After the Golden Age

EIGHT

MAYOR Paulson made a public statement the next day at noon. Mark called her at home to tell her about it.

“Celia, turn on the news.”

“What? Why?”

“Dad just gave a statement about last night.”

She grabbed the remote, turned on the TV, and curled up on the sofa.

A perfectly manicured reporter at a news anchor desk read off the teleprompter. “—scene a half hour ago at City Hall.”

The picture switched to the marble-lined foyer of City Hall. The camera turned to a podium as Anthony Paulson, flanked by assistants, emerged from a door behind it. Celia recognized some of the flunkies from the concert. Cameras flashed and reporters clustered forward. The mayor, his face set in grim lines, waved them back.

After a moment, he received the silence he needed.

“Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for coming on such short notice. In light of recent attacks and the proliferation of organized criminal elements bent on ruin and anarchy, I am announcing the creation of a task force to deal with these elements. I will hire a hundred new police officers to patrol our streets. Some people will say that I’m overreacting, that I’m taking last night’s theft of priceless musical instruments from the symphony gala personally because it also involved the kidnapping of my son Mark. My answer to them is yes, of course I’m taking it personally. As well I should. Every crime committed against a citizen of Commerce City is committed against someone’s son or daughter. Someone takes each of those crimes personally. It is my sworn duty to protect the safety of every law-abiding man, woman, and child in this city, and so I must take every crime personally.

“And I must apologize for a certain laxness in fulfilling that duty. It has become clear that for too long we have depended on outside, independent forces to defend us. However, it seems that unless those forces are faced with an adversary of the Destructor’s magnitude, they simply can’t be bothered. I will not be taking questions at this time. Thank you for your attention.” He turned and slipped back through the door, followed by his swarm.

“Celia, are you still there?”

Celia had held the phone to her ear silently while watching. When the announcement ended, she had to repeat to herself what the mayor had just said. What she thought he’d just said.

“Yeah, Mark. I talked to Robbie last night and he said the cops told them to stay out of it.”

“Robbie?”

“The Bullet. I don’t know where your dad got his information, but the Olympiad didn’t help last night because the cops asked them not to. I’ll bet the other vigilantes didn’t even know about the theft—they don’t have the level of access the Olympiad does.”

“Are you sure?”

“About Robbie? Why would he lie to me? If it was a miscommunication, then it probably ought to get cleared up before something comes along that the cops can’t handle.”

“You don’t have a whole lot of faith in the cops, do you?”

Whoops. There went her foot into her mouth.

She took a deep breath. “I’m sorry. That’s not what I meant.”

“Look. We’re both biased on this. I’ll find out who told the Olympiad what about what happened, okay? You’re right, it was probably a miscommunication and nobody needs to take it personally.”

She was about to argue that she wasn’t taking it personally, then decided against it. “That’d be really cool. Thanks. Wait a minute—Dad’s on. My dad, I mean.”

The anchorwoman said, “We asked Warren West, better known as Captain Olympus of the crime-fighting Olympiad, for his response to the mayor’s comments, a veiled accusation that the Olympiad and other crime fighters have failed to make Commerce City safer.”

The image wobbled after the frame switched to the camera view of a roving reporter. They were in the lobby of West Plaza, focused on Warren West’s back. Celia turned the volume up.

A male reporter chased after him. “Mr. West? Mr. West! What is your response to the mayor’s comments?”

Warren turned on him, glaring. His shoulders were bunched, his fists clenched. He was on the verge of losing his temper. Celia recognized the signs. Then he glanced at the camera and let out a breath and straightened. He had some consideration for his public image, and was able to speak calmly and with heart.

“After more than twenty years of serving this city, is that the kind of gratitude we’ve earned? All I can say is we don’t need the mayor’s good opinion to do what’s right. No more questions, thank you.”

He stalked off, reporters scattering in his wake.

The anchorwoman popped back on screen. “The masked vigilante Breezeway was less offended about the mayor’s conference.”

The image switched to show Breezeway. The reporter had found him—or maybe he’d found the reporter—scaring up wind storms for kite flyers at City Park. A bevy of laughing children crowded behind him after he landed—quite the PR coup.

He shrugged in response to the reporter’s question. “He has to look like he’s doing something to keep the polls happy.”

Celia had never liked that guy. He was a loose cannon. A couple of other scenes followed, sound bites from Mind-masher and Earth Mother. She wondered if they’d flash an interview with Analise next, but Typhoon didn’t seem to be out and about this afternoon.

“Celia?” It was Mark on the phone again. “Are you still there?”

“Yeah. Hey, I’m glad you called. We should have dinner or something soon. To make up for last night.”

“I could sure use a hello like the good-bye I got from you.”

Oh yeah. Definitely a keeper.

