So far, the story had worked perfectly; not only had they been able to keep a near-constant watch on their target, but it had given him an excuse to buy some surveillance equipment from friends and present a heavily padded bill to Hegarty’s anonymous and mysterious boss. After two days in town, they’d put a bug in the Lancaster woman’s phone and a tracking device in her VW, and Gacy had decided that their worst problem would be fighting off boredom. Carol Lancaster’s life seemed to consist of her job, sleep, and reading; she didn’t even own a television.
“Why are we watching this poor woman, anyway?” Shirley, his secretary and sometime-mistress, had asked him.
“Because we’re being paid to,” Gacy had replied.
“Why? What has she done?”
“I don’t know. I think she knows somebody … all I know is that this is where Packer was jumped.”
“I guess there’s a first time for everything,” Shirley muttered.
Gacy grinned. “Not that sort of jumped, doll. I mean that somebody got the drop on him and knocked him out. He wouldn’t tell me the details, which means he probably screwed up.”
“And Hegarty thinks she did it?”
The grin broadened. “I don’t think so. More likely it was the girl Pack was supposed to find—you remember, the blonde. The student.”
“Amanda Sharmon?”
“Yeah, that’s her. I guess this Lancaster woman’s a friend of hers.”
“But she’s dead.”
“What?”
“The Sharmon girl. Somebody strangled her. It’s been in all the papers.”
Gacy blinked. He’d heard about the murder but had never realized that it was the same girl; Hegarty certainly hadn’t said anything about her having been killed. “You’re sure it was her?”
“I think so. It looked like the same photo.”
“Do the cops know who killed her?” he asked warily.
“The paper said they’ve arrested somebody in the States, but that’s all I know.”
“Uh-huh,” he muttered and rolled over and tried to sleep. He’d always tried not to wonder too much about Hegarty’s other business partners and contacts, and had stuck to smuggling and handling stolen property—usually car parts or electronics, some porn, some guns, even some marijuana, but no hard drugs—and if somebody hurt somebody else somewhere along the line, that wasn’t his fault, was it? And Hegarty had told him he wanted the girl brought in alive and unharmed, said she’d stolen something valuable from his boss and they wanted to question her, so maybe it wasn’t even Hegarty’s fault that she’d been killed.
The worst thing about the job was the waiting; he had nothing else to do but think. At least one of them had to be awake at any given time, and he’d never been good at sleeping during the day.
“Jim?”
“Huh?”
“I can hear somebody in the house.”
He sat up slowly and reached for his binoculars and his watch. The Lancaster woman wasn’t due to finish work for another quarter-hour, and he couldn’t see her car outside the house. He couldn’t see inside the house at all, the shutters being closed against the cold. “Are you sure? It’s not just the floorboards settling or something?”
“I don’t think so.” She handed the headphones to him. “I’m sure I heard a door open. You listen.”
With a skill born of years of practice, Carol unlocked the door, pushed it open, pirouetted inside and kicked it shut behind her—all without removing her gloves, putting down her bag of shopping, or letting the warm air out. A moment later she saw Mage standing in the kitchen in her bathrobe, dropped the bag and screamed.
“Hi. Happy Halloween.”
“Mage! Where did—how did you—Jesus, what the hell is happening? Last I heard, you were in jail for—”
He nodded. “Murder. I was framed; I’m out on bail. I’m sorry I didn’t call you—”
“You—” She shook her head. “Why did you come here? What do you want now?”
Mage hesitated. “Mostly a place where no one’s trying to kill me.”
“I’m not promising anything,” she replied sourly.
He tried to smile. “You remember the guy with the Ingram, at the laundromat?”
“I remember you telling me about him …”
“Okay. You’d better sit down; it’s a long story.”
You’re sure there’s somebody in there?” growled Tamenaga.
“I’m sure,” replied Gacy. “It’s a man’s voice, sounds like a New York accent. She called him ‘Mage,’ or something like that.”
Tamenaga sat there, stunned into silence. Why on earth would the photographer have risked going back to Totem Rock? And how? He would have been arrested as soon as he’d shown up at the border… .
