Mixer breathed deeply twice. “I survived the trial,” he said. “Never happened before. The trial always leaves the accused dead, or a mental washout. I survived.”
“But the Saints announced you did die in the trial.”
“Most of the Saints think I did. Apparently I looked dead when they hauled me away. Saint Katherine and Saint Lucy are the only ones who know I’m alive. They saved my life. They got a doctor for me, nursed me. Saint Katherine and Saint Lucy saved my life.”
“It was Saint Katherine’s trial?”
“Right.”
“And who took the contract to kill you?”
“Saint Katherine and Saint Lucy,” Mixer said, smiling.
“Then why the hell did they save your life?”
“It’s complicated.” After a long pause, Mixer shook his head. “No, I’m not going to try to explain it. It doesn’t matter.”
“But they announced that you had died.”
Mixer nodded. “For my protection. And theirs. We’re all better off if the mayor and his pals think I’m dead.”
Carlucci sipped more of the bad Scotch. He needed it. “All right, then. What do you know about this?”
Mixer drank, shifted in the chair; he slid his right arm slowly back and forth across the table, making a harsh, scratching noise. “Body-bags, to start with. Chick and I boot-legged them. We were in it with Jenny Woo and Poppy Chandler. The mayor’s nephew provided a lot of the big financing.”
“Body-bags,” Carlucci said, shaking his head. He pictured a man completely wrapped in neural nets, twitching and twitching, eyes rolled back, foam spattering from his mouth. “Nice business,” he said.
Mixer looked away, seemed to gaze out the kitchen window. There was nothing outside to be seen except grate-covered windows and crumbling brick across the way. “Yeah,” Mixer said, “it’s a fucked business. It’s what we did.” He turned back to Carlucci. “But it’s not something to get killed over.”
“So what is?”
Mixer shrugged. “Chick had something going with Kashen, or had hooked something from Kashen, I could never be sure. The nephew, not the mayor. Chick didn’t talk about it, except to say he’d finally gone nuclear, and was going to make enough money never to have to do a deal again. He was going to retire.” Mixer shook his head. “Well, he retired all right.”
“And you don’t know what he had?”
“No. Something to do with New Hong Kong, something to do with the mayor. It was all messy. Kashen and his uncle, that was a wonky deal, too. Kashen couldn’t stand his uncle, but they were connected, they were logged into each other. Kashen was doing something for him, something to do with New Hong Kong. But the way Kashen talked, he was getting ready to screw over his uncle somehow.” Mixer shrugged again. “I think Chick was mixed up in all that. And Chick…man, that guy never knew when he was in over his head, and he always was. He wasn’t nearly as smart as he thought he was, and it finally got him killed.” He raised a ragged eyebrow at Carlucci, a distorted gesture with all the scarring. “That’s what I know,” he said. “Which shouldn’t be enough to get me killed, but it just about did.” He drank again, then held the mug out toward Carlucci. “I plan to know a hell of a lot more.” He lowered his mug, then raised his right arm, rotating it slightly and wincing. “I’ve already paid for it, and I’m going to know just what the fuck I’ve paid for.”
“How are you going to do that?” Carlucci asked.
“I don’t know yet. Saint Katherine and Saint Lucy will help me, and they have a lot of strange contacts. And there’s something else. You know who Tremaine is?”
Tremaine again. Carlucci nodded.
“He’s digging into this mess,” Mixer said. “He’s been asking Paula about Chick. I got a feeling he might know more about what’s going on than any of us.”
Wouldn’t be the first time, Carlucci thought. “I think I want to talk to him,” Carlucci said.
“Yeah, so do I. Might not be too hard. He’s been seeing Paula, I think.”
“What do you mean?”
“Like, personally. You know.” Mixer gave a harsh laugh. “Like maybe they’re slippin’ ’n’ slidin’ between the sheets.” He closed his eyes for a few moments, then opened them. “I don’t know,” he said, somber now. “I think it started, he was asking her about Chick, and something happened between them. Sparks or something.”
Sparks. Carlucci hadn’t heard from Sparks yet, and he should have by now. If Paula and Tremaine were spending time together, what did that mean? Anything?
