Darkwalker: A Tale of the Urban Shaman

by Duncan Eagleson

  “Upscale for a mutie, sure, but so’s the place he lives,” said Turrin.

  “But not so much. I’ll bet you his neighbors don’t come here when they get the sniffles.”

  “Probably he’s a janitor or something.”

  Remming looked at his partner in disgust. “A janitor? Coming in at eight in the morning in a suit and tie? Not friggin’ likely. More like an administrative assistant, or a male nurse or something.”

  “Well,” said Turrin, finishing his coffee, “let’s find out.”

  At the front desk Remming asked for Aguilar Cordoba. The receptionist escorted them to a conference room, offered them coffee, which they declined, and assured them Dr. Cordoba would be with them in a moment. The door closed silently behind her, and the two guardsmen looked at each other.

  “Doctor?” Turin said.

  Remming just shrugged.

  A few minutes later the door opened to admit a tall, well-built man wearing a white lab coat over a light gray shirt and maroon tie. Remming watched the brown eyes behind the silver-rimmed glasses flick from him to Turrin and back again. The man’s expression remained carefully neutral. He wasn’t twitching with guilt, but he was clearly wary.

  “Dr. Cordoba.” Remming stuck out his hand, and the doctor shook it with only the slightest show of reluctance. “I’m Guardsman Remming; this is Guardsman Turrin. Sorry to interrupt your schedule. We’ll make this as brief as we can. We’re investigating a report of cries and shots fired outside your building last night...”

  “This building?” asked the doctor.

  “No sir, the City Arms. We’re checking with all the residents, see if anyone heard or saw anything.”

  “And you came to my place of work?”

  “Well, you know how it is these days, with the killings and all.” The guardsmen weren’t allowed to use the popular name “the Beast” when talking to the public. “City Plaza wants incidents like this checked out as quickly as possible. Did you see or hear anything unusual last night?”

  “No, Guardsman, I’m sorry. I got in a bit late and went right to bed. I didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary.”

  “Okay, sir, thank you for your time. We’ll show ourselves out.”

  Back on the sidewalk in the bright morning sunlight, the two men turned left and headed downtown.

  “A mutie doctor.” Remming shook his head. “That’s fucked.”

  “He don’t look like his picture in the file, that’s for sure,” said Turrin.

  “He can’t be a shapeshifter. They don’t exist.”

  “So what, he’s a normal who stole a mutie’s ident? That doesn’t make any sense.”

  “No,” Remming allowed, “it doesn’t. Could be he’s just a mutie looks especially normal.”

  “Maybe it’s all bullshit,” said Turrin. “Maybe Dobbs is blowing smoke up our arses. You know, he’s got something against this guy, and he’s trying to set him up.”

  “Could be. File says he’s a mutie, and Dobbs hates muties.”

  “Can’t be that Dobbs is right, can it? This guy can’t be the Beast. He don’t look anything like what Auden described.”

  “I dunno. I doubt it. But sure as hell something stinks here.”

  Surprising for the neighborhood, the steps up to the front door of the Cat’s Meow were clean and in good repair. At Morgan’s knock the door was opened by a massive mutant in suit pants that were out at the cuffs and a white shirt with sleeves rolled to the elbow. His skin was a pasty, yellowish color, his eyes set far apart on his wide skull.

  “Help you?” he said.

  “I’m here to see Sally Marks.”

  “Santa Monica Sal? And you are?”

  “Railwalker Morgan.”

  The man straightened, peering down at her. “Railwalker?” he said.

  She raised a hand, palm out. “I know, you don’t see Railwalkers around much any more. I get that a lot.”

  A smile split his face. “I’ll bet you do,” he said. “Come in, Railwalker Morgan. It’s Sal’s turn at laundry today.” He led her down a hall and gestured to a door. “Down the stairs is the laundry room.”

  Like the rooms above, the laundry was ancient, but clean and well maintained. The brushed metal of the washing machines gleamed. The walls were clean and white, the lighting some kind of full-spectrum bulb instead of ugly fluorescents. Morgan had never been in the laundry of a harlot house before. She’d expected mountains of flimsy negligees and frilly lace nothings, and there was a basket full of those, but the only mountains in sight were of sheets and towels. Which, on reflection, made sense.

