Spares - Michael Marshall Smith [71]
“And?” I said.
He breathed out heavily, running a hand across his face. “Some people got left behind.”
He sat down, looking away. I remained standing, staring at him. “Left behind?”
“Some people didn’t get back with us, but they didn’t get killed.”
“When did you find this out?” I asked, still not really understanding.
“Tonight,” he said. “I didn’t realize until tonight.”
“Johnny, what are you telling me?”
“I’m saying Yhandim and some others got left in The Gap when everyone else left. He didn’t make it back to the camp, and he wasn’t there when we got side-lifted out at the end. I’d always assumed they were dead but, as you saw, he came for me last night. He never left The Gap. He’s been there for nearly twenty years.”
I’d known there was something about the man in the bar on 67, that he was still living some life which I’d left behind. What I couldn’t have believed was the reason for it. I still didn’t understand why Yhandim took the spares or wanted Suej. But I knew that he’d survived in The Gap for nearly two decades after everyone else had left.
And now he’d found some way of coming back from the dead, and Hell would be following after.
Much later, when Nearly and Suej had fallen asleep on the couch and Vinaldi and I were sitting on opposite sides of the room in silence, I passed a watershed. I’d put Mal’s disk in my pocket, along with the computer chip. Rachet must have given it to me for a reason, so I figured it was worth hanging onto. I was ready to go somewhere, or do something, but I didn’t know where, or what it was going to be.
Vinaldi’s eyes were very far away, maybe reliving something from The Gap. He’d called into whatever it is hoods have in place of an office and told people he’d be out of contact for a few hours. He had people on virtually every floor looking out for Yhandim, all of them carrying the finest in haute couture weaponry. Until someone called, there was nothing he and I could do except sit and watch each other. There were things I’d rather have done. Having Vinaldi sit there was like an open cancer on my face in the mirror; I didn’t want it, but if it was there I couldn’t help looking at it.
I knew there was one question I had to ask before anything else happened. I’d been sure of the answer for the last five years. Tonight, I didn’t know. I wasn’t sure why I felt different; perhaps it was something in Vinaldi’s attitude toward me, or maybe The Gap was simply an older wound, which for this evening was taking precedence. Either way, I asked it.
“Johnny,” I said, “did you put out the order to have Henna and Angela killed?”
My voice sounded dry and constricted, but it came out evenly enough. Vinaldi came to attention immediately. I got the impression that he knew this was something which would come up sooner rather than later.
He looked me in the eyes, and then he looked away.
“No,” he said. And the strange thing was, I believed him.
At seven a.m. the phone rang. I was asleep on the sofa. Suej was sprawled over most of it, and Nearly was resting her head dopily on my shoulder. I was about as comfortable as if I’d been sleeping in a bookcase, but didn’t entirely mind.
Vinaldi appeared to have stayed awake, and reached crisply from his chair to press the phone.
“Er, it’s Howie,” said a voice, relayed perfectly into the room by the wall coupler. “Is Jack there?”
“Yeah,” I said, sitting up. “Howie, what’s happening?”
“I think you ought to come down here,” he said.
“What’s wrong?”
“Are you alone?”
“No,” I said, though Suej and Nearly were still asleep.
“That’s what I assumed. I need to show you something. It relates to your friend with the lights in his head.”
Something in Howie’s tone struck me as very wrong. I stood up. “I’m on my way.”
“Great,” he said, sounding relieved. “And Jack—I’d leave the girls where they are, if you