Carlucci's Heart

by Richard Paul Russo

  “It’s the truth.”

  “God almighty.” Rashida turned away, then paced back and forth in front of the door, shaking her head and half laughing.

  “It’s the truth,” Caroline repeated. But she knew it was futile.

  “I’d d search you for some kind of transmitter, but we already did that. What were you supposed to do, find out exactly where we were and how to get in and out of here, then escape and show the cops the way in?”

  Caroline got up from the bed and walked halfway across the room, then stopped, gazing steadily at Rashida. “I don’t know anything about my father’s cases. That’s not why I’m here.”

  -Why then?” Rashida said, sneering. “You think we’re going to find you a cure?”

  Caroline hesitated a moment, then slowly shook her head. “No.”

  “Okay. Charitable works, then, to get this poor little girl her bone marrow transplant.” The sneer was still there in her voice.

  “I would love to get Mink a transplant, give her a shot at living, but that would have just been an added benefit. No, that’s not why I’m here.”

  For the first time, Rashida looked uncertain. She watched Caroline closely, and finally said, “All right, then. Why are you here.”

  “Tito Moraleja was a good friend of mine.”

  Rashida’s expression changed from uncertainty to confusion, but she didn’t say anything right away.

  “You know who Tito was, don’t you?” Caroline asked. Rashida slowly nodded. “Yes, I know who he was. But—”

  “You abducted him,” Caroline said.

  “Yes,” Rashida admitted. “We had a contract, and Tito was trying to renege. It was just business. But I still don’t understand. Are you trying to take revenge because we abducted your friend?”

  “No, nothing as simple as that. I’m trying to find out what killed him. And what killed Stinger.”

  Now Rashida looked surprised, and a little stunned. “Jesus,” she said. Then, “This really has nothing to do with your father’s investigation, nothing to do with the Katsudas and New Hong Kong?”

  “Nothing,” Caroline said. “I really don’t know anything about that. My father has no idea I’m here, and believe me, he’d go nuts if he knew.”

  Rashida nodded. “This is starting to make a little more sense.”

  “Maybe to you.”

  She laughed. “Let me go make some tea for us, and I’ll be right back. We’ve got a lot to talk about.”

  Ten minutes later, Rashida returned with two large mugs of green tea. Things were clearly better between them, but Rashida had still locked the door while she’d gone for the tea. Caroline was sitting on the bed again, Rashida on the chair.

  “How did you know about Tito?” Rashida asked. She was tense again. Maybe not about the same thing, but something.

  “Cage,” Caroline answered.

  “Cage? How the hell did he know?”

  “Tito ended up at his street clinic, and died there. I guess it was pretty obvious it wasn’t the AIDS. I hear it was pretty awful.”

  “Yes, I imagine. He was your friend?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m sorry. And what about Stinger? How did you know about him?”

  “Cage again. I’d gone to talk to him about Tito, and he told me about Stinger.”

  “And how did he know about Stinger?”

  Caroline smiled. “Your friend Tiger.”

  Rashida closed her eyes and sighed. “I should never have said anything to him. Big mistake.”

  “Why did you?”

  Rashida opened her eyes, but frowned, almost closing them again. “I panicked. I got scared, seeing Stinger die that way. Tiger, well, he’s a sweet kid, and he knew Stinger was sick. He’d helped me bring Stinger into the Core when Stinger went into crisis. He was afraid, too. He’d gotten some of Stinger’s blood on him, and he was afraid he would get whatever Stinger had.” She sighed again. “I had to tell him that Stinger had died.” After staring into her cup for a minute, she looked back up at Caroline.

  “So, what was it? You and Cage knew about two people who had died the same way? It could have been anything.”

  “It had Cage worried. Both people with a connection to Cancer Cell, both dying pretty horribly.” Caroline hesitated, wondering how much she should say. Everything, she decided. “There was something else. A woman named Nikki.”

  Rashida nodded. “Yeah, Cage’s partner.”

  “She’s got it, too. Apparently she got it from Stinger.”

  “What a mess,” Rashida said.

