“There’s a lot to go through,” Paula said.
“Yeah, I know. But we can get the Saints working on it, some of the novitiates. No one will know what it is; hell, we don’t. They’ll just be looking for pieces. Everything will be ice.”
“And we’ll get someone to come in and translate the text,” St. Katherine said. “And someone to check out the diagrams. They will be people we can trust, of course.”
“And then what?” Paula asked. “If we find the rest of it and figure out what it is, then what do we do?”
No one answered her. No one had any idea.
Paula sat at her kitchen table, drinking the last of Chick’s Stolichnaya and staring at what remained of Chick’s things. Most of the boxes were gone now, hauled away in several trips on foot by Mixer, St. Katherine, and St. Lucy. His home-studio equipment was still there, along with some books and a couple of boxes of miscellaneous crap, but the music was all gone. Paula was depressed.
She felt like she was losing Chick, losing her memories of him. She’d get everything back from Mixer, but still... Chick and his music had turned into something else—murder and money and cover-ups and something big and secret going on up in New Hong Kong. Chick was disappearing.
The hole in her heart seemed to be getting bigger, somehow, and the vodka wasn’t filling it. She drank off the rest of the glass and picked up the bottle. Empty.
She got up and walked into her bedroom, dug around in her discs, found the one she’d played over and over since Chick had died, the music video with the footage of the two of them making love here in this room, on this bed. “Love at Ground Zero.” She put it on, sank back in her chair, and watched it once again.
As it played, the bluesy music surrounding the slow-motion images of their lovemaking in orange and yellow light, Paula pulled her knees up and wrapped her arms around them, pulling them in tight against her chest, jamming her chin into them. And when the song ended, and she watched the close-up of Chick’s face silently saying “I love you,” the open pit in her heart expanded, engulfed her, and swallowed her whole.
TWENTY-FOUR
MIXER AND ST. KATHERINE stood in the darkness of the basement room, surrounded by electronics and boxes of Chick’s discs and tapes, lit by shafts of pulsing display lights. Faint ether music played on the sound system, whispering from the speakers scattered around the room.
“It’s in here,” Mixer said. “I know it.”
St. Katherine nodded. Her face was ghostlike in the pale amber light. Mixer wanted to breathe his life into it, into her. He didn’t know when the change had occurred, but it definitely had. He would do almost anything for her.
“What do we do with it when we find it?” St. Katherine asked. “When we learn what it is.”
“What do you mean?”
She looked directly at him, and he thought she might be close to smiling. Or smirking.
“It must be worth a fortune,” she said.
Mixer shook his head, trying to read her voice.
“We could give Paula a piece of it. A large piece.”
Was she serious? She seemed even closer to a smile now, but he wasn’t certain.
“We’ll do whatever Paula wants,” he told her. “Chick paid for this with his life. I nearly paid with mine. We’ll do whatever’s right.” He paused, still trying to read her expression. “When we know what it is, we’ll know what’s right. Paula will know what’s right.”
Now St. Katherine finally did smile, touched his scarred right arm lightly with her fingers. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I was only giving you a bad time.”
Mixer nodded once. He could read her voice. He did know her, somehow, knew she was telling the truth. Knew he could trust her. When had this happened? He wasn’t sure, but he was glad it had.
“You loved her,” St. Katherine said. “Paula Asgard.”
“I still do. She’s probably the best friend I’ve ever had.” Sookie might have become the same kind of friend, Mixer thought, but she’d been killed before she’d reached fourteen. She’d never had a chance.
“I mean more than that,” St. Katherine said. “You loved her more than as a close friend.”
Mixer nodded, feeling that ache in his chest again. But it was more bearable now, like he could almost take pleasure in it. He watched the volume meters shifting slowly back and forth on the display in front of him.
“Yes, I did. For years. But there was always Chick. He got killed, but there hadn’t been enough time. Maybe there never would have been, I don’t know. Probably not. Then there was my own ‘death.’ Now, apparently, there’s Tremaine.” He turned back to St. Katherine, her eyes open and gazing back at him. “And now there’s you.”