“I need to talk to Tremaine,” he said to Mixer.
“I’m going to see Paula soon, let her know I’m still alive. I’ll let her know you want to talk to him. I’ll let her know I want to talk to him.” He brought the mug to his lips, then looked down into it. “Fuck the coffee.” He set the mug down, poured Scotch into it. He looked at Carlucci. “More?”
Carlucci finished off the Scotch in his mug, then held the mug out to Mixer. Mixer poured. “Tell Paula not to mention to Tremaine that I’m looking into Chick’s death. Just that it’s to do with the mayor’s nephew.”
“Okay.”
They drank a while in silence. Mixer was obviously in pain, but didn’t say anything.
“Is there anything you need?” Carlucci eventually asked. “Something I can do for you?”
“No,” Mixer said. “What I need you can’t give me.” He paused, shaking his head. “Shit, I feel like an old man. Not just physically.” He raised his right arm and gestured at his head with metal and flesh, not quite touching it with his fingers. “In here, too. I feel older inside.”
“Wiser?” Carlucci asked.
Mixer smiled. “No, just older.”
Mixer had survived the trial, he was still alive, but Carlucci wondered if he would ever really recover. “Are you all right here?” he asked. “They’re not holding you? Against your will?”
“No, I’m fine. I know it sounds weird, but Saint Katherine and Saint Lucy are doing everything they can for me.”
It was hard to believe, but Carlucci didn’t doubt Mixer. There was a lot more going on here than he understood. He knew that much. He also knew it was time to go.
“Is there anything else?” he asked Mixer.
Mixer shook his head. “This was just about Chick, at first,” he said. “That’s all. Paula and I wanted to find out who killed him, and why. But there’s more now. I want to see this whole fucking thing blown open. I want to know what the fuck is going on, and I want to see people pay. Anything I find out, I’ll let you know. I want you to do the same.”
Carlucci stood up from the table, shaking his head. “I can’t promise that, Mixer.”
“I know. Do what you can, though. Yeah?”
Carlucci nodded. “I will.” Then, “I’ve got to go.”
“Downstairs, Saint Lucy’s waiting. She’ll make sure you get out okay.”
“If I see Paula before you do…”
Mixer shook his head. “Don’t tell her you’ve seen me. I need to do that thing myself.”
“All right.” Carlucci started to leave, then turned back to Mixer. “Take care of yourself.”
Mixer smiled and nodded.
20
MIXER HAD PUT it off for days, but now he finally went by his apartment. It was only a couple of blocks from where he was staying with St. Katherine and St. Lucy, but it seemed much farther; he felt he was walking into the past. He still had his keys—the Saints had saved his things after the trial—and he used them and his code to get into the building. He passed on the elevator and climbed the three flights of stairs to the fourth floor.
He didn’t need his keys to get into his apartment. The door was wide open. Christ, he thought, nobody had even bothered to shut the door, not even his neighbors. How long had it been like this? Days? A week?
Inside, nothing. The place had been picked clean. Bits of trash lay on the floor, in the corners, but nothing else. No furniture, no books, no music, no clot
hes. In the kitchen was some rotting food, but no plates, no pots or pans. Even the refrigerator and stove, which came with the apartment, were gone. He was half surprised no one had ripped the cupboards from the walls and hauled those away.
In the bathroom, too, everything was gone, medicine cabinet cleared out; even the toilet paper had been taken. Mixer sat on the closed lid of the toilet, staring out at the empty apartment. Everything he owned was gone. Vanished. He wondered if it had been the mayor’s ferrets who’d cleaned out the place, or scavengers descending on it once word got out that he was dead. Maybe both. It didn’t really matter.
New life, he said to himself. St. Lucy was right. No more Mixer. Minor Danzig reborn.
He sat, not moving, trying to imagine what it would be like.
