“Keep it straightforward. You fell on the steps and cut yourself. You’ve got a blood disorder that caused the clotting problems.”
“Have you seen the mess my shoulder is in? No one’ll buy that. The doctors–”
“They can’t explain what’s going on with your body, so they’ll take what you give them,” he said calmly.
I reached for the water bottle and had another sip. “Did your blood really save me?”
“Like I said. I’ve got some immunity.”
“Well, I guess I should thank you, then.”
“You know we are bound by blood now.”
“That’s a joke, right?”
His lips twitched. Emotion or amusement? It was hard to say.
“When it happened, I saw Aquila. She was hurt, too… her beak. She saved me from that… thing,” I said.
“Your disincarnate will heal herself and return when you need her.”
“Right,” I said.
The man is crazy.
SIXTEEN
Caro visited after Sixkiller left, wanting precise medical detail.
I let her question me for a while, then sent her home, claiming fatigue and a fuzzy head from sedatives.
The nurse came in with dinner and more pain meds, and then I was alone, finally, with my in-room entertainment and a view of the rain-slick city. I got out of bed and sat in a chair by the window. May be Totes had been right about the Corellas in the Eastern sector.
I hadn’t been in a hospital since Dad died, and the memory of it rebounded painfully. He’d fallen from the eastern butte, broken his back. They might have fixed the back but not the accompanying cerebral haemorrhage.
Those last hours I spent with him, he’d been drifting in and out of consciousness, his eyes flickering open, fingers curling in mine. At one stage, he’d whispered some words to me, but I couldn’t understand them. His dying words and I’d never know what they were.
Even now, that made me angry.
The reports said he’d slipped but my dad had been murdered; of that, I was sure. And now someone was coming after me. Not coincidence. And not just bad luck. A connection.
My phone beeped from the bedside swivel. I got up and answered it.
“You haven’t forgotten our deal, Virgin, I hope.”
“Corah? How’d you get this number?”
“Really, Virgin?”
“If you know so much, then you might also know this isn’t a good time.”
“Good time or not, you owe me an invite to the opening. When can I expect it?”
I sighed. “I’ll organize it now. Can I reach you on this number?”
“For a while, yes.”
“And then?”
“We’re a disposable society, Virgin. Move on.”
The line went dead.
The meds had kicked in and I wanted to sleep but I fought it off a little while to search online for media about Dabrowski’s reopening. Anything that might give me a clue as to Corah’s interest in being there.
Chef Dab had a cult following in the Park precinct and the Western Quarter. It’s not like the food was special; it was just good. Polish-Australian fusion with a smattering of Western flavours to catch the tourist.
Business had been good for Dab when others had struggled. He was a testament to consistency. People knew what they’d get and he didn’t disappoint: sauerkraut and pork sausages on a hot roll, steak and smoked cheese, dumplings and seafood, ribs with mash and pickles – each dish as good as the last.
I found some articles featuring Dab in an apron, wielding a bread knife and a meat mallet. The articles talked about the redecoration of the premises and some new signature dishes. Apparently, the president of Birrimun Holdings would launch the new menu, accompanied by a smattering of judges and famous folk.
I frowned. Seemed an unlikely gig for the park’s big boss, but then Dab’s food struck a note with many stomachs, and the big chef really knew how to work a contact when he made one. Dab had a talent for making friends, while my dad had displayed a talent for pissing people off. I guess the latter was hereditary.
I leaned back and checked my messages.
True to his word, Dab had sent the invitation details through for me for a party of four guests. Even though it was for tomorrow night, and I knew I probably wouldn’t make it, I hit accept on the invitation and then texted the details through to Corah.
Her reply was affirmative and almost immediate.
Out of curiosity, I waited five minutes, then sent another text to her number, asking her what she was going to wear.
The message failed. The phone number had disconnected.
Disposable, huh. Maybe it was time I changed my number, too.
I tucked the patient call buzzer in bed next to me and fell heavily asleep. Not sure for how long, but enough that my eyes felt stitched together when I woke.
I heard a faint rasping. There was concentration in it and more… fatigue. Labouring breaths.
I felt in the bed for the buzzer before I forced my lids open.
Detective Indira Chance sat in a chair close to the head of the bed. She was staring at me with her watery Panda eyes.
I wet my lips. “D-detective? Good of you to visit.”
“Can you answer some questions?” She lifted her tablet to indicate she would record me.
“Depends…” I said, pushing myself more upright and scrubbing at my face.
I was suddenly wide awake. The sleep had sharpened my mind somewhat, even though my shoulder burned. “…on what you ask.”
“Did you recently visit a psychic in Mystere?”
“You been following me, Detective?”
“I’m pursuing a line of enquiry, Ms Jackson. Can you answer the question?”
“I visited an acquaintance who lives down that way.”
“And that friend has connections with a gang identity by the name of Papa Brisé? Is that who paid you to murder the man in the Park?”
My heart skittered. I’d been followed there, after all.
Then again, with the ruckus Sixkiller had caused in Gilgul Street, it wouldn’t have been hard to find me. The familiar tug between annoyance and gratitude started up. How could a person be so competent and such a lunatic at one time?
