When he was done with lunch, Carlucci went back to the phone across the street and called Mishima Investments. He got the same man, and the same noise about Naomi Katsuda’s unavailability.
“All right,” Carlucci said. “When will Ms. Katsuda be available? It’s important I talk to her.”
“If you could leave a number…”
“I told you before, that’s not possible. When should I call back?”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Carlucci.” A slightly condescending tone had worked its way into the man’s voice. “Ms. Katsuda says she does not know you. If you would leave a number and tell me the nature of your business with her, perhaps Ms. Katsuda would be willing to return your call. Otherwise we cannot help you.”
“I am Lieutenant Frank Carlucci, with the San Francisco Police Department, and I would appreciate your cooperation. I will not be available at my office, and I need to talk to Ms. Katsuda. So if you could please give me a specific time when I can call back and talk to her…” He left it at that.
There was a long pause, then the man said, “If you would hold just a moment, Lieutenant Carlucci.”
“Sure.”
Dead air, then the man’s voice returned. “I’m putting you through to Ms. Katsuda.”
“Thanks.” But the man was already gone.
“Lieutenant Carlucci. Naomi Katsuda here. What can I do for you?”
“I’d like to talk to you.”
“Talk away, Lieutenant.”
“In person, I think.”
She laughed softly. “That’s dramatic. What about?”
“Martin Kelly gave me your name.”
There was a slight pause, then she said, “Martin Kelly.”
“Yes.”
There was a longer pause. “I’m not sure I can help you,” she said.
“I’m not sure, either, but I’d like to find out.”
“I don’t think you understand me,” Naomi Katsuda said. “I’m not sure I want to help you, even if I can.”
“I understood you,” Carlucci said.
He waited through a long silence, trying to hear her breathing, some sign of life.
“Would tomorrow afternoon be all right?” she finally asked.
“Sure. Whatever works.”
“Call tomorrow morning, then, and Tim will tell you where and when.”
“Your secretary?”
“My assistant. I’ll see you tomorrow, Lieutenant.”
The line went dead again. Permanently, this time. Carlucci hung up the receiver and stood there beside the phone for a while, gazing at the street around him.
He should just let this Cancer Cell stuff go. It felt like trouble. But he couldn’t, not yet anyway. His daughter had asked for his help, and he couldn’t refuse.
CHAPTER 5
Wednesday evening, when Caroline arrived at home after work, her sister Tina was waiting for her. She was sitting on the porch steps of the apartment building, a large paper bag beside her; she was wearing a short, dark blue shimmer skirt over a white body stocking. No bra, but then she didn’t really need one small breasts ran in the family. Tina looked just great, Caroline thought, smiling to herself.
“Hey, sis,” she said.
“Hi, Cari.” Tina was the only one who called her that anymore. She stood up and they hugged each other. “What’s up?” Caroline asked.
Tina shrugged, smiling. “I just decided I wanted to see you. I thought maybe we could spend the evening together, sit around and talk and like that.” She bent over, picked up the bag, then straightened, smile broadening into a grin. “I brought rum and Coke.”
“Oh, no,” Caroline said.
“Oh, yes. You’re off work tomorrow, aren’t you?”
“I’m afraid so.” She could not keep from smiling at her younger sister.
“Then let’s get shitfaced.”
Caroline was fairly drunk, but was trying to pace herself. Tina wasn’t trying to pace herself, and she’d also smoked half a joint; now she had the giggles. Caroline had made a pot of tea, which they drank between glasses of rum and Coke. They were both going to pay for this the next morning, but Caroline didn’t really care; she was relaxed and content and she hadn’t had a good time like this in a long while.
“Have you seen Mom and Dad recently?” Tina asked. She was sitting on Caroline’s bed, leaning back into a pile of cushions and pillows propped against the wall, holding her rum and Coke in her lap with both hands. On the night-stand beside her was a mug filled with tea and an ashtray with the remaining half joint.
