Black Glass

by John Shirley

  Don’ t jump at it, Rick. Maybe the kid was okay. Maybe it was his imagination. Maybe ...

  A siren came yowling closer, its sound warping in the city canyons. Like a howling announcement, a confirmation of what he suspected.

  Maybe it’s not for him. Going somewhere else.

  But the ambulance drove up the street, wavelengths in its yowling getting shorter. The cry suddenly cutting off as it pulled up.

  A few more minutes. Then the attendants were guiding the walking robotic gurney down the stairs to the street. And he could tell from here—he knew the hair, poking out from under the sheet—that it was Danny.

  He could tell by their lack of hurry, no urgency at all, that Danny was dead beyond recovery. No resuscitation possible.

  “You fucking ...” So disgusted with himself he couldn’t think of an insult strong enough. “You let him wander off ...”

  He watched the attendants and the cops, standing around chatting in a leisurely way, exchanging information, loading the body into the ambulance.

  Not surprising, seeing a second body come out of the building. Rack Nidd, probably. In the same ambulance with Danny’s body. Which was wrong, all wrong. That scumbag in there with Danny Candle. Collaborator in Danny’s death, one way or another.

  Candle was sorry he’d been cheated out of personally killing Rack Nidd.

  Was Targer here? Maybe he should take out Targer right now. But if he did, he’d go down himself, with all the thugflesh here, and he wouldn’t be around to take Grist down.

  Candle watched the men on the street below, feeling like he was made of stone; like he was a gargoyle carved on the roof. Like he couldn’t feel the rain. Just that heavy rocky deadness. That granite feeling, over his whole body. Watching as they loaded the ambulance and went away.

  The Slakon operatives were still there. A uniformed cop. And a familiar figure in a long coat—Targer, wasn’t it? Slakon security chief? Targer looking around. Getting reports. People shaking their heads, shrugging. No one looking up at the roof across the street.

  Another flurry of activity. Targer ordering his men to carry boxes of VR gear and snappers out of Rack’s place. Put the stuff into the vans.

  Finally ... they were giving up and going away. Or at least seeming to. Maybe some of them left around, somewhere, watching Rack’s building. Waiting for Candle to show up.

  Grist had done this.

  Must have found out about the semblant software Danny had. Sent his men to kill Danny and Rack. Make it look like the two criminals had resisted.

  Grist.

  Candle stood there a while, getting slowly, slowly wetter. Water crawling down his neck, his shoulders, his back. As the night thickened around him.

  Finally he made himself move. He turned away, walked stiffly to the door that went to the stairway ... . taking the stairs down ...

  Down to the first floor. Stepping over numbdumbers in the pissy hallway. Going out back to the trashy ruin of the building behind ... Slipping through it, slipping away ... But not running. Walking slowly, carefully, implacably. Hitting the street ...

  To begin the hunt.

  He found Spanx watching a cracked old PC; it was streaming television that was like slightly unfitted jigsaw pieces because of the crack in the monitor.

  “Hode—how’d you get in here?” Spanx asked, looking up from the center of the swirling pile of debris that was his living room. He was sitting on an old brown leather foot-rest on the matted, brown—possibly brown—carpet.

  “Your place is about as difficult to get into as a two-dollar whore,” Candle said, looking around. “You ever clean this scuzz-hole ?”

  “I did once. It was sad. When it was clean it made me miss my mom.” Spanx looked back at the TV. “People keep fucking dyin’ on me, hodey brudder.” He glanced at Candle. “You’re all wet big Candle brudder. Even I got an umbrella. I mean, it’s all, like, down in there somewhere. It’s under all that shit. Happy-happy shit, some of it fit.”

  Candle was not feeling much just now. Like he was tight-rope walking, that’s how he felt, and if he kept going straight across the tight-rope he wouldn’t feel anything; wouldn’t fall. He just stood there looking at the news report; the report, like the monitor, cracked down the middle.

  Shots of Danny’s body wheeling into a hospital entrance. A woman’s voice commenting:

  “Danny Candle had the start of a comeback with a recent performance at L.A.’s Black Glass Club—but it all came to a crash-and-burn when he died today during an illegal VR hook-up that went terribly wrong.”

