The breeds of man, p.24
The Breeds of Man, page 24
Gacek's mouth twitched. "Nine-zero-zero-zero-zero bucks. It's a friendly number." He leaned forward. "For that kind of money your approach should carry an extra layer of protection. And I'm just the ex-child-prodigy hacker who can give it to you."
Clint frowned. "What's that mean?"
"That trick you have, whoever gave it to you, might fool a bank, okay. But just looking at it, I see how to put in some more confusion. Tie up the security check-codes, and while they're looking for the right error message, slip in a third account number to accept the actual transfer." Gacek cocked an eyebrow. "Would you like to try it, Clint? All by yourself?"
A little irritated but not angry, Clint squeezed the older man's shoulder. "Don't rub it in, Ed. I know we need you."
Gacek stood. "When do you want to do it?"
"It's not what I want, Ed. I mean, the time's been set. Tomorrow, at noon. You might get here a little early."
"No reason why not; I'll do that." Gacek stood. "See you, Clint. Good night, Olive."
When the door closed after him, Olive said, "You know something? For an old fart he moves good."
Eyes narrowed, Haydock said, "I think his head does, too." Then he shrugged. "For our sake, it damn well better."
From the shoulder down, where Amory's arm wasn't dead it hurt like all shit. What scared him, as he sat in the crummy bar, nursing a shot and a beer, was the dark red streaks down toward his wrist.
No point worrying; he knew that. You do what needs it and that's all. So he'd done Grego, done him proper.
And now, like he already knew beforehand, Amory didn't have nobody at all. If Grego just hadn't of shot him!
Because ever since that knife tricker put a blade to Amory's pants, so he was no good up front, only in back, nobody but Grego -done him any damn good at all.
And now no more Grego.
Well, maybe them doctors don't know it all. All the parts still there, they say the nerves was cut and you can't you can't you can't you can't but maybe they're fulla shit.
There's other ways. Enough money, he could get better doctors. And no matter what, from that kidnap job, if it was still on, Amory had a share coming.
Yeah. With Grego dead, that made only three shares now. But maybe he shouldn't push that. Maybe he better drive up and have a talk with good ol" Clint before him and Olive hear about Grego. On the way out he met four-five guys crowding in through the door, but none of them bumped his sore arm. Amory didn't notice, because people hardly ever did bump him, if they could help it.
I had no idea how long I'd been asleep when I woke to find somebody feeling me up. There wasn't a great deal of light, but the perfume said Olive, and at first she was whispering. "That ol" Clint got so stoned he's paralyzed, so why don't you and me just—"
Then she gave a shocked gasp. "Goda'mighty, Troy! What the fuck happened to you?"
Even before she pulled my fly apart, so she could see better, there wasn't much question—except, how far along was the change? I braced up on my left elbow; a quick look was enough: my testes had retracted nearly all the way into hiding, and the penis shrunk to little more than an enlarged clitoris. As to the expanse of mucous membrane versus skin, or the condition of the vaginal opening, I couldn't tell except by touch or the use of a mirror; F-mode wasn't likely to be functional as yet, but to Olive's eyes my appearance had to be female.
With those eyes very wide, she started to back away; I grabbed a wrist. "Wait, Olive; don't go. Let me explain." Explain? How?
Fat chance! But as she paused, not pulling away much, I heard myself saying something like "It's all right, nothing to worry about, just something that happens sometimes."
So far so good, but we weren't all that far yet. She wanted to talk; I overrode. "It's—it's a rare tropical fever. I mean, rare for people up here; the Indians have it all the time."
"What Indians? I never heard of any—"
"Not here. Down in—" Geography, where are you? "On the Plata-Paraná, where—"
"Piranha? Those fish that eat a live cow in three minutes?"
"No, Olive. Paraná." I spelled it. "The Plata-Paraná is the longest river system in the world." Was it, really? I couldn't remember. "It starts in the Andes Mountains and goes down through Brazil to Paraguay—" Or did I mean Uruguay? Who the hell cared! "I was down there with my folks when I was just a little kid, and wandered away into the jungle, and before they found me I'd been bitten by these mosquitoes, you see."
