by Darren Shan
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 dub
ious 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.
