Darwin's Blade by Dan Simmons Page A

five computers, a serious sound system with eight speakers, and eleven chessboards, but no TV. How do you watch your soaps?”
    Dar smiled and spooned ground beans into the filter. “Actually, the soaps usually come to me. It’s called ‘taking statements from witnesses or victims.’ ”
    Chief Investigator Sydney Olson nodded. “But you do have a TV somewhere? In the bedroom, maybe? Please say you do, Dar. Otherwise I’ll know I’m in the presence of the only real intellectual I’ve ever met outside of captivity.”
    Dar poured water into the coffeemaker and turned it on. “There’s a TV. In one of the storage closets over there near the door.”
    Syd cocked an eyebrow. “Ah…let me guess…the Super Bowl?”
    â€œNo, baseball. The occasional night game when I’m home. All of the play-offs and the Series.” He set mats on the small, round kitchen table. Bright light came in through the eight-foot windows.
    â€œEames chair,” said Syd, patting the bent wood and black leather chair in the corner of the living-room area where two walls of bookcases came together. She sat in it and put her feet up on the wood and leather ottoman. “It feels comfortable enough to be a real one…an original.”
    â€œIt is,” said Dar. He set two white, diner-type mugs on the tablemats and then poured coffee for both of them. “You take cream and sugar?”
    Syd shook her head. “I like James Brown coffee. Black. Rich. Strong.”
    â€œHope this suffices,” said Dar as she reluctantly got out of the Eames chair, stretched, and came over to join him at the kitchen table.
    She took a sip and made a face. “Yeah. That’s it. Mr. Brown would approve.”
    â€œI can make a new batch. Weaker. Saner.”
    â€œNo, this is good.” She turned around to look back across the room and into the other areas of the loft that were visible. “Can I play chief investigator for a minute?”
    Dar nodded.
    â€œA real Persian carpet delineating your living area there. A real Eames chair. The Stickley dining room table and chairs look original, as do the mission-style lamps. Real artwork in every room. Is that large painting in the open area there opposite the windows a Russell Chatham?”
    â€œYeah,” said Dar.
    â€œAnd an oil rather than a print. Chatham’s originals are selling for a pretty penny these days.”
    â€œI bought it in Montana some years ago,” said Dar, setting his coffee down. “Before the big Chatham stampede.”
    â€œStill,” said Syd and finished her mental inventory. “A chief investigator would have to conclude that the man who lives here has money. Wrecks an Acura NSX one day but has a spare Land Cruiser waiting for him at home.”
    â€œDifferent vehicles for different purposes,” said Dar, beginning to feel irritated.
    Syd seemed to sense this and turned back to her coffee. She smiled. “That’s all right,” she said. “I’m guessing you’re about as interested in making money as I am.”
    â€œAnyone who discounts the importance of money is a fool or a saint,” said Dar. “But I find the pursuit of it or the discussion of it boring as hell.”
    â€œOkay,” said Syd. “I’m curious about the eleven chess boards. Games being played on all of them. I’m only a duffer at chess—I know the horsie from the castle thingee—but those games look like they’re master level. You have so many chess master friends drop in that you need multiple boards?”
    â€œE-mail,” said Dar.
    Syd nodded and looked around. “All right, that wall of fiction. How are those books shelved? Not alphabetically, that’s for damned sure. Not by publication date, you’ve got old volumes mixed in with new trade paperbacks.”
    Dar smiled. Readers always gravitated to other readers’ bookshelves