Procession of the Dead (8 page)

“It’s more than that,” he said. “Do you know anything about the Incas?”

I paused. I’d heard somebody else name-drop them lately. “The Cardinal,” I said aloud, remembering. “He mentioned them at our meeting. He told me my name was Incan. Said he’d read about them.”

“I bet he did,” Y Tse huffed. “He told me about them as well. Capac Raimi was the Incan phrase for the month of December. It means
magnificent festival
. Inti Maimi was June, the
festival of the sun
. Curious, don’t you think? There’s not many around with names like that. And both of us ending up working for The Cardinal…”

“It’s odd, I guess, but I don’t see what—”

“No,” he interrupted again. “In another town, another time, we could pass it off as mere coincidence. Not here, when The Cardinal’s involved. He’s told you about how he works, how he ties meaningless events in with bigger ones?”

“A bit.”

“He ever tell you the one about divination and the stock exchange?”

“No.”

“Ask him sometime. It’s a classic. Our names,” he said, “mean something. They link us. You’re more than just a wannabe gangster with dreams of grandeur. Inti Maimi was a real mover, up there with Ford Tasso. In the end I decided it wasn’t what I wanted and walked.” He grimaced. “How I survived is beyond me. I was a marked man. They’ll stand for everything here—murder, rape, incest—but not ingratitude. That’s a
Cardinal
sin. I had everything anybody ever wanted and I tossed it away with contempt. I should have been a dead man.”

“Dorry took pity on him,” Leonora interjected. “He put out word that nobody was to hurt him or knowingly let any harm come to him. As much as many would have liked to kill him, nobody disobeys Dorry.”

“Pity?” Y Tse shrugged. “I don’t think he’s capable of pity. I think there was a darker, selfish motive, but…” He stopped and was silent a long time. Eventually he lifted his head and gazed around. “Have you seen Harry Gilmer recently?” he asked Leonora.

“Who?”

“Harry Gilmer. Short, fat guy, meets with me a few times a month. You know Harry. You’ve eaten with us plenty of times. He’s always telling those awful mother-in-law jokes.”

“No,” she said. “The name doesn’t ring a bell.”

“You must!” he shouted, becoming livid. “You know him, Leonora. You do!”

“I’m telling you,” she said firmly, “I know nobody by that name.”

“Oh.” His face fell and his rage dissipated. “That happens a lot here, friend Capac,” he sighed. “Get used to it. People vanish. One day they’ll be walking around, big and brash, the next…”

“Dead?” I asked.

“No. Dead would be fine—everybody dies, especially in this line. This is more than death. This goes beyond. This is
obliteration
.” He pointed at Leonora. “She knows Harry Gilmer, but she won’t admit it. Nobody will. If you go to his home, you’ll find nobody there, no neighbors who’ll ID him, no postman or milkman who remembers delivering. If you check the files in Party Central, you won’t find anything on him. He’s gone. Never was, never is, never will be. Understand?”

“I don’t think so,” I said.

“They’ve wiped him out. They’ve taken Harry Gilmer and made it so he never existed. No records, nobody who’ll say anything about him. Nothing. They’ve swept every file, forced or bribed everyone who knew him into denying his very existence. That’s the cruelest thing there is, to take away everything a man ever was. It makes life seem so meaningless.”

“Who did it?” I asked. “The Cardinal?”

“I suppose. Nobody ever talks about it, so I can’t say for sure. But he’s the only one with that kind of power. The only one who can coerce people like Leonora into denying a man the courtesy of a memory.”

“Y Tse,” she said calmly, “I swear I never knew this Harry Gilmer. We have discussed this before. He has an illness,” she said to me. “He invents people and makes accusations of this sort when nobody acknowledges them. Is that not so, Y Tse?”

He shook his head sadly. “Maybe. There’s plenty who’d say I’m wrong in the head. But I can remember him as clearly as anyone. Him and the others. I’ve seen the list, too, that damned Ayua—” He stopped abruptly and stared at his fingers. “Take care, friend Capac,” he said bitterly. “Watch out for this city. Don’t let it do to you what it did to me. Don’t become another Inti Maimi.”

I leaned across the table, determined to push the point now that he’d brought it up again. “Our names,” I said. “What’s the link? What were you going to say a few minutes ago?”

He smiled. “The Cardinal hates guesswork. He’d shoot me here and now if he heard me guessing. But screw him. I stopped answering to him a long time ago. Here’s what I think. I was The Cardinal’s golden boy. He wanted me to take over when he passed on. There were a few of us—me, Ford, a couple of others—vying for pole position, but I was his favorite.

