Lights came on up and down the street as night fell. Tanner finished his coffee when the rain stopped, and went back out onto the street. Time to go home.
He caught a bus and rode it to Market Street, getting off at one of the border checkpoints for the Financial District. The bus, with no access authority, turned around and headed back south.
Tanner stood at the edge of the checkpoint, looking at the bright glow of the Financial District. An enclave of towering structures of gleaming metal, bleached stone, and mirrored glass, the Financial District was the only part of the city that looked like it belonged in its own time. The rest of the city was still back in the twentieth century, or worse.
The shortest and safest route back to his apartment was through the District, but Tanner was in no mood for the ID checks and body searches. Instead, he took a more circuitous route that was almost as safe, and a lot more alive.
He walked a few blocks west along Market, then turned right into one of the city’s three Cuban corridors. The street was crowded and noisy, brightly lit and filled with the smells of curry, black bean soup, bacon, and Cuban bread. Street soldiers wearing green and red scarves and armbands stood on the corners or walked casually through the crowds.
Several blocks from Market, the Cuban Corridor linked with the Chinese Corridor. Here, Tanner had a choice of streets, the Corridor encompassing nearly all of Chinatown. He cut over to Stockton, and the smells changed, shifted to seafood and incense. The street was even more crowded than the Cuban Corridor, pedestrians, cars, scooters, and bicycles moving in chaotic, halting patterns.
On the other side of Columbus, as Tanner neared the edges of the Corridor and Chinatown proper, the crowds thinned. The noise level dropped; fewer street soldiers were visible. And then the Corridor ended.
Tanner lived just a block and a half off the Corridor, but that block and a half was nearly silent, and much darker, without a single street soldier in sight. He walked quickly, but without fear, and he thought of what his father used to tell him: Don’t look like a victim. He sometimes wondered if his father had forgotten his own advice.
He unlocked the outer gate to the grounds of the six-story apartment building, made sure it was securely latched, then walked through the overgrown garden to the building entrance. The plants were out of control again, damp leaves and branches crowding the walkway, streaking his clothes with moisture. Tiny insects whirled silently through the misty halo of the porch light.
Tanner keyed in the building code, his personal code, then unlocked the door bolts with his key. He stepped into the lobby, door and alarm locking automatically behind him.
The lobby was dimly lit, the air still and warm. Tanner stood motionless for a minute, listening to the building sounds filter to him from above—a faint, low hum; whispers of deeply pitched voices; a muffled rattle of glass; the whistle of a teakettle.
He opened his mailbox, but it was empty. Third day in a row. He wondered if it meant anything.
Tired, he climbed the stairs to the fourth floor, seeing no one in either the stairwell or hall. His apartment was at the far end of the hall, on the right; the door had a dozen boarded window frames without a single bit of glass. Occasionally he thought about replacing the glass, but not often enough to actually do anything about it.
The apartment was fairly good-sized for one person—front room, den, hall, bedroom, and kitchen—but more and more often recently it felt too large, and half-empty. He wandered from room to room, the empty feeling washing over him again, leaving a dull throb in its wake. It had always seemed the right size, warm and comfortable, whenever Valerie and Connie had spent time here. But that was long over, and they had not been here in more than a year. Well, hell, that had been his own choice, hadn’t it?
He stopped at the den window, looked down at the street. Cones of light from the street lamps cast blurred shadows of trees and old cars. Apartment lights glowed dim and orange, dull rectangular eyes in the night. Oscar, the blind neighborhood cat, incredibly still alive after two years without sight, stumbled along the opposite sidewalk, head weaving stiffly from side to side. He bumped into a garbage can, hesitated for a moment, then turned into a narrow alley.
Bodies.
Another rain began.
After he ate, Tanner climbed to the roof, carrying an aluminum lawn chair. He hoped Alexandra would be there, but the roof was empty. The rain had stopped and the moon, three-quarters full, shone through the night haze with an amber cast.
