Hell's Horizon

16

I could tell, as I returned to consciousness, that I’d been out a long time. I was in a pitch-black room, so I couldn’t check, but according to my body clock it had been anywhere between twelve and eighteen hours.

I ran my fingers over my scalp, assessing the damage. Every touch produced a sting but nothing seemed to be broken. And although my bruised stomach flared agonizingly every time I breathed, I didn’t think any of my ribs had snapped. All things considered, it could have been a lot worse.

Then I remembered Paucar Wami and his familiar face.

I might have called it wrong. I’d only glimpsed the face in the alley, I’d been thinking a lot about my missing father and I wasn’t at my most coherent at the time. Maybe I’d just noticed a similarity and the rest was conjecture. But in my heart I knew that was bullshit.

I got to my feet and almost fell down again as geysers of pain erupted all over. I thrust out an arm, found a wall and propped myself against it, breathing hard, letting my head clear, groaning softly.

“Awake at last,” came a voice from the darkness. “I thought you would sleep forever.”

I stiffened. It was Paucar Wami’s voice but I couldn’t see him. Not even a vague outline.

“Where are you?” I asked.

“Around,” he replied, and now the voice came from another spot. He was circling me, silent, unseen, a shark. “You saw my face in the alley, didn’t you?” He sounded petulant.

I thought about lying but didn’t see the point. “Yes.”

“You know who I am? Who I was?”

Again I considered the lie but opted for the truth. “Yes.”

“I thought so.”

The light snapped on.

I had to close my eyes and shield them with a hand. I counted to twenty before opening them again. I was in a small, whitewashed room. Nothing in it apart from the mattress I’d been lying on, me and Paucar Wami.

Or Tom Jeery, as he used to be called.

Now that I saw him up close all doubt evaporated. The years had barely touched him and he was exactly as I remembered, except bald and tattooed. He said nothing while I ran my incredulous eyes over him, taking in the lean, muscular frame, the slender, hooked fingers, the jeans, T-shirt and leather jacket. Spreading his arms, he grinned. “Got a hug for your dear ol’ pappy?”

“This is a nightmare,” I groaned, sliding down the wall. “This has to be a fucking nightmare.”

He tutted and squatted. “Your mother never approved of foul language. She even complained when I swore during sex.”

I stared at him, appalled. How could I be related to this grinning monster? It was like discovering you were the offspring of Adolf Hitler.

“Did my mother know?” I gasped. “Did she know who you—”

“—Really were?” He nodded. “But not right away. I held that back for the first night of our honeymoon.” He laughed with delight at my expression. “That was a joke. It was years before she found out, long after you came along. A neighborhood busybody spotted me without my makeup one night and recognized me from word-of-mouth descriptions. She wasted no time sharing the news with poor, befuddled Mrs. Jeery. Needless to say, I slapped the interfering old bitch’s wrists afterward.” He chuckled. “And some more besides.”

“You wore makeup?”

“Face paint. A wig. Contact lenses to disguise my beautiful green eyes. This is my natural appearance.”

“What did she do when she found out?” It was important to know my mother hadn’t been involved with his crimes. Getting my head around this would be a long, unpleasant process, but far messier if my mother was also implicated.

“She kicked me out,” he laughed, sounding almost human. “She knew what I could do to her but took no notice. Batted me around the head with a frying pan, tore the skin off my shins with her shoes, nearly gouged out an eye with a poker. She was a feisty woman, your mother.”

“Yes,” I said proudly. I stretched my legs and began rubbing the aching flesh around my middle. “Is that when you left us, when you died?”

He shook his head. “I kept Tom Jeery on the go for three more years, but stayed out of your way most of the time. I dropped by occasionally to see how you were progressing — as my firstborn, I have always had a soft spot for you — until my position became untenable. Your mother threatened to go into hiding if I did not stop visiting.”

“Why didn’t she do that as soon as she found out?” I asked.

“The same reason she never told anyone the truth about the man she married, not even her son — I vowed to track the pair of you down and kill you if she did.”

“But you just said—”

“—That I had a soft spot for you, yes. But business is business.”

“You’d really have killed me?”

“I never lie about the important things, as your mother knew. That is why, even if she had lived to be a senile old woman, given to spurting out her darkest secrets to all and sundry, she would never have told about me.” He tapped the floor. “Fear is a great silencer, Al m’boy, especially if it is fear for one you love.”

He got up and offered me his hand. I refused it and struggled to my feet by myself. He smiled, asked if I could walk, opened the door when I said I could and gestured me through to a long corridor.

“Where are we?” I asked, glancing up at the flickering tubes overhead.

“A building,” he answered vaguely. “One of my many places of work. You do not need to know more.”

As we walked, Wami in front, me struggling to keep up, something he’d said struck me and I stopped. Wami looked back.

“You said I was your firstborn.”

His face split into an approving smile. “You are slow but not entirely witless.”

“You have other children?”

“Many. By many different women.”

“I have brothers? Sisters?”

“Forty-plus at the last count. Quite a few nephews and nieces too.”

The news left me reeling. I’d always believed I was alone in the world.

“Where are they?” I asked. “Here in the city?”

“Some, yes, but I have also sown my oats in the ports of strange and distant lands. You even have an Eskimo sister.” It was hard to tell if he was joking or not.

“Do you keep in contact with them?”

“I keep tabs on them. I do not have time for personal relationships.”

“Is that why you were following me? Why you were outside the Red Throat when I was attacked?”

He pondered his answer, then turned and beckoned me to follow, deciding on silence.

“What happened to the pair who jumped me?” I asked, shuffling after him.

“They await our pleasure.”

“They’re here?”

“I told you this was a place of work.”

We passed several doors before he stopped at one and entered. It was another dark room. He didn’t turn on the light until the door was closed. When he did, I wished he’d left it off.

The two men from the alley hung by chains from the ceiling, one upside down, the other horizontally. The latter had been disemboweled and his guts trailed over his sides like some long, pink mess that had been dumped there. His eyes had been gouged out and nailed to his nipples so he looked like an obscene alien from a cheap sci-fi movie. Most of the other’s face had been sliced away and a pin had been driven through his genitals, which stretched upwards tightly, suspended by a shorter chain, so that every time he moved he was in agony.

Both were still alive.

I turned aside and retched. Wami laughed and warned me not to vomit on his shoes. When I’d recovered, I asked who they were.

“That was my first question too,” he replied. “Tell me, did you really escort a white woman to the Ku Klux Klub?”

I nodded warily. “Yeah. So?”

“So these two fine, Caucasian queers were there and took it as a personal insult. By chance they noticed you in the Red Throat yesterday and decided to — as one so poetically phrased it before I removed his tongue—‘teach that fucking nigger some goddamn respect for his betters.’ ”

“They had nothing to do with Nic or the Fursts?” I asked, examining the face of the man who still had one.

“Nothing,” Wami said, sounding as disappointed as I felt. “Still, I thought it too good to be true. Life is rarely that simple.”

The man with no face groaned and twitched on his chains. Something — it may have been the remains of his nose — slipped from his forehead and landed in a pool of blood with a gentle plop.

“Will you for Christ’s sake make an end of those two?” I moaned.

“I have grown rather fond of them. I was thinking of keeping them on.”

“Just kill them!” I shouted.

Wami regarded me coolly. “Do not adopt such tones when addressing your father, Albert. You are not too old for a spanking.”

“Please,” I said sickly. “They can’t tell us anything and I can’t stand looking at them like that.”

Wami produced a knife and held it out. “Care to do the honors?” I stared at the knife, then the men, and shook my head. “You have killed before. Why shy away from these two?”

“I killed when ordered, when there was a reason.”

“You will be putting them out of their misery. Is that not reason enough?”

“They were a pair of fools but they didn’t deserve to be—”

Wami spun the knife around and reholstered it in the twinkling of an eye. “Then make no further entreaties of me. If you are incapable of dealing the final blow, I shall do so in my own good time. One must never expect another to extend the hand of mercy on his behalf.”

He strolled past the stricken pair — they sensed his presence and started groaning and writhing anew — toward a door set in the far wall of the room. I followed, steering as far clear of the anguished captives as I could. I found myself in a room with a mahogany desk and two leather chairs, one on either side. There was a computer in the corner and shelves filled with books behind the desk. I glanced over them, expecting tomes on torture and sadism, but they were mostly computer manuals, the odd thriller strewn among them.

