Underground

CHAPTER 5

The streets seemed to grow darker as we went south into the older environs of the city. The roads were narrower below Cherry Street, where the city plat bent to run truly north and south rather than northwest to southeast to match the shoreline. Cherry was also the northern boundary of the historic district where the darkness I saw was not entirely due to dimmer, cuter street lights.

“Lets go see who’s at BOLM,” Quinton suggested. It sounded like he’d said “balm.” “What?” I asked.

“The Bread of Life Mission on Main and First. It’s the smallest shelter and they only take in men overnight, but they’re the closest to the Square. Its where Zip was headed. We’ll try the Union Gospel Mission afterward.”

“If these guys sleep in the shelters, how did they get killed on the street? Vampires wouldn’t be hunting in those places,” I objected.

“They weren’t sleeping in the shelters. Some of them won’t sleep indoors or in certain buildings—some of the undergrounders are funny that way. Others can’t get in and some don’t even try. There aren’t enough beds—even when the Christian shelters like BOLM and UGM open the chapels in extreme weather. But there’s usually more food than beds, so people come for that and maybe an extra blanket, then go out again to see what they can find. But the beds fill up fast. That’s when people start getting into the staircases, doorways, and cellars if they can. That’s where the bodies have been found—near the underground accesses.”

“And you’re thinking that the ones who disappeared were also in the underground tunnels or near access points?” I asked.

“Yeah. But I’m not sure. If we ask around, we might find out.”

Even in the sub-freezing cold, there was a line on the sidewalk in front of the Bread of Life Mission. Most of the people in the line were men, or seemed to be—it was a little difficult to tell under the layers of clothes everyone wore against the cold. Quinton left me for a moment and went up to the front to talk to a man at the door. He came back shaking his head.

“He won’t let us in. We’ll have to talk to the people in line and try to catch the rest another time.”

We started near the front, where we found Zip listening and nodding along with a woman dressed head to toe in black. She looked about forty-five, Hispanic, thin in the ropy, muscular way of people who’ve done manual labor most of their lives. Her clothes were clean and reasonably new, and a woolly hat covered most of her dark hair. She seemed oblivious of the rank odors that hung around the men near her, even in the cold.

“…on Wednesday,” she was saying as we approached. “And you’re coming this time, Zip.”

Zip bobbed his head. “Yes’m.”

She looked up at Quinton and me as we stopped beside to them. “Quinton! You can help me. We’re having a vigil on Wednesday in front of the Justice Center from one to three. We need leafleteers—we have two leaflets this time, so we need plenty of help.”

“I don’t do leaflets,” Quinton said.

The woman shook her head in sharp negation. “Nonono. You get to be my cattle prod. Some of these guys aren’t very reliable,” she added, giving a hint of a smile as she elbowed Zip in the ribs, “but they may show up if they’re reminded by someone they trust.”

“Oh.” Quinton nodded. “OK, Rosa. I’ll play big brother.”

She looked surprised. “Well, OK, then.” Rosa turned her gaze on me and I felt like I was being sized up. “Who’s this?”

Quinton put his hand behind my shoulder. “This is Harper Blaine.” He caught my eye and gave a small smile, tipping his head. “Harper, this is Rosa—Rosaria Cabrera.”

Rosa put out her mittened hand and took mine in a quick, hard grip. “I’m with Women in Black. We organize silent vigils to remember the homeless who’ve died on the street.”

“Does that happen a lot?” I asked, retrieving my hand.

Her face went stern. “More than you want to know. Winter’s always the worst, and this one is worse than that.”

“Who’s your vigil for on Wednesday?”

“The dead in general, of course, but recently we lost Jan and Go-cart—Chaim Jankowski and Robert Cristus.”

I glanced at Quinton. “Go-cart was the guy in the train tunnel,” he said, and then he looked at Rosa. “Harper found him.”

Rosa’s gaze became very sharp and she shot a look between us as if she knew the truth of the matter. “How is it you found Go-cart?” she asked me.

“I’m a private investigator,” I replied. “I was looking for someone else, but it was Go-cart—Robert—I found.”

“Who were you looking for?”

I pulled a name out of Nan Grover’s list. “One J. Walker Eddings Jr. A witness in an upcoming court case.”

Rosa shook her head. “Don’t know him—at least not by that name.”

“Do you know if Go-cart had any family? What’s going to happen to the body?” I asked. “They know the cause of death yet?”

Rosa sighed. “They don’t tell us any of that. We don’t even know if they’re investigating his death except to relieve the railroad of any fault. Usually guys like Jan and Go-cart just end up in an anonymous grave with nothing but a number on the plot or as a box of ashes in a file cabinet, and that’s the end of it. I understand he had a brother someplace in the Midwest, but who knows?” She looked back to Quinton. “Quinton, can you find out? I know you’re good at that sort of thing, and Go-cart was in the military once, so he must have some records. We should mention his service on the vigil leaflet—and the memorial if the county comes through.”

