Hell's Horizon

by Shan, Darren

  I smiled. We were forever in conflict with the cops. They hated having to play second fiddle to a band of mercenaries. They loved any excuse to barge in and read the riot act.

  “Find out anything?” Terry asked.

  “No. I thought somebody might have recognized her but…”

  “Thousands of customers pass through the Skylight every day,” he sympathized, “and those are only the official guests. More use the restaurant, bars and function rooms. If somebody doesn’t want to be noticed, they aren’t.”

  “What did the police make of it?”

  “At first they reckoned she’d tagged along with a one-night stand. Then they discovered she was a sometime prostitute. They decided it was a client she’d brought back or met in the hotel.” He didn’t seem too sold on the theory.

  “You don’t agree?”

  “The Skylight has its share of nightwalkers, like hotels the world over. But it’s a closed shop. Unwanted competition is harshly dealt with. Even an amateur hooker knows better than to bring a trick here.”

  “Maybe one of the regular girls took offense and…” He was shaking his head before I finished.

  “Some of them are vicious enough, but they wouldn’t do it here. They know better than that. They’d have taken her elsewhere.”

  “Perhaps she was a regular,” I suggested. “Maybe this wasn’t the first time she used the Skylight. Have you any way of checking?”

  Terry reached into a drawer, produced a slim purple file and tossed it across. I opened it to discover a long list of names, both male and female.

  “Every hooker’s name is registered,” Terry said. “Even those who only use our rooms once in a blue moon.”

  “They let you tag them?” I asked, scanning the names.

  “It works to their advantage. Those on the list aren’t troubled by security. Room discounts. The first to be called when a guest requests company.”

  “What if one of them—”

  I stopped. The file contained close to twenty sheets, not just names, but phone numbers, contacts, sexual specialities, background details, medical histories, even photos. Near the bottom of the sixth sheet, a name jumped out at me. Priscilla Perdue.

  Terry noticed my pause and leaned over the table, craning his neck. “Priscilla Perdue,” he muttered. “Blond. Very upmarket. Has a thing for women.”

  “A thing for women?” I repeated.

  “I believe so. It doesn’t say here but I think it’s mostly those of the fairer sex she swings for.”

  “Does she use the Skylight often?” I asked.

  “Once or twice a month. You always know when she’s around. She blazes in, customer in tow, acting like a movie queen. In fact we’re not sure if she’s a pro or not—word is she doesn’t charge—but we put her on the list all the same.”

  “Do you have a photo of her?”

  “No, but I can get one.”

  “Please.”

  I read the profile while Terry had a photo e-mailed across. There was nothing I didn’t already know—height, weight, measurements, place of work. Even the photo, when it came, was familiar, one of the shots from the file in Party Central.

  “Mind if I quiz some of your staff again?” I asked.

  “Quiz away,” Terry said.

  An hour later I left the Skylight in a daze. Plenty of the staff recognized Priscilla from the photo but it was the response of three in particular—a receptionist, a barman and a waitress in the ground-floor bar—that set my head spinning. All ID’d her and then, in answer to my second question, “When did you last see her?” replied—

  “Friday before last. She checked in by herself.”

  “Friday last week. Ordered a pi≁a colada. Took it to a table in a corner. Nobody with her that I saw.”

  “Friday, I think. Not this one—a week further back. I collected her glass after she left. She barely touched it. She was on her own, but I think I recall seeing somebody drop by her table not long before she left.”

  Priscilla had been in the Skylight when Nic was killed.

  10

  Nic’s funeral was the next day. I’d been of two minds about whether or not I should go but on the morning I decided I couldn’t miss it. I wasn’t a funeral connoisseur—hadn’t been to any since my mother’s—but this was different. It was business.

  There was a police cordon outside the crematorium to keep back the press and spectators. Only her closest relatives and friends were being admitted. My name wasn’t on the list and the cop on duty refused to admit me. A quick call to Bill fixed that and I was soon being waved through.

