She came back carrying a big glass of water, a packet of painkillers, and an open pack of chocolate biscuits that I’d stashed in my cupboard before the last job. This woman was an angel. “He won’t even notice I’m gone. He’s got his own troubles.”
I thanked Caterina, swallowed five paracetamol and a chocolate biscuit, and followed it up by draining the glass of water. “Okay, that answers one of my questions.” I shuffled over to make room for her on the couch, but she didn’t sit down.
“I don’t throw lives away as easily as my husband. You don’t seem like a bad man.”
“You must be a poor judge of character.”
She didn’t look at my face while we talked. I could understand. Hell, I probably looked like something out of Night Of The Living Dead. She held out her hand to me, and I stared at her, puzzled.
“Take your jacket off,” she said.
“What?”
“You’re shivering, and you’re soaked. Where do you keep your towels?”
“Try the floor. Or maybe you’ll find one hanging from the corner of my dresser, if you’re lucky.”
To her credit, she didn’t screw up her face. She just disappeared into my room and started rummaging. She came back a few minutes later, somehow managing to find two towels that looked relatively dry and clean.
“Stand up so I can help you with your jacket,” she said.
“I think I can manage to undress myself.”
She raised her eyebrows skeptically, so I set out to prove myself right. It didn’t go well. I tried to remove my arm from my sleeve and sent lightning bolts shooting through my shoulder. I grunted, attempting to maintain an air of manliness in the face of overwhelming opposition, before Caterina finally took pity on me and took hold of my soaking jacket.
It occurred to me, as she slid the jacket from my shoulders and went to work on my tie, that I wasn’t as nervous as I should be. I mean, she was undressing me, for Christ’s sake.
I studied her as she dug her fingers into the tie’s knot, a frown of concentration on her face. She was pretty enough, though not what I’d call beautiful. Just kind of plain, I guess, but not in a bad way. She had a scattering of orange freckles across her nose, and her lips were small and narrow.
Even if she was plain, her looks would normally have been enough to set my hands to sweating and my tongue working to insult her as much as humanly possible. Instead, there was only peace. Maybe I was just tired.
She made a tsking noise when she unbuttoned my bloodied shirt, uncovering the scrapes and bruises that had turned my chest purple and red. For a brief, stupid minute, I was self-conscious about being half-naked in front of her, but I forced the thought away before it could make me blush. She wasn’t there to be my goddamn lover.
She retreated to the kitchen again, filled a large bucket with warm water and a dash of antiseptic that I didn’t even know I had, and started washing away the blood from my body.
I’ve got to say, this was a first. I couldn’t say I’ve ever stood shirtless in my apartment while a woman I barely knew—a woman married to a gangster, no less—cleaned me. Awkward didn’t even begin to describe it.
Why the hell was she doing this? Did she feel guilty for what her husband did to me? I watched her eyes, but there was no hint she was thinking about anything except the practical matter of scraping congealed blood from my chest hair.
I cleared my throat, regretted it immediately when it made my chest spasm with pain, and said the first thing to come into my head. “So, your husband’s kind of an asshole.”
Great conversation starter, Miles. You’re a real charmer. She glanced up at my face for a second, not quite meeting my eyes, then returned to her work. “I wouldn’t tell him that, if I were you. You might not be so lucky next time.”
“Lucky?” I pointed to the bruises that stretched across my ribs. “I don’t call this lucky.”
“When I saw you at the strip club, I thought for sure he’d have you killed. The way he looked at you…I’ve never seen anyone walk away from him after that.”
“Then why’d he let me go? The cops can’t be that much of a threat to him.”
She used another towel to dry my skin. It hurt when she pressed it against my bruises, but I kept myself from wincing this time. “I don’t know. He was raging when he was done with you. He wouldn’t even speak to me.”
I considered about asking her how she’d managed to wind up with such a violent Vei, but thought better of it. As nice as she was being, I still couldn’t work her out. Whose side was she on?
I decided to see if she had information I could use. I’m a nice guy like that. “Chroma. That mean anything to you?”