Mixer followed Paula for hours. He wasn’t sure why. Afraid to go up to her and tell her he was alive? Everything seemed different, changed; maybe he was afraid she had changed, too, changed so much she wouldn’t, or couldn’t, be his friend anymore. He’d wanted her to be more than a friend, though, after Chick died. Even before that. He’d never been able to tell her. That was all impossible now; he knew that. Probably always had been. Now there was Tremaine, and St. Katherine. Crazy, all of it. He didn’t know what he wanted.
He’d picked her up late afternoon coming out of her apartment building and followed her to the Lumiere. He bought a cup of coffee from a window cafe, drank it, then sat down near the corner across from the Lumiere, where he had a view of the entrance. He set the empty cup in front of him and settled in.
Two hours later, when Paula came out of the theater, Mixer had collected several bucks in change. I must look bad, he thought. He pocketed the money, dumped the cup, and took off after Paula, staying half a block back. She went to her apartment, stayed inside for fifteen minutes, then came back out and headed into the heart of the Polk Corridor as the sun was setting.
Paula stopped in front of Christiano’s and leaned against the building. Mixer had to hang back, crouched beside a phone box. Looked like she was waiting for someone.
Not for me, Mixer said to himself. Paula thought he was dead. But he wasn’t, and he needed to tell her. There was way too much unfinished; there was still Chick between them, and Chick’s death, if nothing else.
If nothing else. Jesus, Mixer, what the hell are you thinking? He hadn’t spoken a word to her, and already he was assuming that everything between them was dead and gone. Maybe the goddamn trial did fry his brain.
Paula was waiting for someone. Tremaine, of course. Mixer saw him before Paula did, coming down the sidewalk, wire-rim specs flashing the lights of the night. Mixer rose to his feet to get a better view. If Paula was singing for Tremaine, it wasn’t because of his looks. That had always been part of it with Chick, Mixer was pretty sure of that. But not with Tremaine.
When Paula saw him, she smiled and pushed off the wall. Mixer hadn’t seen her smile like that in years, and it made his chest ache. She and Tremaine spoke to each other, then went into Christiano’s.
Mixer felt suddenly hungry, and for more than just food. But food was something he could take care of. He crossed the street, walked past a target alley, and bought a falafel from an old Arab woman cooking on basement steps. As he ate, he wandered up and down the Corridor, never getting too far from Christiano’s.
The street seemed to be on downers tonight. The air was heavy with heat and humidity, but it was more than that. People moved like they were in slow motion. Even a string of bone dancers shifted aimlessly along, arms and legs flapping limply. Weed hawkers called out to him, but they weren’t trying very hard. The stunner arcade was half empty. The stagnant energy in the Corridor was dragging Mixer down, and he was already more than low enough.
He was only half a block away when he saw Paula and Tremaine come out of Christiano’s. They stood for a minute on the sidewalk, looking around, talking, then headed in Mixer’s direction. He pulled back into the entry way of a bone-slotting club and turned his face from the street until they had passed him. Then he moved back out onto the sidewalk and followed.
Paula and Tremaine didn’t hold hands, or put their arms around each other, or kiss, anything like that, but there was something intimate about the way they walked together—the way Paula leaned her head toward Tremaine to say something, the way Tremaine touched her shoulder, the way he looked and smiled at Paula, and the way she laughed. It all made Mixer feel strange and drifty.
They stopped and looked in the window of a dinkum store, both laughing at something Paula pointed to. Half a block later they stood and watched a kinetic oil painting in the window of an art gallery. When they finally went into a spice and espresso bar, Mixer had had enough. He didn’t wait for them. Instead, he turned back and walked in the direction of Paula’s apartment.
Three things could happen, he figured. They could both come back to Paula’s place; or they could go to Tremaine’s; or they could each go their own away. The odds were good Paula would be coming home, one way or another.
Mixer still had keys to her place, more useful now than the ones to his own apartment. He unlocked the main building door, stood in the lobby for a few moments, then climbed the stairs and walked down the hall to her apartment.
He stood in front of her apartment door for a minute, keys in hand. He pocketed the keys. It would be too much for her, he decided. To come home and find a stranger inside her apartment. It would be bad enough to find him sitting in the hall.
Mixer sat on the floor, his back against her door, and waited.
