Daisy Wong, Space Marshal: The Case of the Runaway Concubine Read online

  Daisy glared at Muffy, willing the exchange into silence. Nevertheless, Daisy did have to give her credit. There weren't many who'd stand up to Snakeskin.

  "Enough of this," Daisy said. "What do you want us to do?"

  "Return Meizhen and my child to me."

  "I thought she was free to leave."

  "Not with my child she wasn't."

  Daisy picked up her tea.

  Snakeskin's story had too many holes. The biggest was why he'd waited so long to call for the cavalry. Was Meizhen still alive? Assuming she was dead, was Snakeskin using Daisy to deflect suspicion away from him? On the other hand, assuming Meizhen was alive, once Daisy found her, what would Snakeskin do to her? He certainly wouldn't welcome her with open arms.

  Daisy settled back into her chair. It smelled of leather and furniture polish. Its opulence cosseted her; it temped her.

  She sipped her tea. It had grown cold and bitter. She set down the cup.

  "I can't help you," Daisy said, and got to her feet. "Come on, Muffy. Let's head for home."

  Just then, Jimmy Fingers came back into the room. He stood to one side of the door, his back to the wall.

  Muffy stood.

  Snakeskin said, "I want my child."

  Then why, Daisy wondered, didn't he already have Meizhen? Snakeskin and his people could find teeth in a chicken's mouth. They could extract iron from iron ore without ever smelting it. Daisy asked, "How do you expect me to succeed where your people have failed?"

  "You can't be bought."

  "Neither can any of the people who work for you."

  Snakeskin shrugged. "It happens," he said. "Whoever has Meizhen—or whoever's hiding her from me—wouldn't need to buy more than one or two. As the saying goes, you don't have to put out a man eyes if he is willing to look the other way."

  It had been one of Daisy's father's favorite aphorisms, a reminder that betrayal was often a matter of what the traitor did not do. Her father had walked into an ambush because one of his bodyguards had agreed not to see the gunsels hiding in plain view. How her father himself had not seen them remained a mystery.

  Daisy sat down.

  "What was the fight about?" Daisy asked.

  "A trifle," Snakeskin said. "We were planning to have a private dinner together that coming weekend, but she wanted to beg off. When I didn't agree immediately, she flew into a rage."

  "Why did she want to cancel?"

  "She worked at Celestial Cybernetics and Robotics," Snakeskin said proudly. "She was coming up on a critical deadline and needed to work."

  "Sounds reasonable."

  "Yes, but I found out later that she had had no such deadline."

  "Curiouser and curiouser."

  "She picked that fight herself," Snakeskin said. "I've come to believe she wanted an excuse to leave my household. If she had simply left, without any sort of reason, I would have become suspicious. I would have investigated much sooner." He added, "It is a time-honored tactic."

  "Especially among those with something to hide," Daisy said.

  Snakeskin chuckled. "I see the Gweilo have not completely addled your wits. I suspect she wanted to keep the baby for herself."

  Or deny it to you, Daisy thought.

  #

  The taxi ride to the Pioneers of Mars Hotel was an irritation of traffic jams and grit. The particles continued to rasp between Daisy's neck and the collar of her uniform.

  Answering the latest of Muffy's questions, Daisy said, "If Snakeskin had wanted to find Meizhen earlier, he could have."

  "Then why didn't he?"

  "He had no reason to. Remember he didn't know she was pregnant. True, he figured she was hiding something, but he also figured it couldn't be all that important. Whatever the case, he decided he could afford to let her sulk."

  "Maybe he wanted her to think that he'd forgotten all about her, that she was safe. Perhaps that way, she would become careless and reveal the truth."

  Daisy's estimate of Muffy's abilities went up a notch. "Good point."

  Two notches.

  Muffy gazed out the window, at the traffic snarl slowly swirling them. "What is she hiding, I wonder."

  "That's the question of the hour."

  "Very good, and how do you propose we go about answering it?"

  "We find the bitch."

  But first, after a good night's sleep and a long hot shower, Daisy had a few questions to ask Dr. Lopez. He'd been lying through his teeth, and Daisy wanted to find out why.

