“Maybe not,” Carlucci said with a heavy sigh.
“What do you mean by that?” Cage asked, suddenly wary.
Carlucci was still trying to decide how much to tell Cage. He’d spent his career developing a deep reluctance to divulge more information than was absolutely necessary, except with other cops, and even then he had to be careful. But you couldn’t always hold back everything; keeping other people too much in the dark could sometimes have all kinds of unintended consequences, a lot of them bad.
“Another case I have,” he finally replied. “A woman was killed a few days ago. She had the initials ‘CC’ carved into her head.”
“Could stand for a lot of things,” Cage said. “Christian Coalition. I hear they’re back in business, ranting and raving and preaching and putting on mass self-flagellations. Or Canadian Club. Maybe whoever killed her had way too much to drink. Blamed the booze.”
This was a game Carlucci didn’t feel like playing. Not in this stifling room with two dead people to think about, one of them definitely murdered.
“I had talked with her about two weeks before she was killed,” he said, leaning forward in his chair. “I was trying to find out something about Tito, and her name was given to me as a possible source of information about Cancer Cell.” He paused, staring at Cage, wanting to make damn sure the man was listening to him, paying close attention. “She wouldn’t tell me anything. She told me Tito’s abduction wasn’t even close to being important enough for her to take any risks.” One more pause, deliberately for effect. “She told me to come back and talk to her when people started dying.”
Cage was silent for a few moments. Then, quietly, he said, “Shit.”
Carlucci nodded. “Yeah, shit is right. I want your help, Cage.”
“How?”
“I don’t know yet. Not exactly. I’d like to talk to someone who’s a part of Cancer Cell. Could you arrange that?”
Cage’s mouth twisted into a kind of frown. “It might be possible. It would take time, and it would be risky. They don’t like anyone weaseling around in their business. And a cop? Jesus. But maybe I can find out something.”
“I’ll arrange for Tito Moraleja to be taken to one of the police morgues, maybe even get an autopsy done. I’ll call it a connection to this other case I have.”
“You’re willing to do that?”
“Sure. Can you make arrangements for Tito’s body to get to the Tenderloin perimeter? If I give you the name of a business, an address?”
“Of course. Even if I have to rent a cart and haul him there myself. Then you can get him out of the Tenderloin?”
“Yes.” Carlucci took one of his cards and wrote an address on the back. It was an import/export shop in one of the perimeter buildings, with ways both in and out of the Tenderloin. The police department had an arrangement with the owner, Nanos Spyrodakis. For a price, they could move almost anything or anyone into or out of the Tenderloin. A dead body? Carlucci sighed to himself. Getting Tito Moraleja’s body out was going to be expensive.
He handed the card to Cage. “Can you have him there in two hours?”
“Yeah, no problem,” Cage said, looking at the address. He turned the card over. “I guess I’ll need this card if I want to get in touch with you.”
“Yes. And be discreet over the phone.”
“Sure thing, Lieutenant.” He tucked the card into the back pocket of his jeans. “I’ll let you know if I find out something.”
Carlucci got up from the chair, finished off the warm Black Orbit. “Thanks for the beer.” He set the empty bottle on the table.
The two men shook hands and Carlucci turned to go.
“Lieutenant?”
“Yeah?”
Cage was smiling, but it was a fearful smile. “Whoever does the autopsy on Tito? Tell them to be damn careful.”
12
THE PLAYGROUND WAS enclosed by metal-sheet fencing topped by razor wire and rusted saw blades, the fencing broken only by two narrow gates. The gates were manned by street soldiers from the Polk Corridor in full battle colors: dark red ankle scarves wrapped tightly around black leather boots; khakis spattered with what appeared to be bloodstains; shining silver serpent belts loaded with hand ammo; arms wired with coils of jolt-tubing; shielded glasses and dark green bush hats.
Caroline slowed as she approached the east gate with Lily and Mink, the mother and daughter who were now living in Tito’s old room in the death house, waiting for Mink to die. They had walked the several blocks from the DMZ, Caroline acting as escort and guide. In fact, she felt more like a bodyguard, watching out for Lily and Mink because they didn’t have much street smarts yet, and they gave off an aura of being ripe for the street scavs.
A large sign in block letters hung beside the east gate: NO CHILDREN ALLOWED WITHOUT A SUPERVISING ADULT. Caroline, Lily, and Mink stepped one at a time through the two detectors, then were patted down by a woman street soldier who smiled and chattered aimlessly about the weather, Caroline’s shirt, Mink’s hair, and the stench of the garbage. Then the three of them stepped through the main entrance and into the playground.
When Caroline had been a child, her parents had brought her here to this playground several times over the years, when they’d been in the neighborhood visiting friends. Back then, the place had been overgrown with lush plants surrounding the swings and slides and jungle bars, stands of bamboo had lined the perimeter, and an island of trees, shrubs, blooming flowers, and thick grasses had stood in the middle of it all, the island surrounded by a shallow lake of water that the children waded through, splashed and played in. You could buy ice cream bars or Sno-Kones, hot dogs and soda pop and misty ices. You could have a picnic on the island.
