Walking Shadow

by Clifford Royal Johns

  At the apartment, Carbide was washing a light switch plate and whistling, “Kill Da Wabbit.” His natural cheerfulness was somewhat contagious. I took out a beer, quick-frosted it and sagged into a chair. Carbide came in and sat down. “So, what do you have stacked and ready for takeoff?”

  “I’m going to give JB to the cops.”

  Carbide leaned forward, “That’s a big plane. How are you going to get that off the ground?”

  “I thought I’d call him and tell him he’d won a million, he just needed to come to the police station to collect it because my company didn’t want to have all that money somewhere that wasn’t safe.”

  “That plane has no lift.”

  I wanted to talk about what I’d seen on the video. I thought talking about it would ease my mind, but I’d be giving Carbide a burden he didn’t need. He was a happy man. I didn’t want to change that. Just then, I needed someone happy around me. “OK, how ’bout I walk up to the Warren guards and tell them I have a bullet, and I would like to deliver it to Jackson Yoder?”

  I could almost make out a descending line as the blood drained from Carbide’s face. He turned pale, then slowly turned red. “This JB you’ve been talking about is JB Yoder, Jackson Yoder? I thought he was dead.”

  “A police detective named Kumar faked Yoder’s death a couple years back—and was paid five thousand by gov for it too.”

  Carbide sat, stood, then sat back down. Then he stood up again and returned to vigorously scrubbing the switch plate. Finally, he said, “Jackson Yoder should be dead. He’s an evil man.”

  “I would agree with you on that. That’s why I plan to get him out of the Warren and give him to the police.”

  “No. I mean he should be dead.” I’d never seen Carbide angry before. He scared me. He had the taut, ominous look of impending, irrational violence.

  “Don’t think that way. If we give him to the cops, he’ll be wiped completely or have to be jailed for the rest of his life. He’s already been convicted, all we have to do is get him out of the Warren.”

  “He killed people because he thought they were useless. Not for any other reason, just because he thought they were useless. He was proud of it. He wrote editorials about it. Suggested others do it too. He was a Goddamned evangelist for death. They can wipe his memories, but not his evil soul.”

  Carbide stomped off to the bathroom. I let him go without comment. He needed the last word. Yet, I couldn’t help but wonder what Carbide would say if he knew I had killed for no better reason than money. Did I have an evil soul that could not be fixed with a forget?

  I was feeling the effects of drinking the beer, having not eaten in almost a day. The door buzzer went off like an alarm clock.

  I carefully walked over to the door and looked through the viewer. It was Hattie carrying two bags. I let her in and stumbled back to the chair. She said hello and went into the kitchen.

  Carbide came out of the bathroom. He didn’t know Hattie was there. “I can get in the Warren,” he said. “I’ll go in there and kill him myself.”

  Hattie appeared around the counter from the kitchen, walked up to Carbide, kissed him on the cheek and said, “Kill who, dear?”

  Carbide looked from her to me and back a couple times. It was his day to be surprised. “Nobody?”

  I laughed. He was caught, and he wasn’t a good enough liar to get out of it. It seemed very funny to my addled brain. “The name Jackson Yoder have any meaning to you, Hattie?” I asked.

  “No. Is that who Carbide’s going to kill?” Hattie was treating Carbide as though he were a little boy having a temper tantrum. Her reaction confused him and eased his rage. I wouldn’t have guessed that that technique would work, but Hattie had everything under control. “Well,” she added. “It will have to wait until after we eat. I brought all the ingredients you asked for, and I expect to have the dinner you promised.” She sat down like punctuation.

  Carbide stood flustered and, for the moment, successfully distracted from his murderous impulse. He went into the kitchen.

  Hattie was watching me. “Don’t get him killed, Benny,” she said quietly. It was an odd sort of threat. She would be disappointed in me if I let Carbide be killed, and it would hurt her. She knew that would matter to me, even though until that moment, I wouldn’t have guessed that it would.

  “Hattie, how would you like to run a business Under The River?”

