city blues 01 - dome city blues

by Jeff Edwards

  “He likes what?”

  “He hurts his girls. Bad sometimes.”

  I took a sip of gin and didn’t even try to pretend that I liked it. “I take it we’re talking something a little rougher than ‘Papa spank’.”

  She nodded. “And he doesn’t like scar-babies either.”

  “What’s a scar-baby?”

  Minda looked at me like I was incredibly naive. “Somebody that likes to get hurt.” She nodded across the room toward an even younger girl wearing a corset and fishnet stockings. The girl’s arms and shoulders were striped with welts. “Kimberly’s a scar-baby.” She pointed to a young teenage boy wearing only a cowboy hat and chaps. “Trevor is too.”

  “You’re not a scar-baby, are you?”

  Minda grimaced. “Uh-uh. Spank and tickle is okay. But I don’t like the scary stuff.”

  “Does Rieger want you?”

  She nodded. “I’m scared of him. He likes that. And I don’t want to get hurt. He likes that too.”

  She looked into my eyes and squeezed my crotch again. “Can we go play now?”

  I lifted her hand off my crotch and stood up. “Not tonight, Minda. I have to take care of some business.”

  I handed her another twenty and walked out. Lisa Caldwell’s nasty little rumor was grounded in truth.

  CHAPTER 12

  Sonja was asleep on the sofa when I got home, an open book lying across her chest. I lifted the book gently, and read the gold-leafed Frankfort lettering down the spine. It was one of Maggie’s favorites: a tattered old hardcover edition of Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley.

  Sonja had already plowed through the first quarter of the book. I turned it so that I could see the pages she’d marked. My eyes picked a passage at random:

  The different accidents of life are not so changeable as the feelings of human nature. I had worked hard for nearly two years, for the sole purpose of infusing life into an inanimate body. For this, I had deprived myself of rest and health. I had desired it with an ardour that far exceeded moderation; but now that I had finished, the beauty of the dream had vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart.

  I closed the book and set it on the end table near Sonja’s head. I started to wake her up, and tell her that it was time to go home, but I stopped short. I smiled to myself. Let her oversleep for a change. And if she happened to miss an appointment, well...

  I dug out a light blanket and spread it over her. She mumbled something softly and snuggled into a more comfortable position.

  I shed my jacket and the shoulder rig, hung them in the hall closet and headed for the showers. I could still feel the chemical sting on my skin from the air outside the dome.

  Fifteen minutes later, freshly scrubbed and bone tired, I looked in on Sonja again. She was still in the same position.

  I stopped in the hall bathroom to make sure that the toilet seat was down, and told House to leave the bathroom light on at half-intensity so that Sonja could find it if she needed to.

  I crawled into my bed and drifted off myself.

  And dreamed...

  I peek around the corner of an up-ended trash dumpster. Even by moonlight, I can see that the warehouse has been deserted for years. About a third of the corrugated steel roof panels are missing, leaving a rusted skeleton of rafters. Two stories above street level, a bank of small windows runs the length of the outer walls. The glass is gone from most of the frames, giving the building the look of a mouth with missing teeth.

  A huge sliding door in the west wall is open, allowing me a glimpse inside. Moonlight streams through the missing roof panels, mottling the darkness inside the warehouse with irregular pools of light. Puddles of stagnant water speckle the cracked cement floor. A few meters inside the door, to the right, is a mound of rusted steel that might have once been a forklift. The floor surrounding the forklift glistens with the rainbow sheen of ancient oil on damp pavement.

  The air is cool, swollen with the promise of rain. The damp wind blows through holes in the corrugated steel walls, making sounds like a pipe organ.

  Somewhere, a door or window slams open and closed rhythmically in the wind.

  “I’m in position.” Maggie’s whispered voice crackles softly in the left earphone of my commset. She is crouched in concealment behind an abandoned car on the east side of the building.

  I key my throat mike. “Ready when you are, Magpie.”