“I let him down. I proved him wrong. But he doesn’t want to admit his mistake. I think he believes I was the right man, and if he could find someone like me—somebody with large dollops of the younger Inti Maimi—and train him, raise him up and make him the star
I
should have been… that’ll justify his decision. It will prove he was right, that the failure was mine, not a reflection on his choice.”

He rose and stood beside his chair, adjusting his robes. Leonora was silent. “I think, friend Capac, that The Cardinal has chosen you to fill my shoes, to prove to everyone—including himself—that his judgment is sound. I think you’re being groomed to take over when he dies. This is the first step on a long, difficult road, but one which leads to gold, diamonds, all the riches you ever imagined. And more.

“I think he’s planning to make you the next Cardinal.

“Goodbye, Leonora. Goodbye, friend Capac. See you soon.”

And he left, leaving me motionless in his wake, heart beating erratically, breath coming in jerks.

The next Cardinal.

He was mad, no doubt about it. His prediction was probably the product of a wild, deranged mind. But still…
the next Cardinal!
Even if he was wrong, his words provided me with more scope for fantastic imagining than I’d ever known. And upstairs in Shankar’s, surrounded by the echoing chatter and gabble of gangsters, veterans and young pretenders to the throne, I let myself dream.

paucar wami

J
ohnny Grace was an Irish Cuban who’d grown up in the harsh east of the city and headed a small but vicious gang, the Grace Brothers. They’d terrorized their home territory—no small feat—for three years and now Johnny had decided the time was right to expand west. He was looking for The Cardinal’s green light. Ford Tasso wanted me to meet with him.

“Johnny’ll be a little pissed when he sees you,” he said. “He asked for me and he won’t like having to deal with an underling. He might make a scene.”

“How big a scene?” I asked, worried. There wasn’t much that frightened me, but a pissed Johnny Grace was near the top of the short list.

Ford smiled. “Kid, would I send you in if there was any real danger?”

“Without even thinking,” I pouted.

He laughed and clapped my back. “It’ll be OK. He’ll growl a bit but it’ll be bluster. Stand firm. Let him rant. Don’t show fear or apologize. In the end he’ll calm down and you can talk.”

“About what?” I asked.

“Sound him out. Ask him how he plans to expand. What’s in it for us? Whose turf is he after? Will he create problems we don’t want to deal with? Is he going to be a threat to our friends? Ask questions, make him talk, find out as much as you can. This is the first of many meetings. You don’t have to pump him dry.”

“Any chance he’ll attack me?” I asked.

Ford shrugged. “He knows we’d come after him if he did. But he’s a mad Cuban Mick. Who can tell?”

“Should I take a gun?”

He shook his head. “You take a gun into a dark alley with Johnny Grace, and things go wrong, you’re fucked. Without a gun he’ll just kick the shit out of you if he loses his temper. But if he sees a piece…” He didn’t have to finish.

Adrian and I dressed for the occasion in the Skylight. We’d been fitted for new suits earlier that week and eased ourselves into them.

“I feel like a pimp,” Adrian complained.

“You look like a pimp,” I comforted him.

“Do I
have
to come?” he asked. “I’m just your chauffeur. I’m not paid enough to get involved with crap like this. Why can’t I just drive, like I normally do, and sit it out in the car?”

“I want you there,” I told him. “I might need you if things go wrong.”

“If things go wrong with the Grace Brothers, I won’t make the slightest difference and you know it.”

I stopped trying to knot my tie. He was genuinely upset and I couldn’t blame him. “Adrian,” I said softly, “you’re the only friend Ihave, the one person I can rely on. This is a big day for me and I’m about a hair’s breadth away from losing my nerve and bolting. I need somebody to hold me in place. You don’t have to come. I won’t force you. But I’m asking, as a friend, will you help?”

He considered it. “No,” he said, then laughed and pulled up his socks. “You’ll owe me big for this.”

“I’ll see that you never want for anything again,” I promised. “Neither in this world nor the next.” I paused. “Which might not be as far away as we’d wish.”

We picked up Vincent in the lobby. He was coming along to observe me in action. He acted as if we were off to the movies. He lay in the back of the car and made us feel at ease with cute little stories. Like, “I saw Johnny Grace chew a man’s balls off once. No kidding. He stripped him, went down on him and gnawed the fuckers off!” And, “Don’t look at his feet. He’s clubfooted and hates it when people stare. You let your eyes drop below his knees, he’ll come at you like a pit bull.”

The meet was on neutral territory in a northern section of the southeast. The streets were narrow, clogged with uncollected garbage, refuse from street traders, burned-out cars. Every window was boarded over. The kids were dressed like Third World latchkey children, thin and mean.

We arrived first. Parked at the head of the alley, paid a few local teenagers to guard the car, and ambled down a dark, rat-infested stretch of street. It was day, the sun bright in the sky, but few rays penetrated the overhanging roofs and clothes-strewn washing lines.

