Carlucci

by Richard Paul Russo

  “And if my daughter’s friend turns up dead, and abduction becomes murder, will you help then?”

  She sighed with exasperation, smiling faintly. “There’s something fundamental about this you just don’t understand, Lieutenant. One insignificant murder would change nothing.”

  “Then what the hell would it take to get you to talk to me about these people?”

  “Much more, Lieutenant.” All traces of the smile hardened away. “You can come back to me when people are dying. Maybe I’ll talk to you then.”

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Carlucci asked, angry now. “People are dying all the time. People are dying right now while we’re sitting here talking about bullshit.”

  “You’ll know what I mean when it happens, Lieutenant. You’ll know exactly what I mean.” She shifted her gaze away from him, brought her teacup to her mouth, and drank. “We’re done talking, Lieutenant. You can go now.” She glanced back at him, the corner of her silver-painted lips turning up into a kind of smile. “I’ll cover the check. I doubt you can afford it.”

  Coffee, tea, a pastry, how much could that be? But she was probably right, in here it would cost a fortune. Everything here was out of reach, including Naomi Katsuda.

  He got up from the table, started to thank her, then thought, screw it, why should he? “Good-bye, Ms. Katsuda.” She didn’t reply, and she didn’t look at him. Fuck you, too, he thought. He pushed the chair back in against the table and walked away from her.

  Isabel

  THERE WAS BLOOD everywhere. Monkey blood.

  Isabel watched from the shadows of an old heat duct high above the floor, the grating long gone, her view unobstructed. A woman was skinning a dead monkey, and making a terrible mess of it.

  The room was small, with plaster walls and a wood floor partially covered by cracked, stained linoleum and scraps of thin carpeting. The windows were boarded and papered over, and the door was barred shut; light came from a lamp on a wooden crate. Isabel could smell the blood and the stench of fuel from the makeshift stove against the far wall, burners lit beneath an enormous pot filled with water.

  The lamp cast jerking, distorted shadows across the floor as the woman moved, but it brightly illuminated the monkey’s face, which was as yet untouched.

  Henry. Isabel thought it was Henry, who had been in a cage across the aisle from her in her old home; she thought she recognized the odd tuft of gray above his right eyebrow. She had a vague memory of Henry being sick, too, at the same time she was; a memory of Henry lying on the floor of his cage and looking at her, eyes blinking slowly. Now his eyes weren’t blinking at all.

  Isabel closed her own eyes, feeling sick, down inside her belly. She wanted to stop the smells, the images. But she couldn’t, and she opened her eyes again and stared at the scene beneath her.

  The woman was awash in blood, and she was breathing hard, swearing as she worked at the dead monkey. Blood covered her hands, streaked her arms, soaked into her clothes; some had splashed across her face. She rested a moment, wiped her face with the back of her hand, and smeared more blood across her cheek and eye. She swore again, blinking crazily. Then she breathed in deeply, dropped the knife to the ground and picked up a larger one, gripped it tightly. Staring into the dead monkey’s face, she began sawing at the neck, trying to cut off its head.

  Henry, Isabel thought.

  She couldn’t look anymore. She was feeling sicker, her throat burning now, something coming up from her stomach.

  Isabel closed her eyes, then inched her way slowly and silently back along the heat duct, getting away from the room, away from the images and smells, just getting away…

  PART TWO

  Infection

  7

  NIKKI GUIDED THE pedalcart around the corner and into the alley; Cage sat beside her, pumping his foot pedals, providing half the power. The gray early morning light darkened as they moved deeper into the alley, blocked by the buildings rising high on either side, the fire escapes, and the shaky planked walkways that crisscrossed the alley several floors above them. Cage was exhausted, working on two hours of sleep and half a pot of coffee; Nikki didn’t look much better.

  There was a lot of activity in the alley—people loading and unloading merchandise into and from carts and pinky-vans and scat trucks, other people standing around talking and drinking coffee, or walking across the creaking, sagging wooden planks, people and vehicles squeezing past each other in both directions—but it all was relatively low-key this time of day, not like the amphetamine buzz of the Tenderloin at night. The smell of bacon and frying butter was strong, filling the alley, and Cage’s stomach burned with acids of morning hunger and coffee. Maybe he’d take Nikki out for breakfast when they were done here.

