Procession of the dead tct-2
Page 13
I popped into Party Central and checked the records on three different floors. I wanted to see what sort of background info they had on Adrian, who his friends were, if he was connected with any shady deals, if there were clues in his past. It took a while for me to believe what I uncovered, but in the end I had to face the facts- he wasn't there. The most complete records in the city, and not a word about him. No birth certificate, no record of his driver's license, insurance details, schooling or employment history. I checked twice on each floor but every search produced the same result. Officially Adrian Arne didn't exist, had never existed.
It wasn't possible. There had to be information somewhere, perhaps tucked away in files on one of the higher, restricted floors. But I couldn't get in there, so I had no option other than to resign myself to his bureaucratic nonbeing.
Then I recalled my encounter on the stairs. Was the woman in black involved in this? Strangers didn't wander into Party Central as and when they pleased. Getting an operative in here would require tremendous influence. The same sort it would need to eradicate a person's files. She could be a link to Adrian. It looked like I'd have to investigate my mystery girl sooner than planned, only not for the romantic purposes I'd initially envisaged. It would be difficult but I'd hunt her down. For Adrian's sake if not my own.
I called Adrian's agency and spoke to the manager, John D'Affraino, whom I'd met a couple of times. He remembered me and was all smiles over the phone. "John, do you have an Adrian Arne on your books?" I asked after a while.
"Let's see." I heard him tapping the name into his computer. "Is that with or without an e? With? No, no Arne. We've got an Adrian Arnold."
"Could you describe him?"
"Six-two, black, thirties, bushy beard."
"No. Do you have a record of my drivers for the last month or two?"
"Sure. Just a minute… here we go. You've got Thomas at the moment. He's one of our best. Before him you had Pat Burke. Gregg Hapes before that."
"Could you get Pat or Gregg on the phone?"
"Sure. Hold on a sec."
Pat Burke was off duty but Gregg Hapes was there. I asked if he remembered driving me. "Of course," he said cheerfully. "I'm due to take you out again next week for a couple of nights, I think."
"Do you recall the last time you took me out?"
"I think so," he said. "Last Thursday, wasn't it? Or was it Friday?"
"One of those, yeah. Do you remember my date, a tall lady in a green dress?"
A slight pause, one I'd have missed if I hadn't been expecting it. "Sure," he said, cheerful as before. "A nice lady."
"She lost an earring, we think maybe in the car. You come up with anything like that lately?"
"No, Mr. Raimi. And I cleaned it out just yesterday."
"If you do, will you send it on?"
"Absolutely. I think I remember them. Green, right, like the dress?"
"Yeah. Like the dress." I hung up and took a few seconds to collect myself. I thanked the receptionist for the use of her phone, went to the toilet, came down in an elevator and set off to see Cafran Reed.
They'd even gotten to the chauffeurs. Why go to such lengths? Deleting his files, securing the silence of those who knew him, covering every track he'd ever made. What justification could there be for the cost, time and effort that must have involved? And if they'd gone that far, bought out his building supervisor and workmates, his own sister… if they'd solicited everyone who knew him and warned them to deny Adrian's very existence… why hadn't they come after me?
Y Tse called as I was on my way to Cafran Reed's restaurant. "Hi, kid," he boomed. "How's tricks?"
"Fine," I said. This was the first time he'd called. He hated phones. I guessed somebody had been talking.
"You sure of that? Someone told me you've been acting a bit strange today. What's up?"
"Who was it?" I asked. "Sonja?"
"Well, tarnation's titties, Capac, how many other dames have you been freaking the living shit out of? She was sobbing, called you a heartless prick, threatened to cancel your contract. She'd been drinking and that's not like Sonja."
"And she's blaming me? Fuck her!" I yelled. "She won't acknowledge Adrian. Her own brother, and the bitch sat there and told me she was an orphan! Can you believe that shit? Then I go to Party Central and someone's wiped his files. I call his agency and they say he never worked there-not only that, but they've drawn up an imaginary list of drivers for me. And there's some-"
"Whoa," he laughed over the line. "Get a grip, Capac. Are you high?"
