Doctor Who_ Warlock - Andrew Cartmel [46]
She drew her fingers through her long black hair, combing it out. She spoke in a low, emotionless voice, so that the statement was halfway between a confidential comment and a public challenge in the quiet room.
The old man laced his fingers over the hard jut of his belly. ‘As I understand it, Chrissie,’ he said, ‘that boy from the NYPD had the situation well in hand. By the time you crashed through the door it was all over.’ His voice was gentle but when he looked up at the Bowman woman his eyes had gone hard and cold. ‘In fact, if I didn’t know better I would say all that shooting could have been avoided.’
The woman wouldn’t meet his gaze. Her husband put a protective arm around her shoulders.
‘Like you said, Mr Harrigan, it was that local cop who started the shooting. He’s called McIlveen. Creed McIlveen.’
The old Texan cleared his throat, a thick wet sound. ‘He only started shooting because one of those Mayan boys looked out the window and saw some activity he didn’t like. Some police activity.’ He scratched the wattled flesh of his neck with a big stubby finger as he studied the Bowmans, his big head tilted at an angle. It was as if he was listening for something.
‘It must have been those NYPD clowns,’ said Raymond Bowman. His voice was defiant but, like his wife, he wouldn’t look the old man in the eye.
‘Must have been,’ drawled the Texan, and Benny saw that both of the Bowmans were blushing, their pale faces burning bright red, like some kind of synchronized novelty dolls.
The old Texan turned away from them in disgust. He gestured for Benny to sit down, guiding her into the armchair with one pale, liver‐spotted hand on her shoulder. His skin, touching Benny, felt warm and papery and thin. ‘You did well, missy, very well indeed.’
He smiled at her, his warm wet brown eyes lost in an intricate map of wrinkles. Here and there his old worn face had an unnaturally smooth, pale patch where skin cancer had been excised.
He patted Benny on the shoulder and returned to his own chair. ‘All of you have done well,’ he said. ‘You are a credit to the International Drug Enforcement Agency.’ He crossed his legs and for the first time she saw that he wore cowboy boots, made of real leather.
‘Don’t fall for that easygoing shit‐kicking manner,’ Webster had told Benny on her first day. ‘He’s actually an immortal monster. A vampire maybe.’
‘That’s horrible. You’re just saying that because he’s old and ravaged‐looking. He can’t help being old. Poor bloke.’
‘Bloke?’ Webster grinned. ‘You’re wrong. He’s as old as the hills and he eats babies to stay alive. You can see it in his eyes.’
‘What better man to run IDEA?’ Raymond Bowman had remarked, running a thin oiled brush through the dismantled ammunition chamber of one of the automatic weapons.
The Cowboy Monster’s real name was Henry Harrigan Junior. Benny thought that she’d heard the name somewhere but decided that it was just the alliteration that made it sound familiar, inevitable almost.
Now the old Texan turned to his desk where Artie had placed the big thermal picnic box. He reached inside and lifted out the plastic evidence bag containing the white pills. He held the bag up in his big, meaty fist, turning it this way and that under the fluorescent ceiling lights. Then he turned to Benny. His smile was huge.
‘You’ve done real well, dear,’ said Harrigan. ‘Go and put your feet up.’
* * *
Benny had done a reconnaissance in daylight and she knew where she was heading.
In a side corridor, flanked by empty laboratories and offices, there was a small maintenance cubicle with walls of raw cement. Long loops of coaxial cable and fibre optics hung down from broken foam panels in the ceiling, secured on the wall with dirty strips of silver gaffer tape. At the rear of the cubicle the cable terminated in the back of a dusty video screen ripped from a public call box. The screen sat on top of a stack of cardboard cartons, linked to a keyboard cannibalized from a vintage computer.
All Benny needed now was a chair. She rolled one in from an adjacent office, its