Adrian and I stood against a wall while Vincent examined the layout. His hand kept going to the space at his side where his gun would normally be. I bet he would have brought one, regardless of orders, if they’d come from anyone other than Ford Tasso.

“You’ve never been on a gig like this?” I asked Adrian.

“Hell no,” he said. “I’ve only been in this business a couple of years. And it’s only temporary. A year or two more and I’m out of it. Out of this job, out of this city. I’ve only stuck it so far because of Sonja. She wants to see me doing well. You know how big sisters are.”

“Can’t say I do.”

“Don’t have any?”

“No.”

“Brothers?”

“No.”

“You’re an only child?”

“Obviously.” I glanced at him. “Why the interest?”

“You never talk about your parents, old friends, school or anything.”

“I don’t?”

“No.”

I scratched my head. “Didn’t know you were so interested in my history. Let’s see, I was born in…” As I thought about what to tell him, I noticed movement and stopped. “We’re in business,” I whispered, tapping his arm and pointing. Four men had stepped into view and were heading toward us. Vincent coughed and signaled for us to join him.

They reached us and stood looking, three or four feet distant. Johnny Grace was small, light-skinned, but muscular. I didn’t look at his feet to check if Vincent’s story was true or not.

“Who the fuck are you?” Johnny snapped.

“Capac Raimi. This is Adrian Arne and Vincent Carell.”

“Where’s Tasso?”

“I’m Mr. Tasso’s representative.”

He spat into the dust. “Fuck. You hear that?” His three men nodded seriously. “I come here, ready to do business with a man I respect, and get a fucking flunky. You think I’m a nobody? You think Johnny Grace wastes time on fucking boot-boys?”

“Let’s go,” I said to Adrian and Vincent. I turned my back on Johnny Grace, praying he wouldn’t stick a knife in it.

“Hey! Where are you going?” His voice was startled, uncertain.

I half-turned. “If you’re not prepared to deal with me and my colleagues, we have no business here. I’ll relay your dissatisfaction to Mr. Tasso and maybe next time he’ll come personally.” I smiled thinly. “To sort things out himself.”

Johnny twitched and looked at his gang. They were all uncomfortable now. I waited. “Shit, no need to get your feathers ruffled,” he said in the end. “I was just disappointed, you know? I thought he’d come himself. But he’s busy, he’s got commitments, I know what it’s like. Guess he couldn’t make it, huh?” I said nothing. “OK, fuck it, I’m sorry,” he shouted. “I apologize, all right?”

“You want to talk?”

“Yeah.”

“Good.” I started back. “I think we should begin with—”

Someone dropped from a nearby fire escape. A shadow fell by Johnny’s feet, an arm slashed at him, then the shadow was among the other three Grace Brothers. More slashing hands, shouts, confusion. Then all three men were lying in the dirt, silent, still. Their assailant rose lithely to his feet.

Johnny was staring at me, eyes wide, mouth open. I stared back, stunned. His hands were over his throat but I saw blood pouring through the cracks between his fingers.

The man who’d dropped from the fire escape turned Johnny around. Johnny’s hands fell by his sides. He tried to say something, to express shock, hatred or fear. But he couldn’t. Johnny Grace was beyond words.

The man drove a knife into Johnny’s stomach, held it there a second, withdrew, let the body drop, walked past and stopped in front of Vincent.

Vincent gulped deeply, his face ashen.
“Wami,”
he croaked.

“You know me?” the stranger asked. He had a smooth, mocking voice.

“I recognize the snakes,” Vincent said. “I’ve heard stories.”

“You work for… ? ”

“The Cardinal. Ford Tasso. I’m with Tasso.”

“Then you may live.” The man sheathed his knife and smiled. “Carry a message to Ford. Tell him I’m back. I’m here for my own reasons, but if he wants me, he knows how to get in touch.”

“I’ll do that. I’ll—”

The assassin brushed by Vincent and looked at Adrian and me. He was black, one of the darkest men I’d ever seen, about six feet tall, moderately built, completely bald. He had no facial hair but sported a tattoo on either cheek, colorful snakes which streaked down the sides of his face, came up under his chin and met in the center beneath his lips. His eyes were a striking green. He was ageless, maybe thirty, maybe fifty. He was the most terrifying person I’d ever seen, and that included The Cardinal and Ford Tasso.

“You,” he said. “What’s your name?”

“Capac Raimi,” I stuttered.

He smiled. “An Ayuamarcan. I thought so. And you?” he asked Adrian.

“Adrian Arne. Sir.”

He slid closer and gazed into Adrian’s eyes. “Yes,” he muttered. “You’re one too. A lesser specimen, I suspect. Interesting.”

