He wasn't lying. The tattoo was of what appeared to be an octopoid creature mounted atop the globe of the earth. The shapes of the continents were discernible when he looked closely. The thing's tentacles were wrapped about the planet, and all around it, stars shone dark on the pale background of the woman's skin.
"Amazing," Tony said. "That took a real artist."
"We all have them," the woman said dreamily. "It's Cthulhu, you know—the sign of the order."
Tony remembered the books he had read in high school. "Lovecraft. The, what was it, Esoteric Order. . . ."
"Of Dagon," she finished.
"Right. But I thought that was fiction."
She shook her head. "No. Truth disguised, that was all. The Holy One spoke to Lovecraft, and Lovecraft wrote what the Holy One told him, but he changed things so that the people who knew would recognize things, but those who didn't would just think they were stories."
Jesus, keep me from hard drugs, Tony thought. "Somebody I knew was telling me about your group," he said.
"Yeah?" He saw interest in her clouded eyes, and maybe a bit of lust, too, if he wasn't overestimating his attraction.
"Yeah, an artist. Sculptor named Peder Holberg?"
As the name penetrated her thoughts, she frowned. "Him . . . the Holy One could talk to him. He can't talk to any of us, but he could to Holberg. Only Holberg didn't want to listen. He turned his back on him, on the Holy One, can you believe that? To have such a gift and just shit it away! No wonder he got blown the hell up!"
She had gotten louder now and had drawn the attention of her companions. One of the men, who reminded Tony of a tall, lanky scarecrow dressed up for Halloween, stood and started toward them, followed by two of his fellows. "Elaine!" he said, loudly enough to be heard over the band. The crowd parted for him, so that in another moment he was by the woman's side. "Who's this?"
"My name's Bill," Tony said. He didn't put out a hand.
These weren't the type who went in for shakes and howdys. "So?" said the tall man with a total absence of warmth.
"He knew Peder," Elaine said.
"You did?" the man said, his nostrils flaring as if he'd caught a scent.
"Maybe I still do. We don't know that he's dead."
"He was in a room when it blew up. Even if they found no body, how could he be alive?"
"If they didn't find a body," Tony said, "how can he not be alive?" He attempted a thin smile. "I know he was hanging with you. I just wondered if you might have any idea of where he may have disappeared to. You know, if he said anything about taking off, leaving the city—"
"He left us," the tall man said. "We taught him so much, and then, when he finally saw what benefit he could be to us—and to the Holy One—he went chickenshit, turned his back on us. And you're his friend?"
The other two men were flanking him now, and Tony felt as though this could escalate very quickly. He didn't want that to happen here. Injuries, police, questions . . . his papers would see him through, but the less light shone on him, the better. "I knew him, like I said."
The tall man fixed him with a steely glare. "You think he's alive?"
"Maybe."
"I think you know more than you're telling us. If Peder Holberg's alive, we want to talk to him. Now, what do you know?"
The tone was commanding, even if the guy did look like Ichabod Lugosi. The two on either side of Tony towered over him as well. The thought that he could probably kill all three of them in as many seconds without pulling his pistol was reassuring, but he preferred a more peaceful solution. "Not much," he said. "But maybe we oughta take this outside."
"No," Ichabod said. "We want privacy; we'll go in the back." He turned to the table where the remaining members of the Order sat and beckoned them with a sharp little jerk of his head. This guy was good, Tony thought. He had his minions nicely trained. They stood and moved to the black curtain as Tony felt the two men press his shoulders, telling him to start walking.
The tall man led the way, and Tony followed him through the curtain and down a short hall. There was a heavy door at the end, and someone ahead of them rattled what sounded like a large key in the lock. The door opened on squeaking hinges, but showed only blackness. Then he heard the sound of footsteps on metal stairs, and in another moment he too was walking down the long black stairway.
That was good, he thought. The further away they were from the club, the less likely the goths upstairs were to hear gunshots if Tony had to use his weapon. Or at least, so he thought before he walked into the vault.
