A description that matched what Bliss had told them about Bosun, Stark's muscle. Which meant they'd had watchers on Bliss's place. Watchers who had identified Finch incredibly fast. Now they were checking out where he lived. He didn't like that. Didn't like it at all.
Definitely time to have a talk with Stark.
"Tell me if you see them again? Or anyone else who doesn't live here?"
The Photographer nodded. Then he was taking long strides to the hatch, as if he suddenly needed to be somewhere. The hatch creaked open, and he was gone.
Off to Finch's left, Feral was stalking something new around a couple of wooden boxes. Finch went back to his whisky. Wondered if Bliss/Dar Sardice leading them to Stark meant Stark would lead them back to Bliss. And who was Stark, then? Just another Stockton man, or something else?
All the while trying not to think of the skery. Curling up his leg. Wound around his neck.
Failing.
WEDNESDAY
I: When did you first decide to contact Stark? Before or after Bliss?
F: I was just investigating two deaths. Following orders.
I: And to you that meant scheming with all of the city's enemies?
F: No, that's not it at all. That you-
[screams, garbled recording]
F: Why did you do that? Why? I'm talking. I'm talking.
I: But you're not saying anything.
I
n their way the next morning to track down Stark ...
Wind and spray of rain against Finch's face as they sped across the bay toward the Spit. Glad of the cool water soaking his hair. But he had a hard time keeping the filter-mask over eyes, nose, and mouth from clouding up. It itched, made him sweat. Made Wyte, as he turned toward Finch, look like something meant to frighten children. But better safe than dead. Even the gray caps didn't know what lived in the air above the bay, the water corrupted by runoff from the HFZ. Tiny assassins. Cell disruptors and breath-stealers ...
Finch stood at the prow of the gray cap boat, the only kind allowed out on the bay. Wyte beside him, skin on his arms green. Not from being seasick. The boat was big enough for eight or ten. Empty with just the two of them. Slight upward lurching push as it expelled water below the surface to propel them forward. Looked like any other boat from afar. Except it acts like it's alive. Route preplanned by the gruff Partial who had met them on the shore. Who had shoved a mushroom into an orifice on the hull that looked uncannily like a memory hole. Somehow the boat knew where to go. How to return.
Finch's shoes were sinking into the loamy sponge of the "planks." Tried to remember to bend his knees to keep his balance. But balance was a precarious thing. Tongue dry, stomach aching. The skery had done something to his muscles. Made him feel like he'd wrestled a giant all night. Didn't like that. Didn't like being robbed of his natural river-legs. Finch had liked the water, once. With childhood friends, names now lost-Charlie? Sam?-he'd gone down to the docks to fish. Pushed a canoe out into the current. Later, working for Wyte, he'd gotten up close to the big ships docking to unload and take on board H&S goods.
Ghosts of early-morning conversations with Wyte ran through Finch's head.
"Most of my informants have gone dark. Stark's influence. Taking care of leaks and stirring up hornets."
"You've got to know more about Stark than what you left on my desk, Wyte."
"No. Not a thing. We don't even know if that's his real name."
"Nobody's real name is just Stark, Wyte."
Wyte had arranged for a Stockton operative named Stephen Davies to act as a go-between with Stark. They'd approach the floating pontoons at the northeast edge of the Spit. Much safer than from the land side. A maze of ruins there. Ideal for ambush. No cover. No way to retreat.
Spies came into Ambergris simple and alone, first stop the Spit. Over the water. In the darkness, as if newly born. With nothing on them that the gray caps might want. Nothing that their masters wouldn't want taken. They built up their resources over time. Using whatever money or influence they'd brought from Stockton, Morrow, or even more distant lands. Sometimes the Spit was the last stop, too.
"Truff love foreigners, trying to take advantage of our f**ked-up city."
"Stark'll be no different. Where was Stockton during the Rising?"
"Waiting to pick the bones clean."
Trying to pump themselves up. Convince themselves they were still loyal to Ambergris. Hated how the masks made their voices tinny.
"Davies seems in awe of Stark."
"Sure it's not fear? Though most of them are probably past fear or awe by now..."
Wyte just shrugged. Finch knew he didn't want to think about that. Didn't want to know what shit might be waiting on the Spit.
Hints of bobbing islands in the waves now. Some of them too close to ignore. Yet Finch ignored them. Corpse islands made from workers who had died in the camps. Reborn as floating compost for fruiting bodies. And far, far below them, the decaying docks, the drowned part of Albumuth Boulevard. All of the dead, still in the buildings where they had worked or lived, the onslaught of water so sudden. Slamming into them. For a time lit up by the strobing of the giant squid that had patrolled the bay. Long since gone, driven out by the pollution. Finch couldn't take it. Not this morning.
"Water can behave like a person," his father used to say. Treacherous. Tides and swirls and eddies. Sucking boats down with them.
The past didn't seem like another world. The past seemed like it had never happened. Couldn't have happened. The leap to this too hideous, too nightmarish. Better to have no past at all. Suddenly, he needed Sintra. Needed her badly. Could almost smell her perfume. Wanted to be back in his apartment, next to her.
"Where do you live?"
"A place with four walls, and a ceiling."
"What are the neighbors like?"
"Noisy. Sad. Temporary ..."
Resented Wyte irrationally for a moment. As if Sintra could've replaced him on the boat. Backed him up. Except she couldn't.
"What can you hear from your window, Sintra?"
"The sound of detectives asking questions."
"Finch." Wyte made it sound like a warning, jolting him from his thoughts. "Over there." Pointing, like he wanted a distraction, too.
Just behind them: another boat. Much larger, coming in from the southeast. Flat-bottomed. Lagging in the water.
Finch had brought his gun against his own better instincts. Drew it now. Then looked closer and holstered it.
"Just prisoners," he said. Could as well be us.
Wyte took a second look, nodded.
Soon the boat slid past their prow, heading for the towers. It held about thirty people from the camps. Guarded by two gray caps and a Partial. The men and women dressed in the dull sack robes of their status. Some wearing old-fashioned masks that might or might not work. Heads bowed not from prayer but from hopelessness. Thin, with light-green skin. Shoulders slumped.