There were three more songs on the disc, but Carlucci just listened to them, eyes closed, silently pumping the valves with his fingers. Then the disc ended, and Carlucci remained motionless in the dark, listening to the near silence.
Sometime later he heard the muted sounds of the front door, then footsteps overhead. Andrea was home.
By the time he got upstairs, she was already in the shower. Carlucci knocked on the door, stepped into the bathroom. “It’s me,” he said. He watched her moving behind the shower door, her image distorted by the wedge-cut glass.
“I hope it’s you,” Andrea said. “Were you in the basement? I didn’t hear any music.”
“Yes.” Carlucci closed the toilet lid and sat on it, leaning back against the tank. “I was listening to music earlier. Then I was just thinking.”
“Sitting alone in the dark again,” she said. “Brooding, I’d bet.”
Carlucci didn’t reply. He listened to the way the water sounds changed as she moved beneath the shower head. “How was your day?” he asked. She was an attorney at a firm that specialized in environmental law. She only worked three days a week, but they tended to be long days.
“Terrible and way too long.”
“Why?”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” she said. It was her standard answer. Andrea never wanted to talk about work when she got home. The next morning would be different, and she would tell him all about it over breakfast. But he always asked.
Andrea turned off the shower. “You want to hand me a towel?” she said. “Please?”
Carlucci stood, got a dry towel from the rack, then brought it to the shower. Andrea opened the door, stuck her head and arm out and took the towel from him. “Thank you.” Before she had a chance to retreat, Carlucci leaned forward and kissed her, getting his mouth, cheek, and nose wet. Andrea dried his face with the towel. “How was your day?” she asked as she pulled the door shut and began drying herself.
“About like yours, I imagine. Terrible.”
“The mayor’s nephew, or that other matter?” The “other matter” was Paula Asgard and Chick Roberts. Carlucci had told her the night before about his talk with Paula at The Bright Spot.
“Both,” he said. “And they’re both getting worse, in their own ways.” He stood in front of the sink, watching the water drip from the faucet. He still hadn’t gotten around to replacing the damn washer.
Andrea stepped out of the shower with the towel wrapped around her head, and Carlucci gazed affectionately at her nude body. She was about five foot six, and no longer as slender as she once had been. In recent years she had put a little weight on her hips, a small pot had formed on her belly, and her breasts had begun to sag a bit. She was absolutely beautiful.
“You’re beautiful,” he said.
Andrea smiled, then waved at him to leave. “Go on, let me do my things.”
Carlucci walked out of the bathroom, leaving the door partway open, and lay on the bed, listening to the sounds Andrea made at the sink.
“How bad is it?” she asked.
“Which one?”
“The one the woman came to you about.”
“Worse than I’d thought it would be.” He turned onto his side, facing the bathroom door, and watched her shadow move across its surface. “Ruben’s being forced by McCuller and Vaughn to stay on the case and bury it.”
“Frank, I thought they couldn’t do that.”
“So did I,” he said. “This is the first time I’ve heard of it.” He sighed heavily. “He probably could have fought it and won, but he’s afraid. He’s got too much to lose.”
Andrea’s face appeared in the doorway. “Does this mean they could do it to you, Frank?”
“I don’t know.” It was the only answer he had for her. That was another reason he was willing to take risks and dig into this thing. If the honchos got away with it this time, they would be more likely to try it again, maybe even with him.
Andrea slowly shook her head, then returned to the sink. “What are you going to do?”
“A little digging. I hate what they’re doing to Ruben. And to Toni Weathers. But also for self-preservation. I don’t want them even trying something like this with me.”
She didn’t ask any more, and Carlucci lay on the bed in silence, listening to her, watching the shadows, and thinking. After a while he closed his eyes, not trying to sleep, just to stop the burning.
“Frank?”
He opened his eyes, and she stood in the doorway, the towel now draped over her shoulder, her wet hair falling free. “Yes?”
“Why don’t you get undressed and get into bed?”
“It’s too early.”