There were torches glowing through an arched doorway, and Tony was inwardly congratulating his captors on getting the ambience right when he felt the unmistakable hardness of a gun barrel being pressed to his head. "You carrying, asshole?" a harsh voice said, and then hands began to move up and down his body, searching.
There was no point in waiting to see what happened next. Tony had seen too many people do that and die. Besides, people felt too confident when they were holding a gun to your head. They expected you to be scared and not to move, and when you did, they didn't know what the hell was happening. His greatest fear was meeting someone someday who did, and would put a bullet in his head at his very first twitch.
But these goths weren't anywhere near as professional as they thought they were. Tony slapped the gun away easily with his left arm, using a knife hand that broke the wielder's wrist, so that a shot went wild as the pistol flew away from him. At the same time, he shot his right heel backward, knee-capping the man behind him, so that he screamed and staggered backward, falling.
A millisecond later, he struck to the right, hitting the man there in the throat, pulling the blow just enough so that it would not crush the windpipe. By that time, his left hand had come about in a circle from the first blow into a dangerous uppercut that caught the front man under the chin, snapping his teeth together with a sharp crack and dropping him unconscious to the floor.
Those who weren't out cold or nursing their wounds didn't seem to know what to do, and when Tony's .38 special jumped out from under his jacket, they grew even more con-fused. Of the men, only Ichabod was left, and he stood in a stupor, looking down at his fallen and screaming warriors.
Elaine, however, was a woman of action. With a shriek that echoed through the damp-walled vault, she flew at Tony, fingers outstretched to claw his face. He sidestepped and came down with an overhand left that collided with her temple and dropped her to the stone floor.
"You sonofabitch!" one of the other women screamed. "How could you hit a woman?"
Tony didn't pause to inform her that he had already killed more than one woman in his life. Instead, he stepped over the writhing bodies behind him and went out the door. He paused just long enough to close it and turn the key in the lock. Then he yanked it out and tossed it into the darkness.
"'In pace requiescat, Fortunato,'" he whispered, then quickly walked toward the dim light that shone at the bottom of the long stairs. As he went he hoped that Laika and Joseph had had a helluva lot more productive night than he had.
Chapter 23
Laika Harris and Joseph Stein's night did indeed turn out to be more productive than Tony Luciano's, and nearly as dangerous. The address of the warehouse was not merely off the Third Avenue bridge, but under it as well. They drove their car uptown and across the bridge to the Bronx, waiting until after midnight in the hopes that fewer people would be about at that hour.
They were right. There were fewer people, but those left on the streets were predators and foolish prey, cut loose from the herds that fled to their dens when daylight and, later, the comforting neons of evening faded and the darkness came. Luckily for Laika and Joseph, the Company had trained them to feed on carnivores.
Except for the carcasses of two stripped and rusted cars, the small parking lot of the warehouse was empty. When Joseph turned off the engine, all they could hear was the sound of traffic on the bridge overhead and the thin whisper of music from a waterfront bar
two blocks away. All of the street lights in the area had either burned out or been shot out. In any event, they had not been replaced, and the glow from the city across the river provided the only light.
"How the hell could Holberg have gotten out here without a car?" Joseph asked.
"Cab," Laika said simply. "And there's an IRT stop three blocks away. Tomorrow, let's check to see if any cabbies have a record of taking a party over here—if they'd be willing to make the trip. Don't think there'd be many people coming right here."
"Amen to that."
They sat in the car for a moment, observing the warehouse. It towered four stories high and was perhaps sixty yards long by forty wide. Lichen crawled twenty feet up its concrete sides, making it look as though it had been there forever. The huge painted words "Brennan Lading" were pale ghosts, nearly exorcised by years of sun and the scouring acids in the rain and the air.
Spray-painted graffiti ringed the building's perimeter, letters and codes and symbols that were foreign to Laika. Whatever windows the warehouse had once had were now boarded up. There was a large metal delivery door in the side of the wall. Around the corner on the shorter wall was another, smaller door that looked more promising.
