by Brian Lumley
He brought Le Manse Madonie down, said Humph. Right down to its foundations. Blew it to bell, right into the gorge, and one of those Francezci brothers—madmen that they were—with it. He said he’d square it for me, and he surely did. But of course be had his own motives, too.
Jake knew all of this, or not quite all of it. But the more Humph talked about it, the more it filled in the blanks in his head. “Do you reckon you could tell me the whole story?” he said. “You see, quite apart from any trouble with the Great Majority, I have problems of my own that need sorting out.”
Anything you want to know, just ask away, said Humph.
Which was as far as they got, for just then there came an angry shout from the direction of the quarry.
Jake had his binoculars in his hand, and the sun was glinting off the lenses. Someone in the quarry had seen those bright flashes of light and was looking back at him through binoculars of his own. The workers down there were some four hundred yards away, and there was rough ground in between, rising to the spot where Jake stood. All of which gave him a safety margin.
So he thought, until he looked through his glasses again.
Among the people down there, there were more than just hard-hat types. Along with the many coveralled workers in and around the diggers and mechanical shovels (all of them marked with the legend CASTELLANO & CO) several men were equipped with metal detectors and other electrical ground-sweeping gear—
—While others were simply “equipped.”
“Guns!” said Jake, as a bullet spanged, sending sparks flying from the road’s metal safety barrier a few inches away from his hand. And as the crack! of the shot echoed off the walls of the gorge: “That was just a warning shot!”
You’re not safe here! cried Korath, bringing into being the Möbius equations.
And Jake told him, “I couldn’t agree more. So let’s not be here.” And to Humph: “I’ll be back.”
Drop in any time, Jake, said that one. It’ll be a pleasure. Let’s face it, it’s not as if I’ll be busy or anything.
There was a cutting just a few yards up the road. Jake ran for it, and as he passed out of sight of the men in the quarry, froze the dizzily mutating equations in exactly the right place and ran straight in through the invisible door that sprang into being.
Where to? said Korath “breathlessly,” in the ultimate darkness of the Möbius Continuum.
“Back where we came from,” said Jake. “Imperia.”
He knew the coordinates, and together they went there …
18
JAKE—DÉJÀ VIEWER?
Imperia to Genoa was a little over fifty miles, and since Jake didn’t know the route and had no coordinates, there was nothing for it but to take a cab.
He asked to be dropped in the docklands area, and then went looking for a drug dealer—any drug deafer—in the warren of bars, sleazy clubs, and markets in the narrow alleys and smelly side streets adjacent to the wharves.
Why here? Korath wanted to know.
“Where there’s low-life, there’s drugs,” Jake told him. “In London, Marseilles, Miami, Hong Kong, you name it, it’s the same story. Here in Genoa, it’s a safe bet the drugs arrive in boats and before the big dealers get to see them, the little people—the couriers, bent customs officials, and others on the take—they all get their cut, enough to satisfy their own needs. Just as long as they’re not too greedy, that’s okay. In Italy, which is still the home of the Mafia, being greedy doesn’t pay except in six-foot plots of dirt. Anyway, people on the waterfront—any waterfront, anywhere in the world—they know about things like this. So that’s why we’re here.”
You seem to know a lot about it yourself, said Korath. From Natasha no doubt, when you were lovers?
But Jake’s private life was his own, and there were memories of Natasha—despite that she’d been a courier herself, among other things—that he knew he’d hold dear to the last. For which reasons he answered: “I only know that if I wanted to roll some of my own, this kind of place is where I’d find the makings.” And because deadspeak, like telepathy, frequently conveys more than is actually said, Korath knew what he meant.
It’s a dangerous place, then?
“It has its moments, I imagine,” said Jake. “But smoking is just a beginning. Then there’s injecting, and now there’s a new line in designers: micros you can lick off the back of a stamp. If you think blood’s an addiction, I’ve got news for you. These dealers are bloodsuckers no less than the ones you knew on Starside, Korath. But at least when a man dies from drugs, he stays dead! And that’s about the best I can say for them.”
