Heaven & Earth

"Well, well. Two of New York's finest, I see." A sneering voice greeted them as they came off of the stairway and onto the platform. The station, with the rattle of trains and the clamor of people, was unnaturally quiet.

"Oh, great, they brought Sinclair in." Jinro muttered to Walter when he realized that he knew the voice.

"Yeah, I thought we were done listening to that snake-eel." Walter said under his breath. Sinclair had put in ten years with Metro before he went to AgraCon.

Everyone on the force agreed that it was for the best, Sinclair was a bald, vibrator of a man who had been suspended four times for using excessive force during the apprehension of a suspect. During his last hiatus, AgraCon picked him up for at least double what the department was paying him, maybe more.

"Yeah, thanks for getting here so promptly, boys. Dried blood is so much easier to clean." The mocking voice of Cook, the other AgraCon inspector, met them as they emerged from the shadows and stepped into the bright circle cast from the floodlights erected around the scene. Cook still got acne on his forehead and had gone straight from the academy to AgraCon, who had paid Metro handsomely for his contract.

"Hey, sorry," Walter said. "The drive down here from first sector really twisted the crank. How was the drive over from the arco?"

"They flew us in," Sinclair said. "Hey, Jinro... did you watch the game last night? The MetroStars suck this year. I'd be ashamed to wear that hat in public."

"Palmer just had a bad night," Jinro said and bristled defensively. The hat was deep blue and camouflaged his head. "If he hadn't gotten that second yellow card, they would've won that game. Besides, the season just started. If any of you AgraCon freaks ever stuck your noses out of the arco, you'd know that."

Sinclair sneered. "That means he's gone for the next game against Philadelphia and they're in second place in your division. They've got Agulero, who leads the league in scoring, the MetroStars are going to be in the cellar the rest of the season."

Jinro bristled defensively and said, "Since when do you two know anything about it? Mister spends-all-his-time-reading-Guns-and-Ammo. Don't think we've forgotten."

"We do what they pay us to do." Sinclair said and turned to lead the way to the accident scene. He jumped down from the platform to the tracks and walked towards the near tunnel entrance. Jinro planted an arm and levered himself over the edge, landing in roughly the same spot that his corporate counterpart had. The third-rail that carried the dangerous voltage was on the far side, next to the wall.

"Just like the old days then, huh, Sinclair?" Jinro snidely tossed back as Walter rested against the platform and caught his breath.

"A lot better than the old days," Sinclair corrected. "I'm driving an UltraLux two-thousand now... and I got MetroStar season tickets."

"The Dragon Kings'd already have it up on blocks." Jinro said and fell into step behind the company man.

"I'd hunt 'em down and kill 'em." Sinclair said as he stopped at the mouth of the tunnel and waved a hand at the large red stain in the center of the track-bed.

"Not here you wouldn't," Jinro said and crouched to examine the spot. "This area isn't corporate zoned. That's what we have tactical-squads for."

CCTV cameras were hidden within shock-proof plastic domes at various points. There were 3 camera-domes mounted within sight. Jinro made a mental note to view the log recording from them before he signed the disks into evidence.

"Right here is where our guy moves into the tunnel," Sinclair said. "He gets about seven steps in and pow!" He smacked his palm with a fist. "The front of the G train gets a new hood ornament."

"Tragic," Jinro said and walked past Sinclair into mouth of the tunnel. "Has his family been made aware of his demise? Or did you tell them that he finally got the big transfer?"

Seven... six... five... Jinro thought and counted the steps down to Leonard Dean's last moment.

"His wife's been notified." Sinclair said. His voice echoed down the tracks towards the curve further down the line. Leonard Dean would have been hit just as the subway was coming into the station. Jinro snapped on his pen-light and swept the ground at his feet, the blood-spattered tracks, and the blocks that the tunnel was constructed of.

"How'd she take it?" Jinro called back. The AgraCon bucket crew had done a nice job of cleanup. Before the trains started running again, there'd be a team in the tunnel with steam-scrubbers getting the last of the stains off of the wall.

"She freaked," Sinclair said flatly and lit up. "We got her to the wellness clinic and sedated before she could damage anything."

"I'll bet she did." Jinro said and turned to face an imaginary subway car coming around the curve. "Goodbye corporate habitat, hello Lo-Rent sleaze-castle."