Caroline was settled into her old overstuffed chair, feet propped on a cushioned ottoman that leaked bits of foam on all sides. She felt incredibly comfortable, her muscles slack. She had no desire to move. She managed to sip at her drink and nod at her sister.
“Saw Papa a couple days ago. At the house. He looked like crap.” She smiled. “He’d just had his spring vaccination cocktail.”
Tina picked up the joint, stuck it in her mouth, but didn’t light up. She spoke with her lips pressed together, the joint wiggling up and down. “He’d better not make a surprise visit,” she said, “or he’ll have to bust our asses for possession.” She giggled and the joint spit out of her mouth, slid off her body stocking and onto the bedspread. She picked it up and put it back in the ashtray.
Caroline’s apartment was a large, spacious studio one large room with a small kitchen separated from it by a counter and ceiling cabinets. She really couldn’t afford it here in the Noe Valley Corridor, but her parents kicked in some money each month so she could live in a relatively safe part of the city. It made them a little crazy that Tina lived on the fringes of the Mission.
There was a scratching at the back door, in the kitchen alcove. Caroline tried to ignore it, but when it sounded again, more insistent this time, Tina sat forward, looking toward the kitchen.
“What’s that?” she asked.
“That’s just Lucas,” Caroline said. “Ignore him. He’ll go away.”
“Who’s Lucas?”
“Stray cat. He was hanging out a lot on the back stairs, and I made the mistake of feeding him a few times.” She shook her head. “He was so skinny, all beat up and scrawny. I felt sorry for him. Now he’s in better shape, all fattened up, and he won’t go away. I try to discourage him.”
“Why?” Tina asked. “You like cats. You should take him in.”
Caroline shook her head again. “No. I don’t want anything to be dependent on me.” She paused, then looked away from Tina. “I mean, what would happen to him when I die?”
The room got very quiet. She hadn’t meant to be that direct with Tina. Or maybe she had. She turned back to her younger sister, who looked like she was about to cry. Caroline smiled and shrugged.
“Is that why you stopped seeing Bryan?” Tina eventually asked.
Caroline gave a short laugh. “No. I slammed Bryan because he was a jerk.” Lucas scratched at the back door again and Caroline grinned. “He was just like that damn cat, always scratching to get in.”
Tina laughed, rocking forward and almost spilling her drink. She took a long, deep swallow and giggled.
“I need another drink.” A glance up at Caroline, a sloppy grin. “You?”
“Not yet.” Pacing, Caroline thought. One of us has to stay conscious.
She’d been feeling lonely again lately, and tried not to think about it too much. She almost missed Bryan. But she knew it wasn’t Bryan she missed; she missed the company, affection, having someone to talk to; she missed the presence of another person, someone she cared for, and who cared for her. She’d never really had that with Bryan, but she felt as if she’d sensed hints of what that would be like. At times it depressed her that she probably would never know what love truly was. Tina, at least, would have years to find it.
She finished off her rum and Coke, but wasn’t sure about another one, and she set her glass on the coffee table. She was already feeling a little bit out of control, and now her left eye was acting
up again. It felt as if a kind of film had formed over it, not quite blurring her vision. She blinked several times, trying to clear it.
“What’s wrong with your eyes?” Tina asked.
“Nothing. Just a twitch.” Caroline kept blinking, but couldn’t get rid of the strange sensation.
“How come you didn’t see Mom the other day?” Tina’ s eyes were almost completely closed now, and her head and shoulders were swaying, as if she were listening to some music that Caroline couldn’t hear.
“She was at work,” Caroline said. “It was Papa I wanted to see, anyway. I wanted to ask him for a favor.”
Tina opened her eyes, interested. “What kind of favor?”
“I’ve got a friend who has AIDS, and he’s living in a death house in the DMZ. He’s disappeared, and it looks like someone may have kidnapped him. I was just asking Papa if he could check into it, maybe help find out what happened.”
“Why would anyone want to kidnap someone who’s dying?” Tina asked.
“I have no idea.”
“Did Dad find out anything?”
“I haven’t heard from him, so I guess not yet.”
Tina made a face. “Are the death houses as bad as I hear?”