“Me.”
Mixer nodded. “You.”
“Are you sure?”
Mixer shook his head. “I don’t think I’ll ever be sure about anything again.”
St. Katherine touched his arm again, his shoulder, his cheek.
“This can wait a couple of hours, can’t it?”
Mixer nodded.
Naked, St. Katherine was just as beautiful, just as stunning. Naked, her age showed, which made her more real to Mixer, and even more attractive.
They lay together on St. Katherine’s bed, lightly touching, brushing one another. Gray dawn light came in through the blinds, slicing them with shadow. Mixer’s breath was ragged, and he could feel his heartbeat pounding up his neck. In the heat of the morning, he was sweating.
“It’s been a long time,” he said. Trying to explain his anxiety, his awkwardness. “Several years.”
“For me, too,” St. Katherine said. “Twelve years. Since becoming a Saint.” She smiled at him. “I’ve been waiting for you.”
Twelve years. Mixer could hardly imagine that much time anymore. Yet she seemed calm, self-assured. I’m glad one of us is, he thought.
She kissed his arm, nipped at his scarred flesh, and a faint scratch of pleasure shot up his arm, down his body. She seemed to sense it, and nipped him again, gently scraped her teeth along the ridged skin. Mixer closed his eyes, let the pleasure shoot through him, and his nervousness seemed to disappear.
They pulled at each other, kissed and licked and bit and tugged; they clung to one another in the growing heat of the day, their skin slick with sweat. Her taste was bitter and sweet, her smell sharp and biting; she grabbed his hair, pressed his face into her so he could hardly breathe. She shuddered, quaked against him.
Mixer lost himself in her, in her wet, salty skin, her taste and smell and her harsh gasping cries. Struggling for breath, he became dizzy. He was wrapped around her, she was wrapped around him, and they generated heat and sweat and maybe even love. He kissed her deeply, then stared into her golden eyes until she pulled him tight against her once more. Yes, he thought, maybe even love.
TWENTY-FIVE
CARLUCCI FINALLY HEARD from Sparks. On his way into work, on the sidewalk just outside the building, a teenage bubble courier came up to him, stuck a bubble in his hand and popped it. The courier shot off as the message formed in the remains spread across Carlucci’s palm: “Home. S.” Then the bubble material disintegrated, turning to powder, and Carlucci wiped it from his hand, scattering the particles to the ground.
Carlucci walked into the building, checked in at the front desk, then left through the basement garage, on foot. House call to Sparks.
Home for Sparks was in the DMZ along the western edge of the Tenderloin. Eight-thirty in the morning was way too early for people in the DMZ; the street was quiet, the sidewalks nearly empty. The weather had finally cooled down a bit. Not cool, exactly, but not as hot as it had been; for a change, Carlucci wasn’t sweating. The sky was clear, with no sign of rain.
Carlucci walked past a sidewalk café, half a dozen puffy-eyed troubadours sucking down coffee, trying to wake up. One of the three women reached out and plucked at Carlucci’s arm. She was young, but missing some teeth. Coughing badly, breath foul. A moniker sewed to her jacket:
Sister Ray.
“Want your ding-dong sucked?” she asked between coughs. “Twenty bucks. You can’t get it any cheaper.”
Carlucci shook his head. It was a horrifying thought. The woman’s friends laughed. At him or her, he couldn’t tell. He walked on.
He stepped through an open doorway between a cone counter and a music store. Brick walls, metal grating, and plaster high overhead, but plenty of light. Halfway along the corridor, on the left, was another doorway. Carlucci ducked through, then descended concrete steps to basement level and a maze of corridors, not so well lit. The smell, too, was worse. The brick and concrete walls were covered with layers of graffiti and artwork. Doors every twenty feet or so. So early in the morning, it was fairly quiet. Faint Indian music came from behind one door as he passed by; muted laughter came from behind another.
The door to Spark’s place was wood, painted solid black. No other decoration. Carlucci knocked. A minute later he knocked again. He stood a little ways back from the peephole, so Sparks could see him. No sound for a minute, then the clicks of locks and bolts. The door opened, and Sparks gestured him inside.
