Carlucci

by Richard Paul Russo

  Tanner watched and listened, but nothing happened. He tilted his head back, and closed his eyes once more.

  5

  SOOKIE WAS FLYING. Chase scene. The stolen board hummed along slick and smooth. She’d picked a good one. She laughed, thinking of the thrasher she’d tumbled to get the board.

  The other thrashers. She didn’t look around, but she knew they were behind her, she could hear the motors. The shouts. The swearing. Wind lifted her hair, flapped her shirt. Sookie took another corner, wheels skidding across the pavement, fishtailing. She leaned, throttled up and straightened, then jumped the curb and shot along the sidewalk. Clattering wheels. Zoom!

  People on the sidewalk scattered, some yelling at her, arms waving. They didn’t know. Zap. Sookie swerved, went off the curb, hit the street. She angled across, wheels caught for a moment in a drain grate, then jarred loose as she tumbled from the board. She rolled back onto her feet, righted the board, and jumped back onto it. Sookie throttled up, flying again.

  She shot down an alley. Holes and rocks. Broken windows, splintered wood. The thrashers were closer now, at least a couple of them. Sookie weaved in and out of piles of trash, emerged from the alley and turned onto the street, bouncing between a parked car and one in motion. Halfway down the block, she heard one of the thrashers go down, screaming.

  Underground. She had to get underground. She looked ahead. Two more blocks, a few more turns. Sure.

  She wanted a cigarette. She laughed. What a crazy idea! She flew. One block. Then two. She turned hard right, swung an arcing left through traffic and into another alley. She twisted the throttle, hoping to get just a little more speed. She felt terrific, terrific! Yow. The alley was clear, the ground almost smooth. She ducked under a loading platform, veered to the left.

  At the mouth of the alley, Sookie cut back right, grazing the brick corner as she jumped the curb, shot down the sidewalk. Almost immediately she cut hard right again, into a narrow gap between buildings, toward concrete stairs going down. Sookie cut the engine, squatted, and grabbed the board as she flew off the top step and dropped. She hung on as she hit the lower steps and rolled, tumbling, sprawling across the bottom. Ignoring the pain, Sookie scrambled to her feet and pushed through the broken vent screen, into the darkness of the building.

  The basement was quiet and black. She couldn’t see a thing, but she knew where she was. She coiled the control line and attached it to the board, tucked the board by feel onto a shelf above the screen, then set off across the basement. On the far side of the basement floor was a hatch leading to underground rail tunnels. As she approached the far wall, still unable to see anything, Sookie dropped to hands and knees, moved forward until she felt the hatch.

  It wouldn’t open. She adjusted her grip, pulled harder. Nothing. What was going on? Once more, on her haunches, pushing with her legs. Still nothing.

  Sookie released the handle, stood. She wondered if something was happening down in the tunnels. Belly races? Subterranean barbecue? It made her hungry, thinking about food. Why hadn’t anyone told her?

  There had to be another way out. She didn’t want to go back through the screen; not yet, anyway. Thrashers. She got out matches, used one for a light.

  The basement was nearly empty. A few shelves on the walls, the floor hatch, a cabinet, a pile of broken glass. And a wooden door in the corner. Was it there before? She couldn’t remember. Another match, and Sookie approached the door, pulled at it. Solid but unlocked. A cracking sound, and the door jerked loose, swung open. Behind the door was a short, narrow passage, another door. Sookie smiled, thinking of secret passages, hidden treasures. Electric ghosts and wailing mutants. She proceeded along the passage, lit a third match, pushed open the far door, stepped through.

  She stood in a much larger room, ceiling above ground level, grimy windows high above her letting in just enough light for her to see. Strange, old, tall machines filled the room. Cables snaked along the floor between the machines, huge pipes hung from the upper walls and ceiling. And then she saw them, glinting in the feeble light—silver chains.

  Hanging from hooks driven into the concrete walls were dozens of sets of silver chains attached to wide silver bands. Sookie stepped toward a set, reached out and touched the cold, smooth metal. Just like on the naked bodies. Beautiful. And again she wondered what they would look like on her own wrists and ankles.

