Carlucci

by Richard Paul Russo

  The hall floor was beige linoleum, edged with ragged strips of rotten carpet that had once covered the floor. Offices on the Core side of the building were dark and silent. On the other side were lighted door windows of frosted glass, muffled voices, the clatter of machinery, music, and the whine of a dentist’s drill. At the end of the hall was a staircase, which they climbed to the tenth floor. Here, all the offices were dark and silent.

  Lyuda unlocked a door on the Core side of the building, and they entered a dark room. She took Tanner’s hand and led him through the darkness, along a corridor, then into another room with two large windows. They stepped up to the windows, and looked out onto the Core.

  The Core was four square blocks of hell. Some people thought the hell was literal, and believed supernatural demons and ghosts haunted the place. Most of the buildings were in ruins, and those that were not looked as if they soon would be. Unlike the rest of the Tenderloin, the streets and buildings of the Core were not brightly lit, though a few dim lights were visible in the ruins—wavering lights of candles or fires, pulsing blue glows, drifting clouds of pale phosphorescence. The streets were deserted except for the shadowy movement of animals.

  Tanner had heard the stories, though no one really knew for sure what went on inside. The Core was populated by those who could not, or would not, cut it in either the city or the Tenderloin. For all that the Tenderloin functioned outside the laws of the city, state, and country, it did function quite well with a structure and order of its own. The Core, so the stories went, had no order, no structure, no laws or rules or morals. Nothing. Tanner suspected it was not quite the chaos-driven place it was said to be, but certainly the rules were different. The Core itself existed, but that was all that could be said of it.

  Lyuda raised the window, and Tanner half expected to hear wild screams and wailing, but there was relative quiet. Several floors up in the building across the way, something resembling a large cat stuck its head out a window and growled. A huge, furred hand grabbed it and pulled it back inside.

  “You don’t think Rattan’s in there, do you?” Tanner asked.

  Lyuda shook her head. “He’s not insane.” She looked at her watch. “Quiet, now. Listen. It’s almost time.” She gestured at the Core.

  For what? But Tanner kept quiet, and listened.

  The Core, already quiet, grew quieter still, almost completely silent. Even the surrounding areas of the Tenderloin became quiet. An acoustic guitar began playing somewhere inside one of the buildings across the street. The sound, loud and clearly defined, echoed among the ruins, and Tanner could not pinpoint its origin. The music was classical and delicate, with a Latin feel. Then a woman’s voice joined it.

  Her voice was strong and beautiful, a clean, high soprano. She sang something from an opera, Tanner thought, though he did not recognize it. The words were Spanish or Italian, he couldn’t be sure. Clearly, she’d had professional training. There was no way anyone could sing like that without years of training and practice. And here she was, singing from within the Core.

  Tanner stood and listened, amazed at what he was hearing, amazed at where it came from. Spanish, he finally decided. A love song of some kind, filled with yearning, tempered with anxiety. He searched the ruins, looking for a light or something that would tell him where she was. He saw nothing.

  The song ended. There was a brief silence, then the guitar started in on another song, playing a few measures before the woman joined it again. This song was sadder than the first, melancholy and quite moving, though again Tanner had no idea what any of the words meant. Her voice had great power, and Tanner felt a dull ache develop in his chest. During the most intense section of the piece, the woman hit a series of incredibly high notes with such painful perfection that a shiver ran through Tanner from his neck to the base of his spine, leaving a strange chill in its wake.

  By the time the second song was finished, the sky had noticeably brightened, and morning was fully upon them. There was another extended silence, then the natural city sounds gradually resumed, filling the morning air. There was no more guitar, no more singing. Lyuda closed the window.

  “She sings every Saturday at dawn,” Lyuda said. “Started about three and a half months ago.”

  “Who is she?”

  “No one really knows. I’ve heard of people who say they recognize her voice, who say it’s Elisabetta Machiotti.”

  “Name sounds familiar,” Tanner said. “But…” He shrugged.