  Folding those sheets and towels at the other end of a long table was a skinny blond in hot pink and a shorter, heavier, dark-haired woman with coffee-colored skin. Sal’s tan, Morgan noted as she got closer, had that orange tinge that suggested it came out of a bottle rather than from the sun, and her platinum blond hair showed darker blond roots. From a distance she looked like a surfer girl. Up close neither the artificial tan nor the liberal makeup quite disguised the spidery veins of rosaceae spread across her cheeks and nose. The darker woman’s makeup was somewhat more subtle.

  “Afternoon,” the blonde said when she looked over and saw Morgan.

  “Hi,” Morgan said.

  The dark woman peered at Morgan’s facial tattoo. “Say,” she said, “you’re one of them Railwalkers, aintcher?”

  “Aye,” said Morgan. “Morgan am I, Walker of the Rails Between the Worlds. Twenty-three blessings, sister.” She held out her hand. The woman shook it.

  “Della Santiago.”

  “Well, what do you know,” said the blonde. “Never thought I’d see a Railwalker in this place. Santa Monica Sal am I.” She laughed. “Walker of the streets of this city, when I’m not holed up in the Cat’s Meow. Member in good standing of the Harlot’s Guild. Come freely and go safely, and all that.” They shook.

  “We should offer you tobacco and coffee, but I think our machine’s coffee is probably about as stale as it comes. So maybe you can make do with a cigarette?” She held out a battered package of cigarettes. “No offense.”

  “None taken, thankee,” Morgan said, accepting the proffered cigarette. Sal held out a lighter, flicked it several times before it finally caught flame. Morgan took a token puff, then set the white stick smoldering in the ashtray.

  Sal lit up her own and puffed luxuriantly. Della elbowed her in the ribs, and she said “Oh,” and slid the pack toward her friend.

  As Della lit up, Sal asked, “So what brings a Railwalker to our humble cathouse?”

  “Came to talk to you folks, actually.”

  “Really?” Sal laughed. Then she looked darkly at Morgan. “Oh, I see. The guard can’t track down this Beast, so Roth asked the Railwalkers in.”

  “About damn time, is what I say,” said Della. “Useless fuckin’ shits, them guardos.”

  “I suppose you want to ask us about Suzi,” said Sal.

  “Suzi Mascarpone.”

  “Was that her last name?” asked Della. “Thought she might be an Eye-tie. I only knew her as Suzi, or Zee.”

  “Sometimes,” offered Sal, “she called herself Suzi Creamcheese.”

  “Ain’t that a mindfuck, though?” Della shook her head. “You’re friends with somebody for years, you never even know their last name ’til they’re dead.” She sniffed and blinked away a tear. “Man, if anything we got to say can help you nail the fucker killed her, we’re so there.” She looked at her friend for confirmation, and the blonde woman nodded vehemently. “Whadda ya wanna know?”

  “What can you tell me about her?”

  “Suzi, she was good people,” said Sal.

  “Even if she was a fuckin’ Marilyn,” added Della.

  “You don’t generally like the Marilyns?”

  “Why should we?” Della snorted. “Don’t see themselves like harlots, most of ’em. Want to be thought of as priestesses, y’know? High fuckin’ priestesses of sex, too good to associate with the rest
of us.”

  “Zee wasn’t like that, and you know it,” said Sal.

  “She could be. Sometimes.”

  “Besides, there’s those in the guild who act like that, from some of the expensive houses.”

  “Fuck ’em all, we’re as good as them any day.”

  Morgan looked from one harlot to the other. Della raised an eyebrow at her and said, “What, you don’t think so?”

  Morgan shook her head. “I didn’t say that,” she said.

  Della stepped across to her, her walk a sinuous slide, and laid a gentle hand on Morgan’s arm. Even through the woolen tunic sleeve, it felt like a caress.

  “Darling,” said Della, her voice low and honeyed, “we all do receive the same training, if we’re part of the guild.” It was as if she’d become a different person, her accents those of the wealthy and powerful. “I can be as sophisticated and entertaining a companion as any man—or woman—could want.” She smiled, gave a shudder, and stepped away again. “I just don’t feel like goin’ there on my fuckin’ day off.”

