Darkwalker: A Tale of the Urban Shaman (23 page)

She handed over the envelope. I tipped it out into my hand. The braided leather thong was stiff with salt. It had a flat pendant of bone carved into the curling “C” shape of Otiz’s wave. I closed my hand around the pendant, shut my eyes. A little sense of the sway of a deck at sea, and that was it. No strong impressions. I opened my eyes and said so.

“
Should we break out the tools?” Morgan asked. “Go formal?”

“
Probably not worth it, unless we take it back to the boat.”

“
That can wait,” said Rok. “You, my friend, are going nowhere, at least physically, for the next twenty-four hours.”

***

Since I couldn’t get around very well, and any movement aggravated the head pain, I installed myself on the couch in the common room and immersed myself in the materials assembled there.

There were patterns there, dammit. Every victim fit the pattern somehow.

There were the religious affiliations: the Church of the King, the Marilynists, the Campus Crusade for Cthulu, all over the map. Somehow I didn’t think we were dealing with a mad atheist serial killer.

All the other patterns were broken somewhere. All but the harlot and the teacher were middle-aged. All but the harlot and the boat captain were connected to Roth. All but the harlot and Czernoff had been killed indoors. All but the harlot had been killed under a waning moon.

All but the harlot...

I saw the chaos. The harlot was the one who cut across all the patterns, threw all the careful correlations into disarray. When does the predator take unusual prey? When it falls in his lap, or he has no choice. It was all so controlled. Yes, the Beast got bolder, took larger chances, came into the Tower, but he did it carefully, precisely. The killing of Suzi Mascarpone had not been careful or precise. It was wild and crazy; it broke the rules.

Did she fall into his lap? Or did he have no choice?

Whichever it was, the harlot broke not just the pattern we were trying to piece together, but the pattern the Beast was working to. If the harlot was a major exception, that left one connecting factor: Roth and the People’s Takeover.

Why the harlot? Maybe I could ask her. Morgan had reported that the harlot’s friend said the Marilyn pin Suzi Mascarpone had been wearing the night she was killed had been borrowed from a friend. Maybe that’s why we’d had no hint of her presence the afternoon we’d visited the tram overpass. The evidence locker would hold other be-longings, some of which might allow me to contact her shade.

***

City Administration Tower—Guest Suite

At eight o’clock at night, Bay City was a Yule tree of lights. By halfway through the night, lights had begun to go off again. The office spaces occupied by late workers turned dark one by one. The neon and LED signs gradually flickered off, except for those on a few bars and gaming hells. Residential lights flicked off as the residents turned to bed or headed out for a night of frolic.

In the CA Tower the residential floors retained a few lights. The lights in the suite occupied by the Railwalkers were subdued. Barefoot, in pants and tank top, Rok sprawled on the couch, flipping through files. With the lights turned down, an old pre-Crash western flickered silently on the big screen. Rok found he always did his best thinking while some old movie played silently in the background, hovering in the corners of his vision. He wasn’t sure why this should be. Perhaps peripheral awareness of the creativity of those old-time moviemakers who did so much with such primitive equipment somehow sparked the creativity latent in his own mind. Or perhaps it was just the evocation of familiar patterns as background. Many of these films Rok knew by heart, and could recite the lines along with the centuries-dead actors.

He glanced up. Jason Robards looked out at him from the screen. Robards silently mouthed dialogue, and Rok provided the words. “I got a feelin’ that when he stops whittlin’, something’s gonna happen.”

Morgan appeared from the hallway, wrapped in a silk robe. “The Brick asleep?” Rok asked.

“
Far as I know,” she said. “The door’s closed, and the light’s out.”

“
Good. Best thing for him.”

Morgan walked to the couch and Rok raised his feet. She sank down on the cushions, and he lowered his feet into her lap.

“
That was bad,” he said. “He should have seen them.”

“
In the dark, in the bushes of the park?”

“
There are always signs.”

“
Of course. You would have seen them.”

“
I would. Are you saying I wouldn’t?”

“
Is that what I said? No, you’d have seen them, alright. And taken them out before they could blink.”

“
Yeah, well...” Rok said. “Normally he would have, too. This Beast thing has him by the balls.”

“
It’s a bitch, alright,” Morgan agreed. She’d taken his right foot in her hands, and now began to massage it.

“
Uuuuhhnnnnhhh.” His head drooped back as his eyes rolled up.

“
You making any progress there?” She nodded at the files in his hands.

He brought his head back up, opened his eyes. “Not really.”

“
Good.”

“
Why ‘good’?”

“
Well,” she said, “I’d hate to think I was distracting you just as you were about to put all the pieces together.”

A slow smile crept over Rok’s face. “Hey, I was just trying to help out. Tracking and detecting, that’s not my job. That’s for the Brick and the Prof. I’m just a Bear, body and muscle. Feel free to distract away.”

Morgan shifted her position on the couch until she was on all fours above him, her face just inches from his. “I was hoping you’d say that.”

And she proceeded to distract him quite thoroughly.

19. SANTA BRITA—
Five Years Ago

He had taken some time getting his Rusk persona right. The shape needed to be big and bluff, but not so powerful-looking as to intimidate too much. Ivan Mikhailovich Raskalov, as he called himself, didn't look at all like Guardsman Caine. He was not so tall, older, had a bit of a paunch. Ivan spent his Thursday nights at the Pivnaya Romanov, drinking and playing
durak
.