"Y Tse," I shouted, "Sonja has a brother! Adrian has been my driver and best friend since I started working here. A couple of days ago he didn't turn up for work and now it's like I dreamed him up. Nobody admits they knew him, there's nothing to prove he was ever alive. How the fuck am I expected to react?"
"Listen, Capac-no, no anchovies-," he said to somebody on the other end of the line. "-Let's talk this through calmly. I don't know Sonja very well but a few years ago I had an all-night session with her and Leonora. We got to talking about our lives and inner selves, all the shit you only discuss at five in the morning. She said she'd never had a family, would have loved a brother or sister. She got quite emotional about it."
"But I saw him! Every fucking day, Y Tse! Are you saying I imagined him?"
"No. All I'm saying is a few years ago, before anyone had ever heard of Capac Raimi, Sonja Arne told me she didn't have a brother. That means whatever you've stumbled into predates you. There are three possibilities as I see it. One, Sonja was lying all those years ago and really does have a brother. I don't think that's the case. Why should she lie back then if it was? Two, you're going mad. Not a pretty thought, but the mind screws up on us sometimes. I don't think it's likely but we can't dismiss the possibility. Three, there never was an Adrian Arne, only a pretender."
"But she introduced us. She told me he was her brother."
"She was lying."
His simple assertion threw me. It was so obvious. Immediately I knew it must be the truth and cursed myself for not having seen it already.
"She wanted you to believe she had a brother," Y Tse went on, "so she fed you a lie. He was in on it too. It's an easy deception to pull off-you had no reason to suspect something foul. Now they want the deception to end. So they stop lying. No trick to it. Who's going to notice the disappearance of a guy who was never real in the first place?"
"Why go to all that trouble?" I asked. "What difference can it make whether I think Sonja has a brother or not? It serves no purpose. Why would they pretend?"
"That's something for you to unearth if you decide to follow it up. But I'll tell you, whoever's behind this, I doubt it's Sonja. I guess somebody else is involved, someone who likes to play meaningless games for reasons sometimes unknown even to himself."
"The Cardinal?"
"It's got his crazy stamp all over it. You checked in Party Central's files and drew a blank? Well, ignoring the fact that if he's not her brother, his name wouldn't be Arne"- Fuck! -"who's got the power to tamper with those files? A handful of people, and every one of them's on the shortest of The Cardinal's many leashes. Nothing like that could be done without his knowledge."
"There was…" I paused. Should I tell him of my encounter on the stairs? I trusted Y Tse but… no. I trusted him and that was that. I needed at least one person to believe in. "There was a woman last night. I met her going up the stairs of Party Central. I don't know what she was up to, but it wasn't legitimate. She was dressed like a burglar and-"
"A burglar?" he snorted. "Get real. Couldn't happen."
"But it did. She got in somehow. She was coming down from a higher floor when I-"
"I'm telling you," he interrupted, "Party Central has the tightest security on the face of the planet. Apart from the Troops camped around it, there are sensor beams on every floor, remote-operated machine guns set behind the walls, canisters of gas in the ceilings, hidden cameras, secret traps, all manner of-"
"Loads of them."
"On the stairs too?"
"Of course."
Fuck. Another problem I'd have to cope with. This was one week I wanted to take back and start over again. "So you think The Cardinal's behind this? That he set Adrian up to fool me, or made him vanish like those others you told me about, Harry Gilmer and the rest?"
"Harry…? Oh, him. Yeah, could be. Not beyond the-"
"Y Tse," I cut in, suddenly thinking of something, "do you know Paucar Wami?"
There was a long silence. Finally, "How do you know Wami?" he asked quietly.
"I don't. Not really. I ran into him a while back and the name just jumped into my mind a second ago. He worked for The Cardinal, didn't he? He killed people for him, made them vanish?"
Y Tse hesitated. "People rarely see Wami coming or going, and he can eliminate a man without leaving a trace, but I doubt it's him."
