Vicious Circle

by Mike Carey

  There was a kind of breakfast bar in the galley area, with a counter bolted to the wall and a few high stools scattered along its length. The same tastefully blended cherry and walnut paneling decorated the area around the bar, showing up the rest of the room for the tip it now was. The guy sitting there, tucking into a sausage and egg breakfast, was Reggie Tang. Actually he wasn’t so much tucking into it as playing with it. He looked up as I came in, and he gave me a cold nod as he shoved the plate away from him decisively. He did cold very well, being the spitting image of Bruce Lee circa Enter the Dragon. He was ten years my junior. Since he was wearing only an undershirt and a pair of boxers, I could see that he was in taut, wiry good shape.

  “Sorry,” he said, standing up. “I know the face, so I’m assuming we’ve met somewhere. But I can’t remember your name.” I’d forgotten his voice until I heard it again now: it was deep and vibrant, with an almost musical lilt to it.

  “No reason why you should,” I said. “We only met the once. I’m Felix Castor. I’m sorry if I disturbed your breakfast.”

  He shrugged easily. “Place is meant to be open to our kind all the time. Part of the deal. Castor, yeah, it’s starting to come back to me now. You’re a Liverpudlian, aren’t you? Part of the north-south brain drain. Good to see you again.”

  He took the hand I offered and gave it a firm, brief shake. Nothing readable there, but I hadn’t expected there to be; he looked like the sort of guy who kept his emotions pretty tightly locked down. He nodded me toward a couch that was stacked with old newspapers, magazines, and unopened mail. “Grab a seat. You looking to sign in?”

  I sat down, shoving some of the old letters aside. Behind me, Lockyear crossed to the galley. I watched him out of the corner of my eye as he picked up a still-smoking cigarette from an ashtray there, half-raised it to his lips, but then seemed to change his mind and stubbed it out without taking a drag. “Not right now,” I said. “Actually, I was hoping to get a little free advice.”

  “Advice?”

  “Yeah. You know, tap the whisper line.”

  Reggie smiled at my coy phrasing. “Well, go for it. We’re happy to help if we can, aren’t we, Greg?”

  “Sure. Happy to,” Lockyear echoed. He sat down at the breakfast bar, a long way from Reggie’s unfinished breakfast.

  “Thanks. The fact is, I’m looking for someone.”

  “Someone I know?”

  I nodded. “Could be, yeah. Someone who used to live here, anyway, but maybe not during your time. Guy name of Dennis Peace.”

  Reggie frowned in thought, as if he was running that name through his memory banks. “Peace. No, doesn’t ring any bells. You know a Dennis Peace, Greg?”

  Lockyear looked round at the sound of his name, his expression the same mildly astonished double-take I’d seen him use outside. I was reminded of Stan Laurel, although maybe that was just the hair. He stubbed the cigarette out again, absently, in spite of the fact that it was already dead. “Yeah,” he said. “I know Peace. Well, I used to know him. He lived here for about six months of last year. Bastard never cooked once. Why? What’s he done?”

  This was addressed to Reggie, but Reggie turned to me because obviously that was my question to answer if it was anybody’s.

  I decided to tell the truth, as far as I could. It’s not like exorcism as a profession generates a whole huge heap of fellow feeling, but I didn’t want to try to extort any information out of these guys by selling them some tired line about Peace owing me money or whatever. That sort of thing will inevitably turn around and bite you in the ass sooner or later. “Someone hired me to find him,” I said. “He’s meant to have a kid with him. A little girl, who—well, who isn’t his. She was abducted from her parents’ house. Peace was there the day it happened, or at least that’s what I’ve been told. So her parents think maybe he took her. I want to see if that’s what happened. And if it is, I’m being paid to get the kid back.”

  Reggie said nothing, just kept looking at me with a gambler’s deadpan.

  “Well, I never met the man,” I conceded, responding to the skepticism in that look. “This is just a job, and it could all be bullshit as far as I know. Sooner I find him, sooner I find out.”

  “Sounds like a job for the police,” Reggie observed. He was standing over me, watching me more closely than the occasion seemed to call for. Having offered me a seat, he made no move to sit down himself.

  “Yeah, I guess it would be, if the girl was alive. But she’s dead.”

  “All the more reason—”

  “I mean, she was already dead when he took her.”

  Reggie gave the kind of slanted nod that means “hell of a story.” “There are some very nasty people out there,” he observed. “A lady takes a terrible risk.”

  I recognized the quote, let it pass. “Does anyone make a note of forwarding addresses, when someone leaves here?” I asked, giving a tottering pile of envelopes a meditative tap.

  “The Trust does. But we’re not the Trust.”

