Gray sat nursing a glass of Kirin for a little longer before he got back in the Cerico and went back to the office. The rest of the day was spent going over reports and other paperwork, which gave him ample time to see the nature of his lesser colleagues. Men and women that were young like him, and just as hungry – or at least, as hungry as he had been until lately. He recognized himself in the clarity of their reports, the exacting attention paid to every detail. If you could determine which way the atoms were spinning in a knife wound it would have been documented. He wondered why that made him so irritable now, especially since they were no longer competition.
Once he was finished, Gray closed up for the night and headed south for the Duwamish Waterway. Listening to the purr of the Cerico’s engine brought him into a kind of fugue as he took the wheel himself, navigating the crumbling streets as he drove into the Verge. He thought of nothing save for those horrible pits that had once contained the eyes of the Native gang lord. He thought of how closely the gleaming studs resembled what had been there before, something out of nightmare. What was he going to say? ‘Hey guys, what do you know about that dude who was doing illegal shit in your neighborhood and you almost got blamed for killing him?’ Well, why not? He did the same thing before, almost, and he hadn’t gotten killed over it. No telling until he got there.
It wasn’t long until he pulled up by the park again; its blue fence shone dully in the light of the fading sun, bright against the darkness of the woods. The Cerico was much more out of place than his old Vectra as it settled onto the curb opposite the park fence, but as he got out he knew that nobody’d be able to steal it – the electrified lock cylinders, armored body and bulletproof windows were more than enough to keep some random-ass crim from trying to break in.
He walked across the street. From what he could see, the park was empty; the waning of the afternoon had not yet progressed to a point where the creatures came out to play. Standing on the patchy, yellowed field beneath the withered trees, he saw nothing but the detritus from before. “Well, shit,” Gray muttered to himself. “I guess I’ll have to come back later.” As he turned to go, however, the sound of rustling from a cluster of dried-out bushes caused him to spin back toward the sound.
A young woman emerged from the withered brush, and Gray recognized her immediately as the girl whom he’d seen blowing someone in the shadows on his first visit. Lithe and thin, she was very clearly no older than fourteen; the budding curves of her hips were barely covered by the band of a neoprene miniskirt, and her budding breasts were visible beneath her mesh shirt. She did not show modesty, nor did she act with it – tattooed with the image of a cat on her sallow face, the girl slinked toward him with all the confidence of a professional.
“Mr. Cop,” she cooed, “You’re back already.”
“Yeah,” he said, feeling just a bit uncomfortable at seeing the young creature approach him. “What do you want?”
She smirked, cocking her hips and looking up at him from under hooded lids. “What do you want, Mr. Cop?” Her dark eyes traveled over his suited form, and he was very aware of how they lingered over his hips. “You got a fifty I’ll let you peg me in the back of your car. Hundred, you can take me in the ass.”
Gray stared at her. What the fuck was this? Sure, he’d seen this plenty from afar, but he’d never had any little girl roll up and straight out proposition him. “…That’s okay,” he said, horrified beneath his flat expression. “I’m here to see James Black-Eyes.”
The girl shrugged her spare shoulders. “He ain’t here,” she said, reaching up to play with the end of his tie. Her hair swayed softly, like a fountain of black down over her shoulders. Gray fixed his eyes on her face. “But I am. You sure that you don’t want to…” She ran a fingertip down the lapel of his suit, and he felt his back stiffen as if he’d been frozen solid. She grinned again, loving his reaction. She’d screwed around with men’s heads like this before, no doubt. Only they probably gave in after awhile.
“No,” Gray said, gently pushing her hand away, “I’m sure. No way to get in touch with him then?”
She made the faintest spitting noise, so small as to be barely heard, and made a face at him. “Not right now, but he’ll be back tonight. You want me to tell him you were by, Mr. Cop?”
He nodded. “Yeah,” Gray said, taking a step back from her. He reached into the breast pocket of his jacket and came up with a business card, handing the slip of transparent plastic out to her. “He can reach me here.”