"But he's worth checking out?" I pressed, not sure why my mind had linked him to this but certain somehow that I was on to something.
"I wouldn't," Y Tse said. "Wami plays his own games and they're not the sort you want to get mixed up with. If you want my advice, leave Paucar Wami well alone." But he said it with more hope than expectation. Y Tse knew I wouldn't let this drop.
We talked some more, about trivial matters, then he hung up. Thomas got stuck in traffic-this was a bad time to be driving-but eventually I made it to my meeting with Cafran Reed and breathed a sigh of relief as I stepped out of the car. It would be good to get back to some ordinary business for a couple of hours. I'd taken all the craziness I could handle for one day.
The sign above the door simply readcafran's. Inside there were rubber plants in a couple of corners, strong yellow lights, paintings of trees and rivers, pop tunes playing softly in the background. The pretty receptionist paged her boss and a waitress escorted me to a table by one of the walls.
Cafran appeared a couple of minutes later, smiling easily. He was short, plump and pleasant, bald as an elbow. His face was a mass of freckles. He wore large, red glasses. His suit was conservative but somewhat at odds with the orange suspenders andi love cafran's rosette pinned over his heart.
"So, Mr. Raimi," he said brightly as he sat, "you're the latest designated knight. It's been a while since my last. I remarked on it only the other day to Ama-my daughter-and voila! Here you are. Would you care to order? The steak is rather excellent this week."
"Steak would be great," I smiled.
"Two steaks, please," he said to the waitress. "I've had one already today," he told me confidentially, "but don't tell Ama if you see her-I'm supposed to be on a diet."
He prattled on while we were waiting for the steak, telling me about his doctor, the business, his customers. I smiled pleasantly, arched my eyebrows, threw him a question whenever he paused for breath. I hated this part of the sell. I couldn't wait to get down to the nitty-gritty. I kept glancing around, looking for the steak, taking in the staff and customers. There was a waitress serving dessert at a table by the window. A nice figure. Long legs. Cafran said something about a magician he'd seen on TV. Magic was a hobby of his-he knew lots of tricks and offered to show me a few later. I said that would be nice. My eyes flicked lazily at the leggy waitress again. She'd just finished dishing up the dessert.
The waitress turned and I immediately lost all interest in Cafran Reed, insurance deals and everything else. It was the woman from the stairs! She looked up from her cart, smiling mechanically, and saw me. The smile cracked. One hand dropped the knife it had been holding and it knocked over a small trifle. She recovered, carried on serving, and made her way across to my table.
Cafran beamed when she arrived. "Ama," he said, "I'd like you to meet Capac Raimi. Capac, this is my daughter, Ama Situwa."
"A pleasure," I said, reaching out a trembling hand to shake hers.
"Likewise." The instant our fingers touched I got a hard-on. She felt it all the way through my palm and smiled. "I think we've met before, Mr. Raimi." Her voice was exotic, an accent I couldn't place.
"Please, call me Capac. Yes, I think our paths have crossed. Once."
"Really?" Cafran was excited. "What a coincidence. Where?"
"I can't quite recall," Ama said. "Do you, Capac?"
"I think it was at a party," I said, smiling leanly. "Up in the city somewhere. The central region, maybe."
"Of course. We passed upon the stairs, as the old song goes."
"That's right."
She had a smile I wanted to frame. Her tongue had a habit of flicking past her front teeth between sentences. "We must get together again soon," she purred.
"Just name a time and place," I told her.
"I will." She turned to speak to Cafran. I felt myself throbbing uncontrollably. I gripped the edge of the table and suppressed a shudder. I missed what she said to her father and the next thing I knew, she was facing me again. "Nice to see you again, Capac. I might drop by later, perhaps for dessert."
"That would be nice." Hell yes! Her on a plate with a sprinkling of sugar and nothing else. The image set me drooling as she continued on her rounds, favoring me with short, wicked smiles every so often. It was going to be a nightmare trying to concentrate on work, but I had to make the effort.