  “A highly acclaimed soprano with the Berlin Opera who disappeared a year ago. But like I said, no one really knows. Whoever she is, though, she’s really quite good.” She looked at her watch again. “Arkady should be here any minute now.”

  They waited without speaking for several minutes, watching the morning sky brighten. Tanner could see the first reflections of the rising sun glint off glass and metal on building roofs in the Core.

  The office door opened, closed, and a moment later a tall, young blond man walked into the room. Lyuda shook the man’s hand.

  “Arkady…Tanner,” she said. “Tanner…Arkady.”

  Tanner nodded at Arkady and they shook hands. Arkady nodded back, then turned to Lyuda and began speaking in Russian. She replied, also in Russian, and Tanner realized their entire conversation was going to proceed in a language he did not understand. At first he watched them, watched their faces and listened to their voices, hoping to get some sense of the conversation. But their expressions told him nothing, nor did their voices, and soon he stopped even trying to understand.

  Tanner turned back to the window and looked out onto the Core. Although he could not see anyone in or around any of the buildings, did not directly detect any motion, he was struck by a vague sense of movement from within the ruins, a shifting of atmospheric patterns. Something. An alien place. Though the heat of the day was growing, the sweat already filming across his skin, he could somehow imagine a light dusting of snow laid over the Core, cold and silent.

  Elisabetta Machiotti. In a way it did not matter who the woman was. What mattered was that she was in the Core, and that she sang. Tanner was certain that most people would be dumbfounded at the idea of a world-famous opera singer living in the Core; but, amazed and awed as he was by the woman’s performance in that hellhole, Tanner was not any more surprised at her presence in the Core than he was at the presence of anyone in that place. Given that the Core existed, why not a world-famous opera singer?

  The conversation stopped, and Tanner turned away from the window. Arkady nodded once at him, shook hands with Lyuda again, then walked out of the room. A few moments later Tanner heard the outer door open and close. He looked at Lyuda, who shook her head.

  “I don’t have a damn thing for you,” she said.

  “Nothing?”

  “Nothing. No one has any idea where he is, and no one wants to know. Something’s in the air with Rattan, but nobody knows what. Something more than Max, though Max doesn’t make the situation any easier. People don’t want to deal with Max, and people don’t even want to talk about Rattan.” She shook her head. “You’re going up against thick walls, Tanner. You want, I can keep asking around, put out a few sensors, but Arkady was my best shot, and to be honest I’m not wild about the idea of pushing it any further. I’ve got myself to watch for.”

  “No,” Tanner said. “It’s not worth the risk. I have some other lines to try. I appreciate what you did, and let’s leave it there.” He turned to the window once more, looking out at the Core as if it somehow had the answers he was searching for. He knew it did not have the answers to anything, but he gazed at it all the same.

  Lyuda joined him at the window. “You know what she is?” Lyuda asked.

  “The woman who sang?”

  Lyuda nodded. “You’ll think I’m crazy, but…” There was a long pause, and Tanner waited silently for her to continue. “Hope,” Lyuda said. “That’s what I think of when I hear her sing.”

  Tanner stared at the Core. Hope. Not
even close to what he now felt. Standing at the edge of the Core, with no leads to Rattan, no leads to a psycho who was going to keep on killing again and again and again, all Tanner felt was despair.

  26

  SOOKIE KNEW THAT voice. Hearing those songs made her want to cry. She didn’t understand any of the words, but the tears came anyway. It was the third time she’d heard the woman sing. Who was she? Sookie thought the woman must be trapped in the Core, chained to a wall, unable to do anything but sing.

  Two songs, then the woman stopped. Sookie closed her eyes, still crying a little, listening, hoping for another song. But there wasn’t any more.

  She wiped away the tears, looked into the Core. It was filled with long shadows from the rising sun. Sookie sat on top of one of the street barricades at the edge of the Core. Mixer would think she was crazy, but she wasn’t afraid, as long as she was outside.