The girl looked at it, made another spitting noise. “Fine,” she said, sounding bored now. “I’ll let ‘im know.” She paused a moment. “Not even a slurp?”
“Good evening.” He turned and strode across the park toward where the Cerico waited on the other side of the street, shaking off the images that his lizard brain had injected in his head like a bad fever. Jesus fuck, he thought to himself, these people are fucking nuts out here.
He got back in the Cerico and sat there for a moment, thinking about that girl in the park. How young she was, how she didn’t care who saw her – wearing that mesh shirt with no bra, begging for people to ogle. He wondered if she’d been forced to do it that way and got used to it or if she’d been one of those hypersexualized girls who grew up early and decided to wield themselves like weapons at the public. Maybe it was survival, maybe it was mental illness, who the fuck knew. He wasn’t Vice and he wasn’t a saint, so it’s not like he could help her. He stared at the park from across the street once more; she had vanished as quickly as she had appeared, like some kind of bizarre nymph that might have sprung from one of the dying trees. He shook his head again and started off, happy to leave the park behind him. The sooner he could get out of White Center again, the better.
As he drove along the ruined waterway and past the corpses of the barges, however, a call came in on the Cerico’s console; answering it, he was rewarded with the rumbling of James Black-Eyes, an audio-only call which made his voice sound as if it were echoing from the abyss. “Detective Daniel Gray of Homicide Solutions” said Black-Eyes, making it sound like the invocation of a True Name. “Trinnie says you wanted to see me.”
Gray shivered in his seat. “She also said you weren’t around,” he said. “Bit surprised to hear from you so soon.”
“I was indisposed,” replied Black-Eyes. “A bit different, but you don’t expect someone so young to make these sorts of determinations. Now, what can I do for you?”
Gray parked the Cerico on the side of the road by the waterway; the day was fading, the bones of the dead ships growing increasingly dark. “I’ve got a lead on something,” he said, “Maybe.”
“Mmmm.”
“Yeah. Look, you remember that you told me that Ronald Anderson–”
“The man who was killed? The one you thought we murdered?”
“Yes,” Gray said.
“Ahhhh.” Black-Eyes sounded amused. “You’ve done us a favor, killing off that girl who thought that she could make us look like monsters.”
Make us look like monsters, he says, Gray thought as he remembered the sight of the man. “Yes, well, it’s part of the service,” he replied. “Protecting the public.”
“Indeed. And we thank you.” A black feeling floated up from his stomach at that. Yes, protecting people like them, at least when they weren’t menacing the public on their own. “So what did you need?”
“Well I need some information,” said Gray, rubbing at his brow as he said it – he was glad that the Cerico’s phone was set so that voice-only calls got voice-only responses in return. Wouldn’t do to let the horrible man see him disturbed. “If you have it.”
“Anything for our friend in Civil Protection,” the beast replied smoothly. “What is it you need to know?”
“Do you know about the strip club in the Hilton Crown Pavilion?”
“Mmm…that gaudy thing by Sea-Tac? The one made to look something like a fairytale castle?”
“…I’d never thought of it like tha
t,” Gray said. “Looks like a snowflake to me.”
“Indeed,” Black-Eyes replied. “I believe the club is called the ‘Autumn Heights’. You were saying?”
Gray cleared his throat. “Right. Who owns that place, do you know?”
“I do not, but I can find out. Why do you ask? Is this not something you can find out on your own?”
“It is,” Gray said, “Well, to a point. I want to know who really owns it, you know?”
“I can find out.” Black-Eyes sounded genuinely curious now. “It isn’t every day that a police officer asks a fellow such as me for such information. Isn’t this something that your friends in Vice could tell you about?”
Gray made a face. Jesus, stop asking so many fucking questions. He hated it when he dealt with genuinely smart criminals, especially ones like Black-Eyes. The ones who would eat your children in front of you, and then possibly compose a sonnet about the ordeal later on. The modern gentleman savage. “I always double-check my sources,” he chose to say. “You know how it is.”
