City of the Snakes

1: in the name of the father

My father was a demon. He killed thousands of people, wicked and just, innocent and guilty — it made no difference to him. Paucar Wami was tall, black as the devil’s heart, bald, with uncanny green eyes and colorful tattooed snakes running the gamut of both cheeks, meeting just beneath his lower lip. He butchered for pleasure and gain. He lived solely to destroy. Ten years ago he passed from the face of this Earth and his unique strain of evil passed with him.

Between murders, Wami fathered a crop of children. I was the firstborn. I’ve spent the past decade trying to revive my father’s twisted legacy. I’ve become his living ghost. I’m an assassin’s shade, death to all who cross me.

My name is Al Jeery.

Call me Paucar Wami.

Friday, 23:00. I’ve been shadowing Basil Collinson since early evening. If the pimp sticks to his schedule, he should roll out of the Madam Luck casino shortly after midnight and head for a club. That’s when he dies.

Basil’s a poor gambler but he never drops more than a thousand in a single sitting. He’s careful that way. Likes to maintain control of his life. Dresses in the same smart suit every day. Takes care of his wife and kids, hides the true nature of his business from them. Cuts a slice of his profits to all the right people. On drinking terms with influential police officers and lawyers. Even pays his taxes in full and on time.

Basil’s only weakness is his violent appetite for the women who work for him. He has between fifteen and twenty ladies on the books at any given time, and though he sees that they’re fairly paid, every now and then he takes one off for a weekend and goes to work on her. He drops the façade, hits the bottle and subjects his victim to a torrent of abuse and torment. Mostly they limp away nursing bruises and cuts, but occasionally he’ll put one in the hospital, and at least twice that I know of, the damage has been fatal.

Pimps don’t ruffle my feathers — live and let live — but murderers are fair game.

My motorcycle’s parked out back of the casino, ready if I need it, though I doubt I will. Collinson normally walks to a nearby club when he’s done gambling. I’m waiting for him in an apartment on the fourth floor of the building opposite the casino. It belongs to a guy called George Adams. He works nights. Lives alone. He’ll never know I’ve been here. I prefer to stake out prey from the comfort of an apartment or office. Beats loitering on the streets, disguised as a beggar, hidden behind layers of soggy newspapers and cardboard.

Midnight comes and goes. The air fills with the vicious beat of fuck-it-all music, guilty laughter, drunken cheers and jeers, the growl of taxis, occasional gunfire. The city’s hotting up. There’s been a lot of unrest recently. Gang clashes, street riots, attacks on police. Word is The Cardinal Mk II has gone AWOL. If it’s true, it’s bad news. I have no sympathy for Dorak’s successor, but at least he held things together. If he’s been killed or abducted, this city will erupt and the streets will run with blood.

Collinson exits through the arched, glittering doorway of Madam Luck. I check my watch: 01:23. Later than usual. Must have been on a winning streak. Letting myself out of the apartment, careful not to leave any trace, I slip down the stairs and tag Basil as he turns the corner at the end of the street. He’s alone, which is a bonus. A companion would have complicated things. Now it’s simply a case of picking the ideal moment to strike.

Keeping to the sides, stepping over broken glass and sleeping bums, I close on Collinson, unseen, unheard, a child of the shadows. Ahead, my prey hums and clicks his fingers in time to the tune. Chances are he wouldn’t hear me even if he weren’t so self-absorbed. I’ve had nine years of practice. Only the very rare victim sees or hears me coming. To the rest I materialize out of the night like the monsters they were told not to fear when they were children.

Basil turns onto Hodgson Street. Angling for the Nevermind club—’90s retro. He’ll have to detour through Steine Avenue. The lights are inadequate there at the best of times. Useless these last four nights, since vandals smashed two of the lamps. That’s where I’ll take him.

I get close enough to Basil to identify the tune he’s humming. Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone.” A good song, and he carries it well, but I turn a deaf ear to it. Can’t afford to think of him as human. He’s a pimp, a killer, prey. I’m Paucar Wami, self-appointed executioner. I show no mercy. Fuck his taste in music.

Collinson hits the darkened Steine Avenue. Picking up speed, I stroke the varnished human finger hanging by a chain from my neck and slip up silently behind him, sliding a long curved knife from my belt. The blade’s freshly honed. I take no chances. Murder’s messy if you don’t put your target down with a single swipe.

At the last moment Basil senses me. He begins to turn, but too late. Bringing the knife up, hissing like the jungle cat I become at the moment of death, I slash it sharply across his throat, using the momentum of his swiveling head to drive the blade deep into his flesh, all the way across from right to left.

Basil’s dead before he hits the floor, though it takes him awhile to realize it. He jerks spasmodically, blood arcing high into the air from his severed throat. I stand clear of the spray, letting the wall take the burst, watching emotionlessly as his legs and arms go still. When he’s at rest and the flow of blood has subsided to a steady trickle, I step forward and crouch, working quickly. I’m wearing disposable plastic gloves. Dipping my index finger into the pool of blood spreading around his head, I rip the front of his shirt open, then scrawl on his chest (pausing to re-bloody my finger several times), THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS TO PIMPS WHO MALTREAT THEIR WOMEN. P.W.

Done, I close Basil Collinson’s eyes and say a silent prayer over him. “This son of a bitch is yours, Lord. Do with him as you will. Just don’t send him back.” The prayer’s instinctive. I mutter similar words over many of those I kill. A force of habit I’ve never bothered to break, though I should — wasted seconds.

Standing, I check I haven’t been seen, then slip away, offering myself to the shadows of the streets and alleys. As usual they accept me, and soon I’m invisible to all but the city itself.

I wake early, before seven. I’d have appreciated another couple of hours, but once I’m awake there’s no slipping back to sleep. Better to get up and on with the day than lie here thinking about Collinson and the other lives I’ve taken. I can reconcile myself to the life I lead when I’m active

(when I’m Paucar Wami)

but if I sit back and brood, doubts flood in, and doubts will be the end of me if I give them their head. I have to keep busy. My sanity depends on it.

Temperatures have been hotter than usual for this time of year, but it’s cold this morning and I start with a series of push-ups to warm up. I break three hundred before the first beads of sweat flow. I’ve spent most of the last ten years exercising. Approximately six hours of sleep each day, a couple of hours wasted on eating, washing, cleaning and shopping, the rest working out or pounding the streets. No leisure time. I don’t read, watch TV or listen to the radio. Sometimes I dip into newspapers, do research in libraries and scan computer files to check on certain facts, but otherwise I’m continually on the move, acting and reacting, thinking only of the challenges at hand.

I finish with the push-ups and segue into sit-ups, focusing on my abdominal muscles. I’m in great shape for a man pushing fifty. I have to be. The streets devour the weak. I must be stronger than those I hunt and kill.

My eyes flick to the photograph hanging on the wall at the foot of my bed. This is a small apartment, a bedroom, living room, kitchenette and bathroom. The wallpaper was old when I was young. The smell from the alley is suffocating in hot weather. But it’s home. I deserve and long for no better.

In the photo, an off-duty police officer has an arm draped paternally around the shoulders of a young amateur actress. They’re beaming at the camera. I’ve loved both of them, in different ways, and hated them more than I’ve loved. The woman died by my hand before I became Paucar Wami. The man is missing, presumed dead, but I believe he’s still alive. My sole purpose in life is to find him, put a gun to his temple and blow his brains out. On that day the killing can stop, and so can I. Until then I act out the part of my father and roam these streets without rest, hunting, killing, searching.

I start on neck rolls. Whisper softly to myself as I rotate my head, a word or short sentence each time my chin touches my chest. “Paucar. Wami. I am. Paucar Wami. The night. Is mine. No rest until. He dies.”

He—Bill Casey, the cop who destroyed me, who robbed me of everything I ever had and was, reducing me to this pale shadow of my inhuman father in the process. I have Bill’s small left finger — the digit that hangs from my neck — and one day, if he’s out there, I’ll have the rest of him too.

I think about Bill and Paucar Wami every day, every hour. Even when trailing prey, they’re foremost in my thoughts. Everything I am, I owe to them. Everything I do is in response to the hell of their creation.

Wami was my father, a legendary serial killer, beloved of The Cardinal. A beast who tormented and murdered to pass the time. Somewhere along the line his path crossed with Bill Casey’s. I haven’t worked out what Wami did to Bill — I suppose he butchered someone close to him — but it drove Bill mad. He swore revenge and spent decades plotting a bizarre retribution. Befriending me as a child, he guided me through much of my life, keeping me close by his side, only to strip me of everything I valued when the time was right, slaughtering those close to me, pinning the blame on Wami in the crazy belief that I’d take up arms against my father and kill him.

I confronted Bill once I’d unmasked him. When I asked why he didn’t kill Wami himself, he cited poetic justice. That didn’t make sense then, and it hasn’t grown any clearer with the passage of time. Unless Bill’s alive, and I can find him and squeeze the truth out of him, I doubt it ever will.

My head comes to a stop. I take several deep breaths, then head for the kitchenette to prepare breakfast. A simple meal — dry cereal, toast, slices of cold meat. Food doesn’t interest me. I eat to keep my body — my engine — ticking over. It’s fuel. Without it, I’d stop. And stopping’s something I can’t allow myself to do, not until Casey’s severed head rests on a spear before me.

And if he really died in the blast he engineered — the blast that left my body scarred and burned — and didn’t plant a corpse in his place? Then I’ll carry on until I grow old and withered, and perish on the streets of blood that I have chosen to make my own. Either way, there can be no rest. Not for the wicked.

I was an alcoholic once. In the nightmare months after Bill’s awful revelation, I almost gave myself over to the bottle. That would have been the easy way out. I often wish I’d taken it. But I hung tough, and gradually, when only the abyss loomed large in my life, the plan presented itself.

My father wasn’t human. The original Cardinal, Ferdinand Dorak, said he’d created Paucar Wami out of thin air, assisted by blind Incan priests who’ve controlled this city for centuries. He said he’d created others too — Ayuamarcans. Whenever he destroyed one of his creations, a green fog crept over the city and gnawed away at people’s minds, eliminating all memories of the unreal person.

I don’t know if The Cardinal was telling the truth or if he was a hundred percent bugshit, but there was something supernatural about Wami and the others. I’m the only one who remembers the Ayuamarcans. When The Cardinal died, those who were left faded out of existence and memory, except for Wami, whose legend lived on vaguely.

The plan was to re-create the serial killer, and thus lure Bill out of hiding. Since Bill had devoted so much of his life to destroying the hated Paucar Wami, I figured he wouldn’t be able to stop. He’d pursue his crazed quest, even if he was no longer sure whom he was chasing. The trouble was, with Wami gone — banished to the realms of nothingness when The Cardinal died — there was no one for him to chase, no reason for him to come out of hiding.

So I gave him one.

Following the food with half a pint of milk, I edge into the tiny bathroom and relieve myself. While washing my hands, I study my reflection in the mirror. I’m dark skinned like my father, very similar in appearance. The main differences — Wami was bald, with green eyes, and sported tattoos of twisting, multicolored snakes, one down either cheek, their heads locking in the middle beneath his lower lip.

I started with the hair. Scissors and a razor rid me of that. Green contact lenses for the eyes. Then the tattoos (which, as a bonus, hid the worst of my scar tissue). It took awhile to find a tattooist capable of replicating my father’s serpentine design, and several lengthy, painful sessions to ink in every last coil, scale and link, but eventually it was done and I took on the full look of Paucar Wami, down to the leather jacket and motorcycle that were favorites of his.

All that remained was to kill.

I used to remove the contact lenses each night, before retiring, but now I leave them in, not caring about the damage that must be doing to my eyes. They help keep me in character. Such small touches have become second nature. They have to, if the disguise is to work, if I’m to truly become the killer I seek to mimic and tempt my tormentor out of hiding.

I realized it wasn’t enough to look like Paucar Wami. To be him, I had to act as he had. I had to murder. At first, when the madness was fresh upon me, I thought to kill indiscriminately. The world had treated me cruelly and I meant to react in kind. I imagined myself butchering bloodily, freely. I got as far as shadowing a randomly picked woman to her home, slipping in at night while she was asleep and pressing my knife to the soft flesh of her throat.

I went no further. After an eternity of indecision, I withdrew, having shed no blood, to marvel at how close to true evil I had sailed. If I’d killed her, I genuinely would have become my father, and in time I’m certain I would have abandoned thoughts of revenge and lost myself entirely to viciousness.

Instead I ran home, moaning and weeping, and prayed for death. I almost took my life in the dark hours that followed, but the blade that had wavered at the woman’s throat crept away of its own accord every time I raised it to mine.

Over the next few days, between fits of rage and remorse, I found myself readjusting my plan. I couldn’t bring myself to kill the innocent, but I knew from experience that I was capable of dispatching the guilty. I’d killed during my years working for The Cardinal, as one of his Troops, and when I’d been betrayed by a woman in league with Bill and the villacs. This city’s full of criminals, deserving of death. If I left the innocent alone and set my sights on the scum…

Coming out of the bathroom, I wipe my hands dry, get down on the floor and launch into a punishing set of squats, hard and fast, thinking, Machine. Machine. Machine. Al Jeery grimaces as I break the hundred mark. Paucar Wami licks his lips and asks for more. His wish is granted. Two hundred. Three hundred. Four…

The New Munster hotel, 14:00. Three ground-level rooms packed with booksellers and buyers. Long tables overflowing with first prints and rare editions. Very little in the way of popular or pulp material — this is a fair for serious collectors. Most of the clientele are middle-aged and formally attired. Very little cash exchanges hands. It’s all credit cards these days.

I mingle unobtrusively with the rich as they fawn over the tomes, discussing print runs, volume conditions and prices. They also talk a lot about other fairs. Apparently Paris is the hot city at the moment, wonderful finds lying in wait on dusty shelves for those prepared to look. They take no notice of me, assuming — if they assume at all — that I’m with security.

I’ve removed my contact lenses and covered my tattoos with flesh paint, and I wear a wig of tight black curls. A shabby but acceptable suit. Neat shoes. Sometimes it’s better to go abroad as Al Jeery. These people would flee in terror at the sight of my nocturnal face.

I’ve been to dozens of fairs over the years, and I visit all the bookstores in the city on a regular basis. Books were Bill’s great love. He had a massive collection of first editions, a collection many of the people here today would happily steal, mug or even kill for. When he disappeared ten years ago, he took the books with him. That’s how I knew he

(probably)

wasn’t dead. He often said he didn’t care what happened to his books once he died, so since he’d taken the time to spirit them away before blowing up his house, I assumed it was because he hadn’t yet finished with life.

I don’t really expect Bill to show his face at a fair like this, but I come anyway, to mingle, observe, hope. These people get around — some have flown in from distant cities and countries, just to circulate for a few hours in search of a missing volume — and they tend to know, or know of, everybody within their exclusive circle. Maybe one of them has run into Bill, or knows somebody who has, and I’ll overhear them talking about him. A thin straw to clutch at, but when you’re as desperate as I am you’ll clutch at anything.

I spend four hours in the dry, studious, murmur-filled rooms, circling silently, eavesdropping, studying faces. I ask no questions of the buyers — I tried that in the early days, but it only aroused people’s suspicions — though sometimes I’ll stop by a quiet table stacked with the sort of books Bill favored (Steinbeck, Hemingway, Dickens) and linger a few minutes, prompting a bored proprietor to start a conversation. On such occasions I’ll casually steer talk around to an old friend of mine—“Bill Casey. A police officer. Had a full set of Hemingway firsts”—and gauge the reaction. Some recall him, but all believe that he died in the blast. Nobody’s heard word of him in the decade since.

As the fair draws to a quiet close, I make my exit. I’m not disappointed but I feel downhearted. It’s at times like this that I realize just how blindly I’m casting about for my old friend. He has all the world to hide in, and I’ve no clue where he might be. The odds against my finding him are immense. If I were in control of my senses, I’d cut my losses and call it quits. But I’m not. Haven’t been for ten years. So I’ll continue, like the senseless, dogged, single-minded beast that I am.

The city’s an ancient, sprawling, troubled beast. Founded by Indians, it’s been built up over the centuries by the Incan priests who fled from the conquistadors and made their home here. They rule from the shadows, which maybe explains why the city is dark and menacing at heart. Chaos flourishes here, nurtured by the villacs, who ladle power out among the various gangs, pitting black against white, Italian against Spaniard, Irish against everybody. Street laws hold the gangs in check, but those laws change abruptly in accordance with the dictum of the priests.

The last weekend’s been especially rough. Major clashes in the northwest between the Kluxers and Troops. The Kluxers are an offshoot of the Ku Klux Klan, led by Eugene Davern, the guy who owns the Kool Kats Klub. Five years back I’d have said Davern was crazy if he thought he could take on the Troops. But power’s been slipping through the new Cardinal’s fingers. Individuals have defied him and he hasn’t cracked down hard. The belief on the street is that Capac Raimi’s weak, out of touch with the pulse of the city. Revolt’s been in the cards for ages.

Davern and his Kluxers are the start. I hate those KKK sons of bitches — I’ve strung up more than a few of them these past nine years — but they’re a powerful force and Davern’s a shrewd leader. I doubt they can defeat the Troops alone, but if other gangs riot and Raimi’s forces are split, they might just pull it off.

Not that The Cardinal will notice. Word has strengthened over the weekend. It now seems certain Raimi’s no longer running the show. Some say he’s been killed, others that he quit, more that he disappeared mysteriously. Whatever the truth, he’s not in situ at Party Central any longer. I don’t know who is in charge, but I don’t envy him. The city’s facing its worst bout of mayhem since the race riots of some decades back. I pity the fool charged with the hopeless task of averting it.

It’s almost dawn, Monday, and I’ve been on the go since Saturday evening, bar a few hours of sleep yesterday. Although most of the trouble’s been confined to the northwest, there’s been a domino effect all over, especially here. Eugene Davern may have rid the Kluxers of many of their icons — they’ve abandoned the white hoods and burning crosses — but leopards don’t change their spots. If they overcome the Troops and annex the northwest, the next area they’re likely to target is the black-dominated east.

People in this part of the city are edgy, and that edginess manifested itself over the weekend in violence. Gangs are fighting to expand their boundaries and recruit new members, preparing for the war they think is coming. Street kids are mugging freely, making the most of things while the going’s good, before the lynchings start. A police precinct was besieged when one of its officers remarked in a radio interview that the Kluxers’ taking over would be the best thing that ever happened.

The city hasn’t erupted — the Troops are still the force all others are measured by, and they’ve been working hard to hold things in place — but it isn’t far off. If Davern can drive the Troops out of the northwest, expect ballistics.

I’ve spent the weekend doing what I can to calm things locally. I’m known and feared all over the east. I’m the Black Angel… Mr. Moonshine… the Weasel. I kill mercilessly (very few know that I only punish the guilty — I take credit for the deaths of innocents whenever possible). I’m a creature of the night, a son of the shadows. Unstoppable. Utterly vicious.

I’ve taken advantage of my reputation and patrolled the streets relentlessly, breaking up fights and gatherings by intervening directly or simply showing my tattooed face and coughing ominously. I shouldn’t interfere. My father cared nothing for the welfare of others. To truly be him, I should focus only on killing. Paucar Wami relished bloodshed. Setting myself up as a vigilante is counterproductive. I should leave the east to the gangs, keep my head low.

But this is where I grew up. These are my people. Even though I have few friends, and mix with the locals as little as possible, I feel attached. There isn’t much of the old Al Jeery alive within me, but just enough lingers somewhere beneath my skin to make me do what I can to help between executions.

Monday, 22:00. I snatched several hours of sleep earlier and feel much fresher. I disguised myself as Al Jeery when I woke and went to do some shopping. I wear the makeup whenever I want to pass among ordinary people. Remove the contacts, don a wig, plaster the sides of my face with flesh-colored paint to hide the snakes, dump the leather jacket. I’m unrecognizable this way.

After a quick dinner I dispensed with the wig and makeup, slipped the contacts back in and took to the streets again, exiting my apartment by the fire escape and dark rear alley, as I always do when in Paucar Wami mode, careful not to reveal myself to any of my neighbors. I checked on a few of the worst trouble spots — things have calmed down, though I doubt the peace will hold — saw I wasn’t needed and returned to the business of meting out terror.

I’m on the prowl for a homosexual, homicidal rapist. He’s struck four times in three months. Brutally rapes his young male victims, then stabs them through the heart with an ice pick. A savage piece of work. More than worthy of the slow death he’s going to endure when I get hold of him.

Even as I think that, the small trace of a human within me whispers that there can be no justification for murder. Even though the people I kill are the lowest of the low, they have the right to be tried by law. I’m laboring under no delusions — what I do is wrong, unjust, immoral. If there’s an afterlife and a judgmental god, I’m in for the big drop. There can be no room for vigilantes in a civilized society, even one as beset by brutes as this. I’m no better than the scum I kill. If anything I’m worse, because I know what I do is wrong.

I turn down Cyclone Avenue, hugging the shadows, watching, waiting, at one with the night. Most of the buildings in the east date back to the 1950s. Old, tired, ugly, many in a state of slow collapse. The whole sector needs to be bulldozed and put out of its misery. That said, in the dark, with the crumbling brickwork, barred or splintered windows, and garbage-spattered streets obscured by the shady streaks of the night, it can almost pass for pleasant. Darkness becomes this city.

