Carlucci's Edge

by Richard Paul Russo

  “No, I’m fine. I know it sounds weird, but Saint Katherine and Saint Lucy are doing everything they can for me.”

  It was hard to believe, but Carlucci didn’t doubt Mixer. There was a lot more going on here than he understood. He knew that much. He also knew it was time to go.

  “Is there anything else?” he asked Mixer.

  Mixer shook his head. “This was just about Chick, at first,” he said. “That’s all. Paula and I wanted to find out who killed him, and why. But there’s more now. I want to see this whole fucking thing blown open. I want to know what the fuck is going on, and I want to see people pay. Anything I find out, I’ll let you know. I want you to do the same.”

  Carlucci stood up from the table, shaking his head. “I can’t promise that, Mixer.”

  “I know. Do what you can, though. Yeah?”

  Carlucci nodded. “I will.” Then, “I’ve got to go.”

  “Downstairs, Saint Lucy’s waiting. She’ll make sure you get out okay.”

  “If I see Paula before you do ”

  Mixer shook his head. “Don’t tell her you’ve seen me. I need to do that thing myself.”

  “All right.” Carlucci started to leave, then turned back to Mixer. “Take care of yourself.”

  Mixer smiled and nodded.

  TWENTY

  MIXER HAD PUT it off for days, but now he finally went by his apartment. It was only a couple of blocks from where he was staying with St. Katherine and St. Lucy, but it seemed much farther; he felt he was walking into the past. He still had his keys—the Saints had saved his things after the trial—and he used them and his code to get into the building. He passed on the elevator and climbed the three flights of stairs to the fourth floor.

  He didn’t need his keys to get into his apartment. The door was wide open. Christ, he thought, nobody had even bothered to shut the door, not even his neighbors. How long had it been like this? Days? A week?

  Inside, nothing. The place had been picked clean. Bits of trash lay on the floor, in the corners, but nothing else. No furniture, no books, no music, no clothes. In the kitchen was some rotting food, but no plates, no pots or pans. Even the refrigerator and stove, which came with the apartment, were gone. He was half surprised no one had ripped the cupboards from the walls and hauled those away.

  In the bathroom, too, everything was gone, medicine cabinet cleared out; even the toilet paper had been taken. Mixer sat on the closed lid of the toilet, staring out at the empty apartment. Everything he owned was gone. Vanished. He wondered if it had been the mayor’s ferrets who’d cleaned out the place, or scavengers descending on it once word got out that he was dead. Maybe both. It didn’t really matter.

  New life, he said to himself. St. Lucy was right. No more Mixer. Minor Danzig reborn.

  He sat, not moving, trying to imagine what it would be like.

  Mixer followed Paula for hours. He wasn’t sure why. Afraid to go up to her and tell her he was alive? Everything seemed different, changed; maybe he was afraid she had changed, too, changed so much she wouldn’t, or couldn’t, be his friend anymore. He’d wanted her to be more than a friend, though, after Chick died. Even before that. He’d never been able to tell her. That was all impossible now; he knew that. Probably always had been. Now there was Tremaine, and St. Katherine. Crazy, all of it. He didn’t know what he wanted.

  He’d picked her up late afternoon coming out of her apartment building and followed her to the Lumiere. He bought a cup of coffee from a window café, drank it, then sat down near the corner across from the Lumiere, where he had a view of the entrance. He set the empty cup in front of him and settled in.

  Two hours later, when Paula came out of the theater, Mixer had collected several bucks in change. I must look bad, he thought. He pocketed the money, dumped the cup, and took off after Paula, staying half a block back. She went to her apartment, stayed inside for fifteen minutes, then came back out and headed into the heart of the Polk Corridor as the sun was setting.

  Paula stopped in front of Christiano’s and leaned against the building. Mixer had to hang back, crouched beside a phone box. Looked like she was waiting for someone.

  Not for me, Mixer said to himself. Paula thought he was dead. But he wasn’t, and he needed to tell her. There was way too much unfinished; there was still Chick between them, and Chick’s death, if nothing else.

  If nothing else. Jesus, Mixer, what the hell are you thinking? He hadn’t spoken a word to her, and already he was assuming that everything between them was dead and gone. Maybe the goddamn trial did fry his brain.