  They let the cart roll to a stop on the right-hand side of the alley, ten feet short of a wide blue metal door set in the brick wall. The first- and second-floor windows of the building were painted over in dark brown and covered by rusting spiked metal grilles.

  “This it?” Nikki asked.

  “I think so. I’ll see.”

  Nikki set the wheel brakes and Cage climbed down from the cart. The ground was uneven beneath his feet, the asphalt cracked and fissured, scattered with loose gravel and rock. He approached the dark blue door, each step a crunching sound, and banged on it. Almost immediately the door cracked inward, an inch or two at first, then a few more. There was only darkness behind the door, and he couldn’t see anything more than shadows and the faint reflection of light from someone’s eyes.

  “Cage,” a voice said from the darkness. Recognition rather than a question. But it wasn’t Stinger’s voice.

  The door swung open another foot, letting in more light and illuminating the man inside. He was dark, thin, and young, in his twenties, dressed in pale khakis, his right arm meshed in silver and wired for body jolts.

  “Come on in,” the man said, stepping back. “I’m Tiger.”

  Another fucking moniker. And not very imaginative at that. Cage looked back at Nikki, gestured for her to stay with the pedalcart, and when she nodded he stepped through the doorway. Tiger closed the door, complete darkness returning for a moment, then dim lights came up.

  They were in a narrow, empty corridor running the length of the building. Tiger led the way past several interior doors, then stopped in front of the last one at the end of the corridor. He pulled the door open, nodded for Cage to go in. The door automatically swung shut behind them, hydraulics hissing.

  The room was small, maybe fifteen feet square, with dark gray painted cinderblock walls. No windows, but there was another door in the back corner, and beside the door, sitting on an overturned plastic crate, with her back against the wall, was a large, beefy woman dressed in pale khakis like Tiger’s. Her hair was short and stiff, and she wore a dead neutral expression on her face. She gazed steadily at Cage, almost unblinking, but didn’t say a word.

  In the middle of the room, open for inspection with their foam-pack lids stacked to the side, were ten or twelve cartons of pharmaceuticals. Cage glanced at them, then looked at Tiger.

  “Where’s Stinger?”

  “He couldn’t make it,” Tiger answered.

  “He was supposed to be here.”

  Tiger shrugged, glanced at the woman sitting on the crate, but didn’t say anything.

  “Why isn’t he here?”

  Tiger hesitated, then finally said, “He’s sick.”

  “Sick with what?”

  Tiger cut his glance at the woman again, and shrugged once more. He wouldn’t look directly at Cage. “The flu or something.” He sniffed once, then pulled sheets of paper from his back pocket and handed them to Cage. “Here’s the inventory list, you can check it against the merch. When you’re done, we seal up the cartons and load you up.”

  Cage looked over at the woman, but her expression hadn’t changed. There was clearly something about Stinger that made Tiger nervous. More than nervous—Tiger was scared. But it was obviou
s he wasn’t going to talk about it here, not with this woman around. Cage decided to let it go for now.

  He didn’t spend more than fifteen minutes checking the contents of the cartons against the inventory sheets; he was more concerned with Stinger’s health right now than he was with the pharmaceuticals. Besides, he and Madelaine would do a more complete inspection back at the clinic, and he knew it would all check out; these people weren’t going to try to rip him off yet, not before they got any work out of him.

  When he was done, Tiger helped him put the foam-pack lids back on the cartons, sealing each one with strip tape. The woman didn’t make a move to help.

  “Let’s go get Nikki,” Cage said, “and we can load up and get out of your way.”

  Another glance at the woman from Tiger. Cage didn’t have any doubts about who was in charge.

  “I think I’d better wait here,” Tiger said.

  “Thanks a lot.” Don’t push it, Cage told himself. He left the room, walked down the corridor to the big metal door, but didn’t open it. He returned to the room, pulled the door open, and stuck his head inside.

  “Hey, Tiger. The door’s locked.”

  Tiger seemed confused for a moment, then nodded once and said, “Okay, I’ll get it.”

  Halfway along the corridor, when the door to the room had swung completely shut, Cage stopped and faced Tiger, bringing the young man to an abrupt halt.

