“Her father killed her, and carved up her forehead. That’s what happened to her.”
Jesus. Carlucci was stunned, completely unprepared for what he’d just heard. She hadn’t said Naomi’s father had arranged for his daughter’s murder. No, her meaning was clear. Yoshi Katsuda had done it himself.
“How do you know he did it?” he asked.
“I saw him do it.”
Jesus, he said to himself again. “All right. Tell me what happened.”
Her cigarette was almost gone, and she dropped it to the concrete floor and lit another. She smoked in silence for a while, and Istvan, too, smoked steadily; Carlucci had to fight the urge to reach out and take one for himself.
“I was at Naomi’s condo all day,” she began. “I had the day off work, and I’d spent most of the day cleaning up around the place and getting things ready for dinner whenever Naomi got home. She’d said she’d probably be working late.” She paused. “You’ve been in the condo, right?”
Carlucci shook his head.
“What the hell kind of investigation is this?”
“I’m not one of the investigating officers,” he explained. “They’ve been through the condo, but I haven’t.”
“Then what the hell is your involvement in all this?”
“I’m the supervising officer on the case. And I’m doing everything I can to solve this damn thing.”
She appeared to accept his explanation, though grudgingly, and she went on. “It’s on two floors. The second floor is more like a huge loft, open, just a bedroom, and a bathroom. I was up there, taking a shower, when Naomi came home. It was late, close to eight o’clock. She stuck her head into the bathroom, told me she was home, and then went downstairs to have a drink and start on dinner.” She stopped, looking outside through the cracked and shattered windowpanes. “I was out of the shower, and I was getting dressed when I heard the front door open. At first I thought she was just going out for a minute, something, but then I heard voices. Naomi’s first, sounding pissed, and then someone else’s. I listened hard, and recognized her father’s voice. Knowing the way he felt about me, I decided I should stay out of sight, but I was curious. I got down on my hands and knees and crawled across the loft, as close as I could to the edge of the stairs, where I could hear them.”
She stopped again, and Carlucci could see a tightening in her face. “But I couldn’t really make out anything he was saying, and so I crept forward a little and looked over the edge. Her father was there, in the front room, with two of his security jackals, all of them facing Naomi. Then he finally said something I could make out. He said, ‘You will never tell anyone. But you are my daughter, and so I will do this myself.’ And then he moved so quickly I could hardly believe it. Suddenly there was a long thin knife in his hand and he shot forward and drove it into her chest.” Amira was having a hard time breathing now, blinking frequently, still not looking at him. “She cried out, but it was so brief, hardly a sound. And then she fell back, and he released the knife, letting it go with her. There was some jerking…and then nothing…and I knew she was dead.” She was shaking her head now. “So fast, so fast, and she was gone.”
She looked at her cigarette, took one final deep drag on it, then tossed it onto the floor near the others. But this time she did not light another.
“I couldn’t move. I watched him kneel beside her, pull the knife from her heart, then carve something into her forehead. I couldn’t do anything to help her. Nothing. She was dead. And if they found out I was there, I’d be dead, too. So I crawled backward, slowly, so slowly, praying no floorboards would creak, until I was at the bed, and then I crawled under it, and waited. But no one came upstairs, no one even looked. I heard more sounds, doors opening and closing, and then after a while just silence. But I was scared. I didn’t move from under the bed for hours. When I finally did, and went downstairs, there were no signs of anything. Naomi was gone. There was no blood anywhere. Nothing out of place, nothing odd except a half-filled wineglass on the kitchen counter. Nothing.”
“If they didn’t know you were there,” Carlucci said, “why have you been hiding?”
She finally looked at him, and there was a bitter smile on her face. “I would have been next. He didn’t know I had seen him kill her, but he also didn’t know whether she’d told me whatever it was he had killed her for. He would assume she had. He wouldn’t take any chances. If it was important enough to kill his own daughter for, he wouldn’t hesitate to kill me just in case.”
There was a loud scraping sound outside the machine shop, and a shadow shifted across the windows. He looked at Istvan, who returned his look, nodded, then got to his feet. He moved quickly and almost silently across the machine shop’s concrete floor, to the side entrance and into the shadows. Carlucci and Amira waited in silence, neither moving.
There was strength in her, he decided, watching her, watching how she waited. She wouldn’t scare easily, or without reason. He liked her.
A few minutes later Istvan returned. “It was nothing,” he said quietly. “A kid scrounging through trash.” He lit a fresh cigarette for himself, and Amira joined him.
“Why did Yoshi Katsuda kill his daughter?” Carlucci asked.
Amira shrugged. “That’s the question, but I don’t have the answer. Naomi wouldn’t tell me what she knew.” Again that bitter smile. “She thought it would be safer for me if I didn’t know.”
“But you must have some idea,” Carlucci said.
“Sure. Some idea. But it doesn’t mean anything. It had something to do with Cancer Cell. No big surprise there, they were Naomi’s obsession.”
“Why was she so interested in them?”
“Because they seemed to be trying to subvert New Hong Kong’s overwhelming dominance of medical research. That, indirectly, worked to subvert Mishima, and in turn her father.”