She stopped drying me. Her gaze travelled slowly up to my face, and she met my eyes for the first time. They were green, and pretty. “I’ve heard John talking about it to his men. It’s the drug, isn’t it? The new drug I heard you talking about.”
I nodded.
“He’s always agitated,” she said, “always angry whenever it comes up. I get scared when he comes to me after those conversations.” She licked her lips, a nervous gesture, and she suddenly looked like a frightened rabbit, ready to bound away.
I laid a hand on her upper arm as gently as I could, and she didn’t flinch. I felt sorry for her, for whatever she’d had to go through. I’d spent less than half an hour with John Andrews, and it had scared the hell out of me. What would it be like to be married to him? “You don’t have to stick with him, you know. There are people who can—”
She shook her head, cutting me off. “No. Thank you, but no.”
I thought about arguing with her, but I could see it wouldn’t help. Not tonight. Maybe I’d get another chance to talk her into it, but pushing it too hard right now might scare her away. I still needed more from her. Feeling like the piece of shit I was, I released her arm. “Okay. But I got a feeling this is a dangerous time to be around him.” I paused while she chewed on that, and then I spoke again. “I’ve got to know. Is John involved with Chroma?”
She bit her lip and shook her head again. “I don’t think so. He’s much too afraid. If I had to guess, I’d have to say whoever’s doing it has been leaning pretty hard on him to stay out of the way.”
“They must be tough to go toe-to-toe with him like that.” I sat down on the couch and rested my elbows on my thighs. I was too wrapped up in questions now to be self-conscious about being shirtless in front of Caterina.
Now that I was feeling more alive, I realized the incident with John Andrews had left me pissed. Somehow I’d wound up stuck in the middle of all this shit, and I wasn’t pleased. Getting my ass kicked was never part of the deal.
I wanted to get to the bottom of this Chroma business, but not because the cops wanted my help. I’d had gangsters beat me up before, but I’d never been truly scared for my life, not until tonight. John Andrews, Doctor Dee, it didn’t matter, they were all the same. They were goddamn bullies trying to gain control of this town, and they didn’t give a flying fuck how many people they crushed in the process.
To my surprise, Caterina sat down next to me. She opened her mouth a couple of times, conflicting emotions playing in her eyes. Finally, she spoke. “John can’t know I told you this. But after he sent me out of his office, I heard him on the phone. He was making calls, a lot of them.”
I frowned. “So? Maybe he just had a heap of gangster business to attend to.”
“He called one of the people by name. It was Paul Guzman.”
“Captain of the Gravediggers? I didn’t pick them as friends.”
She shook her head. “Their street battles have been worse than ever. They don’t speak. They never have.”
“And yet your husband was calling him,” I said. “All right, I’m starting to see your point. You know who else he was calling?”
“No. But the way he spoke to them…I don’t think they were friends. I think he was calling the other gangs.”
That didn’t make a lick of sense. I couldn’t see a
lie in Caterina’s eyes, but maybe she’d misheard. Maybe Andrews was just in a bad mood from dealing with me.
“Anything else?” I asked.
“I didn’t catch much, but I could have sworn he mentioned a meeting.”
“Yeah? Where?”
“Suron, I think he said. I haven’t heard of it. Is it a club? A street?”
“No,” I said slowly. “Not quite.”
I put my head in my hands and sat like that for a few moments. My head pounded. Maybe I was misreading the information. I had to be. Surely I couldn’t have spooked Andrews that much. Surely.
Aw hell. I really had a knack for picking my battles.
After a while, Caterina stood up. She picked up my shirt from the floor where she’d discarded it, and handed it to me. “You’ll want to soak that in some hydrogen peroxide and get a stain remover to wash it. Or just throw it away.”
I barely registered what she said, but I accepted the shirt anyway.
“I think you should stay out of this, Mr. Franco.” Her voice was almost a whisper. “My husband isn’t the worst man out there. Stay home. Get some rest. Maybe leave town, if you’re worried. Bluegate is broken already.”