  “All right,” Cage whispered. “What the hell is wrong with Stinger?”

  “I told you,” Tiger answered without conviction. “He’s got the flu or something.”

  “Bullshit. I saw him two weeks ago, and he was starting to get sick then, and it wasn’t the goddamn flu. So what the fuck is it?”

  Tiger tried to step back, but Cage grabbed his left arm to keep him close. He didn’t think Tiger would use the body jolts on him.

  “I’m not supposed to say anything,” Tiger tried, a whine sliding in his voice.

  “I don’t care. I spent half an hour sitting across a table from the bastard, and I want to know what the hell it is I’ve been exposed to. I want to know what the hell it is that’s got you so scared.”

  Tiger didn’t say anything for a minute, but he was starting to sweat, and the sweat stank of fear.

  “What is it?” Cage asked once more, his voice slow and quiet and firm.

  “I don’t know,” Tiger finally said. “He’s real sick. I think he’s dying. But nobody knows what’s wrong with him.”

  “Or nobody’s saying.”

  Tiger shook his head. “I don’t think they know.”

  “All right.” Cage let him go. “What are the symptoms? Tell me what’s happening to him.”

  “I don’t really know that much. They’re keeping him isolated. But he was getting really bad headaches, and his eyes were completely bloodshot, almost solid red, and he had red patches all over his skin, and he was starting to act real crazy. But I haven’t seen him for a couple three days.”

  “Are you sure he’s still alive?”

  “I guess. They’d tell us if he died.”

  Cage gave him a wry smile. “Would they.” Then he sighed, and asked, “Who is this ‘they’ you keep talking about?”

  “The people I work for.”

  “Who are they?”

  Tiger shook his head. “You know I can’t tell you that. Don’t even ask.”

  “Maybe you should bring me to him,” Cage said. “I’m a doctor, maybe I can help.”

  “We’ve got doctors,” Tiger said.

  “Yeah, I’ll bet. Lots of doctors, don’t you?” He was tempted to come right out and ask Tiger if it was Cancer Cell he worked for, but there was no point. Tiger might not actually know it was Cancer Cell, and Cage was pretty damn sure he knew the answer, anyway.

  “So what’s got you so scared, Tiger?”

  Tiger breathed deeply once and licked his lips. “I was helping carry him to see the docs, and he had some kind of seizure, whacking out all over, and then he puked up blood all over the place…all over me.” Tiger shuddered. “I got his blood all over me.”

  And Nikki had put her finger hooks into him. Nikki had drawn blood.

  “How long ago was this, Tiger?”

  Tiger blinked a couple of times, wiped sweat from his lip. “T-two days ago? Maybe three.”

  “And how are you feeling? Besides scared?”

  “Okay. I think.”

  “I’m sure you’ll be fine,” Cage lied. He couldn’t be sure at all. “You look fine.” He nodded down the corridor. “Go on back to your baby sitter.”

  “What about the door?”

  “Christ, Tiger. The door’s not locked.” Cage turned and headed down the corridor, leaving Tiger to figure it out for himself.

  When Cage opened the door, he found that Nikki had backed the pedalcart to the door, ready for him. She was sitting on the hold, smoking a cigarette. He hadn’t seen her smoke in three or four weeks; she’d tried to quit several times in the past year, and this last time had gone the longest. But he didn’t mention the cigarette. Nikki smoking was the least of his worries right now.

  “We ready to go?” Nikki asked.

  Cage nodded. Nikki slid off the end of the cart, dropped the cigarette butt, and ground it out with her boot. How long had it been since the meeting with Stinger? Cage worked it out. Fifteen days. Nikki didn’t seem to be sick at all, and she hadn’t complained about anything, not even a headache. She was tired, but so was he. Fifteen days. It didn’t mean shit.

  They propped open the door with two wooden wedges, then Cage led the way down the corridor to the room where Tiger and the woman waited.

  Cage made the introductions. “Nikki. Tiger.” Then, with a gesture at the woman still sitting on the crate, he said, “I have no idea who she is. She doesn’t talk.” He looked at Tiger, who seemed uncomfortable again. “You going to help us load up?”

  Tiger shook his head. “I can’t.”

  Cage smiled, looked back at the woman. “How about you?”

  The woman didn’t reply, didn’t move except to blink and breathe.