“Sit,” Wami instructed, taking his place on the far side of the desk. I was glad to rest, but my sense of relief vanished when Wami produced a gun and aimed it at me. “I will use this if provoked. I will not shoot to kill — it should be obvious by now that I have no wish to harm you — but I will disable you without a second’s hesitation.”

“I’ll be still as a mouse,” I promised, stomach clenching in anticipation.

“You asked why I was at the Red Throat. It was not because you are my son. I was there in search of answers, hoping to trace a client through you.”

“What client?” I frowned.

He paused a second, then said, “The one who hired me to eliminate the Fursts.”

I came dangerously close to disregarding his warning and going for his throat. If I’d had a weapon of my own, I might have.

“You bastard,” I muttered, feeling tears prick my eyes as I thought of the boy I’d held in my arms. “He was a child. Little more than a baby. How could you—”

“Please,” Wami yawned, “spare me the sermon. You have killed in the past. The men you murdered were also children once.”

“It’s not the same.”

“Of course it is. Age is irrelevant.”

“A man who’d kill a child…” I glared at him contemptuously, remembering my vow to murder the one responsible. Wami must have seen something of that in my eyes because his expression darkened.

“I am not the villain you want,” he said. “If I had not killed them, somebody else would have. If you seek vengeance, seek the architect, not the hired gun. Do not waste your hatred on a mere messenger boy, which is all I was.”

“Why them?” I snarled. “Why Breton Furst?”

He shrugged. “That is what I hope to find out. I had no direct contact with my employer. I received a cryptic message — to shadow the Fursts but only kill them when ‘the one I would know’ appeared. My curiosity was piqued, so I set up camp and waited. Then you turned up.”

“Somebody knew I’d go after Breton?”

“It appears so.”

“And they didn’t want me talking to him.”

“Apparently not.”

“But they didn’t want you to kill him before I met him.”

“If you continue stating the obvious, I shall have to administer a slapping.”

“They wanted me to witness the execution,” I went on, ignoring him. “We were both set up.” I stared at the killer. “Why?”

“If I knew, I would not have been trailing you around the city.”

I thought about it in silence. Whoever it was must have known Wami and I had met, or else they couldn’t be sure that Wami would recognize me. They knew that Breton Furst was connected to Allegro Jinks, and that I would find out and go after Furst. I didn’t know how anybody could be that clued in to what was going on, but more worrying was what else the puller-of-strings might be arranging. Wami was right — he wasn’t the man I wanted. Someone had to pay for the death of the boy, but it should be the one who ordered the hit, not the triggerman.

We discussed it further but neither of us could pinpoint a viable suspect. I told him what had been happening with my investigation, how Nick had been at the Skylight the night of his sister’s death, but we both agreed that the Hornyak brother couldn’t have set up something this elaborate. Wami was half-tempted to pay him a call and find out exactly how much he knew, but I convinced him that more might be gained by shadowing Nick than torturing him.

With night falling, Wami returned to the torture chamber and told me to wait in the corridor outside. He didn’t spend long on the Red Throat pair, and when he came out he was dragging two black body bags, one of which he nudged across to me. We hauled them through the building to a parking lot. Wami disappeared into the neighboring streets, returning with a hot-wired car, into which we dumped the bodies. He then tied a blindfold over my eyes so I wouldn’t know the location of his hideout and off we set for the Fridge.

Five minutes into the journey Wami stopped, removed my blindfold and swapped places with me. He said he didn’t like driving. Motorcycles were his vehicle of choice. He commented wryly on how endearing it was that his son’s favored mode of transport mirrored his own, but I saw nothing cute in that.

As we neared the morgue my mind turned to Tom Jeery’s empty casket and I asked when he’d left the note. He didn’t know what I was talking about.

“The ‘Out To Lunch’ note,” I reminded him.

“I have no casket in the Fridge,” he said.

“Sure you do. When you killed off Tom Jeery you hired a casket and pretended…” I trailed off. “Didn’t you?”

He shook his head.

I slowed down and pulled over, despite the fact that we were within rifle range of the Fridge. “But it’s there. I checked it. There was a note—‘Out To Lunch.’ ”

Wami sniffed. “A staff prank. The ghouls of the Fridge do many strange things with the bodies in their care.”

“But there wasn’t a body, only a name—Tom Jeery.”

He frowned. “Different person, same name?”

“No. The Car—” I stopped. An empty casket. Tom Jeery’s name. Somebody eager to push father and son together.

“How many people know about you and me?” I asked.

He shook his head. “I have always been adept at keeping secrets. One or two from the old neighborhood might have linked Paucar Wami to Tom Jeery, as the gossiping biddy did, but if so, they have kept it to themselves. Otherwise the only one who knows is…” He made a face and groaned.

I waited for him to say the name. When he didn’t, I did, to have it out in the open.

“It’s The Cardinal, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” he sighed. “He knows of all my children.”

“The Cardinal told me about the Tom Jeery casket,” I said, and at that the killer turned to stare at me. For a short instant I saw the poise evaporate from his eyes, and realized that he was just as shaken by this as I was.

We agreed that I’d have to confront The Cardinal. He was a master at covering his tracks. If he had staged Nic’s death, the execution of the Fursts and our meeting, the only way to reveal the truth would be to take our findings directly to the ogre and challenge him with them. I was less than thrilled by the thought.

“What if he doesn’t take kindly to my accusations?”

“If this is one of his games, he will expect a confrontation, since he hired you to unmask the killer.”

“And if he says it wasn’t him?”

“We shall take it from there.”

“You still think he might be innocent?”

“The game is certainly one The Cardinal might play,” Wami said. “Were I not involved, I would be quick to point the finger. But we go back a long way. Hiring me to kill the Fursts was an act of contempt. I do not think The Cardinal would abuse me so openly.”

Wami drove me home — once we’d dropped off the bodies and collected my bike from behind the Red Throat — and set me down outside Ali’s. He kept the engine running while I got out and didn’t linger once I closed the door, pausing only to roll down the window and say he’d call tomorrow for an update. Then he was gone.

I took my time climbing the stairs, wheezing painfully.

Somebody was waiting for me outside the door of my apartment. My first thought — trouble. I began to edge away quietly. Then I recognized the shapely legs of Priscilla Perdue.

“About time!” she snapped as I shuffled up the final steps. “I’ve been waiting for ages. Ten more minutes and I’d have… What on earth happened to you? You look like you fell through a shredder.”

“I should be so lucky,” I grimaced.

She hurried forward. “Give me the key,” she commanded, then opened the door and guided me through. I wanted to collapse into bed and sleep but she was having none of it. She henpecked me into the bathroom and had me disrobed down to my boxers before I knew what was happening. She wet a sponge and wiped the worst of my cuts and bruises. It would have been highly erotic if each swipe hadn’t elicited a stream of gasps, winces and curses.

“Why don’t you just run a cheese grater over me!” I roared.

“Don’t be such a baby,” she replied calmly. “This has to be done. By rights you should see a doctor. There could be internal injuries.”

“There aren’t.”

“You can’t know that.”

“I’ll take a gamble. Shut up and rub.”

Next came the antiseptic — my roars must have been heard in Zimbabwe — then the bandages. After that she wrapped a robe around me and led me through to the living room, where she left me on the couch while she brewed coffee.

“You should have been a nurse,” I mumbled.

“That would have meant facing crybabies like you every day.”

“If you’d taken the beating I have…”

“We can’t all be big, brave boys who go around settling our differences with our fists, can we? Let me guess — somebody insulted your mother?”

“As a matter of fact, you’re due the credit.”

She laughed. “Don’t tell me you were defending my honor.”

“Not exactly. A couple of your friends from the Kool Kats Klub decided to teach me a lesson, to deter me from setting foot on their hallowed turf again.”

“No!” she gasped, immediately contrite. “The dirty sons of… Give me their descriptions. I’ll find out who they are and have them disbarred.”

I coughed guiltily. “No need. They won’t do it again.”

“Was this why you skipped our date?” she asked.

I stared at her blankly.

“We were supposed to be stepping out together last night,” she reminded me. “You said you’d call.”

I smiled sheepishly. “Sorry. I forgot.”

She slapped the back of my head. “You’re a no-good son of a diseased mongrel, Al Jeery. I should have left you as you were. That’s the last time I’ll do a good deed for—”

“Please,” I interrupted as she stormed for the door. “Don’t go. I’ve had things on my mind.”

“Such as?” she sneered.

I silently debated how much I should tell her and decided on a morsel of the truth. “You heard about the Fursts, those people who were killed?”

