Nebula Awards Showcase 2006 Read Online Free PDF Page B

“No,” she said suddenly. “I want ice cream.”
    Terzian studied her as she turned to the waiter and ordered in French. She was around his own age, twenty-nine. There was no question that she was a mixture of races, but which races? The flat nose could be African or Asian or Polynesian, and Polynesia was again confirmed by the black, thick brows. Her smooth brown complexion could be from anywhere but Europe, but her pale green eyes were nothing but European. Her broad, sensitive mouth suggested Nubia. The black ringlets yanked into a knot behind her head could be African or East Indian, or, for that matter, French. The result was too striking to be beautiful—and also too striking, Terzian thought, to belong to a successful criminal. Those looks could be too easily identified.
    The waiter left. She turned her wide eyes toward Terzian, and seemed faintly surprised that he was still there.
    “My name’s Jonathan,” he said.
    “I’m,” hesitating, “Stephanie.”
    “Really?” Terzian let his skepticism show.
    “Yes.” She nodded, reaching in a pocket for cigarettes. “Why would I lie? It doesn’t matter if you know my real name or not.”
    “Then you’d better give me the whole thing.”
    She held her cigarette upward, at an angle, and enunciated clearly. “Stephanie América Pais e Silva.”
    “America?”
    Striking a match. “It’s a perfectly ordinary Portuguese name.”
    He looked at her. “But you’re not Portuguese.”
    “I carry a Portuguese passport.”
    Terzian bit back the comment, I’m sure you do .
    Instead he said, “Did you know the man who was killed?”
    Stephanie nodded. The drags she took off her cigarette did not ease the tremor in her hands.
    “Did you know him well?”
    “Not very.” She dragged in smoke again, then let the smoke out as she spoke.
    “He was a colleague. A biochemist.”
    Surprise silenced Terzian. Stephanie tipped ash into the Cinzano ashtray, but her nervousness made her miss, and the little tube of ash fell on the tablecloth.
    “Shit,” she said, and swept the ash to the floor with a nervous movement of her fingers.
    “Are you a biochemist, too?” Terzian asked.
    “I’m a nurse.” She looked at him with her pale eyes. “I work for Santa Croce—it’s a—”
    “A relief agency.” A Catholic one, he remembered. The name meant Holy Cross .
    She nodded.
    “Shouldn’t you go to the police?” he asked. And then his skepticism returned. “Oh, that’s right—it was the police who did the killing.”
    “Not the French police.” She leaned across the table toward him. “This was a different sort of police, the kind who think that killing someone and making an arrest are the same thing. You look at the television news tonight. They’ll report the death, but there won’t be any arrests. Or any suspects.” Her face darkened, and she leaned back in her chair to consider a new thought. “Unless they somehow manage to blame it on me.”
    Terzian remembered papers flying in the spring wind, men in heavy boots sprinting after. The pinched, pale face of the victim.
    “Who, then?”
    She gave him a bleak look through a curl of cigarette smoke. “Have you ever heard of Transnistria?”
    Terzian hesitated, then decided “No” was the most sensible answer.
    “The murderers are Transnistrian.” A ragged smile drew itself across Stephanie’s face. “Their intellectual property police. They killed Adrian over a copyright.”
    At that point, the waiter brought Terzian’s coffee, along with Stephanie’s order. Hers was colossal, a huge glass goblet filled with pastel-colored ice creams and fruit syrups in bright primary colors, topped by a mountain of cream and a toy pinwheel on a candy-striped stick. Stephanie looked at the creation in shock, her eyes wide.
    “I love ice cream,” she choked, and then her eyes brimmed with tears and she began to cry.

    Stephanie wept for a while, across the table, and, between sobs, choked down heaping spoonfuls of