She probably didn't know her mouth was open; she nodded, then said, "And it turns you into a woman? How often? And how long?"
"No, no, Olive! It may look that way, but I'm sure you know that's impossible. I'm still a guy—just shrunk up, and out of business until the attack's over." Wait a minute! Maybe an angle here… "But it lasts a lot longer when I don't have the medicine. If I could call in to my doctor—"
It might have worked. I'll never know, because Clint, staggering a little, came in. "Olive? What in hell are you up to? As if I couldn't guess. I thought I told you—"
His raised fist promised Olive at least a fat lip, but jerking free of me she lurched backward, away from him. "No, listen, Clint. And look at him. Or her, or whatever. What it is, see—"
She garbled the story even worse than I'd told it. When she ran down, Clint used a hand to violate the privacy of my crotch. He ran a finger around the rim of the developing vaginal opening and then, not at all roughly (which surprised me) pushed the tip in perhaps an inch, maybe a little more. In my mid-condition I felt no pleasure from that touch, but no pain, either. Then he withdrew it, and stood.
Clint wasn't angry now; he wasn't especially stoned, either. Sometimes a good jolt can have that effect. He said, "This guy— this gal—whatever! "Sbeen snowing all over you, is what." If he'd been a computer I could have heard the moving parts whir. "Right here, Olive, we have a female person. And a few days ago it was a male person, as you damn well know better than I do."
I didn't see Olive's reaction, but Clint smiled. "Be easy; I'm not mad. Because, what we've got here is even bigger than I'd thought. Something nobody ever heard of before—and tied in, one way or another, to all that Phoenix Foundation money."
"Clint? I don't get it." She sounded confused.
"That's all right. As a matter of fact I don't have the details figured out yet, myself."
Chapter Twenty-Seven
But, Reverend—" Cora Sue was fussing around like an old biddy hen. "You shouldn't try to tape your sermon now. They shot you full of drugs; you're not thinking straight. I—"
"Silence, woman!" Jody Jay had a real buzz on, frorn all that dope they'd pranged him with, but now after a couple of solid jolts of tonic nectar he felt good: if things were a little fuzzy around the edges, maybe they looked better that way. Like his wig; it was cocked up and sideways a bit. Staring into the mirror, he nodded: that's how he ought to wear it all the time.
Cora Sue had that hurt look on her face, so he told her, "Now never you mind. I just have to put me together this ten-minute spot to head up tonight's program, which I already put on disk in case all that FBI unconvenience might discommode my aircast schedule. So this hunk of work shouldn't take long. What you do is, you go get in that tub so's you come out all warm and pink and ready to do some real fine ministering; y'hear?"
"Yes, sir, Reverend."
When she had left, he sat at his work console, checked the indicator lights, and did a quick test replay on the monitor. Yeah, it was all set right, so he pulled back to start for real. Clearing his throat, he began:
"The Lord, my dear friends, moves in strange ways and sometimes talks through people you wouldn't expect. Now just today I found out what kind of monsters and demons I been warning you all about so as to keep your immortal souls out of perilous danger, and a little bit about where they come from, only not exactly, just yet. And like I been saying all along, that sinful Phoenix Foundation is in it up to their ears.
"It's not just me that's got this revelation, my dear friends. Why, the FBI its own self knows that here's these demons, which they changes from man to woman or the other way, too—and such creatures never grew up here on the Lord's good Earth, so right there you know what that tells you! No souls, is what these alien demons don't have. And another thing…"
When he was finished, Jody Jay replayed to make sure he'd said it all the way he wanted, dubbed his instructions onto the leader segment he'd left blank for that purpose, brought his modem online, and sent the entire program in to his originating station.
Then he went to join Cora Sue.
The smart thing, Brad knew, would be to pass all the info along to Bennest, the Security man at Phoenix, and then stay the hell out of this hassle. But he didn't have the phone number with him, and was in no mood to stay on a line long enough to go through channels—and get traced, maybe. No, thanks.
So, feeling the weight of the gun under his jacket, Brad Szalicz rode the subway toward the address Amory had given him.
