Acts of Violence (12 page)

‘Sorry about that,’
I said.

‘I thought
Webster’s guys had bust through the door to kill me!’

‘I’m sure all your
new friends will make you feel better.’ I nodded at the collection of wines and
spirits.

‘I knew they had
good stuff here. Always gave me that synthed crap. I’d help you tear up the
place, but…’ He nodded at the bottles too. ‘Oh, here.’ He threw me a lighter. Went
back to his shopping. I smiled.

The desk wasn’t as
strong as the window and door had been. It had shattered into hundreds of
pieces. Here and there, shards were held to others by hair-thin wires. The wood
enclosing the drawer had cracked in places, but the damn thing was still shut
tight. A few bashes with the foot of a bar stool changed that.

Inside, I hit a
very small jackpot. Credit chips were scattered about the bottom of the drawer.
Mostly tens, but there were three fifties as well. Only about two hundred
credits in total, but at least now I wouldn’t have to hike to my next
destination. I could probably stretch to a new packet of cigarettes too.

The only other
thing in the drawer was a small book. I thought it was a notebook at first. It
was an address book. I flipped through the pages. It was the names and
addresses of club employees, some VIPs and a handful of useful people.

It was only then I
remembered. Like DeMartino said, I hadn’t asked the girl’s name. There were
letters beside the names, but no titles. I guessed those letters represented
the positions in the club. If the girl was a manager of some kind then I
guessed it was an ‘M’ I was looking for.

That was a new
problem. There was no ‘M’ beside any of the names. There were several female
names and a few that could be male or female. How the hell was I going to find
her now? I couldn’t wait for the barman to come round…

I turned. The drunk
was shaking the last drop of rum from the mouth of the bottle. He raised the
glass to his lips, but then spotted me staring. ‘What?’

‘Frank… Did you
know the girl who worked here? The darker skinned one?’

‘Oh,’ he put the
glass down and lowered his head for a moment. ‘The one who was murdered last
night?’

‘Yeah. Her.’

‘I knew her. About
the only one who could stand the sight of me. Don’t listen to this prick,’ he
gave the barman a light kick. ‘She was nice. To me, leastways.’

‘What was her name?’

I could feel the
open book shaking in my hand. He was my only chance right now. If he couldn’t
help me, there was a significant possibility that the next Frank I spoke to
would be the seven-foot mountain of muscle who came to my cell to see if I’d
make a suitable girlfriend.

Frank took a sip of
rum while he thought. Opened his mouth. I leaned so far forward in anticipation
I nearly fell. ‘Laura.’ I laughed for some reason. Looked back to the address
book to find the name. ‘Or maybe it was Michelle. Could have been…no I don’t
think that was it. Agatha?’

Shit. I flipped
through the book. No Lauras. No Michelles. No Agathas.

‘Thanks, Frank.’

I pocketed the
address book. Felt all around the drawer for anything hidden, but there wasn’t.
Neither of us should be there when Webster’s men did bust through the door.
Which wouldn’t be long.

‘Yeah.’ He took another
sip. ‘I remember one time when the goons on the door took exception to me.
Thought my face should be a different shape. She came out on her way home. Stopped
them. She took me home with her to fix up the cuts. I told her she didn’t need
to do that—’

‘Frank… You know
where she lived?’

NINE
| LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL

Surprisingly, Frank had remembered
where the girl took him. I’d identified the address in Webster’s book. It had
been written underneath the name ‘John Hancock’. The letter beside it was a
‘J’. Janitor? Webster had hidden this girl in his own address book. Who was she
to his operation?

I had the cab drive
on past so I could check out the area. There were only a few cars parked on the
street. None of them looked like unmarked cop cars. Too shabby to be Webster’s
men. Looked safe enough. I pretended I’d missed the stop and had the driver go
around the block. Webster could have motion detectors in the apartment, with
men around the corner. Maybe I was being paranoid. I didn’t think he had any
particular reason to think I’d come here. He seemed to think I’d stolen
whatever was in the girl, which suggested I already knew enough about her, so
why would I?

