CHAPTER 19

I GOT UP THE NEXT MORNING WITH A HEAD THAT FELT like the change you get back from a five-spot when you spent it on a $4.98 bottle of wine. Determined nonetheless to act like an inquisitor on a case, I reamed out the insides of my skull with toothpaste, mouthwash, eyedrops, and aspirin, and at the same time drew up a mental list of places to go and people to talk to. First on the list was the architectural firm of Copperminer and Bayzwaite. That was the name I'd read off the blueprints in Pansy Greenleaf's dresser, and it seemed like as good a place to start as any.

The musical interpretation of the news that morning was superficial and blithe, and it didn't go too well with my headache, so I turned it off. The information I wanted wouldn't be on the musical news anyway. I made myself a cup of coffee so strong it snarled, and chased it with a piece of dry toast and a couple of bites of a moldering apple. By the time I got out of my apartment, the sun was bright and high in the air and my watch said eleven.

I drove up University to the parking lot in the Albernathy Overmall, where Copperminer and Bayzwaite kept their offices. The Overmall was all glass and chrome, and blinding to look at coming up from the bay. When I drove into the shade underneath it, I was plunged into a darkness so complete that I almost caromed my car off a concrete embankment. I gratefully turned my car over to the bulldog running the lot and took the elevator up into the Overmall.

Architectural offices are always a good argument against architects, and Copperminer and Bayzwaite was no exception. The outer room served just about any purpose imaginable except those of walking in, talking to the receptionist, and sitting down to wait. I enacted these procedures anyhow, only I skipped sitting after taking a look at what passed for chairs. The room had been shaped from molten glass, pierced through with beams of burnished aluminum, and although several of these met in a confluence meant to suggest a seat, it didn't look like something I'd be able to get back out of, so I let it pass.

After a few minutes a door opened in the back and one of the architects came out to see me, his hand extending for a shake from halfway across the oversized room. He was well groomed and looked alert, with a lick of hair sticking up in the back to create an impression of boyishness. I stuck up my hand to intersect with his—if I hadn't, he might have charged right past me or jammed his hand into my stomach in his enthusiasm. I guess he thought I was a client.

"Cole Bayzwaite," he said.

"Conrad Metcalf," I answered, trying to slow him down by drawing the syllables out.

"Let's go into my office." He stepped to one side and pointed the way, then bent over neatly at the waist and whispered something to his secretary. I went inside and picked out the most user-friendly chair and sat down. Cole Bayzwaite closed the door and went around to his reclining leather chair. I took out my license and put it on his desk.

His face fell, as if it had been supported only by his billowing optimism. The corners of his mouth tightened in an expression of distrust.

"You must think I can help you in some way," he said.

"That's right. I found your name mixed up in a case, and I was wondering if you would answer a few questions."

"I guess that would be all right."

"Your firm drew up a set of blueprints for a sort of bunkhouse, to be built adjacent to an existing property. Do you remember the design I'm describing?"

"We draw up proposals on blueprint all the time," he said. "I'd need a name."

"Maynard Stanhunt."

He tapped it into the keyboard on his desk and squinted at the monitor: "No. He's not on our client list."

"Try Pansy Greenleaf. That's whose room I found it in."

He looked at me oddly for a minute and then entered the name. "No. Sorry. You must have the wrong firm."

"Nothing under Stanhunt? His wife's name is Celeste—"

"Nothing at all. I'm sorry."

I was coming up empty, but I didn't want to let it go. I had to find some way to justify myself to Bayzwaite, and buy some time. "All right," I said. "Let's start over. Let me tap your intelligence. Let me describe a room to you: eight bunk beds crammed against a wall, with less than three feet allowed for each bed. This room is upstairs in a kind of clubhouse that's a stone's throw from a big, well-equipped modern house, in a fancy neighborhood. What would a thing like that be for?"

"I—I really couldn't say."

"Animals," I said. "That's what I think. Evolved animals. Some kind of servant's quarters, maybe."

"We have a sheep," he said. "Built her a room on the back of the house. But she likes to sleep curled up."

"Who has a sheep?"

"My family. I'm just saying I think animals, evolved ones even, probably don't sleep all lined up in bunk beds."

I'd managed to get Bayzwaite interested, but it only made me wonder if the whole architectural angle wasn't a waste of time. Maybe whoever drew up the diagrams, assuming the diagrams meant anything at all, stole the paper with the logo from Copperminer and Bayzwaite's office supply. Maybe I should have been questioning the secretary.

"Okay," I said. "Good point. But then what are the beds for? Sixteen beds, remember. That's a lot of people in the same room."

"Sounds like kids," he said.

"Kids."

"Right."

"What kids? There are no kids. There's babyheads. About how tall is a babyhead?"