Inside was a single room, with a tiny, one-square-foot window up near the ceiling in the rear wall, too small for anything but a cat or a rat to come through. There was a mattress on the floor, piled with blankets; a hot plate plugged into a cracked wall socket. Two lamps, shaded dirty-white; two bag chairs, and a television; on the screen were two talking heads, but there was no sound. In a narrow alcove carved out of the concrete, a toilet and sink. No tub, no shower. Sparks probably wouldn’t use one anyway.
Sparks coughed as he crossed the room toward the bed. He looked worse than ever. Carlucci knew it wasn’t just the bad light. The man was dying.
“Have you found a slot in a hospice for me?” Sparks asked.
Carlucci shook his head, feeling guilty. He’d asked a few people, but he hadn’t really looked that hard. “I’ve checked around,” he said, “but I haven’t found anything yet.”
Sparks nodded, sat stiffly on the mattress, bones audibly creaking. A box of disposable syringes lay open next to the bed, inches away from the hot plate. “Take a seat.”
Carlucci sat in the closest of the bag chairs, sinking awkwardly into it. Sparks picked up a bowl, cradled it in his lap. Inside the bowl was a spoon and dark brown goop. Sparks ate a few mouthfuls, then held the bowl and spoon out to Carlucci. “Want some?”
Carlucci shook his head.
“It’s chocolate pudding,” Sparks said.
Carlucci shook his head again, and Sparks put the bowl back on the floor.
“The whisper you asked for,” Sparks said. “Almost impossible to get.”
“But you got it.”
“I got something. It was a fuckin’ bitch.” He stared hard at Carlucci. “You’d better watch your ass. Mistakes could get you dead. Just ask Chick Roberts or the mayor’s nephew or Rosa Weeks.”
I “Who’s Rosa Weeks?” Carlucci asked. The name wasn’t at all familiar.
“Better you don’t know, then.” Sparks said. “Too much gnosis is bad for you.”
“Tell me who Rosa Weeks is.”
Sparks shook his head, making something like a smile with his pale, thin lips. “You’re a stubborn bastard.”
“Yeah,” Carlucci said. “Testa dura. What my father used to call me.”
Sparks coughed, spat brown-green phlegm onto the floor.“Rosa Weeks was a doctor. She gave physicals.”
“Yeah? And so?”
“It will become clear, I think. Patience, Lieutenant.” Patience. Patience was something Carlucci had always had plenty of. Sometimes too much. He nodded and waited for Sparks to tell it in his own way.
“Here’s the key,” Sparks said. “Mixer and Chick and Jenny Woo were. Bootlegging body-bags. You know that?” Carlucci nodded, and Sparks went on. “You knew Mixer, right?” Carlucci nodded again, and Sparks said, “Another guy who got himself dead. Okay. Body-bags. One out of every ten body-bags was rigged. When they were switched on, a paralytic agent was patched into the wearer’s body, and a location beacon activated. Jenny Woo would lock onto the signal, and go pick up herself a live, but quite immobile body. Box it up, and take it home. Well, not home. But someplace private. There, Dr. Rosa Weeks did a complete physical and work-up, then crated them up.”
“Crated them up for what?”
Sparks grinned. “A trip to New Hong Kong.”
New Hong Kong again. Damn that place. Not much was illegal up there, and no one on Earth could touch them. But there was plenty that was illegal here on Earth, here in San Francisco, and he could do something about that. Maybe. “Why were they being shipped to New Hong Kong?” Sparks shook his head. “No idea. You’ll have to find that on your own. Course, my advice is, leave it the fuck alone. Forget about it, Lieutenant.”
“Did Mixer and Chick know the body-bags were rigged?”
“No. I don’t think so. The body-bags were one thing. Jenny Woo had her own separate deal going. But I think Chick found out, through Jenny Woo. From there I think he found out a lot more. Enough to get himself dead. That’s what I mean. Ignorance is a lot safer.”