  Her voice carries a lilt of amusement. “You’re ready again? So soon? I thought we had solved that problem, for a while anyway. Hmmmm... come to think of it, I’m ready too. What say we have a quick talk with our Mr. Rubac first?”

  I chuckle softly. “On your signal, Princess.”

  Somewhere inside the warehouse is Martin Rubac. Every once in a while I can hear a splash and a muffled curse as he finds another stagnant puddle in the darkness.

  By now, he has undoubtedly learned that the warehouse has only two doors. I’ve already checked two sides of the building. There are a lot of holes and cracks in the rusty steel, but none large enough for a man to crawl through, especially a fat man like Rubac.

  Maggie has checked the other two sides.

  Mr. Rubac is bottled up. He’s only got two exits and we have them both covered. He’s trapped and that makes him dangerous.

  Dangerous, not the first word I would ordinarily choose to describe a short, fat Certified Public Accountant. Still, he’s trapped and even timid animals lash out when their backs are in the corner.

  I run my left hand over the 12mm Blackhart in my right fist, ensuring that the slide lock and safety are disengaged. I don’t expect to use it, but I prefer to hedge my bets.

  “Three... two... one... Go!” Maggie’s voice in my left ear urges me out of concealment.

  I cover the distance to the open door in seconds, slide around the frame and plaster my back to the wall, my automatic tracing a protective arc in the darkness.

  Rapid footsteps on cement tell me that Maggie has done the same on the opposite side of the building. “I’m in.”

  I key my mike. “In.”

  Nothing but silence. We wait.

  “Mr. Rubac?” Maggie’s voice is loud enough to be heard anywhere in the warehouse. “Mr. Rubac, we’re not here to hurt you.”

  Her voice is soothing, sincere. No answer. Somewhere, water drips slowly into a puddle.

  “Mr. Rubac, my partner and I just want to ask you a few questions. You don’t even have to show yourself, just talk to us.”

  No answer.

  “Mr. Rubac, we represent Chang and Kellerman. They don’t want to hurt you either. They just want to know what happened to the Ginnsburg files.”

  No answer. I imagine that I can hear labored breathing in the darkness.

  “If you return the files, they won’t even press charges.”

  Something moves in the north end of the warehouse. A scraping, metallic sound.

  “Advance slowly.” Maggie’s voice is a whisper in my ear.

  I move carefully toward the northern end of the building, straining in the gloom to see debris that could trip me up, or puddles that could give away my position.

  Another noise, still north of me. It seems to come from above eye level. He might be climbing something. I start to include the ceiling in my visual survey. If Rubac is trying to climb out through a window or the roof, maybe I can catch his silhouette against the moonlight.

  “Hold.” Maggie’s whisper in my ear again.

  I stop, still straining to see in the near darkness.

  “Mr. Rubac, theft of information is a crime. You could go to jail, maybe even get brainlocked for this. Just tell us where the Ginnsburg files are, and we can all go home.”

  Another sound overhead and to the north. No answer.

  “We are not the police, but we will turn you over to them if we have to.”

  No answer. This time I really can hear his breathing. He is definitely above us and close.

  I whisper into my throat mike, telling
Maggie.

  “I know,” she says. “Stay where you are. I’m going to circle to the right.”

  I wait.

  A few seconds later, there’s a noise to my right: a sort of clang that echoes through the empty warehouse. I hear Maggie stumble.

  I abandon the mike and speak aloud. “Maggie, are you okay?”

  “I’m all right. I tripped, that’s all. I’m standing on some sort of grating.” She’s still using the commset.

  From my right, I hear a subtle creaking as Maggie takes a few experimental steps out onto the grating. It reminds me of the groaning you hear in the rafters of an old house when it settles.

  I key my throat mike. “Maggie, get back on the cement.”

  “No, I’m all right,” she says. “It seems to be pretty sturdy. I think it’ll support my weight.”

  “What is it?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe the cover to some sort of grease-pit or something.”

  I don’t like it. “Get off of it,” I say. “Get back on the cement.”