  A thrum, a rumble, a high, oscillating whine. Sookie turned, stared at machines coming to life. All of them? She couldn’t tell. She saw wheels spinning, belts rolling, rods moving up and down. The floor vibrated beneath her feet, the pipes above her shook and hissed. The vibration increased, joined by a steady pounding.

  Then, in the back of the chamber, obscured by all the machines, a deep blue glow appeared. It grew, spread across the back wall, cast wavering shadows among the machines. The glow brightened and moved forward.

  Sookie went stiff, unable to move. She wanted to run, toward it or away from it, she wasn’t quite sure.

  The glow moved through the machines, like gliding on air, and as it approached, Sookie could make out a huge, vague form within it. She caught a glimpse of a hairless scalp half metal and light. Other flashes of metal. And, she thought, feathers. The edge of a wing. A voice emerged.

  “You, girl.” Man or woman? She couldn’t tell. It was smooth, sounded like it came from a machine. “Girl.”

  Sookie turned and ran. Through the door, along the short passage, into the basement. She tripped over the hatch, sprawled on the floor, scrambled to her feet. She pushed her way through the screen and into daylight, started up the steps. The board. She came back down, started to push through the screen when she felt a breath of hot air wash across her from within, heard the scraping of metal on stone. She pulled back out and ran up the steps to street level.

  On the sidewalk, Sookie stopped to catch her breath. She scanned the street, searching for the thrashers, but didn’t see any—only cars, bikes, pedestrians. She looked down at the broken vent screen and watched, waiting for something to appear. Nothing did. She lit a cigarette, turned away, and started down the street.

  6

  TANNER’S FOOTSTEPS ECHOED off concrete in the police garage, then were drowned out by the roar of an engine, tires squealing, and finally the crash of metal against cement and the shattering of glass.

  “God damnit!” someone shouted from inside the office in the far corner. “Is Walliser drunk again?” Tanner recognized Lucy Chen’s voice. Somebody else inside the lighted room laughed—Vince Patricks, probably. On the other side of the garage, a car door opened, slammed shut.

  Tanner approached the small office, and soon the awful stink of Lucy Chen’s boiling tea overwhelmed the smells of gasoline and smoke. He stopped in the doorway and looked inside.

  Lucy was sitting at her desk, head bent over a pot, breathing in the fumes of the boiling tea. Behind her, at the other desk, Vince Patricks leaned back in his chair, feet propped on the drawer handles. Wall space not filled with locked key cabinets was covered with magazine and newspaper photos taped over one another like a collage—Vince’s perpetual project. The photos were all of old men and women wearing idiotic expressions. Vince taped up his photos, Lucy brewed her tea. They both figured it was a fair arrangement.

  Tanner said hello, and Vince nodded, smiling. Lucy looked up.

  “Want some tea?”

  Vince laughed and Tanner shook his head. Lucy scowled at them, then poured herself a cup of the vile stuff; bits of slimy black herbs slopped into the cup along with the thick, dark liquid. She put the pot back on the burner and adjusted the heat.

  “Hey, Tanner,” Vince said. “Want in on the body pool? Only ten bucks a shot. Day the next bodies are found, which shift, how many, and which body of water. Sex of the victims as a tiebreaker.”

  “You’re a fucking pervert,” Lucy said.

  Vince grinned at her, then raised an eyebrow at Tanner.

  “No, thanks,” Tanner said. “I never win.”


  “You talk to Carlucci?” Lucy asked.

  Tanner nodded. “Yesterday.”

  “Get what you want from him?”

  Tanner shrugged, didn’t say anything.

  “Lucy gets what she wants from him,” Vince said.

  Ignoring him, Lucy got up, unlocked one of the key cabinets, and removed a set of keys. She tossed it to Tanner. “Seventeen-A,” she said. “And Tanner?”

  “Yeah?” He knew what was coming, part of Lucy’s ritual.

  “Bring it back with a full tank.”

  “Sure, Lucy. Thanks.” He pocketed the keys and headed toward the back of the garage.