“He was there before she arrived,” Gacy continued; then, more cautiously, “Or somebody was, anyway. And we didn’t see him go in.”
“You were watching the whole time?”
“Uh-huh.”
“And there’s only one entrance?”
“There’s a fire escape at the back of the building, but we’d still see him on the street—unless he climbed over the back fence. But we didn’t hear the window open …” Gacy sat there, trying to understand that. They hadn’t heard him enter at all, either by the door or by the window, and the Lancaster woman hadn’t let him in; she’d been startled as all hell to find him there.
“Don’t let him leave. Don’t let him past the front door. If he escapes” —Tamenaga took a deep breath, feeling the python tattooed around his waist beginning to writhe and squeeze— “I will make sure that you regret it.”
“How do I stop him?”
“Wound him, kill him if you must, but stop him. Are you armed?”
“Yes, of course, but—”
“Good. Any more questions?”
Gacy nodded dumbly. There were dozens of questions he wanted answered, but none that he dared ask. “No.”
He told her the story from the encounter with Packer in the laundromat to the fight with the kunoichi, leaving out nothing except Tamenaga’s name. Carol listened without looking up, then sipped her coffee and said softly, “I’ve heard enough. Get out.”
“What—”
“Out! Jesus, what do you expect me to say? Welcome back? First you find some younger girl and leave me; okay, so I was a fool to think you’d stay. Then someone kills her—don’t worry, I told the cops I didn’t think it was you, I still don’t think you could’ve done that—and you get blamed. Who killed her, or why, I don’t know. Her boyfriend maybe, or her husband. But you talk somebody into bailing you out, and you come here looking for somewhere to hide; give the old cow a good story, she likes murder mysteries, fuck her a few—”
“It’s not—”
“Shut up! I’ve listened to you ’til I was ready to throw up; now you can listen to me! Okay. You’re cute, you’re sexy, you’re great in bed, but there’s a limit to the amount of shit I’m willing to put up with just to get laid. I don’t ever want to see you again; now get the fuck out!”
Mage shook his head. “How do you think I got in? You think I caught a Greyhound dressed like this?”
She looked up uncertainly, then shrugged. “I don’t know, and I stopped caring a long time ago. Get out or I’ll call the cops—I bet they’d love to talk to you. And I’ll have my robe back, too—and my key, please.”
“It’s still in my—” Mage began, then reached up and removed Amanda’s key from around his neck. Maybe there was something he could do that would convince her—apart from teleporting out, which he didn’t feel like trying again. He looked around the kitchen and noticed a large mug adorned with a computer-scanned photo, a souvenir of a visit to Fisherman’s Wharf. He plucked it from the shelf, examined it—it was a pretty bad likeness— and asked, “Does this have any sentimental value?”
“Huh? That?” She grimaced. “Roy gave it to me.”
“Okay.” He looked long and hard at her, memorizing every detail, a
nd then envisaged that image on the side of the mug. He glanced at the mug and nodded; the focus was pretty bad but it sharpened as he looked at it, like a print developing in a tray. “Here, look at this.”
“What?” She glanced at the mug incuriously, without noticing it. Then she blinked and picked it up, examining the picture on its side. Suddenly there was a knock on the door; startled, she dropped the mug on the table. Mage reached out to grab it a fraction of a second too late; it fell to the floor and broke into three pieces. There was another knock on the door—louder, sharper, more insistent.
“Are you expecting someone?” Mage asked quietly.
“No … how …” She shook her head and stood.
Mage saw the doorknob turn and realized that the door wasn’t locked. Before he could react, the door opened and Gacy stepped in, followed by a blast of cold air from outside. Carol wheeled around and yelled, “Shut the—” and then saw the small automatic in his hand and froze. Gacy kicked the door shut behind him, aimed the pistol at Mage and clicked the safety off.
For a long moment no one moved or spoke, and the loudest sound was the wind outside. Then Gacy said quietly, “I don’t want to have to use this.”