  “No, it’s okay. I’m...”

  The creaking gets louder, growing in pitch and intensity until it becomes a continuous wail.

  “Maggie! Get out of there!”

  The wail rises to a shriek, as tortured metal begins to give way.

  “Maggie!”

  I cram the Blackhart into my shoulder holster and run toward the sound. Rubac is forgotten. I trip, over some unseen obstruction, sprawling headlong on the wet cement.

  The left side of my face and the knuckles of my right hand sting viciously. The fall has cost me some skin. I hear the commset clatter away somewhere into the darkness.

  I ignore it, find my way to my feet and start running again.

  “David!”

  A splash, from somewhere in front of me, then several more. From the sound of it, the grating is disintegrating, large sections falling into water somewhere below.

  “Oh my god! Daviiiid!!!”

  The fear in Maggie’s voice scares me more than anything; I’ve never known her to panic before.

  I am close to the ragged edge of panic myself. For the first time in my life, I understand the meaning of the word “helpless.” Something is happening to my wife and I can’t even find her.

  A splash, followed by thrashing as Maggie hits the water and tries to struggle back to the surface. Two or three louder splashes tell me that several pieces of grating hit the water a split second after Maggie.

  I’m close enough to see the grating in the darkness. The pit seems to be about ten meters wide. The far side is lost in shadow; I can’t tell how long it is. Most of the grate panels are tilted at crazy angles. A lot of sections are missing entirely. I can’t see Maggie at all.

  “Maggie!”

  I grab the closest grate and use it to slide down into the pit.

  The water is hot; a coating of oily scum covers the surface.

  Somewhere down there, Maggie is struggling, churning the water.

  My feet don’t touch the bottom. I have no idea how deep this thing is.

  I slosh through the hot soup, pulling myself along hand-over-hand, using what pieces of the grating I can. Some of the panels support my weight. More than once, I have to thrash out of the way of a grate that breaks loose and crashes into the pit.

  I should be close by now. Maggie can’t be very far away.

  The oily sludge burns my eyes so badly that I can barely keep them open.

  I reach for another handhold and then jerk my hand back as a ragged piece of steel slices my left thumb nearly to the bone.

  Maggie is below me now, I can feel the turbulence she’s causing.

  I take a breath and dive, both hands extended to feel for Maggie and to protect my head.

  I swim blindly; visibility is zero. I find nothing but pieces of grating.

  Lack of air forces me back to the surface. I repeat the dive again and again.

  My third or fourth time down, something slips neatly between my groping hands and strikes the right side of my forehead a glancing blow. Somehow, I manage to surface without drowning. My head is reeling. My lungs feel raw from the polluted air I’ve been breathing in great gasps.

  I dive again.

  I’m about to turn toward the surface when I realize that something has snagged my left pants leg. I reach down to free the snag and find Maggie’s fingers wrapped tightly around the fabric of my pants.

  Maggie! Frantically, I pull her hand loose from my pants and try to follow her arm down to the rest of her. I’m stopped at her wrist by a grating. She’s trapped under it.

  It’s time to surface for air. I ignore the burning in my lungs and feel my way to the edge of the grate. When I get to the edge, I try to slip under but I run into the wall.

  I try to shift the grate. It won’t budge; it’s wedged against the wall by several other pieces of wreckage. I try to brace against the wall and gain a little leverage.

  It’s not going to go.

  I increase the power to my arms.

  It’s still not going to go.

  More power, I don’t know where it comes from. Something gives in my left shoulder and I begin to see colored fireworks inside my eyeballs. I’m totally out of air now, but the grate is starting to move. A little... a little more... Come on, you Son of a Bitch, move. Farther...

  The opening is big enough. I dive under it and grope around in the ink black water until my questing fingers latch onto Maggie’s jacket.

  Her body has gone totally limp. I wrap an arm under her breasts and try to fight my way back to the surface.