“And Rosa Weeks?”
“She’s dead, too. Yesterday morning. Probably won’t show up on-line for a couple days. It’ll come up accidental OD.” Sparks nodded to himself. “You just watch.”
“Why is she dead?” Carlucci asked.
“Mouth too big, I think. She had a pet to feed that was costing her a fortune, and she tried buying it with something she knew.”
More dead people, Carlucci thought. Which was why he couldn’t take Sparks’s advice and forget about it all. He had to try to figure out what was going on. And he felt he was closing in on it.
“Anything else?”
Sparks nodded. “Yeah. The Saints killed Mixer in one of their fucking trials. Sounds like nothing to do with this, but I got a feeling it ties in somehow. Also, a lot of people picked up in Kashen’s recruiting vans end up in the same place as the body-baggers, getting prepped for a trip to New Hong Kong. Some of them, and some of the body-baggers, maybe go up to New Hong Kong in pieces.” Sparks coughed, shaking his head. “Not so sure about that info, but it sounds real.”
“But you’re sure about the body-bags being rigged.” Sparks nodded.
“And you’re sure Mixer didn’t know.”
“Pretty sure. You can’t expect much more than that. I’d tell you to ask him yourself, but he’s dead. You wouldn’t get much of an answer.”
I will ask him, Carlucci said to himself. He’s not that dead.
“One more thing,” Sparks said. He leaned forward, picked up a syringe from a tray. Carlucci could see that it was already loaded, ready to go. Sparks held the syringe in his right hand, then reached with his other hand for a piece of mirrored glass propped against the wall. “Hold this for me,” he said.
Carlucci shifted in the bag chair, crouched forward, and took the mirror from Sparks.
“Hold it up,” Sparks said. “So I can see myself, damn it.”
Carlucci held the mirror up. Sparks stared into it, stretched his neck, then began tapping at his skin with his left hand. He squinted, pressed his neck, tapped some more. Carlucci kept glancing at the syringe in his other hand. Was he going to have to watch this? Christ.
More tapping, more squinting and grimacing, then suddenly Sparks brought his right hand up and plunged the needle into his neck. He switched his grip, eased back the plunger. Dark blood came back into the syringe and Carlucci turned away.
“Hold still, God damn you!”
Carlucci steadied his hands, the mirror, but didn’t look back at Sparks. He was glad there were still some things that made him queasy.
Sparks broke into a coughing fit and Carlucci brought his gaze back around. The needle was out of his neck. Sparks was nodding, waving feebly at him.
“Okay, okay,” he whispered. He tossed the empty syringe a few feet away, then took the mirror from Carlucci with
slow, steady hands and placed it carefully against the wall. Then he lay back on the mattress, closing his eyes.
Carlucci worked himself out of the bag chair and stood, looking down at Sparks. He took the wad of cash from his pocket, set it on the blanket beside Sparks.
“Frank?” His voice was soft.
“Yes.”
“Don’t bother about the hospice.” Sparks briefly opened one eye, then closed it. “It’s too late.”
Carlucci nodded, though Sparks couldn’t see him. “I’m sorry,” he said.
Sparks slowly rolled his head from side to side. “It’s all right, Frank. It doesn’t matter.”
But it does, Carlucci thought. It does.
Later that day, near noon, Carlucci met Tremaine at the Civic Center muck pond, almost exactly where he’d met Paula two weeks earlier. They bought Polish sausages with sauerkraut from a vendor set up near the edge of the pond, and sat on a bench facing away from the scum-covered water. They’d met once or twice before, Carlucci couldn’t remember exactly when. Some story Tremaine was working on, some case of Carlucci’s.
The Polish sausage was hot, spicy, and greasy; Carlucci was glad he hadn’t loaded up on the onions. They didn’t talk much as they ate, just a word or two, about nothing, really: the cooling trend, the rat pack asleep in a pile across the plaza. When they were done, Carlucci took the scraps, wrappers, and napkins to a trash can, then returned to the bench. They sat several feet apart, not really looking at each other.
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