“Did she consider that good or bad?” he asked. “She did work for her father. For Mishima and New Hong Kong.”
Her smile changed, became more amused. “It intrigued her.” Then the smile left. “But I think she found out something about what New Hong Kong or her father was doing in relation to Cancer Cell. That’s what had been bothering her, and it had been bothering her for months. I think it took her a long time to piece it together, to be sure. And I think she was just about there when her father killed her.”
“Why are you still here in the city?” Carlucci asked. “Why not get the hell out?”
“I’ve lived here all my life. I don’t really know anyone anywhere else. I don’t see how I could have gone anywhere without leaving a trace somewhere, credit or ID. But here in San Francisco, I have resources, people I can count on, ways to go on without leaving any traces.”
He smiled wryly. “Except for someone like Istvan.”
Amira nodded, but didn’t smile.
“Where are you staying now?” he asked.
Amira shook her head. “No. Because Istvan says I can, I trust you enough to come here and talk to you. But I don’t trust you that much.”
“Why do you trust Istvan?”
“Because he found me, and I’m still alive.”
Simple enough. But this wasn’t quite over yet. “I want to arrest the bastard,” he said. “I want to lock him up, and I want to have him tried and convicted for the murder of his daughter.”
“And I want to have Naomi restored to life.”
“I can’t arrange that, but I can take care of Yoshi Katsuda, if you testify. Eyewitness testimony is worth a lot to a jury.”
But she just shook her head. “You think I’d live long enough to testify?”
“We’d make sure you would.”
“Yeah. I’m reassured.”
“If you don’t testify, he remains a free man.”
“If I don’t testify, I remain alive.”
“But will you ever be able to come out of hiding?”
Amira nodded. “That’s a point. Someday, though. Something will change. Events. Maybe h
e gets Core Fever and dies, or goes to New Hong Kong, or moves to some other city. Or all of this blows over. Someday.”
She didn’t sound very convinced, and he pushed it. “But that could be years from now. Or he could find you, if he looks long enough.”
“I’ll take that chance.”
Carlucci couldn’t give up, he couldn’t just let this go. Knowing what had happened was not enough. “Here’s another option,” he offered. “Sign a full statement, detailing what happened. That will be plenty for a probable cause hearing. With murder and a serious threat of flight, there’s a good chance we can get him held without bail. Maybe we’ll be able to plea-bargain, it won’t go to trial, and you won’t have to testify.”
“Fat…fucking…chance. He’ll have the best and sleaziest lawyers money can buy. He’ll fight every bit of the way. It’ll go to trial.”
He shrugged. “Maybe. Probably. But you can decide then. You can stay where you are, not with police protection, but with your own. But Christ, give us a chance to bring…” He was about to say, “bring him to justice,” but he didn’t think that was right. “To bring the bastard down. He killed his own daughter. I do not want to let this go.”
“I don’t either,” she replied. “But it won’t bring Naomi back to life, and I don’t want to die. And if I do make a statement, and you arrest the son of a bitch…he’ll really come after me, then.”
Carlucci nodded. “Yes, he will.”
Amira shook her head. “I don’t know.”
I don’t know, she’d said. Not no. There was a chance. But he knew he shouldn’t push it. He would have to wait, give her time to think about it, time to think about what she could live with and what she couldn’t.
He nodded, and stood. “Thanks for talking to me,” he said.
“Sure thing.”
“Think about it. And let me know. Or let Istvan know.”
She nodded. “I will.”
45
ONCE AGAIN, WHEN things started to go to shit, Eric Ralston became unreachable. He was still in San Francisco, still at the Hyatt Regency, but for two days Cage put calls in, and for two days there was no answer. He left ten or more messages, but never got a call back. It had become a pattern, and it confirmed to him that his new fears were well founded.
It was the first time he had brought Caroline up to his apartment above the clinic. As he walked in with her, he was conscious of how empty it looked and felt, like no one lived here, as if it were more cheap hotel room than someone’s apartment. The bare minimum for furnishings; a handful of books, a few dishes on the counter. No paintings, no decorations of any kind. Nothing that made it look like a man named Ryland Cage lived here.
“It’s not much,” he said, feeling defensive.
“I remember,” she said. “I was here for a few minutes once before, the day I got out of the Core.”
That was right. He’d forgotten. “Can I fix you some tea or coffee or something?”
“Sure. Hot tea would be good.” She wandered around the room, looking at the few pieces of furniture, the nearly empty shelves.
“Searching for signs of intelligent life?” he asked.
She just laughed. He went over to the kitchen, filled the teakettle, and put it on the stove.
“The rest of this floor is all prostitutes?” she asked. When he nodded, she said, “And you trade medical care for this apartment.”
“Yes.”
“I think they’re getting the better deal.”
He shrugged. “Maybe so. It’s fine with me.”
“Maybe some of the ladies have offered their services to help make up for it, hmmm?”
Cage could feel himself flushing, and he didn’t respond. Some of them had offered their services free of charge. He’d even taken a couple of them up on their offers over the past two years, but he wasn’t going to tell Caroline that.
“Are you blushing?” she asked.