  I don’t know what keeps me from passing out before we get there. Every grate and twisted metal stanchion in the pit manages to sneak between us and that lovely slick of oily scum that marks the boundary between water and air. My lungs can’t even remember what oxygen feels like.

  I’m losing it.

  Maggie. Concentrate on Maggie. Do it for Maggie, boy. She’s been without air a hell of a lot longer than you have.

  We’re not going to make it. We’re not going...

  My head breaks the surface and I gulp down a huge gout of air. Polluted or not, the stale air or the warehouse is the most delicious thing that I have ever tasted.

  I fight to get Maggie’s head above water.

  It seems to take forever to pull both of us out of that hellish hole. The entire time, I’m extremely conscious of the fact that Maggie isn’t breathing.

  I lay her limp body on the cement as gently as I can and check for breathing or a pulse. She has neither.

  I give her mouth a quick sweep for foreign objects and then start CPR. Come on girl, you can do it. Come on.

  She’s not responding. Come on Maggie, breathe. Do it for me, baby.

  Oh God, don’t do this to me. PLEASE God...

  “David. Come on David, wake up.”

  I kept my eyes closed, trying to will Maggie to life. “Please God... Please...”

  “David, it’s just a dream. A nightmare. Open your eyes.”

  I felt warm fingers on the side of my face, felt them smear the hot tears that squeezed out from between my tightly shut eyelids.

  Recognition filtered slowly into my brain. Sonja. She drew me into her arms, pulled my head against her chest and rocked me gently, the way a mother soothes a frightened child.

  I lay there, clinging to her, listening to the quiet rhythm of her heartbeat.

  My eyes stayed closed. Somehow, if I didn’t open them, the dream wasn’t over. And if the dream wasn’t over, it might not be too late to go back and do something differently. I didn’t know what, but something. If I could do something differently, the right thing, the dream wouldn’t end the way the reality had: with my wife lying dead in my arms on the floor of an abandoned warehouse.

  Eventually, the feeling faded and I became self conscious about crying in the arms of some woman I barely knew.

  I opened my eyes and stared at the ceiling. “I need a drink.” I started to sit up.

 
Sonja pulled me back down onto the bed. “You do not need a drink. You need to finish crying.”

  “I’m finished.” I stifled a sniff.

  “I don’t think so,” she said. “You’re not going to be finished crying until you cut it loose. You’ve got to let her go, David.”

  “I have let her go,” I said. “She’s dead.”

  “Then why haven’t you been able to say good-bye?”

  “I can’t say good-bye,” I said “I couldn’t. I wanted to, but I couldn’t.”

  “Why couldn’t you?”

  I realized that I was on the verge of breaking down again. I had to stop this. I couldn’t let this person, this stranger, so far inside my guard. “Look, Maggie is dead, okay? She’s gone. It doesn’t matter anymore.”

  “Please don’t do that, David.” Sonja’s voice was gently insistent. “Don’t slip behind that wall that you’ve built for yourself. Right now, you’re close to something, maybe closer than you’ve been in years. Don’t run away from it. Face it. It’s a question you need to answer. If not to me, then at least to yourself. Why couldn’t you say good-bye?”

  Fresh tears welled up in my eyes. I squeezed them shut again. “They took her from me. The bastards took her away.”

  “Who took her?”

  “I carried her,” I said. “I could barely walk; my hands were sliced up; one of my ankles was twisted, but I carried her. I don’t know how, but I carried her from that... from a warehouse about three klicks Northeast of Dome 10, all the way to the Humboldt Street Lock.”

  I stopped, swallowing several times before continuing. “A taxi rushed us both to the hospital. I had a concussion. I’d taken a pretty good knock on the head. I guess I passed out in the cab on the way to the emergency room. I woke up in a hospital bed three days later, ranting and raving, demanding to know about Maggie. Eventually, one of the doctors worked up the nerve to tell me what I already knew: Maggie had been dead on arrival. I could have dealt with that. I could have learned to deal with it, but they... they...”

  “What, David? What did they do?”

  I lay there breathing heavily, trying to gain control of my voice.