Chapter Text
The girl in the bed was beautiful. Her hair, dark as a raven’s wing, spread out across the pillow like a halo, framing a slim, pointed face of unearthly paleness. Her full lips were parted, revealing straight, white teeth, and her skin was unmarked by the ravages of hardship and disease. Everything about her was in stark contrast to the room around her: a dingy, windowless, concrete rectangle, sparsely furnished, barely lit by the single ancient bulb hanging from the ceiling.
Everything, that is except one thing. Her eyes, once the deep blue of ancient china, now stared glazed and lifeless at the ceiling above.
“See, Nick Valentine?” Vadim Bobrov was saying in his heavily accented English. “I find her here, just like this. I say ‘What the hell is a dead girl doing in my place? What will people say? What can I do?’ So I close the door behind me and I call you – Nick Valentine, the big detective, to tell me. So tell me, Nick Valentine.”
Valentine looked away from the girl. “This is hardly your first stiff,” he said pointedly.
“Sure, yes, yes; people die, it’s unfortunate. Whores, junkies, drunks -- dying is what happens to people. But this girl, no. Dying does not happen in my place to people like this girl.” He shook his head emphatically. “Not here.”
Valentine had to agree. She didn’t look much like the usual class of people you might find in a room at the Dugout. Not like the Dugout was the worst place to drink in Diamond City, but the bar was set pretty low to begin with. He frowned, the yellow glow from his eyes brightening slightly. Metal gleamed under the tear in the synthetic skin around his neck, and from somewhere inside his tattered grey trench coat a relay clicked repeatedly.
“What do you know about her? And where’s her stuff?”
“I don’t know. And don’t give me that look. I didn’t take it. No one took it. I come in this morning because the room is due and my stupid brother Yefim, whose job it is to do this, is still passed out. So I knock and no one answers and I come in and I find her here. Just like this. I go out, I lock the door. No one goes in. No one comes out. “
“You must have seen her come in last night?”
“No. My brother was working and he never saw any pretty black-haired girls. A boy rented this room. Tall. Dirty. A scavver. Paid in caps, Yefim never look twice at him. And he never saw no girl go in there. And before you say it, no it was not her with her hair tucked up, unless she was on stilts.”
“But she could have come in later, without him seeing?”
“Sure. Yefim likes a little drink when he works. Sometimes, he ends up working flat on his back, fast asleep. But still, he collects the caps and so I don’t care what he does. But it was quiet in here last night and no one else saw her, either.”
“Any idea how she died?”
The Russian shrugged. “You tell me, ” he said, throwing back the covers.
The girl was naked. Her breasts were small, perched high on her chest. Her legs were long and slender, her feet and ankles slim and delicate. She was young, he realized, younger even than he’d originally guessed. After death the blood had gathered in her buttocks and lower back, painting them an angry purple. But elsewhere her skin was unmarked and unblemished. Valentine rolled her over gently. Her skin was cool to the touch but not cold, although the blankets covering her would have an effect on that. But rigor mortis was only just beginning to set in and that, combined with the degree of lividity suggested she’d been dead only a few hours. Otherwise, there was no sign of trauma or disease. No wound marked her skin, no bruising on her neck to indicate that rough hands had choked the life from her. Valentine eased her mouth open, looking for signs of suffocation – bits of cloth in her throat or bruising on her lips. Nothing. She was just dead.
-OOO-
“Calling this whiskey is an insult to whiskey,” Valentine said, putting his elbows on the bar and taking another drink.
“Hey – it’s free. You want good whiskey, you go somewhere where they charge you for it,” Vadim said.
“Forget it,” the detective answered. “I can’t taste it anyway.” He took a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket and shook a couple loose. “You want one?” Vadim accepted the cigarette and they smoked together for a while. Conversations swirled in a cloud around them. The air was thick with cigarette smoke, and the radio at the end of the bar was playing music that had been popular two centuries ago.
“What are we going to do about the girl?” Vadim said.
Valentine shrugged. “It’s not really my problem. Unless you’re paying me to make it my problem.”
“Why me? Look at her – that sweet skin, those tender hands. Did you see her hands? She’s Upper Stands for sure. They have lots of money up there. They pay big to find her.”
“Good. You take her up there, then. “ Valentine sipped his drink. He agreed with at least part of what Vadim was saying. Under the streaks of dirt and the grime beneath her fingernails, the girl’s hands were remarkably well-kept. Soft, even. There had been a time, long ago, when lots of people in what used to be the city of Boston in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts had hands like that. That time was long in the past, destroyed by the bombs that rained from the sky in the war to end all wars. Not even the wealthy who lived in Diamond City’s posh Upper Stands neighbourhood got through life so thoroughly unscathed.
Diamond City – the Great Green Jewel, they called it: the safest, most prosperous settlement in all the Commonwealth; a fortified town built inside what had once been Boston’s ancient and hallowed Fenway Park baseball stadium. But for all its pretensions, Diamond City was still too small to harbour strangers, a fact Valentine pointed out. “She’s no upper deck girl,” he said, taking out another cigarette and rolling it between his fingers. “You ever see her around here before?”