  She’d been inside the Core once, by accident. Not far inside. A couple of years ago, when she’d been younger and kind of stupid. She’d been running away from someone, middle of the night, she didn’t remember who or why. She’d climbed one of the barricades to get away, dropped down to the other side, then run across the street and into the closest wrecked building. She hadn’t really known what the Core was, not then. She didn’t really know what it was now, either, but now she knew enough to stay out.

  No one had followed her over the barrier or across the street. Sookie had figured she was safe. She was inside a dark and dusty room, with a couple windows looking out on the street. Silver light from across the road came in through the windows, lighting up the dust. Something brushed her foot and she jumped away. A huge rat as big as a small dog scampered through one of the light beams and Sookie squealed. Rats didn’t bother her too much, but she’d never seen one that big.

  Then she heard a moaning laugh from the corner of the room. A click, then a pale light came on overhead. Sookie saw a young woman dressed in a white body suit crouched at the edge of a pit in the floor. The woman, head shaved, held a metal pipe in one hand and a hammer in the other. Her mouth was open, making the moaning laugh. Then the laugh stopped.

  The woman leaped across the pit and ran at Sookie, pipe and hammer held high. Sookie turned and ran, stumbled, fell. The woman couldn’t stop, tripped over Sookie, yowling. Sookie scrambled to her feet, headed for the door. Something hit her arm—the hammer. She made it to the door, out, onto the street, and dashed for the barricade. The woman did not follow her out of the building. Her arm hurt, but she clambered up the barricade. Someone grabbed her, helped her up and over and back into the Tenderloin. It was a spikehead who had helped her up. That was how she had met Mixer, escaping from the Core.

  Sookie shivered, remembering. Sometimes she dreamed about that woman. In her dreams, the woman sometimes shouted “Dinner!” just before leaping across the pit at Sookie. In her dreams, the woman always caught her.

  Clouds started to fill the sky. It was going to rain soon. Sookie climbed down from the barricade and returned to the head of the alley. She stood and watched the store entrances, waiting for Tanner to reappear.

  27

  TANNER WAS SOAKED by the time he reached Hannah and Rossi’s, drenched by a second and unexpected cloudburst. He dripped water on the carpets as he climbed the stairs, walked down the hall, then entered the apartment. The place was quiet. There was no sign of Hannah, and Rossi was asleep in the bedroom, lying faceup on the bed. In the bathroom, Tanner undressed, hung everything on hooks and racks. He took a short, cool shower, then put on clean, dry clothes.

  He stretched out on the couch and tried to sleep. He was hot, exhausted, and depressed, and sleep would not come. A clock ticked weakly in the bedroom. Someone in the building was playing loud music, and Tanner could feel the beat gently thumping up from the floor and through the sofa. He looked up at the blue-painted cracks in the ceiling and imagined water dripping from them, splashing across his face, cooling him. Sweat trickled under his arms, down his neck.

  He was nowhere. Things were slipping away from him. He and Carlucci knew no more now than they had several days before, which meant they were losing ground. And tonight he would head back into the Tenderloin and go through it all again. Flying blind, that’s what it felt like. How long could he keep it going without making a mistake? It did not matter how careful he was, eventually there would come a night when he would ask the wrong person the wrong question, like he had with Max, or simply be in the wrong place. Tanner wondered again if he would survive the summer.

  Unable to sleep, he got up from the couch and walked into the kitchen. It was still a mess of food and filthy plates and stained glasses. Hannah, too, had given up on a lot. Well, it gave him something to do.

  Tanner spent the next hour washing dishes and glasses and silverware, cleaning counters, putting some of the food away while dumping most of it into the garbage. He swept the floors and washed the table. Then he dug through the cupboards, looking for something to drink. There was plenty of gin, but he couldn’t stand the stuff. In the back of a cupboard, behind some jars of Hungarian preserves, he found a dusty pint of cheap scotch.

  He fixed himself a drink, drank it slowly, then fixed another. It had been a long time since he had needed alcohol to sleep. His thoughts were scattered, but they kept moving through his head at wild speeds, and he needed something to slow them down, ease them back, put them away for a little while. So he sat at the table and drank.