Several years earlier, however, the playground had been the site of a major skirmish in the Summer Polk Riots. The place had been strafed with defoliants and cratered by mortars, the few remaining plants burned by kerosene fires. The playground had been rebuilt, the equipment repaired or replaced, a few benches installed, the metal-sheet fencing erected around the entire grounds, and the Polk Corridor street soldiers had taken it over. The playground existed, but it wasn’t the same.
And yet, the dry, bleached-out prospect bothered the children a lot less than it did Caroline. The playground was full of running, shouting, jumping, swinging, and laughing children who were having a great time. Mink stayed close to her mom until they reached an empty bench facing the denuded island that had once been nearly overgrown. Now the island was covered in sand, with several swing sets, a couple of twisting slides, and a large, multilevel maze of wire-mesh cages; it was still surrounded by a shallow, water-filled moat. Lily and Caroline sat on the bench. Mink stood beside them for a minute or two, watching the kids on the island, and those walking barefoot through the moat; then she ventured away from the bench and walked toward the small footbridge that spanned the water. She crossed the bridge, and tentatively approached the swing sets.
“She won’t play for too long,” Lily said. “She gets tired pretty fast.”
“What does she have?” Caroline asked. She’d avoided the topic before this because Mink had always been present.
“Leukemia.”
Caroline was surprised. She’d expected something more exotic, one of the newly discovered or newly resurgent diseases, little understood and untreatable. She’d thought leukemia in children was fairly simple to treat these days, with a high rate of success. She said as much to Lily.
Lily shrugged. “She didn’t respond well to chemotherapy. Two courses of treatment, and it came right back both times. Another round was out of the question, because the chemo itself was almost killing her. The doctor said her only real chance was a bone marrow transplant, or replacement with artificial marrow.” She shook her head, traces of a sad smile tucking up the corners of her mouth. “Maybe if my own marrow was compatible…but it isn’t. People don’t donate marrow, they sell it. The artificial marrow’s even more expensive. Not to mention the operation, th
e follow-ups, the drugs, all that stuff. No money, no insurance…” She turned to look at Caroline. “No transplant, no replacement. Mink’s going to die.”
Caroline didn’t know what to say. She felt even more depressed. “Is there a father?” she asked.
Lily snorted. “Sure there’s a father. Had to be, right? One way or another. But who knows where the hell he is, if he’s even alive.” She sighed heavily. “I haven’t seen him or heard from him in six years.”
Caroline looked back across the water at the island. One of the swings became available and Mink climbed onto the wide fabric strap, grabbing the thick chains. From a standstill, she pumped her legs and pulled back and forth on the chains, and quickly got herself going. The arcs got bigger and bigger, and she let go with one hand, waved at Lily and Caroline with a big smile. The women waved back.
“How long does she have?” Caroline asked.
“Two months. Maybe three.” Lily shook her head again. “No one really knows.”
It was all so unfair. But then there was nothing new about that, and nothing Caroline could do to change it. She put her hand over Lily’s and squeezed. Lily squeezed back, and the two women remained there on the bench, holding hands, and watching Mink play.
Caroline met her father in the lobby of one of the city’s holding morgues. He looked more tired than usual, drawn and distracted, but he smiled and hugged her when she walked in. The lobby was cooler and darker than outside, but she suspected it was going to get even colder.
“You sure you want to look at him?” her father said.
“You said you wanted to make sure it was Tito.”
“Well, he was chipped. And I could show you pictures. He doesn’t look good. He looks pretty bad.”
She smiled to herself. He wasn’t completely sure how to act around her in this situation; half father, half cop. A woman in uniform sat behind a desk in the back corner, watching them with a bored and sleepy expression; otherwise the room was empty of people and furniture. Even the walls were completely blank, a depressing industrial gray.
“I want to see him,” Caroline finally said. It was one of those things that was partially true, and partially untrue.
Her father nodded to the woman at the desk, who fiddled with the console in front of her. The door beside her clicked, and she said, “Go ahead, Lieutenant.”
He led the way through the door, along a narrow corridor, down a flight of steps, along another short corridor, then finally through a heavy, solid metal door and into a large room brightly lit by fluorescents. Two gurneys stood near the center of the room, one empty, the other with a covered body. There was an old metal utility sink attached to one wall, and two walls were racked with refrigerated lockers. Caroline wondered how many bodies were being stored here right now.
Her father went to the head of the occupied gurney and waited for her. He put on a pair of surgical gloves he’d taken from his jacket pocket, then took hold of the cloth covering by one corner, and looked at her. She nodded, and he carefully folded back the cloth, exposing the head.
She didn’t look down at first. She kept her gaze on her father, the exposed face in the lower edges of her vision. A faint, unfamiliar smell rose, a chemical smell. Some kind of preservative, she imagined. Or would that have been used yet? Maybe something else. Maybe she was imagining the smell.