Mage looked at him and realized that that was true. “You Magistrale?” Gacy continued.
Mage stood and stretched. “You’d look pretty stupid if I wasn’t, wouldn’t you? Yeah, me Magistrale. Who the fuck you?”
Gacy flushed. “I’m the guy with the gun, remember?”
“Sorry.”
“And you’re coming with me.”
“Dressed like this? It’s cold outside.” He considered teleporting out, but that would leave Carol alone with the gunman, whose reactions he couldn’t predict. Better to get her out and— “My clothes are in the bedroom.”
Carol blinked, but Gacy didn’t notice. “You think I’m going to let you out of my sight?”
“She could get them,” said Mage with a nod at Carol. Gacy seemed to consider this, then laughed. “And go out the window, call for help? Nice try.”
Mage shrugged. “Yeah,” he replied sadly. “I hope you’ve got a car outside?”
“You ask a lot of questions.” Gacy edged around the table, reached for the phone and tried to pull it from its socket, without success. Mage and Carol watched, trying not to smile. “Okay,” said Gacy finally. “Both of you, out.”
“What?”
“You heard me!”
Carol took a half-step away from her chair and trod on a fragment of the photo mug; Mage heard the crack as it broke, and then stared at Gacy. Photograph. Still photograph. Freeze frame… .
The talisman was still wrapped around his fingers; he gripped it tightly, forming a fist, and focused on Gacy’s gun hand, seeing it as an unmoving image, frozen in time like a three-dimensional photograph. He heard Carol take another step toward the door.
“Move!” Mage stood motionless, concentrating, seeing.
Gacy tried to gesture with the gun and grunted with surprise. He tried again, with no more success; his hand and the gun might as well have been encased in glass.
“Go!” hissed Mage, not looking away from Gacy’s hand. “Get out of here, and don’t come back!”
“But—”
“I can’t hold him forever! Go!”
Carol stared and then nodded hurriedly, snatching her purse and her keys off the table and heading for the door.
Gacy yelled “Stop!” and put all his strength into trying to bring the gun to bear; there was an unpleasant muffled click and the gunman shrieked with fright and pain. His right hand still refused to move, and his frantic effort to free it had only succeeded in breaking his wrist. He looked around, sweating and whimpering, as Carol shut the door behind her and bolted down the stairs.
Slowly and cautiously, Mage edged closer to Gacy, never moving his eyes, watching the muzzle of the gun, seeing it become smaller … smaller … smaller… .
“I’m getting tired of this,” he said softly.
“Huh?”
Mage took one last look at the pistol’s tapering muzzle, now barely wide enough to admit a drinking straw, and sighed. “Drop the gun.”
“I—I can’t. I think you’ve broken my arm.”
Mage shook his head sadly, then reached out for Gacy’s right wrist and twisted it until the pistol was pointing at the floor. The gunman screamed and sank to his knees, the gun dangling uselessly from his trigger finger. Mage grabbed it with his left hand and took it away from him.
“Who sent you?” he asked, almost kindly.
“What?”
“Who’s your boss?”
Gacy stared up at him, gibbering softly with pain. “He … He … Hegarty.”
“Hecate?”
Gacy shook his head slightly. “Heg … Hegarty.”
“Where can I find him?”
“Don’t know.”
“Who’s his boss?”
“Don’t … know his name. Only spoke with him once. Sounded like a Jap.”
“Tamenaga?”
“I don’t know. I always dealt with Hegarty, until yesterday.”
Mage shrugged, slightly jerking Gacy’s wrist. The gunman bit down to prevent crying out, drawing blood.
“What do you do for him when you’re not pointing guns at people?”
Gacy was silent. Mage looked at him; then, giving his best impression of a Brooklyn tough, he said, “The only thing stopping me killing you is that I don’t want to drag your body out of here. The only thing that’s going to stop me hurting you is an answer. How do you contact this boss?”
“Phone.”
“The number? I’ll know if you’re lying.”
Gacy stared at him, tasting the blood in his mouth, and told him the number. Mage reached for the pen hanging from the corkboard next to the phone and wrote it down. “Okay, now call him.”