The rapist has struck in a different spot each time, no discernible pattern, but always in the east, between ten and midnight. I’ve been hunting for him since his second victim was discovered, slotting the search in around my other duties, scouring likely alleys, those that are ill lit and rarely used. Luck will need to be on my side if I’m to find him, but in my experience luck comes to those who work for it. I don’t always get my man — the Mounties can lay sole claim to that distinction — but few evade me once I focus on them.

The streets are as good as deserted. Mondays are traditionally quiet, and after the weekend we’ve endured, tonight’s even quieter than usual. I’m beginning to think I should head for home when I enter a cul-de-sac and spot two figures ahead, one on the ground, struggling and moaning softly, the other on top, thrusting with his hips and panting.

I slide against a damp, moss-encrusted wall and creep toward them. While I don’t jump to conclusions — although this looks like rape, I’ve come across couples engaged in equally violent but consensual intercourse before—1 do draw my knife and prepare for the worst.

Closer. The figure on the ground is male, black, fourteen or fifteen. Gagged and bleeding from a cut to his head. Trousers yanked down around his ankles. The man on his back swats him, hissing, stabbing at him with his penis. I don’t think he’s penetrated, and I also no longer think this is consensual. I’ve seen masochists put themselves through worse than this, but I’ve never seen naked terror in their eyes, the way I see it in the boy’s.

“That’s enough,” I say softly, stepping away from the wall, keeping my knife low by my side where the rapist can’t see it.

The man stops, startled, then pushes himself away from the boy and spins to confront me. He’s wearing a dark wool cap, pulled over his ears and forehead. A long, bulky jacket, open down the front. His trousers are crotchless. His exposed penis points at me like a dagger, uncommonly stiff.

“Bastard!” the rapist snarls. He reaches behind the boy and grabs a short but finely pointed ice pick — my man!

“I’ve been looking for you.” I grin bleakly, sheathing my knife and drawing the.45 I keep for encounters such as these. Only a fool goes up against an ice pick with a knife.

“Bastard!” the rapist snaps again — a man of limited vocabulary — and starts toward me, pick held high.

I raise my gun to shoot but stop as I catch a clearer glimpse of his penis. I realize why it looked so strange. It isn’t real — it’s a strap-on dildo. As the folds of the rapist’s coat shift, it clicks — I’m dealing with a woman!

Momentarily startled, I forget to fire, and she’s upon me. She swings for my left arm with the pick. Luckily for me, she misjudges and it scrapes off my leather jacket harmlessly, to whistle across the expanse of my chest. She curses and reverses her movement, fluid, swift. But not swift enough. I step out of the way of the pick. She stumbles from the force of the missed blow. I take three more steps back, raise my gun again and fire before she recovers. Not a finely judged shot, but at this range it’s almost impossible to miss.

An unexpected zinging sound is followed immediately by a deeper, thudding noise — a bullet burying itself in flesh. The rapist collapses with a muffled shriek, dropping her pick, falling backward, hands flying to her stomach, coming away sticky with blood.

I close on her, ready to shoot again if I have to. The kid is on his feet, pulling up his pants. He hasn’t taken the gag out. “Go,” I grunt. “Don’t look back.” He nods gratefully and flees.

The woman — no, the rapist is mewing softly. I must think of her purely as the murdering defiler that she is. I was raised to be polite to women. Got to forget that. Focus on the task. Finish her off or wait for her to die.

As I study her, I see that the dildo no longer juts out straight from her groin. It’s bent to one side. The bullet must have struck the fake penis, then ricocheted upward — the source of the zing. I can’t prevent a wicked grin. She who lives by the dildo, dies by the dildo.

Noises behind me. My smile vanishes. I pivot, gun raised. When I see three half-naked old women entering the cul-de-sac, staring hungrily at the woman on the ground, I relax and step aside.

The women dart past me and fix on the stricken rapist. She ignores them when they fasten their clawlike fingers on her — she has other things to worry about — and only screams when they bite into her flesh. Her shrieks are short-lived. One of the Harpies is on her mouth in seconds, covering her lips with her own, kissing her silent, smothering her cries. In no time at all the rapist succumbs to the inevitable and yields beneath the onslaught. Her limbs go still. Her eyelids stop fluttering and the emptiness of death takes the place of living thought.

The Harpy draws back, bits of the rapist’s lips and tongue dangling from her teeth. She gurgles triumphantly, then joins the other two in their feast, tearing warm flesh from the corpse with her hands and teeth, swallowing it raw.

I avert my gaze and nod politely at the primly dressed, middle-aged woman who has followed the Harpies into the cul-de-sac. “Mrs. Abbots,” I greet her.

“Mr. Wami,” she responds with a wan smile. She observes the Harpies at feed, then turns to me with a worried frown. “She was alive when they started?”

“Yes.”

“Was she a bad person?” Her face contorts in anticipation of the answer. She does her best to keep the Harpies away from the innocent, but sometimes they feed on the corpses of the good as well as the bad.

“She was a child-raping murderess,” I sniff, and the worry deserts her.

“I’ll let them feed in peace then.”

Jennifer Abbots walks to the mouth of the cul-de-sac and waits for her charges to finish eating. After a last glance at the rapist and the Harpies — one of the cannibalistic ladies has dug through to the intestines and is reeling them out like a sailor drawing in his nets — I join her.

I first ran into the Harpies four, maybe five years ago. I’d just killed a guy who’d been selling spiked heroin when a quartet of crazed, near-naked women descended on him, ripped off his clothes and carved him up with their claws and teeth. I was repulsed and drew my gun to fire on them. I’d seen a lot of dark deeds during my time, but nothing as foul as this looked.

Jennifer stopped me. She threw herself at my arm and knocked my gun away, yelling, “No!” As I scrabbled for the gun, she fell to her knees, clasped her hands together and wept. “Please, I beg you, no. They don’t mean any harm. They can’t help themselves. They only feed on the dead.”

That struck a chord. It was ridiculous, but put across with such earnestness — as if feeding on a person was fine as long as they were dead — that I stopped and studied the woman, crying and dirty from the dust of the street, pleading with me to spare the feasting cannibals. I saw the rosary beads hanging from her neck, the gray in her hair, the anguish in her face. And I lowered my gun and let her talk.

The four women stripping the flesh from the bones of the dead dealer had been inmates in an asylum for the deranged. Privately run, very down-market, the sort of institution you read about in tabloid exposés, staffed by unqualified nurses, patients fed on watered-down porridge and stale bread, bedclothes washed once a month, orderlies having their wicked way with the unfortunate women. As if the situation weren’t grim enough, the staff had a run-in with the manager and walked out en masse. Whether because he expected them to return, or just didn’t have the funds to hire replacements, he took over the running of the asylum himself. The relatives of the inmates didn’t find that out until later. Few visited regularly, being either unwilling to face their incarcerated kin or unable, as in the case of Jennifer, who had to work three jobs to pay for the upkeep of her house and cancer-stricken husband.

For a couple of weeks the manager struggled by, buying food and drink from nearby supermarkets, using Laundromats to wash the sheets a few at a time. Perhaps he could have carried on indefinitely, but the strain must have gotten to him, because he died of a heart attack while preparing dinner one night. He was only discovered three weeks later, when a local councillor running for reelection wandered in with the intention of obtaining positive press shots of himself with some of the less privileged members of the community.

Nobody knows how long the crazed inmates tolerated the hunger pangs. Some held out to the end — there were nine to begin with, and three died of starvation. The other half dozen, having raided and emptied the cupboards, fridges and freezers, turned in the end to the only remaining food source — the manager and their dead companions.

“How’s life?” I ask Jennifer as we stand guard and wait for the Harpies to finish eating.

“So-so,” she answers. It’s been several months since we last ran into one another and she looks healthier than she did. “Rose died just before New Year’s, poor dear.” Rose was the mother of one of the Harpies. She’d been helping Jennifer care for the three remaining members of the cannibalistic clan.

“You’re looking after this lot by yourself?”

She shakes her head. “A very kind friend of mine, Mr. Clarke, has taken responsibility. He’s let them move in with him and he sees to their day-to-day needs. I’ve been able to relax for the first time in years, though I chip in with my share of the duties, which include chaperoning them when they go on the prowl.”

The councillor hushed up the scandal, terrified of being associated with a media nightmare. Bribing the photographer to keep his mouth shut, he contacted the relatives of the surviving inmates, told them what had happened and gave them the option of quietly coming to collect the survivors. Four responded, two didn’t. Jennifer and Rose, unwilling to leave any of the ladies to the discretion of the councillor — he promised to place them in a first-rate home, but they didn’t trust him — each took one of the “spare crazies” home along with her own relative.

With the survivors cleared, the councillor torched the nursing home, destroyed the evidence, put the mess behind him and focused on his campaign (in the end he lost by a thousand votes and hasn’t been heard of since).

Jennifer and Rose weren’t sure what to do with their charges. If they’d admitted them to another nursing facility, they would have had to explain where the women had been previously. The ladies were quieter than they’d been in the past, so Jennifer and Rose decided to tend to them by themselves until they could work something out.

The four weren’t difficult to care for. Apart from the occasional hysterical fit, they were model patients. Jennifer and Rose were both working women, but they arranged their shifts so that one was free while the other was busy. It wasn’t easy, but they managed, and everything ran smoothly until Rose fell asleep one afternoon while minding the four, and woke to find they’d vanished.

One frantic phone call later, Jennifer met Rose on the street and they went searching for the missing lunatics. They knew the women couldn’t get far — with no money, and dressed in simple gowns, they weren’t going to make much of a break for freedom — but the worry was that they’d attract attention, leading to all sorts of uncomfortable questions.

They searched the streets on foot, working in methodical circles. Nearly six hours later they found the quartet, crouched behind a garbage bin, sucking on the bones of a derelict who must have frozen or starved to death days before.

Jennifer and Rose were shocked, but since there was nothing they could do without calling the authorities and confessing, they opted to make the best of a bad lot, dumped the body in the bin and shepherded their stuffed, sated charges home.

Over the coming months, they realized the ladies’ taste for human flesh wasn’t going to go away. They’d get restless, stop eating, complain and act up. They grew violent if denied their cannibalistic pleasures. The only way to keep them quiet was to take them out, locate a fresh corpse and let them at it.

So that’s what Jennifer and Rose did.

The first of the Harpies finishes her meal, staggers away from the others, sits at Jennifer’s feet and burps. It’s Rettie, Jennifer’s sister. One of the Harpies died a couple of years ago. Jennifer never told me what of. I’ve a sneaking suspicion it might have been indigestion.

I don’t wholeheartedly approve of the Harpies, but they do no harm, feeding only on the dead or those — like the rapist tonight — who are as close to it as makes no difference. It’s a dog-eat-dog world. Who am I to pass judgment on a few mad old women who’ve taken that credo literally?

I tried curing the ladies of their craving once. I used to be able to help people with mental difficulties. As a younger man, I could absorb their fear and hurt, and ease their pain. But I couldn’t work my charms on the Harpies. Didn’t even get to first base. I think I lost that gift around the same time I abandoned my humanity. Monsters can’t cure, only kill.

As the others reach their fill and desert the body of the rapist, Jennifer starts toward it with the intention of carting it away for disposal. I stop her with a gentle hand. “That’s OK. I’ll get rid of the remains.”

“Are you sure?” Jennifer asks.

“Yeah. Spare your back. You’re getting too old for this. You should hire someone younger to help.”

Jennifer laughs. “It’s not exactly a post you can advertise for.”

I grin. “Guess not.”

“Besides, I can’t complain. Mr. Clarke, God bless him, has relieved me of most of the stress. I have things easy compared with how they used to be. This would be a harsh, lonely life if we had no friends.”

“Yes,” I sigh, and stand aside as she leads Rettie and the other two Harpies away, to wherever they now call home. I muse on the dark wonders and variety of the world for a couple of minutes, then roll on a pair of gloves, bag scraps of the rapist’s clothes, flesh and bones — not forgetting the dildo — and grab hold of the bloody remains of the dead woman. She doesn’t weigh much now that she’s been stripped to the bone. I hoist her onto my shoulders and go looking for a decent-sized Dumpster or furnace.

Just another average night in the city.

2: old friends

I sleep in late. Putting an end to the rapist pleased me, and I sleep the sleep of the

(almost)

just. I half wake a couple of times, but doze off again without opening my eyes, smiling in the gloominess of my stuffy room, enjoying the warmth and comfort of my bed.

It’s after midday when I rise and launch into the first set of the day’s exercises. Squats. I’m up to 236 when someone knocks on the door.

I come to a cautious halt. I’m not expecting visitors, and unexpected guests are rare around here. Religious missionaries don’t venture this far east — they gave up on us long ago — and nobody’s dumb enough to come collecting for charity. My neighbors aren’t in the habit of dropping in — they care as little about my affairs as I do about theirs — and the rent isn’t due for another two months.

Rising, I pad to the door and pause with my hand on the knob. I don’t have a chain or latch, so I address my visitor through the thin wood of the closed door. “Who is it?”

“Jerry Falstaff.”

Unlocking the door, I open it and gesture him in. It’s been three years — more — since he last looked me up. My curiosity’s instantly aroused.

Jerry walks straight to the only chair in the tiny living room and takes it. “The decor hasn’t improved,” he notes, casting an unimpressed eye around.

“I was never big on interior design.” I close the door and take up a position opposite him, standing to attention the way I used to when I was one of Jerry’s colleagues in the Troops. Jerry’s come a long way since then, further than either of us ever imagined. The new Cardinal took a shine to him. Jerry mixes with the high and mighty these days, though he doesn’t bear the look of an important man. He’s the same Jerry Falstaff I remember, slightly overweight, clothes a bit loose, a small grin never far from his lips. A bit grayer at the temples perhaps.

“Looking good, Al.”

“I keep in shape.”

“And then some.” Jerry coughs meaningfully and I take the hint.

“Can I get you something to drink?”

“Thought you’d never ask. Got any beer?”

I fetch a couple of cans from the fridge, one for each of us. Ten years ago I was dry, avoiding all forms of alcohol in the sure knowledge that one slip would be my downfall. These days I can indulge in a social drink (though I rarely do) and leave it at that. I have greater demons to wrestle with.

“Busy?” Jerry asks, sinking a third of the can and burping.

“Yes.”

“Things have been tense lately. I hear you’re keeping a lid on the situation in these parts.”

“I’ve done what I can.”

“Didn’t think community watch was your kind of business.”

“Riots are good for nobody. How are things going with the Kluxers?”

Jerry grimaces. “We’ve forced them back a bit. They’ve established a toehold, but we showed we weren’t ready to let them roll in and take over. It’s an uneasy truce but it should hold for a few weeks.”

“And then?”

“Who knows?” He smirks humorlessly. “Actually that’s what I’m here about.” He pauses, giving me a chance to ask questions, but I say nothing. I can’t imagine what he’s after. “We’ve been good to you, haven’t we?”

“We?”

“Me and Frank. Ford, before he retired. As a rule we’re opposed to vigilantes. We had every right to crack down on you, especially since you targeted so many of our valued associates.”

I nod slowly. “I can’t argue with that.”

“But we’ve kept out of your way and granted you the freedom of the city.”

“That’s true.”

Jerry sips from the can and speaks over the rim. “You know about Capac going AWOL?”

“I’ve heard rumors.”

“He went to the Fridge Saturday before last. Asked to be admitted to Dorak’s crypt. When the doctor who let him in returned, he wasn’t there. Vanished into thin air, or so it seemed. We found a passageway beneath Dorak’s coffin, a set of stairs leading down into a maze of tunnels. He must have gone down — or was taken. We tried to track him but it’s immense, full of traps and dead ends. He hasn’t been seen since.”

“A tragedy,” I mutter drily. Inside I’m thinking that underground tunnels plus an Ayuamarcan plus mysterious disappearance equals villacs.

“It will be if we don’t get him back,” Jerry says seriously. “He has his critics, but Capac’s The Cardinal, the only one who can hold this shit-can of a city together. He…” Jerry shakes his head. “But that’s not for me to say. You’ll be told more later. I want you to come with me, Al.”

“Where?”

“Party Central.”

“Why?”

“Ford’s back. He’s taken control.”

“Ford Tasso?” I ask stupidly. “I thought he’d been crippled by a stroke.”

“He’s semi-paralyzed but he can get around. It isn’t easy, and it’ll get harder by the day, but right now he’s the one man everyone’s willing to rally behind. Ford’s name still carries weight. The shock of seeing him stagger out of retirement gave all of our enemies pause for thought. It even drove the Kluxers back — as soon as Davern realized he’d be pitting himself against Ford Tasso, he turned tail. That won’t last — he’s too tempting a target, old and fragile — but it’s bought us time.”

Tasso bossing the gang around at Party Central again was something I never thought to see. I assumed he’d simply pass away quietly and that would be the end of the Ford Tasso legend. Seems he didn’t bother to read the script.

“I’m glad he’s back,” I say honestly. “It’s nice to hear the old bastard’s still up for a fight. But what’s it got to do with me?”

“He wants to see you,” Jerry says.

“Why?”

“I think he wants your help. He seems to believe you might know where Capac is, or how to find him.”

“I don’t.”

Jerry shrugs. “That’s what I figured, but—”

“No buts,” I interrupt. “I know nothing about your Cardinal’s disappearance. I’ve no wish to get involved. Tell Tasso that.”

“Al,” Jerry chuckles, “it hasn’t been so long that you’ve forgotten how things work. I was told to bring you in, not deliver a message.”

My eyes narrow. “What if I don’t want to come?”

Jerry sighs. “I’m not fool enough to try and force you. But I went out of my way for you once. Put my life on the line.” That was ten years ago, when everything around me was going to hell. Jerry helped me put part of the Bill Casey puzzle together. Unlike many of the players in that game, he wasn’t manipulated by Bill or the villacs. He only got involved because he wanted to help.

“OK,” I mutter. “Do I have time to get dressed?”

“Sure,” Jerry beams, returning to his beer. “You might want to stick on your wig and cover those snakes too. I don’t bear you any ill feelings for the contacts of ours you’ve taken out, but there are some at Party Central not as forgiving. If they see Paucar Wami walk in, they might start shooting.”

Grunting sourly, I go get ready for my meeting with the fill-in Cardinal.

Jerry still drives the same old van that he drove ten years ago, though the engine’s been replaced and new leather seats have been fitted. Traffic’s bad, so it takes us forty minutes to reach Party Central. The fortress is much the same as ever. Twenty floors of reinforced concrete, steel and glass. Raimi made a few structural alterations — such as the balcony on the fifteenth floor — but by and large it hasn’t changed. Two costumed doormen still operate the front doors, but the ten Troops who used to flank them aren’t to be seen. I’d heard the new Cardinal wasn’t as security conscious as his predecessor.

Inside it’s buzzing. The huge tiled lobby’s full of people talking, arguing, booking appointments, waiting to be met. In Dorak’s day everyone had to take off their shoes and leave them at reception, but Raimi scrapped that asinine rule and the desk where people checked in their footwear has been replaced by a row of computers where execs can surf the Web, work on their files, or kill time playing games.

Although the Troops on the doors have been removed, there are more guarding the lobby than ever before, blocking entrances to the elevators and stairs, patrolling relentlessly, weapons openly displayed. By the slight air of confusion, I can tell these aren’t regulars. Tasso must have drafted them in.

“Expecting trouble?” I ask Jerry as we weave through the crowd.

“And getting it,” he replies. “Frank wanted to put guards back outside the doors, but Ford said it would be admitting to the world that Capac was gone.”

“I thought Frank didn’t work here anymore.”

“Capac asked him to step into Gico Carl’s shoes. Frank agreed, on a temporary basis. Now he wishes he’d kept the hell out, but he’s stuck with it.”

“How’s he getting on with Tasso?” There was never any love lost between them.

“Surprisingly well,” Jerry says. “There’s no time for friction. You’d swear they were long-lost brothers if you didn’t know better.”

The private elevator to the fifteenth floor is protected by a dozen armed Troops. They part as Jerry approaches, but their gazes linger suspiciously on me and I hear the creaking of fingers as I pass, tightening on triggers. If I were a man who worried about dying, I’d be very nervous right now.

I recognize the elevator operator — Mike Kones, a friend of Jerry’s. The three of us shared many shifts in the old days. Working an elevator’s not my idea of a satisfying job, but Mike was never the most mobile of men and this is a prestigious position. He looks content. We nod to each other but don’t say anything.

Frank’s waiting for us at the top. It’s been six years since our paths crossed. He’s put on a lot of weight — too many corporate lunches — and his hairline’s receding, but he looks happier and calmer than when he was head of the Troops.

“Al,” he greets me with a genuine smile and a firm handshake. “Great to see you. How’ve you been?”

“Not bad. You?”

He pats his bulging stomach and grins. “Getting by.” He faces Jerry and his smile thins. “Trouble.”

“Pena?” Jerry guesses and Frank nods. “Ron Pena,” Jerry explains for my benefit. “Manufactures designer drugs. Fancies himself as a successor if Capac doesn’t return.”

