Intercut with a distorted, digitized image of Chick singing the lyrics was footage of two naked people making love in slow motion on a sagging mattress. The faces were hidden by shadow, but Paula knew who the people were: herself and Chick. Sweat glistened on skin, on breasts and arms and thighs, reflecting orange and yellow light. She hadn’t known he was filming them at the time. He hadn’t asked, because he knew she would have refused. But once it was done, and mixed into the video, what could she say? No one would know who it was, and the footage was effective. Damn effective.
She was crying again. Soft and quiet now. God damn, she missed him.
The song ended, and then there was a close-up of Chick’s face, looking directly at her. Paula knew what was coming, and so the ache drove into her chest again. Chick silently mouthed the words, “I love you,” and then his digitized image began to slowly, slowly come apart.
“I’ll find out who killed you,” she said to his disintegrating image. “I will, Chick.”
And then what? No idea. Paula was sure that justice was not going to be easy to come by. It might even be impossible. No promises, Carlucci had said to her. Was she trying to make promises to a dead man?
The last bits of Chick’s face disappeared, leaving behind a random scattering of light and shadow. Paula stopped the player, turned off the TV.
“All right,” she said to the blank screen. “No promises.” Paula lay back in the chair, closed her eyes, and tried to ease away the pain.
PART TWO
SEVEN
CARLUCCI WAS DREAMING. He was on a train to Seattle, and had just realized something was terribly wrong, when a phone started ringing somewhere on the train. He couldn’t see the phone, but it seemed to be getting closer, louder with each ring, and then he realized he was dreaming and the phone was his own, pulling and dragging him out of the dream.
The train shook and broke apart and Carlucci opened his eyes. The phone beside the bed rang again. The clock said 3:25 a.m. Fuck. He was still half back in the dream, only barely awake. When he was younger he came awake almost instantly. Another ring and he grabbed for the phone, picked it up, put it against his head.
“Yeah?”
“Frank, this is Pete. Sorry to wake you up.”
Oh, shit. “What is it, Pete?”
“You’re going to want to see this one, Frank.”
“Who’s the victim?”
“I’d rather not say. Let me give you the address.”
“All right, hold on a sec.” Carlucci swung his legs over the side of the bed and sat up, turned on the tiny nightstand lamp, picked up the pen and pad beside it. “Fire away.”
It was an address in Pacific Heights, but it wasn’t familiar. Carlucci repeated the address back to LaPlace, then took down the phone number.
“Is Joseph there with you?”
“Yeah,” LaPlace said. “He’s going through the place right now with Porkpie.”
“Good. Okay, I’ll be right out. See you in a few minutes.”
Carlucci hung up the phone and remained seated on the edge of the bed, still trying to wake up. He felt old.
“Who was that?” Andrea asked, her voice little more than a mumble.
“Pete.” He looked over at her, but she was on her side, facing away from him. Usually she slept through his middle-of-the-night phone calls.
“Somebody dead?” she asked.
Carlucci almost laughed. “Yeah, of course.” He expected her to ask who, but she didn’t say anything. “I was dreaming,” he said. Andrea mumbled something. “I was on a train to Seattle. I’d thought I could take the train to Seattle, do some business, then take the train back in time for dinner the same day. Once I was on the train, I realized I’d badly miscalculated, that it took twenty hours to get to Seattle. Then the phone rang and I woke up.”
“You can’t take a train from here to Seattle,” Andrea said. “You have to go over to Oakland.”
“I know that,” Carlucci said. “It was a dream.” He realized then that Andrea was still half asleep. “I’ve got to go,” he said. He got up from the bed. “I’ll be back when I can.”
“Is somebody dead?” Andrea asked again.
“Yes,” Carlucci said. “Somebody’s dead.”