In a small bar where you could cut the air with a knife—a place that stank of marijuana—Jake cornered the barkeep in a booth that he was slopping out and spoke to him. This time, the man being a complete stranger, Jake made no immediate reference to Castellano. But still he came straight to the point: drugs.
“You wanna buy?” said the barkeep, an unkempt skeleton of a man with shifty, deep-sunken eyes.
“No,” said Jake, “I’m making a delivery. You know what they say about nice things, how they always come in small packages?”
“Micros? Designers?” The barkeep shook his head. “Smokes, I can help you with. These days they’re almost legal, legitimate. Nobody even cares anymore. But that kind of stuff—I’m not in that league. That’s big business you’re talking—and if you’re such a high roller, how come you’re sniffing around in a little joint like this? Uh-uh,” he shook his head. “I’m not buying it. Cops and their narks aren’t too welcome here, friend.”
From which Jake gathered it was time to call on this one’s basic instincts, and what had worked in San Remo might just as easily work here.
Jake still had francs; he slapped a wad on the table in the booth and said: “I’m just in from Marseilles, a courier. I came in with a friend who’s selling his, er, ‘business interests’ to me. He had to get out because he’s too well known. But it seems he left it too late. Just an hour ago he was recognized and the police arrested him. They want to speak to him about—oh, this and that, you know? But me being new to this, my friend was the one with all the contacts. Now I need to deliver the goods, and the sooner the better. We were supposed to off-load to a dealer with property—a legitimate front—here in Genoa. And since this is a guy who doesn’t like to be kept waiting, I’m ready to pay for directions.”
Some people had just come in and were standing at the bar. The barkeep looked at the money, licked his lips, and said, “So who is it you’re looking to meet? I mean, you do know his name, right? I can’t help if I don’t know where your stuff’s supposed to be going.”
And now it was make or break time.
“Castellano,” said Jake. “Luigi Castellano. I think he’s a Sicilian.” He saw the barkeep give a nervous start, and quickly went on: “But hey, don’t worry about it—if you can’t help me, I’ll find somebody who will.” He reached for the money, but the barkeep beat him to it.
“Try Frankie’s,” he said, stuffing the wad in a wide pocket in front of his greasy apron. “Frankie’s Franchise. It’s a dive in a cobbled alley off the next street east of here. Anyone can direct you. But friend, if anyone asks who sent you—it wasn’t me.”
“Don’t worry,” said Jake again. “They’re expecting me.”
And just one minute after he’d left, the barkeep picked up his telephone and made absolutely sure they would be expecting him …
Am I to understand, said Korath, when Jake was back out in the street and on the move again, that you intend to walk straight into a bastion of your greatest foe, a man who has twice tried to kill you? Surely that is madness! The Möbius Continuum must be rotting your mind! And as for the wretched … creature you just spoke to—who in Starside would be meat for the provisioning—why, I would offer up my naked throat to a rabid wolf before placing any trust in that one! Yet the way you spoke to him, I felt certain be must be your long-lost brother! So tell me: why are you so d
etermined to die, Jake?
“You don’t know Castellano like I know him,” Jake answered. “And I’m not too dumb where other people are concerned, either. In the event our friend in the bar back there talks to someone in Frankie’s Franchise—that’s if Frankie’s really is Castellano’s place—so much the better. Except I don’t want to give them too much time to figure out what they’re going to do with me, so we have to be getting a move on. And look, I think that must be the place down there, that doorway with the red double ‘F’ sign overhead.” He pointed down a long, narrow alley.
But—
“But the thing is,” Jake explained, “we do have the Möbius Continuum—and you’ll just have to take my word for it that it isn’t rotting my brain. Any trouble I can get into, you can get me out of in double-quick time. But I do have to satisfy myself that this is Castellano’s place before … before I—”
Yes?
