He shook his head. “What’s to smile about? Maybe that old woman manages to enjoy her life down there because she stays half drunk and she doesn’t know what’s really happening around her. Do you realize what’s happening here? In this city, in this country?”
“Yes,” Caroline said. “I do.”
“I wonder. We have a full-blown epidemic going that very soon will become a pandemic. It’s already breaking out in other countries. The damn disease is almost one hundred percent fatal, and the only vaccine we’ve got for it, which isn’t even being widely distributed yet, is only fifty percent effective. People are getting sick in droves, and they are dying in droves, and there is not a whole hell of a lot we can do about it. Unless something changes very quickly, and the odds are not good for that, this thing is going to kill off a good chunk of the population in this country, maybe even the world. And it’s going to kill off a bigger chunk here in San Francisco. This city is going to be unrecognizable a year from now. Probably the entire country is going to be unrecognizable.”
“I know all that, Cage. My sister died from Core Fever, and I almost died from it. But I’m not dead, and neither are you. We don’t just stop living because the world is going to shit around us. I’m not suggesting we try to ignore it, or pretend it’s not happening, but we also don’t curl up in a ball somewhere and stop living, and that’s what you’re doing. You might just as well put a gun to your head and blow your brains out.”
“I’ve thought about it,” he said.
“No you haven’t. I know you, Cage.”
He nodded. “You’re right, I haven’t. But sometimes I wish I could give it serious consideration.”
“Look at that woman down there,” she said. “There’s s something important to be learned from her.”
He gave her a half smile. “Unless you’ve managed to romanticize the shit out of her, and she’s really just a drunken psychotic who doesn’t have a clue to what’s going on.”
“That’s better,” she said. “Not much of a smile, but it’s something.” She stood. “You want some tea or coffee?”
“Yeah,” he said, nodding. “Coffee.”
“I’ll put the water on.”
When she returned to the table, his back was to her and he was gazing out the window. She came up behind him and put her hands on his shoulders. He stiffened a bit, briefly, then relaxed. It wasn’t much of a response. She wanted him to put his own hands over hers, but he didn’t.
Her heart was beating a little faster and harder now, and her breathing was a little funny. Could she be wrong about his feelings for her? She didn’t think so. He’d never said anything, but she was sure she could feel it from him every time they spent any time together.
“I’m going to have to take the initiative with this, aren’t I?” she finally said.
“With what?” he asked, still not looking at her.
“You know what I mean.”
He breathed in deeply once, then slowly let it out and nodded. He turned around then and looked up at her, and she leaned over, bringing her mouth to his. She kissed him, and this time he did respond, and her stomach and chest twisted around in a half-sick, half-ecstatic sensation she hadn’t felt in a long, long time. At midnight it was still raining. They lay naked on the open sleeping bag, which they had laid out on the floor. The room was dark, but there was the flashing and blinking of lights from the street, and she could see the reflection of sweat on his skin.
“You’re smiling,” Cage said.
“Shouldn’t I be?”
“Well, I don’t imagine that was the most exhilarating and profound sexual experience you’ve ever had.”
Caroline laughed softly. “It was the first time you and I have ever made love. Of course it was a little awkward. We both were awkward. I imagine that’s pretty normal with two people who don’t know each other that way.” She laid her arm across his chest and kissed his shoulder. “It certainly wasn’t unpleasant, and it’ll get better.” She sensed his insecurity, and thought how absurd it was.
They lay for a while without talking. She really did feel quite wonderful, being beside him, feeling his skin against hers, feeling his heartbeat against her hand. It helped to remind her that she was still alive, and that despite everything happening around them, being alive was a wonderful thing.
“I know this is just crazy,” he said, “but I feel a little guilty.” He was staring up at the ceiling.
“Nikki?”
“Nikki.”
“Why? Because this was her place?”
“Partly. And because I loved her, and she hasn’t been dead for very long.”
“Oh, Cage,” she said.
“I know it’s irrational, but it’s there.” He turned his head toward her, and managed a smile. “But I promise not to let it get in the way.”
“I wonder if there’s something wrong with you,” she said, smiling back at him.
“What do you mean?”
“First, you fall in love with someone who doesn’t love you in return.”
“Nikki loved me,” Cage said.
“Yes, but not in the same way.”
“No, not in the same way. She never loved anyone that way. I didn’t know that at first. I didn’t understand that for a long time.”
“Then she died. You lost her. Twice in a way. And now you’re beginning to care for someone who’s also going to die soon, in a few years at most.”
Cage didn’t say anything for a long time. He was facing her, but his gaze was unfocused, or focused on something far away that wasn’t even in the room with them.
“Yes,” he finally said. “Maybe there is something wrong with me. But I don’t notice you objecting.”
“No, I’m not objecting. A few months ago, I would have. I even kept putting off a stray cat that tried to adopt me, because I didn’t want it to become dependent on me. I was afraid of what would happen to it after I died.”
“So why the change?”