  When he finished his third drink he returned to the front room. A pleasant warmth had settled in his limbs, and his thoughts had slowed and fuzzed over. He lay out on the couch, staring at the blue cracks once more, then closed his eyes. Heat of the day, warmth of the scotch. It was enough. Tanner slid slowly and softly into sleep.

  Tanner woke to the sensation of being watched. He lay facing the back of the sofa, and he slowly turned over to see Hannah in the overstuffed chair, gazing at him. The room was stuffy and hot, late-afternoon sun slashing in through the window. Hannah’s face was in shadow from her nose up, her mouth and chin brightly lit.

  “How long have you been there?” he asked.

  “About a half hour,” Hannah said. “Couldn’t think of anything better to do.” She looked beat, as usual.

  Tanner sat up, stretched cramped muscles, popping neck and shoulder bones. He felt as tired as Hannah looked.

  “Where’s Rossi?”

  “Down at the Lucky Nines having a few beers with the guys. It’s a daily ritual.” She ran her hand slowly through her hair, watching him. “Make love to me, Louis.”

  Tanner stared at her a few moments without answering, then said quietly, “No, Hannah.”

  “Louis…”

  “No, Hannah.”

  She looked away from him. The sun was dropping quickly now, and the stream of light had worked up to the bridge of her nose, just below her eyes.

  “You did a hell of a job in the kitchen,” she said. “You’d make someone a good wife.” She turned back to him. “I just don’t care about much anymore.”

  Tanner did not know what to say. He did not want to be sucked down into the pit of Hannah and Rossi’s life; he had enough problems of his own. But he had known them both a long time, Hannah for more than twenty years. Hannah had known Carla, had been there to help him through all the shit when Carla had died.

  “I know,” Hannah said. “You want to know why I don’t leave him.”

  “I’m not going to ask that anymore,” Tanner said. “I know it’s not that simple.”

  Hannah sank back slowly into the chair. Now her entire face was bathed in the deep red glow of the setting sun, and she squinted against the glare.

  “Look at us,” Hannah said. “I should leave Rossi, and you should never have left Valerie. You and Valerie are both still paying for Carla’s death.”

  “She died fifteen years ago,” Tanner said. “They don’t have anything to do with each other.”

  “You don’t think so?”

  Tanner shook h
is head. “No.”

  Hannah slowly shook her head in return, a sad smile working its way onto her face, but she did not say anything. She closed her eyes for a few moments, then opened them slightly, still squinting in the sun. Tanner waited for her to speak, but she remained silent.

  “I’ll buy you dinner,” he finally said.

  Hannah sighed and nodded. “All right.” She stood up from the chair and went to the front door. Tanner got to his feet, joined her, and they left.

  When they got back from dinner, Tanner called Carlucci. He suggested meeting at the apartment, but Carlucci refused; he did not want to take the chance of seeing Rossi. Instead, they agreed to meet at a coffee shop down the street.

  Tanner arrived first and sat at a booth by the front window. He ordered coffee from the sour-looking waitress, and while he waited for it he looked around the restaurant. The place was dirty and run down, which matched most of the customers at the tables and counter. A pall of despair hung over the place, cut through with the smells of charred toast and frying fat. A thin layer of grease on the window blurred his view of the street.

  When the coffee arrived, Tanner looked at it with concern. It was too dark, and a burnt smell drifted up from the cup. He sipped it tentatively and burned the tip of his tongue; the coffee was so hot he could not really taste it, which was probably just as well.

  He could not stop thinking about what Hannah had said about Valerie and Carla. Carla had died fifteen years ago, he must have let that go by now. Right? But Hannah’s words stuck hard somewhere inside him, almost painful, and he could not shake them loose. Which made him think there was something to them. He did not want to think about it, though, he could not afford to right now. There were too many other, more immediate, concerns. Like the Chain Killer. So why couldn’t he stop thinking about it?