  Inside the office, Vince said something Tanner couldn’t make out, and started laughing again. “Fuck you,” Lucy said, followed by more of Vince’s laughter. Tanner smiled to himself. A team. Some things really didn’t ever seem to change.

  Tanner drove the police van through the pelting rain. Paul sat beside him with his head against the window, eyes half-closed. The van bounced over the cracked highway, swerved around potholes. Tanner kept the speed down, unwilling to risk going more than forty. They were halfway between San Francisco and San Jose on U.S. 101, the back of the van loaded with pharmaceuticals.

  Tanner turned on the radio and tuned in to a talk show.

  “…should put more slugs to work on it, you know, cart in a few from other cities or someplace. We’ve got to stop this maniac and fry him before he kills more people.”

  “You really think that would make a difference, William? They’ve had slugs on this since the killings began.”

  “Yeah, what, two or three of them? I say get a whole hunch, fifteen or twenty, stick ’em together in a big room, and pump ’em full of that brain juice. It’s worth a shot.”

  “And how about you, William? Do you have any ideas about who the killer is or why he’s doing it?”

  “Sure, I’ve got ideas, and I’m working on them. When I have them worked out better I’ll go to the police, but I need to keep them to myself for now.”

  “Okay, William, I understand, and thanks for the call. We’re going to take a short break here, but when we come back we want to hear what you think about the return of the Chain Killer, especially if you have any ideas about who it is.”

  Bouncy music came on, then crashing sounds, and a voice-over talking about Charm Magnets. Paul turned down the volume so it was barely audible, and said, “How can you stand to listen to that?”

  “The radio?”

  “Talk shows.”

  “I learn some things from them. About people.”

  “They depress me.”

  “Most of what I learn about people is depressing.”

  Paul nodded, but didn’t say any more. He sighed and turned the volume back up.

  “…name’s Silo.”

  “All right, Silo, what’s on your mind?”

  “The cops are just giving us bull SCREEE! about these killings.”

  “All right, Silo, you’re going to have to watch your language there. This is radio. We’re in modern times here, but not that modern. So, what, you think the police are withholding information?”

  “They’re not telling us everything the killer does to ’em, to the bodies. I know. After he kills ’em he SCREE!s ’em in the SCREE! and then he…”

  “O-kay, so much for Mr. Silo. Remember, folks, keep it clean or I’ll have to cut you off, too. All right, Milpitas, you’re on the air.”

  “Hello? Hello?”

  “Hello, this is Mike on the mike, you’re on the air, Milpitas. What’s your name?”

  “Meronia.”

  “All right, Meronia, what’s on your mind?”

  Paul reached forward and switched off the radio. “Listen to it some other time,” he said. He put his head back against the glass and closed his eyes.

  The rain had stopped by the time they pulled into the Emergency entrance of Valley Medical Center. Tanner hit the horn, and a minute later Valerie, in her hospital whites, came through the double doors. Paul opened his door and Valerie squeezed in behind his seat, then crouched on the floor between them. Tanner pulled out of the drive and swung around toward the rear of the hospital.

  “It’s been a long time since you’ve had anything for us,” Valerie said.

  “I get what I can when I can.”

  “I realize that. I was just saying.”

  He drove along a narrow, looping roadway and stopped beside the laundry annex. He turned on the van’s overhead interior light, rolled back the wire barrier, then he and Valerie crawled into the small open space between the seats and the stacks of cartons.

  Valerie whistled, gazing over all the boxes and crates. “You got some shipment this time. How much is ours?”

  Tanner touched a stack. All the cartons in the van were labeled AGRICULTURAL IMPLEMENTS. “Here’s a list.” He handed her a folded sheet of paper.

  Valerie spread the paper and read it by the overhead light. She whistled again. “Beta-endoscane. Nobody but the richest of the private hospitals are even getting a crack at this stuff.” She continued reading, nodding once in a while, then refolded the paper and tucked it into the upper pocket of her hospital coat. From a larger, lower pocket, she removed a roll of bills and handed it to Tanner.

  Twenties. He unclipped the roll and started counting.

  “I know it’s not even close to black market, but it’s all we can come up with for now.”