The cab pulled up
in front of the apartment building. It didn’t look like much. I guessed in that
sense it looked like most buildings in Harem.

I didn’t want to
get out of the warmth of the cab. It was dark now at nearly seven. The thunderstorm
was in full swing. The cab rocked in the wind and drifted a little onto the
sidewalk. I could hear the static thrusters on the left working harder to keep
the cab steady. It wouldn’t have surprised me to see little dents all over the
doors where the rain pelted them.

I paid the driver
before I got out. I almost wished I hadn’t given that old woman the umbrella,
but it would have only got whipped out of my hand anyway. I climbed out and
slammed the door. In that time, the torrent across the sidewalk filled up my
shoes.

A crack of thunder
right above my head made me wonder if I’d ever hear again. As the cab pulled
away, its headlights cutting through the wall of rain, I considered my mistake
in letting him leave. Who knew if I’d get another cab now?

There was no lock
on the front door so I pushed it open. No infrared thing to dry me off this
time. I was already drenched. Felt like I’d just dragged myself out of the lake
again. There was no desk in the small lobby. No one around to ask what my
business here was. I checked the mailboxes. Apartment thirteen, Frank had told
me. He’d remembered because it was a Friday. The barmaid’s kindness had proved
to him that there was nothing to the ancient superstition.

Nothing was in or on
apartment thirteen’s mailbox. No name. No mail that I could see. That wasn’t
surprising. Mail was rarely delivered physically.

I pulled open the
door to the stairwell with the tips of my fingers. This was the kind of place
that made me want to sterilise the very air I was breathing in. On the stairs,
each step I took sounded like ripping paper as my shoes stuck to the balding carpet.
On the fourth floor, I pushed the door open with my foot.

Apartment thirteen
was the first door out of the stairwell. The light in the hallway flickered.
Hummed. It was off more than it was on. There were three apartments on the left
of the hall and one on the right. At the end, a window let in the lightning. Every
twenty seconds or so the hallway lit up white. It didn’t exactly make me feel
good about the place.

I walked slowly
down the quiet hall. Past the door to apartment thirteen. Heard no sounds from
inside. No one jumped out at me. I kept going. Down the hall to the window. Through
the hypnotising waves across the glass I saw three cars, no people. Didn’t look
like I’d been followed. People wanting you dead really had a way of making a
man paranoid.

Back at the
apartment door, I thought for a moment. I could talk to the neighbours first. I’d
have to kick the door in and I doubted they’d talk to me after that. It would
probably be a good idea. I started with apartment fourteen. No answer.

Apartment fifteen
instead. No answer. Apartment sixteen was the lone one on the right hand side
of the hall. No answer there either. A particularly paranoid man might think
there was something to that. Webster’s men could be on the other side of all
four doors staring at me on the little peep screens.

I pulled the pistol
out of my waistband. Told myself everyone was just out to dinner, or late back
from work. The idea that Webster had men hiding out in apartments around the
city just in case I wandered by was ridiculous. The ergonomically ribbed pistol
grip was reassuring. At least if my paranoia was on the money I’d have some
kind of chance.

With no neighbours to
chat up and my time running out, I went back to thirteen. I’d never had the
chance to kick a door in before. The novelty was lost on me now. These doors
were cheap and flimsy. One straight kick below the lock was enough. A
well-timed clap of thunder masked the noise. It hurt my shin a bit, but the
door swung open. The thin door jam on the other side was ripped away from the
frame and clattered to the floor.

My thumb pushed
down the safety catch. The click was exaggerated in the quiet after the thunderclap.
I stood in the doorway for about ten seconds, listening. Waiting. I heard
nothing. Except creaking and groaning and whistling. Banging somewhere on the
roof. The wind wanted the place torn down. Still no one jumped out at me. The
brief act of minor violence made me feel better. More confident. I remembered
that I wasn’t a little dormouse hiding from a cat. I was a man. Or least a big hamster.
With a gun.