“He’s making his move,” Frank says darkly. “Ridiculing Ford, saying he’s too old, demanding he step aside. Most of the people who matter are in there — Pena summoned them. If they side with Pena, Ford’s through.”

Jerry’s face darkens. “If Pena takes over, we’re fucked. He’d try and do deals with Davern and his like. Screw everything up.”

“I told Ford that,” Frank grumbles. “I said we should deny his request for an audience. He wouldn’t listen. Told me to admit him. I don’t think he realizes the threat Pena poses. He doesn’t understand that things have changed. The gangs aren’t automatically obedient any longer.”

Jerry chews his lip and glances at me. “Think we should wait out here until it’s over?” he asks Frank.

“No. Ford said you were to enter as soon as you arrived. If we don’t obey his orders, we can’t expect anyone else to.”

BASE — The Cardinal’s office — is jammed with Raimi’s disgruntled generals. Men in suits mingle with hoods in jeans and slashed shirts, but nobody looks out of place. The Cardinal’s empire embraces both the legitimate and illegal, and these people are accustomed to the curious mix.

All eyes are focused on the pair at the center of the room. Ford Tasso sits in The Cardinal’s vacated chair, stony face impassive, right arm slung lifelessly across his waist. Ron Pena circles him like a lawyer, gesturing expansively, a picture of youthful arrogance and strength, berating the old man.

“We know how important you were to Dorak and Raimi,” Pena barks, “but you’re a cripple now. We can’t live in the past. You’re not fit to walk, never mind run a corporation like this. Stand down, for fuck’s sake, and let those of us who know what we’re doing take command. You’re a joke. The only reason you haven’t been attacked is that all our rivals are falling over laughing.”

Tasso sighs an old man’s sigh and shakes his head meekly. The right side of his face is a stiff mask — paralyzed from the stroke — and the eye there rests dead in its socket. “You’re right,” he mutters, his voice a slurred imitation of what it used to be. “I thought I was helping, but I see now it was an old fart’s folly. I wasn’t a man to lead in my prime, so I’m hardly fit for it in my twilight years.”

Sympathetic murmurs and chuckles fill the room. Pena beams condescendingly at the crippled elder gangster and lays a comforting hand on his shoulder. Frank curses beneath his breath and looks away, disgusted. Jerry and I share a wry glance — we know Tasso better than Frank does. We don’t buy the act.

“Help me up, Ron,” Tasso croaks, struggling to rise. “Get me back to Solvert’s. A few of us play poker every Tuesday. I might make the first hand if I hurry.”

“That’s the spirit,” Pena laughs, taking hold of Tasso’s dead right arm and hoisting the old man to his feet. “Stick with your card games. Leave the running of the city to those best suited to—”

Tasso’s left hand strikes for Pena’s throat. His huge fingers dig into flesh and he squeezes. Pena gasps, eyes widening, and drops to his knees. Tasso holds him up, supporting the weight of the younger man’s body with his one good hand, fingers whitening from the pressure as he crushes. Pena makes savage choking noises and slaps at the hand around his throat. Tasso ignores the feeble gestures. Around the room, jaws drop. Nobody steps in to save Ron Pena.

Half a minute later, the job’s finished. Tasso lets go of his dead challenger, who flops to the floor. He turns slowly and painfully, his right leg nearly useless, and glares with his working eye at those who moments before were ready to pension him off.

“If anybody else has anything to say about my leadership qualities,” he snaps, and this time his voice is as firm as ever, “say it now, to my face.” Silence reigns. He kicks the corpse at his feet, then hits a button on the desk. “Mags. Send in a disposal unit. Shit needs scraping off the floor.”

“Yes, Mr. Tasso,” comes the voice of his secretary. Seconds later, four Troops march into the room, pick up Ron Pena’s remains and cart him away.

“Well?” Tasso shouts. “Am I in charge of this fucking anthill or not?” There’s an immediate flurry of answers, everybody hurrying to swear allegiance. “In that case, stop wasting time, get out on the street and spread the word that it’s business as usual at Party Central.” The gathered heads of the corporation start to file out. “Gentlemen,” he calls them back. “If I even think that any of you are plotting against me, I’ll have your heads for bowling balls, your wives for whores and your children for house-slaves.” A few of the men begin to chuckle. Then they realize he’s not joking and their laughter dies away in gurgles. Tasso turns his back on them and limps to the balcony for a breath of fresh air.

“A force of fucking nature,” Frank whispers admiringly.

“I told you he’d crack the whip,” Jerry smirks.

Tasso makes his slow way back from the balcony. The strain in the huge man’s face is evident, but so is the relish. He’s loving this.

“Algiers,” he nods.

“Ford.”

“Been a while.”

“You’re looking good.”

He snorts. “I look like a fucking wreck. You two!” he barks at Frank and Jerry. “What are you doing here?”

“Awaiting orders,” Frank says.

“Don’t you have any initiative? I’ve just throttled the chairman of one of the most profitable pharmaceutical firms in the city. The race to replace him has already begun. I want one of our men in there. See to it.”

“Yes, sir!” Frank salutes smartly.

“Right away, Mr. Tasso!” Jerry mimics Frank’s salute.

“Pair of fucking clowns,” Tasso grumbles as they exit, but the left side of his mouth lifts into an amused half-smile. “Take a load off, Algiers.” I grab a plastic chair and sit opposite him as he eases himself into the soft leather chair. “How’s life been treating you?”

“Better than you,” I comment.

He chuckles. “I’m a mess, sure as fuck, but I’ll take punks like Ron Pena any day, crippled or otherwise.”

“Pena was a nobody. Will you be able to take Eugene Davern when he comes?”

Tasso grimaces. “Let’s not dwell on that. Get you something to drink?”

“I’d rather skip the preliminaries and find out why you called me in.”

“As you wish.” Tasso rubs the wrist of his right arm, then moves up to the elbow. “You heard about Capac and the Fridge?”

“Jerry filled me in.”

“Ever meet him?”

“Raimi?” I shake my head. “Saw him a couple of times.”

“A strange kid,” Tasso reflects. “Cold and alien inside. Dorak was a mean son of a bitch, but he was human. I don’t know what the fuck Raimi is.”

Tasso tosses a doll at me. It’s a dead ringer for Capac Raimi. It reminds me that this room used to be full of dolls — absent now.

“I locked them in a cupboard,” Tasso explains as I stare at the bare walls. “Never could stand those fucking mannequins. Had to put up with them when I was playing second fiddle to The Cardinal.”

“But when the cat’s away…”

“Exactly.”

I turn the doll around, examining it idly. “Think he’s dead?” I ask.

“He can’t be killed.”

I smile, keeping my eyes on the doll so that Tasso won’t see the grin. “You never struck me as the gullible type.”

“I’m not. But I’m telling you, Capac Raimi can’t be killed. He’s immortal.”

“I’ve heard the rumors. I don’t believe them.”

“I’ve seen it firsthand. He’s been shot, knifed, blown to pieces, pushed off that balcony. The fucker keeps coming back. I don’t know how, but he does. His remains dissolve away and a few days later he forms a new body and returns. If you think I’m going senile, check with Jerry and Frank. They’ve seen it too.”

I shift uncomfortably in my chair. “If that’s true, why are you worried?”

“He’s never been gone this long. Normally he returns within three days. At a stretch, four. Never longer. This time he’s disappeared. I don’t know where he is. And I don’t think he’s going to make it back on his own.”

“But if he can’t be killed…”

“I don’t know how to explain it!” Tasso roars. “If I could, I wouldn’t need to turn to you.”

“Speaking of which… What do I have to do with your missing Cardinal?”

Tasso’s left hand creeps to his right shoulder and he kneads the flesh firmly. If he were sitting at an angle to me, the right side of his face would show all the vitality of a corpse.

“Capac came to see me the week before he vanished,” Tasso says. “He was agitated. The city’s going to hell and he wanted to halt its slide. He believed the villacs—they’re blind priests—”

“I know who they are,” I chip in softly.

“—Were responsible for the unrest. This wasn’t the first time they’d clashed. Capac had his own way of doing things. The villacs didn’t approve. He felt they were undermining his authority. He asked me to step in for him, freeing him to deal with them. I refused. The following weekend he wound up at the Fridge and nothing’s been seen of him since.”

I dwell on that a while. “Why return to the hot seat now, when you wouldn’t before?”

“Guilt,” he answers directly. “I thought Capac could handle things. I didn’t take his offer seriously. If I had, maybe he wouldn’t be on the missing list and this city wouldn’t be on the brink of war.”

“It’s a bit late in the day to put things right.”

Tasso shrugs (only his left shoulder rises). “If I’m late, I’m late. Point is, I’m here and I need your help.”

“I still don’t understand what you think I can do. I have no idea where Raimi is.”

“You can find out,” Tasso says evenly. “I think the villacs have him and I think you’re the one person who can deal with those blind sons of jackals and persuade them to set him free.”

“Why would you think that?” I frown.

“Stuff Capac told me over the years. I know about the Ayuamarcans, your father and how, aside from Capac, you’re the only survivor of Dorak’s phantasmagoric army.”

“You remember Paucar Wami?” I hiss.

“Not clearly, but Capac told me all about him.”

I’m trembling. That won’t do. I need to be composed. I count silently until I’m in control. When I reach twenty-two and my hands are still, I speak. “Even if there’s a link between Raimi and me, what makes you think I could find him?”

“I’ve been here since Friday,” Tasso says. “But it was only last night, when this was dropped on my desk, that I thought about you.”

Tasso tosses an envelope to me. Warily, I slide the flap open. A large playing card slips out — the jack of spades. An ordinary card in most respects, except two tiny photos have been glued over the faces of the jacks, one of Capac Raimi, the other of me, in Al Jeery guise. Across the middle of the card runs a printed message, written in red ink on a white strip of paper. THE BLOODLINES WILL MERGE.

I read the message twice, glance again at the photos, then place the card back in its envelope and return it to Ford.

“You’re right,” I say quietly. “The villacs have him.”

“Any idea what it means?” he asks. “About bloodlines merging?”

“The priests have a vision. They want to make this city the center of the world. They believe in a sun god, and they think he’ll bless them if the conditions are right and ensure their longevity until the end of time. That can only happen if three bloodlines come together in a chakana of blood — Blood of Flesh, Blood of Dreams, and Flesh of Dreams.”

“I haven’t the slightest fucking clue what you’re babbling about,” Tasso says.

“Raimi told you how the Ayuamarcans were created, how Dorak and the priests wove them out of thin air, molding their features after people he saw in dreams?”

“Yeah,” Tasso says cautiously.

“Capac’s supposed to be a creature of the dream world — hence, Blood of Dreams. The villacs are human — Blood of Flesh. As the spawn of an Ayuamarcan and a human, I’m meant to be the blood of Flesh and Dreams — Flesh of Dreams. The way they told it, if I hooked up with them and Raimi, and we worked as a chakana — a three-tier team — this city would be ours and we’d rule forever.”

Tasso looks perplexed. “I’m still not sure I follow. But you’ve confirmed what I thought — you and Capac are mixed up with the villacs and thus with one another. That’s why you’ve got to look for him. If I send others, the priests will kill or repel them. Those bastards only spare those they have a use for. If they have a use for you, you might be able to go places the rest of us can’t.”

“Maybe,” I concede guardedly. “But I’m not interested in Raimi or the priests. The less I have to do with them, the better.”

“You’re turning me down?” Tasso asks blankly.

“Nothing could make me throw in my lot with those blind bastards,” I answer directly. “Money won’t sway me and threats won’t scare me. I won’t get involved and that’s all I have to say about it.”

I rise, aware that I’m taking an enormous chance, prepared to fight if I have to, sure I won’t get very far. But Tasso makes no move to stop me. He lets me get to the door, then says, just loudly enough for me to hear, “Bill Casey.”

I come to a halt, eyes closing as I groan. Deep down I knew he had something up his sleeve. I just didn’t think it would be this compelling.

Turning to face him, I wait for him to continue.

“You fascinated Capac,” Tasso says. “When you adopted Wami’s look and name, he had you investigated. He found out everything he could about you, much of it from Dorak’s files — the old Cardinal had a shitload of material on you.

“Bill Casey admitted in a letter to the cops that he fucked up your life. He told them he masterminded the murders of your girlfriends and ex-wife. But he never provided a reason. Capac guessed it was linked to your father. He figured Paucar Wami hurt Bill Casey, and this was Casey’s warped way of hitting back at his tormentor — through his son.”

“Smart thinking,” I comment icily.

“Capac’s as cunning as they come,” Tasso huffs. “What he didn’t understand was why you assumed your father’s position. Casey tormented you, but he died in the explosion that almost killed you. That should have been the end of it. Unless, of course, he wasn’t really dead.”

Tasso slides the photo-decorated jack of spades out of the envelope and studies it while elaborating. “Capac figured Casey must have rigged the explosion and walked away, that your Wami disguise was a ruse to tempt him out of hiding, so that you could settle the score.”

“A certified genius,” I snarl.

“There’s more,” Tasso says, laying the card down. “As The Cardinal, Capac had informants everywhere, ears and eyes in places the rest of us don’t even know about. He set his people looking for Casey.” A carefully calculated pause. “They found him.”

My strength deserts me. I stumble against the door and pant for breath, eyes shut, fighting off the madness bubbling to the surface. “Bill’s alive?” I wheeze.

“And living in this city.”

My eyes open. Everything goes cold. “Where?”

Tasso stares at me evenly. “I’ll only tell you that once Capac’s been safely returned.”

“No!” I bellow. “Tell me now!”

I start toward the old man in the chair, insane with vengeful desire, not about to be denied. I’ll tear Tasso limb from limb if that’s what it takes. If he thinks he can dangle Bill in front of me like a carrot, then snatch him away, he’s seriously fucking mistaken.

“Don’t do it, Algiers,” Tasso says softly, and the unexpected gentleness in his voice unnerves me. “If you attack, I’ll fight to the death. I’ll kill you or you’ll kill me. The latter’s the more likely outcome, but it won’t get you Casey’s address. It’ll only earn you an early execution at the hands of my Troops.”

There’s no arguing with that. I wish I could throttle it out of him, but I know him too well. Violence isn’t the answer, not this time.

“A deal,” I growl. “The address first. If it’s on the level, I’ll see to my business with Bill, then search for—”

“Negative,” Tasso barks. “Capac first, then Casey. That’s the offer. Take it or leave it.”

Inside my head I count to ten. Thinking of Bill and his sad expression when he explained how he set about wrecking my life. Twenty. Remembering the explosion, the aftermath, slowly coming to the realization that he might still be alive. Fifty. Dwelling on ten years of murder and craziness. Eighty. Looking ahead, exploring alternatives, seeing only one way forward.

On ninety-six I let out a long breath. “If you’re bluffing…”

“I’m not.”

“OK.” I pull up the chair I was using earlier and position it in front of the makeshift Cardinal. I sense eager demons gathering around me, in anticipation of the chaos and bloodshed that’s sure to follow. “Tell me where you want me to start.”

3: déjà vu

It’s been a long time since I played detective. Ten years ago a woman was murdered in the Skylight hotel, and The Cardinal (nudged by the villacs) assigned me the task of finding her killer. That was my one and only case. It was enough. I learned and suffered more during the course of that investigation than any shamus should. A true baptism of fire. I swore I’d never endure such torment again.

But here I am, at the heart of another mystery, facing the same dangers as before. At least this time I’m aware of the risks and don’t have as much to lose — my previous trial robbed me of my friends, my lovers, my entire way of life. But I’m sure, if the villacs are behind this, they can find some fresh way to stick a knife into my back and twist it.

I spend most of Tuesday in Party Central, interviewing those closest to the missing Capac Raimi, getting a feel for the man. Tasso tells me Raimi had been seeing faces from the past — Ayuamarcans. He believed the ghosts of the dead had been revived again. Tasso shows me a photo of Paucar Wami — the real deal, not me in disguise — but I dismiss it.

“That could have been taken anytime,” I snort.

“But Capac saw him a few weeks ago. These pictures are from a security camera, and cameras don’t lie.”

“Sure they do,” I retort. “The villacs probably hired a ringer to startle Capac, then slipped old footage of Wami into the camera to make it seem real.”

“I don’t know,” Tasso mutters. “Capac seemed convinced.”

“More fool him,” I grunt and move on.

Shortly before Raimi struck out for the Fridge, a woman appeared in his office and “freaked the living shit out of him,” in the words of Jerry Falstaff. Raimi knew the woman. They exchanged words but as he moved toward her she jumped from the balcony. Jerry was assigned the task of cleaning up the mess. When he took a team downstairs, he found no trace of her broken body.

“Could it have been a projection?” I ask.

“No chance,” Jerry says.

“So what happened? She disappeared midair? Sprouted wings and flew?”

Jerry smiles sourly. “It’s more likely a net was extended out of a window to catch her. But I never did have a fancy imagination. Maybe it was wings.”

Jerry’s levelheadedness is refreshing. It’s comforting to find that not everyone in Party Central has succumbed to the forces of witchcraft and voodoo, that some can reason logically. That said, when I quiz him about Raimi’s immortality, he reads from the same book as Ford Tasso and Frank.

“The guy returns from the dead — fact. Every time he’s killed, he comes back a few days later on a train from a place called Sonas. He rematerializes on the train, though we’ve had people on it, watching for him, and they’ve never seen him regenerate. He somehow does it when nobody’s looking.”

“You know how crazy that sounds?”

“Of course. Early on, I searched for logical answers — clones, lookalikes, twins — but the truth’s the truth. Capac Raimi comes back from the dead. You learn to accept it when you’ve been around him a while.”

Arguing’s pointless — Tasso, Frank and Jerry can’t be shaken from their absurd belief — so I don’t bother. Instead I gather what relevant facts I can — who his friends were (he didn’t have any), where he liked to hang out (apart from trips to a gym with a pool, he worked nonstop), and if he had any untoward habits (clean as a whistle) — then return home with midnight fast approaching. I spend a few hours writing up notes and playing with theories, then hit the sack, where I toss and turn, obsessing about snakes, dead people, blind priests, sun gods and a nine-fingered ex-cop — alive and in the city.

I rise before dawn, tired and irritable, and squat in the shadows of my living room, thinking about Bill, wondering what he looks like now, what he’s doing, where he’s spent the past ten years. Tasso’s news both thrills and depresses me. Thrills, because the years of murder and madness haven’t been a waste — my quest is justifiable and revenge can be mine. Depresses, because Tasso could be lying — or Raimi could have lied to him — and I have a sick fear that even if it’s true, Bill will drop dead of old age or flee before I can descend on him in all my fury.

As desperate as I am to get my hands on Bill, I put thoughts of him on hold. I have a deal with Tasso to honor. Raimi must be found before I can focus on my dearest friend and most hated enemy. Where to start in my search for the missing Cardinal?

As the sun rises I focus all my mental faculties on the Raimi problem, and the answer soon presents itself. Start where Raimi was last seen — the Fridge. After a quick breakfast and a hundred push-ups, I cycle to the morgue. I’m in Al Jeery guise, so I use the bicycle I’ve had for fifteen years. I save the motorcycle for when I’m Paucar Wami, storing it in a nearby garage.

I’m no stranger to the Fridge, its false exterior (it looks like a deserted factory) and gleaming, coffin-lined halls. I’ve dropped off many bodies here, friends and foes of The Cardinal and his crew. I even have my own access code, though it has to be renewed every three months and only admits me to a small, self-contained section at the rear of the morgue.

Once I’ve parked and entered, I tell one of the assistants that I’d like to see Dr. Sines. He’s head honcho, though he was just one of many pathologists on the books when I first made his acquaintance ten years ago. He’s one of the select few who know that Paucar Wami and Al Jeery are the same man.

“Mr. Jeery,” he greets me with a curt nod, coming from an operating room, his hands encased in blood-smeared plastic gloves.

“Dr. Sines.” We’ve known each other for a decade, but have never dropped the formalities. Sines is an associate, not a friend. I prefer it that way. I’m safer without friends.

“Dropping off or picking up?” he quips. A standard joke.

“I’ve been hired to find Capac Raimi. I want to see where he disappeared.”

Sines stares at me. “I didn’t think you were into detective work these days.”

“I’m making an exception this once. I have clearance. You can check with Jerry or Frank if you don’t believe me.”

“If it’s all the same, I will. Nothing personal.”

One phone call later, Sines leads me through a maze of casket-lined corridors to Ferdinand Dorak’s crypt. “We’ve had a hell of a time since Raimi vanished,” the doctor mutters, peeling off his gloves as we walk and discarding them. “Hordes of Troops swarming around, interviewing everyone, upsetting everything. I’ve been quizzed on five separate occasions. I suppose you’ll make it an even half-dozen?”

“I don’t think I’ll bother. I know how clueless you are.”

“Very droll. You should have been a comedian.”

We arrive at the crypt. Octagonal, heavily reinforced, a computerized lock on the door. Sines keys in a code and after a number of clicks it swings open.

“Want me to come in with you?” Sines asks.

“Yes. I want to see the stairs under the coffin.”

We enter. A cold, dry room, The Cardinal’s coffin resplendent in the center, on a huge slab of marble. I examine the inscription — NOBODY TOLD ME THERE’D BE DAYS LIKE THESE — then the coffin and marble.

