by Mark Lingane
She shied away from it like a phobia. Her eyes danced between the picture and the blade. "Yeah, yeah. He wanted to sing. Be a star. We made a deal. I knew some people. I said I could introduce him."
"Mina?"
"No, no. Industry people. Star makers. Get him on record sounding good then tell everyone how great he was. These"--she paused, her eyes flicked around--"people, they'll believe anything you tell them. You sure you don't want a drink? I can see you're a man who likes a drink. You can't live in denial. Come on, have one for old time's sake. It won't hurt. It never hurts."
"Stop offering me drinks." I thrust the dagger toward her. Each time she mentioned a drink I could feel the metal clamp in my head tightening. I knew that all I had to do was say okay and it would go away. But I also knew that something bad would happen.
"Where is he? Where's Jorgen?"
"He's on ... Templeton Drive," she said, "667."
"In the Basin?"
"You know the place? You remember?"
I stood back and gave her enough space to stand up. "Remember what?"
"Don't you know? How can you not know?" Her voice was as dry and frustrated as a land-locked deckhand's.
At the edge of my hearing I thought I could make out the steady hiss of air.
"If you're not going to have a drink, I'll have one. And a smoke."
She poured herself half a tumbler of scotch and knocked it back. Her hands shook as she placed a cigarette between her lips and flicked open a silver lighter. She took a couple of deep pulls and blew smoke into the air. She idly snapped the lid of the lighter open and closed. The swish and click was eerie in the sudden calm. She took another puff of her cigarette.
She dropped her arm behind the bar and jerked out a large black hammer. She ran at me, so engulfed by range that she didn't see the dagger sticking out in front of me. The knife slid into her chest. She hung suspended for a moment and a tear rolled down her face. Her eyes closed and she fell backward.
The lighter flamed as it fell to the floor. There was a flash of light and the entire floor erupted in a ball of flame. I was thrown backward as the flames rolled over the top of me, engulfing me in a furnace.
7
Fire exploded from the room, tearing the door off its hinges and throwing me onto the landing. I rolled to one side and manhandled the ancient door on top of me, clasping the golden handle tightly. The fire intensified, as if a dragon was bearing down. There was a deep creak, followed by sounds of splintering, and the landing gave way, ripping out from the wall, metal grinding, wood cracking, taking down a ton of masonry with it.
As I fell, the walls twisted and tumbled; the whole building seemed to bow down like a cheap pair of chinos. Bricks and tiles rained down as the walls below me crumpled and collapsed into a sloping pile. The rough descent pummeled my back as I slid all the way to the base of the building and out onto the main street.
I landed heavily on top of the rubble and slid to the bottom. Bricks hammered on top of the door, which I still clutched in my hands. The brownstone continued to collapse, forming a dark prison around me. Slowly I crawled out of the debris and emerged into daylight with the golden handle still in my grasp.
I blinked.
The jamoke-man had a not-unexpected look of surprise on his face. His cigarette drooped in the corner of his mouth. He even committed the unspeakable crime of spilling some joe on the pavement.
"Gimme a triple shot," I muttered. I coughed, and a spray of pulverized brick shot out of my mouth. Standing up presented its own challenges.
Jamoke-man offered a stabilizing hand.
I chucked the golden handle to him.
"You're on fire," he said, his deep voice providing some solidity for the situation.
I patted out the embers smoldering on my jacket.
"I ain't gonna ask how you survived that."
"I ain't sure myself," I replied.
"That other guy came back when you were inside. I thought you'd like to know."
"What happened?"
"A big dog came along and chased him away."
"What color?"
Jamoke-man shrugged. "Dog colored."
"You're not much help."
"I am what I am. I'm just saying what I see. You want more joe?"
Hitching onto a thirty-five was the quickest way to get to the Basin, especially as the traffic was picking up. The great rumbling black shiny machine with the government-yellow banding eased down out of the sky, pouring diesel fumes. I jumped on board, flicked a few hexadecimals into the can, and it took off.
A couple of stops later we descended into the Basin, where urban decay had reached new heights--or depths. In the Basin there were riots over water and phone lines, and insufficient ice-cream availability. People were eternally wired and raged at everything. Burned-out vehicles sat out front of burned-out houses. Bricks and mortar crumbled, along with morals. Hookers turned tricks until they succumbed to the relentless beating of their "owners."
Templeton Drive lay at my feet.
A couple of old ex-factory buildings, that had been converted into housing for hundreds, lined the severe street, which offered nothing else but dead vegetation. I looked behind me. The jamoke-man was there.
"You following me?"
"You betcha. Any chance of a building collapsing, I wanna be there." He had a grin so wide it was in danger of stretching past the edges of his face.
I gave him a skeptical look. I checked the address. There was a mountain of bricks where a building had once stood.
"You been here before?" he said.
My shoulders sagged. Silbi had slipped me a fake address, and now she was dead. A better man might have walked away, thought it was too much trouble for a mere century. Mina and her associates were nothing but trouble that had already landed me in jail and in pain. But something was burning deep inside of me. I wanted answers to dark questions, but everyone was lying.