  Now a shot of the glamorous red-blond talking head, a woman way too glamorous to be a psychiatrist, must have bought her degree on Rodeo Drive when she got her hand bag, explaining, “There’s a reason this kind of VR is illegal. There are a whole host of risks. ‘Wasting’–basically starving while plugged in—that’s just the most common. Empathic death is not unheard of and that’s what we have here. Most of the programs are set up so that a VR death doesn’t have these kinds of physical repercussions but these things still happen—the program in this case might have been tampered with for super-realism, like a hot-shot of heroin, primed in a way that made it likely–”

  “Shut that bitch up,” Candle said.

  “Where’s the mouse? There’s a mouse in the mess. Here it is.” He clicked the old PC off. “My mom used to say bitch stands for Bold Intelligent Tenacious Courageous and Honest.” He seemed to droop on his foot-rest, shoulders slumped. Paler than usual. “That’s the fucking end of me. End of Danny is end of me because it’s end of hope, hode, and this is where I’m clicked, right here, in this fucking place and no place else, ain’t going no-place–”

  “Shut up,” Candle said, stepping toward him. Standing over him.

  Spanx looked up at him, leaned back. Fear and defiance and resignation taking turns in his face. “What?”

  “I said shut up.” Candle realized he was trembling. He didn’t want to take anything out on Spanx. But it was going to be hard not to. “You were around him, at least some of the time, the last four years. You with your sick little brain implants. You did nothing to help him. Don’t whine to me about him dying when you let him die.”

  “Hey ya troll, where were you today, you had charge of him, and you’re, like, all, his fucking brother–”

  The gun just sort of appeared in Candle’s hand. He wasn’t sure how it got there. And he wasn’t sure how it got to be pressed against Spanx’s forehead.

  “Go ahead,” Spanx said, in a small voice.

  Candle’s trigger finger twitched. But the gun’s safety was on.

  He decided to leave it on. He let out a long breath, and put the gun back in his inner coat pocket. “I’m not doing you any favors. What I might do, is pull all your teeth out so you got to gum your food. Now you tell me, where’s the software Danny had from Maeterling. About semblant identification.”

  “He told you about that? We were going to go into business. We were going to be rich. Flowin’ millions, if we’re willin’.”

  “He told more people than me. I got a guy in the department.” He was going through all his money, bribing Gustafson. “Says Danny told Rack Nidd something that got Rack to call the Slakon people in.”

  “So ask him, ask Rack fuckin’ Nidd about it, that skanky wanx ...”

  “Cops killed Rack. Trying to ‘escape’. They took everything out of there. Maybe Danny had the stick on him, maybe now they got it. But he was pretty paranoid when he had something valuable—I figure he stashed it somewhere. Could be here.”

  Spanx shook his head sadly. “Rack Nidd? He was going to do a deal with him? We were going to be flowin’ millions ...”

  Candle bent over, picked up the PC and threw it across the room. It smashed noisily.

  “Hey!” Spanx yelped. “Fuckin thugflesh!”

  “Now pay attention. Is it here?”

  “The software? No—search the shitter-shatter if you want. He had it here but I didn’t know it. In
a box in my closet. Then he took it with him. Made a stop to see that wrinkle bag over in Rooftown before the concert ...”

  “So it’s there? Where was Danny staying exactly in Rooftown. I mean exactly. He mentioned some sinkitty over there. Who was it?”

  “Bev Boviet, she’s all, like a nasty old whiny witch of a–”

  “Okay, get up, we’re going over there.”

  “You want that software for yourself? So you can sell it, right-ski? It’s partly mine too, Danny said–”

  “Nobody’s going to sell it, forget that, it’s not going to happen. I want it because Grist wanted it. It gives me information and it gives me leverage. Now get your ass up.”

  “But the Matriarch’s got it on lock down now, big Candle brudder.”

  “What the fuck does that mean, she’s got a lock down?”

