by Dan Stout
A healthy distance from the stage a handful of protestors were cordoned off, placards leaning against their legs as they made small talk with the smattering of bored patrol officers walking the length of the barricades. I wished for a moment that we’d thought to requisition some backup off of that detail. But too little, too late.
Outside the Paradise’s entrance, a handful of human teenagers milled about, playing dice or chewing belca root. Hopeful errand runners with dreams of gangster glory. If they kept chasing that dream, it’d probably be our job to find their killers. But not today. We brushed past them and their hostile stares as we entered the building.
Past the door was a small antechamber, occupied by a large man at a little desk. He pulled himself away from the pinup magazine in his hands just long enough to identify us as cops.
“Not in,” the big man rumbled, turning to a new page.
“Yeah they are.” I fished out a business card. “Send this back, and if they don’t want to talk to us, they don’t have to.”
The muscle raised an eyebrow.
“Fine.” He tossed the glossy magazine on the tabletop. “Wait here.”
After he left, Jax whispered, “You’re sure they’ll talk to us?”
“No. But we gotta try, right?”
A few minutes later the bouncer or sub-boss or whatever he was returned and escorted us through a series of rooms decked out with overstuffed couches, recliners, and enough poker tables to stock a casino. There were side tables by the furniture, many of which held cocktails, their sides still sweaty with condensation. Whoever had occupied the rooms must not have relished the idea of being seen by a pair of cops.
Our tour ended in front of an imposing door, opened by the bodyguard to reveal a luxurious sitting parlor that was the closest thing to a throne room I’d ever seen. It was filled with ornate furniture, all of it antique or at least good fakes. A large television perched inside an entertainment center that dominated the far wall, but the centerpiece of the room was a big wooden chair, covered with ornate frills, its back draped by a pair of belts holding crossed daggers, the ceremonial weapons of salt plains clans. The room also had a single occupant: Thomas CaCuri.
Thomas wore yet another of the three-piece suits he favored, and he swirled a glass of liquor as dark as the gel that held his hair in place. He addressed the man who’d escorted us back. “Stick close. This won’t be a long discussion.” Then to us: “Come crawling around to join the revolution?”
Thomas punctuated his question with a menacing grin. The hulking gangster was a different species of predator than his sister. Thomas had no more ability to motivate men and women than a tibron beetle loose in the street. He might inspire people to run, but in one direction only: away from him.
“We’re not here to hassle you,” said Jax. “We’re looking for a guy named Tenebrae. He around here?”
“Why would he be?” His emphasis on the words was off. I guessed that wasn’t his first drink of the day.
I wasn’t interested in playing twenty questions with him.
“We know what he’s here for,” I said. “And he’s damaged goods. He’s an amateur, who left thumbprints all over the cookie jar. Tell me where he’s at and you’ll get a gold star in the morning paper.” I jerked a thumb over my shoulder, in my best guess of where the newly built stage lay. “That’s what all this is about, right? Getting your sister elected?”
He seemed to think about it, pursing his lips and staring at the carpet. “They’re at the Red Brick Ranch-House. Down the road.” He lifted his head and added, “This was a one-time thing. Don’t come back.”
We turned to go, and Thomas called out to his lackey. “If those two show up again I want you to drag them into this room bloody and screaming, you got that, Marguiles?” The big guy nodded compliance without daring to look back. Thomas’s slurred laughter was an echo of every schoolyard bully who pushed down and oppressed those more vulnerable than themselves.
Back on the street we shoved our way through the crowd, heading in the direction Thomas had indicated. Down the road, just as he promised, we found the Red Brick. We walked in the front door and took the lay of the land.
The Red Brick Ranch-House was modeled on an old-timey salt plains saloon. It was the kind of place where the walls were covered with historic re-creations and the servers were forced to wear costumes and greet customers with a loud, “Hey-howdy!” We walked through the place acting as if we were meeting a group of friends.