Carlucci had to show his police ID to get through the security checkpoint and drive into the Rio Grande section of Pacific Heights, which turned his foul mood even blacker. Rio Grande, what a crock. The only running water in Pacific Heights was in the water mains and sewers. Carlucci hated the whole setup—the residents had put together a self-appointed council and talked and bribed the city into selling them the public roads in the Rio Grande section so they could put up their own checkpoints, hire their own security forces, and keep out the “undesirables.” Two other parts of the city had done the same thing since, and several more were working on it.
Carlucci parked several houses down from the address LaPlace had given him and remained in the car a minute, looking over the street. It was still dark, without even a hint of the coming dawn. Two unmarked police cars, a black-and-white, the coroner’s van, and a Rio Grande Security car were all congregated in front of a beautiful three-story Victorian house, its windows lit up. All the other homes on the street were dark, but Carlucci thought he could make out movement in some of the windows—morbid curiosity tugged at the wealthy, too.
He got out of the car and walked up to the brightly lit Victorian. A Rio Grande Security guard stopped him on the porch, then let him through after he again showed his ID. Carlucci was ready to chew someone’s nose off.
Just inside the front door, bare feet swinging about eye level with the three cops standing around it, the blood-streaked body of a naked man hung from the stair railing above the entryway, neck impaled on a huge, sharp metal hook; a long, thin spike ran through his belly and emerged from his spine. Carlucci stared up at the dead man’s face for a minute, but couldn’t place it. It didn’t even look familiar. It also didn’t look happy—undamaged, but in agony, eyes and mouth both open wide.
Hong was one of the cops. Mason, the coroner’s assistant, was another. Both men were smoking. Carlucci didn’t recognize the third, a woman uniform.
“Jesus,” Carlucci said. He looked at Hong. “Who is he, Joseph?”
“Robert Butler.”
Robert Butler? Then it hit him, and he realized why LaPlace had called him. Robert Butler was one of the names on the Prime Level Feed given to the slugs on the mayor’s nephew’s case. Business partner or something like that.
Carlucci stepped around Butler’s body, toward the uniform, and put out his hand, gaze flicking back and forth between her and the body. Butler had been in good shape, maybe even handsome. Hard to tell with that look on his face. “Lieutenant Carlucci,” he said.
The uniform shook his hand. “Officer Martha Tretorn,” she said. “My partner and I were first-on-scene.”
“Tretorn,” Carlucci said, looking at her. “I’ve heard good things about your work.”
She gave him just a touch of a smile, said, “Thank you, sir.”
“Where’s Pete?” he asked, looking at Hong.
“In the first-floor flat,” he said, gesturing down the hall at a closed door. “Talking to the woman who found the body. Butler owned the building, lived on the upper two floors, and rented out the first. The woman found him. On her way out, or in—there seems to be some ‘confusion’ over that.”
“She doesn’t know whether she was coming home or going out when she found the body?” Carlucci said.
Hong nodded. “Let’s just say the story is in a state of flux. I couldn’t get much from her; she didn’t seem to want to talk to me.” Hong gave Carlucci a hard smile. “Wrong kind of eyes, I think. That’s why Pete’s with her now.”
“Hey,” Mason broke in. “Can we take him down now? Porkpie’s got all the pictures. They wanted me to wait until you got here so you could see him.” Mason grinned. “They probably wanted you to see the schlong this guy has. Pretty fucking am
azing, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” Carlucci said, not smiling. “Amazing.” He shook his head, then nodded. “Sure, Mason, take him down. Where’s Porkpie?”
“Upstairs, on another run-through of Butler’s place.”
“All right, Joseph, let’s go up. You’ve been through it once?” Hong nodded, and Carlucci said, “You can give me a rundown, then.” He turned to Tretorn. “Go ahead and help Mason get the body down,” he said. “You’ll love working with him. He’s a lot of laughs.”
Again, that touch of a* smile from Tretorn. “I’ve noticed, sir. I’ll be glad to help.”
Carlucci and Hong climbed the wooden steps, followed by Mason and Tretorn, who would have to work on getting the body down from the top of the stairs. As Carlucci and Hong reached the open door, Tretorn said, “Lieutenant?”
“Yes?”