  “Means there was immigration agents sneakin’ in there asking questions and grabbin’ people. And she thinks that someone’s been cuttin’ underneath on the undercarriage, trying to undermine it, like. So it’s not full-on open now, you got to get permish-wish, and they ain’t lettin’ you in there, me maybe, but not you—I could go in without you–”

  “Not going to happen. I’ve heard something about the Matriarch. Woman runs Rooftown, like their justice of the peace and mayor or something?”

  “She’s the Matriarch. She stands back most of the time. They come to her with problems. She decides. But now it’s on lockdown, you got to go through her.”

  “Get up. We’re going to get a drink. Two drinks, fast. And then we’re going.”

  “You buying? I had to spend most my money getting a signaler on ...”

  “I’m buying.” Candle was feeling a little guilty about punking this pallid broomstick-skinny musician. And he needed a drink.

  “Then fuck me blue, let’s ex.”

  GOT TO USE A HAMMER, PREFER BALL PEEN THAT’S WHAT WE NEED FOR

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  “Targer?”

  “Yes Mr. Grist ...”

  “I want you to meet me in El Segundo. There’s a warehouse there ... Bring a flashlight, the juice hasn’t been turned on.”

  Targer was in his office, looking at Grist’s image staring up at him from the top of his desk. Grist, Targer could see, was in his bedroom, in a black silk dressing robe, sitting in a chair beside his bed, gazing into—it might have been any kind of visual communications interface. Behind Grist, a woman Targer guessed to be Grist’s new personal “assistant” was straightening up a rumpled bed. She wore red satin lingerie. Kind of tacky, that lingerie, but that’s what Targer thought Grist was like, behind the veneer—tacky. Grist glanced back at her. “No need for you to do that, babe, there’s a housekeeper here, you know. I pay her good money. She’ll get it later.”

  “I know, I just like to keep things straightened up ...”

  Looks convincing, Targer thought. But still—there was some question of an unauthorized Grist semblant around. Is this call a semblant image, complete with the girlfriend? They did have back-grounding programs; could render believable subsidiary bot images of other people in the frame. But Grist dug a finger in his ear as he gave Targer the exact address, something you’d never see a semblant do. People generally edited their tics and bad habits out.

  “A warehouse in ... El Segundo?” Targer said doubtfully, noting down the address. “Are you sure, sir?”

  “Oh don’t sound so surprised, Targer. I can’t talk about the whole thing on this line. And I don’t want you to report this to anyone. I am not about to trust anyone but you ... Thank you, my dear ...” This last as a girl, a very attractive Pacific Island woman, perhaps Fijian, brought Grist a drink, probably cognac, in a brandy glass. “Oh and make sure of this: I want you to come alone.”

  “Alone? Why–?”

  “Targer?” Grist leaned closer to the cam. “You’re my head of security. Stop being such a pussy and meet me there in an hour and a half. I have something to show you—something that’ll prove that Candle is part of this semblant robbery and the attack on Sykes. This is all an inside job—far worse than we realized. Now get off your ass and come. I don’t trust anyone in the LAPD either so when I say alone I mean alone. And I mean PiP.”

  Before Targer could confirm, Grist broke the connection.

  Targer thought about it—then called Grist, to confirm that all was on the up and up. Confirm that was really him calling and not a semblant. He wanted to ask him, anyway, if he should just give the go-ahead to their Rooftown operatives. Grist wanted to buy that part of town for a new office development.

  Grist answered in his bedroom, with voice activated response, sitting with his back to the camera. “Yes, what is it?” He was looking down at something; his body was turned just enough so that Targer could make the edge of someone’s head bobbing over Grist’s lap.

  “Uh—nothing sir. See you at the meeting.”

  And Targer hastily broke the connection.

  The undercarriage was dripping.

  Candle was walking along a wobbly catwalk behind Spanx, who was chattering, “We’re under the under, under the under. . . but we’re above the above because we’re higher than some roofs ... but we’re under the under because we’re under the underside ...”

  They were “under the underside” of the main Rooftown support. Candle feeling cold, up here, way above the street, where chill winds blew. It’d be funny if Rooftown chose this moment to collapse. Would be suitable in a way, really.

  But he’d crawl out of the debris, all busted up, and crawl into a hole, and heal, and find Grist. He’d live through anything he had to, to get it done.