“…Indeed,” said Black-Eyes, and his amusement rose. “Well, then. Was there anything else?”
Gray made another face and nodded. “Yeah,” he said to the empty air, “I’m curious. Do you know if there’s a Shard operation going on up there? I have sources that say otherwise, but it’s come to my attention that drugs of some sort are being trafficked in that area. Maybe…exotic substances.”
“‘Exotic substances’.” Black-Eyes sounded thoughtful. “Ah. Wonderland sweets, eh?”
Gray frowned. Wonderland? He hadn’t thought about black-market substances. Maybe that was it, though – especially if whatever Megan had found in Yin’s victims was what was being traded at the Autumn Heights. Could it be that Anderson was involved in the sale of this substance? If so, how were the other victims involved? How was Angie involved? Suddenly a whole new line of possibilities opened up for Gray, and he found himself wondering just what the hell he was getting into here. “Maybe,” he said. “If you can look into it, I would appreciate it. Quietly, if you can. You’re a man who understands discretion, I think.”
From the depths of the Cerico’s sound system, Black-Eyes’s laughter bubbled up like the black breath of Satan. “Yes,” he said, “Discretion. You see beyond my outward appearance, Detective, that is why I like you. You know the value of respect. Yes, I will look into this matter for you, and I will tell you what I discover. It is the least that I can do for someone who has clarified the reputation of the Duwamish Sons.”
There was a pause. Gray rubbed at his forehead, wondering, and then asked the obvious question. “I don’t understand that,” he said. “How did I manage that?”
“It was as you said,” explained Black-Eyes. “Someone was acting as if they might be us – certainly you thought so, and as it turned out, so did others. You made sure that certain understandings that people had about the Duwamish Sons were confirmed again. Certain…aesthetics.”
“Ah.” The aesthetics of death, he meant. How every gang killed was as much part of their image as how they looked or what business they were into. He’d helped cement part of their legend by removing the confusion that Yin kept up. “All right, well. Happy to help, I suppose. Thank you, Mr. Black-Eyes. I appreciate your help.”
“I will take it that you mean ‘I’ as the individual, not as the policeman.” Black-Eyes chuckled. “You’re welcome, Detective. We shall talk soon.”
“Soon,” Gray echoed, and reached to cut the call. He sat there in the car, waiting for his guts to settle. He’d just made a deal with a criminal. It happened, but nothing like he’d ever done before – certainly not with a monstrosity like James Black-Eyes. He felt as though he’d made a deal with the Devil, and possibly he had. But this might get Vice off his back, and more importantly, off of Angie’s. Maybe the ISB would get involved and Civil Protection would get cut out of it all – and as much as that might annoy the company, it would finally mean some peace.
Peace. Even if he’d have to deal with the Devil to get it, peace – and Angie – is what he wanted most right then.
Gray was getting dinner when Black-Eyes called him back. It wasn’t what he wanted, sitting there eating vermicelli with grilled tofu chunks in another street stall, frowning at his bowl with the voice of the New Modern Devil tainting his earpiece rig. “I’ve gotten the information you asked for,” he said, with a chuckle that made the blood run slow and cold in Gray’s veins. “But I don’t know that you’ll like it.”
“I don’t like much of anything that’s come out of this situation so far,” Gray said, sipping from a bottle of Evian. “So, you know, shoot.”
“The owner of the Autumn Heights is a man named Wilson Hammersmith,” said Black-Eyes.
“I don’t know that name,” said Gray.
“You don’t?” The young Satan sounded surprised.
“No, I don’t. Should I?”
“Tell your friend, the Vice officer. It might help his investigation quite a bit.”
Gray took another sip from his water. “Wait,” he said. “Who is this guy?”
“He’s a figure of interest,” said Black-Eyes. “I’ve never met him myself – we don’t travel in the same circles, you understand. Too many suits in his crowd for someone like me.”
Human skin must not be a bespoke material, Gray thought darkly to himself. “All right, I hear you. What’s he into?”