“There’s a lever at the bottom of the stairs,” Sines says. “Until the Troops came ferreting around, that was the only way to open it. They busted a few locks, so now the coffin slides aside if you push.” He lays a hand on the head of the coffin and demonstrates. It slides two-thirds of the way off the marble slab before coming to a halt, revealing a dark chasm and a set of stairs.

“This wasn’t here originally?” I ask, staring down into the darkness.

“No. They burrowed up from beneath.”

“How come nobody noticed?”

“The room’s soundproof,” Sines explains. “Besides, nobody passes by much — The Cardinal made sure he was put in a secluded part of the building. What gets me is how they knew where to dig. Only three people have access to the architectural plans. Each has been cleared by the Troops. Whoever did this didn’t find out about it through official channels.”

Several flashlights are set on the floor in a corner of the room. I fetch one and click it on. “I’m going to the bottom of the stairs,” I tell Sines. “I won’t be long.”

“What will I do if you don’t come back?” he asks nervously.

“Make up a good story for the Troops and pray they believe you.” I climb up onto the slab, swing my legs over, find the top step of the stairs and start down.

There are forty-one steps to the bottom, where a short tunnel ends in a door. The lock’s on the other side but the Troops must have kicked it open on one of their visits because it swings inward when I push. I step through and shine my light around. I’m at a junction, five crudely cut passages branching out to who knows where. Three of the passages are marked with crosses, where the Troops explored. Tasso told me they found nothing but more junctions and tunnels before giving up.

“You’re here, aren’t you?” I whisper, turning off the flashlight and letting the darkness engulf me. “They’re keeping you where no one can find you. You’re the ace up top, but they rule beneath. These tunnels are theirs. I wonder what they’re doing to you?”

I cough self-consciously. One of the side effects of spending so much time on my own — I’ve started talking to myself. I haven’t gotten to the stage where I’m answering yet, but it can’t be far off.

I linger a minute, feeling the darkness as if it had a tangible, physical presence. I’m sure I’ll be down these tunnels again before this investigation’s over, but for the time being I have no use for them. I’m not going to find Raimi by walking directionlessly into the darkness. I’ll have to work to root him out. The villacs won’t make it easy for me.

I climb back up the stairs, wondering where to turn next. I proved no slouch in the detective stakes last time, but I’m no supersleuth either. The priests will have to strew the path with clues if I’m to progress, otherwise I’ll run around in circles. But I’m sure they’ll help me along, as they did before. The game means nothing to them, only the result. So it’s surely just a matter of time before…

On cue, as my head comes level with the sixth step from the top, I spot a photo standing at an angle. Smiling at the timing, I grab the photo and continue to the top.

“What’s that?” Sines asks, spotting it immediately.

“Someone’s been careless with his holiday snapshots,” I murmur, studying the photo in the harsh light of the crypt. It’s a young, attractive woman. She looks familiar but I can’t place her. Party Central looms in the background. She’s holding a newspaper. I’m sure, once I get it under a magnifying glass, I’ll be able to check the date — the obvious intention of the people who placed the photo there.

“Where was it?” Sines asks, taking the photo from me.

“On the stairs. When was the last time anyone was down there?”

“Yesterday. No…” He pauses. “Late Monday. Four Troops. Lamps, ropes and other equipment had been left at the bottom. They went to retrieve them.”

“They wouldn’t have missed this. It’s been placed here since then, or one of them left it.”

Sines shakes his head. “I was here when they came up. It wasn’t them.”

“You’re certain?”

“Positive.” He hands back the photo.

“Then I won’t bother questioning them.” I start to tuck the photo away. Stop at a memory flash and hold it up to the light. “I know her,” I mutter. “I met her years ago. She worked at…”

The name clicks, but I say it only to myself, seeing no need to inform the good Dr. Sines. Ama Situwa, daughter of Cafran Reed, who ran what was once maybe the city’s kookiest restaurant. I haven’t been there in ten years. I don’t even know if Cafran’s exists any more. But it won’t take me long to find out.

To my surprise, not only is Cafran’s still going strong, but its original owner has held on and is happy to talk with me.

Cafran Reed looks older than his years — gray, stooped, feeble. He spends most of his time in the restaurant — which hasn’t changed much, it’s as gaudily colored as ever — but a manager runs it for him now. Cafran merely mixes with the staff and customers, testing the food, fussing over the music (mostly pop songs from the 1960s and ’70s), waiting for death to claim him.

“Ama Situwa?” he responds blankly when I ask.

“You haven’t a daughter?”

“Alas, no.” He smiles sadly. “I wished for one but it wasn’t meant to be.”

I show him the photo I picked up in the Fridge. “Recognize this woman?”

He has to put on his glasses before he can comment. Studies the photo at length. No hint of recognition in his tired old eyes. “Sorry,” he says.

Cafran invites me to stay for lunch but I reject the offer. Too busy. I’ll eat on the move, a sandwich or bagel to keep me going.

Outside, I use my cell phone to dial the number Tasso gave me yesterday. He answers on the second ring. “Algiers?”

“I want you to check something for me. The list of Ayuamarcans I saw was an old copy my father had stolen from the files of Party Central. Do you have a more up-to-date—”

“I know all the names,” he interrupts. “I used to scan it regularly, hoping a name might jog my memory. Shoot.”

“Ama Situwa.”

He grunts. “One of the last to be added. I asked Capac about her but he never said whether he knew her.”

“Thanks.” I head for home, where I check the newspaper in the photo under a magnifying glass. It indicates that Ama Situwa — an Ayuamarcan, dead ten years — was standing in front of Party Central less than a week ago. I lay the photo aside and don’t worry about it. I know what can be done with digital enhancement. The date on the paper means nothing. I won’t believe the shades of the dead have returned until I see one in the flesh. And even then I’ll reserve the right to be skeptical.

I patrol the streets as my father, flashing photos of Capac Raimi and Ama Situwa, asking people if they’ve seen or know anything of them. My contacts are legion. As Paucar Wami, I’m known to thousands of gang members, store owners, bums, clubbers, pimps, prostitutes and various other creatures of the night. Most fear me and answer openly when I question them, wanting to be rid of me as quickly as possible.

They all know Raimi — or of him — but haven’t seen him since he vanished, nor have they any idea where he might be. No one recognizes the woman. I ask if the blind priests in the white robes have been active of late — I only put this question to the more clued in of my contacts — but nobody’s spotted them on the prowl.

The street folk are worried. Although the city has stabilized since Tasso took control of Party Central — that became common knowledge during the last twenty-four hours — the veterans know the lull is temporary. The keg’s still primed to explode, and those who live or work on the streets will bear the brunt of the blast. I urge them to listen for rumors of Capac Raimi and watch for the woman in the photo, but most are too concerned with their own welfare to focus on anything else. I won’t be able to rely on them.

Thursday passes. Friday. Lots of travel, as Al Jeery and Paucar Wami, covering both the day and night worlds. I’ve never confined myself to the east, but that’s where I’m most powerful and I feel uneasy spreading myself further, covering so much ground. Wami’s known and feared in all sectors, but not as respected elsewhere as in the east. Challenges to my authority are more likely elsewhere. I have to tread carefully. Be polite. Rely on bribes as well as threats. Ask permission of the more influential gangs to canvass their territories. It’d be different if I were tracking prey. I could move in, make my hit, slip out. But this investigation could run for weeks or longer. Some degree of diplomacy is called for.

Between flashing snapshots of Capac and Ama, I study the faces of old men on the streets and through windows, my gaze lingering coldly on those bearing even a passing resemblance to Bill Casey. I don’t have the time to fixate on Bill — I have to concentrate on the quest to find Raimi — but I can’t stop looking for him. I also ask a few discreet questions. If he’s hiding in the city, someone other than Raimi and Tasso must know where he is. If I find the ex-cop by myself, all bets are off. Tasso — anyone — can have me once I’m through with Bill. I’ll be done with this world. It can do to me what it likes after that.

But nobody’s seen him. Those who knew him believe he’s dead. I plant seeds of doubt — say I’ve heard rumors that he survived — and leave them to sprout.

In the meantime I continue hunting for Tasso’s lost leader, pounding the streets, offering bribes, listening to the dark whispers of the city in the hope that they’ll tell me where Raimi is.

Saturday. I leave my apartment early, carrying my bike with me, in Al Jeery mode. I trot down the stairs, whistling, and nod to a disinterested neighbor on the ground floor. They never see me as Paucar Wami — I always exit and enter by the back alley and fire escape. Nobody here knows about my double life. Or if they do — if someone spotted me slipping out of my window one dark but cloudless night, and made the connection — they keep it to themselves, knowing that to cross swords with Paucar Wami is to guarantee the kiss of death.

Mounting my bike, I set out to visit Fabio, an ancient pimp who knows more about the seedy secrets of the city than anybody. The old pimp’s on his last legs. If he’s to be believed, he celebrated his 113th birthday this year. Even if he’s exaggerating — and Fabio never was one to stick too closely to the facts — he can’t be far short of that remarkable age. He’s been going as long as anyone remembers. He was a big shot in the days before The Cardinal. When Dorak put him out of business, he turned to pimping and has maintained a stable of women ever since — although in reality these last few years the more loyal of his ladies have been maintaining him, as his strength and eyes have steadily failed. His ears are as good as ever, though.

Fabio’s quarters look no more run-down than they did thirty years ago, and his favorite rocking chair still stands on the rickety porch out front, though he rarely uses it now, as even, getting from his bedroom to the chair is a struggle. Two teenagers — a boy and girl — are on the porch, talking in low voices. I cough loudly as I approach, so as not to alarm them. The boy looks up quickly, identifies me and smiles. “Hi, Al.”

“Drake. Who’s your girl?”

“Name’s Lindie,” she answers, “and I ain’t this fool’s girl.”

“Are too,” Drake grunts.

“Shut up!” she snaps.

I smother a laugh and ask if Fabio’s in. “Nah, he’s out roller skating,” Drake chortles, then looks guilty. “Don’t mean no disrespect. Sure he’s here. Mom’s taking care of him.”

Flo’s been good to Fabio. Although she still ostensibly works for him, it’s been a long time since she turned a trick. Her and a couple of others tend to the ailing pimp, feed him, wash up after him, keep the house in order. They’re genuinely fond of the old goat — Fabio always treated his women decently — but the fact that he’s rumored to have a fortune stashed away somewhere probably doesn’t hurt.

Flo’s in the kitchen, doing the laundry. She beams and gives me a big hug when she sees me. “Good to see you, Al. Fabio was asking about you only yesterday. He’ll be delighted you’ve come.”

“How is he?”

“No better, no worse.” She shrugs. “A bit worse. His voice went last week — couldn’t say a word for a few days — but it came back again. His doctor don’t know how he’s alive — says he should be long dead and buried — but Fabio just laughs and says he’ll go when he feels like it, not a minute before. Tea or coffee?”

“Can Fabio drink beer?”

“He ain’t supposed to, but he does anyway.”

“Then I’ll share a beer with him.”

Flo fetches a couple of bottles. She’s a sweet woman. And Drake’s a good kid. I helped him out some years ago. His brutish father had left him traumatized. My healing powers were functioning then. I got inside Drake’s head and relieved him of his nightmares. He’s never looked back. Last year his father was released from prison and came poking into Flo’s and Drake’s affairs. I warned him off. Didn’t hurt him — for all his faults, he’s Drake’s father, and the boy didn’t want to see him harmed — just told him in no uncertain terms what would happen if he didn’t catch the first train out.

Fabio’s lying flat on his back, eyes closed, breathing shallowly. He looks every one of his hundred-plus years, skin tight around his jaws, skeleton-thin, hands twitching feebly on the bedcovers.

“I don’t want to wake him if he’s sleeping,” I whisper to Flo.

“Too late,” Fabio snaps. He cocks his head — neck muscles quivering wildly — and grins horribly. “I was having a lovely dream — in a sheikh’s brothel and still able to get my pecker up — but you’ve blown that. Sit down and spin me a few lies while I wait to drop off again.”

I take the chair beside the bed and gently squeeze the old man’s hand. I help Flo prop him up — he complains bitterly until we get him settled just right on the pillows — then she opens his beer, sticks a straw in it and leaves. “If he starts choking,” she advises me on her way out, “give his balls a quick tug.”

“See what I have to put up with?” he moans. “Mind, that’s the closest I get to screwing anymore, so I can’t grouch.”

Fabio’s almost completely blind and his eyes stare ahead at nothing while we talk, discussing pills, doctors, old friends, the neighborhood. He’s as up-to-date with local events as always. The fragile pimp might be confined to bed and on the verge of death, but his ear’s as close to the ground as ever.

“Heard you been hired by Ford Tasso to hunt for The Cardinal,” he says after a while. I shouldn’t be surprised but I am.

“Where the hell did you hear that?”

“I got my sources,” he chuckles. “That’s a bad business, Algeria. Those guys play for high stakes. You don’t want to get stuck in the middle.”

“I know,” I answer softly, “but I don’t have a choice.”

Fabio’s head tilts sideways. “Now, I know you can’t be bribed or blackmailed. And I’m pretty sure threats don’t work. So how can it be that the fearsome Paucar Wami don’t have a choice?”

“Tasso has information which I must have. He’ll only exchange it if I find Raimi for him.”

Fabio thinks a moment, then says, “This to do with Bill Casey?”

“Are you sure you’re dying?” I ask suspiciously. “You’re too sharp for an ancient son of a bitch with one foot in the grave.”

He laughs delightedly. “Body might not be worth shit, but I still got a brain. Only thing you’ve cared about this last decade is finding that dead man’s living bones. Ain’t nothing else I can think of that’d get you skittering about on Ford Tasso’s business.”

I nod wearily. “Tasso says he’s alive and in the city. Won’t tell me any more unless I return Raimi to him.”

“Could be lying,” Fabio notes.

“I doubt it. He knows what I’d do if he played me for a sap.”

“Ford Tasso ain’t the sort who worries about retribution.”

“He does where Paucar Wami’s involved,” I contradict him, gently stroking my left cheek, careful not to disturb the paint. “Everyone fears Wami.”

An uneasy silence descends. Fabio’s never understood my need to become the legendary killer, and he feels uncomfortable whenever the topic’s raised.

“Anyway,” he breaks the silence, clapping my forearm with a frail hand. “You didn’t come to pass the time of day. You want to know if I’ve heard anything about Raimi?”

“Yeah. Though I’d have come regardless. I was overdue for a visit.”

“Can’t argue with that,” he smirks, takes a sip of beer through his straw, and leans back further into his pillows. “Don’t have much to tell. I know he went missing in the Fridge, through an underground passage, and I don’t think any of the gangs are behind it — nobody ’round here knows shit about who took him or why. Other than that, I can’t help.”

“Any theories on who’d have it in for Raimi?” I ask.

“Hell, Algeria, everyone has it in for The Cardinal. They need him — he holds this shit together — but that don’t stop them hating him.” He pauses. “Mind, there’s a hell of a difference between those who’d wish him gone and those with the balls to take him on. Eugene Davern might be powerful and dumb enough to try. Those blind priest friends of yours could have done it too.”

I grunt neutrally and let the reference to the villacs pass. “You think Davern could be involved?” I ask instead.

“Maybe. Doubt he is, not by the way he backed down in the northwest when Tasso took over, but if Raimi don’t return and warfare erupts, Davern’s the most likely to ride it out. That gives him good reason to want Raimi out of the way — and extra good reason for you to be careful if you go sniffing around after him.”

I spend a further half hour with Fabio, talking over old times. He’s deteriorated a lot since my last visit. His voice cracks every so often, and there are times when his thoughts wander. Resilient as he is, I doubt he’ll see out the summer. Death’s been a long time coming for Fabio, but now that it has him in its jaws, it’s swiftly grinding him down.

Talking tires the ancient pimp. When he starts to doze, I trail off into silence, then rise silently and leave. I slip Flo some cash, tell her to call me if she needs anything, let myself out — Drake and his girl have moved on — and stroll away, idly planning for the funeral that is surely close upon us.

I hadn’t seriously considered the possibility that anyone other than the villacs had abducted The Cardinal. I still believe the priests were behind it — the card Tasso received supports that theory — but perhaps they operated through a third party. If they did, Davern seems as logical a choice as any, and as worrying — if the Klan-spawned Kluxers come to prominence, they’re bound to target the black gangs in the east.

Having slipped back into Paucar Wami’s flesh, I spend the rest of Saturday learning more about Eugene Davern. I know him by reputation only, and though I’ve taken out a few of his men in the past, those I killed were peripheral to his operation, and he had sense enough not to make an issue of their deaths. He’s an easy man to investigate. My contacts practically line up to spill the beans on the ex-Klansman. Within hours I know the whereabouts of several of his hideaways, the names and addresses of three of his mistresses and the nights he visits them, how many men he has with him at any one time in any one place. He guards himself cleverly, but if I need to get to him, I can.

If Davern authorized the kidnapping of Capac Raimi, there are very few men he would dare trust with such a charge. According to the grapevine, there are only four he trusts implicitly. His younger brother, Ellis. His best friend since childhood, Dan Kerrin, who isn’t a Kluxer. And two of his closest lieutenants, Hyde Wornton and Matthew “Millie” Burns. If I don’t come up with anything else, I’ll start shadowing the quartet in case one of them is sitting on Raimi.

I’m exploring a warehouse of Davern’s on the docks when my phone vibrates shortly after midnight. I check the digits but don’t recognize them. That troubles me — strangers shouldn’t have access to my number — but I answer anyway.

“Yeah?” I grunt, not giving my name away.

“Is this Paucar Wami?” a man asks nervously.

“Who wants to know?”

“Terry Archer. I’m night manager of the Skylight.”

I know him. Haven’t seen him in a long time. No idea why he should be ringing me or how he got my number. “What do you want?”

“Ford Tasso told me to call and gave me your details. We…” Archer stops to lick his lips.

“Go on,” I prompt him.

“There’s been a murder. One of our customers has been killed. A woman. Her back was sliced up into a sun-like symbol.” I go cold, my mind snapping back ten years. “She was killed in room—”

“—Eight-twelve,” I finish, staring ahead blankly into the darkness of the warehouse.

“Yes,” Archer says, surprised. “How did you know?”

“I’ll be with you as soon as I can. Don’t let anybody near the body.”

“I’ve already sealed off the room. Nobody gets in without my—”

I cut him off. Within a minute I’m out of the warehouse and on my motorcycle, tearing across the city, propelled by the spirits of the bloody past.

The Skylight underwent a renovation last year. It was shut for almost six months while old rooms were demolished and rebuilt, walls repainted and papered, fresh carpets laid, new furniture moved in. The Skylight’s reputation as the city’s key draw for the rich and famous had dwindled since Ferdinand Dorak’s death, but now it’s streets ahead of its rivals again, more luxurious than ever, up-to-date with all the latest technology and boasting five extra floors.

One thing hasn’t changed — no CCTV. Anonymity is guaranteed in the Skylight. The doors are guarded by Troops, but that’s it as far as security goes.

Terry Archer’s waiting for me in reception, puffing on a Marlboro. Life goes on as normal around him — word of the murder hasn’t leaked yet. I draw startled stares and a few gasps when I enter — people don’t expect Paucar Wami to walk boldly into the Skylight — but nobody interferes.

Archer’s flanked by two Troops, who grip their weapons tightly and eyeball me mercilessly. I’m sure they’re two of his best, versed in the ways of fighting and killing. I’m just as sure I could take them without moving into middle gear.

“Mr. Wami,” Archer greets me, ditching the cigarette and extending a hand.

I ignore it — Paucar Wami doesn’t shake hands — and snap, “Eight-twelve. Now. And lose the bodyguards.”

Archer gulps loudly, then nods at the Troops. “I’ll take him up myself.”

“Are you sure, sir?” one of them asks. “Maybe we should come along to—”

“Ten of you couldn’t save him if I had murder on my mind,” I cut in, then start for the elevators ahead of Archer, who wastes a moment chastening his Troop before hurrying after me, catching up as the doors slide shut.

We say nothing until we’re on the eighth floor. I march toward the room, remembering the way from before. Eight-twelve was where my girlfriend, Nicola Hornyak, was left to die. It’s also where my ex-wife, Ellen, was murdered.

“When was she found?” I ask.

“Less than an hour ago,” Archer says, trotting to keep up. He’s put on weight since I last saw him. “I rang Mr. Tasso immediately — that room has a history and I guessed he’d want to know about it — and he put me on to you.”

“Was the room signed out to anybody?”

“Yes, but…” He grimaces.

“Tell me,” I grunt without slowing.

“It was booked under the name of Al Jeery,” he says quickly, “but I’m sure he has nothing to do with this. I know Al and he’s not the sort who—”

“Enough!” I come to a stop. So they — whoever they are — used my name, just in case memory failed me. The extra touch was unnecessary. An insult.

I study Terry Archer. He knows me as Al Jeery but doesn’t recognize me in my Paucar Wami guise. I want to keep it that way. “I’ll check on Jeery,” I growl. “If he’s innocent, he has nothing to fear. If he isn’t, I’ll deal with him.” Archer nods, terror in his eyes. “And don’t tip him off in advance.”

“I won’t!” Archer gasps. “I swear!”