  “Okay,” Morgan said, “fair enough. So the Marilyns…”

  “Got themselves a fuckin’ temple now,” Della told her. “Just a cathouse like any other, you ask me, never mind they call it a ‘tithe’ and do the whole communist thing, sharing the money out. But they applied for that, what-chacallit, tax exempt status, just like a church or temple.”

  “That’s when the Guild voted to throw them out,” said Sal.

  “The Harlot’s Guild expelled the Marilyns?”

  “Voted to toss ’em out on their prissy little asses,” said Della. “That was Hannah’s doing.”

  “Hannah Caine, the guildmadam?” said Morgan.

  Della said, “Hannah said if they weren’t gonna pay taxes and be subject to the same rules and regulations as the rest of us, why should the guild look out for ’em? Suzi stood up to her, but it didn’t do no good—the whole guild knew Suzi was one herself.”

  “What made Suzi think she could sway the vote?”

  Sal sighed, stubbed out her cigarette, and lit another. She offered the pack to Morgan, who declined. “Well, you must understand, not every Marilyn moved into that temple of theirs. Some of them, like Suzi, stayed working in the houses they were with. Suzi used to say it wasn’t about where the money went, it was about how you approached it.

  “So,” Morgan asked, “Suzi and some of the others wanted to stay in their regular jobs, and also stay in the Temple?”

  “Suzi wanted the other harlots in the guild to join their temple, too. She had that whole ‘we women should look out for each other’ thing going on. Thought all harlots were priestesses, whether they knew it or not.”

  “The other Marilyns—the ones at the temple—they didn’t see it that way?”

  “Them?” Della snorted. “Fuck, no. They pee rosewater and shit spun sugar. Some of ’em are worse toward the rest of us than some of the Witlesses or the Rollers. To them we’re blasphemers, ’cause we do it for money instead of for their goddess. You know what I think of that? They can kiss my sweet ass.”

  “Yeah.” Morgan smiled. “That’s what I figured. So where did the vote leave girls like Suzi?”

  “Oh, the Marilyns could stay in the guild,” said Sal, “long as they paid their dues and didn’t ever work at the Temple. Hannah would’ve had them all barred from the guild on principle, but Suzi and some of the others working the regular houses had enough friends, they carried that one. Hannah didn’t like it, but what could she do? A vote’s a vote, and anyway, she got the main thing she was after.”

  “You think Hannah was still pissed at Suzi?”

  “Well,” said Della, “Zee used to work up at the Gates of Hell…”

  “The Gates of Hell?” Morgan asked.

  Both of the harlots laughed. “Hannah’s place is called ‘The Gate of Heaven,’” Sal explained. “Some of us call it…”

  “Yeah, I get it,” said Morgan. “Why? Hannah’s a devil?”

  “A bitch, anyway,” said Della.

  “Hannah’s very strict and proper,” Sal said.

  “Full of herself, almost as bad as the Marilyns.”

  “Anyway,” Sal said emphatically, “Suzi was Hannah’s right-hand gal until she joined the Marilyns. Hannah found a reason to fire her, but Suzi was already a guild steward, and she couldn’t do anything about that.”

  “Would Hannah have been angry enough to want her killed?”

  “Don’t you go saying things like that.” Sal punched her cigarette at Morgan, trailing smoke. “Hannah’s hard, but she’s fair, and she’s no murderer.”

  “Chill the fuck out, Sal,” said Della. “She didn’t mean it like that.”

  “Then what did she mean it like?”

  “Look,” said Morgan, “I don’t know this Hannah Caine. We have to look at all the possibilities.”

  “Suzi was killed by the Beast,” Sal said. “Even the guardos admit that. Worthless shits that they are, can’t even keep the streets safe these days.”

  “So how did Suzi come to be out on the street that night?”

  Della and Sal looked at each other. Della shrugged and looked away. Sal turned back to Morgan.