Tanner set the chair at the roof’s edge and sat. The night was unusually quiet. Traffic sounds were light, and he could hear the breeze rustle through the dense foliage that grew between the buildings and in the yards of the neighborhood. A damp earth smell, laced through with the odor of rotting fruit, rose to the roof, drifted across him.
Tanner gazed toward the south and the Hunter’s Point launch fields, though he could not see even the tops of the rocket gantries from here. There was a freighter scheduled to go up tonight, and a part of its cargo was a contraband load of gourmet foods—primarily swiftlet nests—for one of the big investment firms in the New Hong Kong orbital. Tanner had brokered the deal, with most of his commission going to small packets of cash pressed into half a dozen different hands to make sure the shipment got through. In return, he was getting a shipment of prime, zero-gee pharmaceuticals. After a small sell-down—he had to make a living—the rest of the pharmaceuticals would be going to free clinics like Paul’s.
The bright orange flame of the rocket launch appeared in the southern sky, followed a few seconds later by a barely audible rumble as the ship, carrying his load of contraband, rose into the night. Tanner watched the flame rise, growing small and faint, until it disappeared far above him.
He remained on the roof another hour, motionless, watching the night sky, thinking, trying not to think. Then he picked up his chair and returned to his apartment.
Tanner dreamed:
He climbs the hot, dark stairwell, Freeman just in front of him. His heart beats hard, and he sweats, smells mildew from rotting hall carpets. He feels for the knife in his boot, but isn’t reassured by its touch. He wishes they could have risked carrying guns, but these assholes will surely search them before running the deal. Tanner feels like his ass is hanging out a window. Even knowing they have backup out on the street below isn’t much help. Backup in the Tenderloin? A joke.
At the top of the stairs, Freeman stops, looking at Tanner through dreadlocks hanging over his eyes. The building’s too damn quiet, Tanner thinks. Too damn hot. And too damn dark. A single bare bulb glows at the other end of the hall.
“You ready?” Freeman whispers.
Tanner nods. His throat is dry.
“Let’s nail these fuckers,” Freeman says.
They walk down the hall, stop in front of a cracked wooden door with a huge black number nine painted across it. Freeman knocks once, once again, then quickly three times.
The door opens, and a big bearded guy looks out at them from a room almost as dark as the hall. He doesn’t let them in. Tanner smells tuna, and something thick and sweet.
“Money?” the guy says.
Freeman takes a wad of bills from his jacket pocket, holds it up long enough for the guy to get a good look, then puts it back. The bearded guy nods, opens the door a little wider, then brings up a gun and sticks it against Freeman’s forehead.
Jesus.
“Eat this, nigger.” He pulls the trigger and blows away Freeman’s face, spraying blood and flesh and bone all over Tanner.
Jesus fucking Christ.
Tanner runs.
He nearly reaches the stairwell when another explosion sounds. Something hard and compact slams into him, knocks him off balance, still running, he doesn’t know what it is. Then he does know, and hot pain erupts in his side, sends him flying blindly around the corner and crashing down the stairs…
And Tanner wakes:
He sat up with a sharp intake of breath. Sweat rolled down his sides,
the base of his spine. The adrenaline rush left a tingling in its wake.
It was not the first time. The dream, the nightmare, had repeated over the years—not regularly, not often, but often enough. A nearly exact replay of what had happened two and a half years ago, of a drug bust gone completely to shit. A replay of the way Freeman had been killed.
Tanner got out of bed, went to the open window, and looked out, rubbing at the thick scar on his side. He could see the flicker of flames a few blocks away—dump fires or burning cars. Not a neighborhood cookout.
He hadn’t had the dream in several months, and he knew why he had tonight—those fucking bodies. And Tanner knew he wasn’t going to be the only one with nightmares.
A few cops would, at first. Then, as the news spread through the city, and especially when other bodies were found—and Tanner knew there would be other bodies—the nightmares, too, would spread. And what would make the situation worse was the unknown. Years ago, the cops never had a clue. Never an idea who was doing the killing, or why. When the killings had stopped, the hope had been that the killer himself had bought it. Now, though, it didn’t seem that way. There was the possibility of a copycat, but Tanner doubted it. Carlucci would know. Maybe Tanner should track him down, ask.
