Carlucci

by Richard Paul Russo

  Morgan turned back to him. “In what sense?”

  “Santos and Weather have caught this one. They’ll need to do interviews with people at Mishima, maybe other people in the Financial District. If you help slick the way for them, I’ll keep you regularly informed of the progress on the case. And then if you want, you can keep Katsuda up to date.”

  Morgan hesitated for a few moments, then sighed. “Sure, that could work. And you won’t hold anything back from me?”

  “Of course I will,” Carlucci replied. “If I think it’s necessary. But I’ll give you enough.”

  Morgan smiled, shaking his head. “You know, Frank, it’s a fucking miracle they made you lieutenant. I wish I knew what you had on the bastards.”

  “It’s not like that, B.J.”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah.” He sighed again. “Okay, I guess that’s about as good as it’s going to get, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.” Carlucci tipped his head toward the limousine. “You want me to talk to Katsuda?”

  “No. I’ll explain our ‘cooperative arrangement.’ I’ll be able to do a better job of selling it to him than you would.” They shook hands. “I’ll be in touch, Frank. You too, all right?”

  “I will, B.J.”

  Morgan turned and started up the hill, Warsinske just a few steps behind, scrambling after his boss like a sycophant. Warsinske would get his one day, Carlucci thought. Karma would catch up to the little ferret and bury him.

  Carlucci turned and headed back toward the body.

  That night, after dinner, Andrea made a pot of decaf and poured cups for both of them. Carlucci took his to the stove, opened the upper cabinet, and took out a bottle of Irish whiskey. He poured a good slug into his coffee, trying not to look at Andrea, who was almost certainly watching him. He sipped at the coffee, savoring both kinds of heat as they slid down his throat and into his stomach, like soothing liquid fire. He took one more long swallow, and finally turned around. Andrea was already gone from the kitchen; he followed her into the front room.

  She was sitting in her chair, table lamp on beside her, a book open in her lap, reading glasses perched on the end of her nose. Carlucci crossed the room to his ancient recliner, set his cup on the book stand beside the chair, and sat. The chair had been his father’s, and the leather was as dark and worn as his father’s face had been the last years of his life. Sitting in the chair always made him think of his father, and gave him a sense of comfort and security.

  “Rough day?” Andrea was looking at him over the top of her glasses.

  “Yeah. I’m beat.” He took another sip of the coffee. “I was out at the Sutro Baths this afternoon. There was a dead woman down in the ruins.” He paused, revisualizing the scene, the heavy drizzle and gray skies and the cops working around the body. Andrea didn’t say anything; she’d been through this so many times, and years ago she had stopped saying things like, “How awful.” Now she just listened and waited, let him talk about what he needed to get out. It was something he greatly appreciated.

  “I’ve got a real bad feeling about this one,” he continued. “I had just talked to the woman a couple of weeks ago.” He decided not to mention Caroline’s part in the story. “I had asked her about a group of people I was looking into for a small thing at work, a missing persons I was checking out for a friend. But she wouldn’t tell me anything, though it was obvious she knew something about this group.” He paused, thinking back to the conversation, trying to remember her words. “She told me to come back and talk to her when people started dying.”

  Andrea took off her glasses and laid them on her book. “What did she mean by that?”

  “I have no idea. She said I’d know what she was talking about when it happened. But I don’t think she meant this. I can’t exactly talk to her again now, can I?”

  Neither of them spoke for a while. He took another long drink, but the whiskey didn’t really seem to be helping much.

  “While I was out there,” he resumed, “I was standing up on the road, and I looked over at the Cliff House, and I couldn’t help thinking about that day.”

  Andrea didn’t reply immediately. She seemed almost frozen, staring at him, not even blinking. She closed her eyes for a moment, then looked at him again. “Frank, that was nine years ago.”

