Part 49 (1/2)

Wendell sat down beside his briefcase. 'This fax printout links the mutant with the Zawba'a.'

'I know.'

'I know you know, you stupid b.i.t.c.h. You retrieved those numbers from your dedicated terminal and you fed them into Tristan Smith's fax machine and then you printed out the call report. We know exactly what you did. But what you did not know is that the VIA has a major operation on to round up Zawba'a. Gabe Manzini is very interested in your case. Mr Manzini is a good friend of Efica's. We'd really hate to have him as our enemy.'

'Oh,' she said.

Their knees were almost touching. 'Do you know how many years it took for us to persuade the VIA to take us seriously? They're New World people like us, but you would never know it from their patronizing att.i.tude. They're worse than the English or even the French. Do you know what it took, the things we did for them so they would trust us? The s.h.i.+t we ate? Friends of mine got killed just so these f.u.c.kers would share information with us. So when some little spin drier ...'

'Don't call me that ...'

'I thought you were smart. Doctor, right? Am I right? Doctor of f.u.c.king Philosophy?'

She knew that she should not be so near him, but it was equally dangerous to move away.

'We can't trust you, Jacqui. You're acting like the enemy.'

He took her face in his hand. She tried to push the hand away, but he was too big, too strong. Her face was small, his hand large, and he held the jaw so hard, pressed his thumb so cruelly, she thought it would break through the skin, and she was frightened, not just of the pain now, but what the pain would grow to, of his size, his bulk, his pale, pale eyes, the level of resentment she saw there. But then his face softened, his hand loosened.

'Jacqui, Jacqui,' he said.

He touched her cheek gently. She made herself very still.

'Did you want to visit Saarlim?'

She did not know how to answer him.

'I hope it wasn't that. It's such a pile of s.h.i.+t.' He looked at her petulantly. 'Isn't it?'

She nodded.

'I never saw such s.h.i.+t,' he said. 'It stinks. It's full of n.i.g.g.e.rs. Why did you do it, Jacqui?'

He had that sticky angry feeling about him. He gave off a smell she had always thought it was s.e.x, but it was anger.

'You don't involve the Voorstanders like this and not have a result. Now I'm here, we're going to have a result.'

Jacqui felt ill. 'What are you going to do?'

'What are you going to do?' he mimicked her. 'I'm going to have to kill Tristan f.u.c.king Smith before the Efican Department finds out the real story.' he mimicked her. 'I'm going to have to kill Tristan f.u.c.king Smith before the Efican Department finds out the real story.'

Jacqui began to cry.

Wendell looked at her, shaking his head.

'You silly b.i.t.c.h,' he said. 'You're lucky they sent me.'

He put his arm around her shoulders and she laid her head on his chest, listening to his heart, the pa.s.sage of dry air through his moist and gluey lungs. 'Your fax came true. You made the poor little f.u.c.k a terrorist.'

44.

Jacqui was kneeling beside my bed. She was beside me, so close that I could smell mint toothpaste when she called my name.

I knew she was there, but I stayed asleep. In my sleep I was lovable. In my sleep I had not disgraced myself at a dinner party. In my sleep she had different colours in her eyes, small islands of translucent brown, in a sea of coral blue.

'Tristan, hurry!'

Even as I rose regretfully towards her urgent voice, she remained a mystery of nature, beyond explanation and, because of that, someone who might, one day, mysteriously, love me.

When I opened my eyes, I found her in a slightly dazed and dishevelled state, unwrapping a small parcel on the floor.

'Tristan, please.'

I had been asleep on Bill's dining table with Wally's feathery snore playing in my ear, the sheet up across my naked face. Now I allowed her to help me down on to the littered rug and out into the muggy air of the balcony, where I saw she had the Simi suit laid out upon the ground, its gloved hands pointing away into the potted plants and creepers. I pulled my nights.h.i.+rt tight around me, looking at the Simi without enthusiasm.

'Put it on,' she said.

'Why?'

'We've got to leave.' She stamped her foot. 'Quick, quick.' Her very strong, straight hair was actually bristling, not just on her crown, but on the fringe as well.

My muscles were still suffering from the exertions of the day before, but I laid my weary body down and soon felt the familiar tug and slide as I was sewn inside, snug as potatoes in a sweaty sack. Before she closed the parcel tight, she slipped her cool dry hand in around my neck. A second later I felt a small adhesive plaster applied in the region of my Adam's apple. As she smoothed it down with her fingers there was a brief stinging pain, like the bite of a small black ant.

'Don't say a word, Tristan,' she said, kneeling by my head. 'Don't even squeak. Just trust me while I finish sewing your suit together, and let me tell you where I was while you were sleeping.'

I stared out through my eye-holes at the concrete floor, the blue glazed pots.

'You're not going to like me, Tristan, when you know who I am, but just the same, mo-frere, I wanted to do something nice for you.'

She turned my head again. I imagined I knew what she was going to tell me, i.e. she was a woman.

'It isn't much,' she said. 'I hope you like it, but if you don't like it, you can at least be comforted by the fact that it hurt like h.e.l.l to pay for it.'

I could imagine her frowning while she snipped with scissors at her untidy needlework.

'I went to a shop called Ny-ko Effects,' she continued. 'Malide told me it was there, otherwise I would never have known ten floors up in some c.r.a.ppy little alleyway, run by some little Greek man with hair on his knuckles. Be still ...'

She stood and shut the sliding door. I sat up.

'Now, please ... we haven't got an awful lot of time.'

'What's ... that ... thing ... on ... my ... neck?'

My words were repeated by someone else. What's that thing on my neck? What's that thing on my neck?

Jacqui smiled at me. 'Not bad,' she said. 'Not bad at all.'