"Well," Joseph said, "it's not going to get any prettier."
They got out of the car and went up to the small door. The keys Adam Guaraldi had given them unlocked both the heavy padlock and the inset lock, and the door creaked open. Just as they were about to go inside, a voice from behind them said, "Burglars."
Laika whirled around and went into a crouch, her right hand slipping inside her jacket for her weapon. Beside her, Joseph did the same, but more slowly. Then she froze.
Half a dozen African-American kids, none of them older than sixteen, were standing thirty yards away. Their hands were in the pockets of their jackets or the pouches of their hooded sweats, and they seemed very much at ease. They should, Laika thought. This was their territory. One of the boys switched on a boom box, and the harsh words and sounds of gangsta rap filled the night.
"They burglars, all right," said another one over the music. "Breakin' and enterin', that what they doin'."
"Man, that ain't good. Goddam Jew owns that shithole, he catch you, he be mad. Fac', we catch you, maybe he give us a reward."
"Got that right."
"We're not breaking in," said Laika, straightening up. "We have keys, see?" She hoped they'd just go away but didn't think it was likely.
"Keys? Now ain't that somethin'? What else you got there, sister, a white boy? What you keepin' him for? Or he keepin' you? He a rich Jewboy, like the black meat? You ought be ashamed of yourself, sister."
Joseph looked at Laika and breathed a deep sigh, both apologetic and weary. Why the hell did it have to be like this, she wondered. "You boys go away now—we're busy here."
"Yeah, you gonna get busier." The boy in the lead started walking toward them. "You gonna be busy gettin' your asses kicked, and we gonna do the kickin'. Maybe we do more with your sweet ass, sister. Bust you down, bitch."
God damn it, but Laika hated that word. The boys were ten yards away by now. Hell with it, she thought. Even if they were packing, she and Joseph could take them all.
She took out the automatic and was glad she'd thought to attach a silencer. Still, the sound of the shot was like a giant spitting. The bullet smashed into the boom box, shattering it and stopping the music. The boy holding it dropped what was left and glared at her in mixed fury and fear.
Two of the others reached deeper into their pockets, but Laika targeted the one on the left and Joseph the one on the right. "Do it and you're dead," Laika said, and they stopped moving. "Take them out slow."
One of the shooters had a cheap Saturday night special, its butt wrapped with electrical tape, but the other had a sweet little Glock. "Now empty the cylinder and the clip and throw the bullets over there into the dark. Go on."
They did it, though she was amazed at their barely disguised hatred. Here they were with two guns held on them, and they still looked only a thought away from jumping at her anyway.
"Now," she went on, "you want to be able to buy another box? You want to make a little money, more than you'd get if you tried to mug us? Then listen up. We're gonna be coming in here from time to time. You don't give us any shit, and you leave our car alone, and we'll drop a hundred dollars at the door there each time we leave."
"Two hundred," said the lead boy, as though he actually had a bargaining chip instead of a gun pointed at him.
Before Laika could respond, Joseph chimed in, "How about two-fifty?" She swung around and glared at him as if he were crazy, but he only smiled at her. "It's out of Skye's account," he whispered.
She thought a moment, then turned back. "We'll make it two-fifty," she said. "Only we'll want a receipt. Suit you?"
"A what?" the boy said.
"A receipt. You write on a piece of paper that we paid you two hundred and fifty dollars for . . . security."
"We do that now, you pay us the money?"
"You got it?" Laika asked Joseph.
"Barely," he said, taking out a money clip with bills.
"All right," Laika said. "A hundred now, the rest when we leave—if the car's still here." Peeling off some bills, Joseph walked up to the boy and handed them to him, still holding his gun.
"Hey," said the boy who had had the boom box. "What about my box?"
Laika shook her head. "Don't press your luck, kid. Take it out of the two-fifty." She put her gun back in its holster. "Write it off as a business expense."
