "You fucking whore."
Fischer turned as Susan did. Felt a stab of fear so primal it seemed to initiate at a cellular level.
It was the man from last night. The man who'd beaten and robbed him. Who'd attacked Susan. Now he was maybe fifteen feet away. Susan said, her voice shaking: "Leave us alone, Chris."
Fischer asked, incredulously, not even thinking how it was impossible, how this was a dream: "You know him?"
"I met him shortly after I arrived in Sydney. He's been following me. Harassing me."
"You lying slut." Chris didn't advance on them. Suddenly, he just seemed to be there, between them. He shoved Fischer into a parked car, hit Susan before she could react. Fischer heard the blows land, heard her gasp in pain and shock.
"You'd better fuck off, little man," Chris said to him. Susan was doubled over, panting, trying to catch her breath. He caught her by the hair and by the right arm and dragged her toward the alley.
"No—" Fischer could barely hear himself. His voice seemed to be trapped in his throat. He slumped against the car, stunned. "Don't—"
He couldn't move. He couldn't speak. He couldn't breathe. Tears were filling his eyes.
And then, like flame through the fear: rage.
White-hot, cleansing. Clarifying.
"No—!"
He pushed away from the car, became a juggernaut. Propelled himself at Chris's disappearing back, as the shadows of the alley swallowed him and Susan. It was as if he could smell the man's blood. It was as if he could taste it.
Chris must have heard the scuffling footsteps behind him. He shoved Susan away. She hit the alley wall—
A frozen moment: She hit the alley wall, and her head snapped back, and Fischer heard a cracking sound. Heard. Or thought he heard. Susan hit the alley wall, her head snapped back, and she was slumping toward the dirty pavement, her eyes not closed but open—
— and Fischer hit Chris, one fist, two, right to the face, furious. Furious but untrained, earnest but unskilled. The next blow went wide, as Chris ducked and blocked, but before he could counterattack, Fischer grabbed him. He wanted the man's throat, his fucking eyes. They grappled in the alley, slammed each other against the walls. Their fight propelled them back toward the street. A lucky shove, or an unlucky trip, and Chris stumbled out across the sidewalk, into the traffic lane. He, like Fischer, heard the roar of a car engine, the guttural shriek of hard-braking tires.
Chris looked to his right, into the glare of headlamps in motion.
#####
A solid, crunching thump.
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Chris jolted awake. Wide-eyed, gasping.
"I hate coming out like that," Susan was saying. She was wincing, rubbing her temples, while Nick gently drew the needle from her wrist.
Chris took a deep breath, released it, relaxing, reorienting himself. "Well, I think I just got hit by Fischer's fucking limo, so I win."
"He's already learning," Nick said. "Adapting."
"It was chance," Chris countered. "You cooked up sidewalks that were too narrow, and I got too close to the road." He looked toward Fischer, still lying unconscious on the sofa. "Come on: I'd say we've got about a minute. Get him up."
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Fischer woke when he nearly fell out of his chair.
He was where he had been: sitting at his desk, reviewing stats and reports, taking notes. All three of his monitors were alive with screensavers: swirling galaxies of stars that resolved themselves into the Fischer-Morrow corporate logo against a deep blue background before flying apart again. The mug by his right hand was empty. He'd finished his coffee and fallen asleep.
His left wrist itched where the robber had pulled off his watch the night before. He scratched, examined. A series of tiny rips in the skin, where the metallic segments of the watchband had snagged and pulled free. Several of them, one especially, were fine enough to resemble insect bites.
Or needle marks.
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