Spares - Michael Marshall Smith [138]
“No problem, sonny,” Burn-face said, his voice deeper than the rumble of a distant train. “But this is a toll road.”
“I don’t have any money,” I said, wondering why I was cursed to have the same things happen to me time and time again.
“Then you fucked,” said the pierced one, who spoke with a lisp and looked denser than three bags of shit in a one-shit trumpet.
I thrust my hands into the pockets of my jacket, and found Mal’s drive. I couldn’t barter with that. In the other pocket, the computer chip which held Ratchet’s brain. For a second I considered it, but no more. He’d helped me enough. I couldn’t let go of him again.
“Don’t suppose dropping Howie Amos’s name is going to help?” I hazarded, beginning to panic. I was losing time, and lots of it.
Burn-face shook his head. As a last resort I put my hand into my inside pocket and yanked out my wallet.
“Here,” I said. “You can have this.”
He took it, and flicked through. There was no more than ten dollars in it, but then he found my old own-Card.
“This’ll do,” he said, and they stepped aside. I didn’t volunteer the information that trying to use the card would get them more police attention than crapping on Chief McAuley’s head. I figured they’d find out soon enough, and it was about time they retired anyhow. I stabbed the “down” button, leaped in, and slumped to rest my face against the elevator walls as it started to drop.
It was when I stepped out on 8 that I realized my wallet had also held my only photograph of Henna and Angela. I couldn’t go back. Memory would have to be enough.
I ran through 8’s lamp-lit streets, past so many places I knew, past the beginning of the side street which led down to Howie’s place. As I tore down the main drag, toward the restaurant with the entrance to the chute, I felt like I was going in reverse, as if the video of my life had reached its end an hour ago and was now being rewound, spooling past everywhere I had ever been, back toward some point where it would end again. End, or perhaps begin.
I skidded taking the corner into the final straight and almost lost it, but managed to stay upright and careered toward the restaurant doors. I could see something was wrong: There were no tables outside and no lights on behind the windows. A solid kick on the door told me it was locked. I glanced around, saw no one, and shot out the lock. Then I shoved the door open and ran into darkness, turning to slam the door shut again behind me. I hoped to Christ Yhandim and his goons had gone the wrong way. If not, then this route might get me a few extra seconds. It wasn’t much; but the way things were going, a few seconds could make all the difference.
I threaded my way through the stacked tables and chairs toward the restrooms at the back, ears tuned for any sound from the streets outside. I was ready for it, and had in reserve a burst of speed which might just get me out in time.
What I wasn’t ready for was a lamp being switched on above one of the back tables. It dropped a soft pool of yellow light for a couple of yards, revealing a man standing by the wall.
“Howie said you’d be passing through,” he said.
“Hello, Johnny,” I replied, and swung my gun to point straight at his heart. “You’ve got two minutes to explain why you killed my wife and daughter for Maxen, and then I’m going to blow you apart.”
“When did you work it out?” Johnny said; slowly sitting back down. I stayed where I was, gun still held out, safety off.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe just now, maybe earlier. You knew about what happened with Maxen’s brother. I don’t think you heard a rumor. I think you heard it from him. All that talk about atonement. Then a choice of words which in retrospect was kind of precise. You didn’t put out the hit on Henna and Angela, but it was you who carried it out.”
Johnny didn’t say anything. Time was passing, but suddenly that didn’t seem important anymore. I had to understand. Dying seemed