And wondered just what he was going to do when he got there.
After Clint let this Troy-whatever go take a leak, and put the handcuff on again, he came out of the storeroom feeling wide awake. He'd been really laidback-stoned, but the jolt of this crazy morphodite development triggered his energy.
What he had in mind with Olive was taking her to bed, but the Tri-V was on, and when he started to say something, she shhh'd him. "You got to see this, Clint!"
So he looked, and tuned in his ears. The picture showed that Cincinnati preacher, Jody Jojo or something. But what the man was saying—!
After the commercial break, Jody-whoever changed the subject and talked about his Salvation Through Donation program, so Clint turned the set off. Ideas flashed through his mind; fucking could wait. "That's it, Olive!"
She looked stricken. "Clint, before you moved back in, I was screwin" a goddamn alien; I could of up an' delivered some kind of monster baby ! I—"
Slapping was too much work. Between his thumb and the knuckle of his index finger, Clint gripped the fleshy part of Olive's nose, squeezed hard, and shook her face side-to-side. Dammit— she'd had her period right on schedule, so why all the hysteria? Letting go, he said, "You didn't, though; you're okay, right? So let's talk aliens."
"Like how, Clint?"
"Like we have a space alien in there, Olive. Like the F-B-and-fuggin"-I is after it. And like someway it ties to the Phoenix Foundation. There's only one question."
"Yeah? What?"
A frown tightened Clint's forehead. "Make it two. Who's most likely to pay best for what we've got? And what's the safest way to work the whole deal?"
"That cretin!" Annek Getzlor threw her glass at the Tri-V set. "Duane—have Tolliver picked up and held incommunicado. The story will be that he's gone into a sanitorium for drug addiction." She beat her clenched fists together. "How could that cornpone religion-ripper be so shit-simple stupid? He—"
She paused. "Yes. I suppose I'd better unwrap you now." She peeled away the wet restraints that sheathed him from shoulders to hips. "All right, Duane; take care of this mess."
"Yes, Annek." He flexed his freed arms. "When I've made a pit stop, and am dressed, I'll get right on it."
Grego's car quit at a bad place—right in the middle of an intersection, with the light changed and traffic coming at Amory from both sides. He got out, and waited for the next change; then, before cars could start moving again, he lumbered across to the far right corner and walked on, still heading north.
He didn't know how much farther it was he had to go, because the street sign was gone; the post was still there, but some dummy must of tore the sign off it.
He wanted to loosen up his bad arm, but when he went to move it, it hurt too damn much. So he gave up and just kept walking.
"He was calling from Chicago, Mr. Dennis. He didn't stay on line long enough to get a trace." Sandy Moran wiped sweat from her forehead; even after two years working here in New York, she wasn't used to talking with network execs. But this time she'd spoken up, so now she had to go for it.
Dennis, bald dome looming over forbidding eyebrows, stared at her. "This Tolliver, the hinterlands messiah. You've checked the tape of his show tonight?"
"Yes, sir." She spread her hands. "It sounds idiotic. He claims to have information about aliens from space who can change their sex at will, and says the FBI confirms his story."
"And of course you've contacted the man."
"No, sir." This wasn't going well; she'd known it wouldn't, but she plowed ahead anyway. "He's not there. Some woman is, and she says two people took him away. She thinks it was the FBI, but I wouldn't air that over my own name."
Dennis nodded. "It could fit, though. And I won't even ask whether you have any information from the Bureau, because that's not the way they work."
Now he looked interested. "Your caller, though. Who is he, and can you get back to him?"
Sandy consulted her notes. "He gave his name as Clint Haydock; he wouldn't give me a number to call back, just yet. His pitch is that with respect to the Tolliver statements on Tri-V he has a scoop that's worth millions, and—"
Dennis had a really nasty laugh. "They all think that, don't they?" He sobered. "And what else, in particular?"
"He says he can produce one of these sex-changing aliens, and can trace ties to the Phoenix Foundation. In Chicago."
"I know where it is!" The nasty side again. Then, "What does he say the creature looks like?"