We reach 812 and Archer passes a golden card through the computerized slot. A light blinks twice. He produces another card — also gold, but with red stripes in the upper left corner — and swipes that as well. “I double-coded it, to be extra safe,” he says smugly. With a beep the door opens and we enter, lights coming on automatically. A flat-screen TV on the wall broadcasts a message. “Welcome to the Skylight, Mr. Jeery. We hope you enjoy your stay.”

On the bed, a naked woman lies facedown, hands tied together over her head, a gag in her mouth. Her back has been cut to shreds and a rough circle can be glimpsed through the dried blood, several straight lines running from its rim, representing the rays of the sun.

“This happened before,” Archer says, closing the door. “Nine or ten years ago, two women were killed in exactly the same—”

“I know,” I stop him, moving closer to the bed, studying the floor for clues. “I want the room dusted. The woman too. A full examination. Call Alex Sines at the Fridge. Tell him to come in person. I want him to report directly to me.”

“What about Mr. Tasso?” Archer inquires.

“If Tasso wanted to be personally involved,” I bark, “he wouldn’t have sent you to me.”

Archer cringes at my tone and says no more.

I carefully tilt the dead woman’s head to one side and study her face, emotionlessly taking in the familiar contours and eyes, noting how relaxed she looks in death. I bet Sines finds strong drugs in her system when he slices her open. Nobody dies serenely when in pain. She must have been doped out of her senses.

“Know her?” I ask Archer, gently lowering the head. Al Jeery wants to close her eyelids. Paucar Wami sneers at the sentimental touch.

“No,” he says shakily.

“I do.” Standing, I unroll the plastic gloves and pocket them. “Ama Situwa,” I sigh, not loud enough for Archer to hear, then make a quick exit, to retire for the night and consider what the hell this means.

4: paperwork

Ama Situwa. Ayuamarcan. Lost to the world ten years ago. Returns

(how?)

and gets killed in the Skylight

(why?)

in room 812. Not much of a biography. No hints of who she was or how she lived. Was there a specific reason she was chosen to die instead of anyone else I know? And is the corpse really Ama Situwa? I still don’t buy into this resurrection business, though it’s getting harder to discredit. She could be someone who merely looked like the woman I remember. An elaborate red herring.

Sines will be able to help on that front. He’ll take fingerprints, dental impressions and DNA samples. Check them against the records. I’m sure there are no files on Ama Situwa — the villacs did a thorough job of removing all traces of the Ayuamarcans — but if this is another woman, we might strike it lucky.

I doze off while sitting next to my tiny living room window, contemplating the various twists and possibilities. I dream of room 812 in the Skylight and the three women who’ve been murdered there, Nicola Hornyak, Ellen Fraser and

(until proven otherwise)

Ama Situwa. In my dreams I’m present at the executions, which blend together into one nightmarish scene of perpetual murder. I stand by the foot of the bed as Nicola’s tied down. I hear Ellen scream. She calls my name and I reach to help, but I’m powerless. A large woman — Valerie Thomas, one of the villacs’ tools — pushes me away and laughs. A blind priest wraps his arms around me and holds me as Priscilla Perdue carves a symbol into Ama Situwa’s back, her knife impossibly large, the blood impossibly red. As it pools on the floor, faces form — Capac Raimi’s, Leonora Shankar’s, mine. No, not mine… my father’s. The real Paucar Wami smiles at me and murmurs, “Reasons for a refund, hmm, Al m’boy?”

As I’m trying to think of a reply, Wami’s face explodes in a geyser of blood that splatters the walls and ceiling. The blood covers me. It’s hot. I scream. And suddenly I’m lying on the bed and a villac is carving the flesh of my back to pieces. Incredible pain. He’s chanting. I’m screaming. Nicola, Ellen and Ama Situwa stand in a semicircle in front of me, naked, making love, laughing at my misfortune. The carving lasts an eternity.

“Flesh of Dreams,” the priest sings, and the women echo him. I cover my ears with my hands (not thinking to attack my tormentors with them), but the sounds penetrate the bloodstained flesh and bones. High-pitched, shrill, driving me to the verge of madness. I open my mouth to shriek. Blood gushes. And still the ringing of the women’s voices… ringing…

My eyes snap open but the noise follows me out of my dream. Heart racing, I look for blind priests, then realize it’s only my phone. Letting out a shaky breath, I wipe the last images of the nightmare from my thoughts and dig my cell out of a pocket. “Hello?” I answer, checking my watch. 04:19.

“Jeery? It’s Dr. Sines.”

I sit up. “What’s wrong?”

“Your corpse — the woman in the Skylight.”

“What about her?”

“She vanished.”

For a moment I think I’m still dreaming, but that impression is short-lived. “Where are you?” I ask.

“The Fridge.”

“I’ll be right over.”

As I slip on my shoes, I think I hear someone whisper, “Flesh of Dreams.” But it’s only a residue of the nightmare.

“How the fuck could she disappear?” I roar, punching the door of Sines’s office and kicking a spare chair out of my way. I’ve been here ten minutes and my rage has increased with every passing second. The doctor sits at his desk, impassive, waiting for my fury to pass. If he’s afraid of me, he masks it well.

“Tell me again what happened,” I snarl, leaning on the desk, putting my face close to his, watching for the slightest trace of a lie.

“I’ve told you three times already,” he says, meeting my gaze without blinking.

“So tell me a fourth!”

“You think it will help?”

“Start talking or I’ll help you through the fucking window.”

Sines sneers. “Quit chewing the scenery. It doesn’t become you.”

“You think this is a joke?” I yell. “You think this is a fucking—”

“Sit down. Stop shouting. Take deep breaths. Hold your hands out until they stop shaking. Then I’ll tell you again — for the last time,” he adds pointedly.

I want to rip out his eyes, but that wouldn’t do any good, so I pick up the chair, sit and breathe. Eventually my teeth stop chattering and the veil of rage lifts. “I’m sorry I shouted.”

Sines nods. “Better.” He launches into his story, keeping it brief. “I oversaw the initial examination of the corpse in the Skylight, as you requested. Made sure the area was dusted for prints and that nothing was disturbed.”

“Did you dust the body?”

“Yes, but only to check for obvious, clumsy traces of her killer. There weren’t any. I was saving the in-depth study for when I got back to the Fridge. Once I’d done all I could in the Skylight, I had her transferred to a gurney, then downstairs to the hearse.”

“Why a hearse?” I interrupt. “Why not an ambulance?”

He withers me with a smile. “Ambulances are for hospitals, where they treat the living. This is a morgue. We don’t have much use for resuscitative—”

“OK,” I snap. “I only asked.”

“As I was saying,” he continues, running an arrogant hand through his hair, “we transferred the body to the hearse. I was with it the entire time. We collapsed the legs of the gurney, slid it inside, strapped it down, locked the doors. The driver and I got in and set off. We made good time. Opened the doors when we got here, slid the gurney out, and the body wasn’t there.” He coughs. “I can’t explain how, but it vanished in transit.”

“Just like that?” I snort.

He glares at me. “I know how it sounds, but there’s no way it could have fallen out or been abducted. We were with it the whole way. You can check the hearse, but I assure you there are no false panels or gaping holes in the floor.”

“Bodies don’t vanish into thin air,” I remark icily.

“I agree,” he sighs, “but as Sherlock Holmes was fond of saying, when all other probabilities have been eliminated, what remains, however improbable, is the real shit.”

“I don’t think he put it quite that way,” I smile.

“You could be right.” Sines stands and heads for the door. “Let’s go give the hearse the once-over. You won’t believe me until you’ve seen it for yourself. Who knows, you might find something I overlooked. To be honest,” he mutters with uncharacteristic humility, “I rather hope you do.”

The hearse is inviolate. No secret panels in the sides, a solid floor, reliable lock. I suggest someone might have forced the lock while the hearse was stopped at traffic lights. “Impossible,” Sines says. “Traffic’s nonexistent at four in the morning and we were in a hurry to get back, so we broke a few rules of the road and didn’t stop for any lights.”

“Somebody on the roof? They could have worked on the lock while you were driving, slid out the body and…” I stop, realizing how weak that sounds.

Sines shrugs. “I thought of that too. It makes more sense than the suggestion that the body simply vanished, but it fails to account for the alarm.” Sines closes the doors at the back of the hearse, locks them, then takes out a different key and tries to insert it into the lock. A siren blares, which the doctor quickly silences by hitting a button on the hearse’s key fob.

“We’ve had bodies stolen before,” he explains. “The alarms have been standard issue for twenty years. They’re updated annually to keep ahead of those with a talent for break-ins. To cling to the roof of a moving car, and not be seen, and unlock the doors without triggering the alarm…” He shakes his head.

I stare at the lock, then circle the hearse again, racking my brain for an explanation. Sines watches expressionlessly. When I return, he says, “Know what I’d recommend as a doctor?”

“What?”

“Go home. Sleep it off. The mystery will still be here in the morning. It won’t be any clearer, but you’ll be in better shape to deal with it.”

And since there’s nothing else I can do except stand here and go mad, I follow the good doctor’s advice.

Surprisingly, I sleep soundly, no nightmares, waking in the early afternoon on an excessively hot Sunday. Over a bowl of cereal, I reflect on my visits to the Skylight and Fridge, and where I go from here. The more I think about it, the more I’m drawn to the theory that Ama Situwa (or whoever was killed in the hotel) wasn’t a random plant. The previous women killed in 812 were both closely linked to me — my girlfriend and ex-wife — so I’m sure there’s a reason why this latest sacrificial lamb was chosen, other than the fact that we met briefly ten years ago.

To get to the heart of that reason, I’ll have to find out more about Ama Situwa. If the woman in 812 was a ringer, I’ll deal with that later. For the time being I’ll take the line that it was really Situwa.

It isn’t difficult deciding where to start. As an Ayuamarcan, her name will have been wiped from all city records and nobody will remember her. The only place I might find a history of her is in Party Central, in the personal files of the original keeper of the Ayuamarca secrets.

Ford Tasso isn’t surprised when I turn up demanding an audience, but he makes me wait almost an hour while he deals with more immediate problems. Somebody’s been hitting key members in the organization, business executives, generals in the Troops. The assassin strikes without warning and without fail. At first Tasso thought it was one of Davern’s men, but the Kluxers have also come under attack. Five of Davern’s closest aides have been killed, including his best friend, Dan Kerrin. It seems there’s a third player in town, stirring things up, but nobody has a clue who it is.

Eventually I’m admitted. Tasso’s lying on a newly installed couch, an ice pack over his eyes, massaging the dead flesh of his right arm and shoulder. He looks fit for the grave. “I used to complain about the nursing home,” he groans as I take a seat. “Didn’t know how lucky I was. I’d give anything to go back.”

“What’s stopping you? You’ve given it your best shot, but you’re old and lame. Nobody would blame you if you called it a day.”

“I’d blame me,” he growls, removing the ice pack. “And less of the ‘old and lame’ shit.” His good eye is red and bleary. I doubt he’s slept more than a handful of hours since we last met. I don’t know what he’s running on. I guess he’s like the dinosaurs — too stupid to know when he should lie down and die. “I had Sines on the phone earlier, telling me what happened. Reckon he’s fucking with us?”

“Not Sines,” I answer confidently.

“Any idea who took the body and how?”

“It could have been the villacs. They have the power to screw with people’s minds. They might have hijacked the body at the Skylight, then brainwashed Sines and the driver to believe it vanished mysteriously en route.”

“Don’t see why they’d go to so much trouble,” Tasso growls, “but that’s better than anything I can think of. So, what next?”

“What shape are the files in on the floors above?” I ask.

“Better than they used to be. Dorak must have had some sort of system but he never revealed it to anybody. It was a nightmare when he died — shit everywhere. Raimi’s had people sifting through the mess, filing relevant articles together. They’re nowhere near finished, but if they can’t find what you’re looking for, they can maybe point you in the right direction. What are you after?”

“The woman in the Skylight was Ama Situwa.”

Tasso’s eye narrows. “The one on the Ayuamarca list?”

“Yeah.”

“I thought they were all dead.”

“So did I. We were wrong, or it was someone made up to look like her. Either way, it’s time I learned some more about Miss Situwa. You said Raimi believed he was seeing Ayuamarcans before he disappeared. If I can find out where they — or the impostors — are coming from, it might lead me to your missing Cardinal.”

Tasso nods thoughtfully. “The files are yours. Most of the Ayuamarca material has been lumped together. I can get a secretary to lead you to it.” He raises a warning finger. “There’s a lot of sensitive shit up there, Algiers. Don’t go looking where you ain’t meant to.”

“Ford,” I grin, “don’t you trust me?”

“Get the fuck out,” he snarls in reply.

The Ayuamarca file is massive, more than a dozen oversized folders bulging with fact sheets, detectives’ reports, newspaper clippings, photographs, DVDs and Dorak’s own handwritten notes. All of the files have one thing in common — the people they relate to have no background histories, as befits creatures who were allegedly brought back from the dead.

I never realized how many people Dorak supposedly created, or how many positions of authority they filled. Three mayors, two police chiefs, several senior judges, the presidents of some of the most influential banks and companies, many gang leaders. Whenever the former Cardinal couldn’t crack a rival legitimately, he invented an Ayuamarcan and sent him to his rival’s camp as an insider, with orders to cause maximum disruption.

I could spend weeks examining these dusty ledgers and files, learning about the city and the men and women who shaped it over the course of the last half century. But I have a mystery to unravel. Some day, maybe, I’ll come back and browse. Right now there’s Ama Situwa to account for.

Her file isn’t bulky — she only entered the fray a year before Dorak died — but it’s thorough. Height, weight, measurements, hair clippings, receipts, hundreds of photos — including several of her making love with Capac Raimi on the stairs of Party Central.

That reminds me of something I’d forgotten. Ama Situwa was on the roof when Dorak made his fatal plunge. I was listening in on his final conversation with his successor, and from what I picked up, Situwa was Raimi’s true love. He condemned her to oblivion with the other Ayuamarcans by demanding Dorak leap to his death, but it wasn’t an easy decision. I can’t believe I hadn’t remembered that before. Maybe I’m starting to catch the forgetfulness bug at last. I might end up like everybody else if I’m not careful, no memories of Paucar Wami, Leonora Shankar or the others.

I scour Situwa’s file for clues to where she or her look-alike might have chosen to hang out. The Ayuamarcan lived with her supposed father, Cafran Reed, but I’ve already had words with him. There were a few restaurants and bars she favored, so I jot down the names — I’ll visit them and flash Situwa’s photos around, in case she’s been back recently. I also take the names and addresses of her hairdresser, the beauty parlors she graced, shops she frequented and the gym where she kept in shape.

Not many friends. Plenty of business acquaintances — Reed was grooming her to run his restaurant — but bosom buddies were scarce. A waitress at Cafran’s, Shelly Odone, was closest to her, but they were hardly blood sisters. They went for occasional meals together, hit the clubs every so often. Still, the real Situwa might have looked her up, so I copy down Odone’s address — noting in brackets that it’s probably changed after so many years — and pencil in the names of a few of her casual friends, on the off chance that one knows anything about her.

And that’s it. I go through the file two more times but there’s nothing else to be gleaned. No sisters or daughters (if the woman I saw in the Skylight was a ringer, it’s possible she was a relative). No mention of the villacs. No links to criminal organizations.

I lay the file aside and massage my eyelids. My eyesight’s as good as ever, but lately I’ve found my eyes pain me if I focus on small print too long. I’m getting old. I’ll have them seen to if the condition worsens. It shouldn’t pose much of a problem. Just change my green contacts for prescription lenses.

My contacts… Paucar Wami…

I lower my hand and glance around furtively. I’m alone in an office on the seventeenth floor, where the secretary left me once she’d carted in the files. Tasso warned me to stick to the facts pertinent to the case, but the opportunity to learn more about my father is too good to pass up. In particular, it would be interesting to find out the names of his other children. Apparently he sired many sons and daughters, in this city and farther abroad. He never told me their names, or how many there were, but I’m sure his master would have known.

I check the names on all the files but Wami’s isn’t among them. I go through them again, looking inside each folder in case his is nestling inside another — no joy. Pressing a button, I summon the secretary, a plump and genial woman called Betsy. “Are these all of the Ayuamarca files?” I ask.

“I think so.”

“Could you check again? Or, better still, take me to where the files are kept, so I can look for myself?”

She hesitates. “I think I should check with Mr. Tasso first.”

I shrug. “If you want to bother him, go ahead. I can wait.”

She frowns. “I know he’s busy… He did say you could have unlimited access to the files… OK,” she decides. “But I won’t leave you alone.”

“Perish the thought,” I smile and follow Betsy out of the office.

We pass several other secretaries as we make our way to where the files are stored. They’re busy working on the pillars of paper that stretch to the ceiling in some places, dismantling the towers, making notes of what’s in each, carefully restacking or refiling them.

“Is this a twenty-four-hour operation?” I ask.

“Pretty much,” Betsy answers. “There are only twelve of us — Mr. Raimi says that twelve’s the most Jesus trusted, and what’s good enough for Christ is good enough for him.” She giggles at the soft blasphemy. “We work in groups of six, twelve-hour shifts, though we take long breaks.”

“Do you work seven days a week?”

“Alternate weekends off, and very long holidays.” We come to a rectangular gap, four feet across by eleven or twelve deep, between two six-foot-high pillars of paper. Betsy stops. “We keep the files here.”

I walk into the gap, eyes peeled for an overlooked file, but there isn’t any. “Is this the only place they’re stored?”

“There could be others elsewhere, but these are all we’ve found so far.”

“Who stacked them?”

“We all chipped in, but I did more than most. Mr. Raimi was very concerned about these files and he spent a lot of time up here, overseeing their transfer. As a senior secretary, I worked closely with him.”

“Did he ask you to keep any files separate from the others?”

“No.”

“He didn’t take any himself, to stack elsewhere?”

“No.” She blushes — lying.

“Come on,” I smile. “You can tell me. I have the authority.”

“Mr. Raimi might not like it if I—”

“Betsy,” I interrupt. “The Cardinal’s missing. I’m trying to find him. If you don’t tell me, you’ll be hindering, not helping.”

She sighs and nods. “There was one file he pulled.”

“Paucar Wami’s?” I guess.

“No — his own.”

That’s disappointing, but it makes sense. A man in his position would want to keep his secrets hidden where only he’d have access to them.

“But now that you mention it,” Betsy adds, “he also asked me to look for a file on Paucar Wami.” She leans in close and whispers, “He was a notorious serial killer. The things he’s supposed to have done…” She shivers.

I hide a grin — if I wiped my cheeks clean, Betsy would be in for one hell of a shock — and ask if she found the Wami file. “No. We’ve searched high and low but we haven’t unearthed it yet. Mr. Raimi thinks it was stolen, though he never said who he suspected.”

I have a strong hunch — the villacs. They mustn’t have wanted him learning about Wami and his heirs. So much for brushing up on “dear ol’ pappy’s” past and tracking down my brothers and sisters. Oh well, it’s a distraction I can do without. Better to stay focused on the case.

“What are these other files?” I ask, gesturing to the towers of paper surrounding the barren rectangle.

“The files on the left are unrelated,” Betsy says. “Those on the right and at the rear contain details of people mentioned in the Ayuamarca files — family, friends or business associates of the Ayuamarcans.”

That’s interesting. I might learn more about Ama Situwa’s friends through these. Digging out my notebook, I reacquaint myself with the names I jotted down, then scan the indexed spines. “I could be at this a while,” I tell Betsy. “You can slip away if you want.”

“No thank you,” she smiles. “It’s not that I don’t trust you, but I can’t.”

I read up from the bottom of the second pillar on the right. The names are ordered alphabetically. I’m looking for a Sarah Ceccione, a sales rep friend of Situwa’s. I jump to the end of the B’s and begin on the C’s. “It looks like the one I want is near the top,” I mutter. “Could you get a ladder or…”

I stumble to a halt, eyes settling on a name far more familiar than Sarah Ceccione’s. Heart beating fast, I grab the file by the edges and tug.

“Hey!” Betsy pushes me away with unexpected strength. “You’ll bring the whole lot tumbling down.”

“I don’t care,” I grunt, trying to get at the file.

Betsy blocks me, a no-nonsense expression on her face. “I care,” she huffs. “I’ll have to tidy up after. Tell me which one you want and I’ll remove the others, nice and neat, and get it out for you without creating a mess.”

My fingers twitch — I want it in my hands now—but it’s best to keep Betsy on my side. “That one,” I croak, pointing with a trembling finger. “The file marked BILL CASEY.”

5: detour

The train clears the suburbs and enters the great beyond. I stare out of the window at an expanse of bare fields, then pull away from the glass and spend the rest of the journey gazing down at my lap. I guess I’ve grown agoraphobic from so many years spent hemmed in by the walls of the city. The last time I was this far out was five years ago, when I followed a couple of joyriders until they ran out of gas. They’d mowed down a four-year-old. I disabled the pair, drove to a nearby village, came back equipped with a hammer and nails, and crucified them. A quaint day in the country, Paucar Wami style.

I’m on my way to meet Leo Casey, Bill’s younger brother. I never knew Bill had a brother — he always gave the impression that he was an only child. He had a sister too — Jane — but she’s deceased, along with his mother and father.

