Amberlough(78)

She whirled on him, and he realized she’d been crying. “I don’t know,” she said. Her eyes were sunken and crazed with red veins. She looked like she hadn’t slept in three days. “Can you raise the dead?”

A jolt of fear lanced through him. “Who?”

“Nobody you know.” Disgust twisted her mouth. “You thought it was Ari, didn’t you?”

He sat at his desk, heavily, unwilling to admit his relief.

“Stones, Cyril,” she said. “How do you keep this up?”

“How? I would think you of all people would understand. I keep it up because I do what’s necessary.”

“You’re nothing like me.”

“Whoring? Selling tar? You’ve done ugly things to survive.”

Her snort was eloquently derisive. “You ain’t surviving. Your heart’s beating, sure, but there’s nothing left inside it. Least I been honest about my ugliness. All these lies, they’re hollowing you out.”

“What lies?” He flung his hands up. “You know exactly who I am, what I’m doing.”

“I didn’t say you lied to me.” A curious softness came into her eyes, unbearably like pity. “Whatever they said to you, whatever they told you they’d do … There were other ways, Cyril.”

“Like what? Central couldn’t keep me safe in Tatié. You think they could keep me safe in a coup?”

“Ari would have hidden you in a second, sent you out of the country. He still would, if you asked him.”

“I don’t think so.” Anyway, he wouldn’t have to.

“Why not? Mother’s tits, Cyril, he loves you like pigs in slop.”

“Because he’s not an idiot. And because I’d never ask him to.”

“What, you’re too proud?” The pity in her eyes dissolved. “You’ve always gotta be the one pulling other people off the tracks, is that it? Well, Cyril DePaul, I can get my own ass out from under the train. So go help somebody who really needs you.”

She slammed the door so hard, his stack of dispatches jumped and began to slide off the desk. The papers went one at a time at first, then built to a cascade. He let them fall and spread in a white fan across the floor.

*

He was still reeling from Cordelia’s refusal when he got the call.

“Hebrides is dead,” said Van der Joost. No preamble.

Cyril pressed the receiver to his cheek. “What? How?”

“Heart attack.”

He’d envisioned assassination. Suicide. The truth caught him off guard. “Really?” But of course. Hebrides’s heart had always been tricky. Rich living in the last decade had made it worse, and impeachment wouldn’t have done him any favors. “What now?”

“Some arrests. The chain of succession, the first three links: Almstedt, Scott, Demotchka. Leave Koryon—he’s one of ours. And bring in Culpepper so we can get those agents off your scent.”

He said it casually, but Cyril was under no illusions. This was a test he couldn’t afford to fail. But he had to ask: “On what charge?”

Van der Joost’s pause was nearly imperceptible, but it spoke volumes of mistrust. “You have Müller in your hand. Do you need one?” He ended the call without waiting for an answer.

For a long while after, Cyril brooded over the last of a cheap bottle of rye, thinking about what Cordelia had said.

Aristide was smart and capable and sometimes—often—ruthless. Left to his own devices, could he have gotten himself out of this mess? Or would he have been overconfident, and left it too late? Was Cyril really doing good, or just showing off?

Maybe he should have said something to Aristide after all, about his bargain with Van der Joost. He almost had, in the Stevedore. But it wasn’t a surety, and Aristide would have torn him up and down for agreeing to the terms. But what terms would Aristide settle for? Only his own. And those might not get him out of Gedda safely.

Unless Cyril could convince him. Or bribe him. Or maybe, like Cordelia said, even just ask.

He picked up the telephone receiver. Pinching it between his shoulder and cheek, he used his free hand to turn the dial. He held his whiskey in the other, ready to douse any second thoughts.

“Sola’s Oyster Bar.” The woman on the other end of the line had a smoky, inviting voice. “What can I do for you tonight?”

“Reservation for two. Say, one o’clock? Have you got a private dining room open then?” They would let him out of the building, if he said it was for work. Maybe they’d send Rudy with him. That wouldn’t be a problem.

There was a quick pause as the maitre d’ checked her list. “I do. Whose name shall I put down?”

He gave her one. Not his own, obviously. “And if you don’t mind, will you ring my assistant with a reminder an hour or so before?”

“Absolutely. What exchange shall I use?”

He gave her the line for Culpepper’s office, and hung up.

*

When Memmediv entered the room, the strains of a crooner and big band came with him from the public bar. He paused for a beat on the threshold, eyeing Cyril warily.

“Close the door, please,” Cyril said.

Memmediv did, with careful movements. “You are not Karl Haven.”