  There was definitely an edge in Reggie’s voice now. I could see that we were heading for a point at which he was going to give up the unequal struggle between mood and manners and tell me to sod off. But I was feeling a little bloody-minded myself, now—maybe because of the headache, which was back worse than ever—and I wasn’t quite ready to back off. I looked across at Greg Lockyear, who was now leaning forward with his elbows on the counter and looking out across the Thames toward the Gallions Point marina as if it were the most riveting thing he’d ever seen. A conviction started to grow in me.

  “Greg,” I said, leaning out past Reggie to get a better line of sight. “You keep in touch with Peace at all, after he left here?”

  Reggie didn’t like the fact that I’d just done an end-play around him, and Greg—when he turned his dazed-rabbit eyes my way—didn’t look all that happy to be back in the conversation. This was making friends and influencing people the Felix Castor way. “No,” Greg said, shaking his head emphatically. “No, I never really got on with him all that well. Glad to see the back of him, to be honest.”

  “Any clues as to where he was going? Or did anyone ever visit him while he was here? Anyone who might have put him up afterwards, I mean?”

  He looked out of the window again, as if checking an Autocue, then back at me. “No.”

  I turned my attention back to Tang. “Who else is staying here, Reggie?” I asked. “I mean, besides you two?”

  Reggie folded his arms. “Nobody.”

  “And you’ve been staying here since—?”

  “Castor, you said you came here looking for advice. You really think acting like a cop is going to get you any?”

  “Well, you said you were happy to help. I’m just taking you at your word.”

  “Okay. I think we helped you enough now. So my new word is sod off out of it.”

  “That’s more of a phrase,” I pointed out, reasonably. “I’m not a cop, Reggie.”

  “You think I’m simple? I said you were acting like one.”

  “Not even that. A cop would be picking up on all your bullshit and shoving it back in your face to see if you blink.”

  There was a moment’s—or maybe just half a moment’s—tense silence. “What bullshit?” Reggie demanded.

  “Well, let’s see. You’re a Buddhist, but when I come in you’re sitting in front of a plate full of sausage, eggs, and bacon. You can’t bring yourself to actually touch the stuff, but you do your best to pretend it’s yours. And Mr. Potato Face over there had the same problem with the fag, so it’s fair to assume that somewhere nearby there’s a chain-smoking, carnivorous mate of yours who doesn’t want to be introduced to me for some inexplicable—”

  It was just as well that Reggie’s eyes flicked upward. Like an idiot, I’d been watching the door at the back of the galley, but seeing that telltale glance I rolled off the couch a split second before a burly form crashed down feetfirst from above, and two size-ten boots thumped into the space where I’d just been sitting.

  I hit the floor and rolled, fetching up against Reggie’s feet. He jumped back hastily, proving that his Bruce Le
e looks were all window dressing, but the guy with the roomy footwear was a bit more aggressive. He strode across to me, lifted me up by my lapels with surprisingly little effort, and slammed me into the wall.

  “Hold on to him!” he bellowed.

  Reggie and Greg rushed to comply, taking an arm each. I could have fought back, but only at the expense of a few more hard knocks. I figured the time for that would come.

  The man standing in front of me, rubbing right fist into left palm, looked like hard knocks were a daily fact of life for him. He was big enough to be covered by building regulations, and his hard, craggy face bore a couple of days’ growth of stubble. His hair was sand-blond, his complexion sandpaper-rough. There were deep shadows under his eyes, as dark as bruises. He must have been fairly handsome once, in a weather-beaten, roughly chiseled out, oversize kind of way. Now, in middle age, he looked like someone who was just starting to feel the pull of gravity and letting it get to him—psychologically, if not physically. He was wearing one of those shades-of-gray urban combat jackets over a green turtleneck sweater and olive-drab trousers tucked into those intimidating Dixon of Dock Green boots. An incongruous flash of gold from his wrist caught my eye: he was wearing a bracelet. But before I could take in the details he reached out and grasped my cheeks in his hand, tilting my head up so our eyes met.

  He glared at me—a warning glare.

  “I got your message,” he said. “That was you, yeah? At the Oriflamme? So you wanted to talk to me. Well, here I am. What do you want to talk about?”

  “Abbie Torrington,” I suggested.

  That was meant to be an opening gambit, but it got a more spectacular reaction than I was expecting. Peace gave a wordless roar and punched me in the stomach. I saw the punch coming and threw myself backward as far as I could into Reggie and Greg, trying to ride with it. Even so, it was like standing in the path of a cannonball. The pain was incredible, and I folded up with a feeble hiccup of displaced air. I sagged, but Reggie and Greg held on so I didn’t actually fall.

  “You don’t—you don’t even talk about her!” Peace bellowed. “You don’t even—you bastard, you think I’m going to let you—? Who’s paying you? Who’s fucking sent you here?”

  He grabbed a handful of my hair and jerked my head up again—but not before I took a closer look at that bracelet and saw it for what it was: a heart-shaped locket on a golden chain, wrapped twice around his muscular wrist.