When she finally hung up, the phone flashed a message waiting light at her. It was Analise, practically screaming: “What happened last night? Don’t try to tell me you weren’t there because I know you were. And you didn’t call me? Why didn’t I hear about this? My supreme deductive reasoning powers tell me that this Mark Paulson guy is the cop who took you home after the last time. Am I right? There’s a picture of you making eyes at him on page three of the Eye. Girl, you guys look hot. You have to—” The message timed out there.

Monday morning, she was back in the office researching the Leyden Industrial Park, the next strand in the web that was Sito’s life.

The current phone book and city title records had no listings for a Leyden Industrial Park, which meant the name had changed sometime during the last fifty years, or the place didn’t exist anymore. An address would have helped, but the censored Greenbriar file hadn’t been that generous. She’d have to head to City Hall or the library and hope they had historical street plans or title information going back that far.

She also made time for a little independent research, looking into valuations of Stradivarius instruments. It wasn’t exactly a straightforward endeavor. The average thief would never be able to unload one on the black market. Most of the instruments were well known within the communities that would pay the most for them. Their histories, characteristics, ownership, were all recorded in detail. They even had nicknames. It would be like trying to sell someone’s child. Someone’s famous child. Not that criminals hadn’t tried that, too.

If the thieves had a private buyer lined up, one who didn’t care about the niceties of law, no one would ever see those instruments again.

So why had they taken a hostage if they were just going to let him go? Once they were out of the building, they didn’t need the human shield anymore—they could have released him immediately. Except they hadn’t originally taken any hostage, they’d wanted her. Which meant they’d wanted to get at the Olympiad. If they’d kept her as a hostage, her parents might not have listened when the cops asked them to stay out of it. Maybe that was why they’d let Mark go. He was the wrong bait.

The hubris, putting herself at the middle of this.

She had dinner with Mark Saturday night. Just dinner. She was becoming so conservative. Really, though, she had enjoyed the chance to talk to him when they weren’t in a courtroom or a kidnapping scene.

Appleton had grilled him about the Stradivarius Brothers, as the press had named the gang, most of Friday night and into Saturday. He’d given descriptions of his captors to the sketch artist and profiling software; the department was still trying to find matches with the mug shots on file. He’d spent the entire time in their car, which never went more than a mile from the symphony hall and the police station, and points in between. The Stradivarius instruments had been in a different car. Not much to go on, as far as tracking the instruments was concerned. He hadn’t gotten a look at the plates of either car.

He had heard part of a phone conversation. The driver of the car called someone to ask what to do, since the plan had gone awry.

“The guy he was talking to was yelling so loud I could hear him. He said, ‘You were supposed to get the girl.’ Then the driver said, ‘The mayor’s son ought to be just as good.’ But the answer was no. Then they dropped me off. I thought you’d want to know.”

They’d been after her, and she wasn’t willing to call two kidnapping attempts in as many weeks a coincidence.

Mark came over to her place Monday evening with carry-out Chinese. She dumped lo mein onto plates and poured hot-and-sour soup into bowls while he leaned on the doorway to the kitchen, watching.

“I asked around about who talked to the Olympiad Friday night. All anyone knows is the order came from upstairs, from higher up than Appleton. Probably the Commissioner. Nobody was too upset about it; you know we’ve never really gotten along with those guys.”

Because the Olympiad kept making them look bad.… “But there was an order. I wish your dad wouldn’t go around saying it was their fault they weren’t there.”

“It would have been like them to just show up. Why didn’t they?”

Because they hadn’t known there was a kidnapping involved and there were lives at stake. She didn’t want to argue with him. “Who knows? I can’t explain them.”

“Can’t you?”

“You may have noticed, I’ve spent the whole of my adult life putting distance between them and me.”

“Yeah, I’ve noticed.”

As they ate, she watched Mark across the table. Broad shouldered, frowning, his eyes alight, animated and resolute, an ideal poster boy for the city’s police force. He looked ready to leap to the rescue of a damsel in distress, willing to save the city from whatever dangers befell it. Another crusading hero, in his own way.

She ought to kick him out right now, before it was too late.

“You look all serious all of a sudden.”

“Sorry.” She smiled and glanced away.

The table was small enough that he was able to reach across and touch her face, a light brush of fingertips across her cheek. Quelling a smile, he drew his hand away. Too late.

He helped her clear away the dishes, and he stood too close, so that she could feel the heat of his body. She let her arm brush his as she reached for a towel. After drying her hands, she twined her arms around his waist. He was kissing her before he brought his hands to her shoulders.

She was hot and bothered, unthinking, and let it happen. Watched herself pull off his shirt, press her hands to his bare chest, and give a sigh of satisfaction.

She needed, she decided, to be held in his arms.