  “You mean a place for all the fashionable people to shop for fine dresses to wear to the ball?”

  “No, actually, I mean a place where poor people shop for something to make their hovels look a little better or more comfortable.” She looked doubtful. “Ray is dead. This JB guy killed him. I’m thinking of buying his antiques store, lock, stock, and gargoyle.”

  She watched me, glancing at the beer. “How many of those have you had? Maybe I should get you some coffee or bread or something?”

  Hattie stood up and went into the kitchen. I was forming a plan. After I owned Ray’s place I could get into the Warren when I wanted to. OK, it wasn’t a plan, it was a step toward a plan, but it made me feel better and Hattie hadn’t said no. She came back with coffee and a roll. I drank the coffee, ate the roll, felt better, and decided that my plan was better than my previous plan, which was just like Carbides plan only I would have been able to pull the trigger. Carbide wouldn’t have been able to. He wasn’t like me.

  During dinner we avoided talking about JB except once when Carbide asked why we didn’t just tell everyone that JB was actually Jackson Yoder and let him play the part of the hunted one. While he’d been talking about landfills in Rockford and how nice Hattie looked, he’d actually been thinking about JB.

  Telling the inhabitants of Under The River that JB was Jackson Yoder would certainly open a can of worms, but I figured the big worm would get away. There were too many ways for him to escape and have himself altered or for someone to come in and do it. It could be that the Pirates would kill him just to keep the peace, but I wanted something more definitive. I wanted to see him captured. And if I failed, Carbide could still follow through with his revelation.

  After dinner, Hattie and Carbide went to see an opera. They were a strange pair. There was a reason why you could get seats at the opera the day before. Operas are painful to listen to. I wondered how much the opera company paid them to go.

  I pulled out a twenty and some ones and stuffed the rest of my money down behind the chair cushion, then headed out into the rain.

  Under The River was warm and humid. Biting flies caught on to any exposed flesh and removed a chunk. It was time for the Gnomes to fumigate the place again.

  I walked past Ray’s. It was still closed. At first, I thought the guard at the north Warren entrance was missing, but then I saw that she’d been moved back into the hallway and stood in front of a new set of bars that separated Ray’s storage rooms from the rest of the Warren. So much for plan A. The north entrance was sealed and I wouldn’t be able to get in unopposed even if I bought Ray’s. They would have reinforced the walls by now too.

  I went to a fire barrel from which I could see the south Warren entrance and the south entrance to Under The River from the street above. I gave the woman a quarter and since she didn’t have anyone else trying to get a spot at her rather dim fire, she let me rotate in front of her barrel and dry out. She sat on a stack of bricks and leaned her back against one of the massive posts that held up the buildings above.

  After I had dried, I turned toward her. “So I heard Ray was tossed in the river.”

  “Yes,” she said warily. “It’s a shame.”

  “Any idea if someone else will open up the tables?” Her wariness dropped away since I wasn’t trying to get her into a discussion about his death.

  “I heard the Pirates own it now, but I doubt they’ll run it. Probably sell off the stuff, then rent out the space to someone new. Don’t matter. They only sell stuff near the entrances that you and I can’t afford anyway.”

  She
was right about that. The places near the street were prime space because people with money were willing to come that far in for the deals, but they wouldn’t want to go any further than Ray’s or maybe the next shop in.

  Rela walked out of the south Warren entrance just then. She wasn’t wearing her gun, at least not that I could see. Wearing weapons was frowned upon, even when the wearer was a Gnome or, as in this case, a Gnome’s lackey. Rela walked close past me and on through the crowded aisles to a team of Elves who were finishing the installation of a new light fixture to my left. She talked to them for a moment then headed back toward the Warren again.

  I’m prone to stupid impulsive actions. I have a way of making a sudden decision and convincing myself that I’ve thought it out. I ran around to the dark side of the post, the side away from the fire, and in the shadow I quickly removed my coat, outer pants and my head rag, turned the coat inside out and wrapped the whole bundle in it.