  “Who sent you?” he asked again.

  “Her—her mother,” I wheezed.

  “Well you tell that bitch she’s never seeing Abbie again in this world or any fucking other. That’s over. It’s over! I would’ve—I would’ve—I’ll kill before I let that coldhearted bastard—”

  He ran out of words, his face flushed so deep a red it looked like he was about to bust a major artery. He brandished his fist at me again, but didn’t go for a second punch. He took a long, shuddering breath, visibly struggling to get himself back under some kind of control. I remembered that he was popping speed; that’s not generally conducive to moments of calm reflection.

  Then things took a turn for the worse. Peace flicked his jacket away from his body on the left-hand side and pulled a handgun out of his belt. He shoved it hard up against my cheek.

  “Take it easy, Den,” Reggie Tang murmured anxiously.

  “Shut up, Reggie,” Peace growled. He looked at me with a sort of agonized hatred. He seemed to be working himself up to something, and I opened my mouth to try to head it off. Before I could speak, his free hand shot forward, balled into a fist. I didn’t have time to move—just to close my eyes. A splintering, rending sound came from just to my left. Opening my eyes, I turned my head a fraction and saw the gaping hole that Peace had just punched in the decorative fascia above the breakfast bar. He curled and unfolded his fingers three times: as far as I could see, he hadn’t even broken any skin.

  “If I ever see you again,” he said to me, a fraction calmer now, “I’ll kill you. I mean it. I’ll kill you. Don’t come looking for me unless you’re ready to cut my throat while I’m asleep, because that’s the only way you’re getting her. And don’t assume I’m asleep just because I’ve got my fucking—eyes—closed.”

  He punctuated these last three words with three sharp jabs of the gun barrel into my face. He flicked a glance at Reggie, and then at Greg. “Give me five minutes,” he said, “and then let him go.”

  Reggie nodded. Greg just blinked. Peace was already heading for the wide open spaces in any case, tucking the gun back into his belt, and he didn’t look back as he ducked to clear the low door.

  Well now. I liked these odds better.

  I drooped a little in Reggie and Greg’s grip, making them take a little more of my weight. Irritably they hauled me upright, which meant that they were off balance when I came up with them and shoved backward. We all lurched against the bulkhead together. I dragged my arm clear of Greg’s grip and punched Reggie hard in the throat. He gave a choking gurgle and staggered sideways into the breakfast bar, letting go his hold on my other arm as both of his hands flew to his neck. I didn’t need the arm, though, because I was already taking Greg out with a sharp butt to the bridge of the nose.

  I was out through the door before either of them could recover enough to mount a counterattack, but by the time I got up the stairs and out into the companionway, Peace was already legging it down the gangplank. He turned on the quayside and looked back at me.

  He kicked the gangplank away just as I got to it, and it tumbled end over end into the Thames, hitting the Collective’s hull with a series of hollow metallic booms like a clock chiming the hour inside a coffin. The distance to the shore was only ten feet or so, but I had to back a few steps to get a run-up, and meanwhile the guy was already having it away on his toes.

  I made the jump, and I landed with both feet under me—but then a moment’s dizziness, coming out of nowhere, made me stagger and almost fall backward into the river. I pulled myself together and took off after my quarry, who’d reached the pier’s gate by now and was hauling it open.

  To my horror I saw him take the key out of the near side of the lock and throw it toward the water. Then he was through and slamming the gate shut behind him a second before I reached it. I dragged down on the handle but the damn thing didn’t budge.

  Damn damn damn damn damn! No lockpicks, no time, and the razor wire on top of the gate looked like the most serious kind of bad news. I cast around for some object I could use to smash the lock, and saw the key: it had landed on the edge of the pier, a couple of inches short of the water.

  I snatched it up, put it in the lock, and turned. Running out onto the street, I looked left just in time to see Peace’s burly figure disappear around a corner fifty yards away. As I started in pursuit, a car roared past me, heading in the same direction and accelerating: it was a battered-looking Grand Cherokee, sheathed in dried mud and looking faintly military. With a jolt of alarm, I saw that there were two men in the front seats, the passenger a man so tall that he was folded over on himself, his raised knees showing in the window. Even from a single high-speed glimpse, Po was unmistakeable.

  I put on a fresh spurt of speed, but they still reached the corner well before me and disappeared around it with a whump-chunk sound as the car rocked and yawed on its wheelbase. When I got there, I saw Peace running hell for leather along a narrow stretch of road where the pavement all but vanished. Faceless low-rise office blocks hemmed him in on both sides, with no alleys or breaks that he could duck into. Up ahead of him, though, the street opened out on one side onto the broad, asphalted plain of a car park. It was laid out as a mazelike grid of two-foot-high concrete bollards, some of which were linked by chains.