I caught the thirty-five back across town to the Vinyl, thinking about the events of the day. The vehicle was empty, on my level at least, and apart from the engine drone it was peaceful. Buildings flashed past below.
Levi was burning on my mind. He was about the only source I had, and I was going to pour him over all the steak. Then it hit me.
Something big and black smashed into the side of the thirty-five, rocking the vehicle to one side. The engines whined as they kicked into reverse and fought to lower the vehicle safely to the ground. It crashed heavily across the railway tracks, directly into the path of the overnight transcontinental leaving Central Station.
The train screamed as it plowed into the bus, smashing the top level flat, and crushing the level I was on into barely more than breathing space. The sound of tearing metal filled every molecule of my body. An endless rain of sparks and shrieking steel flew around my body.
Eventually the two vehicles shuddered to a halt. The dying light from the setting sun filtered down through the floating dust and debris.
I blinked.
I pushed the seat off me and slid down the side of the vehicle, which was now the floor. I kicked open the emergency window at the end and climbed out. Glass tinkled down around me and scattered over the ground. There was a small crowd gathering. Better judgment told me to hang around for this one.
I wandered around the wreckage looking for clues as to what had brought down the thirty-five.
The transcontinental had made a big mess of it, leaving the black metal twisted around the supertrain's front end. The driver wouldn't take long to get down, after he'd fortified his nerves.
Wrapped in the wreckage was a young lady, blond and thin, wearing nothing but upmarket lingerie. There wasn't a whole lot left of her. Silk, broken bones, smashed organs, and five small burn marks in the center of her chest. I heard the splash of leaking fuel, then metal scraping against metal. I caught the spark out of the corner of my eye, and dived for cover.
The thirty-five erupted in a great fireball, throwing me into a nearby gar
den. The fire rolled over me, the last of the flames licking at my clothes. My second fireball of the day; I should invest in asbestos underwear.
I staggered up out of the soft mulch and made my way back to the crash zone. The body of the dead blond girl was gone, consumed in the fire.
My ears were ringing and my head was spinning as I sat down on the twisted train tracks. The super moon rose above the cityscape, but was quickly mugged by passing clouds.
Watcher and the forensic monkeys appeared in minutes, or maybe it was hours. It was all a bit of a blur. The medic had placed a blanket around me, thick and coarse. The blanket, that is. I didn't see the point. Everyone, including me, was sweating.
Watcher stood with his hands on his hips looking over the immense wreckage. "What on earth happened here?"
"Thirty-five malfunction."
"This was the Basin thirty-five. What were you doing down there?" He turned to face me.
"Visiting a friend."
"Did your friend live at 667 Templeton in the Basin?"
"No, why?"
"There was an accident there last night. We discovered a nest of ... individuals hiding there. It was very unpleasant, and some good men got hurt. Some punk was playing with an old Zippo lighter, probably caught a gas leak, and the whole place went up."
I couldn't help but notice the use of the word "nest." Maybe I should check out what was there before.
"Was anyone else on the ride?"
I shook my head and told him it was an empty bus. The image of the young blond woman flashed in my mind, but she couldn't have been on the ride. I would have noticed a woman wearing nothing but her secrets. The five mysterious burn marks made me think, but the link escaped me.
"Any news about blondie?"
The question caught him off guard. "The stiff in your room? Forensics said it was a heart attack, a massive coronary shock with complete neurological collapse. She had the life sucked right out of her."
"That's all?"
"That's all I'm telling you."
"Can I go?"
His eyes did another pass over the wreckage. He squinted back at me. "I can't find an angle where you caused this, so I can only label you a victim, an exceedingly lucky one. Where were you heading?"
"Down to the Terrace."
"Well, you're not going there now. The whole central line's shut down. The Terrace isn't an appropriate place for a casual visit. Where were you going exactly?"
"The Vinyl."
"You have to be joking me. If I find you've been there I'll throw you straight in the cells. You're not to go there under any circumstances." He stepped in close to me. His breath slapped me in the face. I could see the meat from his last feed stuck between his teeth. "If you do go there I'll find something worse than the cells."
"It's a free country."
"No, it isn't. This is my city, and I'm telling you to go home." He pointed that damn finger at me. He flinched as he raised his arm, his shoulder in obvious discomfort.
I got up, gave him a dark look, and walked away.
"Give the blanket back," he shouted. "I've seen your bed and you're not stealing our blankets."
I pulled it off my shoulders, bunched it up and threw it at him. It landed on his head and he struggled with it before he flung it on the ground. My nerves were bouncing around like a bad check from a Basin hooker. I needed liquid Valium, urgently.
Another thought had occurred to me while I was waiting around. Hugh was a singer, and in this city the reprobates knew each other.
8
Wonderboy sat behind the Opera, pounding the keys like he was on a personal vendetta. His old friend Jay took up the double bass and for about five minutes they hit the groove. Perfect. The Stylus was spinning like a raccoon. They looked over at each other and Jay gave Wonderboy a nod, followed by that million-dollar smile.
A group of excitable young ladies had formed a queue on Jay's side, waiting for a glance. I wondered if he slept with all of them and they kept it a secret from one another. The set finished, with Danny on vox saying something stupid. The women started to fight over who was buying a drink for Jay.