  The small funeral parlor was nowhere near capacity. It was almost time for the ceremony yet I counted only fourteen heads. Nick was up front, dressed soberly. Priscilla was beside him, weeping into a handkerchief, clutching the hand of a woman I didn’t recognize.

  Rudi Ziegler was seated near the rear of the room. He was weeping loudly, letting the tears course down his face unchecked. Nearly everybody was sobbing, except me and Nick. I didn’t cry because it would have been hypocritical—I hadn’t known her that well. What was Nick’s excuse?

  Nic rested in a rainbow-hued coffin molded out of some kind of plastic. The top quarter was transparent, so we could see Nic’s head and shoulders. She was a beautiful corpse, serene as only the dead can be. Her face had been left unmarked by her assailant and I couldn’t stare at it for long without getting a lump in my cynical throat.

  I got a shock when the priest emerged—it was Elvis Presley! Forelock and sideburns, wiggling hips, flares, white suit with sequins. The mourners burst into smiles when they saw him striding to the head of the coffin. Obviously this was an in-joke I wasn’t privy to.

  He gave a nice speech. Said Nic had been a life-loving woman, deep, honest, thoughtful, with far more to her character than the frivolous front she showed to the world at large. He said this was how Nic had wanted to go, with lots of color and a touch of merry madness. If she was looking on, he hoped she was enjoying the show. “This one’s for you, Nic,” he mumbled in his best Elvis impersonation, then launched into “Heartbreak Hotel,” a cruel choice in my opinion.

  As he gyrated, two of his assistants—both dressed as glam rockers—emerged from the sides and loaded the coffin onto a conveyor belt. Elvis stood to attention and crooned “Glory, Glory, Hallelujah,” slipping off into the shadows as he sang. Somebody threw a lever and the coffin glided backward, Nic’s final journey.

  Rudi Ziegler howled at that point, stumbled to his feet and brushed past me, lurching for the exit, sobbing pitifully like an old drama queen.

  A few of the mourners glanced over their shoulders. Priscilla was one of the curious. She spotted me and frowned, then smiled weakly and mouthed the words, “See you after?” I nodded. The coffin began to disappear through the curtains and she diverted her gaze, took Nick’s hand and squeezed. He still hadn’t shed any tears, though he looked shakier than before.

  I ducked out. I’d seen enough. I knew what would happen behind the curtains—the body would be taken, incinerated, the bones fed into a machine to be ground into ash—but what would they do with the coffin? Respray and use it again? Give it to Nick to take home? I could have asked one of Elvis’s assistants, who’d come out and was scattering large, scented flowers along the hall floor, but I wasn’t that desperate to know.

  The mourners filed out, turning left as they came, following the path of flowers. I stood to the right of the door, military stance, hands crossed in front of my abdomen, head bowed as a mark of respect. Most of the guests ignored me but one old man paused and half turned. I started to raise a hand and smile, then saw his blank white eyes. I lowered the hand and coughed politely instead of smiling. His head twitched, then he nodded to acknowledge my presence, listened for the footsteps of the others and strolled after them.

  Nick and Priscilla came last. I was about to step forward to offer my condolences but she spotted me and shook her head. She led Nick along—he was walking mechanicall
y—handed him over to one of his friends, then backtracked.

  “Thank you for coming,” she said, kissing my cheeks. “Nic would have liked that.” Her eyes were red. She was clad in a dark dress that sexily accentuated her curves. I tried not to focus on it—I didn’t want to get a hard-on in a crematorium. It would have seemed disrespectful.

  “I wasn’t sure I’d be welcome,” I muttered.

  “Of course you are.” She dabbed at her eyes with the handkerchief. “I just didn’t want Nick to see you. He’s been bottling his emotions in and I think he’s looking for an excuse to explode. You might have been it.”

  “What was with the Elvis routine?” I asked.

  Priscilla smiled. “Nic loved Elvis. This was what she would have wanted.”

  “Who chose the song?”

  She winced. “I did. It was Nic’s favorite. I only realized how inappropriate it was when he started singing. I could have sunk through the floor.”