“What?”
Mage began dialing the number. “Hand it over when you’ve got the boss,” he said, listening to the ringing tone on the other end. He heard a woman’s voice ask “Hello?” and passed the receiver to Gacy.
“It’s Gacy. I—I need to speak to the boss,” he muttered, trying not to whimper with the pain. “Magistrale—he’s here. He’s, uh …”
Mage listened intently as the secretary patched the call through to another extension. A deep voice replied, “Yes?” and Gacy handed the receiver back, almost dropping it in his eagerness to be rid of it.
“Gacy?” the voice asked.
“Tamenaga-san?”
There was a long silence at the other end, and then a sharp “Who is this?” Mage shrugged and hung up. Gacy stared at him anxiously.
“Tamenaga …” murmured Mage, sitting on a kitchen chair. “Do you know what he wanted?”
“What?”
“Your boss. Hegarty, Tamenaga, whoever. What were his instructions?”
“Stop you.”
“Stop me what?”
“I don’t know. Yeah. Going anywhere. Stop you getting away.”
Mage stared at him and realized he was telling the truth. “So someone else is coming. Shit.” He sighed. “Okay. One more thing.” He stood wearily and suddenly reached for Gacy’s damaged arm, pulling the gunman to his feet and turning him around to face the door. “Tell your boss, Tamenaga, this is between him and me now. If he hurts my family, my friends, any woman I’ve ever loved, any woman I’ve ever known, if he even harasses or threatens one, I will make him regret it. As for you—” He slammed Gacy into the door face-first, pulled him back, opened the door, and then pushed him through onto the landing. “Get out, and never come back to this town. Understand?”
“Yes.”
“Good,” said Mage, and threw him down the stairs into the snow.
26
The Burial of the Dead
Dear Carol, he wrote, then stared at the otherwise blank page for over a minute. I’m sorry, he began, and stopped again.
I’m sorry for everything that’s happened. I mean, I was really
glad we met and got together, but I’m sorry for all the other shit. Looks like I’ve become dangerous to know. I hope you realize now that everything I’ve told you is true.
I guess this isn’t much of a love letter … and believe me, I do love you. I’ve never slept with any woman I didn’t love. I’m sorry if I’ve hurt you. I didn’t intend to, I really wanted to make you happy. Maybe I’m not as good at that as I thought.
Can’t think of anything else to say. Look after yourself.
Love,
Mage
He looked at the letter and shrugged, then picked up the shards from the floor, put them together and saw the mug whole, without cracks. Then he set the mug on the letter, walked back into the bedroom and draped the bathrobe over a chair. Exhausted, he collapsed onto the bed, eyes closed, trying to remember Takumo’s apartment as he’d last seen it: the prints and posters on the walls, the books on the shelves. When he was sure that he could picture it accurately, he imagined himself into it, dressed as he had been before he’d disappeared from the desert.
In the same instant he fell flat on his ass as the bed disappeared from beneath him. The pain in his right arm was mind-killing; he had to force his eyes open and his mouth shut. He found himself lying on tatami and staring up at the library. He twisted his head around to look at his arm and saw that his wound had reappeared, reopened.
Going to have to be more careful of what I think, he decided, struggling to his feet. Don’t think of the wound at all, even as an absence. He closed his eyes and concentrated on Kelly’s living room, saw himself standing between the sofa and the coffee table, wearing what he’d been wearing three nights before, the night the rukoro-kubi attacked… .
An instant too late, he tried to amend that thought—then he heard Oedipus hiss and realized that he’d already jumped.
He opened his eyes to look around, and listened. It was day, not night, and the house was empty apart from the cat and himself. He drew a deep breath and reached out with his left hand to touch his right arm, feeling bare flesh, dry and unscarred. He muttered a Hail Mary in record time and collapsed onto the sofa. A moment later he felt hesitant paws walking across his chest, a sandpaper tongue licking tears from his face. He stroked the cat and rested.
The Art of Arrow Cutting Page 20