"That's quite a pair of eyes you have on you," Cafran said drily when I finally looked at him again. "It doesn't pay to ogle a girl in front of her father."
"Sorry, Mr. Reed, I-"
He burst into laughter. "I jest. Ama is quite an attraction. I don't blame young men for gawking. I even take it as a compliment."
I smiled awkwardly. "You said her name was Ama Situwa. Is she married?"
"No. Her mother and I went our separate ways some years ago. It was not an amicable split. She returned with Ama to her home country, took back her maiden name and kept the two of us apart."
"Then how come…? " I nodded at his mesmerizing daughter.
He sighed. "Ama's mother died four years ago. She told Ama I was a monster, so Ama found it difficult to approach me, even when she was left alone. Finally she came to judge for herself, found me innocent, and we've been together since, making up for those sad, lost years."
The steaks arrived and we tucked into them. When we were finished we leaned back in our chairs and nibbled some mints. "So," Cafran said, rubbing his stomach and smiling with contentment. "You've come to try and sell me insurance."
"That's right," I smiled. "I've got some great policies lined up, at prices you're going to sing over."
"I very much doubt that. I've never paid for insurance, not since I got stung in my youth. It's a moneymaking racket. One of the main reasons I remain in this city is its lax insurance laws where businesses are concerned."
"And that's largely because of The Cardinal," I noted. "He keeps the law off the small entrepreneur's back. Without him you wouldn't be able to operate so freely."
"That's true."
"So why not pay him back? Take out one of our options. Call it a gesture of friendship. One good turn…"
He laughed. "The Cardinal doesn't set the city's insurance standards with me in mind. I owe him nothing, he doesn't owe me, and I like it that way."
"But-"
Cafran held up a silencing hand. "There's nothing better after a good meal than a magic trick." He dug into a pocket and produced a stick of celery and a finger guillotine. He placed them on a white napkin in the center of the table. "This is one of my favorites. Simple, classic, timeless.
"Ladies and gentlemen!" he boomed, startling me. I glanced around and noticed other customers smiling-they were used to these displays. "Cafran the Great is proud to present, all the way from anarchist France, Madame Guillotine! Severer of heads, the blade with the thirsty edge, the killer of kings, most lethal of stings, the steel which kisses and never misses. The victim goes in." He pushed
the celery through the hole in the contraption. "The blade goes up." He pulled the small blade to the top. "The blood-hungry hags get ready to sup. The lever's released, the blade comes down!" He slammed it down, chopping through the stalk of celery. "The head of the victim spins around."
The spectators applauded. Cafran picked up the two pieces of the celery, held them for all to see, then handed them to the waitress to dispose of. "Now," he said cheerfully, "do we have a volunteer?" He looked at me and reluctantly I raised an answering arm. Cafran reached across for one of my fingers.
"You know," I said as he eased the middle finger of my right hand into the hole, "I can think of an excellent reason why you should take one of our policies."
"Oh?" he asked, frowning, concentrating on the trick. "What would that be?"
"Your daughter."
Cafran's smile froze and he faced me slowly. "Would you mind expanding on that remark?" His voice was cold.
"If you want to keep your daughter, sign for me."
"Is this a threat?" His fingers were clutching mine and I suddenly realized this wasn't the best of times to play games. But it was too late to stop.
"No. I'm making you an offer. You buy insurance from me, I let you keep your daughter."
He sneered. "I thought you were a nice young man but a rat's whiskers always twitch sooner rather than later. But you forget, my young, vicious friend, that you cannot harm me or my daughter. The Cardinal forbids it."
"I wasn't talking about harming Ama."
"Then what, to put it bluntly, were you fucking talking about?"
I leaned forward. "I wouldn't harm a hair on Ama's head, but I can and will take her away from you if you refuse to come to an agreement with me."
"You plan to kidnap her?" He was more bemused than angry now.
"No. I'm talking about marriage, Mr. Reed."
He stared at me uncomprehendingly. "What sort of a salesman are you?"