"You're a real sensitive guy, Kume." Sinclair said, drawing deeply and sending a large cloud of smoke toward the ceiling.

"That's why they put me on homicide."

"It takes a sick mind to look at shit like this all day," Sinclair observed as he produced color photos of what they'd already carted away. "They offered me homicide but I wouldn't take it."

"Are you sure they stopped the trains?" He said as he heard a ghostly air-horn sound in his ears.

"Yeah, yeah," Sinclair said and turned away testily, moving to climb the access stairs at the mouth of the tunnel. "We're good until oh-nine-hundred. They can single track around us if we need more time, but after that, whatever's left of Leonard Dean is gone."

"Right," Jinro said and snapped off the pen-light. "That's one less company turd to clog up the sewer-pipes."

"Watch it, Kume." Sinclair warned.

***

"Now we're westbound on Ocean Parkway... in the cruise lane... doing about eighty-five in the rain," Walter was saying as Jinro came out of the tunnel and climbed the stairs to the platform. "Outta nowhere comes this little cardboard shanty that this woman and two kids are hiding in... so I jump on the brakes, right?"

Cook sneered and said, "I'm sure the brakes were scared."

"No, really," Walter insisted as he continued. "Two more seconds and the front of the cruiser would've gotten a new coat of paint. You guys are lucky you don't have to leave your building." He turned as Jinro walked up behind him and said, "How's it look down there?"

"One more thing to add to the seen-it-all list," Jinro said as he drew up on the group and stepped into the circle around the evidence. "Once we have a look at the Transit tapes we'll know more."

There was little to be bagged up... a thick wallet covered in dull spots of crusty redness, a twisted key-chain with four-mangled keys, paper-bags filled with bloody scraps of clothing, a shoe, an unloaded 9mm pistol.

"The personal affects of one Leonard Dean, deceased," Walter said as the AgraCon techs lost interest in his story and drifted away. "Cook says they walked four kilometers of track and this is all they came up with."

Jinro cupped a hand to his mouth. "Hey Sinclair! The tunnel wall still needs some work, I think your cleaners missed a few spots!"

"Alright already!" Sinclair yelled back as he folded up his portable phone and stuffed it in a pocket. He jumped down from the platform and formed his techs into a line abreast. "You heard the man. It sounds like Metro doesn't think we clean our own messes."

"He's right," Walter called as Sinclair led his team toward the more distant tunnel entrance, he hated not having the last word. "We do think that."

Jinro pulled a pair of latex gloves from a box of same and snapped them on. He picked up the bag with the wallet in it and broke the seal. He reached in and removed the evidence, then set the bag back down and opened the wallet.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. Come on boys, we might've missed something for the fourth time, once more down the tracks and then we can get out of the stink down here."

"Let's see, there's one-hundred-fifty in AgraCon script... two receipts," Jinro said as he thumbed through the contents. "Both current. One from Royal dry cleaners at five-thirty yesterday, and... one from a shop called Ming's at nine-oh five last night. Did anyone get a toxicology sample yet?"

"It's already on the way to the lab." Walter said as he clipped his PDA to his size 44 leather belt.

"Ours or theirs?" Jinro said.

"Both."

"Our guy liked to travel light." Jinro said and flipped through the credit cards protruding from the slots in the front flap. Leonard Dean had a Swiss driver's-license and a current AgraCon identification with a picture of who the man was the night before.

Pretty plain. Jinro thought as he examined the man's face; the weak chin, the narrow mouth, his lackluster blue eyes. It looks like he went out to lunch and never came back.

"He looks constipated." Walter observed from over his shoulder.

"Maybe he was having a bad day." Jinro said and began to feel strange for defending a dead man he didn't know.

"Couldn't be as bad as today." Walter said. Jinro nodded agreement as he pulled a pile of business cards from the inner-pocket. Most of them were from other professionals and had the letters BSA, MSA, or PHD embossed beneath the names on the card. Some in business, but most from science... psychologists and para-psychologists. He noted the numbers beside the names and swore at the number of calls he was going to have to make. Like a heart in a hand of spades, a flash of color caught his eye.

"What have we here?" Jinro said and pulled the pink oddball out of the pile. It was a business card for a place called the Kitten's Den. He knew where it was, a skin-club three blocks up and just off the street on the left-hand side. "Hey Walter, did we ever shut this place down?"