  “I know. But do you think I’ll ever forget?” She didn’t answer, and he shook his head. “I’m sorry, I’m giving you the wrong idea. It was a bad day. I mean, today was a bad day, and I want you to know I’d have a harder time getting through days like this without you. I’m doing a lousy job of it, but what I’m trying to tell you is, I love you, Andrea, and I’m glad you’re here with me.”

  She sighed and gave him a soft, warm smile. But she didn’t say anything. She didn’t need to. Neither of them did.

  9

  THIS NIGHT, CAROLINE entered the DMZ well after dark. Not a smart thing to do, but she didn’t care. Let the street scavengers swoop down on her and pick her clean. What the hell did it matter?

  Two days of rain had given way to a mild heat wave. The temperature climbed into the eighties during the day, and didn’t cool off much at night. It was still spring, so the heat wasn’t too bad, but right now it was probably still above seventy, and humidity was fairly high. She liked this kind of weather.

  The street was a mindless swarm of people and vehicles, flashing colored lights and barking voices, competing blasts of alarms and pounding music, all infused with the stench of weed smoke, spilled alcohol, rotting plants, and burning oil. She heard glass break nearby, an explosion of some kind, a hammering sound, then a loud braying laugh. Someone pawed at her face, and she knocked the hand away.

  She wanted a drink. She wanted several drinks, but she didn’t want to sweat and fight in the bars, so she went without.

  Traffic was stopped at the intersection ahead, and a crowd had formed in the middle of the street. Feeling reckless, she climbed on the back of a bus stop bench to see what was happening, using a power pole for support. There was a large open space in the middle of the crowd, roughly circular, and inside it were three men in wire head-cages, bare from the waist up and all three lightning-leashed to their handlers. Caroline thought she recognized the stocky woman handler on the far side of the circle, the one she’d run into two weeks ago on her way to see Tito. The handler was shouting through the head-cage at her charge, presumably giving him instructions.

  The crowd around the three men and their handlers was growing, and people were climbing onto stalled and parked vehicles, sidewalk stands, balconies, anything that afforded a better view. Before long, Caroline’s own view would be completely blocked. Just as well, she thought, she didn’t really want to see this. She knew what was coming—she could already hear the betting begin.

  The three men were roped together in a kind of circle, or rough triangle, fewer than ten feet of rope between each of them; each man remained leashed to his handler, and the collars around their necks shimmered with electricity.

  A man in body armor went to each of the head-caged men and slapped dermal patches onto their necks, half a dozen to each—probably crashers, deadeners, and skyrockets. Within minutes, the three men in head-cages would be completely wired and crazed. Finally, a set of metal hand-claws was strapped onto the right arm and hand of each man. They would tear each other apart.

  That was enough for Caroline. She climbed down from the bench and pushed into the crowd, working her way toward the buildings until she could get past the intersection. A frenzied roar swelled from the crowd, and she knew it had begun.

  Once past the intersection, the crowds thinned, but the sidewalk was still full and hectic. A man bleeding profusely from a head wound staggered toward her, hissing at her as he went by. Two teenaged tattoo-girls shuffled along a few feet in front of her, arms wrapped around one another, their ponytails laced together with wire webbing. A rat pack ten or twelve strong marched steadfastly along the sidewalk, forcing people to move out of its way. Caroline got jammed up a
gainst a pokey booth; the gooner inside grinned and breathed a foul, warm stench into her face, nauseating her. Finally the rat pack swept past, the pressure eased, and she pushed away from the booth.

  She walked along in a kind of daze, hardly paying attention to her surroundings, almost unconsciously fending off the hasslers and pervs. She just didn’t feel much of anything.

  She had been in this numb and dazed state of mind almost constantly since the night Tina had come by. She couldn’t shake it, and most of the time she didn’t even want to shake it. Most of the time she just didn’t care.

  In the years since the Gould’s Syndrome had been diagnosed, Caroline had thought she’d come to terms with the disease. She knew its activation was inevitable, she knew it was ultimately terminal, and she had thought she had come to terms with the fear and the dread, and the self-pity.

  Clearly she hadn’t.