  #

  Arrangements were made, and at the appointed hour the next morning, Daisy and Muffy's taxi pulled up in front of an apartment building that was old but stylish.

  The building's neighborhood was old but not so stylish. The saplings planted along the sidewalk and the new transit kiosks promised an energetic comeback. The graffiti scratched into the kiosks and the litter thrown into the gutters said otherwise.

  The doctor's unit was on the building's top floor and faced the street. The decor was from the middle-gunsel period.

  Daisy asked the doctor's guards, Rudy and Trudy, to take a hike. They objected. She asked them to think about it. A man with two broken ribs wasn't going very far, and if they pissed her off, they stood a good chance of pissing off Snakeskin Wong. Trudy and Rudy thought about it and agreed to wait in the hall.

  Muffy went into the kitchen and made tea.

  Daisy sat Lopez down at his dining-room table.

  They talked about Mars. How different it was from Earth. How domed cities were inherently claustrophobic to anyone not raised in one. How space colonies were actually more viable than planetary or lunar colonies. How much Lopez was looking forward to returning to Chicago, assuming Snakeskin allowed him to go on breathing. Lopez had made a lot of money. Mars had been fun, but home was where his heart was. Blue sky and the wind off the lake. Fresh air with real dirt in it, not Martian grit. What the hell was in that grit, anyway?

  As far as Daisy had ever heard, grit was just grit. It was Martian soil that came in from the outside. It came in on tires, tracks, wheels, and boots. It sifted up through the foundations. It sprinkled down through the joints between the dome panels. It mixed in with the detritus of human habitation, and it became something else, something other.

  The tea arrived.

  Muffy poured three cups of it. The table was chrome with a glass top. Their cups clanked on the glass. Muffy brought placemats.

  To Lopez, Daisy said, "Tell me about your medical practice."

  "Pretty routine. Pelvic exams. Pap smears. Imaging. Fertility issues. Prenatal care. 'Oh, listen to your baby's heartbeat. Isn't it wonderful?' Delivery." He rattled off the categories as though he were reading a restaurant menu.

  "Mostly for Snakeskin's people? Their families?"

  "About half and half. Half civilians. Half tong."

  "Any tong people not associated with the Celestial Fraternal Benevolent and Protective Association?"

  The caged look returned to Lopez's eyes. "Some, but Snakeskin himself approved each of them on a case-by-case basis."

  And had no doubt used those patients, and Lopez, to gather and dispense sensitive information.

  Lopez would be doing good to live out the year. If Snakeskin didn't go after him, someone else would. The tongs were big in Chicago.

  "About the procedures, any abortions?"

  "Yes, but not many. Children are valued on Mars."

  "Any miscarriages?" Daisy asked.

  "A few," Lopez said.

  "Did Meizhen ever have one?"

  "No."

  The answer had come way too quickly.

  "Tell me, Doctor Lopez, how many more bones would you like to have broken?" Daisy asked. She glanced at Muffy. "My partner here has completed more than her share of courses in physical interrogation."

  Muffy glared at Lopez.

  Daisy continued, "Oh, I know she looks like the sort of girl you'd like to take home to meet the folks, but that's only on the outside. On the inside she's a who
le different story."

  Lopez swallowed hard. "Oh, all right," he said, his resolve visibly shattering. "Meizhen had two miscarriages. She and Snakeskin were trying to have a baby."

  "Looks like the third try would have been the charm," Daisy said.

  "Not a chance. She wouldn't have, couldn't have carried it to term."

  "Why is that?"

  Lopez took a pad off a nearby shelf. His hands flickered over the screen and then he handed the pad to Daisy. "That's why," he said. "Snakeskin's modified genetics—his snakeskin, if you will—isn't compatible with an unaltered human DNA profile."

  Daisy looked at the screen and clenched her jaws together to keep from gasping out loud.

  The screen showed two stills, side by side. The stills were of malformed fetuses, fairly far along. They had brightly colored scales rather than human skin.

  Lopez said, "The modified genes aren't supposed to bleed through like that, but every once in a while, they do."

  "Why?"

  "Blame it on random chance. Blame it on Martian grit. Take your pick."

  That explanation made about as much sense as it needed to.

