Dark Heart

by Margaret Weis;David Baldwin

  His twice-broken nose wrinkled as, lowering his arm, he got a whiff of himself. The day showed no signs of winding down any time soon. He shrugged his coat higher on his shoulders, pulled out a cigarette, and patted his chest and rounded belly in his perennial absentminded search for a light. He carried both matches and a lighter, and could never seem to find either.

  “Where the fuck…?” he mumbled around the cigarette, the bitter taste of unsmoked tobacco floating across his tongue. His glum expression brightened: “Ahh…”

  He reached into an inside pocket of his rumpled jacket, pulled out a cheap green Bic lighter, brought it to his mouth and flicked. Orange and gold light reflected on his rain-slick face from the mercury-vapor streetlights overhead. His thin lips tightened around the cigarette as he took a long drag. In the harsh, chemical light he looked a hundred years old.

  A moment later he spotted what he was looking for: a huge neon sign at the end of the block. Light flared from it, staining the concrete walls of the nearby buildings with color, lacing the puddles on the sidewalk with stripes of blue and green. Gwendolyne’s Flight, written in some nearly unreadable script only a sign maker could love. Apparently the crowd stretching along the sidewalk behind velvet ropes, all of them waiting to get into the club, already knew where they were. None of them even bothered to look at the neon words. Or maybe they couldn’t read…

  Stupid fucking name for a nightclub, Madrone thought.

  A gleaming black stretch limo pulled up in front of the club and a picture-perfect plastic couple clambered out, grinning toothily at the envious peons getting soaked behind the rope. The man wore an open blue Armani blazer over wide shoulders bulked up by steroids and sculpted by years of pumping iron. His movements were grandiose and sweeping as he waited for the driver to open the door for his date. When the woman emerged, long legs first, she wore a skirt so short she shouldn’t even have bothered. Or maybe that was the bother. Madrone craned for a glimpse, but she scissored the goody gate closed and pranced on into the club. A taxi full of giggling, half-buzzed college girls pulled up behind the stretch, and the hack leaned on the horn for it to move out of his way.

  He watched the frenetic scene, shaking his head. He’d never understand the attraction of this hyped-up, rich-blood club scene. Everybody was so impatient, hell-bent to impress the rest of the assholes, spending their nights sharing insults and drugs—coke for the hopelessly old-fashioned, and designer dope for the new-wave trendoids. Maybe, he thought, you had to be high to understand it. But his own dope was Jack Daniels or Budweiser, and he couldn’t afford the price in joints like these.

  Still, he could remember standing in line right in this neighborhood, thirty years ago, waiting to get into Coach Ditka’s club, back when Da Bears ruled Chicago…

  He walked down the street toward the club. That little fucker better not have lied to me…

  As he pushed through the mob, he thought about Maxie. He’d turned him snitch about a year ago, busted him on some chickenshit possession rap, then arranged for the charges to go away. In exchange for a little verbal blow job every once in a while. But it didn’t make any sense. Not really. Not unless the white-powder shit itself made sense, and it didn’t either. Not for Maxie.

  Maxie was born and raised rich. He’d had everything he’d ever wanted or needed, and he’d pissed it away going down on dope. In a way, he supposed he should feel sorry for the little punk, but you couldn’t build a network of shitheads by feeling sorry for them.

  Still, there were definite downsides to these pathetic, necessary arrangements. Like the fact that Maxie’s brain was fried. It was well and good to have snitches, but how much could you trust the perceptions of a kid who only dropped by reality for the occasional visit, and never stayed long?

  Better not be one of your brain burps, Maxie, you little fuck, Jack thought as he reached a doorman who looked like he’d been an extra in Clan of the Cave Bear. He inhaled sharply, then coughed at the throat-grating unfiltered smoke as he waited for the hired muscle to notice him.

  “Twenty-dollar cover,” the bouncer said, scowling at Jack’s appearance. Jack decided the Army-surplus jacket and white T-shirt he was wearing was probably not their normal fare. Not unless you were wearing a gold Rolex, and he wasn’t.

  “Hey, pal, the shirt’s almost clean,” Jack said. “Like I give a damn.”