  Rela was striding by as I came out from behind the post. I walked toward her and fell into step beside her. She walked on for a moment then turned to tell me to shove off, but stopped suddenly instead. She reached for the gun she wasn’t carrying. “Oh, damn.”

  “It’s not so bad Rela. I’m not going to kill you, even though I thought your trying to kill me in my own apartment was a bit tawdry.” I smiled and reached into my pocket. She stepped back glancing from side to side, but keeping most of her focus on the pocket. I extracted the memstick and held it out to her. “Would you give this to JB? I think he might be interested in talking to me after he sees it. I’ll wait here by the fire.” My stomach started doing flip-flops. What on earth was I trying to do? But in the back of my mind, I knew what I wanted to do. I wanted to meet JB. I wanted to talk to him, to understand him well enough to win, well enough to beat him. I never liked plans anyway. Plan B was to not use a plan. I’d gotten the plane off the ground, and I was winging it.

  Chapter 38

  I offered my bundle of grubby clothes to the fire-barrel woman and told her that if she kept it safe, I would buy it back from her within a couple hours.

  She set it behind her and leaned back with a smile. “Feels pretty comfortable. It might cost you more than a quarter to get these back and for me not to tell anyone about the guy who disguises himself as a bum. You a cop?”

  “No, I’m not a cop. A cop would have a better disguise.” She already knew that, of course, or she wouldn’t have asked. The price for getting my bundle back was going up, and she was just letting me know.

  Rela trotted out of the Warren. She wore a thigh-length coat this time, which I was sure concealed the gun that shot ceramic bullets.

  She didn’t say anything. She just motioned me toward the entrance. Once past the guards and the sniffers, she frisked me thoroughly. She found the bit of money I’d brought with me, but didn’t take it. She didn’t frisk my hair. They never do. Even though I keep my hair fairly short, I still had a slapfaint tucked above my right ear.

  We walked past Chen’s office. I was ready to wink at him, but he wasn’t in the halls. We threaded our way back into the Warren.

  It was possible that JB would just kill me. That had already been on his mind when he sent Rela and Mike to my apartment, but I hoped he’d looked at the video on the memstick and would decide to negotiate. I thought I might leave his office alive if I could get past the first few minutes of conversation.

  At the door to JB’s rooms, Rela said, “You’re already dead,” but she was trying to blink me. She poked the buzzer.

  Mike answered. He stuck his head out into the hall, looked both ways, then let us in.

  JB had his front office decorated in a masculine, professorial style with bookshelves of unread leather-bound books and dark wood furniture with red leather upholstery. It looked genuine. JB had money and good taste. It would be a good place to study Milton or Cicero.

  Rela took off her coat, exposing her gun. It was nice of her to carry in the weapon I would need should my meeting with JB go bad. She stood close to intimidate me, but it just put her weapon within tactical reach.

  Mike rushed out to the back room, and then walked slowly back in behind JB, who entered the room at a leisurely pace. JB was wearing a suit coat with shoulder pads and shoes with lifts. If he hadn’t been stuck in the Warren, a criminal, he probably would have had his legs lengthened and maybe his back too. Now that he had the money, he couldn’t use it. “Mr. Khan. It’s good of you to come to see me. It saves me so much trouble tracking you down to kill you. What made you come to see me? Luck?”

  “I certainly think so,” I said.

  “Any particular reason I shouldn’t kill you now and throw you in the mud?”

  “You mean like you did to Ray?” JB hadn’t actually killed Ray first. He’d just tossed him in the mud to slowly suffocate.

  His eyes narrowed. “You don’t seem to understand. There’s no reason for you to be alive. No one would care if I killed you.”

  “I didn’t come here to listen to bluffs and threats. Did you watch the video on the stick?”

  He nodded, still watching me carefully.

  “I have the original, certified file which will be sent to one of four news organizations in the morning along with a note that states you’re living in the Warren under the name JB. The other news organizations will get a copy. There are enough people who know what you look like to identify you to the people out there Under The River. Street people don’t like your old persona, do they? Someone will kill you when that information gets out. Eventually, someone will kill you.”