“Of course,” she said, face softening. “That was awful. The poor children. Whoever did that should be taken out and…” Her lips shut slowly, then opened to form a fascinated O. “Some of the reports mentioned a survivor, a man who tried to save the boy.” She looked at me questioningly and I nodded. She covered her mouth with a hand.

“Breton Furst was on duty at the Skylight the night of Nic’s murder. I believe he was connected. I went there to question him. Before I could…”

Priscilla sank to the floor and took my hands as I briefly ran her through the horror of that nightmarish day. She said nothing and kept her head lowered. When I finished, she looked up and there were tears in her eyes.

“I’m sorry, Al.”

“Don’t be silly,” I smiled. “You couldn’t have known.”

“But I should have guessed something was wrong. I assumed you just stood me up, thinking — as usual — that I was the center of the world and nothing happened that didn’t revolve around me. God, it must have been awful. Then you get pulped by a pair of my friends. Then I turn up and…” She stood. I was amazed and rather flattered by how upset she was. “I’ll leave and let you recuperate in peace.”

“No,” I said quickly, pulling her back. “I want you to stay.”

She stared at me, then said in a voice as soft as velvet, “The night?”

My heart almost exploded, but I was in no shape — either physically or mentally — for sexual entanglement. “Well, a couple of hours at least,” I muttered.

Priscilla sat on the couch, leaned forward and pressed her lips to mine, gently. “OK,” she sighed. “I’ll stay. For a while. And we’ll see how things go.”

“Sounds good,” I agreed, then returned her kiss as gently as she’d kissed me.

17

I felt a lot better Monday than I’d feared. The worst of the bruising had subsided and although I was tender from top to toe it was nothing I couldn’t live with. Some light exercise, a healthy breakfast, a brisk walk around the block and by eleven I was ready to take on God himself. Since the supreme being wasn’t available, I caught a cab to Party Central to see The Cardinal.

I was in luck — his secretary could fit me in at two. I wandered the halls of Party Central, catching up on what had been happening during my absence. Breton Furst was the talk of the establishment, but hardly anyone knew of my involvement with him. I asked if Furst had any close friends in Party Central — I wanted to learn more about him — but nobody I spoke to had known him personally. Mike, who was on his lunch break, said Jerry and Furst were good buddies, but Jerry was on sick leave. Mike said he’d tell him to give me a call when he returned.

When it was time to meet The Cardinal, I turned up at his office, only to be led down the corridor and shown into a private gymnasium. The Cardinal was there alone, jogging on a treadmill, naked.

“Come in,” he said amiably. I advanced halfway, cleared my throat and averted my eyes. The Cardinal laughed. “No need to be embarrassed. I’m not.” “Surely you can afford a tracksuit,” I quipped.

“I can’t spend half the day changing in and out of clothes. Besides, it’s good for the penis. Poor fellow spends so much time locked away, he must feel like the Man in the Iron Mask.” “Will you be long?” I asked, staring at the floor.

“Yes,” he said. “But we can talk while I work out. You’re not afraid of a little prick, are you?” My head automatically lifted and I stole a glance. The Cardinal howled with glee, pointed a bony finger and sung out like a schoolkid, “Made you look!” I grinned at his childish antics, then straightened and nodded to let him see I was ready to talk.

“I heard about your unfortunate encounter with the Fursts,” he said. “A nasty business. It had something to do with the Hornyak investigation?” “You tell me,” I replied evenly.

“A curious answer,” The Cardinal grunted. “Why should I know anything?” “You hired Paucar Wami to kill them.” The Cardinal trundled to a halt, sat down on the mat of the machine and gazed at me with interest. “I thought you didn’t see the assassin.” “I didn’t, but the two of us had an enlightening encounter yesterday.” The Cardinal mopped the back of his neck with a towel. “You’ve met him?” “Yes.”

“Then you know…”

“… That he’s my father.”

“I’m sorry I missed that family reunion.” He squinted. “Surely he told you I wasn’t the one who hired him.” “His employer preferred to remain anonymous.” “Ah. And you think it was me?”

“Yes.”

“Let me see… I hired Allegro Jinks to masquerade as Paucar Wami, Breton Furst helped him murder Nicola Hornyak, and I sent Wami after the Furst family when you uncovered the link. Is that how you picture it?” I smiled. “The fact you know about Allegro Jinks proves it.” He stood and started drying his groin. “Return to the waiting room. I’ll be with you shortly.” I passed an anxious ten minutes waiting for him, not sure what he’d do now that the mystery had been “solved.” When he appeared he was in his usual clothes. He cocked a finger at me and led the way to a room filled with TVs, computers and video equipment. He located a disc and inserted it into one of the many machines.

“I’ve been keeping an eye on you,” he said, fiddling with the control as he talked. “One of my spies at the Fridge rang a while back and said he had something interesting to show me.” He hit play and one of the screens flickered into life. It was a recording of me the night I dropped off Jinks’s head. The Cardinal turned up the sound and I heard myself asking the clerk about keeping tabs on the corpse.

“Enough?” The Cardinal said sweetly.

“Enough,” I sighed.

He turned it off. “It was a simple matter to trace the head and make an ID, though I didn’t connect Allegro Jinks to Breton Furst until Furst went looking for him.” “Is that when you hired Wami to kill Furst?” “I didn’t hire Paucar Wami. I want to know who killed Nicola Hornyak. The person who ordered Furst’s death already knows.” “You didn’t kill her?” I asked skeptically.

“No.”

“So how come you had a file on her when supposedly nobody knew her name?” “It only took a couple of hours to identify her body,” he said. “I recognized her name as soon as I was informed. I’ve been observing your progress ever since you were a child. I follow the lives of all of Paucar Wami’s children. I have a network of informers — friends, neighbors and colleagues of yours — who tell me how you’re getting along. I knew of your involvement with Nicola Hornyak before she turned up dead in the Skylight. That’s how I was able to put together a file on her so swiftly.” “Why not tell me? Why the subterfuge?” “I wanted to clear your name first, in case you had killed her.” I was stung by the accusation. “Please, Al, don’t be offended. You are the son of Paucar Wami. I’ve been expecting your father’s evil genes to bubble to the surface for years.” “I’m nothing like him,” I snarled.

“I know,” he sighed. “That’s a pity. Paucar Wami has served me loyally but he is getting old and soon I’ll be looking for a replacement. What better prospect than one of his own flesh and blood?” “You thought…,” I sputtered.

“I hoped,” he corrected me. “If you had killed her, I didn’t want to do anything which might stunt your growth.” “And when you found out I hadn’t killed her?” I growled, disgusted that anyone could think so lowly of me.

“Disappointment. Then curiosity. I took an interest in the case. The detectives I assigned were making progress — they knew about the Paucar Wami look-alike for one thing — but I was forced to withdraw them.” “Forced?” I couldn’t imagine anyone forcing The Cardinal’s hand.

“Perhaps invited would be a more accurate term. Have a look at this. I found it on my desk one morning.” He handed me a postcard. There were four lines of print on the back.

Howard Kett knows about Nicola Hornyak.

He will be demanding her return.

Remove your investigative teams.

Install Al Jeery in their place.

I flipped the postcard over and studied the front. A grotesque, three-breasted statue stretched the length of the card. Underneath its breasts was a tiny calendar, although the names of the months were in a language I couldn’t identify. At the bottom was a caption — early incan fertility symbol and calendar. The eleventh month — represented by the word Ayuamarca—was highlighted in green.

“What’s this about?” I asked.

“I am interested in our Incan past,” The Cardinal said. “I suppose the sender thought it would grab my attention. He was right.” “How did it get on your desk?”

“Somebody must have sneaked in while I was asleep. That’s why I went along with the request — a man who can slip in and out of Party Central unseen is not to be taken lightly.” I turned it over and read the message again. “When did it come?” “Two days before Kett came looking for the body.” “Then he knew about the murder before he claimed to?” “It seems so.”

“You’ve investigated Kett?”

“That’s your area of expertise.” “Did you have the card analyzed for fingerprints and the like?” “Naturally. It was clean.”

“I received a similar card recently.” “Oh?” He leaned closer, intrigued.

“A blind beggar was selling cards in my apartment block. I purchased a pack. One was a picture of Nicholas Hornyak in the lobby of the Skylight, the night of his sister’s murder, with a note on the back inviting me to make the connection.” “A blind beggar.” The Cardinal was troubled.

“I’ve spotted a few blind people since I started investigating.” “This city has its share,” The Cardinal said.