  The bouncer’s face closed up like a bucket of concrete. “Outta here,” he grunted, jerking his thumb at the far reaches of the sidewalk.

  Jack grinned, dug out his badge case, and flashed the tin. “How about a free pass, asshole? Ya know, civic pride, help out the city. Like that?”

  The bouncer looked at the badge, then grudgingly moved aside. Jack grinned at him again, tapped him lightly on one massive shoulder, and moved on into a kaleidoscope of whirling lights and raucous music. An immense round room opened up before him. The entrance led onto a pipe-railed balcony that overlooked the main floor. Daze-eyed celebrants leaned on the bright blue railing, sipping their drinks, mesmerized by the dancers below. Lights played over the dancers. Pinks and blues changed to reds and oranges as spotlights washed over the crowd of writhing people. The music was so loud it made the floor thump beneath his feet. The vibrations went straight to his balls. Not bad, he thought, but not worth twenty bucks.

  He walked over to the railing, shoved some scrawny fag skinhead aside, and planted his elbows on the pipe.

  “Hey!”

  He turned and grinned at the fag. “Yeah?”

  Or maybe he wasn’t grinning after all, because the fag stared at him, his pale face suddenly going even paler. “Uh…forget it.”

  “Yeah, you will,” Madrone said, turning back to study the gyrating maelstrom below. It reminded him of funny old pictures he’d seen in the Chicago Art Institute, huge canvases by long-dead Italians, with ugly devils tormenting pits full of sinners as the flames licked up around them.

  So he was looking for a camel jockey named Omar, according to Maxie the madman. On the face of it, the idea that a psycho killer would blurt out confessional gibberish about his crimes to a bartender sounded idiotic. But as Madrone peered through the flashing haze in the direction of the garishly back-lit bar on the main floor, he thought about the stupidity of evil. Of assholes who couldn’t wait to melt their brains with booze or smoke or powder, the better to babble of their lunatic doings to anybody who would listen. He remembered one pussball, took after his old lady with a two-pound roofing sledge because she burned the TV dinners, then walked down to the local slophole to show his buddies the murder weapon. And had it sitting on the bar next to his Budweiser when they busted him. If not for stupidity, he thought, I wouldn’t close half my cases.

  Nick, he thought. The bartender is named Nick. If Maxie isn’t totally out of his gourd. He paused to let his eyes adjust to the light before he muscled his way to the balcony bar.

  “What’cha need?” the bartender shouted over the din, up to his elbows in dirty glasses as customers screamed at him for refills. Beads of sweat gleamed on his high forehead.

  “I’m looking for Nick,” Madrone shouted back.

  “Not working tonight.”

  Madrone nodded. “So how do I find him? I’ve got the money I owe him.” Madrone gave a tobacco-stained grin and flashed a wrinkled wad of cash. Doper-style money, in small, greasy denominations.

  The bartender’s eyes narrowed.

  “Listen, pal. He’s gotta keep his biz outta here. That means you, bud.” The booze jockey paused, then shrugged. “He works Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays. Down in the main bar. You can catch him then. But maybe better outside somewhere. Not in here.”

  “Okay, cool,” Madrone said.

  “Don’t mention it,” the bartender said. He sounded like he meant it. Really. Don’t mention it.

  Madrone shook his head and moved away from the bar. He took the stairs down to the main floor and fought his way through the jiggling crowd to the tables under the balcony, where expensiv
ely dressed couples ate overpriced food shaped like surreal little sculptures, shared tastes of party drugs Madrone figured were two steps ahead of the latest DEA lists, and watched the dancers. It took him a few seconds to find what he was looking for. The door said EMPLOYEES ONLY. He pushed on through and barged into the kitchen.

  He nodded at the prep cooks and sous-chefs, who looked at him in confusion. The time clock was in the back, next to a scarred steel exit door. He flipped through the cards, looking at the names on them. Only one Nick. Nicholas Seder, in the section marked BAR. Bingo.

  He plucked several time cards out of the slots. No sense in making it obvious who he was looking for. Nick’s card didn’t give an address, but that was all right. A full name and a social security number were good enough. Thank God for modern technology. It made a cop’s life one hell of a lot easier.

  “Hey! Who the fuck are you?”