  She’d been fooled, it seemed, because in all these years, other than developing a tendency to tire easily, the Gould’s had not gone active. The markers had been picked up in a routine screening, and she’d been informed of what they meant. She had been given all the details of the disease, including the possible and probable ways it would progress once it had gone active, and she’d been told what the ultimate prognosis was. She’d known she would have several years before it went fully active, before the myelin sheathing of her central nervous system would begin to degenerate in earnest, but she’d also known that it was unlikely she would live to see thirty, and that no one with Gould’s had ever lived past thirty-two. And she’d known there was no treatment for it, no cure. She’d known all that.

  But apparently, in some deep and real way, she hadn’t.

  When the vision in her eye had gone funny and she’d lost control of her leg and sprawled to the floor, then she had known.

  She was scared now, and she didn’t want to be scared. And she was afraid she would never be able to get away from that fear.

  She had stopped walking, and now stood at the inner edge of the sidewalk, leaning against a building wall. How long had she been standing here, people moving past her? She looked up, saw the sign for Turtle Joe’s just above her head, and nodded to herself; probably this was where she’d been headed all along.

  She walked past Turtle Joe’s and turned into the alcove entrance to the death house. Everything looked the same: the crude red skull-and-crossbones, the grille over the heavy wooden door, the cracked brick and crumbling mortar of the arch and walls, the chipped and cracked and stained marble flagstones under her feet. Caroline pushed the door open, stepped inside, and closed the door behind her.

  Quiet and dim light. Familiar smell of damp and sickness, and something acrid, almost burning her nose. The lobby was empty.

  She took the stairs slowly, one deliberate step at a time, keeping her attention on her feet. Since that night with Tina her vision had been fine, and she hadn’t lost control of her leg again, but she knew it could happen at any time, and she spent much of her time waiting for it to happen again. She couldn’t help herself.

  When she reached the third-floor landing, she didn’t need to rest; instead, she kept right on walking down the hall toward Tito’s old room. The black door looked just the same. But everything was so quiet she imagined that if she unlocked the door and found Tito inside, it would only be if he were already dead, lying on the floor, eyes open, waiting for someone to come and take him away.

  She unlocked the dead bolt, then put her key in the knob, turned it, and pushed the door inward. There were lights on inside the room, and she froze, the door only half open. She remained motionless, listening, but didn’t hear anything. Her heart was beating fast and hard, and her mouth went dry.

  “Tito?” she ventured. She slid the key out of the knob, gripped it tightly in her right hand.

  There was a slight rustle, then a soft, timid voice. “Who is it?” A woman’s voice.

  Caroline stepped carefully around the door. Huddled against the far wall, on the mattress that had served as Tito’s bed, were a woman and a young girl. The woman appeared to be in her thirties, and the girl about nine or ten. Both had straight, dirty blond hair and dark blue eyes, both were dressed in T-shirts and jeans. Both of them looked scared.

  “It’s all right,” Caroline said. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to…”

  “Do you live here?” the woman asked. “We were told the room was empty.”

  “No. I had a friend who lived here. He’s been gone for a while.”

  “Is he coming back?” The woman coughed, glanced at the girl, then turned back to Caroline. “We don’t have anywhere else to go.”

  Caroline breathed in very deeply, held it for a few moments, then slowly let it out, shaking her head. “No.” The truth of that sank into her completely for the first time. “No, he won’t be back. You can stay here.” Exhaustion washed over her, combining with the earlier numbness, and she wanted to lie down on Tito’s old sofa, go to sleep, and not wake up for days. “I’m sorry I bothered you,” she said to the woman and the girl. “I’ll just go.”

  “Wait,” the woman said. “Can we…can we have your key?” She pointed at the key in Caroline’s hand. “We can lock the door when we’re inside, but we can’t lock it when we leave. No one had a key.”

  Caroline nodded. She crossed the room and handed the key to the woman, wondering if the woman was contagious, wondering why she cared. The woman thanked her. Then, feeling awkward, Caroline asked, “Why are you here?”