She opened the door, which had drifted shut, and held it for Joseph to enter. She went in after him, closing and locking the door behind her.
They found themselves in total darkness, so they both took out flashlights and turned them on. They were in a dingy eight-by-eight-foot anteroom. One wall showed a spot free of dirt where a time clock had once been installed. Against the other, an ancient Coke machine sat, the kind in which you opened a door and yanked out one of the bottles. No caps were visible beneath the grimy glass.
There was a closed door opposite the one they had come in. Laika walked across the wooden floor, pushed it open, stepped through, and shined her flashlight into a spider web of iron.
Chapter 24
"My God," she whispered, as Joseph turned on the lights, and she saw that it was more than a web; it was a jungle.
"Now we know what he was doing up here," Joseph said, and she heard the unmistakable tone of awe in his voice. "And what that stack of invoices for iron was all about."
The room was filled with a gigantic ruined sculpture. Laika thought it must have been made up of thousands of pieces of iron. The bright fluorescent lights overhead cast the shadows of the bars upon the floor and on the iron below, so that from their vantage point it was impossible to tell what was true and what was shadow.
In some places the iron towered thirty feet high. In others the foot-wide boards had been removed so that the iron could descend beneath the level of the floor.
Red-brown puddles dotted the floor, and the smell of rust and corrosion hung in the air. There was another unpleasant note to the odor that Laika could not define until Joseph said, "Smells like when I was a kid . . . and mice would die in the walls of my grandmother's house."
That was it, all right, the smell of death. Despite her experience with severed lives, the rank odor and the sight of the twisted labyrinth of iron made Laika feel ill in both her stomach and her soul. She had never experienced such a sense of total awe and complete revulsion. It was like coming face to face with God and learning that he was a monster who wished only death and torment for his children. Even half ruined, the work was appalling and, in an aesthetic sense, nearly obscene.
Laika closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and tried to push the sickness away. There was work to do. When she looked at the sculpture again, she felt better, though the sensation of examining a decayed and skeletal corpse would not fully leave her. She steeled her
self and studied the work.
Many of the bars had been disconnected from the main work and lay on the floor like huge pick-up sticks. Others reminded Laika of the tortured sculptures back in Peder Holberg's other, more public studio. They were wrenched and bent, as though by that hypothetical tornado that had twisted the smaller pieces in the destroyed loft. But whether they were merely bent or actually separated from the mass, whatever Peder Holberg had meant to represent was no longer clear, if it had ever been.
Near the wall, tanks of acetylene lay on their sides, and at several places in the work, portable steel stairways that had no doubt allowed Holberg access to the higher levels of the sculpture were knocked over as well.
"He was coming up here to build a sculpture," Laika said. "Why on earth—"
"How on earth," said Joseph. "Imagine all the time he must have spent here, coming and going at all hours of the day and night. Will you please tell me how Holberg, gay and foreign, managed to avoid being made into cube steak by those gangbangers out there?"
"Maybe . . . they're not as bad as they seem?"
Joseph said nothing, but only turned on her a look of withering scorn that she realized she deserved. "Or maybe God was watching over him," Joseph finally said, with sarcasm even deeper than his look.
"I don't know," Laika said, held by a dark fascination to the bizarre ironwork. It seemed God was very far away from this place.
She walked slowly around the sculpture, looking into its complex maze, seeing far finer filaments in the bright light.
Spiders had begun connecting the spaces between the bars, building their own traps of death, and she heard, from time to time, the scuttling of what could only be rats.
Nearly halfway around the work, she stopped and examined an area closely. "Joseph?" she said, and he came to where she was standing. "Look at that. It looks as though it . . . came outward."
Where she was pointing, iron had been twisted and wrenched away from the mass. It seemed to leave a definite path back toward the middle of the sculpture, and there they could clearly see where the sculpture had burst outward from the center, from a force that had left no sign of its passing but the bent iron. There was not the slightest scent of flame or powder or ash or any of the other olfactory evidence that a true explosion would leave behind.
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