He kept his face to the stove, but he could feel the heat in his ears, and they felt exposed.
“I’m only teasing you,” she said. “I’m trying to get a laugh out of you. The past couple of days you’ve seemed real worried about something.”
He wondered if he should tell her about what they’d been doing at the clinic. But why not? He could trust her. And she’d been through plenty already.
“I know someone with the CDC,” he said. “You probably know the supply of Core Fever vaccine has been pretty limited up to now, there hasn’t been much available on the streets.”
“Not much? How about none? Same old crap, people with money are getting first crack at it.”
“Yeah. Well, my friend at the CDC, he’s gotten me a couple of large batches of the vaccine for the clinic.”
“But that’s great, Cage! Why does that worry you?”
The water started to boil, making a sick whistling sound in the kettle. He filled a small teapot with steaming water, and added a couple of tea bags. “I hope green tea is okay,” he said. “That’s all I’ve got.”
He brought the teapot and two large ceramic mugs over to the small table by the window. They sat across from each other, and he looked inside the pot. “It needs to steep some more,” he said.
“Cage. What is it?”
He looked at her, a sense of dread filling him. He had really come to care for her, but it seemed an impossible time for anything like a real relationship to develop.
He smiled. “I’m sorry, I’m just a mess.” He pointed at his own head. “Inside. Bear with me.” Then he stopped smiling. “We’ve had the vaccine for two weeks now.”
“Two weeks? I haven’t heard a thing about it.”
“Paul, Madelaine, Franzee, and I are the only ones who know.”
“You’ve been sitting on Core Fever vaccine for two weeks, and you’re not giving it to anyone? There are people dying every day from it!”
Cage shook his head. “We’re not sitting on it. We’ve been vaccinating just about every patient who’s come in.”
“I don’t understand. I haven’t heard a word at the clinic, or anywhere else for that matter. I would think the clinic would be swamped if people knew you had the vaccine.”
Cage nodded. “Exactly. The clinic would be torn apart. We’ve been vaccinating people without their knowledge. Whatever they come in with, we’ve been giving them a vaccination, calling it an antibiotic, or immune system booster, cholera treatment, whatever it takes.”
“Then why so upset? There isn’t something wrong with the vaccine, is there?”
“Depends on what you mean by something wrong. It could be worse, I suppose, it could be contaminated and be killing people. No, what’s happening is, some people who have been vaccinated are coming down with Core Fever.”
Caroline didn’t say anything at first, thinking. Cage poured tea for them both.
“Maybe they were exposed to Core Fever before they got the vaccine.”
Cage nodded. “We thought that at first. And that could be it for a few of them. But if your friend Rashida and the CDC people are right, the incubation period is down to two or three days. In the past few days we’ve had five or six people come in with Core Fever more than a week after they were vaccinated here. They don’t know that, of course, but we do.”
“What does that mean?”
“Three possibilities. One, that everyone’s wrong about the incubation period, but that’s the least likely possibility. Two, that the vaccine isn’t completely effective. Or three, that the vaccine itself is giving some people Core Fever.”
“That’s possible? That the vaccine could actually cause the disease it’s supposed to prevent?”
“It’s possible. It’s happened before. It happened in the last century with an early version of polio vaccine. Depends on the nature of the vaccine. I’ve been trying to get hold of my friend in the CDC for two days now, see if I can’t find out something. But either way is a serious problem. And either way, there’s nothing we can do about it, because there isn’t much
of an alternative.” He shrugged and gave her a kind of sick smile. “And that’s what’s been worrying me lately.”
Caroline didn’t say anything. She sipped at her tea, and gazed absently out the window.
Cage watched her, feeling depressed about everything—Core Fever, Nikki, his life, and Caroline. I am a mess, he thought. And, worst of all, he had no idea what to do about it.
Two hours later, he was still at the table by his window, looking down at the half-empty street below. Caroline was gone, back to Nikki’s old place. The telephone rang. He got up, went over to the bed and sat, then picked up the receiver and answered.
“Cage.”
“Cage, it’s Eric.”
He laughed. “About fuckin’ time.”
“I know, I know. But I’m pretty sure I know why you’ve been calling, and I’ve been trying to get some hard information so I’d have something to tell you. We’ve all been trying to get some hard information around here.”
“Okay,” he said. “Tell me why I’ve been calling you.”
“The vaccine.”
“The vaccine,” Cage repeated.
“You’ve had people come down with Core Fever who have been vaccinated.”
“Brilliant, Eric. First shot, bull’s-eye.”
“It’s nobody’s fault. The vaccine just isn’t working out as well as we’d hoped.”
“No shit.” Cage closed his eyes and lay back on the bed. “What is it?” he asked. “Is the vaccine making them sick?”
“We don’t think so. We’re pretty certain that it’s safe. It’s killed virus, and the screening is damn good. We’ve been testing hundreds of samples the past few days, and not one of them has contained any live virus particles.” Eric sighed. “We think the vaccine just isn’t a hundred percent effective.”
“You want to give me an idea of what percent effective, if it isn’t a hundred?”
“We’re only guessing right now, of course. It’s been too soon, and we don’t know what exposure rates have been—”
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