  “That’s not her job,” Tiger said.

  Cage laughed. “I know, Tiger. I know what her job is.” He and Nikki each picked up a carton, and he raised an eyebrow at Tiger. “Are you allowed to get the door?”

  Tiger hurried to the door, pushed it open, and held it for them. Cage and Nikki carried the cartons through, along the corridor, then out into the alley. Nikki opened the hold of the pedal cart, and they carefully placed the cartons inside.

  “I’ll get the next one,” Cage said. They couldn’t leave the cart alone now, so they would alternate trips.

  She nodded. “Fine. And I’ll have another smoke.” Almost daring him to say something. When he didn’t, she said, “No Stinger?”

  “Nope. Didn’t show.”

  “Why not?”

  Cage shrugged and shook his head.

  “Why not, Cage?”

  “Tiger said he was sick. The flu.”

  “The flu.”

  “That’s what he said.”

  Nikki took a cigarette from the pack in her top shock suit pocket, lit it with a stone-lighter. Neither of them said anything for a minute.

  “I wouldn’t worry about it,” Cage eventually said.

  “Yeah.” Nikki dragged in deep on the cigarette, held it, then blew a long, steady stream of smoke into Cage’s face. “Go get another carton,” she said.

  Cage nodded and headed back inside.

  As he was leaving the room, carton in his arms, Tiger out in the hall holding the door open, Cage paused, seeing that Tiger was out of the woman’s line of sight. He leaned toward Tiger and whispered rapidly. “Listen, Tiger. You’ll probably be fine. But if you start to get sick, get the hell out of wherever you are. Come find me at the RadioLand Street Clinic, we’ll take care of you. Got that?”

  Tiger’s eyes were wide, scared again, but he nodded. “RadioLand.”

  “You’ll be fine.” The
n Cage headed along the corridor.

  Twenty minutes later, he and Nikki had all the cartons packed and the hold locked up; they closed the blue metal door and climbed up onto the cart. Cage worked his feet into the pedals, but Nikki remained motionless, her arms lying across the wheel and her gaze unfocused.

  “How sick is he?” she asked.

  “Stinger?”

  She nodded.

  Cage shrugged. “Tiger didn’t know.”

  Nikki turned to stare hard at him. “How sick?”

  “Tiger didn’t know,” Cage insisted. “Besides, what are the odds? You used the antiseptic wipes. This is all a lot of worry about nothing.”

  Nikki stared at him a few moments longer, then turned to face forward. She gripped the steering wheel, dug her feet into the pedals, and started pumping.

  8

  WET AND UNCOMFORTABLE, Carlucci stood at the edge of the cliff and gazed down through the sagging chain-link fence at the ruins of the old Sutro Baths sixty or seventy feet below him. The heavier morning rain had eased, but still came down as a warm, dense mist, graying out the ocean and almost completely obscuring Seal Rocks out on the water. The drizzle masked all sound, and the air was unnaturally quiet around him; it was thick with the smell of salt. He could just make out the moving figures in the ruins below, perhaps half a dozen at the moment—two uniformed cops and several detectives. Soon there would be more. The two uniforms were erecting a protective tarp, sheltering the others and, presumably, the body.

  Carlucci disliked this place intensely. Being here made him feel awful—as if he’d just awakened from some profoundly disturbing dream he could not remember. Disoriented, vaguely afraid, and depressed. Melancholy and bad memories.

  There was, to him, something incredibly sad about the ruins, which had been here for more than fifty years; maybe a lot longer than that. He wasn’t sure of the dates. But what he did know was that the Sutro Baths had been built at the very end of the nineteenth century—the largest public bathhouse in the world. He had seen pictures of the huge, glass-enclosed natatorium at the edge of the sea, interior photos of the half dozen saltwater swimming pools heated by enormous furnaces, the promenades and spectator galleries, hundreds, even thousands of people swimming, diving, shooting down water slides, socializing. But sometime in the second half of the twentieth century the baths had burned to the ground. The ruins—broken sections of concrete walkways, roofless remnants of small concrete or cinder block buildings scattered around the perimeter, and the old foundations, which filled with water like outdoor versions of the old swimming pools—had remained ever since, untouched except by vandals and the elements.