“No it’s not,” she said.
He knew that tone in her voice. “Ah,” he said, smiling. “Aren’t you tired?”
“Not even close.” She smiled back at him. “I’ll be out in a couple minutes.”
Carlucci sat up on the bed and began to undress. He could hear the hair dryer going now. When he was completely undressed he pulled back the covers and lay naked on the bed. It was too warm to cover himself with even a single sheet.
The dryer stopped, and Andrea came out of the bathroom without the towel. She got onto the bed down near his feet, and he lay there motionless, waiting for her. She kissed her way up his legs until she came to his cock, which she gently took into her warm, wet mouth. He was hard within seconds.
A minute or two later Andrea resumed her movement upward, along his belly and chest, then lay fully across him, her face just inches from his.
“Hi, there,” she said, smiling.
Carlucci wrapped both arms around her and squeezed. “Hi.” They kissed deeply, then Carlucci moved his hands up across her shoulders, her neck, then to the sides of her face, holding her head gently in his fingers. “I love you,” he said.
“I love you, Frank.”
Carlucci wrapped his arms around her once more and pulled her tight against him, wanting to never, ever let go.
Near midnight Paula sat on the recliner in her bedroom and watched one of Chick’s homemade music videos on her TV. The track was a Pilate Error song Paula had written, “Love at Ground Zero,” a rare slow piece, slow and melancholy, a kind of slash-and-burn blues song. She wondered if Carlucci would like it.
Intercut with a distorted, digitized image of Chick singing the lyrics was footage of two naked people making love in slow motion on a sagging mattress. The faces were hidden by shadow, but Paula knew who the people were: herself and Chick. Sweat glistened on skin, on breasts and arms and thighs, reflecting orange and yellow light. She hadn’t known he was filming them at the time. He hadn’t asked, because he knew she would have refused. But once it was done, and mixed into the video, what could she say? No one would know who it was, and the footage was effective. Damn effective.
She was crying again. Soft and quiet now. God damn, she missed him.
The song ended, and then there was a close-up of Chick’s face, looking directly at her. Paula knew what was coming, and so the ache drove into her chest again. Chick silently mouthed the words, “I love you,” and then his digitized image began to slowly, slowly come apart.
“I’ll find out who killed you,” she said to his disintegrating image. “I will, Chick.”
And then what? No idea. Paula was sure that justice was not going to be easy to come by. It might even be impossible. No promises, Carlucci had said to her. Was she trying to make promises to a dead man?
The last bits of Chick’s face disappeared, leaving behind a random scattering of light and shadow. Paula stopped the player, turned off the TV.
“All right,” she said to the blank screen. “No promises.”
Paula lay back in the chair, closed her eyes, and tried to ease away the pain.
PART TWO
7
CARLUCCI WAS DREAMING. He was on a train to Seattle, and had just realized something was terribly wrong, when a phone started ringing somewhere on the train. He co
uldn’t see the phone, but it seemed to be getting closer, louder with each ring, and then he realized he was dreaming and the phone was his own, pulling and dragging him out of the dream.
The train shook and broke apart and Carlucci opened his eyes. The phone beside the bed rang again. The clock said 3:25 A.M. Fuck. He was still half back in the dream, only barely awake. When he was younger he came awake almost instantly. Another ring and he grabbed for the phone, picked it up, put it against his head. “Yeah?”
“Frank, this is Pete. Sorry to wake you up.”
Oh, shit. “What is it, Pete?”
“You’re going to want to see this one, Frank.”
“Who’s the victim?”
“I’d rather not say. Let me give you the address.”
“All right, hold on a sec.” Carlucci swung his legs over the side of the bed and sat up, turned on the tiny nightstand lamp, picked up the pen and pad beside it. “Fire away.”
It was an address in Pacific Heights, but it wasn’t familiar. Carlucci repeated the address back to LaPlace, then took down the phone number.
“Is Joseph there with you?”
“Yeah,” LaPlace said. “He’s going through the place right now with Porkpie.”