"I don't think so. We passed it on the way down here," Walter said and pinched the card between his sausage fingers. "There's a lot of big-wigs that go there for business meetings. Huh, interesting... check out the back."

Jinro retrieved the card and turned it over. There was a name on the back written elaborately in red ink above a number. All the information on the card would be recorded. He'd do it for every article he found in the wallet.

Miki... 0917-1975. Jinro thought and jotted it down. He put down his pad and opened the bio folder that Sinclair delivered. wife's name is Lana. He thought. So who was Miki?

"I think we're just about done. Sinclair's shit is in order," Jinro said as he closed the folder and returned the wallet to the evidence bag. He sealed the bag and removed a small ink-pad from his coat-pocket. Banded to the top of the case was a stack of barcode labels that he used to mark one side of the evidence bags.

Jinro activated the barcode scanner in his PDA and scanned in each item as he said, "Do you think we got time to make a little stop before we go back? I think it would be a good idea."

Walter checked his watch. From it, he could access voice-mail, e-mail, and get the times in twelve different cities.

"I don't see why not." Walter said as Cook added a AgraCon sticker to each piece and repeated the process, the put the bags back in the evidence box and replaced the top.

"Are you two going to take this with you or what?" Sinclair said, waving an arm at the collection. Jinro shook his head.

"It's your mess, Sinclair, you clean it up."

"Cook, call for pickup." Sinclair said as he gave Jinro a cold stare. Cook unfolded his PDA and punched a button. The sound of the wireless modem connecting with a carrier came through.

"This is Cook, we've got things wrapped down here, we're go for extraction. Use the same site as before."

***

"We're always looking for new talent, Kume, you should stop by one of our outlets sometime." Sinclair said as they watched a twin-engine Bell/Augusta 609 alight in the parking-lot they had designated as a landing zone.

AGRACON was stenciled on each side just ahead of the circular corporate logo, from afar, the decal looked like an exclamation point on the side of the aircraft.

"I can't hear you." Jinro said and clamped his hands over his ears as the wet aircraft settled, spraying him with droplets thrown by the wash of the huge rotors spinning ten feet over the ground. The roar of the engines cut out as the passenger door in the side of the craft dropped into a crew stairway.

"You should stop by sometime, fill out an application... maybe we could find something for you," Sinclair said as he started for the VTOL. "I told my people about your work. They were very interested."

"Yeah, well, the department's been good to me. I'm pretty happy where I am." Jinro said and simpered as the attendant stepped into the door. She was a radiant beauty who met Cook as he got to the top of the stairway, escorting him toward the back of the fuselage arm-in-arm. Another attendant stepped up.

"Inspector, hurry... we have a timetable to keep." She called from the doorway and waved. Sinclair smiled and waved back.

"Think about it, Jinro. People as talented as you and I get great benefits," Sinclair said as Jinro stopped. "Just put down that I recommended you and you'll get what I got."

"I'm happy doing what I do, Sinclair," Jinro said and wondered if he meant it. "And I don't want what you got."

"Your loss, Kume." Sinclair said and climbed the steps into the aircraft and raised the passenger door. Jinro puts his hands over his ears as the pilot increased power to the engines, he was knocked back by rotor-wash as the propellers began chopping air. The VTOL lifted into a hover and rotated to face the AgraCon building, then it began to climb rapidly and transitioned to forward flight once it was above the rooftops, disappearing into glare of the morning sun.

***

The waitress at Rocket-Top came towards their table with a loaded platter of breakfast foods. The walk-in counter more resembled a diner of fifty years before, down to the Chrome edge on the tables and countertop, the effect was a step backward in time.

She plunked the tray down on the table behind them and began setting plates before other customers. Once the tray was empty, she tucked it under her arm and removed a rag that she used to wipe down the next table. There was a red plastic rocket attached to her hat, which wobbled in Jinro's face as she leaned over to wipe down the seats.

"You know, Gloria, my wife has one of those hats. It totally raises my rocket." Walter said. The waitress replied with a tired smile.

"Walter, you're so original this morning, what gives? Did you get some action yesterday?"

Walter nodded and said, "It's an ugly world out there, Gloria."

"I know what you mean," She said and stretched across the table to start the tip-meter at the opposite end. "So what'll it be today?"