Last night I locked myself into the office on the seventeenth floor of Party Central with the Bill Casey file. Wouldn’t allow myself to open it until my hands had stopped trembling. When I did, I found it wasn’t the gold mine I’d anticipated. It didn’t list Bill’s current whereabouts, or comment on whether or not he’d survived the explosion ten years earlier. The disappointment could have been crushing, but as Paucar Wami I’m immune to most emotions. It took a few minutes to snap into character, but once I had — by stroking the tattooed snakes on my cheeks over and over — I was able to settle down and assess the file for what it was, as opposed to what I’d wished it might be.

The file hadn’t been updated in decades. It focused on Bill’s relationship with Paucar Wami and filled in some of the gaps I’ve long been puzzling over, concerning how Bill got mixed up with my father. If the details are correct, a teenaged Bill Casey crossed paths with Wami by chance as the serial killer was abducting a girl. Bill tried to kill him but failed. Instead of retaliating, Wami took an interest in the teenager and devised an ingenious method of torture. He sent Bill photos of people he intended to kill, and told him he could save them by performing some cynical, harmful task, such as breaking a blind violinist’s fingers, spiking baby food with glass, or bullying a mentally handicapped guy.

The viciousness of the tasks increased in degrading stages. Bill performed some dreadful deeds — Wami even made him rape a girl — in his desperate desire to spare lives. He sought the help of the police, but the cop he went to — none other than Stuart Jordan, our current police commissioner — was one of The Cardinal’s pawns. When word reached the Great One, he made sure Bill’s pleas went unheeded. Wami was a vital cog in Dorak’s machine and he would have sacrificed a thousand like Bill Casey to protect his number-one assassin.

The file didn’t tell how it ended. A page had been ripped out, and at the top of the next lay a single, perplexing, seemingly unconnected line. “Margaret Crowe is back safe with her family.” After that it skipped a few years, recommencing with the news that Bill had joined the police. The rest of the file followed his early career. I think it continued in another file, but I found no trace of that one.

I ran “Margaret Crowe” through the computer, along with the dates, and came up with a high-profile media story of a nine-year-old who’d been kidnapped, tied up and held in darkness for a couple of days, then released without harm. I don’t know how that ties in with Bill and the ordeal he underwent at the hands of Paucar Wami, but I’m on my way to find a man who might.

Leo Casey’s led a troubled life, judging by the short entry at Party Central. In counseling of one kind or another since he was a teenager. He’s been arrested for shoplifting, for fighting, on drunk and disorderly charges several times, and he’s served two years for selling narcotics while on parole. He hasn’t had any run-ins with the law since then, but that has a lot to do with the fact that he’s spent most of that time in a rehabilitation clinic, St. Augustine’s, in a town called Curlap, 240 miles north of the city.

There wasn’t a direct train to Curlap until Wednesday — I didn’t like the idea of driving — but the 11:14 on Monday goes to Shefferton, which is only twenty-two miles from the town. I booked my ticket over the Internet, went home to grab some sleep and pack a bag, and here I am, on my way north on a rare rural excursion.

The train pulls into Shefferton on time. I disembark and take in the locale — a tiny town, sleepy, deserted-looking. I feel dizzy — I need the grime of a big city! — but I quell my sense of unease by concentrating on my mission.

I hire a taxi from Shefferton to Curlap. The driver’s inquisitive — asks about my job and where I live — but I say little, grunt in answer to his questions, and sit on my fingers so they don’t creep to my scalp to scratch beneath my wig. It always itches in the heat, and today is set-your-hair-on-fire hot.

The driver doesn’t know St. Augustine’s, but stops in Curlap and gets directions. I ask him to wait, even though I don’t know how long I’ll be. “Take all the time you like,” he smiles. “I’m the most patient man in the world when the meter’s running.”

St. Augustine’s has the appearance of a children’s school. White walls, a blue, tiled roof, fairy-tale windows, picket fences, carefully maintained trees set far enough back from the building not to cause damage should they fall. There’s even a play area, partly visible from the front path, with swings and slides.

A bell tinkles softly as I enter. A woman in a baggy T-shirt and shorts stands up behind the reception desk and smiles welcomingly. “Help you, sir?”

I walk over, noting the brightly painted walls and childlike drawings pinned to them. “Hi. I’m Neil Blair. I was hoping to have a few words with a patient of yours.”

“We call them ‘guests’ here,” the woman corrects me.

“I’d like to see a ‘guest’ then.” I grin as warmly as possible.

“Are you a relative?” she asks, then sticks out a hand before I can answer. “My name’s Nora.”

“Pleased to meet you, Nora,” I respond, shaking her hand. “No, the man I’d like to see is the brother of a close friend of mine. I’ve lost contact with this friend and I’m hoping Leo can help me track—”

“Leo Casey?” she interrupts brightly.

“Yes.” I get ready for the curtain to come crashing down but Nora isn’t the least bit suspicious.

“Gosh, it’s been a long time since Leo had any visitors. He’ll be delighted. Have you known each other long?”

“Actually, we’ve never met.” It always pays to stick close to the truth when spinning a lie. “I don’t even know if his brother told him about me. But I was in the neighborhood — I’m a basketball scout — and I recalled Bill telling me this was where Leo lives, so I thought—”

“A scout!” Nora gasps. “I’m a huge fan. Ever discover anyone famous?”

“No,” I chuckle ruefully. “I feed the smaller teams and universities.”

“I know a guy you have to check out,” she says, scrabbling for a pen and paper. “He’s a bit on the mature side — twenty-three — but he’s brilliant. Would have turned pro years ago except for an injury.”

“I’ll have a look at him,” I lie, taking the scrap of paper from her and squinting at the name as if genuinely interested. “Now, how about Leo? Is it possible to see him, or do I have to book an appointment or check with his doctor?”

“Goodness no,” she laughs. “Most of our guests stay with us voluntarily. They can have all the visitors they like. Besides, Leo’s an orderly.”

“I thought he was here for treatment.”

“He was — is — but he likes to keep busy, and he’s utterly trustworthy. He started helping out a few months after arriving. He fit in so well, it wasn’t long before we put him on the payroll.”

Nora has a free tongue, so I work on her some more. “What exactly was Leo treated for?”

“Now that I can’t reveal,” she says regretfully.

“Sorry. I shouldn’t have asked.”

“That’s OK.” She purses her lips. “I can say that we specialize in depression. We tend not to take on those who are seriously disturbed, just those who feel confused, a little lost or sad. We make them feel part of a family.”

“Does Leo ever talk about his real family?”

“Yes,” she answers hesitantly. “But I probably shouldn’t speak too much about that.”

“I understand.” A young woman with a troubled look passes through reception and waves curtly at Nora. I note gold rings and a necklace with small diamonds embedded in it. “Does it cost much to stay here?”

“Oh yes,” Nora chuckles. “We make special arrangements for certain individuals, but by and large you don’t come to St. Augustine’s unless you’re rolling in it!”

“Bill pays for Leo, doesn’t he?” I chance the query, expecting her to say she can’t discuss such matters.

“No,” she surprises me. “I’m not sure who sponsored him when he arrived, but he pays his own way now, out of the money he earns. He’s one of the special cases — having been with us so long, and having served so capably, we cut him a serious discount.”

“Has Bill ever come to visit Leo?” I ask, trying to sound casual.

“No.” She frowns. “Actually, I believe Leo told me his brother was dead. Didn’t he die in an accident some years ago?”

“That was an uncle,” I lie smoothly. “Same name. A freak explosion.”

“Yes, I remember the explosion. Could have sworn it was…” She shakes her head. “Never could trust this brain of mine. Do you want me to page Leo?”

“If you wouldn’t mind.”

Nora presses a button, then stands again, peeling the folds of her T-shirt from her armpits. She’s sweating, even though the reception’s air-conditioned. I’m sweating too, but at the prospect of learning about Bill Casey.

“All our staff wear electronic wristbands,” she says, wriggling her left wrist. “They vibrate when activated. Much more convenient than a PA system.”

When Leo finally shows — ten minutes after his first summons, and having been paged twice more by the good-natured Nora — he takes me by surprise. He’s not much older than me but he looks like a man of eighty. An exhausted, trembling wreck, bald on top and white at the sides, gray, wrinkled skin, stooped and slow.

“Sorry it took so long,” he apologizes. “I was with Jacqueline. She was talking about her son. I couldn’t leave in the middle.”

“Of course not.” Nora points me out. “Leo, this is Neil Blair, a friend of your brother’s.”

“Bill?” Leo asks, regarding me uncertainly.

“I knew Bill years ago,” I say, offering my hand — which he takes — and lowering my voice so that Nora can’t hear. “I’ve been out of the country a long time. I only learned of his death a few months ago. I was hoping I could talk about him with you, if that’s OK?”

“Sure,” Leo says. “I like to talk. Do you want to come through and sit out back? It’s a lovely day — be a shame to waste it indoors.”

“I was thinking the exact same thing myself.” I turn to Nora. “Thanks for the assistance.”

“Don’t mention it. Look in and say goodbye before you go.”

I follow Leo to the garden. He circles around the play area to a bench in the shade of a tree. “Who are the swings and slides for?” I ask as we sit.

“The guests,” he says. “Mrs. Kaye — she runs St. Augustine’s — is a great believer in the power of play. She thinks it’s necessary to revert to the joys of childhood if the tribulations of adulthood prove too much to take.” He smiles ruefully. “I spent a lot of time on those swings when I first came. Didn’t go on the slides too much. Never did like slides.”

There’s a pause. Leo checks me over, no wariness in his eyes, merely curiosity. “I don’t recall Bill mentioning your name.”

“Were you close to your brother?” I counter.

“Yes. We didn’t see as much of each other as we’d have liked — Bill’s job kept him city-bound, while I’ve always preferred open spaces. Actually,” he coughs, “I have a phobia about that city. Not cities in general, just that one. But we kept in touch. Bill was great for writing. Sent me a couple of letters and, later, dozens of e-mails every week. I miss him terribly.”

Leo’s grief would be hard to fake. I suspect he knows nothing of his brother’s possible survival, but I press ahead regardless. I have no room for sympathy where Bill Casey’s concerned.

“I want to come clean with you, Leo,” I say softly, not entirely sure how best to proceed, playing it by ear. “The reason you don’t recognize my name is that it’s an alias. I didn’t want anyone knowing my real reason for being here.”

“Oh?” His forehead crinkles. “I’m intrigued.”

“My real name’s Al Jeery.” I watch closely for how he takes that.

Leo scratches the dry, wrinkled skin of his chin. “That name I do recall. You were one of Bill’s best friends. He wrote about you a lot. The way he went on, you could have been his son.” He chuckles. “Bill was like that. If he developed a warm spot for someone, he loved them completely.”

“Yeah.” I force a sick laugh, recalling the deathly pale faces of Nicola Hornyak and Ellen, how Bill calmly and coldly destroyed my life.

“I don’t get it,” Leo says. “Why the subterfuge?”

“Did Bill ever tell you what I did for a living?” I ask.

“I don’t think so. But my memory’s not the strongest.”

“I’m a private detective.”

“Really? How exciting. Is it glamorous, like in the films and on TV?”

“No. Long, tedious hours and you never get seduced by beautiful femmes fatales.” Not true. I was taken for a ride by a chic bitch on my only previous case. But I’d rather not dwell on that.

“Are you on a job now?” Leo asks.

“Kind of,” I answer slowly. “It’s personal, and I’m sure there’s nothing to it, but…” I clear my throat and nudge closer. “I’ve heard rumors that Bill’s alive.”

Leo blinks. “Alive? No. Bill died in an explosion. The police said terrible things, that he killed people, that it was suicide. I never believed them — he couldn’t have murdered, not after what happened to Jane — but I know he’s dead. They found his body. Bits of it. He was blown to pieces and burned. He…”

Tears form in Leo Casey’s tired old eyes and drip down his coarse cheeks. If he’s putting on an act, he’s a master performer, even better than his brother, who played the part of my friend to perfection while all the time planning to strip me of everything that made me human in order to sic me on my father. “He can’t be alive,” Leo croaks. “He’d have come to see me. He’d have written.”

“Easy,” I soothe him, taking his hands and massaging them. His fingers are like a witch’s, long, thin, bony. “It’s just a rumor, but I had to check it out.”

“Who’s saying such things?” Leo snarls, anger getting the better of his sorrow. “Who’s making up lies about my brother?”

“A dirtbag. You don’t know him. He’s scum, but as I said, I had to check, to be certain. Now I can go back and deal with him.”

“I don’t understand,” Leo moans, his anger fading as swiftly as it rose. “Why would anyone make up something like that?”

“Bill had enemies. They’re trying to pin the blame for more deaths on him. I’m determined to expose their lies, stop them insulting Bill’s memory.”

“Bastards!” Leo spits, then looks contrite for having sworn. I don’t like playing this broken man — I’d feel more comfortable if he weren’t so trusting — but I’ve come too far to back off. I’m sure he doesn’t know where Bill is, but he mentioned their sister and I want to find out what he meant by “he couldn’t have murdered, not after what happened to Jane.”

“Bill didn’t talk much about his past,” I say as Leo dabs at his eyes with a large handkerchief. “Barely mentioned you and Jane — she was your sister, wasn’t she?”

“Yes.” Leo sighs miserably. “I’m not surprised he didn’t talk about it. None of us liked remembering those horrible days. Our mother — God rest her soul — made us swear never to talk of it in her presence.”

“Could you tell me what happened?” I ask gently, buzzing with curiosity.

Leo’s face darkens. “I don’t want to.”

I bite down on a furious grimace. “I understand.”

“My doctors encouraged me to talk about it when I first arrived,” he says, “but when they saw how much it pained me, they taught me how to deal with it without confronting it head-on. That’s where a lot of my troubles lay, either running from those memories or dwelling on them too much. They still haunt me, but nowhere near as much as they used to.”

I nod, then clear my throat, hating myself for opening old wounds, but needing to know. “I was with Bill at the end.”

Leo stares at me oddly. Then his eyes light up. “Of course! God, how could I be so dense? Al Jeery. You were with Bill when…” His eyes go dull again.

“He was in so much pain,” I murmur. “Death was a relief.”

“Do you…” Leo gulps. “Do you have any idea why he did it? The police said he killed people and blew himself up, but I don’t… I never believed…”

I could destroy him with the truth. Part of me wants to — to hurt Bill as he hurt me — but I came here to learn, not to harm. “The police got it wrong,” I mutter, the lie bitter on my lips. “Bill had been tracking a killer. He found and executed him. One of the killer’s partners framed and butchered Bill in retaliation. I tried telling the cops but they wouldn’t listen.”

“I knew it!” Leo gasps, crying again, but with relief this time. “I knew there was more to it than they said. Bill wasn’t evil. He didn’t take his own life.”

“Of course not,” I agree with a wan smile, then frown. “The last person he mentioned was Jane. He said he was sorry for what happened, that he was looking forward to seeing her in the next world. I tried asking him about her but it was too late. He…” I leave the rest unsaid and keep a sly eye on Leo, hoping he’ll take the bait.

Leo wrestles with it in silence, then his features relax. “It was the summer of the riots,” he says in a soft voice, referring to a time when the city endured several months of race-related violence. More than a hundred people died, and much of the city — especially in the east — was burned to the ground. “It was hot then, like now. Jane was nine. She loved the sun. Couldn’t wait for vacation, so she could go swimming every day. Then she went missing. She was kidnapped.”

I start to smile, feeling the pieces of the puzzle fall into place, but quickly hide it before Leo sees. “Go on,” I say encouragingly.

“Another girl went missing at the same time — Margaret Crowe. She turned up a few days later, shaken and afraid, but alive. Jane didn’t.”

Leo stops, his eyes twin pools of pain. I wait for him to continue. When he doesn’t, my prodding is somewhat sharper than intended. “And?”

“Nothing,” he whispers. “She stayed lost. The police searched for a long time. We searched too — my stepfather hired private detectives — but she was never seen or heard from again. For a long time we believed — hoped — she was alive, but a year after she was taken, we received something in the mail…”

His expression is so dreadful, I’m not sure I want him to carry on. I almost ask him to stop but he blurts out the rest before I can. “It was her hair. Tied with her favorite ribbon. There was a note. ‘Hair today, gone tomorrow. Ho ho ho.’ ”

My eyes close comprehendingly. There’s no mistaking my father’s sick sense of humor. I see now how Bill ended up so twisted with hate. At the peak of his taunting of Bill, Wami must have kidnapped the girls. He probably told Bill to kill Margaret Crowe or he’d kill Jane. Bill wasn’t able to do it, so Wami released the Crowe girl and killed young Jane Casey.

The mystery has eaten away at me for ten years. I still don’t understand why Bill sought such a warped form of revenge — setting me after Wami in the hope that I’d kill him — but I now know what lay behind it. In a strange way, knowledge of the tragedy is a relief. At the back of my mind I nursed the suspicion that Bill had been lying when he said he ruined my life to get even with Wami. I thought he might have been truly evil, and had simply toyed with me for kicks. At least now I know his claim to revenge was genuine, that I suffered for a heartfelt reason, not because some inhuman psycho was in search of a thrill.

“The family fell apart,” Leo says hollowly. “The hair confirmed that she was dead. Paul, my stepfather, collapsed with a stroke a few days later. He lived another three years, paralyzed and speechless. He had to be spoon-fed. My mother blamed herself for the death and took to self-torment, physically punishing herself with flames and knives. We had to commit her. Some months later, shortly before Paul died, she took her own life. In many ways it was a blessing.”

“And Bill?” I ask quietly. “How did he take it?”

“I don’t know,” Leo says. “Bill cut himself off emotionally from the rest of us, long before we got proof that she’d been killed. He wouldn’t join in the search. He never gave any sign that he thought she was alive. He detached himself and went into private mourning.”

Because he knew about Paucar Wami. He knew there was no hope. I can see it from Bill’s viewpoint — Jane’s life was his to spare, but his humanity stayed his hand. He hadn’t been able to kill Margaret Crowe, so his sister died in her place. What a terrible burden. No wonder he threw himself into revenge so thoroughly — it must have been the only way he could continue, the one way he could stave off madness and function as an ordinary human being. Without revenge to occupy him, he’d have crumbled completely.

(Part of me tries to comment on the similarity between Bill’s situation and my own, but I silence that voice instantly.)

“Did Bill ever mention someone called Paucar Wami?” I ask, knowing it’s a pointless question. Leo wouldn’t be sitting here quietly if he knew the name of his sister’s killer.

“Yes,” Leo says, startling me. “How strange that you should know about that. He often moaned the name in his sleep, and once I found him scratching it on a wall in our garage. He was using his fingernails. His fingers were torn and bloody, but he went on, even after I tried pulling him away.”

“This was when you were still a kid?”

“Yes.”

For a moment I’m confused — why hasn’t Leo forgotten about the Ayuamarcan? Then it hits me. Only the memories of the people in the city were wiped clean by the villacs’ mystical green fog. Those living outside weren’t affected.

“Did you ever ask Bill about Wami?” I inquire.

“Once. He said Paucar Wami was the devil, and if he ever heard the name on my lips again, he’d slice out my tongue.” He looks up, his eyes bloodshot and wet with tears. “Do you know who Paucar Wami was?”

“A killer. I think he murdered your sister.”

Leo nods weakly. “I guessed as much. He’s the man Bill killed, isn’t he?”

“Yes,” I lie, maybe the kindest word I’ll ever speak.

“I’m glad,” Leo says firmly. “A murderer like that deserved to die.”

I rub the muscles at the back of my neck and let out a tired but satisfied groan. “I hope I haven’t stirred up too many unpleasant memories.”

“No,” Leo smiles. “I’m glad you came. I feel better knowing the truth. It’s like you’ve given Bill back to me after those other people tried to take him away with lies.”

I study Leo’s eyes and see a peace in them that wasn’t there when I arrived. His life will never be perfect — it can’t be, not with all that he’s suffered — but it won’t be quite as grim as it was. Part of me envies him that peace, but for the most part I’m pleased for him.

“I’ll go now,” I say, standing and stretching. Then I remember the story I fed him and quickly tie up the loose ends. “Those bastards won’t get any further with their stories about Bill. I’ll put a stop to them.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Leo says. “Let them lie all they want. I don’t care now that I know the truth.” He leans against the tree and sighs. “Would you mind if I didn’t see you off? I’d rather sit here and rest awhile, think about Bill.”

“That’s fine. It was nice meeting you, Leo.”

“You too, Al,” he murmurs, closing his eyes and snuggling up to the tree.

I watch the wretched old man for a few seconds, thinking about Bill, Paucar Wami and the dark secrets of the past. Then, skirting the central building — I don’t feel up to another conversation with Nora — I locate my driver and tell him to get me back to the station as quickly as he can. I’m anxious to return to my ugly, cramped but familiar and comforting hovel in the city.

6: kkk

It’s a relief to be back. When I got off the train last night I walked home, even though it took ages. It was like a stroll through paradise, soaking up the noise and stench of the city, relishing the feel of the pavement beneath my feet, the crush of the crowds outside movie theaters and in public squares, the intensity of the lights, the overpowering, converging buildings that block out most of the sky and make me feel as if I’m inside a dome. It’s not healthy, this fear I’ve developed of the world beyond. Addictions are dangerous, and addiction to a city — especially one with as polluted a soul as this — is downright perverse. But I can’t help myself. I’ve devoted my last ten years to darkness and insanity, and in the eyes of the world I’m a monster. I need somewhere to hide from those condemning eyes — a lair.