I didn’t reply. There was nothing else to say. Maybe I’d do that, pack my bags and go, if only for a while. I wouldn’t be able to Tunnel, but I’d be alive. I was just a nobody, after all.
Christ, who was I kidding?
Caterina leaned down and kissed my forehead. The touch of her lips sent a little spark of excitement through my skull, and I came back to life a little.
“Good-bye, Mr. Franco.”
“See you, Cat. Tell John I said hi.”
She smiled, but her eyes were sad. She put a hand on the door handle, then paused and turned back to me. “Why are you doing this?”
I leaned back and tried to think of an answer. “Not sure,” I said after a moment. “It’s just…this is my city, you know?”
She nodded and turned away. The door creaked shut behind her, and I was alone in my apartment again. I realized I was cold, and exhaustion once again crept over me.
I barely gave myself enough time to strip off my blood-stained socks and trousers before I slipped my aching body into bed and fell into a dreamless sleep.
CHAPTER EIGHT
I swear I’d only been asleep five minutes before I was awakened by an insistent rapping at my door. I groaned, wrenched my eyes apart, then snapped them closed again as sunlight flooded them. I hadn’t closed the curtains before I collapsed into bed, and I was sure as hell regretting it now.
I was halfway back to sleep before the knocking on my door came again, louder this time.
“If you’re in there, Mr. Franco, I’d advise you to open this door before I shoot the bloody lock off.”
I groaned again as I recognized Detective Reed’s voice. Couldn’t everyone just leave me alone? Did they want to work me right into the ground?
With a final groan for good measure, I hauled myself out of bed and snatched some clothes off the floor.
“Mr. Franco!”
“Jesus Christ, I’m coming, give me a goddamn minute,” I yelled at the door while I tried to work out which trouser leg to put my foot through. My bruises screamed at me as I slid into my shirt, and I grabbed the packet of paracetamol from the coffee table in the living room before padding to the door in bare feet.
I pulled open the door and found a large, round object hurtling toward my head. By instinct, I snatched it out of the air, and realized it was my motorcycle helmet. A series of large cracks ran along the black fiberglass, and one side of it was dented.
“Fuck me,” I said. “The hell happened to it?”
I glanced up and found Vivian Reed staring at me, a cell phone pressed to her ear in one hand. “Yeah, he’s here. He looks like shit. I’ll meet you back at the station.” She paused as someone responded, then snapped the phone shut and slipped it into the pocket of her slim-fitting black jacket. “Someone worked over your bike,” she said. “I’ve got half a mind to do the same to you.”
“Son of a bitch,” I whispered to myself. That was a good bike.
Vivian looked like she’d had a much better night than I had. Her dark hair hung perfect against her cheeks, and her eyes weren’t bloodshot or puffy, like I expected mine were. She wore a hint of eye shadow and foundation, but no other makeup that I could see. She didn’t need it. Goddamn beautiful women.
She raised an eyebrow at me, and my hand went to my head of its own volition, trying to smooth down my curls. “It don’t matter,” I lied, and held out a hand. “Detective Reed. How’s it going?”
“Save it,” she said, shouldering her way into the apartment and slamming the door closed behind her. These cops sure were belligerent. Didn’t they need a warrant or something to come into my home? “Where the hell have you been, Miles?”
Apparently, we were on a first name basis now. That was promising. “Isn’t it a bit early in the morning to be chewing me up? I’ve had a really shitty night.”
“It’s one in the afternoon,” she said. “I’ve been calling your phone all morning.”
Aw hell. I knew there was something I was supposed to do before I slept. I hadn’t heard my phone ring. Maybe it got smashed during the beating or took on water in the rain. I opened my mouth to defend myself, then took another look at Vivian’s face and thought better of it. “Look—”
“No, forget that. It doesn’t matter. What I want to know is what, in the name of all that is holy, you were doing at John Andrew’s strip club.”
