No gun. No shoes. Just what was left in his pockets, because Bosun didn't want it.
Stark: "I'm here to f**king clean house."
Heretic: "A skery is not as bad for you as what I could bring with me."
Bliss: "You look familiar to me, detective. Do I know you?"
And the dead man laughing at all of them.
Beside Finch's head, Wyte's feet. In black boots dirty with algae-like fungus. A tiny community. A miniature of the city. Finch imagined he could see creatures there. Creatures who lived out their unaware lives in a state of naive happiness. A sharp smell, like petrol mixed with pepper. The friction of their discourse on that slick black hillside.
He turned his attention back to the sky. Ignored the three crimson tendrils coming out from under Wyte's overcoat. The weariness wasn't from confronting Stark. The weariness was from continually being threatened.
"Wyte. Just so we're clear-you're not thinking about making a deal with Stark. To replace Davies and your other Stockton contacts?"
"No." Didn't sound convincing.
"You're so full of shit, Wyte." Exasperated because back in the day Wyte was the one lecturing him about being naive. Telling him not to trust the ship captains at the docks when what was in their hold didn't match the invoice. Always warning him about getting fooled.
"I'm not going to make any deals!"
Pressing: "What did Stark's people talk to you about then, Wyte? Scratch that-who are Stark's people?"
"Nobody! No one," Wyte protested. "They didn't talk to me. I had a hood over my head. I never even saw them. And how do I know you didn't decide to trade information with Stark?"
"Because I didn't, Wyte. You know why? Because he's not like your Stockton contacts from before. You can't really deal with someone like Stark. He'll cheerfully sell you a knife and then slit your throat with it before you've even given him the money."
"I know that. Tend to your own house."
"Fair enough."
A silence that spread and spread until it reached the sky. Not really mad at Wyte. Mad at Stark for making him powerless. For humiliating him.
Thick stalks of green appeared at the left edge of his vision. He turned his head. It was the underside of the two towers. The cross-section of scaffolding and support. It seemed alive. Made of vines wrapped around sinews that convulsively wove and rewove themselves together. Thought he saw a dead fox in there. Thought he saw a face.
Then they were past, and it was just the gray again.
Everyone has a theory about the two towers. Finch has heard them all, mostly at the detectives' nameless refuge. When they first decided on the location, they'd had to take the bell out of the bell tower to make more space. A grunting, straining ordeal. To get it down. To shove it out of the one window without destroying the place. It had sunk slowly. Much to their mutual amusement. "It should've sunk like the stone it is," Blakely had said. "Something about the clapper," Wyte had said. "The air trapped inside?" Finch: "Bullshit. It's just being difficult." Could still see it in the water below. Dark and rippling. A shape like the bullet head of some monstrous fish.
Talk of one tower had led to talk of the others.
Skinner: "I hear the towers are being built over the ruins of the old gray cap library. For some ritual."
Wyte: "I heard it's a power source for more electricity. When it's done, the whole city will be lit up again. They're nothing if not practical."
Gustat, snorting his disdain, "Lit up for sure, because it's a weapon. Why else out in the bay? From there, it looks over the whole city. It'll shoot out some kind of energy. Another way to control all of us. First thing they'll do is destroy the Spit."
Blakely: "You're full of shit. It's a huge statue to their god. Or a memorial. Whatever, those are just its legs."
The "island" around their refuge is just floating debris that has matted round. Encouraged by them. Camouflage. Stability. Some day, the whole thing is going to rot. They'll have to go elsewhere. Or maybe by then the city will be theirs again and they'll have their pick of pubs. Won't have to be part of the same chain gang, the same galley crew.
One day they might even get around to building a bridge. But for now, the detectives have built a place to moor a boat, and used the boat to bring across an amazing amount of booze. Salvage from every murder scene. Every call of domestic abuse. A history of Ambergris in alcohol, from Smashing Todd's to Randy Robert's. A smell like sweat and beer. Better than the smell of the station. No electricity, but they've hidden an icebox in the waters below the rotting floorboards at the far end of the main room. Keeps cold enough. They bring food as they have it. Stock the place with gray cap rations too. Tastes like crap, but the food-if that's what it is-never goes bad.
Gustat: "What god? They don't worship a god. They're too practical, like Wyte says."
Albin: "Too practical? By what measure? This is just them working up to another Silence. Better hope the rebels get to it first."
Dapple, uncertainly: "Not true. They can kill us all now if they want to. They don't need more help."
Albin: "Not enough of them for that."
Blakely again: "Some people think it's some kind of gate. They swear late at night you can see things moving through it. That you can see strange stars."
The detectives never talk about work. But, rumor? Rumor is like news from some far distant, more exciting place. Especially about the two towers.
Once, Finch offered his opinion. "They've got limits, first of all. You can see that already. They couldn't control the effects of the HFZ. They need help from the camps to build the towers. When the towers go faster, they put up fewer other buildings. The electricity goes out. Or their radio station goes silent. They have limits."
Blank looks. Not getting it. Much easier to think of the gray caps as some implacable force. Like the weather. Something that can't be fought. Because the fact is: if the gray caps want, they can disappear your friends, your family. It doesn't take unlimited resources to do that.
Wyte and Finch aren't allowed at the hideout anymore. Once it became clear Wyte would never really get rid of his affliction. Ever since Finch decided to back him anyway.
5
inch and Wyte returned to the station in time to witness the end of a rare fight. Blakely and Dapple had gone at it. Under the glow of spectral lamps, the gaze of the tiny windows. Not caring if the gray caps were watching.
Blakely faced them. Standing on the mottled green carpet right where it reached the desks. Nose bloodied. Dapple with his back to them. Hair rising in tufts like he'd been startled. Fists up, too. Albin watching from his desk. A peculiar look of interest and boredom on his face.