  “Yes,” Caroline said. “It’s a mess. So tell me. What is it?”

  Rashida didn’t say anything. She stared at Caroline for a while, thinking, then got up from the chair.

  “Aren’t you going to tell me?” Caroline asked.

  “I don’t know. I’ll have to talk to my colleagues. It’s not that simple.”

  “Nothing ever is.”

  Rashida smiled and shrugged. “Let me ask you something. Mike, he doesn’t really have much to go on with you, for the Gould’s. Anything he tries will be taking shots in the dark. And whatever he tries might make you sick, fuck you up but good. Now that all this is out, why you’re really here, do you still want to put yourself at his mercy?”

  “I’m willing to trade myself for a bone marrow transplant for Mink.”

  “Forget Mink. Forget the bone marrow transplant. It’s not going to happen. Just you. No other deals. You get nothing else, just an extremely improbable chance at some kind of treatment or cure. Are you willing to submit yourself as an experimental subject?”

  Caroline didn’t have to think about it very long. It was never for herself, she’d never held out any hope for it. “No,” she said.

  Rashida nodded. “That’s what I thought.” She walked to the door and opened it. “We’ll talk again.” Then she went through, closed the door, and locked it.

  Caroline didn’t hear from Rashida until late the next day. She didn’t even hear from Dr. Mike. A woman she’d never seen before brought breakfast and lunch to her, escorted her to the shower, but never said a word.

  Sometime around what she guessed was midafternoon, the locks clicked, the door opened, and Rashida stepped in. “Want to go on a tour?” she asked.

  “Of what? The labs?”

  Rashida shook her head. “The Core.”

  Rashida led the way down a short, narrow passage that ended at a security door with coded electronic locks. She popped open a wall cubicle, took out two flashlights and a couple of what appeared to be black handguns. She handed one of the flashlights to Caroline.

  “You ever use a stunner?” Rashida asked.

  Caroline shook her head.

  “Better you don’t carry one, then.” She put one of the stunners back, then keyed in codes for the door locks. Just before activating them, she checked a security screen. “All clear,” she said. She activated the locks and the door hissed open. “Let’s go.”

  Caroline followed her past the door, which automatically hissed closed behind them. They were in a concrete-walled corridor, dimly lit by irregularly spaced overhead lights.

  “So we are in the Core,” Caroline said.

  “Oh, yeah. Nowhere but. How much do you know about it?”

  “Nothing,” Caroline admitted.—Stories you hear about crazy people living in here. Crazier stories about ghosts and strange creatures wandering the buildings.”

  “Well, some of the people in here are a lot weirder than ghosts, if you ask me. But most of them are also much less dangerous than you might imagine. You just need to know how to treat them, how to talk and relate to them, and you do that in ways that are unlike relating to normal people. Mostly you get into trouble if you say the wrong thing, or say something in the wrong way. If you just pay attention, and listen carefully, the clues are usually there. And when it’s time to leave, you leave. That’s all.”

  “You sure make it sound simple.”

  “In a way it is. Ho
pefully we won’t run into too many of the locals, but if we do, just follow my lead. And when in doubt, just ignore them.”

  “But you’ve got a stunner with you,” Caroline said.

  Rashida smiled. “Of course. These are crazy people. Sometimes no matter what you do or say, no matter how careful you are, things go to shit. But we don’t want to kill anyone, so we use stunners.” She held up her weapon for a moment, then stuck it into her belt. “Follow me.”

  The passage angled slightly downward, and as they continued it became cooler and more damp, with an occasional puddle of muddy water on the floor and water dripping from the ceiling or down the walls. Then they took a side branch, unlit but strangely both hot and dry for a hundred yards until they emerged into another cool and damp main passage. This time they only went about fifty feet before Rashida ducked into an alcove and cement steps leading upward.

  They climbed three flights and came out in the hallway of what had once been an office building. A few rotting remnants of carpeting and padding remained on the concrete floor, and light came in through a tall window at the far end of the hall. There were doors on both sides.