  "Why did you lie to us about Meizhen's pregnancy, yesterday in Snakeskin's office?" Daisy asked. "You knew damn good and well what was going on."

  "I was following his," Lopez said. "If he'd wanted you to know the details, he would have told you. Why don't you ask him why he didn't?"

  "I will," Daisy said. But she knew she couldn't, not without further endangering Lopez's life.

  Muffy took the pad and stared at it for a long couple of seconds. Her eyes grew very large and very round. She gagged and ran from the room.

  #

  Snakeskin's house hadn't changed much in the two and a half years since Daisy had last been there. It was the same rambling pile of brick, ceramics, glass, and steel it had always been. Nor had her Aunt Hester's attitudes had changed even less. The woman's combination of embracing warmth and prickly irritation was just as confusing and just as disquieting as it ever had been.

  The servants had stripped Meizhen Fitzgerald's apartment to the walls. They had vacuumed, shampooed, scrubbed, and cleaned. The rooms stood ready to receive their next tenant.

  Daisy asked her aunt, "What happened to the things Meizhen didn't take with her?"

  "What sort of things?"

  "Her extra clothes, personal effects, electronics. Anything she may have left behind."

  "Forwarded."

  "To where?"

  "New Telluride, the Moon."

  "Do you have the address?"

  "I'll provide it to you before you leave."

  "Please," Daisy said. "One more favor. May I question the servants?"

  "Certainly, for all the good it will do you."

  #

  Daisy and Muffy used the servant's dining room. They called the staff in one at a time, questioned them about Meizhen, and then sent them on their way.

  Aunt Hester had been right about all the good it would do them. It did them none at all . . . until they came to Bradwell, the junior gardener.

  Boniface Larson Bradwell gave them the usual spiel about Meizhen: polite, friendly, but distant. Held up her end. Had her career at Celestial Cybernetics and Robotics to worry about. Tended to be headstrong. Snappish at times, but that was understandable, what with the miscarriages and everything.

  Everything? This was new.

  "What everything?" Daisy asked.

  Bradwell, who looked to be all of twenty and not particularly bright, blushed. "Nothing special. Mr. Wong wanted a baby and she was doing her best to give him one. Work was piling up at Celestial. Meizhen was under a ton of pressure."

  Daisy leaned in close to Bradwell. "That's not what you meant. What else was going on?"

  "Nothing but what I told you. She was getting kind of frantic, you understand? Frantic? Those miscarriages did a real number on her."

  Daisy slouched back in her chair. No doubt, the miscarriages had thrown Meizhen a horrible curve. No doubt, she'd been grieving over her dead babies and terrified about what might happen to the one she'd been carrying. But the gestalt was wrong, and the kid knew why.

  Daisy said, "Tell me, Bradwell, have you ever heard of the Hell of the Harrowed Gardeners?"

  "No. What's that?"

  "It's where tong bosses like my uncle send lying little shits like you."

  The color drained from Bradwell's face and a sheen of oily sweat popped out across his forehead. "She, uh, she was cheating on Mr. Wong."

  Daisy's stomach clenched. Maybe this job was going to turn out to be a hit, after all. Maybe she'd have no choice but to go through with it. Maybe there really was no way for her to be both a cop and a tong brat. "An affair with whom?"

  "One of the guys at Celestial. I don't know his name, but I tend the plants over there at their building and I've seen him around plenty of times."

  "What does he look like?"

  "White guy. Tall. Has a blaster scar running across the left side of his face."

  "A veteran," Muffy said conclusively. "Is this being a fresh scar or is it an older one?"

  Bradwell shook his head. "It's still pink. It's not fresh, but it hasn't bleached out, either. It's hard to tell on white guys."

  "This is most assuredly true."

  "How do you know about the affair?" Daisy asked. "Did you catch them doing it in the gazebo?"

  "No, nothing like that. The night she left, he was the one who picked her up. I was walking back from the local strip joint and saw them pulling away from the house. I thought they were off on another business trip."

  "Did she often travel on business?"

  "Yeah. It wasn't until later that I put two and two together."

  "Did you tell anyone what you'd seen?" Daisy asked.

  "Mr. Wong already knew. He had to know, right?"

  "How, if you chose not tell him?" Daisy asked.

