Spares - Michael Marshall Smith [127]
“Actually, I lied. I am going to try to talk you out of it, and this is how I’m going to start. Jack, don’t do it.”
“Sit down, Nearly,” I said. She came and perched on Howie’s chair, placing the wineglasses in front of her on the table. She left the bottle there for a moment, and when she saw that I wasn’t going to open it, reached forward to do it herself. She tossed the cork away and poured two glasses, filling them right to the top. Then she lit a cigarette, sat back in her chair, and looked at me.
“So?” she said, after a silence. “What are you going to tell me? That Maxen deserves to die, and that you’re the man with the God-given task of making sure he does?”
“There’s no point in us having this conversation, Nearly.”
“There isn’t if you’re just going to sit there and patronize me. I can get that from clients.”
“So why aren’t you working tonight?”
“Because I don’t fucking feel like it, okay? You’re not big on explaining your motivations. I don’t have to tell you jack shit.”
I sighed. “It’s late, Nearly.”
“Drink some wine, dickweed,” she said, and her eyes flashed dangerously. I was actually a little frightened of her. Having her in the room, in this mood, was like being corralled with an interesting but imperfectly trained wild creature.
“I don’t want any,” I said.
“Drink it,” she said sweetly and with utter seriousness, “or you’re not even going to make it through to tomorrow morning.”
I’d finished my beer. It was simpler than walking to the fridge to get another one. I picked up the glass and drank a mouthful of wine.
Nearly winked at me humorlessly. “Great,” she said. “The training session’s going well. It’s almost like you understand every word I say. How long before I convince you that trying to kill Maxen is a stupid thing to do?”
“You don’t understand.”
“So explain it to me,” she said, and now her face was different again. Open, vulnerable: the face of someone who was genuinely trying to see into my mind.
“I should have done it a long time ago,” I told her. “It’s either that or keep running forever.”
“Bullshit!” she screamed, catching me unaware again. The hubbub from the bar in the background seemed to dip for a moment, as if her voice had carried all the way out there.
I shrugged. “That’s the way it is.”
“So explain it to me properly,” she said. I looked away irritably. “So explain it to me,” she repeated, implacably, and then a final time at wall-shaking volume. “SO JUST FUCKING EXPLAIN IT TO ME.”
I found I was talking then, without meaning to.
“The brain’s a mistake,” I said, and she snorted derisively. “It’s an evolutionary disaster. The mutations bit off more than they could chew. Yeah, we can oppose our thumbs and make marks on paper, but along with that came gaps and interstices, horror pits and buried emotions, concentration camps, Hitlers, and men like the Maxens. They’re created by the fact that the real world and The Gap just never got along.”
“Jack, I think too many slices of processed cheese have addled what’s left of your brain. You’re going to have to unpack that for me or I could go away thinking it’s just meaningless bullshit.”
I wasn’t even talking to her by then, I don’t think. I was talking to myself, or perhaps to Henna.
“The genes with their random quirks created the human brain like a child building a MegaMall from a kit. It looks like a plane, it sounds like a plane, but don’t for fuck’s sake try and fly in it. In the wings and the engine, in the hold and the seats, there are parts which don’t quite fit together. Screws which weren’t tightened enough. Things fall through the gaps and don’t quite go where they should. Doors swing shut in the wind and suddenly you find yourself not recognizing anything you feel, running on collapsing code, and not remembering what it meant.
“We live in huge hotels, full of hundreds of shifting rooms. Our emotions are the tenants—some fleeting, short-term, others long-term residents. Some treat the house well, some don’t; some lock the doors and windows after