She made an open-hand gesture. "Except for the sex-changing thing, just like anyone. And he said it's been living among other people, unsuspected, under the name of Troy dos Caras."
She couldn't disguise the frown that came to her; Dennis said, "And? What haven't you told me?"
"There's something shady about it; he wants a guarantee of legal amnesty before he gives us the details. I'm not sure, sir, just what we should do here. I—"
Again, the Dennis laugh. "It's simple. You disked the call, of course?" She nodded. "Then this is your big chance. You listen through the dialogue again, carefully. Then, as you present this with your face on-camera, insert your own comments. Tonight, Moran, the eleven-ten newsbreak is all yours."
It was the best real on-camera chance Sandy had ever been granted. "Yes, sir; thank you. I'll do it right."
If that's possible. Because whoever this Clint Haydock might be, she was going to have to throw him to the wolves. Not to mention, the same for the hypothetical Troy dos Caras.
And the Phoenix people. That's the part that scared her.
One thing I didn't know, and I needed to. If or when I got the opportunity, I'd have to run for it. But could I? The pipe coupling would unscrew, sure. But then, lying sidewise with one hand cuffed, could I lift the radiator enough to separate the two pipe segments and let me slip the cuff through the gap?
It seemed time to find out. From outside the room came sounds of talk, plus the Tri-V a little too loud, the way Olive liked it. So all right…
The coupling, no problem; unscrewed all the way, it slipped down to lodge on the elbow just below. Now the radiator: I got my meager leverage in gear and heaved; nothing happened.
The damned thing couldn't be that heavy; maybe the four metal legs of this antique monstrosity were merely bonded to the floor by accretions of paint and primordial grime.
So I needed a different line of attack. I put all my leverage to the nearest leg; of course the next wasn't all that distant. I heaved up; one leg broke loose, the second wouldn't quite give. Another effort, and the entire near end came free.
The far end, I didn't need. The gap was wide enough. The question was, did I want to put everything on the line now? Or wait, hoping for better odds?
From outside the room I heard voices. They didn't help. I decided to wait.
No I didn't. I was too chicken to decide anything. All I did was lie there.
Walking from the subway, Brad didn't meet with any trouble. Clint's apartment wasn't exactly a top-grade address, but it beat hell out of Scum City. The call-in box, that could let people push a button to admit you, was long dead, so Brad figured he could just walk in, and he was right. He had the bad feeling that the elevators might not work, either, so when the lights lit and the car came, he was very glad to be wrong. On the way up, he tried to think what the hell he was going to say.
At the number Amory had told him, the nametag didn't read Clint Haydock; the scribble spelled Olive Schweer. Brad shrugged and punched the buzzer; he didn't expect it to work, but it was worth a try.
Nothing happened, so he had to knock. No answer; try again. He hadn't quite decided whether to knock a third time when the door opened, just a few inches against a sturdy chain. "Yeah? Whatcha want?"
A plain, sharp-faced woman, dark hair sheared close at the sides but bleached and fluffy on top. With luck she might be the name on the door, so he said, "Hi, Olive. Is Clint here?" Always act as if you know what you're doing.
"Who's asking?"
"A friend. His old friend Brad, tell him."
Olive's face jerked away to the side, out of view. Through the narrow opening, Clint Haydock looked out. "Hi, Brad. What you doing all the way down here? I wouldn't"ve thought you had this address."
Hospitality, no. Now what? Don't answer his questions. "I need to get hold of somebody; the word was, look you up first."
"Like who, Brad?"
"Like Troy dos Caras." Bringing the gun out, Brad stuck its barrel through the crack, blocking any chance to close the door. "I want in, Clint."
The way Haydock seemed to move, the thin slice of him that showed at the doorway, probably he was shrugging. "I can see that. You don't usually ask things quite so hard, Brad."
"I don't usually need to. Are you going to let me in?"
Haydock moved away, out of sight; Brad heard low-voiced talk, too faint for understanding. Then Clint said, "Yeah, come on in. Just put the gun away first."
Oh, sure! Clint probably had one of his own, out and pointed. How in the name of sanity had Brad gotten himself into such a crazy mess?
