Down These Strange Streets (George R.R. Martin) (Kitty Norville 6.50)

I took a step back toward the door. “If that’s what you want, I’ll leave. But I won’t be able to keep you safe if you’re not with me.”

“I can’t just leave. And anyway, I have to be at work in a few hours!”

“Call in sick. Ms. Savoy, I really wish you would trust me on this. I swear, you’re honestly not safe here.” I could feel the seconds ticking away on the clock, but what could I do? Knock her out and carry her away? All I could do was try to look honest, and wait for her to make up her mind.

The way she did it shook me more than anything that had yet happened in that already busy twenty-four hours. She glanced at the gun dangling at the end of my arm, then undulated across the room in those slinky pajamas to stand in front of me, studying my face with her human-looking eyes. Then she reached up both hands to pull my face to hers, and kissed me.

Interesting fact: What’s unpredictable about genetic splicing is the distribution of each side’s characteristics. Salamanders have a whole lot of DNA packed into their cells—probably the reason they combine readily with others—but very few of us came out of our foster wombs looking like lizards (very few who lived, anyway). And only a handful of us have tails, or spots, or four fingers instead of five. And although I have heard of the occasional poor bastard whose tail insists on regenerating after that particular surgery, I’ve never believed that any of us actually shoot out our tongues or ooze poison from our skin.

But there’s no doubt, many of us do things differently from your average Homo sapiens.

Now, a major side effect of that Supreme Court victory was that we had as much right as anyone else to keep out of the hands of scientists (which is the reason you sometimes see ads on WeWeb and Facebook, begging for SalaMan volunteers). Science eyes us with a longing that verges on lust. It offers us considerable sums to participate in studies, then gleefully writes learned papers about our every oddity from pheromones and internal sex organs (science being as fascinated by our pre-Surgery organs as the tabloids are) to the ability to stretch the visible realm into the ultraviolet. Any of us who can prove that we’ve lost a scar or regenerated a finger, and don’t mind spending the rest of our lives under a microscope, would never have to work another day.

But one thing I’ve never read about in the literature, probably because the scientists never thought to ask about it, is the odd uses of some SalaMan mucous membranes.

Elizabeth Savoy was not kissing me, she was tasting the truth on me. She took her time about it, and for sure both of us enjoyed it, but we both knew what she was doing. And we both knew what she tasted.

Without a word, she walked back into the bedroom. I heard a drawer open.

I turned off the overhead light that she’d switched on with some kind of remote, and went into the room where the cat had disappeared. A neighbor’s outdoor light gave shape to kitchen cabinets, and I opened them until I found a bag of kibble, which I set on the floor with the top open. I took a big bowl and filled it with water, setting it next to the bag. My client’s feline responsibilities taken care of, I pressed my face to the windows, studying the possibilities. Wondering if what I’d found at Eileen Jacobs’s house was just brother Harry’s coffee having its way with my nerves. But I didn’t think so.

It was more than the two minutes I’d given her, but less than three, when I heard the toilet flush and feet wearing shoes coming across the room. My client fished a jacket out of the front-door closet, put it on, and picked up the small bag.

“Did you bring whatever cash you have?” I asked her. “Necessary pills, glasses, your ID?”

“Cash, a bit of jewelry, and my license and passport. No pills or glasses.”

“Turn off your cell phone. Better yet, take out the battery.”

She took out a pricey-looking slip of plastic, thumbing open the back and dropping the battery and the now-inert machine back into the bag’s pocket.

We went out her back door, around the tiny garden, through the gate, and up the winding stairway leading away from the water, to the place I had left the motorcycle I’d borrowed from an unwitting friend in Berkeley. On two wheels, and later four, I took my client out of the Bay Area, doubling back, going as invisibly as I knew how, spending all my attention on the rearview mirror and giving out just enough information to keep her with me. Finally, late that afternoon we went to ground in a middle-of-the-road motel in Sacramento, registering as a husband and wife, in a room with two beds.

She turned on me the instant the door was shut. “Okay, all day you’ve been putting me off about this because you needed to concentrate on our backs. So are we now, finally, safe enough that you can answer one or two damn questions?”

“Yes,” I said, “but—”

“Oh, Christ!”

“Look, Elizabeth. I’m tired and I’m cranky. Even you look like you could stomp a puppy. You go take a shower, I’ll rustle up some food, we’ll have a drink, and after that we’ll talk as long as you like.”

She wavered, but she was honest enough with herself that the call of the shower overcame her impatience.

I phoned a nearby Chinese place that delivered, and told the guy I’d add a hefty tip if he’d pick up a cold six-pack and something chocolate and girly on his way. The food and drink arrived as my client was finishing her long, steamy shower; I paid him cash, keeping my head a bit down in case someone out there flashed around a picture of my face. When she came out of the bathroom, I went in; as I closed the door, I heard the sound of a beer cap coming off.

I’ll admit it: I spend most of my life pretending I don’t feel the tightness of my skin and the sandpaper dryness of the air, but sometimes I can’t help reveling in the luxury of water. This was one of those.

I was only half dry when I heard her call my name, in a voice that had me out of there with the gun in one hand and the corners of the towel in the other.

She was staring at the television, tuned to the six o’clock news. The young reporter stood in front of a place I did not at first recognize, and only partly because I’d just seen it at night. The main reason was, the house that had been there, wasn’t.

“. . . called 911, but by the time the vehicles could get up the narrow hills of this community of artists and bohemians, the house was already engulfed with flames. Neighbor Alison Stanford describes the scene.”

Neighbor Alison Stanford was a petite Japanese woman of about sixty wearing artistic clothing and a thrilled expression. She earnestly described waking to sirens, seeing the leap of flames (she actually used the phrase) from the street, and was now waiting to see if the nice woman who lived there had survived. “I found her cat in my backyard,” said Ms. Stanford. “It took a while before it would let me come near, but I picked it up and took it inside. I hope the owner’s all right.”

Ms. Stanford seemed more excited at the brush with fame than she was worried at her neighbor’s safety. I stepped back inside the bathroom to exchange the towel for my trousers and add the clean shirt, then came out and took the remote control from my client’s grip, pressing the power button. Silence fell.

Elizabeth drew a shaky breath, then lifted her eyes to mine. “Harry’s dead, isn’t he?”