“You think they might be behind the murders?” “Unlikely. The man who made a mockery of Party Central’s defenses could hardly have done so without the use of his eyes. And a blind man wouldn’t know a photograph of Nicholas Hornyak, or an Incan fertility god, from a snapshot of my ass.” “Rudi Ziegler would know an Incan god if he saw one,” I suggested.

“He would indeed,” The Cardinal said. “That’s something I thought myself while perusing your reports — which have been arriving rather slackly of late.” “I’ve been too busy to write everything down.” “Or you didn’t trust me,” he countered, a gleam in his eyes. “You didn’t want me knowing that you knew things which you thought I did too. You believed I was setting you up.” I grinned guiltily. “A bit of that too.” “We must learn to trust one another, Al.” “I’ll trust you when you start playing straight with me,” I said.

“Are you suggesting I haven’t been?” “You let me think Nic was murdered at the Skylight when you knew she wasn’t.” He smiled apologetically. “I was testing you. This game is not of my making but it’s one I have attempted to profit by. As I told you at the start, I believe you have great potential. You now know the genesis of my faith in you. I guessed this investigation would turn nasty. I suspected you were being set up, though I didn’t — and still don’t — know why. I could have protected you.

“But I wanted to see how you’d react. This was a chance to watch you wriggle and grow. I found it impossible to resist. So I set you up to find the body, and I held back certain details — such as the Wami look-alike, and that she’d been murdered elsewhere — to make your work more of a challenge.” “And now?” I snapped. “Are there more secrets you’re keeping from me?” “Ah,” he clucked, “that’s for me to know and you to find out. I will say this — I don’t know who killed your girlfriend or why they’re interested in you.” “You wouldn’t tell me if you did,” I replied bitterly.

“Maybe. But you’ve been trained to tell a lie from the truth. I am, of course, the king of liars, but you should be able to make an educated guess. Judge for yourself, do I lie or not?” From what I could read of him, he didn’t. I decided to keep an open mind on the subject but — for the time being — take him at his word until I learned different.

“Where do we go from here?” I asked.

“Wherever you decide. I have full faith in your abilities.” “Maybe it would be best to let things lie. A lot of people have died. If we drop the investigation and I leave town for a while…” The Cardinal frowned. “We call that chicken talk around here,” he growled.

“Call it what you like — do you think it would work?” “No. The only one who can change the rules in a game of this nature is the game’s master. If you attempt to force their hand, they’ll probably respond with a suitably harsh countermeasure.” I nodded slowly, then followed him out as he headed back for his office. He paused outside the door and took a sheaf of notes from his secretary. “Anything else?” he asked.

I thought a moment. “No.”

“In that case…” He disappeared without a word of farewell. I caught the eye of his secretary and we shrugged at one another, then smiled. I tipped an imaginary hat to her and she waved back, then I caught the elevator down and went home to wait for Pappy to call.

He came in person, shortly after eleven, and we discussed my conversation with The Cardinal late into the night. Wami was satisfied that The Cardinal wasn’t the one toying with us. Although I harbored doubts, I agreed that we should broaden our horizons.

He was fascinated by the postcard The Cardinal had received and the possibility that the blind beggar might be involved. He chastised me for not mentioning the beggar before but I told him I couldn’t be expected to reel off every last detail at the drop of a hat. Besides, as The Cardinal had said, a blind man couldn’t have penetrated Party Central’s defenses or identified Nick Hornyak.

“I would not be so sure of that,” he said. “I know of some blind enigmas. They haunt the streets. I never paid much attention to them — they do not interfere with me — but I have tortured a few over the years. Not one uttered a single word, even under the greatest duress.” “Well, this beggar had plenty to say, so he couldn’t have been—” I stopped, remembering the blind man at the building site. “These blind men… They don’t dress in white robes, do they?” “You know of them?”

I told him about the strange fall of rain and the vision.

“Most peculiar,” he mused. “I would love to have a vision. Perhaps I should ask those eyeless Incan wonders to—” “Incan?” I interrupted sharply.

“I believe they are of Incan extraction.” I told him about the front of the postcard. He became agitated when I spoke of the highlighted eleventh month.

“Ayuamarca,” he muttered, although I hadn’t mentioned the name.

“It means something?”

“You know of The Cardinal’s many files and dossiers.” Wami spoke hesitantly. “One of his most secretive is titled Ayuamarca. It is a list of ghost names, people who have been written out of existence and memory.” “I don’t understand.”

“Nor do I, completely. But it is of great importance to The Cardinal. No wonder he jumped when our mystery killer snapped his fingers.” I started to ask about the list, only to be silenced by a gesture. “Be quiet. I am thinking.” Moments later, Wami nodded unhappily. “A sacrifice. It must be.” “You’re talking about Nic?”

“I am talking about you. The Cardinal said he withheld information in order to test you. I think that is a lie. He played dumb because he was afraid.” “Of what?”

“Being exposed or eliminated — I am not sure. He is fanatical about the Ayuamarca list. I believe he would sacrifice anyone to protect it.” “You’re not making sense,” I groaned.

He leaned in close and there was a cold fire burning in his eyes. “That note to The Cardinal was a warning. In effect it said, ‘We want Al Jeery. Give him to us. We know about Ayuamarca, so help us, or else.’

“You are being sacrificed, Al m’boy. Somebody wants your head and The Cardinal is delivering it, no questions asked. He has no interest in testing you. He only wants to see the back of whoever it is that’s threatening him. You have been cast aside like a pawn to protect a queen. That is the bad news. The good news is”—he grinned grimly—“you are not alone. I am part of this game too, and I will stick by you to the sweet or bitter end.” He clasped my neck and winked. I forced a smile, although in truth the thought of having a monster like Wami on my side depressed more than comforted me.

18

The more I thought about it over the next handful of days, the more it seemed like a paranoid delusion of my father’s. It wasn’t that I trusted The Cardinal more than his hired killer. I just found it impossible to believe he could have his arm twisted the way Wami believed. The Cardinal ran this city. Nobody could harm or scare him, certainly not a collection of blind men in robes.

Wami had an old copy of the Ayuamarca file, but when he presented it to me it failed to assuage my doubts. It was nothing more than a few sheets of paper bearing dozens of names, most crossed out. According to Wami, these were people he’d once known but no longer had any memory of, people who had vanished from the public psyche, who to all intents and purposes had never existed. I agreed it was most passing strange (as he put it), but behind his back I was starting to think that I was dealing with a schizophrenic psycho who’d murdered Nic and then forgotten he had killed her.

He was a strange man, my father. He must have been in his late sixties but he was in incredible shape, fitter than I’d ever been. The lethally assured grace with which he moved, the speed of his thoughts and his capacity for reading a situation in an instant made me feel as if my years with the Troops had been nothing more than kindergarten training.

No matter how warm a front he put on for my sake, he was at heart as cold and distant as the stars. His world was one of death. If I mentioned the weather, he’d sigh and remark, “It was on a night such as this that I killed my first nun.” If I asked for his recollections of our time together when I was a child, he’d say, “I would bounce you up and down while your mother was out working, tuck you in for a nap, slip out to slit somebody’s throat, return in time to feed and burp you.”

I asked him for the names of some of my siblings one night but he refused to divulge any. None of his children knew of the others and he preferred it that way. I argued with him — what if I started an affair with a half sister? — but he laughed and teased me, “Maybe you already have.”

We were focusing on Nicholas Hornyak. Ellen still hadn’t gotten back to me about Ziegler, the blind Incas wouldn’t say anything and there was nothing in Breton Furst’s file of any use. Nick was our boy. Wami wanted to snoop after Priscilla too but I warned him to stay away. I said I’d keep my own tabs on her.

We dug up every clipping on Nick that we could find and scoured them for any hint of scandal. He was hardly clean, but his vices ran no further than sexual kinks, drugs and friends with dubious pasts. No hint that he was into murder.

So we shadowed him, followed him everywhere, Wami trailing after him on his motorcycle, keeping me informed of his position over a cell phone as I cycled along behind. He was easy to keep up with by day, since he spent most days in bed. When he got up, he’d mope along to the Red Throat or a similar establishment and pass the time drinking and playing pool.

Nights were trickier. He bounced from one club to another like a pinball. We lost him a few times, in cabs and when he ducked out unseen amid a crowd, but we usually managed to pick him up again. When he retired for the night — home or a hotel — one of us would leave to catch some sleep while the other stood watch.

We stopped taking notes and photos after the first night, as it became clear that there was no point — he moved in loose circles and met scores of people. Unless we saw him with somebody who looked especially dangerous, or someone we recognized, we took no notice.