“Good. Okay, I’ll be right out. See you in a few minutes.”
Carlucci hung up the phone and remained seated on the edge of the bed, still trying to wake up. He felt old.
“Who was that?” Andrea asked, her voice little more than a mumble.
“Pete.” He looked over at her, but she was on her side, facing away from him. Usually she slept through his middle-of-the-night phone calls.
“Somebody dead?” she asked.
Carlucci almost laughed. “Yeah, of course.” He expected her to ask who, but she didn’t say anything. “I was dreaming,” he said. Andrea mumbled something. “I was on a train to Seattle. I’d thought I could take the train to Seattle, do some business, then take the train back in time for dinner the same day. Once I was on the train, I realized I’d badly miscalculated, that it took twenty hours to get to Seattle. Then the phone rang and I woke up.”
“You can’t take a train from here to Seattle,” Andrea said. “You have to go over to Oakland.”
“I know that,” Carlucci said. “It was a dream.” He realized then that Andrea was still half asleep. “I’ve got to go,” he said. He got up from the bed. “I’ll be back when I can.”
“Is somebody dead?” Andrea asked again.
“Yes,” Carlucci said. “Somebody’s dead.”
Carlucci had to show his police ID to get through the security checkpoint and drive into the Rio Grande section of Pacific Heights, which turned his foul mood even blacker. Rio Grande, what a crock. The only running water in Pacific Heights was in the water mains and sewers. Carlucci hated the whole setup—the residents had put together a self-appointed council and talked and bribed the city into selling them the public roads in the Rio Grande section so they could put up their own checkpoints, hire their own security forces, and keep out the “undesirables.” Two other parts of the city had done the same thing since, and several more were working on it.
Carlucci parked several houses down from the address LaPlace had given him and remained in the car a minute, looking over the street. It was still dark, without even a hint of the coming dawn. Two unmarked police cars, a black-and-white, the coroner’s van, and a Rio Grande Security car were all congregated in front of a beautiful three-story Victorian house, its windows lit up. All the other homes on the street were dark, but Carlucci thought he could make out movement in some of the windows—morbid curiosity tugged at the wealthy, too.
He got out of the car and walked up to the brightly lit Victorian. A Rio Grande Security guard stopped him on the porch, then let him through after he again showed his ID. Carlucci was ready to chew someone’s nose off.
Just inside the front door, bare feet swinging about eye level with the three cops standing around it, the blood-streaked body of a naked man hung from the stair railing above the entryway, neck impaled on a huge, sharp metal hook; a long, thin spike ran through his belly and emerged from his spine. Carlucci stared up at the dead man’s face for a minute, but couldn’t place it. It didn’t even look familiar. It also didn’t look happy—undamaged, but in agony, eyes and mouth both open wide.
Hong was one of the cops. Mason, the coroner’s assistant, was another. Both men were smoking. Carlucci didn’t recognize the third, a woman uniform.
“Jesus,” Carlucci said. He looked at Hong. “Who is he, Joseph?”
“Robert Butler.”
Robert Butler? Then it hit him, and he realized why LaPlace had called him. Robert Butler was one of the names on the Prime Level Feed given to the slugs on the mayor’s nephew’s case. Business partner or something like that.
Carlucci stepped around Butler’s body, toward the uniform, and put out his hand, gaze flicking back and forth between her and the body. Butler had been in good shape, maybe even handsome. Hard to tell with that look on his face. “Lieutenant Carlucci,” he said.
The uniform shook his hand. “Officer Martha Tretorn,” she said. “My partner and I were first-on-scene.”
“Tretorn,” Carlucci said, looking at her. “I’ve heard good things about your work.”
She gave him just a touch of a smile, said, “Thank you, sir.”
“Where’s Pete?” he asked, looking at Hong.
“In the first-floor flat,” he said, gesturing down the hall at a closed door. “Talking to the woman who found the body. Butler owned the building, lived on the upper two floors, and rented out the first. The woman found him. On her way out, or in—there seems to be some ‘confusion’ over that.”