The big Russian shook his head. “No. But that doesn’t mean anything. I never go up there. Why should I? Lots of people there I never meet.”
“Bullshit.” Valentine lit his cigarette and blew out a long stream of smoke. “She’s not from here and you know it. And she’s not from Goodneighbour, either,” he added, naming Boston’s other major organized settlement. “Nor anywhere else I’ve ever heard of.”
“But she’s from somewhere. And there are people somewhere who must miss her.”
Valentine threw him a look. “Vadim, I don’t get you. You’ve probably pulled a dozen stiffs out of your rooms over the years. Why this one?”
The big man’s face fell. “I had a sister once, Nick, where I grew up. A nice girl. Dark hair. Pretty. Not so pretty as that girl in there, but still, you know? And one day she went out to find her place in the world. And the world swallowed her up. We never heard from her again. It was like she never was.” He took a pull on his cigarette, let the smoke drift out of his lungs. “Maybe if there was a guy like you there, maybe he would have found out what happened to my baby Nadia. But there wasn’t. So maybe I do this for her.”
“Oh, hell.” Valentine emptied his glass, poured another from the bottle on the bar. “Fine. Twenty-five caps a day. Plus expenses. And I’ll need a retainer. A hundred caps up front.” He took another drink. “Something you should think about. Those hands of hers. Those hands never worked with anything harder than a pencil or a makeup brush. So either she’s from some settlement we’ve never heard of where everyone has pretty, white skin and no callouses on their fingers, or she’s a lot – “ he paused, searching for the right word,” – newer than she looks.”
“Newer?” Vadim shook his head. “No, I don’t understand – “ He trailed off, then his eyes widened. “You mean -- ?” He shuddered. “ No, it can’t be. Damn. What if she is? You must get rid of her. Wrap her up, take her out, throw her in the river. Forget what I said about Nadia. I won’t have a monster like that here.”
He started to rise. Valentine stopped him with a hand on his arm. It was his metal hand, the one with all the skin stripped off. The motors that opened and closed his fingers whined as he squeezed the big Russian’s arm. Hard.
“You forget who you’re talking to,” the detective warned. The yellow glow of his eyes brightened.
“No,” said Vadim, trying to pull away. “It’s not the same. You don’t pretend to be human. You don’t come in the night and steal people away and put -- ” he shivered again “-- things in their place. Things that look like them, act like them, pretend to be them.” The whites of his eyes showed all around. “You’re Nick Valentine. You’re not like them. “
Nick relented, releasing his grasp. “You think?”
Vadim rubbed his arm. “I mean it,” he said. “You belong here. Diamond City loves you.”
“Huh,” Nick said. “Tell that to the kids who threw the stink bomb in my office last week. Took Ellie half the day to get the smell out. “ He stubbed out his cigarette. “Listen, maybe there’s a different explanation. I’ll see what I can do.”
“But you will get her – it – out of my place?”
“When I’m ready. First, though, I need to talk to your brother about what he saw last night.”
Vadim laughed. “Okay, but I wasn’t joking before about Yefim. He’s not going to like I wake him up so early.”
“My heart would bleed for him if I had one. Now get moving. And after we’re done here, I’m going to want back in that room to look around some more. Also, we’re going to need a doctor. Send a couple of your boys to Goodneighbour to bring Amari back from the Memory Den. Tell her I need her right away.”
“She won’t come here.”
“She’ll come for me.”
-OOO-
Half an hour and a stiff cup of coffee later, Yefim Bobrov was awake, vertical and more-or-less coherent. He and his brother were identical twins. Privately, Nick was glad they had different taste in clothing since unless they were talking he had some difficulty telling them apart. Once they opened their mouths, though, there was no mistaking them. Vadim, who managed the bar, was talkative to the point of loquacity and his booming laugh could frequently be heard roaring out over top of the chatter at the bar. Yefim, the innkeeper, rarely spoke more than a word or two at a time, generally letting his brother do the talking. It was going to be a tricky interview, Nick thought.
“So Yefim,” he began, “tell me about last night.”
Yefim grimaced, massaging the back of his neck. “Nothing to tell,” he grunted.
“He means you already know everything he knows, since you talked to me already,” Vadim added helpfully.
Nick frowned at him. “Vadim, why don’t you go brew another pot of coffee?” he suggested. “Your brother looks like he needs it.”
“Wait, but -- ”
“And take your time.”
“Fine.”
After he was gone, Nick poured a shot of whiskey and pushed it across the table at Yefim. “Here, this will help.”
The big Russian picked the glass up in shaking hands and gulped it down, then took the bottle and poured himself a second. He took a sip, then placed the glass carefully down in front of him.
“Better?” Nick asked. Yefim nodded mutely. “Good,” Nick said. “Now why don’t you tell me about last night? In your own words.”
Yefim thought for a moment. “Guy come in, maybe midnight. I ask ‘Need a room?’ he says ‘Yes’, I get his money, give him the room. Last I see of him.”
“And the girl?”
He shook his head. “No girl.”
Nick pulled out his notebook and wrote something down. “What did the boy look like? ” he said.
Yefim shrugged. “Scavenger. Tall. Skinny. Dark hair.”