  Paula was waiting for someone. Tremaine, of course. Mixer saw him before Paula did, coming down the sidewalk, wire-rim specs flashing the lights of the night. Mixer rose to his feet to get a better view. If Paula was singing for Tremaine, it wasn’t because of his looks. That had always been part of it with Chick, Mixer was pretty sure of that. But not with Tremaine.

  When Paula saw him, she smiled and pushed off the wall. Mixer hadn’t seen her smile like that in years, and it made his chest ache. She and Tremaine spoke to each other, then went into Christiano’s.

  Mixer felt suddenly hungry, and for more than just food. But food was something he could take care of. He crossed the street, walked past a target alley, and bought a falafel from an old Arab woman cooking on basement steps. As he ate, he wandered up and down the Corridor, never getting too far from Christiano’s.

  The street seemed to be on downers tonight. The air was heavy with heat and humidity, but it was more than that. People moved like they were in slow motion. Even a string of bone dancers shifted aimlessly along, arms and legs flapping limply. Weed hawkers called out to him, but they weren’t trying very hard. The stunner arcade was half empty. The stagnant energy in the Corridor was dragging Mixer down, and he was already more than low enough.

  He was only half a block away when he saw Paula and Tremaine come out of Christiano’s. They stood for a minute on the sidewalk, looking around, talking, then headed in Mixer’s direction. He pulled back into the entry way of a bone-slotting club and turned his face from the street until they had passed him. Then he moved back out onto the sidewalk and followed.

  Paula and Tremaine didn’t hold hands, or put their arms around each other, or kiss, anything like that, but there was something intimate about the way they walked together—the way Paula leaned her head toward Tremaine to say something, the way Tremaine touched her shoulder, the way he looked and smiled at Paula, and the way she laughed. It all made Mixer feel strange and drifty.

  They stopped and looked in the window of a dinkum store, both laughing at something Paula pointed to. Half a block later they stood and watched a kinetic oil painting in the window of an art gallery. When they finally went into a spice and espresso bar, Mixer had had enough. He didn’t wait for them. Instead, he turned back and walked in the direction of Paula’s apartment.

  Three things could happen, he figured. They could both come back to Paula’s place; or they could go to Tremaine’s; or they could each go their own away. The odds were good Paula would be coming home, one way or another.

  Mixer still had keys to her place, more useful now than the ones to his own apartment. He unlocked the main building door, stood in the lobby for a few moments, then climbed the stairs and walked down the hall to her apartment.

  He stood in front of her apartment door for a minute, keys in hand. He pocketed the keys. It would be too much for her, he decided. To come home and find a stranger inside her apartment. It would be bad enough to find him sitting in the hall.

  Mixer sat on the floor, his back against her door, and waited.

  TWENTY-ONE

  PAULA WAS JUST as nervous this time, climbing the stairs to her apartment with Tremaine just behind her, but it was a different kind of anxiety. There was more excitement in it, as well as a stronger, different kind of fear. And, as before, she could not completely stop thinking of Chick.

  They reached the third floor, and had just started down t
he hall when Paula sensed something wrong. She slowed, stared ahead, and saw a shadow, a form in front of her door at the end of the hall.

  “What is it?” Tremaine asked.

  “I don’t know.” She continued forward, saw that it was the form of a man; then, as they drew closer, recognized the man who had scrounged money from her the other night. She stopped a few feet from him. “What the hell are you doing here?”

  “Don’t you recognize me?” the man said. His voice didn’t seem as harsh as it had that night. His head was tilted forward and to the side so that she saw mostly hair and beard.

  “Yeah, I recognize you. I gave you money the other night, outside. And that’s where you should be. Outside.”

  The man leaned forward and pushed himself slowly to his feet. His right arm, which had been bandaged before, was now bare—metal and scarred flesh twisted and melted together, almost shiny in the hall light. He turned to face her. “You still don’t recognize me, Paula?”

  His voice. She knew the voice. Paula stared at him, and her heartbeat kicked up, pounding away inside her. And the eyes, she knew those eyes, too. But it couldn’t be. He was... “Mixer?”

