Chapter Twenty-Six
Dex went offline. His mouth was dry and his head hurt, but those were symptoms he could deal with. The dull, empty ache just above his gut was more of a problem. It was a familiar feeling, that he recognized as a twinge he usually dulled with rum. He was accustomed to it flaring up every once in a while, but he had been keeping in check until now. Renna’s story was typical enough — a woman scorned — but for some reason her particular struggle hit home to Dex. He thought he could almost sense her feelings of rejection and isolation, of being left behind.
He knew it was his own memory giving him the false empathy for his client’s killer, but that only made the feelings worse. He stood and walked the few paces to his small kitchen. He drank a glass of water and then filled his tumbler with half of the dregs of the Jamaica’s Best. He didn’t even bother with the gingapop before he drank it down, grimacing as if it were medicine. He went to the lav and when he returned to the main room, he refilled his glass with his more typical cocktail mix and went back to his chair. He still had that melancholy jangly feeling, but the edges, which had been razor raw a few moments before, now held only the dull throb of a day old wound.
He went back online to file his final case report and saw that he had several messages from Annabelle in the last half hour, all increasing in urgency and tones of panic. “Shit,” he said aloud and pinged Annabelle. She answered immediately and Dex had to turn the volume down as she harangued him.
“What the fuck is going on?” she demanded, her voice rising in pitch. “All of a sudden the feed cuts out and there I am wondering what the hell is happening. Did she take a shot at you again? Are you okay?”
“Jesus,” Dex muttered under his breath. “No, she didn’t try for me, I’m fine. I didn’t mean to worry you.”
“Well, what happened to the feed, then,” she asked, notes of panic still evident in her voice.
Dex debated making up some tale about the feed just cutting out, but he knew that he’d never be able to snow a pro like Annabelle. He swallowed hard. “There was just something I didn’t want,” he paused a moment, “something I didn’t want on the record. For her sake and for the client. But everything is fine. It’s over now.”
“Huh,” Annabelle grunted. Dex thought she was going to grill him about why there would be something he didn’t want on the record, but she let it pass. “You really had me worried there,” she said, her voice sounding like she was barely winning a hard-fought battle with her emotions for control. “That nut was pretty unhinged.”
“I don’t know if she really is a nut,” Dex said.
“What?” Annabelle asked. “She put in a lot of effort to delete her honey’s little side project, when they could have just had a conversation like normal people. Sounds a little nutty to me, I have to say.”
“She was hurt,” Dex said, quietly. “Ivy was all she ever wanted but she wasn’t enough for Ivy. That’s a killer feeling, kiddo. It really is.”
“Oh, come on. Ivy wasn’t really going anywhere,” Annabelle said, incredulously. “You don’t make a multi to change your life. It’s just an easy way to pretend to be someone different for an hour or two. I’ve seen it a thousand times.” Her voice had taken on a bitter tone that Dex didn’t like very much. “Multis are for the dickless, Dex, for those people who just want to try on a new identity like you’d wear a new avatar or hair colour. Trust me,” she said, her voice wavering slightly, “it takes more than a new name to really change your life.”
“Don’t I know it,” Dex said, his eyes clouding over against his will. He took another slug of his drink. “But I think this was the real thing, Annabelle. I’m sure Ivy really was going to leave her old life behind.”
“How can you know that?” Annabelle said, snorting.
“Bellinger certainly thought so,” Dex said.
“The wife always knows, right?” Annabelle asked, sarcastically.
“In my experience, usually she does, yeah,” Dex said. “Besides, Ivy told me herself that she wanted to completely change identities. You should have seen her when she realized Rueben was really gone. It was like someone stole her future away from her.”
“Huh,” Annabelle grunted. “I suppose it’s possible,” she conceded. “I’ll confess that I watched your interview with her and she really did look like a little lost lamb there. But, I just don’t know who to feel bad for in this one. It takes balls to stand up and do what you need to do to start a new life and a lot of eggs get broken making that omelette no matter how you play it. But you have to be willing to make those hard choices, to have those terrible conversations, or you never get free. I mean, even if Ivy was trying to come to terms with who she really is, that doesn’t excuse cutting Bellinger out of her life without even saying ‘see ya’.” She paused and Dex wondered what she was thinking. “But, while I still don’t think dusting a multi is the same as murder,” she continued, “Bellinger doesn’t make herself all that sympathetic with her little code bomb.” She paused, as if trying to come up with a way to make it all make sense. Finally, she said, “It’s a shit sandwich Dex.”
“I know it is,” he said, smiling mirthlessly, “but that’s life.”
• • •
After he got done with Annabelle, Dex logged into the Cubicle Men’s system. He saw that Ivy had closed out her account with the organization, marking the transaction as successfully resolved. “That’s a pretty piss poor definition of success,” Dex said aloud to his empty apartment, then finished his final report, officially ending the case. After his closed out the last file, he went offline. He didn’t get up from the chair, but sat looking at nothing but the four, drab grey walls around him. He swirled his drink in the glass, thinking about Ivy and Bellinger and the mess they had each made of their lives. He thought for a long time, long enough to make a casual observer wonder if he’d fallen asleep with his eyes open and his drink in his hand, until his set his glass down on the table and logged into Marionette City.
• • •
Dex felt like hell when walked into Uri Farone’s storefront. Farone himself was working the shop again and he must have had a great avatar recognition program running, because he said, “Mr. Dexter, how nice to see you again. Have you decided we can do something for you after all?”
Dex closed his eyes, feeling the pinpricks start under his eyelids. “Yes,” he said, “I think I have.”