“You wouldn’t be questioning one of my people without the legal counsel present, Detective Chance?” a voice boomed.
Bull Hunt filled up most of the doorway, and his words filled the room.
Chance got to her feet, her hand instinctively reaching for her gun. When she recognized Bull, she let her hand rest on the hilt, sending a message that she didn’t like or trust him.
“Just checking on the health of my primary witness, Director.”
She nodded at me and deliberately stepped up close to Bull, who didn’t back away. He remained still for so long, I thought she might draw on him.
“Boss,” I said. “Can you pour me some water?”
He flicked me a glance, then stepped aside and let her pass. When she’d gone through, he shut the door after her.
I gave him a shaky grin. “Your timing is immaculate.”
“Always.” He walked over to me and dropped a light kiss on my head. “You’re giving me ulcers, Virgin. You know that?”
His show of concern surprised me. Bull didn’t do paternal kisses on the forehead or any other place.
He picked up the chair Chance had been sitting on and put it over by the window again. Sitting down, he gazed out at the rain-blurred city lights. A luminescent crown arced high above the nightscape, some trick of distortion thrown up from the Park’s canopy. I guessed it was a little after 2am, because the crown had a silvery tinge. I’d long ago learned to read the time by its changing colour.
“Am I dying?” I asked lightly.
He turned his head little. “Poor taste, Virgin. Without Sixkiller’s blood transfusion, you may well have.”
“Aaah… yes… Nate.”
Bull pinched the bridge of his nose between
his fingers and closed his eyes. When he opened them again, he dropped his hand to knee and slapped it like he’d made a decision.
“Look, I’d hoped to avoid telling you this… figured the Marshal would sort things out. But things are getting out of hand, and you have a right to know… a right to protect yourself.”
My heart did a skittering thing. “What is it, boss?”
“Your dad always told me there was a lot more going on in life than I’d ever let myself believe. And I always thought he’d spent too long in the heat without a canteen. I mean… I loved the man, Virgin, you know that. But your dad could be a zealot. I’ve tried to break you of that, but… looks like you will be whatever it is your genes dictate. Hang all that talk about nature and nurture. You’re a clear winner for nature, Virgin.”
I ignored the personal comments and tried to get to the core of what he was saying. “What has that got to do with me, us, or the Park?”
He took a deep breath. “This’ll probably get me fired. But the dead guy in the park was an undercover guy that joint intelligence forces had planted inside an extremist group.”
“I won’t ask how you know this, but does the extremist group have a name, Bull?”
“I believe they call themselves Korax, something that originated with the word ’raven’. But don’t expect to find anything about them online. To the rest of the world, they don’t exist.”
I took that in before I spoke. “So, maybe the Park was just a convenient place to–”
“The man Nate killed in your apartment was one of them… not a garden-variety thug. You saw the tattoo, Virgin. It might be that he went after you because they thought you saw or heard something in the Park. Or it might be for other reasons. All I know is that my park… my Ranger… are both caught up in something over my pay grade and out of my control.”
“You saying you can’t help me, Bull?”
“Not if you don’t tell me the truth. I know you didn’t injure yourself in a fall. Those are claw marks, Virgin.”
“No, it wasn’t a fall… but I don’t know really know what it was.”
“You want to try to explain.”He scowled at me with a full-face-wrinkled, badass look that had scared a hundred Park employees.
I cast around for an answer that would satisfy him. Last thing I needed was to be sectioned for mental health issues.
“Someone knocked me out cold on the stairs at the ranch house. When I came to, I had these… scratches. Never saw who or what did it. Sixkiller was inside. He came out and found me.”
“Neither of you saw anyone?”
I shook my head. “Not a damn person.”
“Well, doctors say your clotting mechanism is normal now, and they can’t explain why you wouldn’t stop bleeding before. They’re calling it an anomaly. Must be that your assailant injected you with something that was short-acting. Lucky Sixkiller was around with the right blood type. You’d already exhausted the local blood bank.”
“Lucky,” I agreed weakly.
“That bloke you’re seeing. I’m going to have him screened.”
“Which bloke?”
“The dancer.”
He meant Heart.
“Bull!” I sat bolt upright. “That’s my personal life. Stay out of it.”
He got up out of the chair and lifted his chin so high I could see the age lines on his neck. “If you wish.”
I nodded emphatically. “I do.”
SEVENTEEN
Caro took me home from hospital the next morning early, insisting she had no urgent work and that we should spend some time together. Though grateful and all, time with Caro could be more tiring than a ten-mile run. By the time we reached my apartment, I was out of sensible conversation and onto monosyllables.
“So, you think there’s a connection between the dead guy in the park, the guy Nate killed and this attack on you?”
“Dunno,” I said. “Yes. Maybe.”
She tucked a sheet around me rather too tight, to show she was peeved. “I get that you’re shaken up, but don’t play dumb on this, Ginny. How did it go in Mystere?”
I scowled. Why was everyone all up in my business? “Apart from the crazy US lawman, it was fine. Got a lead on the bone feather.”