He didn’t go anywhere out of the ordinary. Just pubs and clubs, parties and orgies. After four days I knew it was hopeless — if he was in league with the killers, he was being kept at arm’s length. Shadowing him would lead nowhere.

Wami was more philosophical about it. Time, he said, was a great provider. Trailing after Nick left our foes with time on their hands, time to plot, grow restless and reveal themselves.

Nevertheless, by the weekend he was leaving me alone more than he was partnering me. He said he was exploring alternative avenues of inquiry, but I think he was just tired of the lack of bloodshed and was using the time to do a bit of freelance killing, of which the less I knew the better.

I kept in touch with Priscilla by phone, even managed to drop in on her at work a couple of times. We didn’t talk about that night in my apartment, when we could have easily become lovers, but we discussed all sorts of aspects of our lives — dreams, aspirations, past lovers. It was early days, but I had the feeling something was growing between Priscilla and me. I didn’t know if that was good or bad — things were complicated enough as they were — but I couldn’t control it, so I rolled with the flow and let the situation develop as it might.

Ellen invited me over to her place Sunday afternoon. I called Wami and told him I wouldn’t be tracking Nick, and why.

“My ex-daughter-in-law,” he chuckled. “I should come with you and introduce myself.” I knew him well enough by now to know he was joking. I asked if he’d cover Nick for me. He said he would but I felt he was only saying it to appease me. I didn’t care. I was starting to lose interest in the Hornyak heir.

Ellen looked divine, dressed in white, a blue ribbon through her hair. I used to love combing those fine, blond locks. If I had to say what I missed most about her, it would be waking up in the early hours of the morning to find her hair spread out on the pillow and gently combing through it with my fingers.

She’d cooked pasta, which we quickly devoured. Stuck the dishes in the washer, retired to the balcony — she had a nice apartment overlooking the river — and made the most of the weather. She noticed my faint bruises — a memento of my run-in with the KKK boys — and inquired about them. I made up a story.

“Now,” she said when I finished. “Rudi Ziegler.” She pulled a file out from beneath a chair. Licked the tips of her index and third fingers and flicked over the first page. “That’s his real name, by the way, not an alias.”

“I know.”

She glared. “You might have told me. I spent days tracing his roots.”

“Sorry.”

“Well,” she sniffed, “you probably know the rest as well. No police record, never in trouble. Fills out his tax forms, operates aboveboard. Worth a small fortune. He started out with very little, a meager inheritance when his father died, which he used to launch and advertise the business. A couple of office jobs when he was younger, but most of his life has been devoted to magic. I tried finding out who he studied under but he seems to have picked it up from a variety of sources, fairground fortune-tellers and the like. Never married. No children.”

She zipped forward a few pages. “I attended four meetings. The first time, it was just the two of us. I told him I’d been having odd dreams and wanted to explore the spiritual plane to make sense of them. He read my palms, did the tarot, the usual rigmarole. I said I’d like to try a séance. He promised to phone when a place came up. Said it might take a few weeks — my karma had to be compatible with the group’s, or some such hogwash. Called a couple of days later to say he’d found the perfect companions. I went along to three sessions.”

“Anything happen?”

She chuckled scornfully. “Lots of fog, strobe lights, eerie noises and shaking of tables. He’s got a crystal ball and he conjured up some images. Spoke in voices. I was disappointed — it was so fake. The others seemed to enjoy it but I’m not sure they believed it was real any more than I did.”

“Nothing dark or magical?”

“No. I asked after the third séance if there was anywhere further to go. Said I wished to make meatier contact. Told him I wanted to dance with demons.”

“You didn’t!”

“You told me to say it.” She couldn’t hide an impish grin.

“How did he react?”

“He said he wasn’t that way inclined — he was more involved with gods of light than demons of the dark — but he could pass me on to people who were. He gave me a couple of names.”

“That sounds more like it.” I rubbed my hands together. “I hope you didn’t go visit these guys.”

She shook her head. “I got your leads. The rest is up to you.” She handed me a sheet of paper with two names and addresses. They meant nothing to me, so I laid the sheet aside, to investigate later.

We discussed the case and how I’d been progressing (I told her nothing about Paucar Wami or the Fursts), then talk turned to love. Ellen asked if I’d been seeing anyone. I told her I had. Was it serious? I thought of the way my heart leaped when Priscilla kissed me, and said it might be.

“How about you?” I asked, as you do when someone makes inquiries of that nature.

She smiled nervously. “Actually, I think I might be falling in love, Al.” She awaited my reaction.

I stared out over the river. It was a surprise — there’d been nobody meaningful in Ellen’s life since our marriage dissolved. A month ago the news might have sent me running back to the bottle, but after all that had happened these last few weeks, it didn’t seem as earth-shattering as it once would have.

“Anybody I know?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“You going to tell me the name or do I have to guess?”

She hesitated. “Not yet. I don’t know how involved we’re going to get. I’m not at the stage where I want to make a public commitment.”

“So why mention it?”

“In case word leaks. So you don’t feel like I’ve been going behind your back.”

“We’re divorced,” I reminded her. “You can do what you like.”

“I know. Still, if it was you and things were getting hot and you didn’t tell me, I’d be hopping mad.” I knew what she meant. As far apart as we’d drifted, there would always be a special bond between us.

“Well?” she asked when I said nothing. “What do you think?”

“Does it matter?”

“You know it does,” she said softly.

“I don’t know the guy,” I protested. “How can I have an opinion?”

“Who says it’s a guy?” she smirked.

“You don’t swing that way,” I laughed.

“Maybe I’ll surprise you. But seriously, what do you think? Are you jealous?”

“No,” I answered truthfully. “I’m delighted for you. It’s great. I wish you all the best. I’ve only one question — can I give you away at the wedding?”

“There won’t be a wedding. One was enough. Besides, it wouldn’t be appropriate.”

“Why not?”

“You’ll see,” she grinned and said no more about it.

She kissed my cheeks before I left and rubbed my nose with hers. In the old days, that would have been the sign for our lips to meet. Now it was simply a nice way for two close friends to say goodbye.

“Give me a ring if anything comes of the Ziegler tips,” she said.

“I’ll be sending over the finest bouquet of flowers if one of these names leads anywhere,” I vowed.

“And be careful. I don’t want the killer carving you up like that poor girl.”

“I’ll watch my back, kemosabe.”

“See you ’round, Grasshopper.”

Then I slipped away, to spend the rest of the day wondering about her new beau. Whoever he was, he’d better treat her well — better than I had — or I’d be after him. No matter how heavy things got between Priscilla and me, Ellen would remain the true love of my life. Nobody would do the dirty on her as long as I was on the scene.

The names of the two mystics led nowhere. No outstanding connections to any of the key players, though Priscilla had been a customer of one. I asked her about him. She said he was graver than Ziegler but no more genuine. Nic had never been to him.

Apart from the two names, there was nothing in Ellen’s report of any use. I hadn’t expected anything — it wasn’t as if I thought Ziegler would talk openly of human sacrifice — but I was disappointed all the same. I’d agreed with Wami that if nothing happened with Nick over the next few days, we should shift our focus to Ziegler. Since Ellen had produced no dirt, that would mean more shadowing, more long hours of hanging around.

I felt glum on Tuesday when I rolled home shortly before midnight and hit the sack. I was sleeping soundly these times, too exhausted to dream. So when I jolted awake in the middle of the night, I thought something was wrong. For a few seconds I couldn’t hear over the sound of my pounding heart. When my hearing returned, I realized it was only the buzzing of my cell phone that had disturbed me. I checked my watch — three a.m., for Christ’s sake! — groaned and reached blindly for the phone.

“This had better be a matter of life or fucking death,” I snarled, expecting the mocking tones of my father. But it wasn’t.

“The public phone in front of the library. Be there, ten minutes from now.”

“Who—,” I began, but the caller had hung up. I sat on the edge of my bed trying to place the voice. When I couldn’t, I rolled off and got dressed. I might be walking into trouble but I was too tired to care. I thought of calling Wami but there wasn’t time for him to come over.

As I headed for the door, my eyes flicked to the mantelpiece and I slowed. The black, gold-streaked marble I’d found in the trout’s mouth and placed there was missing. For a moment I was sure someone had stolen it. But that was crazy. More likely it had rolled onto the floor. I didn’t have time to look for it, and anyway it wasn’t important. I’d forgotten about it by the time I unchained my bike.

I arrived at the phone booth with a couple of minutes to spare. Stood in out of the cool night breeze, yawning. A patrol car passed, two officers giving me a suspicious once-over. I half-waved and they carried on without stopping. Then the phone rang and I answered immediately. “If this is a joke, I’ll kick your—”

“There’s a phone outside the post office in Marlin Street. You know where that is?”