"Tall enough for those beds of yours," said Bayzwaite.

"Jesus Christ."

"Excuse me."

"I said Jesus Christ, Cole. I'm just feeling a little bit stupid. There's babyheads in this case, at least one, so I should have made the connection earlier. You've been a great help."

Bayzwaite was all smiles. He'd helped a private inquisitor on a case, and it made him feel good inside. He'd have a story to tell his pals. It was worth my not being a new client. I shook his hand again and got out of my seat. And that was that.

Almost. Maybe I just don't like happy endings, but something made me feel not right as I was reaching for the doon I turned around, and Bayzwaite's smile plastered itself back into position, but not before an appreciable interval. In that interval I spotted what the smile replaced, and it wasn't pretty.

I put up a smile to match Bayzwaite's but I let go of the door handle.

"Just occurred to me," I said. "Would you mind trying one more name on that client list of yours?"

"Shoot," he said, and made a gun out of his thumb and forefinger and pulled the imaginary trigger.

"Danny Phoneblum."

The name was magic. It stiffened up conversation wherever it was used. Bayzwaite's face had fallen when he saw my license; now it froze into a mask of tension, but not without retaining the all-important smile. He put his hand on the keyboard and tapped in the name.

"Nope."

I moved around to where I could see the monitor. "You spelled it wrong," I said. "Pee-aitch, not eff."

I watched his hands this time, and he knew it, and spelled it right. The name blinked into existence, along with the address of the place in the hills. I'd almost walked out of the office without making the connection, but the name was just sitting there waiting for me to find it.

"What a coincidence," I said. "He must have been the one who ordered those blueprints. I guess he didn't go ahead with the project and you forgot all about it. But the name stayed in your files. I guess—what, do you keep a mailing list? Invite people to brunches and stuff?"

"We just keep the names," he said stiffly.

"Lucky for me. So, let's see—you must have the designs filed away somewhere too, right?"

At that moment I became aware of a subtle shift. We'd been bodiless, even as the banter got hostile. Now we suddenly came into our bodies and sized one another up. I wasn't any taller, but I probably had a few pounds on him. Not that we were about to pounce on each other, but the physical element was suddenly tangible.

"I'm not sure," he said carefully.

"Let's have a look." I stepped up to his desk and put my hands on the keyboard, and I had to nudge him aside to do it. "Index." I spoke aloud as I tapped out the commands. "Client, file. Phoneblum." The set of diagrams blinked into existence.

I stepped back. "So. You thought a design like that was meant for babyheads. That look like what I described?"

"Yes."

"You draw this up?"

"We draw up thousands of proposals—"

"Right, right. You remember Phoneblum?"

"No." Too fast, too firm.

"What if I told you those blueprints were found curled up in the fist of a dead man?"

Bayzwaite swallowed hard. "I guess I'd say that I wanted to contact the Office before I said anything further. I'm not so good at this game of questions and answers."

"Well they weren't, so relax." I laughed. "Nobody's good at questions and answers anymore, so don't worry about that either." I realized I wasn't learning anything. I'd already seen the designs, and I'd more than confirmed the connection. Twisting Bayzwaite's arm wasn't going to get me any more. If I was hard up for arms to twist, I could come back later. He wasn't going anywhere.

I took my business card out of my pocket. "Call this before you call the Office. I'm working on keeping a guy out of the freezer, and I'll take any help I can get. If you or your ' partner remember anything..." I put the card on his desk and picked up my license. Bayzwaite took the card and put it in the drawer of his desk. His face was blank.

I went outside, nodded at the receptionist, and passed through the cavern of poured glass to the exit doors. Coming this way, I almost liked the effect of the early afternoon sun on the distorted walls of the office, all blurry and chiaroscuro, like some kind of underwater dream. I went into the corridor and pressed the button for the elevator.

The attendant handed over my car, and I drove out into the sun and parked on a side street behind the Overmall. I pulled out the mirror in my glove compartment and snorted up a couple of lines of the new batch of make, the first I'd used today. It had the effect of flashing my memory back over the events of the past two days: the kangaroo in the rain, Morgenlander in my office, and, most of all, Angwine in the bar of the Vistamont. The drug should have provided the sense of remove I craved; instead it served to focus and intensify my disquiet.

This case was like some kind of invasive malignancy. It filled whatever space it was given, and worse, blended itself into the healthy tissue so you didn't know where to make the cut. It had blended itself into my life. I'd already lost most of my karma to it, and my client was already frozen and shipped. I thought about Celeste Stanhunt and Catherine Teleprompter and decided it was also fair to say I'd lost my sense of objectivity.

With that cheery thought I put away the mirror, closed up the glove compartment, and started the car. It was time to find the babyheads. One in particular.