  They came to a gate made out of hurricane fencing, with a big padlock on the other side gleaming in the light of two electric lanterns hanging from their “ceiling”, the haphazard underpinning of Rooftown.

  A woman approached, on the other side of the gate; she wore a hooded yellow rain slicker; her face was hidden in shadows except the tip of her nose, like a bird’s beak sticking out; and the way her long skinny legs, in orange tights, stuck out below the yellow slicker, reminded Candle of something he’d seen in early childhood. His mother had kept a toy from her own childhood ...

  “Which toy do you mean, Ricky? Oh that’s Big Bird, hon ... And by the way, Ricky, why did you let my babychild Danny die? I left you in charge of him!”

  You shouldn’t have left me in charge of him, Mom. You shouldn’t have left either of us. You should’ve faced how fucked up life was and not rolled off away from us inside a fucking bottle.

  “Couldn’t. Just couldn’t. But you were stronger ... I trusted you to be stronger ... why didn’t you take care of him?”

  I did for years. I tried, I even went to jail to protect him, but then ... I turned my back for one moment and ...

  “I was counting on you, Ricky ... Yeah that’s Big Bird ...”

  “What you two want?” Big Bird said.

  Candle thought: I’m fucking losing it.

  Aloud he said, “Looking to meet the Matriarch. Ask her permission to enter. Looking for some property belonging to my late brother. He was squatting here with a friend.”

  “And who’d your brother be?” came the voice from the unseen face in the slick yellow hood.

  “Danny Candle.”

  “Not on the list of the Matriarch’s favorites.”

  “No doubt. He could be a dick. He’s dead now. I’m just ... cleaning up after him.”

  “The Matriarch doesn’t like loose ends ...”

  But you people live in one big loose end, Candle thought.

  “... so maybe she’ll see you. Hold on.”

  “Big Bird” went away into the shadows. Candle held onto a plastic-fiber hand-rope for the catwalk, and waited with Spanx who was hugging himself against the surging wind, muttering: “Great and Terrible Oz don’t see no fucking body. But maybe, maybe ... maybe baby ...”

  Someone was moving above them, in the shadowy horizontal rafters connecting vertical girders; in
the trestle hammered and bent into place, supporting the undercarriage. A bottle, half full of yellow liquid, was flipped down past them, from up there, just missing the catwalk, whirling as it went on to crash invisibly in the mottled darkness below. Candle smelled piss as it went by. Someone had thrown a piss bottle at them.

  Candle put his hand on the gun in his coat, thinking maybe he could fire a few rounds close to one of those shadows, not necessarily hit anything ...

  But he drew his hand back. The Matriarch wouldn’t like it.

  His neck had a crick from several minutes of craning upward, watching for more bottles so he could sidestep them, when there was a rattling at the gate and a click, a lock undone, and they were ushered through by Big Bird and a stocky Hispanic woman, all Levis jacket, jeans and boots, with her head shaved; fading blue amateur tattoos on the sides of the woman’s head. Elaborate tag lettering he couldn’t read.

  He saw that both women now carried shotguns. They stood on either side of him, looking him over. “Weapons?” the shorter woman asked.

  “A pistol in my coat,” Candle replied. “I carry it everywhere. I’ll take it out and check it with you,” he added, slowly reaching into his coat.

  He felt something jab his belly and he looked down to see the Hispanic woman’s shotgun muzzle poking into him. “Even more slowly, and carefully.”

  He nodded; very slowly and carefully, he took out the gun, passed it over to her.

  “Hold still,” Big Bird said. “Lupe, you better pat him down too.”

  “I ain’t no duh-taunt, here, girl.” Lupe pocketed his pistol, and held the shotgun down by her side while with the other hand she expertly patted him and Spanx down.

  “Most action I got all year,” Spanx said.

  “Shut up,” Big Bird said.

  “Yeah shut up, Spanx, for Christ’s sake,” Candle said.

  “People always tellin’ me that.”

  “These two seem clean,” Lupe announced. “Okay, follow me.”

  Candle and Spanx followed the stocky bald Lupe, Big Bird bringing up the rear, shotgun at ready.