“You need to ask your boss for some protection while we figure this out.”
“We?”
“Yeah. I’m good at what I do. Let me help you.”
It was so tempting to tell her everything, but friendship only stretched so far when one of the friends started blurting out crazy shit like “I was attacked by a giant imaginary bird that no one else can see.”
“When I’m feeling a bit stronger, Caro. OK?”
I must have looked as pale as I felt, because instead of pressing me on it, she took herself out to the kitchenette to make some herbal tea.
It was such a relief to be home, away from the noise and surprise visitors of the hospital, that I dozed off as soon as she left the room.
A while later, a gentle sensation on my cheek woke me up.
“Heart?”
“How did you know?” His voice was low.
“You’re the only person who touches me like that,” I said sleepily.
“How sweet,” said Caro.
I opened my eyes and saw her standing at the door with the tea. Embarrassed, I pulled the sheet up over my face like a little kid.
There was a clunk as she set the cups down. “The one on the left is ginger, one on the right is strawberry,” said Caro.
I stayed right where I was, buried under my bed linen, and a few minutes later, I heard the front door shut.
Heart peeled the sheet off me.
I surfaced, feeling foolish.
“She’s gone. How are you today?” he asked.
“Better,” I said. “Tired.”
He eased onto the bed alongside me and lifted the hem of my nightshirt up. With warm fingers, he traced shapes on my stomach. His touch made me feel a whole lot better, and I luxuriated in it until his breathing changed pace.
“Not yet,” I said softly, pushing his hand away. “I have to get back to work soon as I can.”
“Work? That’s crazy. You’ve had multiple blood transfusions. You have to rest.”
“If I have to rest, then don’t tempt me,” I said, smiling.
He shook his head, knowing he wouldn’t win this conversation, and reached across me for the cup of ginger tea.
I took the strawberry, and we sat sipping companionably for a bit. Heart knew how to inhabit silence in style. It was one of the reasons I liked him.
“We’re having a partner night at the club soon. You think you might come with me?” he asked.
“Which club?”
“The Outfit.”
I knew the joint. It was a couple blocks from Beef and Horners. The clientele was a little younger and raunchier than at the drinking holes Caro and I favoured. “Partner night?”
“For the staff. Boss is closing up early, and we’re having some ribs and beer on the house.”
Me and a bunch of exotic dancers? I didn’t think so. “Can I think about it? Got a lot on, y’know.”
He didn’t push it. “Sure.”
I put my cup down and slithered under the sheets, closing my eyes. “Sleep and work.”
He dropped a kiss on my head. “Don’t go out on your own at the moment. Promise?”
“I’m fine.”
I thought I heard him chuckle at that, but by the time I opened an eye to check, he was gone.
I woke again to my doorbell. My window view of the blinking lights on the tops of the Sanyo Triptych opposite the Cloisters told me it was almost dark. I didn’t like shutting my blinds during the day, because the apartment was too dark. Right now, the sky was the colour of a thin spill of ink across dusty pink paper.
Slipping on a robe, I screened my caller on the sec-cam. It was Sixkiller; even with his back to the door, there was no mistaking him.
I opened up a crack and peered out. “W
hat’s up, Marshal?”
“You gonna let me in, Ranger?”
“Do I need to?”
He nodded.
I sighed and released the latch. “Please…”
He walked by me and straight over to the couch, where he plonked down without invitation.
I locked the door and leaned against it, arms folded. Being in a dressing robe around Sixkiller left me self-conscious and disadvantaged. Distance gave me some sense of control. It also meant I didn’t have to navigate around John Flat.
He took his hat off, set it on his knee and shook his hair free from its elastic. It fell around his shoulders in a dead straight swathe. A movement designed to show he was letting his guard down.
I didn’t believe it.
“You spoke with Superintendent Hunt?” he asked.
“He came by the hospital last night. He knows it wasn’t a rock I tore myself up on, but that’s it. I said I got knocked out and couldn’t remember what happened. Then you found me.”
I wasn’t going to tell Sixkiller everything Bull had said. My boss and I went back a long way. Sixkiller and I went back several days only. Trust was something you built over time.
“That satisfied him?”
“Not really.”
He snorted, and flipped one side of his hair back behind his shoulder. His sharp cheekbone brought a slash of definition to his face. And hardness.
“I have some information that may help us,” he said.
Us? Well, I guess that was a start. “What’s that?”
“The man in your apartment–”
“Leo Teng?”
He paused long enough to let slip his surprise that I knew. “Yeah… well, I’ve been told he’s been living in a room above a club in your Western Quarter.”
“Do the police know that?”
“If not now, then it won’t be long till they do.”
“We should go there and have a look around.”
“Yes.”
“What’s the name of the club?”
“Jusco’s. You know it?”
“I know it.” It was next door to Dabrowski’s Diner. My plans for not going to Chef’s opening suddenly reversed. “You got a tuxedo?”
“Here?”
“Yeah.”
“No, and are you going to tell me why I would need one, or am I supposed to guess?”
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