“Almost dying.” She turned onto her back and gazed up at the ceiling herself.—I’ve come to terms with the Gould’s in some real ways. Not completely, of course. I don’t think that’s possible. I suspect I’ll have an occasional ‘lapse,’ wake up in the middle of the night absolutely terrified of dying, terrified and furious that I survived this disease that so many other people are dying from, only to have to die from something else in a few years while I’m still so young.”
“Sounds to me like you’ve already had one or two nights like that.”
“Maybe,” she said, smiling again. She turned to him. “But I promise not to let that get in the way, either.”
He reached across her, took hold of her hand. Then he pulled her on top of him, and soon their slick bodies were moving together once again.
CHAPTER 48
Carlucci was asleep and dreaming about Istvan Darnyi’s apartment. He was sitting inside piles of stamp albums and stock books, open shoe boxes overflowing with loose stamps. He was trying to find stamps from the Italian states Modena, Sardinia, Tuscany but he was certain he wouldn’t recognize them even if he saw them, and he wasn’t all that clear why he was searching for them in the first place. So when the phone started ringing, bringing him out of the dream, he felt a great sense of relief.
His sense of relief faded quickly, however, as he came fully awake. The bedroom was still dark, only the faintest touches of gray to indicate morning was coming. A phone call this time of day was almost never good news. He grabbed the receiver to stop the ringing, trying to focus on the clock at the same time: 5:52. Jesus.
“Carlucci,” he said.
“Lieutenant, this is Marx. Sorry to wake you up, but I’ve got something for you.”
“Hold on a second.”
He scrambled out of bed, glancing over at Andrea, who still seemed to be deep asleep, then stumbled out of the bedroom, down the hall, and into the kitchen, where he half collapsed into one of the chairs.
“All right,” he said. “Go ahead.�
�
“I was just getting ready to go off shift when it came through,” Marx said. “The Monk trigger.”
“Monk. What is it?”
“He’s leaving.”
“What?”
“He’s leaving his quarters. He’s arranged to have an ambulance van come pick him up at department headquarters, then take him to Hunter’s Point.”
The spaceport. “He’s going to New Hong Kong,” Carlucci said.
“That’s what I would guess.”
“What time?”
“The ambulance is scheduled to arrive at nine o’clock. I checked with Hunter’s Point Security, and they have a special flight taking off at noon.”
“Goddamn, Marx, you’ve done a hell of a job.”
“Thanks, Lieutenant. But there’s more.”
“What?”
“It’s not related, but I figure you want to hear about this.”
“What is it?”
“Word is that Katsuda’s managed to get a new bail hearing for this morning.”
Carlucci closed his eyes. He wanted to crawl back into bed and go back to dreaming about missing stamps. “I didn’t really want to hear that,” he said.
“Sorry, sir.”
“That’s okay.”
“He’ll get out on bail, won’t he, Lieutenant?”
“It doesn’t look good.” He opened his eyes and twisted his head from side to side. He must have slept wrong; there was a terrible, biting kink in his neck. “Thanks for calling.”
“Do you want me to monitor Monk for you, keep track of what he’s doing until he gets to Hunter’s Point?”
“I thought you were getting ready to go off shift.”
“I am, but I can stick around.”
“You don’t mind?”
“No. Never seen one of the slugs leave before. They just seem to stay inside their caves until they die. It could be interesting.”
“Sure. I’d appreciate it. Give me a call if anything unusual comes up.”
“Will do, Lieutenant.”
Carlucci hung up. He sat at the kitchen table, trying to decide what to do. He wasn’t going to let Monk leave without talking to him first, that much he knew. But he felt there was something more he needed to do. He got up and made some coffee, hoping it would help him think things through.
An hour later he was showered and dressed, and he was still trying to put his thoughts together. There were things out there he thought he was close to understanding, those odd connections, but he wasn’t there yet. And he had the feeling that if he didn’t get the rest of the way today, he never would.
He sat at the kitchen table again, drinking one more cup of coffee, and picked up the phone to call Angela Del Carlo. He finally got through on the third number he tried.
“This is Del Carlo.” There was traffic noise in the background, and the faint sound of jazz.
“Carlucci here,” he said.
“Shit.” A horn blared and brakes squealed in the background. “Goddamn it. All right, Frank. I know why you’re calling, and it’s true. I’m on my way to the courthouse right now.”
“What’s it look like?”
“Shit, that’s what. McAdamas is the judge.”
“That’s not good,” he said.
“She’d let her own killer go free if the money was right.”
He blinked and shook his head, trying to figure out the logistics of that. “All right. Let me know what happens.”
“Sure thing.” The connection clicked off.
One more phone call, this time to Cage. Carlucci had one final big favor to ask.
It was a little after eight by the time he approached the RadioLand Street Clinic. The streets and sidewalks of the Tenderloin were half empty; it was early in the morning, the dead time of day in here, but even so he figured it was probably worse than usual. Just like everywhere else in the city.
Cage met him as he walked in through the clinic entrance, then led him back to the staff room at the end of the corridor. The fans were going, keeping the room tolerable, just as they had been the first time they’d met. A lot had happened since they’d talked that day.