With that he made his way back to the fire escape. He leaped, caught the lowest rung and hauled himself up. Within seconds he’d returned to the roofs of the city and disappeared from sight.

I looked around at the corpses. I was reminded of the scene with Uncle Theo at the warehouse. Could I expect this every time I attended a meet of gangsters?

“Fuck!” Vincent spat on Johnny Grace and stormed back to the car. Adrian and I followed.

“Who was that?” Adrian asked but Vincent ignored him.

“Who was he?” I repeated but Vincent didn’t seem to hear. He was too busy cursing. “Vincent!” I snapped. “Who the fuck
was
that?”

He looked up. “That was Paucar fucking Wami, man.” He paused and shook his head. “That was death on fucking legs.” And he wouldn’t say any more during the whole ride back.

When I wasn’t working or hanging out with Adrian, I spent most of my time with Y Tse and Leonora. They’d set themselves up as my sponsors and were doing their best to guide and instruct me. While they weren’t the powerful players I’d hoped to be headhunted by, both had been close to The Cardinal and knew him as a man, not a master. They were able to describe at least part of his state of mind, something nobody else in the city could have.

“Always stick by your guns,” Y Tse told me. “Stand up for yourself and say what you think. Everybody here”—he waved around the restaurant—“wants things done the correct way. They want you to obey their rules, follow orders, think and speak as they dictate. They don’t want dissent.

“You’ve got to ignore that. Be prepared to spit in their faces and laugh at their rules. Discreetly if possible but openly if not. You can’t let them order you about. If you do, you become their servant. You might go further faster by being a yes-man, but The Cardinal has thousands of them, so what’s one more?”

“I’ve got to confront and antagonize him. Take no shit.”

“Yes.” He sounded uncertain. “But you mustn’t push him for the sake of it. I’m not telling you to fire him up whenever you get the chance. Just speak your mind. If he asks for your opinion, give it. You don’t want to make an enemy of him, but you mustn’t be afraid to risk his wrath by contradicting him.”

“You cannot play safe, Capac,” Leonora added. “Dorry will kill you or king you. If you are determined to strike for the top, you must accept that it has to be one or the other.”

Another day she told me how to deal with The Cardinal’s fits of rage. “He can fly off the handle any moment. There is no logic to his tantrums. He does not care who is present, what he says or does. Dorry cannot control his temper. There is a fury in his soul which can neither be explained nor quenched. It drives him on. In an earlier age he would have carried a sword and ravaged heedlessly. In these more civilized times he has to channel those urges. He does. Barely.

“It is not easy. When I first met him, he was a teenager, yet already he had killed more than twenty men. He was roaring through the streets, out of control, on his way to an early death. I was able to calm him. I taught him to suppress his anger, keep his fists in his pockets and fight his inner enemies. The effort almost broke him but he kept struggling and eventually he reached a point where he could sit at a table with a foe and debate their differences, rather than rip the other man’s jugular out with his teeth, which is his natural reaction.”

Her eyes were soft. Even describing him at his worst, enraged, bloodthirsty and murderous, she spoke of him fondly. She lovedhim.

“But he cannot control his anger all the time,” she went on. “Every so often it bubbles up and he rips into whatever is closest. If there is furniture and blank walls, he will vent his rage on those. If people are present, they suffer the consequences.”

“He doesn’t look that tough,” I said. “I think I could take him in a fair fight if it was one-on-one.”

She laughed. “Nobody can take The Cardinal. His rage lends him strength. It is frightening to watch. He changes before your eyes. His body does not get bigger but it seems like yours gets smaller. I have seen him punch holes in brick walls, lift men twice his weight above his head. That strength comes from somewhere beyond the realms of fleshly bounds.”

She leaned forward and spoke softly, her face ashen, the only time I ever saw her truly afraid. “He is a
god
, Capac,” she hissed. “He does things the rest of us could never mimic, manipulates the world and the people in it like a magician. When all is said and done, it is as simple as that. Dorry is a god.”

About a week after the failed meet with Johnny Grace, Adrian dragged me out of the office, bundled me into the car and drove east. He took me further into the city’s heart of darkness than I’d ever been, down streets a vampire wouldn’t stroll alone. I felt uneasy and kept as low in the seat as I could. This wasn’t our ground. These people respected The Cardinal but would think nothing of taking out a couple of his men.

“Are you sure about this?” I asked Adrian.

“Trust me,” he said, turning down a lane barely wide enough to accommodate the car. “This guy knows everything about the city. He’s ancient, over a hundred according to the rumors. He was big, decades ago, before The Cardinal. These days he takes it easy. He’s got a couple of girls working the streets for him—more for information than money—but apart from that he just sits back and talks.”