Toward the rear of the building a thick-necked tough squeezed into an ill-cut suit stood just inside a glass-doored private dining area. We walked past once, ignoring his glare as we glanced inside. Tenebrae was in there, as well as Katie CaCuri and Colonel Marbury. Never slowing our pace, we stepped into the corridor leading to the restrooms and paused, hidden from view near restroom doors marked Buckaroos and Fillies.
“We need backup.” Jax’s voice was quiet.
He wasn’t wrong. But we also needed to move quickly.
“Did you notice his bag?” I said.
He shook his head.
“By his chair. Travel bag packed and ready to go. Whatever he’s up to, he’s planning to hit the road immediately after.”
I exhaled a curse. Gellica needed time to pull things together, so she could make an honest attempt to escape Paulus’s control. Everything she’d told me, all the things she’d trusted me with were on the line. But we couldn’t let a man with at least two murders to his name simply walk out of the city. Whatever I’d promised Gellica, I had a prior commitment to Jane.
“You ready to do this?” I asked.
“We should at least call in Guyer,” Jax said, a warning whistle behind his words.
I glanced back down the hall. The guard had moved farther into the room. Possibly in preparation for departure?
“Guyer’s with that statue,” I said. “She can probably do more there than anywhere else.”
A man stepped past us, giving us a suspicious stare as he guided his son to the Buckaroos room.
“Let’s do this fast, and prevent it from being a scene.” I flipped out my badge holder and tucked it into my breast pocket, facing out. “Get rid of CaCuri and Marbury, then convince Tenebrae his best bet is to surrender and lawyer up. Unless you’ve got a better idea?”
“I haven’t had a good idea since I moved to this city.” He displayed his badge as well.
We turned the corner and returned to the private area. The thug at the entrance spun around and held up a warning hand.
I tugged my badge into his line of sight.
“Don’t do something stupid.” We didn’t break our pace as we strode past him and approached the table. The trio of diners set down their silverware and watched us in silence. Tenebrae was closest to us, with Marbury to his right, and Katie CaCuri across from him.
Katie pouted in my direction. “What do you want?” Marbury stayed silent, staring at her place setting as she adjusted the fork to be at a right angle to the table edge. I didn’t understand what the colonel was doing there. I could imagine her falling for Tenebrae’s looks, but with her background and accomplishments, it seemed surprising she’d be so swayed by a pretty face that she’d saunter into a public meeting with CaCuri. Then it clicked. Gellica had admitted she’d been following Tenebrae to find out what he knew about the holdups at the manna well. Had Marbury been doing the same thing when I’d seen her at his party?
Tenebrae had funded his physical transformation by embezzling manna from his employer. And when he realized that couldn’t last, he’d stolen secure communications from the AFS encampment as leverage. There were plenty of people willing to pay for that information, but Tenebrae didn’t need cash. He needed manna. It explained why everyone he’d pursued since coming to town had been tied to the manna strike or snake oil in some way: Gellica and Paulus, Donnie and Micah, Marbury and the CaCuri
s. The gruesome collection of jawbones and teeth in his apartment? Tenebrae wanted to learn how Jane and Dale Turner had access to snake oil, even if he had to pry it past their dead lips. Now here he was, sitting at a table with two potential buyers he believed could provide the magical liquid he needed to maintain his condition. We’d walked into an auction.
I didn’t know if Marbury was there with official AFS backing or simply to cover her own exposure, but either way the situation was far beyond a homicide investigation. And even I knew that a public showdown with a candidate for office and the head of the military encampment wasn’t going to meet Bryyh’s definition of “low-profile.” Jax and I needed to wrap this up quickly and let the politicians sort it out later.
I put on my most winning smile, which admittedly I’ve been told is more of an unlikeable smirk. “We’d like to speak to your dinner guest,” I announced, before turning to Tenebrae. “Just stay put and we’ll get this all sorted out.” The runes on his neckerchief flared, and I suddenly wished we’d put in that call to Guyer.
Katie turned her attention to Marbury. “Well, this will be interesting to read about in tomorrow’s papers.”