Christ, she was talking loud. My head pounded. That wasn’t fair; I hadn’t even got drunk. I went to the kitchen to pour myself some water and swallowed another handful of painkillers. Even her glare was painful, so I looked away, pulled up a rickety chair at what passed for my dining table, and told her the story.
Of course, I downplayed my moments of stupidity as much as I could, but I don’t think she thought I was a rocket scientist anyway. She listened in silence, doing her little cop nod to keep me talking and maintaining her face in a calculated expression of neutrality, all her previous annoyance hidden behind the mask.
That all changed when I finished telling her what had happened and told her what Caterina had told me. Of course, I left out Caterina’s name. Somehow I didn’t think Vivian would approve of my consorting with the wife of the enemy.
“Suron?” she said when I mentioned the meeting place. “But that’s in—”
“Heaven. Yeah. Not a big territory, but nasty. They’re planning something.”
“You really stomped all over everything, didn’t you? I should slap you in bracelets right now.”
I tried to ignore the snark in her tone. It didn’t work. “Give me a break. You and Todd were the ones who wanted me doing this in the first place. You wanted information, and that’s what I gave you. Now you can leave me alone.”
“You have no idea how badly you’ve stirred up the hive.” She stabbed her finger toward my TV. “Have you even looked at the news?”
“No,” I said, and took another couple of painkillers for good measure. The last ones didn’t seem to be working. “I’ve been recovering. You know, from the beating that I got doing your fucking job for you.”
That did it. Vivian slammed her hands down on the table and I jumped halfway to the ceiling. “You don’t get it, do you? This isn’t about you and your petty struggles.”
I was pretty sure it wasn’t petty to not want the shit kicked out of you, but Vivian was just winding up, and it was pretty obvious I wasn’t going to get a chance to argue my case.
“I’m not here to deal with you and your bloody authority problem,” she said. “I should never have let Todd bring you in on this. Gangster or not, you’re just another lawless piece of shit who never grew up, never realized the world doesn’t work like that. It’s people like you that are the reason my—”
Her mouth slammed shut, as if time was up and I needed to put in another coin for more screa
ming. Strangely, I found I was fresh out of money.
I have to admit, she’d struck a nerve in me. A nerve that made me want to lash out and put the table through my window. If she didn’t want me here, then fine. I’d done what I could. What the hell else did she expect me to do? Don a mask and cape and go vigilante on the city?
She was breathing heavily after her outburst, making her chest rise and fall in interesting ways. I stopped myself staring before she noticed, I think. She was looking down at the table, her normally bronze skin flushed with pink. Whether from anger or embarrassment, I couldn’t tell.
The minutes ticked by, and we sat in silence. If I opened my mouth, I couldn’t be sure I wouldn’t start screaming.
“Damn it,” she said finally. She stood up, practically tearing the chair from under her. “I don’t have time for this. John Andrews’ people have been mobilizing all morning. The other gangs too. Whatever you did, you scared the hell out of him. I have to go do stop this city from tearing itself apart.”
I grabbed her arm as she passed me. The glare she gave me nearly turned me to stone, but I held on nonetheless. “He’s preparing for war?”
She stared at me for a moment, as if trying to figure out which way she was going to kill me first. But then she just shrugged. “Maybe,” she said, quieter now. “Our informants all went dark a couple of hours ago.”
“I wasn’t imagining it. He’s afraid. He’s trying to unite the gangs against Doctor Dee.”
She nodded, and I let go of her arm. She looked tired. “This is about more than some new drug. This union of gangs won’t last longer than it takes for one of them to take control of Doctor Dee’s operation. And when that happens, the violence isn’t going to stop with the gangsters.”
She was right. I hate it when other people are right. The city’s gangs had existed in a sort of uneasy peace for two decades, somehow always managing to scale back their skirmishes before they escalated too far. But they’d never had an outside influence like this Doctor Dee and his Chroma to unbalance the spinning top. Hell, with half the city in the pocket of one gang or other, the place would be torn to shreds.
The Man Who Crossed Worlds (A Miles Franco Urban Fantasy) Page 7