Cage picked up a small, narrow case, not much bigger than a paperback, and handed it to him. It might just fit inside his jacket pocket. “That’s it,” Cage said. “Two.” He looked at Carlucci. “What are you going to do with them?”
“I don’t know.”
“Am I really supposed to believe that?”
Carlucci just shrugged.
“What is it?” Cage asked. “Revenge?”
“No. Some kind of justice, maybe.”
“Sounds like a euphemism for revenge to me.”
“Maybe so,” Carlucci said.
“One last bit of news,” Cage said. “I talked to my friend in the CDC late last night. Later today, they’re going to make the announcement.”
“That the vaccine isn’t as effective as they’ve claimed?”
Cage nodded. “Too many news reports of people getting Core Fever after being vaccinated. They can’t keep it quiet anymore.”
“Then what?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know. No one does.” Carlucci wasn’t surprised. It kind of fit with some of the things he was putting together. Made sense of the timing. “All right,” he said. “Show me what to do.”
As he neared Hunter’s Point, traffic jammed up, slowed by crowds of people in the streets. He thought about putting up his flasher and punching the siren, but decided it might make things worse. Marx had said he was ahead of Monk anyway, and Monk wasn’t going to get through this any faster than he was.
The crowds were headed toward Hunter’s Point, something he should have expected. But there was no organization, just a chaotic milling that slopped over into the roadway. Carlucci moved forward in stops and starts, never reaching more than five miles an hour. The people moved back and forth in front of the car, sometimes turning to look at him, faces shiny with sweat. Night hadn’t brought much relief from the heat, and the day was already beginning to warm up.
The crowds thickened and slowed as he got within sight of the main Hunter’s Point gate. Security forces lined the fences, with a large contingent at the gates holding the crowd back. The main parking lot was nearly empty; the guards weren’t letting any vehicles through. Several guards were directing vehicles away before they even reached the gate.
He thought he could talk his way into the parking lot, but decided it wasn’t worth it. Hell, he might never get out. He swung the car away from the gates, drove a block, then turned a corner and pulled over to the curb. He locked up the car, then pushed into the crowd, forcing his way toward the main gate.
It took him nearly ten minutes to go the one block and the extra hundred yards to the gate itself. People shouted all around him, mostly things he couldn’t make out. There were signs, though, held up above the crowd that let him know what this was all about:
VACCINE NOW!!
CORE FEVER KILLERS
NO MORE PHONY VACCINE!
FREE VACCINE FOR EVERYONE!!
The smell of the crowd, too, was bad sweat and anger and fear. When he finally reached one of the guards, still twenty feet from the gate, he showed his badge and ID plates.
“Sorry, Lieutenant,” the guard said. “The launch grounds are closed to everyone except authorized parties, and those going up on the next ship.”
“I don’t want to go onto the launch grounds,” Carlucci said, almost shouting to be heard above the crowd noise. “I just want onto the parking lot. I’ve got official business with one of the people you will be letting through.”
The guard opened his mouth, closed it, and frowned. He seemed unsure. “You don’t have jurisdiction in Hunter’s Point,” he finally said.
“I know,” Carlucci replied. “Let’s call this cooperation between agencies. I’m not going to cause you any problems. I just need to talk to someone for a few minutes before he goes.” The guard still seemed unsure, so Carlucci went
on. “I need to talk to Monk. Monk is approved access, isn’t he?”
The guard nodded. “All right,” he said. “Come on through. But check in with Captain Reynoso at the Security building, all right?”
Carlucci nodded. The guard gestured toward one of his colleagues, and the two men walked Carlucci to the gate, clearing a path through the crowd. After a brief talk to the gatekeepers, several guards formed a shield of sorts against the crowd, the gate opened, and Carlucci squeezed through, the gate and shield closing behind him.
He stood in the nearly empty lot and gazed out through the second line of chain-link fence to the tarmac and the lighted gantry and ship in the distance. The gantry lights sparkled, isolated out on the black tarmac, like they had no connection to the noise and smell of the crowd behind him. He glanced back at the crowd, then walked to the Security building by the gates leading onto the launch grounds.
Captain Reynoso was big, an inch or two taller than Carlucci, and she looked to be in a lot better shape. He showed her his ID and explained why he was here.
“Lieutenant, do I have your word that you won’t be causing any trouble? That you won’t be trying to arrest anyone, or prevent anyone with authorization from boarding?”
“You have my word,” he said. “I just want to talk to Monk.”
Reynoso seemed satisfied. She offered him coffee. He’d already had too much, but he accepted anyway. Reynoso went into another room and came back with two cups, handed one to him. The coffee was better than what he’d made at home.
They stood by the main window, looking out at the parking lot, the outer gates, and the growing crowds.
“It could get ugly out there,” Carlucci said.
Reynoso nodded, but didn’t seem concerned. “They’ve been out there for days.”
“Can you handle it all right?” he asked. “I can call in help from the city.”
She shook her head. “We’ll be fine. Once we get our parties through, we can pull everyone inside, lock up the gates, and activate the fences. Fry anyone who tries to force their way inside.” She turned to look at him. “My job is security, nothing else. I plan to keep my job.”
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