The colonel’s jaw tightened, and she’d grown pale. Ignoring all of us, she stood and began to gather her things.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Tenebrae insisted.
“Clearly not.” Katie stood as well. “But we are.”
“No.” Tenebrae didn’t shout, but his volume was on the rise. “No, you’re not.”
I’d had enough. “Tenebrae, it’s over.” I kept my eyes on him, pointedly ignoring Jax. If we did this right, we could secure him without too much of a fight. “We have your statue in our possession. Keep your hands where I can see them, and we can go downtown to talk it out.” I stepped forward and he sprang away from the table, right into my partner’s waiting arms. But Tenebrae was fast and strong, and he pivoted out of Jax’s grip.
He was a full head taller than me, and had even more than that on Jax. He pushed past us, swinging elbows. One connected with my temple and my vision swam. I swung at his midsection, hoping to slow him with a body blow. Instead, it felt like I’d just punched the side of a train car. I thought of his apartment, and the metal supports draped with invisible cobwebs. He’d tied their strength to his clothes, a bond set to activate on sudden pressure, forming a lightweight armor.
Tenebrae dashed for the exit. The CaCuri muscle at the door stepped forward, eyes darting from Tenebrae to Katie. At a slight wave from Katie, the thug stood down and allowed Tenebrae to pass by untouched. I reached for my revolver, but pulling it in a restaurant would only cause panic and potential harm to bystanders. Instead I gave chase. I pushed past Katie and the colonel, with Jax a step behind me. Together we pursued the mad sorcerer as he ran toward the streets of Titanshade.
33
BY THE TIME WE REACHED the entrance to the restaurant, Jax had passed me. Faster and more agile, he led the way into the bustling streets. I followed as close as I could, trying to keep eyes on Tenebrae’s blond-tinted head of hair as he danced through the crowd of festival goers. He was headed back down the street, toward the Paradise Parlor and its newly constructed stage.
Assuming he was hoping to find sanctuary in the CaCuri stronghold, I angled to cut off his path. Flying past a cluster of festival-goers, I saw the cordoned-off protest area. Activists had already started to gather. They held signs declaring tolerance and restraint on the longest night of the year. At their front was Talena, her back to me as she coordinated and cajoled order from chaos. I ran faster, determined to intercept Tenebrae before he got to the crowd. But he surprised me, bypassing both the front door and the stage, heading instead into the narrow gap between the Parlor and its neighboring building. He briefly disappeared from view, and we slowed as we approached, wary of a trap. I considered drafting the patrol officers near the protest barricade for assistance, but there wasn’t time. So we maintained our pursuit, and turned into the alley with caution. Halfway down the building, Tenebrae was climbing the suspended ladder of the fire escape. Already near the top, he swung a leg onto the stairwell. The ladder was a hook and drop design, and once it was free of Tenebrae’s weight it began to rise away from the ground once again.
Jax pulled farther ahead, shouting at me over his shoulder.
“I can catch him!” He sprinted forward, leaping and catching the bottom rung. He clambered up the ladder and onto the fire escape. But he couldn’t wait on me, and by the time I reached it, the ladder had ascended once more.
I jumped, but it was beyond my reach. I snarled a curse. Even if I had a bit more height than Jax, he clearly had a better vertical leap. Jax was already running up the stairs in pursuit, and calling him back might allow Tenebrae to slip away.
So I fell back on an old trick from my misspent youth. I took off my belt and held the tongue of it in my hand as I leapt again, swinging the buckle in an arc. It struck the bottom rung of the suspension ladder and hung there for a long beat. I crouched, waiting for gravity to win out. Finally the buckle slipped downward. I timed my jump to match the moment when the buckle and tongue were equally distant, the buckle headed down and the tongue headed up. I grabbed both then simply hung on, letting my weight do the work. The ladder came down with a rattle, and I scampered up, belt looped around my fist as I climbed first the ladder then the stairs of the fire escape.