"What to you have to ask for?" Walter said as he slid into the left side of the booth. Jinro took the right side. "We get the same thing every time we come in here."

"They make us ask." Gloria said as she jotted down familiar orders.

"Who does?" Jinro said. Gloria shot a quick, uneasy glance toward the security camera set up to watch the length of the dining saloon. Rocket-top kept a fry-cook on staff to preserve what they called "a connection with the mass experience of the past." The rest of the building was automated, dedicated to mass production. Gloria was back in ten minutes with a plate in each hand.

"Sinclair sure seems like his old self," The prick, I never liked him. Too bad it wasn't him under that train."

"Yeah, but if it weren't him it'd be someone else," Jinro said and smiled. "Personally, I always thought Sinclair was funny, but that's just me. Ketchup please."

Walter passed the bottle with the establishment's cigar-shaped label across the table, as Gloria refilled their coffee mugs from a nozzle she pulled down from the ceiling.

"Just ten minutes ago you were telling me what an asshole you thought he was. Make up your mind."

"He's a funny asshole," Jinro said as he uncapped the bottle and poured. "But he's not our problem anymore."

Jinro set the bottle down as the PDA clipped to his own belt began vibrating. He pulled it off and flipped up the small display, squinting to see the data-feed.

"AgraCon just delivered their summary report on the Dean case. That was quick." Jinro said and clicked through the data as fast as he could read it.

"Not too suprising considering how little they had to work with," Walter said as he poured syrup on his blueberry pancakes. "Nothing to autopsy, no monkey business involved and sure, it doesn't take long."

Everything matched the summary that he'd sent in once they'd cleared the scene. The software in the PDA compared the two files and both matched. When he compared the evidence logs, he found a discrepancy.

"Chikushoume ," Jinro said as the feed stopped and the ERROR icon came up. The logs didn't match. "Walter, did we get EVERYTHING accounted for?"

"Yep," Walter said as he cut into his second breakfast. "Down to the script in his wallet. Everything."

"This is bullshit," Jinro said. The mismatch was insignificant, a business card found in the wallet but not, apparently, found by AgraCon. Jinro liked to be precise. It rankled him that Sinclair and his boys were less professional but were paid better. "If I lose points on my next evaluation for this, I'm gonna be mega-pissed."

"About what?" Walter said with no attempt to hide the disappointment in his tone. He ate with more concern for enjoyment than where portions of meals were sometimes found long after consumption.

"Hurry up and eat," Jinro said and started shoveling eggs and hash-browns into his mouth. "We got to get over to AgraCon before the second-shift rush. There's a discrepancy in the evidence log. We counted thirty-one items and they only put in thirty."

"But we can't do that," Walter said while he chewed. "We need to get authorization from AgraCon first."

"We already got it," Jinro said. "They wanted us on the case... that's close enough for me. We should find out why they don't match, it's just safe practice."

"No way," Walter said as he peppered his corned-beef hash. "They wanted us there because it was outside their property... nothing else. If we want to go to their arco it's gonna take a few days."

"Look," Jinro said sternly. "The evidence log AgraCon submitted does not match the one we did. Next time we get an internal audit, that error is going to come up and we're going to lose IER points for it. Let's just get it taken care of today."

Walter shook his head.

"I don't know, Jinro," He said. "We'll catch hell for it if AgraCon decides to log a complaint. People lose their badges for that kind of thing."

"Don't worry about it," Jinro said. "If it comes down to it, I'll take the heat. Besides, once they realize that they made a mistake, they'll probably thank us for bringing it to their attention. Corporate-types are like that."

"Alright," Walter sighed and added sugar to his coffee. "But just so you know, I'm doing this under protest."

"Thanks, Walter," Jinro said. "I knew you'd see it my way."

Walter continued eating.

***

They pulled into the crowded AgraCon guest lot entrance and parked at the curb in front of the visitor's gate.

"Let me do the talking, ok?" Jinro said as Walter put the Crown Vic in "park" and killed the engine.

"Sure," Walter said and reached for the restraint harness. "It's your show. You know I got your back. If you want to just get in and out, I'm down with that."

"I appreciate it." Jinro said as he unclipped himself from the restraint system and opened the gull wing door, stepping out into the drizzle.

"Ugh," Walter said and looked up as the doors to the Crown Vic closed, locking automatically. "It's even uglier up close. It looks like a hive of some kind."