  She glanced up the corridor. Nick had disappeared from sight. “I’d better head after him. He’s arranged a wake at the family home. Invited a load of friends, most of whom hardly knew Nic. It’ll develop into an orgy if there’s nobody sensible to control things.”

  She started away.

  “Could we get together sometime?” I asked. “Dinner? A drink? There are some questions I’d like to ask.”

  “Of course. Not tonight, though. How about tomorrow?”

  “Great.” I hesitated. “You’re not thinking of taking me to the Kool Kats Klub again, are you?”

  She had the good grace to blush. “I apologized for that already. How about Cafran’s? Know it?”

  “I can find it. Seven?”

  “Fine.”

  She departed.

  I stood there a few minutes, letting her coast out of sight, then slowly followed. Outside the mourners were getting into their cars. I looked around for the blind man, wondering whom he was leaving with, but couldn’t locate him. A journalist moved in to take a photo of me but the cop who’d barred my way earlier stepped in front of him and sent him on his way.

  “Didn’t think you’d want your picture in the papers,” he said.

  “Thanks.”

  “Don’t mention it.” His eyebrows lifted. Looking over my shoulder, I saw Elvis emerging, peeling off his sideburns. “One of the mourners?” the cop asked.

  “No. The priest.” He checked to see if I was pulling his leg. Chuckled when he realized I was serious.

  “Wish I could have been there. Did he sing?”

  “Like a bird.” I asked to see the list of mourners and jotted down the names for future reference. Looking through them, I frowned and recounted. “There’s only thirteen.”

  “That’s right.”

  “But there were fourteen at the service.”

  “Including you, yes.”

  “I mean without me.” I thought about the blind man and asked if the cop had noticed him.

  “No. And I checked everyone through.”

  “Could he have entered another way?”

  “I can check with the guys on the other doors. Most likely he was from another party and got lost, or else he’s a professional mourner who squeezed in before we came.”

  “A professional?”

  “There’s always a few hanging around. They drift from funeral to funeral. Want me to look into it?”

  “Don’t bother. It’s not important.” I tucked my notebook away, thanked him for his help and took one last look at the palace of the dead. I shivered as I spotted a stream of smoke rising in the air, then turned my back on the crematorium and hurried away.

  I couldn’t rid myself of the image of Nic writhing inside the oven—or whatever it is they use to burn the bodies—flames creeping over her flesh, consuming her whole. I knew I wouldn’t be able to keep my mind on work, so I put the case to one side for the rest of the day and headed over to the Fridge to pay a belated call on another member of the unto-infinity club.

  A girl called Velouria noted my request, checked my credentials, then tapped the name “Tom Jeery” into a computer. It came up blank. “When was he left here?” she asked.

  “I don’t know the exact date. Early to mid-eighties.”

  “Then he probably won’t be on the database.” She keyed out of the screen and rose. “We can’t transfer names without permission—the system’s too easy to hack into. We only started putting them on disc in the late nineties, checking whether we should or not as each new inhabitant was brought in. Never bothered backdating—too much hassle trying to track down relatives or connected personnel.”

  “You’re saying you can’t find him?”

  “Of course we can,” she sniffed, “unless he was entered as a John Doe. But it’ll take a while. Without a precise date I’ll have to go through the entry books. Do you want to leave it with me and come back?”

  “I’ll wait,” I told her and settled into one of the uncomfortable plastic chairs.

  I wasn’t sure what I hoped to gain by the visit. I’d hardly ever dropped by my mother’s grave, and I’d loved her. Maybe I hoped to unleash a flood of memories when faced with his tomb. Though my father hadn’t spent much time around the house when I was growing up, I was sure I must be harboring more memories of him than the meager few I was currently aware of.

  Several doctors and assistants passed by as I was waiting, barely glancing at me. I was surprised when one stopped and addressed me warmly.

  “Lost another girlfriend?”