“
Ivan, come, drink with us,” Sascha called. Ivan crossed to where Sacha, Boris, and Pyotr sat at a table in the far corner of the dim bar. It amazed him how these Russians—or Rusk-Mericans—preserved their language and accents even though they had been born into a society that had no contact at all with the Old Country.

“
Shouldn’t one of you stay sober?” he asked, smiling, as he took the one empty chair.

“
When Dima is in this kind of mood, he’ll be up there all night,” said Sascha.

“
Don’t call him Dima,” Pyotr said.

“
You see? Nothing to worry about. Pyotr is sober enough for all of us.”

“
Sascha is right, though,” said Boris. “
Gospodin
Dimitri,” he said, using the Russian equivalent of
Mister
, “will probably be upstairs all night tonight.” The Pivnaya Romanov was one of several establishments owned by Dimitri Igorevich Prokanazov, the crime czar of West Santa Brita. When the czar came to visit on Thursdays, he would retire upstairs with the Romanov’s manager, Sylvia. He frequently did not come down until morning.

“
Who’s minding the store?” asked Ivan. “Yuri and Georgi?” Prokanazov’s bodyguards had come to like Ivan over the last several weeks, and he had become familiar with their routines.

“
Georgi had a family problem to attend to,” Boris said. “Feodor is covering for him.”

“
Georgi is always having family problems,” said Pyotr. “He needs to get his head straight. He could be out on the street.”

“
Pah,” said Sascha. “He’s Dimitri Igorevich’s cousin. No way the czar is going to fire him, no matter how much family trouble he has. Don’t get Ivan’s hopes up.”

“
Ivan has no hopes. He’s too old and fat. He knows that. Don’t you, Ivan?”

“
Hey,” Ivan said. “An old, fat bodyguard is still better than one who’s not there.”

“
You see? He still thinks Dimitri will hire him.”

“
I’m good. Kabanov used to say I was the best.”

“
Used to, that’s the important point.” Pyotr was waving his hands in the air again. “Let the young bulls do that sort of work,
tovarisch
Ivan. You want to work for Prokanazov, maybe we could find you some errands to run.”

“
I have my pride,” said Ivan. “I’m not a messenger boy. I’m a killer.”

“
Yeah, well, help us kill this bottle, will you?” said Pyotr. “Sascha, deal the cards.

By midnight Ivan had excused himself and left the Romanov. An hour later he was across town, approaching Prokanov’s mansion. His runabout was parked on the street some yards from the mansion’s gate. But the man who got out did not look like Ivan Raskalov. He looked exactly like Sascha Bylinkin.

“
Sascha, what are you doing here?” Feodor asked.

“
Open up. There was an accident. The fucking guardos impounded the runabout.”

When the door opened, Sascha drove his knife up under Feodor’s chin and into his brain. He walked the body backwards into the hallway, and then into a closet. He withdrew the knife and closed the closet door. Then he hurried up the wide central stairway.

He had studied the floor plan of the house, knew where his objective was, and that Yuri would be in the kitchen grabbing a sandwich and a beer. But Yuri would soon be wondering where Feodor was, and why he hadn’t checked in.

The second floor study was a museum. Display cases held every manner of odd memorabilia. There were many weapons, but also documents, an old-fashioned microphone, a skull, several dirty, worn-looking sports balls of various types, a couple of them signed. There appeared to be no rhyme or reason to the collection, but it was all beautifully displayed, and the cases were alarmed.

He suspected Yuri would be looking for Feodor about now. He could hear footsteps in the house. He smiled, kicked in the glass of the case before him. He snatched up an elaborate gold ring from its stand, shoved it into his pocket. Listened. He heard nothing, but was sure a silent alarm had been triggered, and now there was a timetable. He stepped to the door, put his back to the wall beside it. Footsteps were hurrying up the stairs. He grinned.

Pyotr stood by, struggling not to fidget. Dimitri Igorevich Prokanazov was tall and thin, with the mournful countenance of a funeral director and large, bony hands. He stood staring at the broken display case, expressionless. Pyotr could not tell if his stony stare indicated pure disbelief, utter rage, grief, or deep, contemplative thought. Prokanazov finally looked up, scanned the rest of the room.

“
You have got to be shitting at me,” he said. “He breaks into my house, kills Feodor and Yuri, and with all my belongings at his fingertips, my entire collection at his mercy, he takes only this one little piece? Elvis wept, I have the fucking skull of Arcidemus sitting here. Do you know what that would sell for to the right people?”

Pyotr shook his head. “Maybe he was interrupted—”

“
Nonsense. This is a very strange thief. A fan of Wendell Crichton.”

“
Who?” Pyotr scratched at his ear.

“
A great man from Bay City. Do you know nothing of history?”

“
Not much, I confess.”

“
The ring once belonged to Crichton. Call Murchison. I want a full guard forensics team to scour this place. Everyone is to stay outside until this is done.”

“
I don’t think Murchison...”

“
So squeeze his balls with one hand and offer money with the other. Get it done. And have Katarina call the insurance company.”

“
Oh,” said Pyotr. “Katarina said she saw something.”

“
And you waited until now to tell me this? Send her to me immediately.”

Varger Caine sat on his bed, staring at the ring in his hand. It dated to before the Takeover, certainly. It was heavy, but made of some base metal and plated to look like gold. It was set with a piece of black resin intended to look like onyx, into which had been embedded rhinestones, or pieces of glass, in the shape of the Crichton Industries logo. Dozens of these cheap things had been given out to Crichton employees and associates. The Father had never touched this ring. The Rusk had been scammed. He thought briefly about returning the ring to the gangster. Then he tossed it into a corner.