21
PAULA WAS JUST as nervous this time, climbing the stairs to her apartment with Tremaine just behind her, but it was a different kind of anxiety. There was more excitement in it, as well as a stronger, different kind of fear. And, as before, she could not completely stop thinking of Chick.
They reached the third floor, and had just started down the hall when Paula sensed something wrong. She slowed, stared ahead, and saw a shadow, a form in front of her door at the end of the hall.
“What is it?” Tremaine asked.
“I don’t know.” She continued forward, saw that it was the form of a man; then, as they drew closer, recognized the man who had scrounged money from her the other night. She stopped a few feet from him. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“Don’t you recognize me?” the man said. His voice didn’t seem as harsh as it had that night. His head was tilted forward and to the side so that she saw mostly hair and beard.
“Yeah, I recognize you. I gave you money the other night, outside. And that’s where you should be. Outside.”
The man leaned forward and pushed himself slowly to his feet. His right arm, which had been bandaged before, was now bare—metal and scarred flesh twisted and melted together, almost shiny in the hall light. He turned to face her. “You still don’t recognize me, Paula?”
His voice. She knew the voice. Paula stared at him, and her heartbeat kicked up, pounding away inside her. And the eyes, she knew those eyes, too. But it couldn’t be. He was…
“Mixer?”
The man smiled without saying anything.
“Mixer?” she said again. And then she knew it was him, and she ran forward and threw her arms around him, hugging him tightly to her. “Jesus, Mixer, you’re alive!”
“Yeah, Paula, I’m alive. But you’re killing my arm.”
She let him go, looked into his face, feeling the tears pooling up in her eyes, then put her arms around his neck, pressing his bearded face against her skin. “Mixer, I can’t fucking believe it.” She let go again, wiping her cheeks with the back of her hand, staring into his wrecked face. “Jesus, look at you.” She shook her head, looking down at his arm. “Is that the exo?”
Mixer nodded.
“What the hell happened?” Then, “The Saints announced you were dead.”
“I am,” he said.
Paula didn’t know what to say. Then she remembered Tremaine, and she turned around, saw him standing a fe
w feet away. “Ian, this is my friend Mixer. Mixer, this is Tremaine.”
“I know who he is,” Mixer said. He smiled. “Ian?”
“You can just call me Tremaine.”
“I will,” Mixer said.
“Come on,” Paula said. “Let’s go inside where we can sit down and talk.”
“I think I should go,” Tremaine said.
“Oh, no,” Mixer replied, shaking his head. “I need to talk to Paula, but I need to talk to you, too. You’re not going anywhere.”
Tremaine smiled. “I’m not?”
“No.”
“Jesus,” Paula said. “What the hell is all this?”
Tremaine shrugged, still smiling. “It’s fine. I’m happy to stay. I’d like to know what Mixer wants to talk to me about.”
Paula sighed and looked back and forth at the two men, who seemed to be having a good old-fashioned stare-down. She unlocked the door and let them inside, half-tempted to pull the door shut behind the men and lock them in. But she was too damn happy to see Mixer alive, and so she followed them in, turning on the apartment lights.
They all stood silently just inside the door, the kitchen on their left, the piles of Chick’s things on their right. Paula waved at the kitchen table. “Sit down, both of you,” she said. “Anyone want anything, coffee, tea, something to eat? Mixer?”
Mixer walked over to the table and sat in one of the chairs, laying his injured hand and arm on the table. “I could really use a drink.”
Tremaine sat across the table from Mixer, and the two men continued to stare at each other.
“Tremaine?” Paula asked.
“I’ll have whatever Mixer’s having.”
How accommodating, Paula thought. She went to the refrigerator, opened the freezer, and pulled out a bottle of Stolichnaya vodka. She looked at the bottle, her gaze unfocused, the cold seeping into her hand, making it ache. It was the only booze she had in the place; it was what Chick had liked to drink more than anything else. She got two small tumblers from the cupboard, took them to the table with the bottle. “Help yourselves,” she said. She went back to the refrigerator and poured herself a glass of orange juice, then joined the two men at the table. Mixer was already draining his glass; he poured another.
Carlucci Page 43