  JB considered that. He’d been modified since the photos I’d seen were taken. Even though the differences were considerable, I could still tell it was him. However, according to Carbide, the street people who were around a few years earlier knew who Jackson Yoder was, and once they connected JB and the hated Jackson Yoder, he would have to leave or someone who lost a friend or relative would kill him somehow. No one Under The River would admit to witnessing it happen either. At least that’s the way I pictured it. I hoped he saw it that way too.

  “I also have Arno’s materials, which I believe you would like to have.”

  He sat down and crossed his legs comfortably. He was putting on a show for Rela and Mike who were looking at him a bit differently. I hadn’t yet said who he really was, but Rela in particular was watching him, trying to figure it out. I could have grabbed her gun and shot all three of them at that moment, but I wouldn’t have made it out past the guards alive.

  “Those records are of some value to me. Why did you steal them? What made you think I would deal with someone who steals my goods then tries to sell them back to me? I don’t see that I have to deal with you at all.”

  If he didn’t have to deal with me, he wouldn’t still be talking, so I continued. “Look. It’s not clear that I stole anything from you. They were Arno’s records, so to me, you’re the thief here.”

  He stood and took a step toward me. I almost went for Rela’s gun, but he stopped.

  “I want ten thousand,” I said. “And I’ll leave Chicago. We’ll both be happier that way.”

  “I’ll give you two and throw you in the river. You can use the two to buy your way into a better brazier in hell.” He was smiling now. He’d made up his mind to take the satisfaction of killing me over the profit and peace of mind.

  “There’s information in those records about you. Other sticks, and it’s all going to the news if I fail to stop it.” He didn’t seem too worried about that.

  “Arno didn’t have anything on me that matters.”

  “You mean other than the video of you and Judge Kimbanski in a soundproof room with Sukey Mack’s girlfriend bent over a wire rack? Torture and rape aren’t on your list of things that matter? It’s certified video, JB. And the news will love to play it. It will ride the sites for years, maybe forever. Do you think your bosses are going to like that? Pirates don’t like that kind of attention. They don’t mind pushers, but they don’t like h
aving the users around. You can capture and sell the girls, but you’re not supposed to be weak enough to get hooked on them yourself.”

  “What I do with my own time is my own business.”

  “Do they even know who you really are? Do they know about your other idiosyncrasies, your other aberrations?” Killing street people was the one I knew of. I suspected there were others.

  JB walked over to Rela. “Give me your gun and go.” He looked at Mike. “Both of you.”

  Rela was reluctant to hand over her gun and JB noticed. His eyes hardened. She was no killer. I could see that. But she knew he was. I could see that too. She handed him the gun and left, with Mike following close behind her.

  Holding the gun, JB turned to me. “Ten thousand is too much. I’ll give you three. Bring everything here and, if I think it’s worth it, I’ll give you the money.”

  “Uh, huh,” I said, meaning that I’d heard him, but that I wasn’t a chump. “We meet in a public place. I tell you where the stash is and you give me the money. I leave. Eight thousand isn’t much to you, but I can live on that a long time. I’ve got no reason to cheat you, but I could see why you might not want me alive after you have the evidence.”

  “I don’t even know if you have Arno’s records at all. You might just have found the stick somewhere else in his house, the bedroom maybe.”

  I let the taunt drop. “OK, I can understand that. Were Mike and Rela unhappy that I signed all the cards with their names?”

  “They weren’t happy, but you didn’t fool anyone, and you missed two secret compartments.”

  I doubted that, but I let that drop too. “So you agree I have the missing records?”

  “I agree you know something about how the records were stolen. Tell me a little about what’s in them.”

  I told him a few bits that I’d read—that Alderman Hadas liked very young boys and Fantastic Voyage, an illegal weekend-long drug and VR game. A few choice items like that. “It’s a big box full, JB. I also have his PAL.”