Christ, he thought, just forget it. It wasn’t his problem. Except for that damn two-and-a-half-year-old message. He did not want to think about it, but unless this was just a fluke, it was going to be his problem. And he knew he wasn’t going to forget it.
Tanner looked at the clock—12:53. He wondered if he could stay awake until dawn. Better than dreaming again. He stood at the window and watched the flickering glow of flames in the night.
4
TANNER PUT IT off for three days. Then, all it took was a phone call to Lucy Chen, who told him where Carlucci held his morning coffee-hashes.
It was a place called Spade’s, a spice and espresso bar in the Tundra run by Jamie Kingston, a black ex-cop who’d had half his left leg blown off by his partner during a race riot outside City Hall. Tanner walked in just after six in the morning, and the place was packed. A dozen sparking ion poles stood among the small tables, adding a clean burn odor to the heavy smell of espresso. A deep, thumping bass line pounded beneath the babble of voices.
Tanner worked his way through the tables and ion poles, then spotted Carlucci in a booth against the back wall. Two women uniforms sat across from him, drinking green-tinted iced tea from clear glasses. Carlucci had a coffee cup in his hand and several stacks of paper laid out on the table.
Carlucci saw Tanner approach, stared at him for a few moments, then nodded toward an empty stool at the end of the main bar. Tanner sat on the stool, ordered a double espresso, and waited.
He was half through the espresso, and already regretting it—a burning pain had begun in his stomach—when Kingston emerged from the steaming kitchen and headed along the bar, smiling at Tanner. It had been more than a year since Tanner had last seen him, but Kingston still wore black leather knickers that revealed the scarred flesh of his right leg, and the gleaming metal of his cyborged left. On his feet, both the real and the artificial, were leather sandals.
Kingston took a pastry bar from under the counter and set it in front of Tanner.
“On the house.” Kingston leaned against the counter. “Been a long time, Tanner.”
Tanner nodded. “How’s the leg?”
Kingston’s smile broadened into a grin. “Same as always. Better than the real thing.”
Kingston’s leg was a legend in the Tundra. Rumor was he could disconnect the leg and convert it into a scattergun in less than ten seconds.
But Kingston’s grin vanished, and he leaned forward, his face just a few inches from Tanner’s.
“You’re waiting to see Carlucci.”
More statement than question. Tanner nodded again.
“What the hell for?” Kingston was angry now, and Tanner had no idea why. “You aren’t a cop anymore.”
Tanner wondered what he was missing, but he didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to justify himself to Kingston.
“Tanner.” Carlucci’s voice.
Tanner turned, looked at him. The two uniforms were gone. Tanner looked back at Kingston. “Go,” Kingston whispered. Tanner picked up his espresso, brought it to Carlucci’s booth, and sat. Carlucci was looking through one of the stacks of paper.
“What’s eating Kingston?” Tanner asked.
“None of your business. Got nothing to do with you.” He looked up. “Tanner the civilian. How’s life out in the hive?”
“Buzzing.”
Carlucci snorted. “Yeah. I hear stories about you. Most of them good, I guess.” He sighed, shaking his head. “Your leaking heart is the reason you couldn’t ice it as a cop.”
Tanner didn’t respond. Probably there was some truth to what Carlucci said. But only some. Besides, Carlucci wasn’t exactly a cold-hearted bastard himself, and he was still a cop.
“All right,” Carlucci said, “so why are you here?”
“I was on the Carousel Club balcony Thursday. I saw you pull them out of the slough.”
Carlucci suddenly looked more tired, worn down, and he didn’t say anything for a while. He finished his coffee, waved at the barman for another. He rubbed his eyes, then looked back at Tanner.
“Yeah, and so? You here to give me some lunatic theory?”
Tanner shook his head. “Been getting theories again?”
