FORTY-FOUR

 

 

“WHAT DO YOU mean by that?” Émile said into the microphone. Thérèse’s grainy expression in the monitor reacted a second later, melting from belabored patience into boredom. The delay from the Phocas’ habitat to wherever Thérèse was bunking today wasn’t from the radio signal. The processors and antenna were lo-fi pieces of shit.

“I feel like you pull me away from what’s important to me, Émile.”

“I’m a...” he said, then lowered his voice. He was in Gabriel-Antoine’s workshop, but it wasn’t soundproof. “We’re both artists. Things aren’t going to be easy.”

“Are you?” she said after a second’s delay. A look of pity crept into her eyes.

“Fuck you...” he said. “Fuck you and your stupid... acid burns! Who gives a shit about what the fuck you burn on your body? Stupidest fucking ‘art’ I’ve ever heard of. Acid is acid.”

The pity in her eyes was still there. “Goodbye, Émile.”

The transmission ended. He swore and was about to grab something, anything, and smash it into something else, but everything looked valuable and neat in the little workshop, and Madame Phocas was swearing too, out in the main room.

Émile was about to swear back at her, but realized she was really worked up at someone else. He was going to clock whoever it was if they didn’t stop pissing the old lady off. He wrenched open the door. Madame Phocas was arguing with a guy at the open doorway that led from the gondola up through the envelope of the Marais-des-Nuages. The new arrival stood there, genuinely perplexed, as the old lady got her second wind.

“Get off this habitat, you piece of government shit!” she said in a reedy voice, before succumbing to a coughing fit. “Bring a goddamn warrant if you want to try to set foot here!”

Émile put his hand on her shoulder, but she shook it off.

“I’ll take care of this, ma tante,” he said.

“I’m just here to talk to Monsieur D’Aquillon, ma tante,” the government guy said.

Grand-papa Phocas had struggled up from his hanging chair and was trying to straighten his back to face the newcomer. He was red-faced and Louise ran to help him stand.

“You brought him here?” Madame Phocas demanded, poking Émile in the ribs.

“I don’t know this guy from crisse! Calm down, ma tante! I’ll kick his ass if he doesn’t leave, but sit down, ostie!”

Grandmaman Phocas didn’t seem used to being spoken to that way and her thin lips pressed tight. Émile didn’t wait for her response but marched to the door. He stepped into the stairway in the envelope, closing the heavy pressure door behind him.

“Who the crisse are you?” Émile said.

“I’m Laurent Tétreau,” the man said, holding out his hand. Émile took it warily. “We met at Réjean’s party.”

Émile had a fuzzy recollection. “Did I punch you?”

“No.”

“Good.”

“I’m an assistant to Dauzat and Labourière in l’Assemblée. I mentioned before, I think the D’Aquillons are getting a shitty deal under the leadership of Marthe and your papa. It’s a shame you got caught in it. You’re probably the one who could make peace.”

“Oh yeah.” Émile looked back at the metal door and patted his suit pockets. “You got a cigarette? They don’t let me smoke around here.”

Tétreau produced a pocket flask. “I don’t smoke, but is this good enough?”

Émile hadn’t had a drink since yesterday. After the latest shitty conversation with Thérèse, the prospect perked him up. Tétreau unscrewed the top, took a sip and passed it to Émile. He drank too, cautiously, not sure of where he stood with this guy.

He was surprised. It wasn’t bagosse. It was smooth. It warmed his throat and chest, instead of burning. “Is this real whiskey?” he asked. There was even a trace of sweet—rare—and a hint of sulfur, like everything on Venus.

“It’s an Irish recipe we’re been adapting to Venus,” Tétreau said. “We’ll never get it perfect, because the chemistry is different, but we built casks out of the sides of trawlers.”

Émile held up the flask. “Can I?”

“Drink it all. I’ve got a few bottles in my bunk.”

Émile’s mouth watered and he sipped slowly this time. “Shit,” he said wonderingly. There were more flavors than he could name, good ones, uncertain ones, but it kicked as hard as bagosse.

“You’re a hard man to find,” Tétreau said.

“Splitting my time between here and the Causapscal-des-Vents.”

“Yeah, I had to track your suit’s transceiver.”

Émile spotted the badge on the outside of Tétreau’s suit. Not just a constable. A lieutenant. He lowered the flask. The suspicions bred into him surfaced.

“I thought the cops weren’t supposed to use transceiver data unless they needed to.”

Tétreau shrugged. “Who cares, right? I just wanted to talk, and we got to share a bit of real whiskey.”

It was hard to argue with his reasoning. Émile sipped.

“What have you got on the Phocas family to get ma tante all freaked out?” Émile said, hooking a thumb behind his shoulder.

“We know Gabriel-Antoine Phocas is hoarding a lot of metal scraps and tools,” Tétreau said. “Some official channels have been pressuring him about it. Hoarding’s no good.”

“So why not bust him?”

Tétreau shrugged. “Some small-time stuff is okay to let go. Little crimes excite people, like they’re pulling one over on the inspectors.”

“I don’t know what I can do to help you,” Émile said.

“Like I said before, I think you’re being wasted. You ever thought about joining the constabulary?”

“Me?” Émile demanded. “I punched a constable once. And they don’t give good jobs to families like ours.”

“It’s not about family,” Tétreau said. “You’re a big guy who can fly up here as well as in the depths, right? We don’t have enough coureurs on the force. Constables get first pick of bunks. Better rations, too.” Tétreau tapped the flask meaningfully with a fingernail.

“What do I have to do?”

“It’s a part-time job,” Tétreau said. “We get called up when we’re needed. We knock some heads. It’s always better to have another big guy on our side.”

Émile laughed low. “My Pa would have a stroke if he heard I joined the constabulary.”

“You and your Pa don’t get on anyway. Marthe doesn’t treat you great. She’s downcloud with your Pa, right? The two of them are just going to get each other angrier and angrier about something they can’t change. It should have been you to go sort things out with the rest of the family. I don’t know why they treat you like they do, but I’m not going to make that mistake.”

Émile sipped. He would love to see Pa’s face when he heard the news that the constables wanted his son, and not the way he expected.

“I mean, they got you being errand-boy over here?” Tétreau said. “Why isn’t Gabriel-Antoine taking care of his own habitat?”

The whiskey, so good, took on a bitter taste.

“Phocas is with them,” he said. “Him and my little brother flew down after Marthe had gone.”

“Why?”

Émile shrugged. “Something about extracting metal out of trawler tail cable.”

“There’s almost no metal in trawler tails. Is that another pipe-dream?”

They didn’t really tell him. He wasn’t part of the family. Not in that way, when it counted.

“One of many,” Émile said, tipping the whiskey up.

“Think about the constables,” Tétreau said as Émile handed him back the flask. “I’ll call you in a couple of days.”