It was late when I got home, and I was tired, so I stayed in and wrote a report of my meeting with Leo. I read through it several times once it was finished, in case it would spark any new ideas. Then I burned it. This apartment has been burgled twice and might be again — it’s not the safest of neighborhoods. I wouldn’t want such a sensitive document falling into someone else’s hands.

I’d like to pursue the Bill angle — I toy with the idea of abducting Leo and putting out word that I have him and won’t release him unless Bill shows his face — but I can’t risk pissing off Ford Tasso. If he learns I’ve been hunting for Bill instead of for his Cardinal, he could bring the full wrath of Party Central down upon me.

So, putting the mystery of Bill and Paucar Wami to one side, I return to the Capac Raimi puzzle. I spend Tuesday locating Ama Situwa’s friends. Most are easy to track down. I contact them by phone and ask about her, pretending to be an insurance agent, trying to find her in order to pay out on a premium. Only one of them — Shelly Odone — can recall Cafran Reed’s temporary daughter.

“Ama and I were great friends. We enjoyed some wild nights on the town.” She giggles at the memories. Shelly lives abroad, with the man she married eight years ago. She left the city shortly before Ferdinand Dorak died. She wasn’t here when the brainwashing fog was working its wonders. That’s why she remembers Ama.

“Did you ever hear from her after you moved?” I ask.

“No. I called the restaurant a few times, but she must have had a major row with her father because he wouldn’t even admit to having a daughter. Will you let me know if you find her? I’d love to hear what she’s been up to.”

No luck with Situwa’s favored restaurants, bars, clubs, beauty salons, shops or gym. I do the rounds of all of them, Wednesday and Thursday, in Al Jeery guise, again pretending to be an insurance agent.

I break from my investigations on Thursday evening to attend a book auction. Many rare first editions in the biggest sale to hit the city in six or seven years. I weave in and out of the crowd of excited bookworms in my security guard clothes, scanning the faces of elderly men, searching for Bill. I leave an hour before the conclusion, bemused by the frenzied bidding and increasingly crazy prices fetched by the novels.

Later, as Paucar Wami, I visit a couple of the bars and clubs I hit earlier, and convince the managers to pass me copies of their surveillance discs, which I’ll sift through, watching closely in case Ama made an appearance and was caught on camera. A shot in the dark, but I have to try. I’ll sift through the society columns in papers and magazines too, studying photos. I can do that in Party Central — they have copies of all the city’s periodicals on file. It won’t be fun, and I doubt it’ll lead anywhere, but it’s all part of a detective’s sorry lot.

Friday morning, I purchase a pair of TV sets and DVD players, using the credit card Mags sent me the day after I accepted the case. I have them delivered and I ask the team — a middle-aged man and his teenage son — to hook up the equipment. They say that they know nothing about that, they’re just the monkeys who lug this stuff around. One generous tip later, they become instant experts, and I’m soon in business.

I crack open a beer, then settle back and play two discs simultaneously, eyes flicking lizard-like from one TV to the other, drinking in faces, comparing them to Ama Situwa’s, dismissing most automatically. A few cause me to hit the pause button, but on closer study they aren’t my woman and it’s back to the action, watching, waiting, blinking as seldom as possible.

One of the discs runs out before the other. I let the second get to the end before ejecting both and inserting a fresh pair. A short break to rest my eyes, then it’s back to the discs, the silence of the apartment disturbed only by my breathing and the soft whirring of the DVD players.

I’m on my fourth set of discs when my cell rings. I’m glad for the distraction. I’m accustomed to long, lonely vigils, stalking prey, but a live stakeout can be exciting, despite the hours of inactivity. This is just a drag.

I check the incoming number but don’t recognize it. This influx of unfamiliar callers is annoying. “Hello?” I answer neutrally, ready to be Al Jeery or Paucar Wami, depending on who the caller’s looking for.

“Al? It’s Flo. I got your number from Fabio’s book. Hope you don’t mind me calling.”

“Of course not. Is he dead?”

“No,” she sighs, “but he’s not far off. I thought you might like to be with him at the end. You don’t have to come, but—”

“I’ll be there,” I interrupt softly. “He’s at home?”

“Yes. He made us promise we wouldn’t move him to a hospital. He wanted to die in his own bed.”

“I’m on my way.”

Switching off the TVs, I eject the discs and hide them behind the loose panels at the back of my wardrobe — not a great hiding place, but they should be safe from amateur burglars — then slap on my Al Jeery face paint and wig, remove the green contacts, take off the severed, varnished finger hanging from my neck, and hurry downstairs with my bike.

The house is crowded with Fabio’s friends and relatives, all come to cheer the old pimp off, as he would have wished. Beer and whisky flow like water. Spirits are already high. Pulsing music blares from Fabio’s CD player — he developed a taste for R & B late in life — and the space closest to the speakers is full of younger mourners, bopping their heads. The older members occupy rooms nearer the back, where they complain to each other about the noise.

Flo and Drake are playing host, along with a handful of others who helped look after Fabio in his twilight years. They pass around food, clear away empties, keep the peace between the young and old, and guard the entrance to Fabio’s bedroom, making sure he isn’t overcrowded.

“Can I sit with him awhile?” I ask Flo during a quiet moment.

“Sure,” she smiles wearily. “We’re giving everyone a few minutes with him, to say goodbye and wish him well, but you can stay as long as you want. You’re one of his favorites.”

“It’s good to have friends in high places,” I grin, then head through. I find him unconscious, as he’s been for most of the last twenty-four hours. Zeba — one of Fabio’s ladies — tells me they don’t expect him to open his eyes again.

“We asked if he wanted us to call you over, the last few times he was awake,” Zeba says softly, wiping sweat from his forehead. “He said not to bother. Said you knew each other too long for sentimental shit like that. Said there wasn’t nothing you could say now that you hadn’t said before.”

“Cantankerous to the end,” I snort, laying the back of my hand on his cheeks, one after the other, feeling the coldness of death in them. “Any idea how long he has left?”

“A few hours. His body’s all busted. I reckon he’s only hanging on for one last blast of music. Soon as them youngsters stop playing the songs, he’ll up and quit.”

“Maybe we should let them play on indefinitely,” I suggest.

“Nah,” she smiles. “He’s done here. Let the old tomcat go. It’d be cruel to keep him hanging on. He’s got better places to be.”

I sit with Fabio until the end, while others file in and out, shepherded by the eagle-eyed Zeba. Sometimes I hold his hands, sometimes I wipe his brow, but mostly I sit back and watch people make their farewells. I don’t say anything. He was right — there’s nothing new either of us could say. Fabio’s my oldest friend, there for me even before Bill Casey, the only one I never alienated since becoming Paucar Wami. I worried sometimes that the villacs might use him to hurt me, but thankfully they let him be.

Another old friend, Ali, enters and we exchange a few hushed words. He runs a bagel shop beneath the apartment where I used to live. I still drop in occasionally, in Al Jeery guise, though it’s been a few months.

“How are you, my friend?” Ali asks.

“Good. And you?”

“I cannot complain.”

“I didn’t know you knew Fabio.”

“I don’t,” he says. “I just saw the crowd and joined the party.” He laughs, then smiles sheepishly when Zeba glares at him. “Fabio was a good customer of mine. And I of his. We exchanged… services.”

“You swapped bagels for ladies?” I smirk.

“Yes,” he blushes. “I always believed I was getting the better of the bargain, but Fabio said many men had finer women to offer than he, but nobody in this city could slap together as delicious a bagel as me.”

“He had a point.”

“I will miss him.”

“Me too.”

“And the women.”

I choke on a laugh. “I think you’ll find a few of those elsewhere.”

“Yes,” Ali sighs. “But it will not be the same. I will always think of Fabio when I am enjoying the embrace of a fine woman.” He giggles impishly and winks at me. “Well, maybe not always…”

Finally, Fabio passes. There’s no climactic finale or dramatic last gasp. His breathing has been getting softer, to the point where his chest no longer seems to rise or fall. Flo replaced Zeba an hour ago and has been checking his pulse every five minutes, holding a mirror over his lips and nose. This time she shakes her head, tears forming. “He’s gone,” she says flatly.

And that’s the end of that.

I want to slip off home but Flo asks me to stay. It would be impolite to say no, so I remain as she and Zeba see to his body, stripping and washing him one last time, before dressing him in his best clothes — Fabio always placed great importance on appearance. A mortician will fix him up tomorrow, but the ladies are determined to keep him in good shape in the meantime. We should be able to get him cremated soon, maybe at the weekend or early next week. There’s a long waiting list at the crematorium, but one of Fabio’s many grandsons is on the staff.

I leave the women to their ministrations — rather, they shoo me out of the room — and mingle uneasily with the other guests. I know most of them (as Paucar Wami it’s my business to know people), but very few know me. They’re aware that I’m a close friend of Fabio’s, and a few of the older guests recognize me from when I was a kid, but nobody knows who I am at night.

After half an hour of strained small talk, one of Fabio’s great-grandsons takes me aside. Fabio never married, but he sired many bastards, who in turn bred like rabbits. I don’t know how many grandchildren and great-grandchildren he had — I don’t think the old buzzard knew himself — but it’s in excess of a hundred.

I know Kurt Jones, aka Bones Jones, the one who sidetracks me. A small fish in one of the smaller gangs. Fabio liked him. Most of the pimp’s descendants had gone legit. That pleased him, but left him with little in common with them. Bones was one of the few he could click with.

“How you doing, Bones?”

“Not bad, man. Business is good. Could be better, but hey! You ain’t in the market for digital cameras, are you? I got a load going dirt cheap.”

“I can maybe take one if the price is right.”

“Nah, man, I’m into bulk trading.”

“Sorry.”

“That’s OK.” He glances around, drags me away from the others and lowers his voice. “I don’t know why he told me to tell you this, but I was shooting the shit with the F last week, and there was this one thing he said I had to take it to you. I came over your place Monday but you was out and I been busy since.”

“What’s it regarding?”

Bones’s voice drops even further. “Ever hear of a dude called Paucar Wami?”

I stiffen. “What about him?”

“Shit I heard. Rumors. You probably don’t know this, but someone’s been offing people close to Ford Tasso and Eugene Davern.”

“So?”

“Word is Paucar Wami’s taking them down.”

“You think Wami’s killing Tasso and Davern’s confidants?”

“Not me, man, I don’t think shit. It’s what I heard. I told the F — he always liked hearing about Wami — and he said I had to tell you.”

“Thanks, Bones. I owe you.”

It’s not unusual for me to be blamed for killings I have nothing to do with, and normally I allow such rumors to circulate unchecked (good for business), but this is a complication I can do without. When Tasso gets word of it, he’ll want to know if it’s true. I’m sure I can convince him of my innocence, but once seeds of doubt have been sown, relationships are never quite the same. I’ll have to move to quell the rumors, and fast.

I make my apologies to Flo, tell her to call me if she needs help with the funeral arrangements, then slip away from the party — which is hitting full swing — and return home. I shed my wig and face paint, become Paucar Wami, and take to the streets to sort this shit out.

It’s worse than I thought. The rumors have been spreading for a couple of weeks. I’d have gotten wind of them sooner if I hadn’t been so wrapped up in my investigations. According to the gossipmongers I’m not only responsible for wiping out some of Tasso’s and Davern’s key men, but I’ve been putting together a gang of my own, backed by a mystery benefactor, with the intention of turning the Troops and Kluxers against each other, letting them slug it out, then moving in to finish them off and seize control.

It only takes a few hours to track the stories back to some of their sources, and I spend the predawn hours Saturday grilling several people who’ve been busy feeding the rumor mill. They confess freely, with only a minimum of prompting (being jolted awake in the middle of the night by a legendary killer tends to loosen the stiffest of tongues). They were bribed to spread the lies, but they don’t know who paid them or why. They received orders and payment in plain envelopes. I check the notes, all of which run much the same way. “This is the news. Let it be heard. More money to follow.” Underneath, the rumors — Paucar Wami has been killing Ford Tasso’s and Eugene Davern’s men… he’s formed a gang of his own… he kidnapped The Cardinal… et cetera.

I’m baffled to begin with — I don’t know what anyone stands to gain by this — but then a glimmer of an idea strikes me. By framing me for his disappearance, maybe Raimi’s kidnappers hope to turn Ford Tasso against me. If that’s the case, it raises a conundrum. I’ve been working on the assumption that the villacs took Raimi, to tempt me back into their warped games. But if they did, they’d surely want to keep me active. They’d hardly instigate rumors that might lead to Tasso’s terminating my contract.

Is somebody else involved? Was Raimi kidnapped by a third party? Maybe the priests are looking for Raimi too, got me involved because they thought I might be able to help find him, and the real kidnappers are now trying to undermine me.

It’s almost 08:00 when I go to bed, brooding about the rumors, the villacs and possible others. After ten or fifteen minutes I fall into a troubled sleep…

… Which I snap out of abruptly at 09:16 when my front door’s kicked in and three men with guns burst into my apartment.

I’m rolling out of bed in an instant, snatching my.45 from beneath the pillow where I always keep it, taking a bead on the men, who’ve fanned out. My finger tightens and I prepare to blow away the man on my right. But they aren’t firing. They have the drop on me but they’re holding off. And they look terrified.

As I pause, bewildered, a fourth man enters. Clad in a white fur coat, the hem swirling around his ankles, he strolls past the three with guns. His blond hair and blue eyes belong on a model. He oozes self-confidence and wealth. He smiles at me as if we’re old friends, casts an eye around and sighs. “How you people live in such squalor is beyond me. Have niggers no sense of self-worth?”

I almost let him have a full clip in the stomach. But if I open fire on him, his men will retaliate. I wouldn’t survive the shoot-out.

The man in the fur coat pulls over a chair and sits. His manicured fingers pick at the folds of the coat as he grins. “Hyde Wornton,” he introduces himself. “I’d say I was pleased to meet you, but that’d be a lie. The only niggers I like are those with a rope around their necks and nothing but air beneath their feet.”

Hyde Wornton. Eugene Davern’s lieutenant, one of the men I considered following in the hope of tracing Capac Raimi. This is bad. Wornton has a foul reputation. One of the more zealous Kluxers, he keeps the spirit of the Klan alive and well, even while Davern struggles to suppress it. A dangerous man at the best of times.

“What do you want?” I snarl.

“That’s ‘Sir’ or ‘Massah’ to you, nigger,” he says pleasantly.

“Call me that again and you die,” I tell him.

“I don’t think so,” he laughs. “You’re smarter than that. You won’t throw your life away just because someone calls you a nigger or a coon.”

“You’re a dead man,” I whisper. “Not today, but soon. That’s a promise.”

“Never met a darkie who could keep a promise,” he giggles, then gets serious. “You know who I work for. Eugene — Mr. Davern to you — requests the pleasure of your company. Pronto.”

“Eugene Davern can go fuck his whore of a mother,” I retort, enjoying the dark cloud that disturbs Wornton’s expression.

“Careful,” he hisses. “Make a crack like that again and I’m apt to start something ugly, regardless of the consequences.”

“Just tell me what you want and quit with the dramatics,” I drawl.

“Your ass in my car, now.”

“If I refuse?”

Wornton shrugs. “It’s obvious I don’t want to start a shooting match. If you don’t come, we walk. But it’s taken a lot of time and money to track you down, to link the feared Paucar Wami to the meek Al Jeery. Now that we have, you’re up shit creek. If you don’t jump when we say, we tell everyone what we know and that’s bye-bye alter ego, farewell hidey-hole. You’ll be exposed, with nowhere to run, and your enemies will descend on you like a swarm of locusts and free your clean white bones of their degenerate black skin.”

“I’d heard you were a Bible-thumper,” I sneer but inside I’m cursing. They have me by the balls. I’d never have survived this long without being able to retreat from the madness of the streets when needs dictated. Even Paucar Wami has to have a place where he can rest up.

“We don’t have to make this general knowledge,” Wornton says. “Only a few of us know about you and we’ve sworn to Eugene that we won’t reveal the truth.” His nose crinkles. “Personally, I’d rat you out as soon as look at you, but Eugene’s the boss and we know the value of loyalty, unlike some races I could mention.”

I ignore the slur and consider his proposal. “What does Davern want?”

“Damned if I know. Maybe he’s looking for a new shoeshine boy.”

“Why should I trust you?”

“Hell, nigger, you can’t!” Wornton whoops. “I could give you my word, but my word’s only sacred if given to one of my own. I’d think nothing of lying to a nigger. Still, if it’d make you feel safer…”

“Fuck you,” I snap, then put my gun away. “Give me a few minutes to change. I’ll meet you out front presently.”

Wornton nods to his guards. They edge out backward, not lowering their weapons, and Wornton follows.

“Hyde,” I stop him. “I know you white boys have a thing for black men, so if you want to stay and jerk your chain while I’m changing, I won’t object.”

His apoplexy almost makes me glad that my cover’s been blown.

Wornton doesn’t remove his coat in the car, even though the heat has me sweating through my T-shirt. He sits up front with the driver, while the two other goons sit on either side of me in the back. Nobody speaks. We end up at the Kool Kats Klub, Eugene Davern’s restaurant, which opened in the 1980s as the Ku Klux Klub. It’s remained true to its origins, though the burning crosses in the windows and the occasional hooded customer or waiter are relics of the past.

I’m marched into the restaurant by a side door, past several startled members of the staff, to a room at the rear of the building where Eugene Davern awaits. To my surprise, I’m not relieved of my weapons, merely waved in by a sardonic Hyde Wornton, who mutters, “Best of luck, nigger,” before closing the door after me.

Davern’s hovering in front of a glass display case, full of articles about the restaurant. He’s in his early forties, tall — at least six-five — and in good shape. His dark hair’s swept back with gel and he sports a stylish mustache and goatee. Dressed immaculately in a cream suit. His hands are in his trouser pockets. He doesn’t take them out or step forward to greet me.

“You’re wondering why you haven’t been disarmed,” he says, gray eyes cold and penetrating.

“Yes,” I answer somberly, wary of this intelligent, quietly threatening man.

“I’ve let you keep your weapons because I do not fear you. This is my domain, and here I fear no man. Besides, you aren’t a fool. My men know where you live. You’ve spent ten years living a double life. I have the power to let you continue or expose you. That power must be respected. Killing me would be self-destructive.”

“How did you find out about me?” I ask.

“Irrelevant,” he sniffs. “Let’s talk instead about why you’re here. I wish to strike a bargain.”

I blink, confused. “What sort of bargain?”

Davern steps away from the display case. Gets up close and studies my face, the coiled serpents, my unnatural green eyes. He keeps his hands in his pockets. He doesn’t look as hateful as Hyde Wornton, but I get the impression that he’s even more arrogant, that he thinks as little of me as he would an ant.

“You’ve killed men who were important to me,” he murmurs. “Men I’ve worked with for many years. Friends like Dan Kerrin. We grew up together. Closer than brothers. And you butchered him in his bath, leaving his bloody, naked body for his wife to find.”

He voices the accusations passionlessly. I find that more worrying than if he was screaming abusively.

“I didn’t kill Dan Kerrin,” I say evenly. “Or the others.”

“You deny it?” His left eyebrow lifts marginally. “I thought Paucar Wami was a man who boasted of his kills. You even take credit for other hits, don’t you?”

“If people are willing to accredit them to me, I let them — it’s good for business. But I don’t lie. I didn’t kill your men.”

Davern smoothes his goatee with the ball of his left thumb. “Are you hungry? Would you care to break bread with me?”

I’m startled by the change of tone but don’t let it show. “I’ll gladly eat with you,” I tell him, “but only if you swallow before I do.”

Davern laughs and leads me into the dining room, past the day’s first customers — their outraged mutters when they spot me are music to my ears — to one of the private areas where a table is laid for two, overflowing with croissants, cereal, fruit, silver bowls of butter and preservatives, five pitchers of milk and fruit juice, and various loaves of freshly baked bread.

“Rather different from what I assume you’re accustomed to,” Davern says, taking a seat and breaking a fresh loaf of seeded bread in two. He passes half to me, slices his open and smears it with thick, soft butter. I wait for him to bite into it before scraping a thin layer of butter over mine.

“What do you want?” I ask, washing the bread down with a glass of purple juice — again, only after Davern has tested it first.

The owner of the Kool Kats Klub and head of the Kluxers doesn’t answer immediately, but chews on a currant cake. Then he says, “You’re lying about Dan but that doesn’t matter. There will come a day when I’ll seek retribution, but for the time being I wish to talk peace.”

He pauses. I think about denying the charges again, but I’m not that bothered whether he blames me for his friend’s death or not. I’m more interested in this deal of his.

“I know about the Snakes,” he says softly.

“Snakes?” I repeat.

“The Snakes,” he hisses. “I congratulate you on the way you’ve recruited and guided them, keeping them a secret for so long. Such initiative is rare. I’m sure you’re not working alone — armies require funding, and you’re not rich — but in the absence of any other visible leader, I’m prepared to deal with you directly.”