“What about his hands?”
“What do you mean?”
“His hands,” Nick repeated. “Tell me about his hands.”
“I don’t understand what you want. What about them? They had money in them.”
“Besides that. Think, Yefim. I want you to describe his hands. Were they big hands? Small? Clean, dirty? What did his fingernails look like?”
Yefim sighed in exasperation. “I don’t know. Who notices hands? I think he had ten fingers. I think they had fingernails. Okay?”
“Sure, sure. Don’t get testy.”
“Don’t ask stupid questions.”
“A girl is dead,” Nick reminded him. “We don’t know anything about her. Your memory could make the difference between returning her to her family or just dumping her in an unmarked grave. Which would you rather?”
Yefim slumped over, his head between his hands. “Look, Nick Valentine – I don’t know. I was drunk last night. Trader brought in a new shipment of wine, I got testing it. By midnight, I had to close one eye just to make sure it was only one boy renting room, not two. After that, I also closed the other eye, just for a minute, you know, to rest them. Next thing, Vadim’s waking me up and there’s a dead girl in one of my rooms. I’m sorry.”
Nick poured out another shot. Yefim threw it back. “Vadim won’t like me drinking this early,” he said, looking back toward the kitchen where his brother was deliberately dawdling over the coffee machine. “He thinks I have a problem.” He spread his hands, looking down at them. “Maybe I do.” He paused. “They were slim, the hands, almost like girl hands. Long fingers. Clever hands, for fixing things or making things. Fingernails… no, I don’t know.”
“What was he wearing?”
“Old hooded jacket with the hood up. Something else – he was young. Just a boy. And he was pretty. Pretty for a boy. Pretty for a girl, even.”
“Pretty? Like – lipstick and makeup pretty?”
“No, no. Not like that. But pretty. Fine features, great big eyes, you know? I even wondered if he was going to set up shop in the back, like when Bobbi No Nose’ girls are in town. We take a cut for that, so I have to know. But he just looked at me funny, said no.”
“Huh.” Nick made a note. “But are you sure he was a boy? Could he have been a girl in disguise?”
“Who knows? Lots of people it’s hard to tell. But from his voice I’d say no. And he had a little moustache, you know? Like a boy grows when he first pretends to be a man.”
Nick poured himself a shot and knocked it back, then poured Yefim another one and pushed it over. For him, drinking, like smoking cigarettes, was more habit than anything else, part of the ‘Nick Valentine, Private Eye’ persona he wore. Besides, alcohol didn’t affect him the way it did humans. His power converters broke it down as readily as any other organic material he fed them, but that was it. And in his line of work, the ability to drink and still be sober was a definite asset. Still, he missed it sometimes. A thought occurred to him. “You saw the girl in there. The boy – do you think he looked like her?”
“You mean like family, brother and sister? No.”
Nick made another note. “Any other way out besides through the bar?”
Yefim shook his head. “No. There’s a door at the back in case of fire, but it’s locked. I don’t even think it opens.”
“Huh,” Nick said. “Remind me never to book a room in here. Okay, last question. Was there anyone else staying at the Dugout last night?”
Yefim shook his head. “That crazy caravanner, Cricket, she paid for a room but never picked up her key. Ask Vadim about her - I think she was in the bar for a while. Other than that, all the guest rooms were empty.”
“Does anyone else have keys beside you?”
Vadim groaned. “All these questions make my head hurt, Nick Valentine. I thought you said that was the last one?”
“More likely the wine making your head hurt, Yefim. But this is the last one, I promise. Keys. Who has keys?”
“I do,” Yefim said. He jangled the ring on his belt. “Only me. Not even Vadim. One for each room, which I give to the customer and a master key on a separate ring for me. That way I know who is in and out. And no one was here last night but that boy. And now, Nick Valentine, I am done.”
Vadim returned just then and set down coffees. Yefim waved his away and climbed to his feet, making his way unsteadily back to his room. Vadim offered Nick a cigarette and the pair smoked in silence while the detective finished writing up his notes.
“Well?” Vadim finally demanded as Nick slipped his notebook into his pocket. “Did you learn anything new?”
“Maybe. I’ll let you know when I figure it all out,” Nick answered. He sipped his coffee and grimaced. “What the hell is this stuff?”
“It’s coffee. You want good coffee -- “
“I know, I know – ‘go somewhere where they charge me for it.’ I hear Cricket booked a room last night.”
“Yeah, but I don’t think she stayed. They were in the bar for a while, she and her boys. Drinking rum and scaring the regulars, as usual. I don’t care she has caps to spend, next time I’ll tell that crazy bitch to go sleep somewhere else.”
“Was there trouble?”
“No more than usual. But she left around midnight, maybe a little after. Her crew stayed and drank themselves stupid, I dragged them out to sleep it off outside about 3:00 or so. Is it important?”
“I don’t know yet.” Nick finished his coffee. “Maybe if you see her, tell her I’m looking for her. Meantime, I’m going to want back in that room to look around some more. He snagged the whiskey bottle from the bar and slipped it into a pocket of his coat. “I’m gonna need this, too.”
-OOO-