Caroline nodded. She hoped Tina wouldn’t ask for details; she didn’t want to talk about it.
Tina didn’t say anything for a long time, just sipped steadily at her drink, staring at Caroline, her mouth beginning to tremble.
“What is it, Tina?”
“You’re not going to end up in one of those places, are you?”
Caroline tried to brush it off, smiling and shaking her head. “Of course not.”
Tina took another long drink from her glass, put it down on the nightstand, hiccupped, then covered her face with her hands and started crying.
Caroline shut down. She couldn’t take this, and so she cut off all feeling. It was something she had learned to do during the past couple of years, a kind of emotional survival strategy. Bang, bang, bang, bang went the barriers, and she simply stopped feeling anything at all.
She stood and deliberately walked over to the bed. Her left eye still threatened to blur out on her. She stopped beside the bed for a minute, watching Tina cry, then sat beside her younger sister.
Tina twisted around and reached out for Caroline, hugged her, and cried even harder. “I don’t want you to die,” she managed to get out between sobs.
“I’m not even close to being dead,” Caroline whispered. She brushed at Tina’s hair with her fingers, over and over, sensing vaguely that she was trying to comfort her little sister, but not really feeling it. “I’ve got a few years at least,” she said. It might even be true.
They sat together on the bed for a long time, holding each other, Tina crying and Caroline running her hand along Tina’s hair. The smell of bitter incense wafted in through the open window, followed by someone’s laughter out on the street. Caroline wanted to go out on the street right now, walk up and down the corridor, the night sky above her, colored light all around. Move in and out of the crowds, look at people sitting inside cafés and bars or touring through entertainment arcades. She did not want to be in this room thinking about her own death.
“I’m sorry,” Tina finally said. She’d pretty much stopped crying, though she still held tightly onto Caroline.
Jesus, Caroline thought, maybe I do need another drink. “You don’t have to be sorry,” she said. She eased her sister away so Tina would look at her. Caroline smiled. “Why don’t you smoke the rest of that joint and I’ll have another drink. All right? We’re supposed to be having fun.”
Tina nodded, trying to smile back. But her hands shook as she picked up the joint.
Caroline got up from the bed and started across the room. She’d only taken a few steps when the vision in her left eye darkened, like a hand cupping her eye. She froze, afraid to move, but a few moments later her vision cleared. Even the filmy sensation was gone. She continued forward, slowly now; she picked up her glass from the coffee table and headed for the kitchen counter.
Halfway to the kitchen, she lost control of her left leg. It buckled under her, and she stumbled, pitched forward, and sprawled across the floor. Somehow she managed to hang onto the glass, though the ice cubes scattered across the rug.
“Cari, are you okay?”
Caroline nodded quickly. “Yeah, I’m fine. I just tripped.”
“Maybe you don’t need another drink,” Tina said, giggling.
“Yeah.” But she knew it wasn’t the alcohol. Elbows burning, she slowly, carefully got to her feet, using her right leg for support. Her left leg seemed okay now, and she took a tentative step forward on it. Fine. Then another. Still fine. She turned back, knelt on the floor, and scooped the ice cubes into her glass. Every motion was slow and deliberate. She stood, skirted the counter, dumped the ice cubes into the sink, and rinsed out the glass.
Back at the counter, she put fresh ice in her glass and mixed another drink. Heavy on the rum. She stood at the counter, hand around her drink, and watched Tina smoke the joint. Tina seemed to be relaxing again.
But Caroline wasn’t. Her heart was beating hard and fast, and she tried to breathe slowly and deeply. She didn’t want to be afraid. Her left eye felt funny again, that damn filmy sensation, but she could still see with it. And her leg seemed fine. She took a long swallow of her drink and almost coughed from the extra rum.
Everything’s fine, she told herself. Just fine. But she didn’t believe it.
She walked carefully over to her chair and sat, holding her drink with both hands. Tina dropped the last bit of the joint into the ashtray and lay back against the pillows, closing her eyes.
“That’s better,” Tina said.
