Free New York Nights [Virex 01] by Eric Brown Page A

had survived. They’d had their rocky moments. They’d never had children, and at first this forced them apart, until they reconciled themselves to the fact of childlessness, and found comfort in each other. Estelle had been special, the kindest woman he had ever known, quiet and gentle and without a bad word to say about anyone. Christ knew what she’d seen in him, who, he told himself, possessed the reverse of all these qualities. She’d laughed when he’d told her this, said that he was so stuck on playing the tough-guy cop ever to admit to being human, and who knows perhaps she was right.
     
    Thirty-five years . . .
     
    She’d died of kidney failure six years ago come March, after a year of illness during which she had been assured that she would get a transplant in time . . . But the nuclear power station in Georgia had suffered meltdown, and the refugees had flooded into New York. The health service had been stretched beyond its means, and the week Estelle fell acutely ill coincided with an intake of radiation burn victims at St Vincent’s. The search for a donor kidney for Estelle was given low priority, and she had died in his arms in the early hours of a cold Sunday morning.
     
    Another reason, he told himself, that he gave Hal the graveyard shift. Those cold, quiet hours before dawn just cut him up.
     
    He glanced at his watch. It was after nine and Hal hadn’t showed. Again Barney tapped Hal’s code into the desk-com and listened to the ring tone. No reply.
     
    Frowning, he shut the link.
     
    A month ago Barney had run into an executive he knew in Mantoni Entertainments. He’d worked as a bodyguard for the executive, as well as for some of the company’s most beautiful actresses, on and off over the years when business at the agency was slack. So he and this guy had downed a few beers for old time’s sake, and three beers became six, and Barney had started to run off at the mouth. He told the guy about Estelle, and how much he missed her.
     
    Couple of days later, the guy calls Barney at the office.
     
    ‘About what we were discussing the other day. I have just the thing, Barney . . .’
     
    ‘No introductions, pal. I’m past it.’
     
    ‘No, nothing like that, Barney. Trust me on this one, won’t you? Hear me out. . .’
     
    So Barney heard him out, and liked what he heard, and every week for the past couple of months he’d been having regular sessions with the guy and his team at the swish Mantoni headquarters in Manhattan.
     
    He left a note on the screen for Hal, saying he’d be back around one, then grabbed his coat and locked the door. He’d take a taxi downtown. Hal had taken the Ford last night - something of a luxury, these days, which they’d probably review at the end of the month.
     
    He stepped out into the bright winter sunlight, ignoring the crowds on the sidewalk and the cries of the stall-holders. He hailed a cab, then sat back as it carried him towards his appointment with the tech-heads at Mantoni Entertainments.
     
    He recalled what he’d told Hal about VR last night, and the story he’d spun him these past few weeks about needing to be up in the latest technology, to keep abreast of the times. Hal was no mug, and he must’ve been wondering where all these supposed VR courses were leading. In a way, Barney felt guilty for stringing Hal along. But he couldn’t bring himself to tell him the truth. As the cab pulled onto Broadway, easing through the crowds of refugees spilling onto the street, he wondered what he feared by telling Hal what was going on with Mantoni Entertainments; it wasn’t Hal’s ridicule, because he wasn’t that sort of guy. Perhaps he was reluctant to confide in his partner because something within him, deep down, didn’t think what he was doing was quite right.
     
    The headquarters of Mantoni Entertainments occupied every floor of a fifty-storey skyscraper whose sheer windowed façade reflected the blue sky like some flawless virtual