  Tanner finished counting, then, trying to keep the disappointment out of his voice, said, “That doesn’t matter. This is fine.” A week ago it would have been fine—enough to pay the rent, buy food, and work on the next shipment. Now, though, he had a feeling he was going to have extra expenses. A lot of them. He was going to have to sell more of what remained in the van.

  Paul stayed with the van as Valerie and Tanner unloaded through the side door. They carried the cartons into the annex, through storage rooms filled with linens, the warm and damp laundry room, and along a connecting corridor that led down into the hospital basement, where they stacked the cartons in an unmarked closet. Tanner knew the procedure by now: Valerie and the other doctors would work out a distribution plan later that day, trying to keep the shipment itself quiet.

  Valerie made sure the closet was securely locked and bolted, then they swung by the doctors’ lounge, picked up three cups of coffee, and returned to the van. Tanner gave a cup to Paul, then he and Valerie sat together on folding chairs just inside the annex.

  “So how have you been?” Tanner asked.

  “Oh, I’ve been fine. Still spending too much time at the hospital, but that’s nothing new.”

  “No.” He smiled. “And Connie?”

  Valerie smiled back, shaking her head. “She’s sixteen, and she’s a pain in the ass sometimes. But she’s a good kid at heart.”

  “Yes, she is.”

  “She asks about you,” Valerie said. “How you’re doing, if I’ve seen you. She really cares about you, Louis. She never asks about her father.” She put a hand on his knee. “She’d love it if you were to come by and see her sometime, take her to a movie or something.” She paused. “She doesn’t understand why you and I aren’t still together.”

  Who did? Tanner thought. But he didn’t say anything. Neither of them did for several minutes, sipping at their coffee. The sun came in through the window, lighting up dust particles in the air, fluttering motes of bright silver. Someone had once told him that dust was primarily made up of the skeletons or shells of microscopic creatures. Dust mites.

  “So,” Valerie finally said. “It’s starting again in the city.”

  Tanner looked at her, confused for a moment. Then he realized what she was talking about, and nodded. “Looks that way.”

  “How are the nightmares?”

  Tanner shrugged. “They’d stopped.”

  He thought she would say more about it, ask something else, but she didn’t. He finished the coffee and stood.

  “I need to go.”

/>   She walked back to the van with him, kissed him lightly before he got in. “Take care of yourself, Louis.”

  “You, too.”

  “Good-bye, Paul.” She waved.

  “Bye, Valerie.”

  “Thanks again,” she said to Tanner.

  Tanner nodded and started the engine, then slowly pulled away.

  “You made a serious mistake,” Paul said, “when you stopped seeing Valerie.”

  “Christ, don’t start.”

  Paul shrugged, then said, “Back to the city?”

  “No. Make some phone calls, another couple of stops, sell some more of this stuff.”

  “You’re going to sell more?”

  “Yeah. I’m getting greedy. Just call me Uriah from now on. And help me find a pay phone that works.” He drove on without saying any more.

  7

  THEIR LAST STOP before Paul’s clinic was the free clinic in the Golden Gate Park squatter zone. The police markings on the van served as an unofficial pass, getting barriers moved and chains retracted so they could access restricted roads. Tanner drove slowly along the road fronting the Academy of Sciences, the stone walls of the buildings glistening from a recent bleaching. Schoolchildren in uniforms walked in tight formation, or clustered in well-defined groups on the steps in front of the building. Across the concourse of leafless trees, next to the manicured grounds of the Japanese Tea Gardens, the remains of the De Young Museum were covered with flowering vines.

  They had to go through one more barrier, then Tanner swung the van around and behind the De Young ruins and stopped at the edge of the squatter zone—drab tents patched with faded swatches of colored fabric, shanties built of warped plywood and irregular sheets of metal or plastic, lean-tos erected over slabs of concrete. The zone filled a large meadow and sent out dozens of tentacles into the least dense sections of the surrounding woods, the trees and brush cut down to make more space for tents and shanties and to provide firewood. Mud-slick paths wound among the dwellings, the paths crowded with adults and children and animals.