  Rashida stopped at the last office on the right. The glass window was painted over so they couldn’t see inside. “The Fat Man lives here,” she said, smiling.

  “The Fat Man.”

  Rashida nodded. “The Fat Man himself.” Still smiling. Caroline wondered if she was supposed to know who the Fat Man was. She didn’t have a clue.

  “Who’s the Fat Man?” she asked.

  “A kind of low-rent slug. You’ll see.”

  Rashida tapped on the painted glass. A few moments later, a high-pitched voice said, “Who’s there?”

  “Rashida. And a friend.”

  The door cracked open, and an eye appeared in the narrow opening. Rashida waved at the eye. The door opened wider, revealing a tiny, ancient black woman in a light brown robe and sandals. Rashida and Caroline stepped inside, and the old woman slammed the door shut. “Is all right,” she said to a tall, beefy man in the corner behind the door; he was holding a pistol in each hand, the guns pointed at Rashida and Caroline. The man spun the pistols around like a cowboy in an old Western and planted them in the holsters on his belt. Then he squatted on the floor and closed his eyes.

  “Hallo, Rashida.” The old woman grinned and cackled. She had no teeth, or at least none that were visible. “We’re here to see the Fat Man.”

  “Yes, yes, yes, he’s expecting you. And you,” she said, staring at Caroline. Then she waved at them and led the way to the door on the other side of the room. She kicked the door three times, then opened it and flapped a hand at them. “Go in, go in.”

  The room on the other side of the door was large and lit by dozens of candles, and oppressively hot. The stench of body odor hung in the air, biting at the nose. In the far corner, suspended in a hammocklike webbed chair that hung from the ceiling, was a fat, grossly bloated man wearing only shorts. His skin was drenched in sweat and from the chest up was dotted with a couple dozen dermal patches; he was sucking at a long flexible tube connected to a several-gallon tank mounted on the wall.

  The door slammed shut behind them; the Fat Man stopped sucking on the tube and grinned. “Rashida, my darling one. You have something for me?”

  “Yes, Fat Man. I do.” She unbuttoned her shirt pocket and removed several packets of dermal patches. Then she stepped forward and held them out to him.

  The Fat Man took the packets, opened them, and studied the patches for a minute. He sighed heavily and nodded. “Very good, my darling one.” Then he turned to Caroline. “Tell me, new one. Why have you come to the Core?”

  Caroline turned to Rashida, who nodded. “Tell him the truth.”

  She looked back at the Fat Man. “I had a friend who had been abducted by Cancer Cell—”

  “To fulfill a contract, no doubt,” he said.

  “Yes, apparently. He got quite sick, somehow found his way out of the Core and into a street clinic, where he died. I came here to try to find out what it was that killed him.”

  “And what killed Stinger,” the Fat Man said.

  “Yes. And what is killing a friend of mine.”

  “And what has killed others here in the Core.” He shook his head, which caused the webbing to shiver along with the rolls of fat on his body. “It’s a terrible thing.” When everything had stopped shaking, he said, “And you know nothing about your father’s investigation of Naomi Katsuda’s murder?”

  She glanced at Rashida, starting to realize what was going on here.

  “Answer me,” the Fat Man said.

  Caroline turned back to him. “No. I don’t know anything about it.”

  “You have no intention of trying to discover the way in to Cancer Cell, then escaping so you can tell the police how to find them.”

  “No,” she answered sharply, angry at the interrogation.

  The Fat Man licked his lips, his tongue swollen and dark, then reached for the flexible tube and sucked at it again. He let the tube go and belched loudly, grinning. “She’s telling the truth,” he said to Rashida.

  Caroline whipped around and glared at her. “You trust this… this thing’s judgment more than you trust me?”

  “I don’t really know you, do I? I’ve known the Fat Man for years, and he’s quite reliable.” She sighed. “I’m sorry, Caroline, but we have to be sure. There’s too much at stake. You must understand that.”

  Caroline closed her eyes for a moment and nodded. She understood. It was just so bizarre, being in this room with this gross, bloated thing judging her.