I’ve found through experience that it’s wiser to say nothing when you’re ignorant of what’s being discussed. Let the other person ramble and maybe you’ll learn something. But I’m so dumbstruck by what he’s saying that before I know it I’m mumbling, “I haven’t a clue what you’re talking about.”

Davern smiles thinly. “Don’t insult me. I don’t know how many you’ve gathered to your cause, or how you plan to deploy them, but I know they exist and that they keep to the tunnels, out of sight and hearing. And I’m sure you plan to unleash them soon, otherwise why kidnap Capac Raimi and target Ford Tasso and me?”

“Honestly, I don’t know what—”

“Don’t lie to me!” he shouts, cheeks reddening. “I won’t sit here and be lied to by…” He stops abruptly.

“… A nigger?” I finish for him icily.

“Now that you mention it, yes,” he says, regaining his composure. “It would be pointless to hide my prejudices. That said, I’ve come to realize there can be no clean division of the races. Black and white have come together, and while I don’t approve of the mingling, only a fool or a romantic such as Hyde rages in the face of it. This city will never again be ruled by one race. It’s time we reconciled ourselves to that and got on with forging new, mutually beneficial relationships with one another.”

“A touching speech,” I snicker.

“An honest statement of truth,” he counters. “I won’t pretend to like your dark-skinned brethren, but I acknowledge the fact that I have to share the reins of power with them. And I’m prepared to. I’m willing to strike up a partnership with you and your followers. There’s more than enough action in this city for both of us. Once Tasso and his Troops are out of the way, we can discuss an equitable arrangement. The north and west for me, east and south for you? The docks split fifty-fifty?”

I shake my head. “You’re talking of things I know nothing about. I haven’t recruited a gang. I’m just a vigilante. This talk of partnership means nothing to me. I’m not into power games.”

Davern’s expression hardens. “Don’t fuck with me,” he growls. “I’m not a man you fuck with. In ten short years I’ve gone from being a chorus boy in the Klan to head of my own army, second in strength only to the decaying forces of Dorak’s Troops. This restaurant was my sole source of income twenty years ago. Now I run much of the city. You think I came this far by letting punks shit on me? I’ve made a valid proposition. If you don’t greet it with the grace it merits, I’ll have you taken out back and executed like the upstart that you are.”

I nod slowly. “Now you’re talking my language.” I draw my.45 and lay it on the table. His eyes narrow but he shows no other discernible concern. “You want to start a shooting match, go ahead. But this talk of gangs and taking over the city falls on deaf ears. I’m not into that shit.”

Davern cocks his head. “If I didn’t know better, I’d swear you were on the level. You must teach me how to lie so smoothly. Very well, you refuse to discuss an entente. I respect that. There are other players and you don’t want to pick sides too soon. In your position, I’d do the same. But take heed.” He wipes crumbs from his lips with a silk napkin and stands. “I have options too. There are others I can ally myself with. I’d rather link with your Snakes, but if I have to strike a deal with the white-eyed devils, I will.”

His mention of the blind priests intrigues me, but I say nothing, not wishing to start Davern off on another rant.

“You can go when you finish eating,” he says as he leaves the table. “I won’t ask any of my men to drive you back, but there are a number of cab ranks close by. I’m sure you’ll find a hard-up driver who won’t object to giving you a ride.”

“Davern,” I stop him as he reaches the door. “What about Al Jeery?”

He pauses. “It would drive you underground if I went public. I’m tempted to, if only to force you to admit your ties to the Snakes.” He waves a dismissive hand. “But I like having you where I can find you, so we’ll keep your identity a secret for now. But if you don’t play ball, that can change swifter than a hummingbird’s fart.”

He exits.

I linger a while, enjoying the meal, taking advantage of my unlikely host’s hospitality, wondering what Eugene Davern was talking about, why he thinks I’m a competitor and possible ally of his… and who the hell the Snakes are.

7: requiem for a pimp

Sunday, traditional day of rest — but not for me. I spend it as I spent yesterday afternoon, pounding the streets, pumping informants, determined to find out more about the Snakes.

Nobody knows anything. I’m greeted with blank stares and shakes of the head wherever I go. There are several snake-themed gangs — the Fangs, the Serpent’s Kiss, the Coils — but no simple Snakes.

The only known subterranean gang is the Rats. A small gang, nine or ten members, with a demented apocalypse fixation. They’ve been down in the tunnels for fourteen years in anticipation of a nuclear attack. They live on the waste of the city — roast rat’s a speciality of theirs, hence the name — only rarely straying above street level when driven by floods or to forage for clothes and medicine.

I know the Rats — they’ve aided me on a couple of occasions when I’ve chased quarry down the tunnels — and they can’t be the Snakes Davern was talking about. The Rats have as little interest in the world above as the rest of us have in theirs. But thinking about them gives me an idea. They know the tunnels better than anyone. They might be able to put me on the track of the missing Cardinal or help me search for him.

I go looking for the Rats late Sunday but don’t find them. They’re nomads, with temporary bases all over the city’s underworld, so it can take a while to track them down. I leave messages at the four campsites I visit, asking them to contact me, then return to the streets to quiz the late-night revelers for word of the Snakes.

Back home I shower thoroughly — the stink of the tunnels is vile — then crawl into bed and stare at the ceiling until I fall asleep.

Monday. Fabio’s funeral. His grandson pulled strings to bump the dead pimp up the waiting list. They considered having the ceremony yesterday, but delayed it twenty-four hours so that they could contact all of his relatives and friends, giving everyone the chance to attend.

Fabio was Catholic — something I only found out since he died — and there’s a mass said for him in his local church, St. Jude’s. It’s an immense gathering. Thousands of mourners pack the church and streets outside. I’ve never seen such a crowd for a funeral. (There were hundreds of thousands for Ferdinand Dorak, but I missed that, being laid up in the hospital at the time.)

The priest says a Latin mass, the way Fabio requested. I tune out after the first few mystifying minutes. Flo asked me to say some words but I declined. Speaking in public was never my thing.

I sit near the front — Flo nagged me forward — surrounded by three of Fabio’s children and their progeny. The kids behave themselves, sitting silently like little angels. I’m impressed, until one of Fabio’s sons explains as we’re standing outside the church afterward, waiting for the coffin. Fabio set aside a considerable stash over the decades, with orders to share it among the young — but only the ones who behaved at his funeral. I laugh out loud when I hear that, and don’t feel guilty. Most people are laughing and joking, as Fabio would have wanted.

It takes half an hour to get the coffin to the hearse — everyone wants to touch it for good luck, or to express their farewells — and another half hour for the hearse to clear the block. Only a fraction of the crowd has been invited to the crematorium. The chosen few gather on the steps of the church. There are seventy or eighty of us, Fabio’s children (no room for grandchildren, bar one or two favorites) and nearest friends.

When the crowd clears enough for us to push through to our vehicles, we make our way to the crematorium. I’ve brought my motorcycle, even though I virtually never use it when in Al Jeery mode. It’s a long ride and I’d miss the start of the service if I biked.

I park out back, flash my invitation to the guard at the door, and join the rest of the mourners in a large chamber, the walls of which are draped with billowing curtains. Flo and Zeba stand inside the door to the chamber, greeting and directing the mourners. I get shunted to the third row from the front on the left, next to the wall. I don’t have a great view of the coffin, which suits me fine. I hate funerals.

When everyone’s settled, the priest from St. Jude’s steps up and delivers a final, heartfelt tribute to Fabio. He avoids hypocrisy — says he knows how Fabio made a living, and as a man of God he can’t approve — but admits respect for the pimp. “He was a man of honor who kept his word and did no harm unto others — unless they did it to him first!”

At the end of his speech, he clears his throat and blushes. “I, uh, normally I’d hang around until the end, but Flo and Zeba have a special send-off in mind and I can’t really…” His blush deepens. “I’ll wait outside,” he mutters and scurries away to whispers of confused amusement.

Zeba faces us. She’s weeping but grinning at the same time. “We all know Fabio was a womanizing bastard,” she grunts, and is greeted by a round of cheers and claps. “His final wish was to go with a flourish, and though he never said what he intended, Flo and I have come up with something we think he’d like.”

As Zeba sits, a door at the side of the chamber opens, the lights dim and “Big Spender” starts to play over the PA. As we crack up, six chorus girls enter, faces covered with masks — life-size photos of Fabio’s face. They kick their stockinged legs high, split skirts parting to reveal flashes of thigh, glittering tops tight around their breasts.

The girls gyrate in front of the coffin, race down and back up the aisle, then gather in a line and strip. Many of the men are hooting encouragingly, some of the women too. Practically everyone’s smiling and laughing, though a lot of the smiles are flecked with tears. The first girl whips off her top to a raucous cheer. Then the second, the third, all the way down the line, until the six are naked from the waist up, dancing lewdly, masks of Fabio still in place, wiggling their breasts and hips.

In all the unexpected excitement, I almost miss Fabio’s exit. As the strippers jiggle down the aisle, his coffin glides backward on a conveyer belt, through a pair of lace curtains, never to be seen again. I salute him as he goes, wishing him luck wherever he winds up.

“If that doesn’t satisfy the horny old goat, nothing will,” one of his daughters in the seat ahead of me mutters to her husband.

“What’d really make his day,” he murmurs, “would be if they slipped back there and jumped his dead bones.”

As I’m laughing at their comments, the music dies, the lights come back up, the strippers gather their clothes, bow one final time to the mourners and start to leave. Those closest to the aisle are already on their feet, in a hurry to get back to Fabio’s house for the wake. Since I’m by the wall, I stay seated and wait for the way to clear. As my eyes wander, I notice one of the strippers standing nearby. It’s hard to tell with the Fabio mask, but I get the impression she’s staring at me.

I stare back at the stripper, smiling awkwardly, trying not to ogle her breasts. Then she removes her mask and I forget her breasts entirely. It’s Ama Situwa!

As my jaw drops, she sends the Fabio mask flicking toward me. Instinctively I duck to avoid it. When I look again, she’s gone. Not waiting to question my sanity, I bound from my seat, leap over the people in the rows ahead — ignoring their indignant roars — duck through the door and race down a corridor.

It branches at the end. The right fork leads to a room where I can hear loud conversation and laughter — the strippers. I doubt that Ama Situwa will return to her colleagues — I can always trace them through Flo and Zeba later if I have to — so I turn left and pick up speed.

The corridor leads to the rear of the crematorium, no further forks or doors. I burst out into sunlight, drop to my knees in case anyone’s waiting with a gun and raze the area with my gaze, desperately wishing I’d packed my.45. I spot Situwa at the far corner of the building to my left, tugging on a T-shirt. She’s on a moped. I start toward her, realize I have no hope of catching her on foot — the engine’s already running — so turn and dart for my motorcycle in the parking lot.

By the time I clear the lot, I’m sure Situwa will have vanished, but to my delight I catch sight of her overtaking a car that has stopped for a yellow light. Cutting lanes — almost getting wiped out by a van — I come down with a jarring thud on her side of the road, take a few seconds to straighten, and set off after her, ripping through the gears, eyes locked on the figure in front.

Within a minute I’ve already closed the gap by half and know she’s mine for the taking. Secure in this knowledge and thinking clearly — aided by the fresh air — I ease up on the throttle. I close the gap another seventy or eighty feet over the next few minutes but maintain that distance, giving her the run of the city, to see where she’ll lead me.

As we bypass traffic, I ponder the situation and come to the obvious conclusion that this is a setup. The woman wants me to follow her. She’s leading me somewhere specific and I bet friends of hers will be waiting when we arrive. The intelligent thing would be to cut her off, knock her from her moped, interrogate her on territory of my own choosing. But I let her keep her lead, eager to know whom she’s running to.

She heads for the city center. I start to think she’s leading me to Party Central but then she takes a turn for the docks. That would be a good spot for an ambush — plenty of deserted warehouses — but then she turns again, away from the river. I stop speculating and simply follow.

Several minutes later she pulls up at the base of the Manco Capac statue and leaps from her moped. I draw up beside the abandoned bike, stand my own beside it and pad after her, closing the distance to forty feet by the time she reaches the door at the foot of the statue and races inside.

The Manco Capac statue is the city’s largest monument, standing an incredible nine hundred feet high, an immense tribute to the founding father of the Incas. Construction commenced a decade ago but the doors were only opened to the public the year before last. I’ve never been inside but I’ve heard a lot about it — it’s home to a supposedly world-class Inca museum, and the views of the city are allegedly second to none.

I pause at the entrance. There’s a sign proclaiming the statue closed for the day, but the door’s unlocked and there are no guards. This feels bad but I’m not about to turn tail now. I might be weaponless, but my hands are the hands of a killer, so I’m never truly unarmed. Wiping my palms on my pants, I take a calming breath, then start up the stairs after Ama Situwa.

After a long climb I stop at a steel door. I flex my fingers, take hold of the handle, pull the door open and throw myself through, rolling across the floor, anticipating action.

Nobody here.

I stand warily and study my surroundings. I’m in the lowest section of the museum, where a gift shop and an Incan-themed restaurant predominate. No sign of Ama Situwa. I step up to the window of the gift shop and check the display. Useless bric-a-brac, but on the left I spot a thick-headed walking stick, and just behind that a belt of ornamental knives. I kick in the glass — no alarm sounds — and grab the walking stick and knives. The stick’s hefty and will serve as a club. The knives are flimsy but better than nothing. I strap on the belt, slide out a knife and hold it by my side, and advance.

The statue is hollow and tiered with crystal floors of different colors. On each floor a dazzling array of cabinets and display stands boast all manner of Incan ornaments and tools, garments and jewelry, maps and information sheets. I ignore all of it and search for Ama Situwa, who’s lost me amid the aisles of memorabilia and artifacts.

I move up floors cautiously. I sense she’s waiting for me at the top but I don’t rush. The museum’s deserted, lit by dim security lamps. My footsteps echo loudly. I don’t try to muffle them. Whoever’s waiting with Ama Situwa knows I’m coming, so the element of surprise isn’t in play.

Finally I leave the last of the display cabinets behind and come to a door marked SOLARIUM. AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. I know all about the statue’s solarium. A lover of everything Incan told me about it many years ago, when work on the statue was in its infancy. A circular room full of mirrors designed to harness the full blast of the sun and amplify it. Access is restricted and allegedly no bribe will get you past the security guards if you haven’t been given the go-ahead by the relevant authorities.

There are no guards on the door today, but I pause before entering. The glare of the mirrors is meant to be blinding and visitors have to wear colored goggles. The glass of the roof is tinted, cutting down the glare, but it can be retracted at the push of a button. If I go up, unprotected, and somebody pushes that button…

I have to risk it. Situwa could be hiding on any of the floors beneath — I gave them only a cursory once-over — but I know in my heart that she’s waiting for me in the solarium, along with whoever sent her to me as bait. I could try to wait them out, but this is their game, not mine. I must respect the rules.

Pushing through the revolving door, I find myself on a set of narrow, steep stairs. I swap my walking stick from my left hand to my right as I climb, and the knife vice versa, just to give myself something to think about while ascending.

At the top of the stairs I hit the domed solarium. The walls are embedded with mirrors. The glass roof is tinted a dark gray-blue color. The floor of the room is mostly covered by a huge, circular stone. A strangely carved block juts from the center of the stone, maybe five feet high. Standing in front of the block, a long knife held between his hands, is a robed, blind villac. At the base of the stone, legs dangling over the side, rests Ama Situwa.

“Welcome, Flesh of Dreams,” she greets me, smiling blankly. I get the feeling she isn’t in control of herself. She’s being manipulated.

“Who are you?” I ask, striding forward. Before I reach her, she swings her legs up, rolls away from me and comes to her feet. I stop at the edge, remembering a similar stone from many years earlier. The villacs called it the inti watana. When I tried to mount it, I received a crippling electric shock.

“You have a keen memory, Flesh of Dreams,” the woman with Ama Situwa’s features says. “This platform, like the other, will repulse those who set foot on it uninvited. You may test it if you wish, but I would not advise it.” She doesn’t sound like a woman. Her voice is deep and masculine.

“Who are you?” I ask again.

In answer she removes her T-shirt, slides out of her skirt and slips off her shoes and stockings.

“Who are you?” I ask for the third time.

“Ama Situwa,” she answers.

“Ama Situwa’s dead.”

“Yes.” She smiles a corpse’s grin. “And today she dies again.”

The naked woman walks to the priest at the center of the platform. He steps to one side and she jumps and hauls herself onto the stone block, drapes herself across it, facing me, body arced, pubis high. The villac walks around the block, muttering words in a language I don’t understand.

The priest comes to a halt at the front of the block and sets the blade of his knife to the flesh of the woman’s throat. She doesn’t look alarmed, merely stares calmly at the ceiling, breathing steadily.

“Stop,” I say softly. “You don’t have to do this. Let’s talk.”

The villac ignores me, presses down, then drags the blade from right to left, severing the woman’s vocal cords. Ama Situwa’s body jerks but she doesn’t beat him off. She holds her head as still as she can while he makes a second cut, then a third, slicing deeper each time, right through the neck, until her head flops over the edge of the block, connected to her body by only a thin flap of flesh.

I watch the sacrifice neutrally. I’ve killed too many people to feel sickened or appalled. If the priest meant to shock me, he failed.

Ama Situwa’s blood runs down the sides of the block, soaking into the stone of the platform. The villac steps away, knife hanging by his side. Dropping the knife, he raises his arms above his head and chants. I consider launching one of my own knives at him — I could hit him from here, though I don’t think the cheap blade would do much damage — but choose to wait. I want to see what he does next.

While I’m studying the priest, I spot movement at the center of the platform. My gaze flicks to the block, back to the priest, then returns to the block, my eyes widening. I thought the movement was Ama Situwa’s body shifting, or another priest entering the solarium, but it’s nothing so simple. A tiny cloud of green fog has formed around the dead woman’s body and rises to the ceiling, dispersing as it does. As I watch, mystified, I realize that the body on the platform is growing translucent, fading away. She’s disappearing, flesh and bones transforming into tendrils of a vapid green fog that drifts upward and separates, becoming invisible dust motes, until both woman and fog are no more.

“What is this shit?” I gasp.

The villac smiles. The sacrifice didn’t impress me but this did. The priest can’t hide a gloating snicker.

“It’s an illusion,” I moan. “This room’s full of mirrors. You simply…” I trail off, knowing it has to be trickery, yet sensing in my heart that it isn’t. The priests wouldn’t waste their time on cheap conjuring feats.

As my brain reels, the villac turns, walks to the far end of the platform and jumps down. I click back into action and race around the huge stone, determined to catch the priest and force answers out of him. The priest faces me with his white, expressionless eyes. I drop my makeshift club and prepare to go to work with the knives. Before I can, a mirror drops from the ceiling and slots into place in a groove in the floor, blocking my path.

I curse at my reflection and smash my right elbow into the mirror, meaning to force my way through. But the glass is shatterproof. I grit my teeth against the impact of the blow and clutch my arm to my chest, squeezing the flesh above the elbow to combat the pain. I flex my arm a few times, then retrace my steps, coming at the priest from the opposite direction. It’s a waste of time — another mirror will drop, I’m sure — but I have to try.

I notice several mirrors around the edges of the room lifting to reveal hidden compartments. In each rests a mummified corpse, strapped to a chair. I ignore them and focus on the villac. His arms are outstretched and he’s muttering. I glimpse another mirror descending. I throw myself forward, hoping to beat it to the punch, but it slots into place and I bounce backward.

Hissing with fury, I rest on the floor a moment, considering my next move. As I lie there like a wounded dog, another mirror drops into place behind me, trapping me. I don’t react immediately, but get my breath back, then stand and appraise the situation. I’m surrounded on three sides by mirrors, on the other by the charged inti watana. There doesn’t seem to be a way out, though I’m sure one will present itself. The villacs didn’t lure me here simply to strand me.

As if somebody’s reading my thoughts, the mirror in the wall slides up, revealing one of the hidden compartments. I start toward it, then stop, confused. There’s no corpse in this one, just another mirror that casts my bald, tattooed reflection back at me. That doesn’t make sense. There must be a way out. Perhaps a panel in the floor or…

I stoop to check the floor, then freeze. My reflection hasn’t moved. It stands the same as before, grinning. But I haven’t grinned since I saw Ama Situwa in the crematorium.

Straightening, I study the figure, noting the bald head, green eyes and tattooed snakes on its cheeks. A highly accurate representation of me in my Paucar Wami guise. The thing is, I’m currently masquerading as Al Jeery, snakes painted over, wig in place, contact lenses removed. This isn’t a reflection. It’s a life-size replica. But why put it here? What do they hope to—

The right arm of the replica shoots up. Its fingers grip my throat and tighten. Its face comes alive. Its green eyes fix on mine and its lips lift in a mocking sneer.

I punch at the hand and kick at the legs of my assailant, but he takes no notice. Instead, leaning forward, he smirks in a way I remember only too well and says in a voice I’ve heard many times in my nightmares, “Long time no see, Al m’boy.”

A blast of inhuman fear numbs me and I stop struggling. This isn’t a replica — it’s the real Paucar Wami!

As my senses dissolve, Wami’s fingers flex and the supply of blood is cut off. I slip to the floor. Dark waves wash over me, obscuring all. The last thing I see is the evil grin of my long-dead father. Then nothing, except for shadowy, slithering, nightmarish snakes.