  “She was going to the temple to report on how the vote went. It was a Monday night. Some of the houses are dark on Mondays, so that’s when these meetings usually happen. This one ran later than usual, what with all the arguing. I tried to talk her out of it, told her she could go in the morning or just call them, but she’d promised her Marilyn sisters she’d report in person on the way the vote went, and Suzi was a girl of her word. Tried to get her to call a cab, but she said it was only a few blocks. I don’t think she ever really thought it could happen to her.”

  “Yeah,” said Morgan. “A lot of people think that way.”

  “Anyway, she said she had to return Greta’s pin.”

  “Pin?” Morgan asked.

  “Her Marilyn pin. They all wear them. Suzi had lost hers a couple of days before, and she’d borrowed one from Greta. She felt she ought to be wearing one at the meeting.”

  “So the Marilyn pin she was wearing when she died wasn’t actually hers?”

  “I don’t think so,” said Sal. “Pretty sure it was Greta’s.”

  Della laughed. “Surprised that bitch hasn’t been beating down the doors of the guards, trying to get it back,” she said.

  “Why?” Sal asked Morgan. “Is that important for some reason?”

  “I don’t know for sure,” said Morgan, “but I’ve got a feeling it could be.”

  Don Whitehouse silently cursed Willa Devlin roundly once more and contemplated ordering another shot. Probably he shouldn’t. He sipped at his beer instead. It was one thing to seek a little relief in getting plowed yesterday... and the day before, come to think of it, and if he wasn’t careful, again today. It was another thing to develop a regular habit. Without his job to go to, he could far too easily end up spending all his days pickling himself in the Bar of Gold. In fact, wasn’t he doing just that even now? He realized abruptly he was already more than half in the bag. It was this damned waiting; it got to a man. And there was no telling when this limbo would end. Of course, he could say fuck the waiting and go look for another position. But not yet.

  Don looked up as the front door opened, and was surprised to see the long coat, the eye tattoo, the headscarf that was now draped around the big man’s neck like a bandanna. He realized with a start that he was looking at a Railwalker.

  The Railwalker’s eyes scanned the room and settled on Don. Well, Don thought, I guess I do stand out. The afternoon crowd was scant, mostly old retired guys and rummies, sodden-looking with their worn-out clothes and worn-out lives. Don was the only one there who looked hale and hearty and, if not prosperous, at least currently employed, for all his clothes showed the wear of regular work. Of course he wasn’t currently employed, but he’d only been out of work a couple of weeks and didn’t yet wear the hopeless look of the terminally unemployed
.

  The Railwalker nodded to the bartender, ordered a beer, and sat one space down from Don. They nodded to each other.

  “Twenty-three blessings,” said the Railwalker.

  Don struggled to remember what the proper response was. He hadn’t seen an actual Railwalker since his teens. He settled for, “G’day, and same to ya, Railwalker.”

  “Rok,” the man said, holding out his hand.

  It took Don a moment to realize he was introducing himself. “Oh.” Don hastily extended his own hand. “Don. Don Whitehouse.” They shook.

  “First mate of the Bay Queen?” Railwalker Rok asked as the bartender returned with his beer.

  “Formerly.” Don looked morosely into his nearly empty glass. He didn’t wonder how the fellow knew him. The murder of his captain, Arnie Hawthorne, had been all over the newsfeeds when it happened. It had been the first of the Beast’s killings, and was revisited every time the bastard offed another victim. Don himself had been interviewed a couple of times, though he took no pleasure from this brief celebrity. He hoped the Railwalker wasn’t going to ask him about the Cap’s death. The bartender hovered.

  “Buy you a round?” asked the Railwalker.

  “Be rude to say no.”

  Rok nodded to the bartender, who refilled Don’s glass from the tap. “I noticed the Queen was tied up at the guard’s impound dock,” Rok said, as the fresh glass was placed before Don.

  “Yeah. Ought to be out running her nets. It’s a damned shame.”

  “Why isn’t she?”

  “Ah, don’t get me started. You don’t want to hear about my troubles.”

  “I was just wondering why she’s in impound. Guards must be through with her by now. They find evidence of smuggling or something?”

  “Hell, no. Cap was a straight arrow. Well, mostly. No, you want to know the truth, it’s the damned sister.”

  “What sister is that?”