  Madrone turned. It was a short, plump, balding chef in kitchen whites, puffed up like a bantam rooster.

  “No customers allowed back here,” the little fat man said, his bushy eyebrows furrowed together. For some reason he reminded Madrone of a warped bunny rabbit. A bunny rabbit nervously clutching a meat cleaver.

  “No sweat, okay, pal?” Madrone said. He pocketed the time cards and headed for the back door.

  “Hey, you can’t take those—”

  With the heel of his hand, Madrone punched the square horizontal bar that was the locked door’s emergency opening mechanism. His action sounded an alarm, but the thing popped open like a kid’s jack-in-the-box. He walked out into the alley and let the door thump closed between him and Chef Rabbit. He heard the turn of a key in a lock. The screech of the alarm fell silent. He grinned. The Rabbit’s courage clearly stopped short of chasing him into the night for a bunch of time cards.

  He smiled, patted the cards in his pocket, and started walking.

  It had started to rain again.

  Fuck!

  A stream of water pouring off the roof splashed down his collar and soaked his shirt. He yanked at his jacket. Great. Just great. Now his back was soaked, and he was freezing to death. Chicago. Fucking great.

  Rain plastered his unkempt hair to his scalp and ran down into his eyes, making him blink. Thunder boomed and lightning scratched sudden bright claws across the sky. He turned up the soggy collar of his coat as far as it would go and headed down the alley toward the misty lights of Dearborn Street.

  Despite his discomfort, Madrone felt pretty decent. Nick Seder, bartender, actually existed. He wasn’t just a figment of Maxie’s demented psyche. So maybe the mysteriously talkative Omar existed, too.

  He’d just about written the Wheeler case off. Maybe, if this continued to pan out, he’d take Maxie out for a cup of coffee. Or give him a full freebie on his next bust…

  A scraping sound, low and rain-muffled, rattled the wet concrete at his rear. He spun around, looking behind him.

  Nothing. Sheets of rain, gray building walls, the restaurant’s trash Dumpsters, and grimy, grease-stained cement. He stood for a moment, back stiffening, staring wide-eyed down the empty alley.

  The scrape sounded again. What the fuck? That sound had been sharp, close—right in front of him. But he couldn’t see a damned thing. Suddenly uneasy, he flipped open his coat, slipped his right hand inside to rest on the butt of the .38 Chief’s Special riding his belt.

  Across the alley from him, their straight lines blurred by the wind-whipped rain, two Dumpsters were backed up against the wall of a building. He stared at them. Was that a flicker of movement? Maybe…

  He moved toward them.

  “You in there, asshole?” He paused. “Let me see you!”

  He took one last step, got his back against the Dumpster’s side, and whipped his gun up. He spun and crouched low as he took a shooter’s stance, aiming his weapon at the space behind the Dumpster.

  Nothing.

  All he could hear was the sound of the rain hitting the pavement…and the thump of his heart suddenly beating faster.

  He grabbed the lid of the Dumpster, flung it up and over with a grunt, then stepped back. He wasn’t sure what he expected—some wino seeking shelter from the storm, maybe—but there was nothing. Only the reek of rotting garbage.

  He looked into the container. Nothing moved, not even one of those rats the size of German shepherds that infested the alleys near the river. He eased up slightly and stepped back, but the uneasiness twanging the knots of his spine wouldn’t go away.

  Maybe the rain was carrying strange sounds. He’d read about shit like that. Could the noises have come from the kitchen where he’d left Chef Rabbit?

  He pulled a small flashlight from his coat pocket and looked around. He picked up a stick and rummaged carefully through the flattened liquor boxes, broken bottles, day-old food, and coffee grounds. He leaned further in and pushed some of it aside.

  “What the hell…?” Leaning down, bracing his waist against the sill of the Dumpster’s edge, he dug further, got a solid hold on the thing, and pulled it up from where it was wedged between two heavy black plastic sacks. It seemed to be an animal skin. The weight of the thing was incredible. He hauled the skin out of the Dumpster.

  In his time he’d smelled it all, everything from dead dogs to water-logged corpses boiling with plump, pale maggots. But he choked at the stench of this thing, whatever the hell it was. He turned his head away for a moment and took a couple of deep breaths. What in the hell was this?

