“Well … part of my work involved composing and submitting the budget for the crew I supervised. I kept getting it back with cuts I considered unreasonable. I mean, you can’t do your work properly without decent equipment.”
“I couldn’t agree with you more.”
Sensing a kindred spirit, the tech became a little more voluble. “So just to satisfy myself, I ran a scan on overall company expenditures. Because of what I do, I could access all corporate records. It seemed to me that an awful lot of money was going into pure R&D. There were huge allotments for extraordinary, unspecified expenditures … that sort of thing. So I figured maybe some executive was skimming funds. You read about that sort of thing happening all the time in big, closely held companies.”
“You certainly do. You think someone at Borgia was diverting company funds for private use?”
“I don’t know. I was just trying to justify my own section budget, you know? It just struck me that a lot of money was being applied to some really nebulous debits without generating any visible return, and if the company could waste money on mysterious schemes of an unspecified nature, then they could damn well afford to fund their support groups.”
Manz made himself sound casual. “I don’t suppose you were ever able to learn the nature of any of those projects?”
“Are you kidding? If a company can’t cosset its own R&D, it can’t have any secrets. Specifics weren’t kept in general corporate files.
“Anyway, when I tried to use the information I’d gathered about what seemed to me to be excessive spending on nonproductive activities, to get my crew properly funded, that’s when I was terminated. Without any other explanation than that I was a ‘disruptive influence’ due to ‘personality conflicts.’ Personally, I think I was fired for being a conscientious employee. Lot of good it did me.
“When I pressed Arsolt on it, he said the necessary paperwork had been signed off by Monticelli himself. Not that that means anything. The Cardinal probably initials a hundred forms a day without reading more than the titles of a few of them. I don’t hold it against him. It was Arsolt’s call. He was my supervisor.” The tech smiled diffidently. “Is that any help? I really have to get back to work. I don’t want to lose this job, too. I like it here.”
“That should do it,” Manz told him. “Thanks for your cooperation.”
The youngster didn’t reply. He was already back on his knees, peering with surgically enhanced eyes into the glassine and plasticized bowels of his inert patient.
The number-cruncher was transcribing tax records with the grim dedication of a veteran interior lineman waiting for the play to be called his way. He was short and squat, with a heavy spade beard and eyebrows like mossy ledges in a miniature rain forest. His demeanor matched his appearance. Moses and Manz stood on the other side of the security barrier that separated them from this sophisticated Cro-Magnon statistician.
“I’d rather not discuss the matter, gentlemen,” he said without looking in their direction. The security membrane distorted each word slightly, as if the tail end of each consonant had been slightly filed.
Manz persisted. “All we want to know is why Borgia let you go.”
“I already told the police.”
The adjuster fingered the security membrane, heard it complain. “As I’ve already explained, we’re not with the authorities. We represent a public polling company.”
“As someone who works constantly with numbers, I certainly sympathize with your situation,” Moses murmured.
The statistician coded three lines of keys and abruptly whirled to face them. “All right.” He grinned nastily. “I won’t talk to any more people, but I’ll talk to you.” He pointed sharply at Moses.
As an attempt to belittle Manz, it failed utterly. He didn’t care if the man dictated to a toilet, so long as he answered their questions. The adjuster could see him being less than cooperative with the police, which raised hopes of obtaining some potentially useful crumb of information he’d deliberately or angrily chosen not to mention to Hafas’s troops.
“I thank you for confiding in me,” Moses replied, playing his role superbly. “Why did Borgia terminate your employment with them?”
“I’m a statistician, right? It’s my job to add and subtract and make sure everything balances properly. To make sure the right numbers are in the right places at all times.”
“And this was in some doubt at Borgia?” Moses asked him.
“Of course not! Not with me on the lines. My accounts always balance!”
“I’m sure,” Moses said soothingly. “In that event, why were you terminated?”
The statman sniffed disdainfully. “I came across an item that didn’t belong. Checked it three times, like I always do. It was a big item, and it just seemed to have fallen through the cracks, so I brought it to the attention of my superior.”
“Do you recall the precise nature of the error?”
“Didn’t say it was an error. Said it didn’t belong. Was in the wrong place. Had to do with corporate income derived from ‘Incidental Franchises.’ There was nothing wrong with the accounting. I just thought it excessive for the locale. So I wanted to check it out, just to make sure it was correct.”
Manz made a face. “Seems a funny reason for firing somebody. Lots of companies list large amounts under proprietary headings. For tax purposes, to keep stockholders baffled; all sorts of reasons.”
The statman affected a look of contempt. “Twenty-eight percent of all net profit for the preceding fiscal period?” He turned back to his instrumentation, and his fingers resumed flying over the lines.
“That does seem a bit excessive,” Moses finally commented. “Thank you for your time.” The statistician neither replied nor looked up from his work. “One more thing. While working at Borgia did you ever happen to run into another employee; young, good-looking temptech name of Suhkhet li Trong?”
The statman surprised Manz by emitting a vulgar snigger. “Sooky? Sure, I knew her. She spent a lot of time with old man Monticelli, and I don’t think it had anything to do with stats. Leastwise, not the company’s.” He made the unpleasant noise again before returning with dismissive finality to his work.
XII
By the time they returned to the hotel, Vyra had recovered sufficiently to take the two remaining pills the house physician had prescribed. In her weakened condition they knocked her out all over again, leaving Manz and Moses to check out the last name on their list without her.
The meccab deposited them in a run-down neighborhood that could trace its architectural roots all the way back to the mid-twentieth century. Manz decided it probably ran the city’s main recycling zone a close second in terms of noxious smells and environmental desirability.
The old-style apartment house across the street from the vandalized, graffiti-stained meccab stop looked slightly more stable than its tangent edifices, but only slightly. Rock-proof flexan made the unbroken windows impregnable to all but the most heavily armed teens. Low in a cloud-smeared sky the afternoon sun squirmed around corners and over rooftops, trying to worm its way into the grimy street. For the most part it was unsuccessful.
“A somewhat less appealing address than those we have visited so far,” Moses opined.
“You never know. Might look like the crystal palace inside.” Manz led the way across the deserted street.
The only crystal in the building took the form of memories and discarded drug paraphernalia. Manz kicked at the detritus of somebody’s broken life. For every drug the government legalized, another, custom crafted in some African or Asian lab, took its place in the litany of the proscribed. It wasn’t the particular chemical-of-the-week that so tempted people, he knew, as much as it was the lure of the forbidden. Behind him, the floor creaked alarmingly under Moses’s weight.
The second floor yielded graffiti in several languages and a broken pocket watch. The adjuster’s practiced eye pegged it instantly for a reproduction. That went without saying, since anything pawnable would not be left lying about in such a place. The hallway was dark and filthy, the walls stained yellow at heights beyond the reach of the most ambitious dog.
The old woman seated behind the battered, chipped wooden counter sat hunched over the text reader, scanning it by the uneven light of its flickering built-in illuminator. Manz managed to make out the words “lust” and “fever” before she quickly folded it shut against her lap and slid it out of sight beneath the counter. Her stringy hair would not have tempted a starving spider, though a wandering arachnid might have found her disposition compatible. Her gaze was suspicious and hostile.