“Yeah,” I said cautiously.

“How long will it take you to cycle there?”

“Fifteen, twenty minutes.”

“I’ll call in twenty-five. If you’re being tailed, pass it by and I’ll get in contact another time.”

“Who is this?” I snapped. “Why should I—”

He was gone again.

I hung up and considered my next move. It could be a trap but it would have been just as easy to strike at my home or outside the library as across town. This way I had time to call for assistance. Besides, the caller sounded scared.

With hardly any traffic to contend with, and jumping red lights, I made Marlin Street in seventeen minutes. As far as I could tell I wasn’t being followed, though from my experience with Nick I knew how simple it was for a cautious hunter to track his prey undetected.

I’d been thinking hard about the voice and this time, when the phone rang, I spoke first. “Jerry?”

There was a nervous pause, then, “No names. There’s an all-night diner at the top of this street. I’ll be waiting.”

I was sure when I hung up — it was Jerry Falstaff, from work. I’d seen virtually nothing of him since The Cardinal took me off regular duty. What was he doing, calling me in such a provocative fashion? Only one way to find out…

A handful of late-night souls were scattered around the diner, eating silently, reading or staring out the windows. Jerry was near the back. From the way he sat, I knew he cradled a gun under cover of the tablecloth. I glanced around at the other diners again, searching for danger, but they seemed oblivious.

I strolled across but didn’t sit.

“That a gun in your lap or are you just pleased to see me?”

“Get something to eat,” Jerry ordered, voice low and strained. “Make it look natural. Sit opposite me and cover the area to my back. First sign of trouble, open fire and make a break for the kitchen — there’s a door, leads to a set of stairs running down to an alley.”

“I’m sitting nowhere and doing nothing till you tell me what this is all about.”

Jerry looked up briefly. “You trust me, Al?”

“I’ve never had reason not to,” I answered indirectly.

“Then listen carefully and do what I say.” He took a bite out of a large roll and, using it for cover, muttered out of the side of his mouth, “It’s about Breton Furst.”

I took my jacket off, draped it over the back of the chair and went to order a slice of pizza. When I returned, Jerry let me have it.

“I graduated from basic training with Breton. We kept in touch. He drew me aside at Party Central a few weeks ago and asked me to be his Tonto.” That was a phrase we used in the Troops when one of us passed a message to another to be opened in the event of his disappearance or death. Sometimes the message was no more than a note to be handed to a loved one, but other times it was a way to gain revenge from beyond the grave.

Tontos were forbidden — if you were found holding a note that contained even a hint of classified information, you were dismissed without benefits, and that was the most lenient reprisal — but common. We looked out for one another in the Troops. It was a way of protecting ourselves from the whims of our masters. They never knew if a Troop had left behind a Tonto, so they tended not to sacrifice us lightly.

“I fled as soon as I heard about the execution,” Jerry continued. “Called in sick and went on the lam. Been sleeping in my van. Sent my wife and kids into hiding.”

“You think whoever killed Furst knows about you?”

“Probably not, but would you chance it?” One of the customers rose and Jerry’s body tightened. I thought he was going to start firing, but then the guy tossed a tip down and ambled away. Jerry relaxed.

“Do you have the message on you?” I asked.

“I’m not crazy. I read it — figured I owed him that much — then burned the fucker. Laid low and let some time pass before getting in touch with you.”

“I was mentioned in the message?”

“No. But I heard you were with him when he was killed and I figured you were as good a person to come to as any. I don’t trust anybody else.”

“What makes you think you can trust me?”

He shrugged. “It was your girlfriend he died for.”

I swallowed a mouthful of pizza. “What was in the message?”

“Breton was on duty the night Nicola Hornyak was killed. Some guy bribed him to leave his post at ten o’clock — said he wanted to sneak in a friend. According to Breton, that sort of shit happens all the time at the Skylight.”

“Did he know the guy?”

“Not straight off.”

“But he found out?”

“I’m coming to that. There was more. He told Breton to come up to his room between two and three and let out the friend. Said he’d be chained to the bed and wearing a mask which Breton wasn’t to remove.”

“It was Nic’s room?” I guessed.

“No. The room next door, 814.”

“Nicholas’s room,” I sighed.

Jerry looked surprised. “You know already?”

“I’ve been digging around.”

“Breton only found out when Hornyak’s picture turned up in the papers. He shat himself.”

“Why not tell Frank as soon as he heard about the murder in 812? He must have known it wasn’t coincidence.”

“He wasn’t thinking clearly. See, he let the guy out in the middle of the night like he’d promised. He was masked, chained to the bed and naked, as Breton was expecting, but also mad as hell. He wanted to know where the bastard who’d tied him up was hiding, threatened to have both their heads. Breton told him to shut up or he’d remove his mask. That worked. He got dressed and left.”

“Furst didn’t see his face?”

“No. He’d no idea who he was.”

But I did. Nick’s lover of the night, Charlie Grohl. I hadn’t gone looking for Grohl — he’d slipped my mind — and now I cursed myself for the oversight.

“Breton didn’t hear anything in 812,” Jerry went on, “but only a fool would think the two events weren’t connected. The guy who bribed him probably killed the girl too. He thought about going to Frank, but that would have meant admitting to taking a bribe. Plus he’d untied and released the one person who could identify the killer. It would have cost him his job, maybe worse. So he kept his mouth shut.”

“I can understand that,” I grunted. “What happened next?”

“For a long time, nothing. When he saw Nicholas Hornyak’s photo in the paper and realized it was the dead girl’s brother who’d bribed him, he almost confessed — that was proof that the events of the two rooms were connected. But having kept quiet so long, he figured he’d be better off saying nothing.

“Nearly two weeks later, someone called Breton. The caller knew everything, how Nicholas Hornyak bribed him, that he’d been in the room next to the girl’s, that he’d kept quiet. He said he needed a favor and arranged a meeting. Breton didn’t want to go but he had no choice.

“They met in a movie theater. It was dark and the blackmailer tried not to show his face, but Breton made him and put it in his message.”

“Who was it?” I snapped, certain it must be the mysterious Charlie Grohl.

“In a minute. I’m almost finished. The blackmailer said he was looking for the body of a guy called Allegro Jinks. He thought it was in the Fridge. He wanted Breton to go there and find it. If he cooperated, his secret would be safe.

“Back home, Breton wrote up his confession and passed it along to me. He said at the end that he was on his way to the Fridge. He didn’t know what would happen but wanted to make sure — if something went wrong — that the guy who set him up didn’t escape unpunished.”

“The name,” I snarled. I was afraid someone would burst in and pump a bullet through his head before he could spit it out. “Who the hell was it?”

Jerry smiled thinly, glanced around, then said, “Does Howard Kett ring any bells?”

19

It was a three-hour train ride to the lake resort. I grabbed a window seat and spent the journey reflecting.

I’d run Jerry through his tale a couple more times, in case he’d missed anything. I put the names of Charlie Grohl, Rudi Ziegler and Priscilla Perdue to him, none of which were familiar.

Jerry felt better by the end of the conversation. He’d dreaded making contact, afraid he’d be killed like Furst when he met me. Now that it was over, and he had my word that I wouldn’t mention his name to anyone, he could relax. He’d lie low a few more days before reporting back to work, then try to drive all memories of Breton’s message and our meeting from his thoughts.

He left before I did. I hadn’t thanked him, as thanks were unnecessary. We both knew the risk he’d taken and the debt I owed. It went without saying that if he ever needed a favor, he had only to call.

I stayed on at the diner, thinking about Nick and Charlie Grohl. Nick had said he’d been with his lover the whole night, but according to Breton, Grohl had been trussed up and left alone. Where had Nick been? Busy slicing up his sister? Plotting with Howard Kett?

Howie…

Where did the cop fit in? Earlier he’d warned me away from Nick. Now I knew he’d sent Breton Furst to the Fridge in search of Allegro Jinks, which meant he knew about the Wami imitator. Had Kett killed Nic and set Wami on the Fursts?

The evidence was strong, but I wasn’t convinced. Kett was a son of a bitch, and I was sure he had what it took to kill if needed, but he wasn’t the kind of man who’d calmly toy with the likes of Paucar Wami and The Cardinal. He was involved, clearly, but I couldn’t see him as a criminal mastermind.