“My partner’s inside with the crime-scene techs. Sinclair. Could you send her out to give us a hand?”
“Sure.” Sinclair. He knew that name. What had he heard about her? But then, entering the hall and looking toward the kitchen, where Sinclair stood in the doorway, he remembered. Sinclair was a stunning woman about six foot four, with long blonde hair tied at the base of her neck and hanging halfway down her back.
“Sinclair?” Carlucci said. The tall blonde turned to him. “Tretorn needs a hand out there.” Sinclair nodded and walked past them and out of the apartment.
Carlucci stuck his head into the kitchen. One of the crime-scene techs was on her hands and knees, picking up something with tweezers. Porkpie was sitting on a stool at the counter, smoking a cigarette. He shook his head at Carlucci, which meant he was working, thinking about something, and shouldn’t be disturbed. Which was fine with Carlucci. Porkpie was the department’s top crime-scene tech. Carlucci backed out of the kitchen and gestured for Hong to join him in a room off the hall, which turned out to be a library. All the walls were covered by bookcases; there was a large work desk and chair, and two reading chairs.
“Joseph, how did you and Pete get called in on this? Not just coincidence, is it?”
Hong smiled. “No. Pete and I got McCuller to let us put a tracer into the system, keyed to all the names, addresses, and phone numbers on the Prime Level Feed. Anything that would come up on any of those people, even a parking ticket, would trigger a call. When Butler’s address came up on the 911 call, Minsky called us in. We weren’t far behind Tretorn and Sinclair. We held off until we had a pretty firm ID on Butler, then Pete called you.”
Carlucci nodded, said, “Good work, Joseph. Look, I haven’t had a chance to go through all the Feed text yet; all I did Friday was take a run at the names. What’s Butler’s connection to the nephew? Something about business dealings, right?”
“Yes. They owned several companies together. An investment firm, another that does bio-implant research, a pharmaceutical distributor, and the largest recruiting company in the city.”
“Recruiters? The vans?”
Hong nodded. “Yes, that kind of recruiting. Scumbuckets. The companies have been indicted several times.”
“Ah,” Carlucci said, interest rising. “What for?”
“Securities fraud. Attempted bribery. Data theft. Twice for false imprisonment.”
“False imprisonment because of what the recruiters were doing?”
“Yep.”
“Let me guess,“ Carlucci said. “No convictions.”
“You got it.”
Carlucci nodded. “Big fucking surprise.” He glanced around the library, but didn’t see anything that immediately caught his eye. “All right, let’s go look around the place, show me what you and Porkpie found.”
As they moved from room to room, and from the second floor to the third, Carlucci tried comparing this residence to the penthouse apartment of the mayor’s nephew, and he was surprised at how different they were. Butler and the nephew may have been in business together, but as people they didn’t seem to be anything alike.
All the expensive high-tech equipment and gadgetry was here, just as it was in the nephew’s, from picture phones and A.V. Environments to computer links and reality-sims to slotters and ion poles in every room. There was even a similar security system, which had apparently been just as ineffective, now completely dead. But here everything was made or covered with natural colors and fabrics and expertly integrated with real wood and cloth and leather furniture, plaster walls, wood trim, nature-tone carpeting, and hundreds of books; various other objects, such as glasses, pens and notepads, vases and planters and candles, made the place look lived in. The nephew’s penthouse was cold, sterile, a metal-and-glass showcase. Robert Butler’s house was warm and comfortable—a home.
They were on the third floor, and had just entered a room set up for entertainment. There was a small sofa, two large foam chairs, and a huge video-and-sound system built into one wall.
“See what Porkpie found in here,” Hong said. He went to the video control panel, powered up the system, read from a piece of paper he’d taken out of his pocket, and punched a series of buttons. He tuned the monitor to a channel of static and video snow, then punched more buttons. The wall adjacent to the monitor gradually became transparent, revealing a huge wall safe surrounded by computer-driven access panels.
“Jesus Christ,” Carlucci said. “How in hell did Porkpie find this?”