“Before I blow it all the way to hell!” Jake growled. “I’m going to take out all of this bastard’s places, to let him know there’s nowhere he can hide. What do you think I’ve been doing, Korath? I haven’t simply been looking for Castellano, I’ve also been checking out his rat-holes. And if this is one of them, it has to go.”
And if he’s here, inside Frankie’s Franchise right now, at this very moment?
“He won’t try to kill me,” Jake answered, “not right away. He’ll probably want to talk to me first—not to mention a lot of other, much more unpleasant things he’ll want to do to me—before he kills me. But we aren’t going to let that happen.”
I see. (Korath was very thoughtful now.) So then, this is bow you’ll take your revenge, by destroying Castellano’s every bolt-hole before you strike at the man himself—and by letting him know that you, personally, are responsible.
“Something like that, yes.” said Jake. “An eye for an eye. This bastard has lived on fear for so long—not only the fear of his enemies but also of the people in his own organization—that it’s time someone taught him the real meaning of the word. Castellano has fed on fear, he has battened on it. But now I’m going to make him choke and maybe throw up on it, too.”
You want him to know you are coming. And all along, you’ve been taunting him … even when you killed his men!
“Especially when I killed his men.” Jake nodded. “But that wasn’t just to get back at him. Those bastards deserved to die at least as much as he does.”
Hah! Korath grunted then, but with such emphasis that Jake could almost see the gape of his once-jaws, the snarl of rough lips drawn back from fanglike teeth. But I was so right about you, Jake Cutter! You are indeed my kind of man.
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” said Jake.
As it was intended, said Korath. So then, what next? What’s the plan? How do you intend to do this thing?
“If I find out that Frankie’s is what we think it is,” Jake answered darkly, “I could be out of there as quick as you could roll those numbers, and back in again with one of those bombs I made up: three pounds of plastique on a ten-second fuse. But of course I need to go inside and get the coordinates first.”
Ahhh! Korath sighed his “appreciation.” You’ll kill him and anyone who is with him, and destroy half of the street into the bargain. Oh, sucb maybem! Bravo!
Which gave Jake pause. He had been rushing headlong, but he wasn’t in fact a murderer in the usual meaning of the word. And he didn’t want to be. “Half the street?” he said, and shook his head. “No, for innocent people would die. After that there’d be no going back. The Great Majority would never forgive me, and I don’t suppose I’d ever forgive myself.”
Ah! (Korath was disappointed.) Then you had better think of something else. And quickly, for we’re there.
“We’ll have to play it by ear,” said Jake, as he pushed his way through batswing doors, under the unlit neons of the double F sign …
Frankie’s Franchise was a dive of the worst kind, a place where all the social debris of Genoa could convene and feel perfectly at home. Nighttimes would find it full of wharf-rats, prostitutes and their pimps, pushers, perverts, and almost every other variety of sleazy low-life. Dirt was ingrained into the floors; the poor lighting and filthy, flyspecked windows did little to conceal the presence of small cockroaches on the walls, and the stench of narcotic cigarettes and stale booze was almost strong enough to qualify as a taste. Also, it was very noisy, at least at first.
When Jake entered, an antique American jukebox was playing 1950s rockand-roll music (Chuck Berry, judging by the uniquely clangorous quality of the guitar) and the volume was turned all the way up. But as the batswing doors creaked to and fro behind him and Jake paced forward into the place, the plug was yanked, the music groaned to an abrupt halt, and the handful of greasy-looking types at the bar turned as a man to stare at him.
He was a stranger here, true enough, but Jake knew that his presence scarcely warranted so much attention. It could only be that he had been informed upon, and he knew by whom.
All unseen, however, the dead vampire Korath went with him, and as yet Jake didn’t feel too uncomfortable; he didn’t go in fear of his life. The Möbius Continuum—or rather his ability to use it—was a very comforting concept.