“She doesn’t know whether she was coming home or going out when she found the body?” Carlucci said.
Hong nodded. “Let’s just say the story is in a state of flux. I couldn’t get much from her; she didn’t seem to want to talk to me.” Hong gave Carlucci a hard smile. “Wrong kind of eyes, I think. That’s why Pete’s with her now.”
“Hey,” Mason broke in. “Can we take him down now? Porkpie’s got all the pictures. They wanted me to wait until you got here so you could see him.” Mason grinned. “They probably wanted you to see the schlong this guy has. Pretty fucking amazing, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” Carlucci said, not smiling. “Amazing.” He shook his head, then nodded. “Sure, Mason, take him down. Where’s Porkpie?”
“Upstairs, on another run-through of Butler’s place.”
“All right, Joseph, let’s go up. You’ve been through it once?” Hong nodded, and Carlucci said, “You can give me a rundown, then.” He turned to Tretorn. “Go ahead and help Mason get the body down,” he said. “You’ll love working with him. He’s a lot of laughs.”
Again, that touch of a smile from Tretorn. “I’ve noticed, sir. I’ll be glad to help.”
Carlucci and Hong climbed the wooden steps, followed by Mason and Tretorn, who would have to work on getting the body down from the top of the stairs. As Carlucci and Hong reached the open door, Tretorn said, “Lieutenant?”
“Yes?”
“My partner’s inside with the crime-scene techs. Sinclair. Could you send her out to give us a hand?”
“Sure.” Sinclair. He knew that name. What had he heard about her? But then, entering the hall and looking toward the kitchen, where Sinclair stood in the doorway, he remembered. Sinclair was a stunning woman about six foot four, with long blonde hair tied at the base of her neck and hanging halfway down her back.
“Sinclair?” Carlucci said. The tall blonde turned to him. “Tretorn needs a hand out there.” Sinclair nodded and walked past them and out of the apartment.
Carlucci stuck his head into the kitchen. One of the crime-scene techs was on her hands and knees, picking up something with tweezers. Porkpie was sitting on a stool at the counter, smoking a cigarette. He shook his head at Carlucci, which meant he was working, thinking about something, and shouldn
’t be disturbed. Which was fine with Carlucci. Porkpie was the department’s top crime-scene tech. Carlucci backed out of the kitchen and gestured for Hong to join him in a room off the hall, which turned out to be a library. All the walls were covered by bookcases; there was a large work desk and chair, and two reading chairs.
“Joseph, how did you and Pete get called in on this? Not just coincidence, is it?”
Hong smiled. “No. Pete and I got McCuller to let us put a tracer into the system, keyed to all the names, addresses, and phone numbers on the Prime Level Feed. Anything that would come up on any of those people, even a parking ticket, would trigger a call. When Butler’s address came up on the 911 call, Minsky called us in. We weren’t far behind Tretorn and Sinclair. We held off until we had a pretty firm ID on Butler, then Pete called you.”
Carlucci nodded, said, “Good work, Joseph. Look, I haven’t had a chance to go through all the Feed text yet; all I did Friday was take a run at the names. What’s Butler’s connection to the nephew? Something about business dealings, right?”
“Yes. They owned several companies together. An investment firm, another that does bio-implant research, a pharmaceutical distributor, and the largest recruiting company in the city.”
“Recruiters? The vans?”
Hong nodded. “Yes, that kind of recruiting. Scumbuckets. The companies have been indicted several times.”
“Ah,” Carlucci said, interest rising. “What for?”
“Securities fraud. Attempted bribery. Data theft. Twice for false imprisonment.”
“False imprisonment because of what the recruiters were doing?”
“Yep.”
“Let me guess,” Carlucci said. “No convictions.”
“You got it.”
Carlucci nodded. “Big fucking surprise.” He glanced around the library, but didn’t see anything that immediately caught his eye. “All right, let’s go look around the place, show me what you and Porkpie found.”
Carlucci Page 30