  I didn’t recognize the grinning doctor when I looked up, but placed him within the few seconds it took to rise and take his hand. “Dr. Sines.”

  “Bit of a shock last time you were here,” he chuckled. “Recover yet?”

  “Just about. They buried her today.”

  “Oh?” He didn’t seem overly interested. “They normally hold on to the body for longer in cases such as these. She must have had relatives with connections.”

  An impatient colleague of the doctor’s, who’d been marching with him, asked Sines if he was coming. Snappy, as if he had no intention of waiting around.

  “In a minute,” Sines snapped back. “So, find out where she was murdered yet?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Nicola Hornyak. I heard you were handling the investigation. Have you located the scene of the crime or are you still searching?”

  “I don’t understand. Nic was killed at the Skylight.”

  He laughed humorlessly. “You haven’t been keeping up to date. From the subcutaneous particles we discovered—the dirt in her cuts—she wasn’t attacked in the hotel. She died there, but the wounds were inflicted earlier, possibly on a building site, judging by the sand and industrial dust.”

  I stared, boggle-eyed. “Why the hell wasn’t I informed?” I roared.

  “Don’t ask me. I passed on our findings, first thing Saturday. The state coroner reached the same conclusion, I hear, although he’s been persuaded not to go public with the news.”

  “Who did you tell?” I growled.

  “It was FMEO.”

  “What the fuck does that mean?”

  “For My Eyes Only. My being The Cardinal.”

  “You told The Cardinal?”

  “Yes. He mentioned your name and said he’d pass it along. Thanked me and asked me to keep it quiet. Which I have.” He frowned. “Until now. I assumed you knew. He said he was going to… You won’t tell him I let it slip, will you?”

  I shook my head slowly. “Not if you’ll keep me informed of any subsequent developments. Let me give you my number.” I texted it across to him.

  “There’s nothing else to tell,” he said. “I e-mailed my report to The Cardinal, but it was a long-winded version of what I’d told him already. The assault took place somewhere other than the hotel. Her assailant may have thought she was dead when he took her there—she can’t have been too lively when she was dropped off. She died a few hours later, around the time her body was discovered.”

&nbs
p; “And you think she was tortured on a building site?”

  “It’s a strong possibility. Or it may have been in a garage or somebody’s backyard—the materials could have been present there too.”

  Velouria returned, smiling, holding a file to her chest. “When you’re ready, Mr. Jeery.”

  “I have to go,” I told Sines.

  “You’re not the only one.”

  “You’ll call me if anything new crops up?”

  “It won’t, but if it does, I will.”

  “Thanks.”

  The news had knocked me soaring out of bounds. Nic hadn’t been murdered in the Skylight. What bearing did that have on the case? For starters it seemed to rule out the single-killer theory. The Troops guarding the hotel weren’t the most alert but they wouldn’t fail to spot somebody dragging in a corpse, not unless someone else distracted them. Perhaps one of them had been in league with the killer. And what of Priscilla? I knew she’d been in the lobby and restaurant the night of the murder, which had seemed to implicate her. But if Nic had been killed elsewhere…

  I’d have to spend more time on this. I wasn’t thinking clearly at the moment, so I pushed it to the back of my mind and left it there. I’d return to it later, in my apartment, after a good meal and a long shower.

  I followed Velouria through the maze of cubicle-lined corridors. My brain kept throwing Sines’s words back at me but I refused to be drawn into the marsh of possibilities. I was here to pay my respects to my father. Nic could wait.

  The geology of the maze shifted subtly the farther we progressed. The style of the containers changed—they were larger, rounded at the edges, some decorated with brass or gold fixings. There were fewer per row—some even stood by themselves—and flower-basket frames hung from hooks on the doors (though bouquets were scarce). Velouria noticed my interest and explained that this was an older section of the Fridge. The original designers had tried to inject a modicum of warmth, unaware of its true purpose. The current administrative team was planning to renovate in the near future—they could fit twenty percent more bodies in once the coffins were streamlined—but that would be a monster of a job, which nobody was looking forward to.