When Jake sensed movement behind him and the batswing doors stopped swinging, he knew that someone had stopped them and was now guarding the entrance. These people wouldn’t want to be disturbed in the pursuit of their “business” with him. And that in itself—the fact that they were very intent upon him—tended to reinforce Jake’s opinion: that Frankie’s was indeed a front, one of Castellano’s outlets or bases of operation.
So then, this was the scenario: Behind Jake, some heavy; to his right, the bar; on his left and five or six paces ahead, a corner wall with a sign pointing to the toilets. And ambling “casually” toward him from the bar, four thugs, while one other stayed right where he was, looking on. Other than that, Frankie’s seemed empty—had been emptied, Jake suspected—in anticipation of this moment.
But not in anticipation of the next.
“I want to talk to the boss,” Jake said. “That’s Luigi Castellano I’m talking about.” And he kept walking toward the sign that said toilets. Three of the thugs, as ugly brutes as anyone would want to imagine, came to a halt. The fourth kept right on coming, and he was the ugliest of all. He was a street fighter, a bruiser, a torpedo. Jake believed he could break a chair over this one’s bullet head and it wouldn’t stop him.
“Georgy,” said the one at the bar in broken English. “Bring the jerk over here and sit him down where we can watch him. And don’t you be hurting him. Not too much, anyway.”
“Uh!” said the torpedo, and kept coming.
“And Vince,” the one at the bar continued. “See if the telephone’s working again, and if it is call Bagheria. Let The Man know what’s going down. See if he can guess what just walked in here like it owns the joint.”
And in a shadowy corner there was movement, and the musical beeping of a telephone as someone tapped in the numbers.
But Jake’s apparently suicidal approach had got him almost everything he wanted to know: Bagheria, Sicily! Sod’s law, when the last key on the ring is the one that fits the lock. And the last location on his list, which he hadn’t yet visited, was the one he was looking for. Just an hour or so ago he’d been within a few kilometres of his main target—Luigi Castellano himself.
Jake didn’t want anyone to see him using the Möbius Continuum. If the toilets had no windows or back way out, well tough. Let these people figure out how he’d made his escape. But first he would at least try to make it appear that he had simply made a run for it.
His pace picked up, and Georgy angled after him. But Jake was at the corner, turning it, and pushing open a frosted-glass door that hid the urinals and toilet booths from view. Stepping through, he heard Georgy grunting close behind—too close. And quickly turning, he used all his strength to slam the door shut on the bustling torpedo.
As for Jake … there was no rear exit, no windows, nowhere to hide. But “the jerk” was already gone …
Why back here? Korath wanted to know when Jake emerged from the Continuum in his hotel room in Paris.
“Things to do,” said Jake. “I now know everything I need to know with regard to locations—”
Except the one in Bagberia.
“—Which I’m leaving till last. Castellano is there, and if I take out all of his other places, that’s probably where he’ll stay. Going by what Natasha told me, he’s well protected there; he’s ‘safe’ there … or so he thinks. As for its location, its coordinates: well, since he runs his bogus construction company out of Bagheria—”
The place shouldn’t be too hard to find.
“Correct,” said Jake. “So for tonight—if only for tonight—Castellano is safe. But as for his rat-holes … at least one of them is going out with a bang. Frankie’s, I think.”
Really? With all the loss of innocent life which that might entail?
And again Jake pondered that before answering, “Well if not a bang, a big ball of fire, definitely—but in the early hours of tomorrow morning, when we can be fairly certain the place is empty.”
And if you’re mistaken and someone is there?
“Then he’ll be one of Castellano’s—the one at the bar who was giving all the orders, maybe—which in my book makes him a drug-pushing scumbag and worthy of the heat.”
Good! said Korath. But that leaves us with a lot of time on our hands.
“No, not really,” said Jake. “Frankie’s taught me a lesson, that even with the Möbius Continuum as back-up, it isn’t a good idea to go into places like that unarmed. So obviously I need a gun, and I know where I can get one.”