“What isn’t he into?” Black-Eyes laughed, the sound of which made Gray increasingly uncomfortable. “He isn’t a kingpin, if you’re wondering – more like an underwriter. Or perhaps an investor. Quiet, doesn’t make much noise on his own. He funds enterprises – nothing illegal in and of itself, of course, but the dark stuff happens under his roofs. You can be certain that what goes on there is criminal, however.”
“I get the idea,” Gray replied. “Sponsoring the locations, not the activities themselves.”
“That doesn’t mean that he does not take a cut,” said Black-Eyes. “The Devil taking his due, so to speak.”
You’d be one to talk. “I get you,” he said. “So what else do you know about this guy?”
“I know that the name is an alias,” There was a shrug in Black-Eyes’s voice. “Perhaps corporate, or entirely criminal. Who can say? I don’t mean to make him sound like some kind of ghost – he’s certainly not some kind of bogeyman. Others have that sort of role.”
“I can imagine.” Gray took a deep breath. “Anything else?”
“Nothing else, no. That in itself is rather appreciable knowledge. And now our business is complete. I doubt that we shall see each other in the future – at least, not under pleasant circumstances. But if you’d like, you could do something for me should you meet that particular fellow.”
“And that is?”
“Shoot him in the face,” said Black-Eyes, and his voice took on a poisonous edge. “I understand you’re good at that.”
Gray only grunted. “Well, thank you. Have a good life, Mr. Black-Eyes.”
“James, please. We’re friends, now.” Black-Eyes laughed again, and Gray’s fingers clenched so tightly on the bottle that the plastic collapsed around them, splashing out over the top and drenching the cuff of his shirt. The line went dead, leaving Gray to sop up the mess and wonder what the hell to do next. Friends. With that horrible fucker. Gray shook his head, and after he was finished cleaning himself up got to his feet. He didn’t really have much of an appetite anymore.
So that was it, then? No Faustian deals, no fireworks, no getting dragged screaming into Hell? Gray got back into the Cerico and started it up, pulling the car onto the road and setting a leisurely course for home. He had a lot to think about. Working a case like this was like chewing Ochiyama Eight-Layer Paradise Gum. It wasn’t the sort of thing you could swallow, because it would probably give you cancer – you had to chew the fuck out of it, see if you could get any more flavors that might be buried in there. You’d know what the whole thing was all about, and then (and on
ly then) you could spit it out. The fact that he was thinking of his vocation in terms of wrangling horrible Japanese gum told him a lot about his mindset these days, but there it was.
Names. There were too many of them running around so late in the game. Moody and his investigation into Angie’s club, Marowitz and Cinders trying to destroy him for some reason that he had yet to determine. Now he had a new name from that Duwamish beast. Wilson Hammersmith? What was that, English? Sitting in the Cerico he called up the network, logged into Civil Protection’s data nexus and ran a query on the name. No file, no personal information, nothing. Fine. Checking the real estate indices, however, gave him a whole list of properties attached to the name – or rather a company, Puget Holdings Limited, to which Hammersmith’s name was attached. The list was…extensive. Clubs and restaurants, mostly, many of which he had personally been to. The Autumn Heights, of course. Nautical Star. The Cyclops Lounge, too. Seemed like everywhere he’d been in the past few months was on the list, anything that people were told they should give a shit about on NewsNetNow.
He cross-referenced the list with the Civil Protection database, where he got a little more traction. Vice had a lot going on there, apparently, probing into dealers and prostitution and the like – nothing too big, like managers or waiters running Shard or pills. Nothing that would bring a huge scandal, and certainly nothing that would bring on federal heat like Wonderland juices, but damn if Moody wasn’t putting his people after those properties like a madman. Flagged for clandestine investigation, culturing of informants (left nameless, of course, for their protection), satellite surveillance, everything. Well, that explained the interest that Moody had in the Autumn Heights, and how Angie fit in – from this, it looked like she was just one more of the many confidential informants that Vice had established to look in on Hammersmith’s activities. So what about Hammersmith himself?
Bone Wires Page 23