Lightning lit the
apartment in front of me. Lightning lit a bare, thin-carpeted floor. Lit four
bare walls and two doors. Lit a thin mattress rolled out on the floor in the
corner. One plate beside the sink. The place wasn’t a home. It was a prison
cell hidden in the middle of an apartment building.

 I stepped into the
middle of the floor. It was cold. The thin blanket bunched up at the end of the
bed wouldn’t have kept her warm enough. I raised my pistol and crossed to one
of the doors. Pulled it open. It was a small, walk-in wardrobe. Empty. Not a
single item of clothing remained. No dust had settled on the shelves though, so
I suspected she’d at least owned some clothes. Webster would have had
everything cleared out. Clothing could be tracked back to the shops that sold
it. Then to the person who bought them. That person, I suspected, had used Cole
Webster’s money.

She was an
experiment. That’s what Webster had said. What kind of experiment was given
managerial status at the city’s most exclusive nightclub and kept in these
conditions? She obviously had some freedom, or she wouldn’t have come home with
me. Or maybe she thought if she reported back to Webster on what I was doing,
he’d understand her going AWOL, and forgive her for hitting Little Dick.

What was stopping
her from disappearing though? She couldn’t have lived like this by choice. The
kind of salary a manager of The Web would bring in would at least allow her to
buy furniture. An actual bed. A thought struck me and I looked into the top
corners of the room. I didn’t want to turn on the lights. Just waited for the
lightning flashes. Sure enough, in two of the corners I could make out lighter
patches. She’d been under surveillance. They’d had cameras in here watching her
all the time.

I crossed to the
second door. It was the bathroom. Toilet, sink and shower cubicle. No shower
curtain. There were no windows in here, so I pushed the door closed and turned on
the light. No towels, no facecloths, no makeup. No mirror. She must have done
herself up once she got to the club. Associate that place with looking good,
the high of men and women constantly giving her their number, and she wouldn’t
want to leave? Take the mirror out of her apartment so she couldn’t see that
she was still beautiful without the makeup? Maybe I was making things up.

A bar of soap on
the sink was the only occupant of the room. It was worn to a thin sliver. If I
really put my mind to it, that might help me work out how long she’d been held
here. But that would depend on how hygienic she was. I had to admit, I normally
only used my soap every other day. Unless I found myself face down in the dirt
at some point between my scheduled ablutions. That soap could have lasted her
anywhere from a few months to a few weeks.

In the corner above
the toilet was another light patch. The camera would have seen every inch of
the bathroom. Every inch of her. There was nowhere she could have got away from
them.

The light patches
didn’t help me determine her sentence either. She smoked. That would have
stained the walls around the cameras. Made them dark quicker than usual.

If she was under
such close observation, why hadn’t they kicked in my door and killed us both?
It kept coming back to Little Dick. He’d gone into my apartment after I left.
Cut the girl up, I was sure. I was kind of sure. My mind kept going back and
forth on that. But he’d waited. Waited all night. Waited until I’d left, in
fact. I’d been thinking that was coincidence, but maybe not. If my theory was
right, and he was setting up to take over from his father, maybe he wanted the
girl to tell me something. Something I’d use against Webster senior. Maybe I
was making things up again.

Nothing really made
sense yet.

I turned off the
light and went back into the room. A sudden jolt of hope spurred me to check
every inch of the wardrobe by the dancing flame of my new lighter. Maybe she’d
left some kind of note. Carved a message into the wall for someone to find. It
was a lot to hope for. Naturally, I found nothing. It brought my thoughts back
to the previous night. She’d acted pretty normal. If she had wanted help, she’d
have asked for it then, not scrawled something into a wall where no one would ever
find it.

Between the booming
rolls of thunder, I heard a tinny clicking sound. At the head of the bed was an
old analogue clock. It had been so long since I’d had to tell the time on an actual
clock face, it took me a few seconds. Seven thirteen. I guessed I had all night
to find something for DeMartino, but it didn’t feel like it. Felt like any
minute, he and Lawrence would shock me from behind, cuff me and throw me on the
train to Anshan. I didn’t think the new evidence they had was enough to get me
off the murder charge. Especially with Lawrence testifying against me.