  Almost like rotting fish, but not exactly. He took a step back and swallowed a wad of puke trying to crawl up into his throat. He put the skin down, wiped his hands off on his coat, and then wished he hadn’t.

  Looking around, he spotted what he needed. He wrinkled his nose, holstered his weapon, picked the skin up, and carried it over to the faucet set into the building wall. He turned the valve and clear, clean water poured out. He knelt and washed his hands and the skin in the steady stream.

  Standing again, he held the skin out and shook the water off it. It was heavy, maybe thirty, forty pounds. It looked like one of those suits dancers wore when they wanted to fool you into thinking they were naked. Except that this wasn’t Lycra or any kind of cloth he’d ever heard of. This was real skin. Scaly skin. But like some giant reptile. Some kind of animal.

  So who was skinning weird animals in the alley behind a fancy nightclub? One of the chefs? Must be a hell of a menu in there…

  He bent over the soggy thing, nose twitching. The Dumpster stench was mostly gone, leaving it smelling like what it actually was. The odor was strong and memorable, very strange, but with overtones that were also familiar. Underneath the rot, there was a scent of something he knew, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on what it was. Something like burnt oil…he arranged it on the sides and top of the closed Dumpster and leaned closer to get a good look at it.

  Madrone heard the scraping sound again and whirled to face it, his back against the Dumpster. The bulky skin slid down and hit the blacktop with a wet smacking sound, like some monstrous kiss.

  The noise had been right behind him this time. But there was nothing there! There wasn’t anything to hide behind. Madrone looked around, feeling like some over-hyped idiot, even checking the sky above him and everything he could see up and down the alley. Rain blurred his vision, but he caught a glimpse of movement near the edge of the building at the far end of the alley, just off Dearborn.

  “Hey!” He pointed his gun in that direction with one hand, holding the flashlight out to his side with his other hand. “Don’t move!”

  He felt even more like an idiot. Don’t move what? There was nothing there…

  He walked to the end of the alley, found nothing. He swallowed. He could feel sweat dripping from the pores of his scalp to join the rain streaming down his face.

  Again, he heard a scraping sound right behind him. He spun around, weapon ready. His eyes flicked back and forth, but he couldn’t see anything through the rain. That same strong scent th
at he almost recognized filled the air. It reminded him of the Chinese greasy spoon he always had to walk by to get to Mandy’s Grill.

  Scumbags were scumbags. Mostly they knew not to stalk cops. Unless they were nutzo. But a handful of times, it had happened to him. Not often, and he was still around to talk about it. Still…

  He had fired his gun seven times in the line of duty.

  This was different. He couldn’t see anything, but he knew he wasn’t alone. Something else was here with him. He could sense its animosity, the hot stink of its concentrated regard.

  Something was stalking him. And all his years of experience and training weren’t turning the tables. He stood frozen, basting in his own sweat, his nostrils filled with that bizarre stink.

  And then he laughed. A short, ugly, mocking sound. “Yeah, right,” he muttered. Bad dreams. What the fuck? Acting like some five year old, wetting his Jockey shorts over the monster in the closet.

  He took a deep breath. He holstered his gun and walked back to the skin. Except for the patter of rain, the alley was silent.

  He stared at the waterlogged pile. So what did he have here? Something for the morgue? Or for a veterinarian?

  Suddenly he wanted a tall glass of Jack Daniels, and to hell with the ice. Whatever this thing had been, it hadn’t been human. So it wasn’t a homicide. But he’d never seen or heard of an animal with a skin like this. He stared at it some more.

  All cops are curious. He knew he was, though he would never admit it. No point in making an asshole of himself by calling in backup for a weird skin. But there were people he could call quietly. Bigdomes at the University of Chicago, maybe.

  He thought some more, then squatted down, grunting softly as his knees cracked. He balled up the heavy skin and tucked it beneath his left arm, leaving his right free to draw his weapon. Not that he thought he would need to.

  He was still jittery. The mouth of the alley seemed to be a block away. The distant lights of Dearborn were part of the normal world, a world where you didn’t hear noises that came from nowhere. That was where he needed to be. Not here, in an empty, rain-washed alley that stank like an open grave.