  The man smiled without saying anything.

  “Mixer?” she said again. And then she knew it was him, and she ran forward and threw her arms around him, hugging him tightly to her. “Jesus, Mixer, you’re alive!”

  “Yeah, Paula, I’m alive. But you’re killing my arm.”

  She let him go, looked into his face, feeling the tears pooling up in her eyes, then put her arms around his neck, pressing his bearded face against her skin. “Mixer, I can’t fucking believe it.” She let go again, wiping her cheeks with the back of her hand, staring into his wrecked face. “Jesus, look at you.” She shook her head, looking down at his arm. “Is that the exo?”

  Mixer nodded.

  “What the hell happened?” Then, “The Saints announced you were dead.”

  “I am,” he said.

  Paula didn’t know what to say. Then she remembered Tremaine, and she turned around, saw him standing a few feet away. “Ian, this is my friend Mixer. Mixer, this is Tremaine.”

  “I know who he is,” Mixer said. He smiled. “Ian?”

  “You can just call me Tremaine.”

  “I will,” Mixer said.

  “Come on,” Paula said. “Let’s go inside where we can sit down and talk.”

  “I think I should go,” Tremaine said.

  “Oh, no,” Mixer replied, shaking his head. “I need to talkto Paula, but I need to talk to you, too. You’re not going anywhere.”

  Tremaine smiled. “I’m not?”

  “No.”

  “Jesus,” Paula said. “What the hell is all this?”

  Tremaine shrugged, still smiling. “It’s fine. I’m happy to stay. I’d like to know what Mixer wants to talk to me about.” Paula sighed and looked back and forth at the two men, who seemed to be having a good old-fashioned stare-down. She unlocked the door and let them inside, half-tempted to pull the door shut behind the men and lock them in. But she was too damn happy to see Mixer alive, and so she followed them in, turning on the apartment lights.

  They all stood silently just inside the door, the kitchen on their left, the piles of Chick’s things on their right. Paula waved at the kitchen table. “Sit down, both of you,” she said. “Anyone want anything, coffee, tea, something to eat? Mixer?”

  Mixer walked over to the table and sat in one of the chairs, laying his injured hand and arm on the table. “I could really use a drink.”

  Tremaine sat across the table from Mixer, and the two men continued to stare at each other.

  “Tremaine?” Paula asked.

  “I’ll have whatever Mixer’s having.”

  How accommodating, Paula thought. She went to the refrigerator, opened the freezer, and pulled out a bottle of Stolichnaya vodka. She looked at the bottle, her gaze unfocused, the cold seeping into her hand, making it ache. It was the only booze she had in the place; it was what Chick had liked to drink more than anything else. She got two small tumblers from the cupboard, took them to the table with the bottle. “Help yourselves,” she said. She went back to the refrigerator and poured herself a glass of orange juice, then joined the two men at the table. Mixer was already draining his glass; he poured another.

  “What happened?” Paula asked. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, yeah, I’m fine,” Mixer said, nodding. He laughed. “What happened? I’ll tell you.” He took a drink, stared into the small glass. “Chick used to drink this stuff, didn’t he?” He looked at Paula, who nodded. “Well. I’m sure it’ll do the job.” He set the glass down, glanced at Tremaine, then turned back to Paula.

  “I went to a wham-wham, remember? I’d pumped myself full of neutralizers, and they kept me from caving in to whatever they’d gassed into the place, but they made me a little misted, too, I think. I don’t know. I was looking for someone, and I got into a little trouble with two freaks, and someone bailed me out. A woman. I wasn’t thinking straight, like why were the two freaks afraid of her? By the time I figured it out, it was too late. She’d collared me, and I was gone.”

  “Saint Katherine,” Paula said.

  Mixer nodded. “That was her. There was this and that, a few days, and then the trial.” He polished off his vodka, coughed, and poured some more. “Let’s just say I survived, and this is what it did to me.” He held up his right arm, rotated it. “Still pretty fucking rabid, isn’t it?”

  “But the Saints announced over the nets that you had died.”