Wonderboy gave me a nod and made his way over. "What happened to you?"
"I had a date."
He laughed. "You know, I know some nice girls. They do things like talk, dance and kiss, not beat three kinds of hullabaloo out of you. It wasn't one of those foreign brides?"
I shook my head. It didn't fall off.
Wonderboy called Jackson over, then threw some ice in a dishcloth and poured me a shot while adjusting his glasses.
"You know this guy?" I handed Wonderboy the photo.
He ironed out the creases with his thumb against the tabletop then tapped the face with his index finger. Its speed always impressed me. "Yeah, he was that singer who came out of nowhere. What was his name? Hugh something."
"Jorgen."
"Oh yeah, had a three-piece. Made a whole lot of noise and then went quiet. Played the Palladium a couple of times. Big gigs. Big cash." He nodded in appreciation of his own powers of recollection.
"You know his location?"
Wonderboy tapped his fingers against his lip and shook his head. "Didn't he lose everything? End up with no cash? Blew what he had up his nose and down his trousers?"
"Sounds like him."
"It's tough at the top. That's my excuse for never making the big time--too much temptation. You forget it's about the music."
"He's got some stolen cash," I said.
"Yeah? It ain't from us. We got no cash to steal. Danny drinks our profits."
"Where would he go?"
He looked over his shoulder at Danny, who was expecting his free drinks from the impressionable bartender, then turned back to me. "You remember when Danny got that inheritance and his thug-brother came after him?"
I nodded.
"I think he went to Limbo's, that dive over in Gayme. It's got a secret number, and a gate a mile high so you can't tell if anyone's there."
He turned and waved Danny over. He looked around conspiratorially and asked Danny, "What's the number for Limbo's?"
"Why?" Danny's thick voice rolled with the hint of an accent. He'd put on weight over the years, adding reasonable beef to his chords. But his hair hadn't liked it and had taken the first opportunity to split.
"Van's got a line on a good deal, but he lost the number," Wonderboy said. "You want in? Ten for a cray. We'll give you a free one for the number."
"Yeah, I'm in." Danny wrote down the number and passed it over. "Who's the source?"
"You remember Jorgen? You hung out with him for a while, didn't you?"
Danny nodded.
"He's pushing now. More money in it than gigging, especially for a has-been."
I left the two of them reminiscing about the old days and went looking for a phone, weaving between the dancers and the groovers. The Stylus has a phone concealed behind the cigarette machine, the only place that was quiet. I pulled across the curtain that fell to knee height, picked up the receiver and dialed. I kicked my heels against the carpet, looking at the patterns they made. The carpet was thick and red, same as the curtain. I felt like I was in a coffin.
It rang ... and rang ... and rang. I was about to give up when a woman of a certain age answered.
"Yes?"
"Mr. Jorgen."
"Are you the police? You have to declare it."
"No."
There was silence. A minute passed. Then another.
Then came a rustling down the line as the receiver was picked up. "Yeah?"
The curtain fluttered. I flicked it aside to see what the commotion was. A man was spinning around in the middle of the dance floor. He was crying for help, his plaintive voice lamenting the loss of a daughter, his, I assumed. He stumbled several times before a couple of Samaritans reached out and caught him, leading him back to a secluded booth. He didn't look that old; his blond hair was fighting courageously against the gray.
"Are you pres
s, because you're going need a heap of money to run with this story," Hugh said. His voice was clear and deep, and purred like a lion. I could hear why the ladies fell for his tones.
"I'm not the press."
"You've got three seconds to interest me."
I let the three seconds roll around. He didn't hang up. Maybe there was something in my voice that kept him hanging on.
"You took her money?" I said.
"Whose?"
"Mina's."
"Oh, you're a private dick. That makes sense. She'd be afraid to call the police." He let out a deep laugh. "Don't tell me you buy that victim crap. She's not as innocent as she seems. She might cry or look pitiful or even give you some sob story, but it's not the truth. You get to know her, you'll find out. Anyways, she can afford it. She's so loaded I'm surprised she hasn't pulled the trigger and shot. What do you wanna know?"
"Where'd you meet her?"
"At the Vinyl. I met some guy who said they got juiced-up ladies clustering for attention. I tagged along with him. He seemed to know everyone. Then I meet Candy-wouldn't-melt-in-her-mouth. Of course, with me it weren't candy. At least I think it was Candy. It's hard to tell the sisters apart. Hey, maybe I had all of them and I never knew. I'll ask if she comes back."
"She's missing?"
"Looks like it. She went out last night and I haven't seen her come back."
"Any distinguishing features?"
"Nope."
That was an odd declaration. "You sure?"
"You bet. It's weird. Normally when you get a woman down to her secrets she's got something, a small scar, some freckles. She's got nothing. She's got skin like porcelain. Trust me, I've been over every inch of her. Just a skinny blond girl."
"Why does Mina want her money?"
"She doesn't want the money. She's only saying that. She's afraid because you-know-who's coming down."
"Who?"
"That, my friend, will cost you. But she's after something else I got. Something she shouldn't have had."