  "I never thought of it that way. The security around here is so tight. Cameras. Motions detectors. Genetic sniffers."

  "Security systems aren't infallible," Daisy said. "Nothing beats an alert watchdog."

  "Shit. Am I in trouble?"

  "Let's just say that I wouldn't sell you a new life-insurance policy."

  #

  On the taxi ride back to their hotel, Muffy asked, "The Hell of the Harrowed Gardner? You are being unusually inventive today." She laughed merrily. "I wish we had taken a holo of that interview. It would be most amusing at parties."

  "Yeah, we could laugh ourselves silly," Daisy said.

  She touched the slip of paper her Aunt Hester had given her. Irrationally, she wanted to reassure herself that she hadn't lost it, that it hadn't slipped out of the pocket of her uniform tunic. The paper crinkled.

  Muffy's mood shifted yet again. "Has that young man pitched himself into grave trouble?"

  "He is."

  "Snakeskin couldn't possibly be as small-minded as that."

  How little Muffy understood. "Someday when you're in the mood to learn a little more about life in the tongs, remind me to teach you about the Hell of the Silent Watchdogs."

  Muffy's face went blank. "But he's only a gardener. He isn't the one who's responsible for security."

  "No matter. The moment he realized what he had seen, he became responsible. And he did not act."

  Muffy was silent for a long time.

  Finally breaking her silence, she said, "I suppose we will be leaving for New Telluride immediately."

  "Almost. We have one last stop to make."

  #

  Their stop was at the corporate offices of the Celestial Cybernetics and Robotics Corporation.

  The personnel director was a middle-aged Caucasian woman with spikey blond hair and overly glossed, overly full lips. She had a gold ring in one nostril and a diamond stud in the other. Her ears looked like two whorehouse chandeliers, and at some point, she'd had epicanthic folds added to her eyes.

  But she was cooperative.

  "We have
several veterans working here, but you must be talking about Ray Gilmore. He's the only one with that kind of scar. He and Meizhen were on the same project team."

  "I'd like to speak with him," Daisy said.

  "He's no longer with us," the director said. "He left shortly after Meizhen disappeared, not right away, but shortly. Nothing suspicious there. Around here, researchers come and go. It's the nature of project work."

  "Did he leave a forwarding address?"

  "Indeed he did."

  The director punched a few keys and a holo screen snapped to life above her desk. She poked at it here and there and a picture of Ray Gilmore appeared. He was handsome, not drop-dead-gorgeous, but credible. The scar added a certain bad-boy appeal, but he certainly wasn't worth risking the wrath of a major tong boss. No one was.

  He'd given his forwarding address as Timberline Lodge, Oregon, Earth.

  "Timberline Lodge? Never heard of it," Daisy said.

  "It's a ski resort. Ray's an avid skier."

  The pieces were beginning to slide into place.

  "Tell me about the project," Daisy said.

  "Same old, same old. Biological computing and human augmentation. I don't have the details of the project they were working on." She made a face. "I wouldn't understand them if I did." She made another face. "Silly me. I'm management, not research and development. They do the work and get paid the big bucks; I fill out the forms and don't."

  "There must be something you can tell us about their work," Daisy said.

  "Well, I can tell you this, without Ray working on it, that project has fallen way behind schedule."

  "Can you give me a copy of his personnel file?"

  "Sure thing."

  #

  On the flight from Los Angeles, Mars, to New Telluride, the Moon, Daisy and Muffy had lots of time to read files and burn up the net.

  As it developed, Ray's full name was Raedan William Gilmore, and his transcripts, military record, and employment history were enough to put anyone to sleep. The only glitch on his otherwise exemplary record was his apparent decision to run away with Meizhen. Or to help her run away.

  But why would he do that? He must have been aware of the risks. What could have persuaded him to take them?

  If Meizhen had been carrying Ray's baby, it might have added up. But she hadn't been, and so it didn't.

  And why would Meizhen have chosen to run away with a nobody from nowhere? True, Gilmore was well educated and belonged to several professional associations, but he had no connections, no family, and no money. How did she expect to survive? For that matter, how had she survived for the last ten months? The funds Snakeskin had sent her certainly wouldn't have been enough. Where was her money coming from?