  Mixer dropped his arm to the table with a thump. “It’s complicated. But if I want to stay alive, I’d better stay dead. You can’t tell anyone you’ve seen me, you can’t tell anyone you know I’m alive.” He turned to Tremaine. “You too.”

  “I understand,” Tremaine said.

  “Do you?”

  “Who knows you’re alive, then?” Paula asked.

  “Two of the Saints. The rest think I’m dead. You and Tremaine.” He paused, staring at Tremaine. “And Carlucci.”

  “You’ve seen him?” Paula asked, wondering why he was looking so intently at Tremaine.

  “Last night.” Still staring at Tremaine.

  “Frank Carlucci?” Tremaine asked.

  Mixer nodded. “Yeah, that Carlucci. And he wants to talk to you.”

  Tremaine smiled. “Really? I’ve made several interview requests, but I’ve always been turned down. And now he wants to talk to me. What about?”

  “Something about the mayor’s nephew. Bill Kashen.”

  “He thinks I know something about the murder?”

  “Apparently.”

  Paula watched the two men, feeling there was some kind of strange contest in progress, some cat-and-mousing. But what was it all about?

  “How do you know Carlucci?” Tremaine asked, glancing back and forth between Paula and Mixer.

  Paula didn’t say anything, remembering Carlucci’s warning. No one was supposed to know he was digging into Chick’s murder.

  “Remember the Chain Killer a few years ago?” Mixer said.

  Tremaine nodded.

  “I got mixed up in that whole mess. By accident. I got to know Carlucci through a friend of his.”

  “Louis Tanner.”

  Mixer nodded. “That’s the guy. See, you always know more than anyone expects. That’s why Carlucci wants to talk to you. He knows you’ve been digging into stuff with the mayor, the mayor’s nephew.”

  There was a long silence, and Paula was still afraid to say anything, afraid to give anything away. She didn’t think anything bad would happen if Tremaine knew everything, but she couldn’t know for sure. And she had made promises to Carlucci.

  “Does Carlucci...?” Tremaine paused, as if unsure he should say anything. The reporter, trying not to give away more than he had to. “Does Carlucci know there’s a connection between the mayor’s nephew’s killing, and Chick Roberts’s killing?”

  “Is there?�
� Mixer asked.

  “I think so.”

  Mixer shrugged. “He didn’t say anything about it. You’ll have to ask him.”

  There was another silence, and Paula felt extremely uncomfortable. She wanted them both to leave.

  “I don’t suppose,” Mixer began, “that you’d be willing to tell me everything you know about all this.”

  Tremaine shook his head. “Not a chance.”

  “You wouldn’t happen to know why the mayor would want me dead, do you?”

  “What?” Paula asked. “What is this?”

  “Do you?” Mixer said again.

  “No,” Tremaine said. “Are you sure he does?”

  “Not anymore,” Mixer said, smiling. “He thinks it’s done.” Then, “Would you tell me if you knew?”

  Tremaine nodded. “Yes.” He paused. “Maybe you and I should talk sometime. Maybe we can help each other.”

  “Maybe.”

  Tremaine stood. Paula noticed that he hadn’t touched the vodka. “I think I’d better go.”

  This time Mixer didn’t object. He just said, “Don’t forget. Carlucci wants to talk to you.”

  “I won’t.” Tremaine turned to Paula. “I don’t know what to say. This is going to be difficult for a while, I guess. I’ll call you soon, all right?”

  Paula nodded, relieved that Tremaine was leaving, and feeling guilty about it.

  Tremaine walked to the apartment door, opened it, and left, closing the door behind him.

  “Are you sleeping with him?” Mixer asked.

  “It’s none of your fucking business,” Paula said, furious with him. “That’s the first thing out of your mouth, now that we’re alone? I’ve been thinking you were dead, all these days, and that’s what you’ve got to say to me?”

  Mixer looked down at his glass. “Sorry,” he said. He poured himself another drink, sucked some of it down. He looked up at Paula. “I am sorry, for Christ’s sake.”

  Paula put her head into her hands, rubbing at her eyes. “It’s all right.” She reached out, took his right hand gently in hers, feeling the metal, the alternately smooth and ridged, scarred flesh. “Are you really okay?”