  “Yes, I’m disgusting,” the Fat Man said. “I’m fat and I’m ugly and I stink, but I’m smarter than anyone in the Core, smarter than most anyone in this entire city, and I know almost everything that’s going on in here. That may not mean much to you, but it means everything to me.”

  Caroline watched him, morbidly fascinated by the way his bloated lips and tongue moved as he spoke, and when he was finished, she said, “Okay, Fat Man. Smart Man. What’s the story with this disease?”

  The Fat Man looked at Rashida, who shrugged, then nodded. “Tell her,” she said. “Tell her everything.”

  “Everything? That would take my entire life, and I still would not be finished.”

  Rashida looked at Caroline and shook her head. “He’s smart, but he’s also one huge smart-ass.” She turned back to the Fat Man. “Everything about the disease.”

  “I know, my darling one, I know.” He sucked a few more swallows from the tube, knocked the tube away, then shifted his position in the web chair, farting several times as he grunted and moved about. Finally he seemed to be comfortable, and he turned his gaze and smile on Caroline.

  “This disease started inside the Core,” the Fat Man began. “Not inside Cancer Cell, but out here in the Core. Now, how the agent of the disease got inside the Core is a mystery even to me, but considering the nature of this place, not so surprising that something like this happened. A number of the Core residents came down with it, became quite ill, and after two or three had died, the others started going to Cancer Cell.”

  Caroline looked at Rashida for an explanation.

  “We provide medical care to people in here. Compensation, if you will, for our expansion throughout the Core. We started out quite small, and we’ve added labs and production facilities over the years, snaking all through the buildings here as well as below ground, closing off quite a bit of the Core in the process. In return, to keep down the hassles and attacks from the crazier ones, we give them medical care. When sick people started showing up, we took them in and tried to help.”

  “We exchange information constantly,” the Fat Man said, “and as the seriousness of this disease became apparent, we’ve been working together to try to learn as much as we can about it. They give me the hard data, and I do interpretation and analysis. I look at the trends, and the changes in the trends.” His disconcerting smile was gone, and his expressio
n had become quite serious and grave. “It started quite a while ago, months ago. And although it began here, not only has it made it out into the Tenderloin, it’s gone out into the main city, though no one out there seems to know it yet. And it has changed. So much of this is guesswork, because reporting standards aren’t exactly very high here in the Core.” The Fat Man smiled and scratched at his crotch. Caroline tried to ignore it, and suppressed a touch of nausea. “But my best analysis indicates that initially the incubation period was rather long, perhaps as long as two or three weeks. Which is probably why, despite its high mortality rate, it has managed to spread out into the city.”

  “How high is the mortality rate?” Caroline asked.

  “Close to one hundred percent.”

  Caroline’s heart sank for Nikki, for Cage. “How close to one hundred percent?”

  The Fat Man shook his head. -No known survivors. But I would never claim a full one hundred percent. There will be survivors somewhere, sometime. There will be people who are exposed to it who don’t contract it. There always are. But those are going to be exceptions, rare exceptions.” He paused, seemed to think for a few moments, then went on. “The incubation period, however, seems to be declining. From the reports I’ve been getting, from Cancer Cell as well as from my other sources in the Core, and my sources outside, in the Tenderloin and in the city, I would say the incubation period is down under a week. It might go down to just a few days. I would guess that over the next several weeks, there will be a small explosion of cases appearing. More inside the Tenderloin, but many outside as well. At this point, I would be very surprised if it hasn’t been carried outside the city, into other states, perhaps even other countries.” The Fat Man paused, then gave Caroline a tight, disturbing smile. “There’s a plague in the making.”

  After leaving the Fat Man, Rashida brought Caroline to a small, roofless room at the top of the tallest building in the Core with an incredible view of the surrounding buildings of the Tenderloin.

  It took them half an hour to make their way along a maze of passages, up and down staircases, encountering several clumps of odd people who let them pass with hardly a word, through two floors of rubble, and up one final rickety ladder to a locked hatchway. Rashida used a magnetic key to unlock the hatch, then they climbed through and into the room. She locked the hatch after them.