She tried to remember whether she had ever seen a dead person before, up close like this. There was her grandmother’s funeral when she was quite young, seven or eight, but she could not remember if there had been an open casket; if there had been, would she have been allowed to see her dead grandmother? There were simply no images from that funeral in her mind. She’d been older, fifteen, when her grandfather had died, but the casket had been closed, she remembered that distinctly; her grandfather had lost so much weight in the course of his illness that, according to her father, he was almost unrecognizable. He and his sister had decided that no one should remember their father that way.
Caroline finally looked down. It was Tito. Yes, it was Tito, but he almost didn’t look real. His lips were purple, his skin was strangely pale, like brown ash, covered with raw, red, purplish patches, and his open eyes looked like glass marbles. She felt a chill emanating from him, but she didn’t know if that was real or imagined.
“Is it Tito?”
She looked up at her father, looked back at Tito, and nodded. So many times in the past few months he had been so sick that she’d thought he would be better off if he died soon, ended his suffering, but looking down at him now, now that he was dead, she was no longer so sure. She only knew that she was already beginning to miss him, and the pain of that was growing—slowly, but steadily.
Her father gently pulled the cover back over Tito’s face, adjusted the cloth so it hung smoothly across the skin.
“I expected it to be colder in here,” she said. Even as she spoke, it seemed to her a strange thing to say, but it just came out. “So the bodies won’t decompose.”
“He won’t be out here long,” her father replied. “He’ll go back into one of the lockers as soon as we leave.”
She nodded and reached out, laid her hand over Tito’s chest. The cold seeped through the cloth and into her skin, even her bones, but she left her hand there, certain that it was important for her to feel that cold, to know what it was like. As though some crucial understanding would come from it. She would be that cold one day, and that day might not be that far in the future.
“What do I do to make funeral arrangements?” she asked.
“Nothing, for now.”
She looked up at him. “What do you mean?”
“It could be a while.”
“What are you talking about?”
“We need to have an autopsy done.” He seemed ill at ease, which was so unlike him. “But it’s a low priority, so it could be a while.”
“Why an autopsy? He had AIDS.”
Her father shook his head. “Yes, but that’s not why he died.” He was reluctant to go on. “Something else killed him.”
“What?”
“No idea. That’s why the autopsy.”
“What the hell is going on here?”
Her father looked increasingly uncomfortable. “I really don’t know, Caroline. It’s complicated, especially because I really don’t know much right now. But there might be a connection to another case I have right now.”
“What kind of connection?”
This time her father hesitated a long time. But if he knew her at all, he would realize that she would not let this go. He would realize he had to tell her.
“Cancer Cell,” he finally said.
“So Mouse was right.”
“Maybe. And maybe about the Core, too. Tito died in a street clinic in the Tenderloin, half a block from the Core.”
“What happened, Papa?”
Apparently he did know her well enough, because he eventually gave her the whole story. He started with putting out the department tracers, and getting a hit after the street clinic checked Tito’s identity chip. He told her about going out to the RadioLand Street Clinic and finding that Tito had already died. And he told her about meeting Cage, and Cage’s concern about an infectious disease with some kind of connection to Cancer Cell.
“And there’s a connection between that and another case you have?”
Her father nodded. “A murder case,” he said. “Cancer Cell has come up in that case as well. But it could be a coincidence.”
“You don’t think so, though.”
He sighed. “I really don’t know, Caroline. I’ve got a lot of nothing on that case right now, so I’m following up every possibility. And in the meantime, Cage wants me to have Tito autopsied, see if we can’t get some idea of what killed him. Maybe it won’t be anything.”
Caroline pulled her frigid hand back from the cloth over Tito, and stared at it.
“It’s all right,” her father said. “The cloth is impermeable.”
But her hand
was so cold, and she continued to stare at it, searching for some sign that no contagion had rubbed off onto it.
“Are you okay?” her father asked her.
She hurried over to the sink, turned on the tap with her elbows, and scrubbed her hands with large quantities of dispenser soap, the water as hot as she could stand it. Her father removed the surgical gloves and disposed of them in the wall bin beside the sink. Caroline continued scrubbing until her hands were red and painfully raw. She dried them with paper towels, tossed the towels into the bin, then turned to her father.
“I want to go now,” she said.
13
CAGE WAS DREAMING of a giant anteater. The anteater, which appeared to be six or seven feet high at the shoulder and close to fifteen feet long, wandered slowly along the deserted streets of San Francisco, snuffling through tall, tropical ferns and dripping wet broad-leafed plants that grew everywhere.
Cage was standing alone at the second-floor window of an abandoned building, watching the anteater amble through the city. A phone began ringing somewhere. The anteater stopped, tilted its head, and looked at Cage. The phone kept ringing, the dream shook apart and darkened, and Cage shakily came awake.
The phone continued to ring, quietly chirping beside him. He hated that sound. The room was dark, almost quiet except for the phone. He glanced at the pulsing blue clock beside the bed: 4:43. He hadn’t been asleep much more than an hour.
He finally reached for the phone, rolled onto his back, and put the receiver to his head. It rang once more, right in his ear. Cage pressed the answer button.
“Hello.”
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