I’d lost sight of Tenebrae and Jax, but the Paradise was a three-story, a little low for the neighborhood, and there weren’t any options for hopping over to other rooftops or fire escapes. So I knew the roof was the only logical route they could’ve taken.
My legs pumped and my lungs ached from the chase, and in the back of my mind a memory tickled. There was something familiar about the cycle of ladder to stairs, but I didn’t have time to ponder the connection. I ascended, revolver in hand, each step drawing me closer to the top of the building.
* * *
The fire escape terminated at an access point about a third of the way down the mountwise roof. It was a flat, hot-mopped tar roof, ringed by a waist-high perimeter wall. I peeked over the lip. Jax crouched a few strides down the wall, his back against the masonry. He held his service revolver in one hand and waved me over with the other. I joined him and scanned the situation.
Ahead a scattering of exposed pipes for plumbing and air vent stacks stuck up from the roof like oil derricks on the ice plains. To either side was open space, pocked by occasional piles of construction material from some long-ago project, stacks of I-beams and canvas-wrapped debris abandoned by contractors too lazy to haul them down to the street. No sign of Tenebrae. The biggest immediate danger was the far small hut to one side of the roof that provided stair access to the building below.
Jax tilted his head, indicating one side of the access door. I nodded, and headed in the opposite direction, spreading out from my partner in a pincer move. We made eye contact once more before we both snapped around the corner. To the right was a pair of water towers and to the left was Mitri Tenebrae.
He stood in the open, on the far side of the roof, peering over the edge and watching the sea of festival attendees mill around the stage three floors below.
I stepped forward, shoes grinding audibly on the silt and debris that collected in the windbreak of the access door. He turned at the sound, and I got a good look at him. The air between us swirled with the tingle of cobwebs, a sure sign that he was bound to something nearby. Corporate sorcerer, charmer, artist . . . whatever he’d once been, he was a cornered animal now. The pink tip of his tongue flicked in and out as his eyes danced over me, Ajax, the roof, searching for any way out, any way to find escape and keep his mad flight alive for another hour or day or week. To his back was the roof lip, and the alley that separated the pavilion from its nearest neighbor. It was a long jump, but conceivable for an athlete like Tenebrae or Jax. For me, it may as well have been the other side of the Mount.
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My weapon was steady, trained on Tenebrae’s center of mass. I couldn’t let him make that jump.
“Stay where you are,” I said. If we could get him prone, we could control the situation.
Tenebrae didn’t move.
“Get down,” I said. “On the ground, hands out in front of you. Do it now or I will shoot.”
It was a lie. I didn’t want to shoot him. I wanted him in front of a jury, humiliated and begging for mercy for what he’d done.
Tenebrae stared across the alley, to the far roof. He chewed his lips, clenched his fists, all signs of doubt. Doubt about whether he could make the jump, whether he was better off surrendering or taking the leap. Doubt was something I could work with. But I had to work fast. I took another step forward.
“You were searching for new manna,” I said. “Desperate to make up everything you took from your corporate bosses.”
He stared back at me, surprise clear on his face. Even with everything collapsing around him, the guy still had the ego to think that he’d somehow pulled off the perfect crime.
“So you came out here, and made connections, didn’t you?” I put praise and admiration in my voice, playing to that vanity. “Smart. I gotta admit it was smart.”
Tenebrae tilted his head. Even in an adrenaline-soaked panic, he couldn’t resist a compliment. Then the bastard threw his head back and laughed at me. “You have no idea the pressure I was under.”
Pressure is one of the things white-collar criminals cited the most. As if all the working-class parents struggling to feed their families had no idea what the obligation to make a luxury car payment could do to a man.
“I hear you,” I said, slathering my words with as much sincerity as I could muster. “I can’t even get my head around all the ways you played people. And the secrets you got hold of?” I whistled in admiration.
His laugh increased in pitch, threatening to turn into a maniacal giggle. “In here!” He tapped his head. “I got them all in here, and I can recite them at any time. You want to make your career? I’ve a record of every conversation, every plot and scheme run by the AFS.”