Dispatch from a Colored Room

Do you see what I'm getting at?

Credit where it's due: Aimée waits to shut down until she isn't needed any more. That means she gives cracking but coherent descriptions of the last time we saw Sim, how long it had been and what we'd done since, and whom we suspected of taking him. She's just graceful enough under her own interrogation, calm enough to seem to have nothing to hide, not so calm as to seem smug or satisfied with what's happened—but when they release her and move to start in on me, she gives me a brief pleading look and I see how hollowed out she is, light and brittle as a drained eggshell. I wangle a minute and get a secretary to pay a courier to book a room in a little hostel on the fourth terrace, in a twisty little enclave where the viascutes change a lot from day to day, and then it's me under the lights. (My natural habitat, though I didn't know it then.)

GENDARME 1: Why do you want to deflect suspicion onto M Charbon?

CATHERINE PELERINE: Deflect from whom?

GENDARME 2: This person, that person. Anybody else who could have done it.

CP: Are we talking about me or Mlle Leblanc?

G1: Are we?

CP: Well, if you're asking me, the answer is no.

G1: You can conclusively rule out Mlle Leblanc's involvement in this matter?

CP: I am absolutely confident she didn't wish or cause it to happen, if that's what you mean.

G2: But M Charbon was a well-loved relative, was he not? A family benefactor, as we have it.

CP: Ex-benefactor. Present bugger and mortal foe. If Mlle Leblanc described him as "well-loved," I'll throw myself into the bore.

G2: It's true, Mlle Leblanc's description was a touch mixed. 

G1: Unfortunately, none of the witnesses' descriptions square with hers.

G2: Well, they're consistent. But all we know is that the kidnapped wasn't too tall or too short, too fat or too thin. And neither is Elias Charbon. Neither am I.

G1: You're too fat.

G2: I'm fat, but I'm not too fat. It hasn't spread to my brain yet.

G1: I'd get a doctor's opinion before making pronouncements.

CP: Did the witnesses talk about his smell?

G1: We don't ask about smell.

G2: That's true. It's possible one or two of them mentioned it, though. Three, maybe.

CP: There were only three witnesses.

G1: She's a counter. We've got ourselves a counter.

CP: You're telling me every witness mentioned an identical detail that does, in fact, "square" with our descriptions of Elias Charbon, and all you fat fucks can do is make fun of me for being able to count to three?

G1: It's not your ability, Mlle Pelerine, it's your inclination. Only little children show off that they can count to three.

G2: And, strictly speaking, they didn't mention identical smells. They just mentioned smells. 

G1: One person says wet sleather, one says dead rat in a compost pile.

G2: Week-old dysentery. Now, who are we to say what smells like what? I failed out of the lycee, Mlle Pelerine, otherwise I'd have been promoted by now. My partner graduated, but only because he cheated. Surely you wouldn't trust us to imprison a man on our judgment of the equivalence of these odors?

CP: What if I told you he smelled like a mix of compost and week-old ratshit on wet sleather?

G1: A less charitable officer would suspect you of trying to manipulate the process.

CP: Are you aware of his record on the sixth?

G2: Clean, as far as I could see.

G1: Lot of accusations, but we don't hold that against anyone. Especially on the sixth. Those people don't want to work to get ahead, they'd rather fuck their neighbor. 

G2: No matter the size. Do you see what I'm getting at?

—and that, queens and quislings, jerks me like a simurg's talons from the ebb and flow of this well-practiced mummery, and I finally give these two thick, soft-jawed cops a proper look. They're giving me one back, two dead serious gazes boring into me like diamond-tipped augers. Gouging my flesh to drive the point home.

G1: She sees it.

G2: These kids, they have sharp eyes. If only you get them looking in the right place.

G1: Gotta know what you're up against. Am I right? 

G2: A bunch of accusations, but no one thought they were worth following up. I mean, in the eyes of the gendarmerie, this is self-evidently a non-issue, otherwise—

G1:—someone would have done something about it by now. Absolutely.

CP: What is this, then? Are you wasting my time teaching me a fucking lesson?

G1: Mlle Pelerine, this will all go much more smoothly if you remember we're interrogating you.

G2: We use the modern techniques. Direct questioning—no longer a la mode.

G1: We prefer to draw out the necessary information through cooperative dialogue.

CP: [stony silence]

G2: She's frustrated, Aelfric. 

G1: Just like our colleagues on the sixth, I don't doubt it.

—they both look at me again. I grit my teeth and play along.

CP: How's that, officers?

G2: Oh, I don't know. It's just, you have someone who attracts all these accusations --

G1:—baseless as they might be— 

G2:—baseless as they might be, and it's—you know, a drain on resources. Attention, cash. There are so many better ways to serve our city.

G1: And I shouldn't speak for our colleagues on the sixth, but I imagine they'd really appreciate if those accusations stopped. However that might happen.

CP: I think I see. You're suggesting that they'd like it if his reputation were rehabilitated? Maybe someone should explain to his neighbors how he's not really such a bad guy.

G1: Mmmm. Not very subtle. Creative thinking is what's called for here.

G2: Easier to fix these things by going to the source, you know? I mean, it's not our job to tell him to live.

G1: How to live.

G2: That either. But someone could get the message across. If they could phrase it in a way he couldn't help but hear.

G1: Or that he'd want to listen to.

G2: Anything's possible.

G1: Anything at all, Mlle Pelerine.