“Up the fucking ass. Mannon thinks it’s more than one guy. Fuentes is convinced the guy’s a Roller gone over the edge. Tinka believes it’s a woman. And Harker still thinks the killer’s a fucking alien. And those are cop theories. You should hear the shit we’re picking up on the street. The newshawkers are having a fucking feast.” His pager beeped beside him; he glanced at the readout, then reached down and touched something to silence it. “No theory, then why?”
“I pulled two of them out of Stowe Lake myself, remember? I just want to know if it’s the same guy.”
Carlucci slowly nodded. “Oh yeah, it’s the same guy, it’s the same motherfucker. Strangled. Chained together with the bands fused to the skin. A benign virus injected into Homicide’s computers that froze the system and then gave the location of the bodies.” He paused. “And the angel wings.”
Tanner nodded to himself, picturing the tiny, silver-blue angel wings tattooed inside the nostrils of the victims. “Any progress?” Tanner wasn’t sure why he asked the question. He knew the answer.
Carlucci gave a bitter laugh. “Progress, shit. There wasn’t any progress for two years, you expect something in three days?” He shook his head. “They’ve got two of the slugs upstairs working on it full time, but that’s not going to do any good.”
Tanner shuddered, thinking of the slugs, imagining them in their cubicles above the station, hardly human anymore, their bodies distended and distorted by the constant injections of reason enhancers. They were supposed to be able to solve almost any problem, but they’d been useless with this one.
“That’s all you want? To know if it’s the same guy?”
Tanner shrugged.
“You want to come in on this from the outside?”
Tanner firmly shook his head, knowing he should be nodding, that almost certainly he was going to have to come in at some point. “No. But do you mind if I stay in touch on it?”
Carlucci sighed. “All right. Just let me know if you pick up anything substantial on the street, and don’t bug me every other day about it. It’s not going to move any faster than it did before, even if the mayor doesn’t want to hear that.” He glanced at the main bar. “I’ve got more people to talk to, so if there isn’t anything else…”
Tanner looked at the bar, saw Deke the Geek on a stool, staring at him. Deke flipped him off, grabbing his crotch with his other hand.
“Old friends?” Carlucci said.
“Yeah.” He turned back to Carlucci, slid out of the booth, and stood. “Thanks. See you a
round.”
Carlucci nodded, then said, “Hey, Tanner.”
“Yeah?”
“Do you have to use a police van to make your shipments?”
So, Carlucci knew. “Makes things a lot easier,” Tanner said.
“I’m sure it does. It’s a damn good thing you’re discreet.” Carlucci shrugged. “All right. See you.”
Without looking back at Deke, Tanner left.
Outside, it was already hot, though it was still early. The sky, however, was clear, and almost blue. Tanner crossed the street to the Tundra’s open space park. There were no trees in the park, only stunted clumps of mutated plants that had managed to emerge after the defoliants had been dropped onto the Tundra two years before.
Tanner sat on a stone bench that was still slightly damp from an early-morning rain. He didn’t feel like moving, didn’t want to do anything but sit in the growing heat and let it work through him. His shipment from the orbitals wasn’t coming down until the next day, and he had nothing else going until then. He closed his eyes and tilted his head back, directly facing the sun.
A burst of shouts and the roar of board motors brought Tanner upright, eyes open. From the other end of the park, a girl was racing toward him on a motorized board, hand working the rear control line, weaving along the concrete path. Fifty feet behind her was a pack of thrashers in pursuit. The girl was grinning.
As she got closer, Tanner recognized her—it was the girl from the junkyard. Once again a pang of familiarity went through him, then faded when he could not lock it down. People moved out of the girl’s path, and she swung wide around him, throttle full open, then shot out of the park and into the street, moving skillfully among the cars.
The thrasher pack went past, following her into the street. Two of them crashed into cars, tumbling to the ground, the boards spinning their wheels. Brakes squealed, people yelled, the thrashers yelled back. The girl, two blocks past the park, turned a corner and was gone from sight. Those thrashers still on their boards, seven or eight of them, followed her around the corner, and they, too, were gone.
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