The Cassandra Complex - Brian Stableford [99]
“Why? What’s wrong with yours?”
“It’s a crime scene upstairs,” she told him. “It hasn’t been cleared for entry yet, and I don’t have my mobile. It won’t take long.”
He was still suspicious—for which she couldn’t blame him, given that her real reason for not wanting to use her own phone was that she feared that the call might be overhead—but he unchained the door so she could slip through.
He was wearing a dressing gown that was so dead as to be slightly malodorous, but she didn’t make any comment. He indicated the phone and then stood still, making no move toward the bedroom from which he had presumably emerged. Martha called from within to ask what was happening.
“It’s nothing,” he replied. “Go back to sleep.”
Lisa tapped out the number of Mike Grundy’s mobile. As soon as he replied, she said, “It’s Lisa, Mike. Are you free to talk?”
“Sure,” he said uneasily.
“Meet me where we had the run-in with the red Nissan yesterday,” she said. “Your car’s computer logged it, in case you don’t remember. Soon as possible, okay?”
“What—” he began.
“Okay” Lisa repeated insistently.
He got the message. “Okay,” he said, and immediately rang off.
She wasn’t off the hook yet. John Charleston had heard every word. Before he could open his mouth to ask her what it was all about, though, she lifted a finger to her lips. “Police business,” she said in a stage whisper. “If anyone asks, I was never here.”
“Oh,” he said unenthusiastically. “Yeah, I guess.” He might have said more, but his gaze suddenly moved upward as he fixed his stare on the ceiling.
Because Lisa lived in the topmost apartment, she had never quite realized how loud a creaking floorboard might sound beneath the lath-and-plaster ceiling below it, at least in the dead of night. She felt a sudden chill of fear, not so much because she thought she was in physical danger, but because she foresaw that her plan might have to be recalculated yet again. If the radfems had come back for her, that might be convenient, in a way, but if she were to convince them that she meant business, she really ought to be the one to make the approach. As Leland had shrewdly observed, anything said by a captive under duress was likely to be bullshit, and likely to be construed as bullshit even if it were the sober truth. Allowing herself to be taken prisoner might provide an easy route to the heart of the matter, but it would seriously hurt her chance of taking control once she got there.
“Shit,” she murmured
“I thought—” Charleston began.
Lisa hadn’t any time to waste. “Have you got a gun?” she asked sharply.
“A gun?” he spluttered. “That would be—”
“Just give me the gun, John,” she said, dismissing any objections with a casual gesture of her wounded hand. “I need it.”
He had to go into the bedroom to remove it from its hiding place. Citizen mice always kept their illicit guns in the bedroom, because the fear that moved them to arm themselves was that of waking up in the dead of night—as Lisa had done little more than twenty-four hours before—to find intruders in their home.
“It’s just a dart gun,” Charleston explained unnecessarily as he handed it over. “Certified nonlethal. Everybody’s got one.”
“It’ll do,” she assured him in a whisper. “Close the door behind me, very quietly, and stay close to it. If you hear shots, or if I don’t knock on your door again inside five minutes, hit Redial and tell the man I just spoke with to get over here as fast as he can. Whatever happens, you stay here. Okay?”
“Okay,” he said with soldierly alacrity.
As soon as the door had closed behind her, she moved lightly up the stairs. She held the gun in her right hand, rather gingerly because the sealant between thumb and forefinger was starting to denature and it had become slightly sticky. She used her left hand to sort through her smartcards. She would still have to punch in the two combinations once her card had gone through the swipe slot, but she figured she could do that quietly enough. With luck, whoever was in her apartment wouldn’t know