But it wasn’t, Caroline thought. It wasn’t better at all.
CHAPTER 6
Early the next morning, Carlucci went out to the DMZ death house with Binh Tran. Tran’s partner, Mahmoud Jefferson, was home with some nasty flu that was running through the department, a flu the vaccination cocktails apparently weren’t targeted for, so Tran was solo for the day. Carlucci did not really want to go into the DMZ on his own, so he took Tran with him.
They drove a department car, parked a few blocks from the DMZ, then walked in. Early morning was the quietest part of the day in the DMZ, just like in the Tenderloin. Street traffic was steady, but the sidewalks were practically empty except for a few Dead Princes wrapped in their metallic shrouds and crouched against a building, and the occasional scrounger half lying on the ground with plastic begging jugs held out.
Carlucci and Tran were only a block into the DMZ when the clouds came in and the rain began. The rain was warm and light, little more than a drizzle. Looking around the DMZ, Carlucci realized the rain would never be strong and heavy enough to wash all this away. Which was a shame.
Caroline had given him directions and the keys to Tito’s room, and he had no trouble finding the entrance to the death house with its red skull-and-crossbones painted across the bricks. Before entering, he and Tran put on surgical gloves and masks. A woman across the street screamed at them, and a guy hanging out in front of the shock shop next door told them to get themselves fucked.
Tran shrugged, opened the death house door, and they stepped inside.
An old man lay on the lobby floor, just a few feet inside. His eyes were open and he looked dead. Carlucci watched him closely, but saw no signs of movement, no rise or fall of the chest, not a twitch in the mouth or eyes. Tran knelt beside the old man and put a gloved finger against the man’s neck. He kept it there for a minute or two, shifting it from one spot to another, then shook his head and stood.
“What do we do?” he asked. His eyes seemed calm. “Is there someone we should call?”
Carlucci shook his head. “They take care of their own in here.” He breathed deeply once, the mask only partially blocking the stink of death. “Let’s go.”
He led the way up the stairs to the third floor, reading some of
the graffiti on the way:
WAITING FOR DEATH
WITH BAITED BREATH
GOD MUST BE ONE MEAN SON OF A BITCH
GET ME OUT OF HERE NOW!!!
DON’T FUCKING BOTHER WITH ANYTHING.
The stairwell didn’t smell much better than the lobby.
When they emerged from the stairwell on the third floor, someone was walking down the hall toward them—a bald, gaunt man in jeans, no shirt covering a hairless chest that starkly revealed each rib. When the man saw Carlucci and Tran, he abruptly turned around and headed back the way he’d come, almost hopping, like some gangling, storklike bird, slapping his thigh with each step. He grabbed a doorknob, threw the door open, then hopped inside, slamming the door shut behind him.
Carlucci walked down the hall to the door Caroline said was Tito’s, Tran just behind him. Mounted on the door was a printed notice, a white sheet of plastic with bold black letters:
ALL CONTRACTS WILL BE ENFORCED
He looked at Tran, who shrugged and shook his head. Carlucci didn’t have any idea what it meant, either, nor who it was intended for. He’d have to ask Caroline if the notice had been posted the last time she was here.
He used the keys to unlock the dead bolts, slowly pushed open the door, but remained out in the hall. The door swung all the way open until the knob cracked against the wall. The room was quiet and empty.
Carlucci took a step inside. Suddenly there was a screech and a flash of movement and he dropped to a crouch, instinctively reaching under his arm for a gun that wasn’t there. He threw himself back through and around the doorway and into the hall, hearing a click as Tran chambered a round into his Beretta and dropped into a crouch, ready to fire. There was another screech, and flapping sounds. Tran’s head jerked, then he broke into a grin barely visible under the mask, sagged slightly, and lowered the gun. The flapping sounds continued for a few seconds, then stopped.
“What?” Carlucci asked.
“Parrot,” Tran answered, still grinning. He straightened, gun in hand, and leaned carefully through the doorway. He took two more steps inside, then holstered the Beretta and looked back at Carlucci. “Just a parrot.”
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