  “We don’t have anyplace else to go,” the woman said. “We haven’t got much money.”

  “No, I meant…” She shook her head. “I’m sorry, just…” She tried to wave it off. What was she thinking? What was wrong with her? Leave these poor people alone. She started to turn away, but the woman reached out and touched her arm.

  “My daughter’s dying,” the woman said.

  Caroline looked at the young girl. She didn’t look sick. Tired, maybe, and hungry, but not sick. But then I don’t look sick either, she thought.

  “I’m sorry,” she said again. “Do you have any money?” A stupid question, she realized as soon as she asked. If the woman had any money she wouldn’t be here with her daughter in this godforsaken death house.

  “A little,” the woman said. Probably a lie.

  “Food?”

  “The Sisters bring us meals.”

  They had nothing. Caroline looked around the room, saw an open suitcase with a few clothes, a few children’s books on the sofa, but nothing else that hadn’t been left behind by Mouse.

  “Is there something I can do to help?” Caroline asked.

  The woman didn’t answer. Caroline knew she was not doing this very well. She looked back and forth between the woman and the girl, feeling cold and afraid again. “I’m dying too,” she finally said.

  No one said anything for a long time. Eventually the girl said, “Can you help us?”

  Caroline looked at the woman. “Something,” she said. “If you want me to.”

  The girl nodded. Her mother just said, “There’s some tea here. Would you like some?”

  Tito’s herb teas. Nobody thought they were worth stealing. “Sure,” she said, smiling. “That would be nice.”

  The little girl smiled back.

  10

  “I FEEL LIKE shit,” Nikki said.

  She was sitting in a black plastic chair by an open window in her apartment, her head resting against the wooden frame, eyes closed. Cage stood just inside the front door, watching her. The air was warm and stuffy, and stank of burned food.

  “Why aren’t you in bed?” he asked.

  She gave him a tired smile and opened one eye. “I’m not that sick. I just feel crappy.” She closed her eye. “I was heating up some soup and nodded off. I burned it.”

  The apartment was a fairly large one-room studio, with a separate kitchen alcove, and a full bath off the back corner. There wasn’t much furniture. Nikki slept in a sleeping bag on an old cot, an
d she ate on a sheet of plywood laid across stacks of plastic crates. There was a single stuffed chair beside a floor lamp, where she read at night, and several black plastic chairs she used when working at her tapestry looms. All three of the vertical looms were set up now, two with tapestries just begun, the other with one nearing completion. She’d been working on this last one for well over a year, and like most of her tapestries it incorporated both Native American and Native African motifs, heavily abstracted; hundreds of colored threads dangled from the back of the loom.

  “Have you eaten anything today?” Cage asked.

  Nikki shook her head, dreadlock beads clicking against the window frame with each movement.

  “Want me to cook you something?”

  “Soup?” Nikki said, smiling again.

  “Sure. Soup.”

  He crossed the room to the kitchen alcove, glanced at the pot of burned soup soaking in the sink, then opened the cupboard under the counter and dug around for another pot.

  “Soup’s above the stove,” she said.

  The upper cupboard was pretty well stocked with canned goods, though about half of it was cat food. Nikki fed the neighborhood strays down in the alley. She was allergic to cat dander, so she couldn’t keep any cats in the apartment for herself.

  Cage took down a can of chicken soup with rice and vegetables. “Chicken soup,” he said. “Best thing for you.”

  “Yeah, yeah.”

  He opened the can, poured the contents into the pot, then turned on the burner and set the flame low. He stirred the soup a few times, then left it and walked back across the room, sitting in one of the plastic chairs a few feet from Nikki.

  “Do you have a fever?”

  She nodded, the sun flashing off her cheek inlays. “Not bad, though. Just over a hundred.”

  “You take anything for it?”

  “Of course.”

  “What else? Sore throat, muscle aches?”

  “Sore throat and a nasty goddamn headache.” She grimaced. “That’s all.”