The others headed north, up Albumuth. Wyte was a hulking shadow hanging back at the rear. Finch went south, but not home. Not yet. First, he had to pick up the memory bulbs from the crime scene. But he also had decided not to trust the Partial. Wanted to interview some of the residents of 239 Manzikert Avenue himself.
A different route than that morning. Late-afternoon sun like dark gold against brick walls. The street sloped on an incline before following a gentle curve downward. Tight high walls of shovedtogether tenements and lofts. Hoegbotton territory, before the Rising. Finch brushed by a man or woman covered up in robes. Another person ducked into a doorway, face made a question mark by an old gas mask that might or might not keep spores out. Stain of blue-green lichen in the gutter. A rancid quality to the air.
Faintest hint of the bay from the cross street. Mostly obscured by mansards and rubble. Glimpse of the two towers. Did the sky match? Or was it darker between the towers? Had a bet going with the other detectives about the purpose of the towers. To dull the fear.
A hint of shadow moved behind him as he rounded a tight corner. It made him cautious. It made him paranoid. He stopped a minute later. Pretended to tie his shoe. Managed a backward glance. Nothing.
Imagined it?
Wouldn't put it past Heretic to have him followed. Or maybe it was just some ragged kid hoping to mug a passerby. As he rose, Finch made sure to pull his jacket back. To show his gun. Such as it was.
239 Manzikert Avenue was a dark vertical slab of stone and wood with blackened filigree balcony railings crawling up the front. Trees left black leaves and rotting yellow berries on the steps. If the berries had been edible, the steps would've been clean.
Ornate double doors stripped of the metal that had once served as inlay. Steps guarded by a three-legged cat that hissed. Then hopped away. Beyond the doors, a hallway studded with lights so dim it would've been hard to read by them. Finch stepped inside. The feeling of being followed shut off. Like it'd been attached to a timer inside of him.
The floor squeaked. Freshly waxed. It hadn't been waxed in the morning. Finch smiled. Old Hoegbotton trick. Cheap security. Bell the cat. He went squeaking to the stairwell. Already knew the elevator didn't work.
The outside light couldn't seem to push through the tiny windows set into the walls. The stairwell got darker the further up he went. But, gradually, more evidence of people. A dog howling. The flushing of a shared toilet. A screaming child. A mother's raised voice. The smell of something spicy being cooked for dinner. Filtered through the exhausted, stale funk of a place in which too many had lived in close quarters for too many years.
Finch knew not to start on the first couple of floors. No one liked to live that low if they had a choice. Ambergris Rules. Better to live next to a corpse than one floor above the gray caps' underground realm. His father had taught him that.
Stopped at the fourth floor. Just to be safe. Fourth or sixth. Anyone on the fifth was long gone. Either after the corpse arrived and before the Partial came to talk to them. Or after the Partial came to talk.
Finch had a simple formula. A polite knock. Short questions, in a friendly tone. Didn't like to go in like Blakely, guns blazing. Or like Gustat, using threats to coerce. They got information, sure. But not always the right information.
He worked the long line of closed doors to either side of the discolored, torn carpet. At the fifth door, a mother answered, holding her son. Maybe five or six, born around the time of the Rising. The mother looked worn. Pale and thin. Probably starving herself to feed the child. Probably thought that holding the kid would make Finch play nice. The kid's open, eager face confounded Finch. Almost like seeing another species. Parents kept their children hidden. Went out to forage for them. Finch's father had done the same for him. During the wars.
"What do you want?" she asked.
Finch decided he wanted nothing. Asked a couple of easy questions. Showed her the photo of the dead man. The woman didn't recognize him.
Tried a couple more doors. A middle-aged man in a tank top and shorts answered holding a frying pan. For defense? For dinner? Either way, he didn't know anything, hadn't seen anything.
Neither did the old married couple who might've lived there for forty, fifty years. Might even have recalled when 239 Manzikert Avenue hadn't been a dump. The man stood behind the woman, peering out with the kind of distant stare Finch associated with the camps. The wife had a blotch of purple on her forehead that might've been a birthmark or might've been fungus.
The next interview went better. A man of about sixty answered. Slight build. Large blue eyes, accentuated by the wrinkles in his forehead. A cultured voice. He wore a too-tight dinner jacket. The points of the collars on the white shirt beneath stabbed the flesh of his neck. His wrists showed from the dark ends of his cuffs. He looked like a child in a straitjacket.
As Finch questioned him, he slowly realized the man had dressed up for the interrogation. Had heard him at other doors down the hall. Soon, the man was asking him to come in for tea. Polite in a way that hadn't been common in Ambergris for years. Finch guessed violinist or theater owner. Either that or he'd once been the doorman.
He didn't know anything about the murders. (Finch couldn't recall when he'd started calling them murders, but the word felt right.) Thought the man in the photograph looked familiar, but couldn't place him. In the way people do when they're trying to help.
Then the man asked if the people living there had been of use.
"People living there?" Finch echoed.
"Yes. There were people living there. A man. A woman."
"Really?"
"Yes. I don't know their names."
Didn't know anything else, either.
Who was lying to him then? Heretic? The Partial?
Remembered Heretic's strange mood as he headed up to the fifth floor.
In the apartment, the bodies lay much as before. Except that each had sprouted a thick, emerald-green stalk topped by a nodule. The detectives called them memory bulbs. No one could pronounce what the gray caps called them. Sounded like a word between loam and leer. An aqua-colored nodule for the man. Bright orange for the gray cap. Which meant Finch had learned something new.
The bodies still looked peaceful. Even with the dull light streaming through the open window. The man looked better preserved than when Finch had seen him that morning. Sometimes death did that. For a time.
A figure stepped out of the back room. The Partial, grinning.
"Shit." Finch's gun appeared in his hand. Heart pounding.
"I'd aim that somewhere else if I were you," the Partial said. Fungal eye blinking and blinking. Recording.