Hong smiled. “You know Porkpie. He said he’s seen a few of these setups, and downstairs he found this taped to the bottom of the coffee maker.” Hong held up the piece of paper.
“Something just clicked in his head, he claims, and he started looking around for it. Fiddled with this until he figured what the numbers on the paper meant, and here we are.”
“That guy.” Carlucci shook his head, staring at the safe through the transparent section of wall. “I’d sure like to see what’s inside that thing.”
“Porkpie says getting into the safe is going to be a lot harder than finding it.”
“Yeah, no shit. Who’s that guy the department calls in, Collins?”
“Collier.”
“Right, Collier. Wonder how he’ll do with this.”
Hong shrugged, but didn’t say anything. They stood staring at the wall safe for a minute until LaPlace walked into the room and joined them.
“Brings tears, doesn’t it?” LaPlace said, gesturing at the safe.
“Only if we don’t get in,” Carlucci said. He turned to LaPlace. “So what’s with the woman?”
LaPlace shook his head. “Changing stories, that’s what. First she told Joseph she found the body on her way out. Then she said no, she didn’t mean that—she was shaken up, all that—she had been coming home when she found Butler. Where had she been? Real vague on that, who she was with, said it was her personal business, cha cha cha. I let it go for a while, but a little later on, she lets it slip again, that she was going out when she found him. I didn’t say a thing, and she didn’t realize she’d said it again. If I had to bet on it, I’d say she was on her way out when she found Butler.”
“What’s she worried about, if that’s the way it happened?” Carlucci wondered aloud.
“Maybe she doesn’t want to tell us where the fuck she was going at two o’clock in the morning,” LaPlace said. “Or how, if she was up and awake, getting ready to go out, she didn’t hear a thing while old Robert Butler was being gored and having a hook rammed through his neck. Couldn’t have been all that quiet. Anyway, we finally reached a point where she wasn’t going to say any more without her fucking lawyer. I told her she wasn’t a suspect, but she jammed up anyway.” He shook his head. “She’ll be in Monday with her attorney to make an official statement.” He shook his head again. “I didn’t see any point in pushing it, she wasn’t going to open up.”
“Anything else?”
LaPlace sighed. “No. She rented the first floor from Butler, but didn’t know anything about him. She paid her rent, he left her alone, he seemed like a nice guy, but she really didn’t know him,
cha cha cha. I don’t believe any of it, but that’s all she’d say. End of interview.”
“All right,” Carlucci said. “Christ, this is getting swampy on us. Think we can keep the connection between Butler and the mayor’s nephew quiet? Out of the news?”
“I don’t see why not,” Hong said. “The three of us are the only ones who know about it.”
“Good. Let’s try and keep it that way.” He shook his head. “All right, let’s wrap things up here. Do a quick chop on the reports, then go home. We’ll get together first thing Monday morning at Spades, see where we are.”
The sun was up by the time Carlucci pulled into the driveway. He shut off the engine, but remained in the car for a minute, looking at their house. It was a good home, well over a hundred years old, a little ragged in spots, but in fine shape. A good neighborhood, too, a small, tightly knit community for the most part, several blocks of families that watched out for each other. An island of security in the city. It had been a good place to raise their two daughters, and he hoped it would remain a good place to retire. Hard to know.
Carlucci got out of the car and walked up the steps to the front porch. No Sunday paper yet; too early. He unlocked the front door and went inside.
The house was quiet, almost silent. He stopped by Christina’s bedroom and looked in through the open door. The bed was a twisted, misshapen bundle of sheets, blanket, pillows, and his daughter. He could make out a shock of wavy hair up in one corner, and a bare ankle sticking out from the sheets at the foot of the bed. Another year or two and she would probably be moving out, just as her older sister had done. He didn’t want Christina to leave. Knowing Caroline didn’t have many years left, he wanted to hang onto Christina as long as he could, as though he might lose her too. Afraid to wake her, he mentally kissed her on the forehead and moved on down the hall.
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