I called his office the morning after my meeting with Jerry. He was on a week’s vacation, not due back until the weekend. I hung up and phoned Bill. Pretended I was calling to say hello. Maneuvered the conversation around to Howie. Expressed surprise when Bill told me he was on vacation and asked where a guy like Kett went in his spare time. Once I was off the phone with Bill, I booked a return ticket and cycled to the train station.

It was early afternoon when I reached the hotel, only to learn Kett and family were out for the day. I positioned myself at a shaded table near the front of the building, pulled on a pair of dark glasses and spent the next few hours sipping nonalcoholic cocktails while keeping watch for the Ketts.

They turned up after seven. Howie, his wife, and five of their eight (or was it nine?) kids. Howie was in a pair of shorts, a flashy Hawaiian shirt and a cardboard ten-gallon hat. I grimaced and wished I’d bought a camera-phone the last time I upgraded my cell. The kids were arguing about what to do next. As they drew closer and entered the hotel, I heard Howie say they’d change clothes, then head down to the jetty to unwind.

A quarter of an hour later they reemerged, Howie in more somber attire. I let them get ahead, rose and slowly followed.

The kids started to pester an old guy on a yacht down at the jetty. I gathered he knew them by the way he didn’t lose his temper when they clambered aboard. Mrs. Kett warned them to be careful and wandered over to keep an eye on them. Howie stood gazing out over the water at the setting sun, shirt rippling in the lake breeze.

I stepped up behind him and said, “Beautiful, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” he agreed, turning with a smile that disappeared when I raised my glasses and winked. “Jeery?” he gawped. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

“Came for the fresh lake air.”

He stared at me suspiciously. “Bullshit.”

“You’re right. I came to ask you to connect the dots between Nicola and Nicholas Hornyak, Charlie Grohl, Breton Furst and Allegro Jinks.”

He turned ghostly white. “You scum,” he snarled. “I’m on vacation with my wife and children, and you have the fucking nerve to follow me here and—”

“If you want to create a scene, I’m game,” I interrupted softly. “I don’t mind having it out in front of your family.”

I thought he was going to hit me but then his shoulders sagged. He yelled at his wife that he’d be back soon, jerked his head toward the far end of the jetty and struck out for it. He walked fast and I only caught up with him at the edge, where he stood rooted to the boards like a statue overlooking the lake.

“Make it quick, asshole,” he snapped. “I’m only here for a week. I want to waste as little as possible of it on you.”

“Tell me about Nicholas Hornyak. Why did you warn me away?”

“I told you, he’s got friends who look out for him.”

“Name them.”

“No.”

“OK. Let’s forget about Nick for a while. What about Breton Furst? You sent him after Allegro Jinks. That inquiry led to his death. His wife and kids too. Care to tell me what they died for?”

“I had nothing to do with that,” Kett said. “I was trying to locate a missing person. I had no idea it would end up the way it did.”

“How did you know about him and Nicholas? Come to that, how’d you know about Jinks?” When he didn’t respond I sat and hung my head out over the water, studying my reflection. “This is a lovely spot. Come here a lot?”

“Most years,” he answered guardedly.

“Tell me what I want to know or it’ll be a long time before you come again. How long do you think they’ll send you down for if I go public? Nobody would have raised much of a fuss if it was just Nicola and Breton Furst. But the children… People are outraged, thirsty for blood. They want the killer ideally, but I’m sure an accomplice would do. You might even get the chair.”

The grinding of Kett’s teeth was louder than any motor on the lake and I was half-afraid he’d chew down to the gums. But, with great effort, he said, “It all goes back to Charlie Grohl.”

I hid my smile and waved for him to continue.

“Grohl got in touch with me shortly after the press ran details of Nicola’s death. He’d been in the room next to hers with her brother and was afraid his name would surface. He didn’t know Nicholas Hornyak — he was in town a couple of days, they hooked up at some gay joint and went to the Skylight for sex. Hornyak took off during the night, leaving Grohl tied to the bed. A guard let him go. Grohl was furious, went looking for Nick, didn’t find him, left the city and went home.”

“He knew nothing about the murder?”

“No.”

“What did he think when Nicola’s name turned up in the papers?”

“At first, nothing — it was a week after the event, so he didn’t connect it to the night he was there. Then he heard a rumor that she’d been murdered the week before and realized he might be implicated if Nicholas had been involved in her death. That’s why he told me his story.”

“Why come to you?” I asked.

“He made inquiries. Knew I was handling the case. Knew he could trust me to keep his name to myself.”

That sounded dubious but I let it pass. “So he pointed the finger at Nicholas. Why didn’t you go after him?”

“I did,” Kett sighed. “That’s when I was warned to keep my nose out. My kids were threatened. I didn’t like it but I backed off. When you started sniffing, I was told to have a word with you. That’s the bitch about these fuckers — give in to them once and you’re giving in the rest of your life.”

“We keep coming back to these so-called friends of Nick’s. Names, Howie.”

“And wind up like the Fursts?” He laughed bitterly. “If you put a gun to my children’s heads like these guys did, and tell me to talk, I’ll yap like a dog. Otherwise go fuck yourself.”

I wasn’t happy but I could see no room for leverage. As Kett guessed, I wasn’t the sort of guy who’d kill a child.

“Tell me about Allegro Jinks,” I moved on.

“I’ll get to that,” he said. “Grohl gave me a description of the Troop who freed him. It didn’t take me long to case the Skylight and pinpoint Furst. Although I’d kept Nicholas Hornyak out of my investigations, I hadn’t let the case die. I’d been pursuing other angles, asking questions about Nicola. I knew she’d been seen with a guy answering to Paucar Wami’s description.”

“You found that out?” I was surprised.

“I do know a bit about detective work,” he sneered. “Then a woman turned up looking for her missing son. Sobbing her eyes out, begging for help. She said he’d had problems in the past but had seemed to be settling down. Then he shaved his head, tattooed his face with snakes, split from his friends and took up with some rich white girl.”

“Allegro Jinks,” I muttered.

“I searched for him but, as his mother had said, he’d vanished. Then I heard about a Chinese tattooist who’d been ripped to pieces shortly before Jinks went missing. I put two and two together and came up with the Fridge. I know Wami leaves a lot of bodies there — or so rumor has it — and I figured that was the only chance I had of finding Jinks.

“I couldn’t just trot along to the Fridge and ask if they had Allegro Jinks on ice. It doesn’t work that way. I had to go through someone who was part of the system, who wouldn’t be questioned, someone like—”

“—Breton Furst,” I finished.

“There were others I could have used, but I had recent dirt on Furst. I reckoned he’d still be shaky about not coming clean when he should have. He’d be easy to manipulate.”

“You met him in person,” I noted. “That was foolish.”

“Couldn’t discuss it over the phone,” Kett countered. “Besides, we met in a dark theater. I didn’t think he’d recognize me. Obviously — since you’re here — I was wrong.”

“Furst left a note,” I said, quietly analyzing Kett’s story. “So you sent him to ask about Jinks. What next?”

“Nothing. I heard about his murder. Figured it tied in and that if anyone knew I’d put him up to making inquiries about Jinks, I was fucked. Kept my head down and booked a vacation. Thought I’d left the mess behind till you turned up.”

A neat story. I wasn’t sure I believed it, but it was neat.

“You think Nick arranged Furst’s murder?” I asked.

“I neither know nor give a shit,” he answered. “I feel lousy about what happened to his wife and kids, but what can I do? Step forward and risk my own family? Nuh-uh. I’ve had my fill of killing. You investigate if you want. Me, when I’m finished here, I’m going back to less lethal detective work.”

“You’re a coward, Howie.”

“So was Breton Furst. Difference is, I’m a live coward.”

I stood, brushed the dust from the back of my pants and wondered how much of his story was true. It was easy to call Kett a coward — and easy for him to admit it — but we both knew he’d gone after tougher fish than Nick Hornyak, regardless of the risk to himself or his family. Bill had often told me — usually when I was belittling his boss — of the time Kett crawled out onto the top of a train to take on a couple of teenagers stoned out of their heads on PCP, how he’d kept after a gang boss till he nailed him, in spite of a mail bomb and an attempt on his oldest son’s life.

“You’ll save us both a shitload of trouble if you play straight with me,” I said. “Nobody needs to know. Tell me the truth and I’ll leave you be.”

“I’ve told the truth,” he insisted.

“Some of it, perhaps, but not all. I’m no fool, Howie.”

“I think you are,” he said softly. “A fool to come here. A fool to keep pressing. It looks to me like Paucar Wami killed Jinks and the Fursts. You keep on with this and next thing you know he’ll be coming for you. What’ll you do then, Jeery?”

