Titan Song Dan Stout (top 20 books to read txt) 📖

accept the fact that she’s the hottest thing to hit town in the last decade.” He adjusted the red-shaded sunglasses he wore at all times. “Is that a ‘no’ about the magazine?”

“I’ve been a little busy lately. Fighting crime, righting wrongs, things like that.”

Hanford let out an exaggerated sigh as he leaned over to pick through a satchel by the side of his desk. He pulled out a saddle-stapled magazine and handed it to me.

“You should read it,” he said. “There’s powerful truths in there.”

The cover featured a blurry photo of a disc against a cloudy sky, beneath the title, The UFObserver. I knew Hanford’s name would be on the masthead somewhere. When not spinning albums, he was the leading cataloger of conspiracy theories, unusual sightings, and mysterious contacts in the city. Much of his show was a diatribe against unknowable, amorphous entities controlling our destiny. I liked him because he made me feel sane by comparison.

He consulted a wall of record sleeves and 8-tracks, his fingers riffling through them like the pages of a phone book. “What’s on your mind?”

“There’s a mysterious buzz turning people into killers and an enormous hole that opened up in the middle of town and I’m pretty sure that they’re going to hang it on the wrong person. Or did you mean something besides the obvious?”

“Well, you didn’t show up earlier, so I figured you had it handled. The student doesn’t arrive until they’re prepared to internalize the master’s lesson.” He pointed to the magazine. “There’s an article in there about a snow cat that’s seen on the fringes of the ice plains when catastrophe’s on the way. I think of it whenever I hear your name on the news.”

That sounded disturbingly like someone I knew. “So in this metaphor am I the cat or the catastrophe?”

“You’re the student, dipshit. And since when do you know what a metaphor is?”

I laughed, and immediately regretted it. The hangover hadn’t fully retreated. A little quieter, I said, “I’ve been hanging around a college crowd.”

I laid out our lunch as Hanford flipped two albums out of the wall, leaving their sleeves sitting at an angle to make it easy to replace them. The records went onto two turntables. He positioned the needles so that they’d be ready to drop, then turned back to me.

“I can tell you’re stressed. You deal with dead people and disasters all day, every day. What’s different now?”

“There’s a lot of lives on the line. Maybe the whole city.” I forced a shrug. “And maybe my freedom, but that’s nothing new.”

“Then why are you . . . Hold on.”

He rolled back to the console and punched a button while also dropping the needle on one of the records. The commercials gave way to a slinky guitar riff that threaded through a walking bass line. I recognized the dual-toned vocalization of Mulberry Wine, a Mollenkampi girl group that had hit it big the previous summer. Hanford spun back and grabbed his pita, being careful to tuck a napkin into his widespread shirt collar. He always dressed nice, even in his booth. Where some people wore classic lines and expensive labels, Hanford went for bleeding edge of fashion. A quest for eternal youth, sadly undercut by the ponytail tacked on the back of his balding head.

Hanford peeked into his pita sandwich. “You remembered banana peppers! You’re a champ.” He took a bite and gave a loud grunt of approval. “Oh, that’s good.”

I took a breath. “You saw that Paulus is going to take the fall for the sinkhole appearing in the middle of town.”

“But the first thing outta your mouth was that you don’t think she did it,” he said. “And you can’t pass up the opportunity to defend an innocent woman.”

I almost choked on my soda. “There’s nothing innocent about her.”

“There’s nothing innocent about anyone.” He wiped his lips on the back of his hand. “Okay, so you’re trying to buck an entire system to prevent a miscarriage of justice. And you know for sure that’s what this is? Paulus didn’t do it?”

“Almost certainly not.” I paused. “Not this, anyway. But she’s done a lot of shit. I mean, a lot of bad shit.”

“So you’ll let her hang for this, hoping that the scales balance out?”

I shrugged.

“Ah!” Hanford raised a finger. “This is a dilemma.”

“It is?”

“You say she did not do this specific misdeed,” he dropped back into his DJ big announcement voice, “that she did not create this gaping hole in the heart of our city. Yet someone did. Which means that if she takes the blame, then the person who is guilty goes unpunished. And then you have created the very thing which you sought to destroy.”

“You are a total pain in the ass.”

Hanford took another bite, and spoke in his normal tones, albeit with a full mouth. “If you had doubts, then why’d they charge her?” He looked thoughtful. “Was it Flifex? He was the one with his picture in the paper.”

“No. Someone in the Bunker gave the order.” I trusted Hanford, but still knew better than to drop Auberjois’s name. “Flifex was just the one who made a speech. I think the city attorney is leaving him out as the face in case things go sideways on the Paulus prosecution.”

“You feel bad for him?”

“Yes and no. He’s a prick, but I don’t think he’d be doing this if it were up to him. It’s a losing position for him all the way around.”

Hanford peered at me over the lenses of his glasses. “There’s something else on your mind,” he said. “I can tell these things.”

“I’m worried about fallout from this investigation.”

“What do you care? Long as the guilty get punished, the innocent go free . . . your usual shtick. Unless it’s the people around you?” He stroked his mustache ends. “Tell me about your partner.”

I paused. “Ajax?”

“You got another partner?”

“Fair enough,” I said through a mouthful of sandwich. “Not much to tell. He’s young, smart. Comes from a messed-up family, but he did a stint