Carlucci's Heart

by Richard Paul Russo

  “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 he 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.”

  CHAPTER 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,” s
he 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—”

  “Just get to it, Eric.”

  “Maybe fifty or sixty percent effective.”

  Jesus Christ. And that was probably high, because they’d want to put the best face on it they could.

  “It’ll get better, though. We’ve got people working on modifications right now. There’s been more mutation of the virus than anyone expected. And we’re stepping up production, going into full gear—”

  “Stepping up production for a vaccine that’s only fifty percent effective that you’re still trying to change.”

  “It’s something, for Christ’s sake! And once we’ve made changes, and have a new vaccine, we’ll give people who have had the first one the new one as well. Look, Cage, this is a logistical nightmare, can’t you realize that? We’re talking about trying to set up a vaccination program for three hundred and fifty million people. We’re doing the best we can…”

  He had heard that too many times from Eric. Cage hung up on him, got up from the bed, and sat down by the window again, looking outside. The people down there in the street had no idea what was happening to them right now, or what was very likely to come.

  CHAPTER 46

  It was raining, so there was no moonlight, and the light from the street lamps was dim, two distant amber glows obscured by sheets of warm rain. Carlucci approached the abandoned machine shop, pulling his slick-coat tighter—a wasted gesture; he was already soaked. He hurried around the corner of the building, into the alley, then ducked into the side doorway.

  Sheltered from the rain, he stood there a minute before going in. He was afraid to hope, but he could think of no other reason Amira would want to meet him tonight she was going to go through with it. She wouldn’t need to meet him just to tell him she wouldn’t do it.

  He opened the door, stepped inside, and closed it. Darkness and silence. Without the moonlight he could hardly see a thing inside the machine shop, only vague shadows against darker shadows. He waited, listening. Nothing. Maybe they were late. After a couple of minutes, his eyes adjusted enough to make
out the crates and cable spool where they’d sat before, but there was no one there.

  He took a flashlight from the slick-coat pocket and thumbed it on, sending a narrow beam of white light across the concrete floor.

  “Shut that damn thing off!” Istvan’s voice, a harsh whisper from somewhere above him.

  Carlucci complied. He remained where he was, unmoving. Several minutes passed. If Istvan and Amira were anywhere around him, he couldn’t hear them.

  Finally the narrow white beam of a flashlight appeared on the other side of the machine shop, up at the top of the stairs leading to an open, second-story work area. The light beam bobbed as someone carried it down the steps, and soon he could make out two forms behind it, moving toward the crates and spool. He joined them.

  Istvan and Amira sat on the crates, and Amira set a plastic folder on the spool. Inside were several sheets of paper.

  “Let’s do this right,” she said. “Istvan told me. No question of authenticity. I’ve written it out myself, and I’ll sign each page here in your presence.” She took the sheets out of the folder and handed them to Carlucci. “Maybe you want to read it first, see if there’s something I left out.”

  He sat on one of the other crates, used his own flashlight for light, and read through the statement. Everything was there, just as she’d told it to him when they’d been here ten days ago. Everything.

  “It’s fine,” he said. He handed the pages back to her, and she signed and dated each one, then put them back in the folder and handed the folder to him.

  “Will you testify?” he asked.

  “Tell them I will,” she said.

  “But will you?”

  “I don’t know. Just do everything you can to avoid a trial, and we won’t have to worry about it.”

  He had to be careful now. One move at a time, no missteps, cover his ass. And so, before he told Santos and Weathers, he went to the DA; he had to make sure he was going to get the support to go all the way.

  Angela Del Carlo had been the district attorney for three years. She’d had to be hard and brash and tough to get the job in the first place, and she’d had to be tough to keep it. And she called all the shots on any high-profile case. There was no point in going to any of the deputy DA’s with this; nothing would go forward without Del Carlo’s approval. So Carlucci insisted on meeting with her.