I smiled as I thought of what he’d say if I told him about my relationship to Paucar Wami, but sweet as it would be to watch his face drop, that was information best not shared.

“See you in the city, Howie,” I said, taking my leave.

“Not if Paucar Wami sees you first,” he retorted, then scurried off to collect his family and shepherd them back to the hotel.

I could have caught the last train home, but this was a nice little town and I was due a night off, so I checked into a different hotel, had a meal in a quiet restaurant, bought some toiletries in a shop, then strolled back to my room to call Paucar Wami.

I hadn’t forgotten about my father in my haste to catch up with Kett, but if I’d told him of my meeting with Jerry, he would have insisted on coming with me to assist in the interrogation, and though I bore no love for Howard Kett, I didn’t want to see him winding up as bait on the end of a fishhook.

There was no answer when I called, so I went for a walk and tried his number again later.

“Al m’boy. Sorry I missed you earlier. Couldn’t take the call. My hands were full.” There was a groan in the background.

“What was that?” I asked.

“Our friend Nicholas. I tired of trailing him, so I—”

“No!” I shouted, gripping the phone furiously.

Wami chuckled. “Relax. Nicholas is safe. This is some nobody I picked up off the street. Would you care to share a few last words with him?”

“You’re a sick son of a bitch.”

“And you are the son of a son of a bitch. No matter. Where are you? You were supposed to be shadowing our target this afternoon.”

“I’ve been busy. A lead fell into my lap.”

“Do tell,” he said eagerly.

“Not over the phone. Listen, I want you to try and find Charlie Grohl. He’s one of Nick’s lovers. He was with him in the Skylight. He lives out of town.”

“Any idea where?”

“No.”

“That might take some time.”

“It’ll be time well spent.”

“Very well. I will wrap things up sooner than planned and apply myself to the tiresome task. Will you be joining me tonight?”

“Tomorrow.”

“I will miss you. Good night, son.”

“ ’Night,” I threw back gruffly, hating him for his murderous ways, hating myself more for turning a blind eye to them. There were times, trailing Nick, when Wami was vulnerable. The opportunities to take a stab at him had been ample. Maybe I could have put him out of the city’s misery by now.

But I needed him to find Nic’s killer. I was putting my own selfish motives before the welfare of millions, any one of whom could be next on Wami’s hit list, and it churned my stomach to think of it.

I tucked myself into the comfortable bed when I got back and stared out the window at the clear sky. Living in the city, it was easy to forget about the stars. I recalled the old myths that our destinies were written in the skies and fell asleep thinking, if everything were mapped out for us in advance, how much simpler life would be. I need feel no guilt if I believed I was an agent of fate. I could blame my complicity on destiny and sleep the sleep of the just.

I caught an early train back to the city and arrived home before ten. Bounced up the stairs brightly, only to find my key wouldn’t turn. Taking it out, I got down on a knee and peered into the keyhole. Some clever bastard had filled it with glue. It was the third time this year. A bored kid, no doubt. One day I’d catch him and…

I got to my feet, took aim and kicked at the lock. It busted and the door burst open. I dumped my overnight bag on the sofa and croaked to the stale, gloomy room, “Welcome home!”

I brewed a mug of coffee and drank it slowly, then set out again, swinging the door closed behind me. I cycled to my friend Danny’s hardware store. It was out of my way but Danny was an old pal. I’d met him through Bill, who used to work for him when he was a kid, many years ago.

Danny was behind the counter. After Fabio he was probably the oldest guy I knew. He was found more often in the back these days. He’d been threatening to retire for ages but everybody knew he wouldn’t. He laughed when I walked in with a scowl. “Not the lock again!” he hooted.

“If I ever get my hands on the little bastard…”

“Maybe it’s a locksmith,” Danny grinned. “The guy who owned this place before me used to pull that trick when business was slow. Glued up locks and waited for the calls to flood in. He got busted a few times but that didn’t stop him. He was a mad old buzzard.”

“You never tried it yourself, of course,” I smiled.

“Certainly not,” he said indignantly, but I could see him reddening around the throat. “Same make as before?”

“Unless they’ve devised a glue-resistant model.”

He asked about Bill as I was paying for the lock. I told him he was fine and mentioned the fishing trip we’d been on. Danny used to come with us before his health deteriorated. He sighed and asked me to let him know the next time we were going — he’d come along if his doctor OK’d it. I promised I would, waved away my change and wished him well.

Back home, two squad cars were parked outside the building and cops were in my apartment, talking softly. I hesitated in the hallway, wondering whether to proceed or beat a retreat. I decided to face them — maybe someone had noticed the busted lock and called them in to check on it.

I knocked loudly as I entered. I didn’t recognize the three young officers but smiled as if they were friends. “Help you any?”

“Al Jeery?” one of them asked.

“Yes.”

“Yes, sir!” another snapped.

I sighed inwardly — assholes everywhere. “Yes, sir,” I mumbled.

“We’d like you to accompany us across town.” It was the one who’d spoken first.

“What for?”

“I’d rather not say.”

“Am I under arrest?”

“Not yet, punk,” the asshole snarled.

“What if I don’t want to go?”

“It would be better if you did.” The first cop again.

I yawned to show I wasn’t worried. “OK. I’ll come quietly.”

“Thanks,” the first cop said.

“Jerk,” the asshole added.

The third stayed silent.

I peered in the window of the bagel shop as I was passing. Two more cops were inside, talking with Ali, taking notes. Ali looked numb. He was shaking his head and appeared to be crying. A bad sign.

They ran me across town, sirens blaring, saying nothing. They avoided the roads to the station. I checked their uniforms in the glow of the streetlights. They looked real but I had a bad feeling. I was between two of them on the backseat but I wasn’t cuffed. I could maybe grab a gun from one of them, force them to let me out.

I was finalizing the plan when we pulled up at the Skylight. I immediately let it drop. The uniforms were real, and I had a premonition of what lay in store. The dismayed faces of the staff in the lobby confirmed my worst suspicions. By the time I reached room 812 and saw a corpse draped over the bed, it was something of an anticlimax.

The ranking officer was called Vernon Ast. Bill had introduced us on a couple of occasions. He was grim when he stepped in front of me and asked if I could account for my whereabouts the previous night. I told him I’d been out of the city and could produce witnesses if required. (I grinned inwardly as I thought of Kett taking the stand in my defense.)

“I hope that’s true,” Vernon sighed, massaging the bridge of his nose. “I know Bill thinks highly of you.”

“Who is it?” I asked, nodding at the naked female.

“You don’t know?” I shook my head. “We found a credit card, sunglasses, a sock. Your name on the card. The rest of it’s probably yours too.”

“A thorough frame,” I noted, smiling tightly. Was it Priscilla? Had the bastard who murdered Nic made an end of another of my girlfriends?

“You want to ID the body?” Vernon asked. “You don’t have to. If you want to consult a lawyer…”

“The suspense would be the end of me.”

I walked slowly to the corpse, feeling time contract, barely aware of the police clearing a path, drawing back from me as if I had the plague. She was lying facedown. The killer had been even more brutal this time. It looked as if they wouldn’t be able to make an accurate count of the puncture wounds.

I stopped at the foot of the bed, noting something shining in the pools of blood. My right hand darted forward before anyone could stop me. My fingers brushed aside jagged, fleshy folds and closed around a hard, cool ball. Lifting it to the light, I examined a familiar black, gold-streaked marble.

“Recognize it?” Ast asked quietly.

“It’s from my apartment. I don’t know how it got here.”

“You’d better put it back.”

Replacing the marble — which had unnerved me more than the body — I rounded the bed, reaching a position where I could view the face. It was half-smothered by a pillow. I had to kneel down for a decent look.

I was expecting Priscilla, but as I knelt I realized the hair was wrong and the legs were too long. I smiled with relief. This woman was taller, broader, a beautiful head of long… blond…

My stomach dropped. I no longer had to see the face. I knew by the hair, strong yet soft to the touch. Hair I’d combed a thousand times with my fingers.

I tried not to think her name. I focused on the hair, driving all else from my thoughts, for fear the truth would madden me. Fanned out on the pillow the way I remembered so well, only now flecked with the red fingerprints of death.

I obsessed on her hair as they read me my rights and led me down the stairs. Her hair as I was bundled into a car and driven to the station. Her gleaming, blood-smeared hair as they processed my details, then locked me away.

When I was finally alone and the hair couldn’t keep the name at bay any longer, I whispered it to myself, feeling my heart wither and my world burn.

“Ellen…”