“I’ll see if I can find out,” Quinton agreed. “How many’s that make in Seattle since the storms?”

Rosa rolled her eyes in thought. “Uh… six. No, seven.”

“What about missing men?” I asked. “Do you guys count those as dead?”

Rosa looked at me like I was growing donkey ears. “No. If I wanted a shocking statistic to take to city hall, then I might, but we only count the ones we know died. It doesn’t matter where they died or how. That they died homeless is what matters.”

I felt a nudge and noticed that while we’d been talking to Rosa, the line of homeless men waiting for dinner had moved. Zip had disappeared inside and a new group had come abreast of us. Our witnesses were dwindling away into the food-scented warmth inside the mission. I looked at Quinton and Rosa caught it.

“You guys didn’t come out here to talk to me,” she said, “and I have a lot to do, too. So I’d better get to it. Spread the word, Quinton, and let me know what you find out about Go-cart.”

Rosa waved and walked past us, down the line of shivering people waiting for food. She buttonholed a few as she went, telling them to come to the vigil—she didn’t ask but couched it as a duty they had already agreed to perform, and each one nodded quickly, eyes downcast. I had the feeling people didn’t argue with Rosa Cabrera.

Quinton and I asked the remaining men about the recent deaths and disappearances, but most knew little that was useful. As we neared the end of the line, Quinton found Lass’s nemesis: a stocky, long-coated, spotted mutt named Bella who definitely had some kind of fighting dog in her ancestry.

Quinton squatted down and scratched her ears and back, chattering to her.

In spite of the cold, Bella frisked around at the end of her rope leash as if it was the finest day of summer. She whined with joy, licked Quinton’s face, and tried to climb up his body as if she would curl up around his neck like a cat. I supposed that if Lass were spooked by dogs in the first place, that behavior might freak him out a little. To me it was endearing, in a sort of doggy-disgusting way. All right, so I like big dogs.

At the other end of the leash, the man I assumed was Tanker gave one sharp tug on the rope. His voice was sort and slow as he said, “Off, Bella. Don’t be such a kissy-face.” The hood of his sweatshirt hid his face as the man put his hand down to pat the dog’s huge head. His clothes were the most ragged of any man’s there, and he smelled of engine grease and sweat.

Bella sat down next to Tanker at once. Her stumpy tail went still and she looked up at her master in anticipation. Quinton got back to his feet and we all moved a foot or so closer to the door as the line of hungry men advanced.

“Hey, Tanker,” Quinton started. “This is Harper. Harper, this is Tanker.”

Tanker turned his head to look at me. As the light from the streetlamp fell on his face, I twitched with stifled horror. Tanker’s dark face was a lumpy mass of scars that covered him from collar to crown in a patchwork of burns, grafts, and emergency reconstruction that had never been prettied up afterward. In whatever disaster had overtaken him, his mouth had been reduced to a lip-less, twisted cut and his one visible ear was a misshapen knot. If he had any hair, it was on a part of his head I couldn’t see.

He ignored my start and offered a massive hand covered in a brown leather glove that didn’t match the blue ski glove on his other hand. “Hi.”

“Hi,” I replied, taking his offered hand.

“Sorry if I scared you.” I wasn’t quite sure from his expression and voice, but the sparks that danced around his head made me think he wasn’t entirely sincere.

Some turmoil boiled beneath his blank surface.

Touching him sent a feeling of disquiet through me and I released his hand. “No, you’re not,” I said.

He made a wheezing, barking sound and glanced at Quinton. “Where’d you find her?”

“Couple of blocks up, on the skid.”

“Pig shit.”

“Absolute truth. Hey, you know about the vigil for Jan and Go-cart?”

“Yeah.”

“Good. Where’ve you sleeping tonight? It’s pretty cold.”

Tanker seemed to glower at Quinton, though it was hard to tell in the gloom.

“Got a place in the bricks.”

“You better be careful down there. That’s where Jan was staying before he kicked it.”

“Nothing’ll bother me. Not with Bella.”

“Lass is probably staying down that way, too—”

Tanker interrupted him to say, “That little turd. Better keep his distance or I’ll tell Bella to rip his throat out.”

“That’s why I’m telling you to keep an eye open. Lass is flipping out about things following him around—”

“Man’s a freak, what d’you expect?”

“So,” Quinton went on as if he hadn’t been cut off again, “I gave him a stunner. I told him to keep away from you and Bella, but you know how Lass gets when he’s off the juice.”

“He should drink till he croaks.”

“Tanker, I know Lassiter’s a head case, but I’m not sure he’s just hallucinating. You see anything strange down there since the storms? Notice anything, anybody missing?”

“Aside from Tandy? And Hafiz and Go-cart and Jan?” Tanker asked with a snort.

Then he turned aside and looked into the open door of the mission.

We’d come up the door as we’d been talking, and now Tanker stopped and looked at the mission worker inside. The man held out a small paper box, like restaurants give you for the leftovers.

“Can’t bring the dog inside, Tanker,” he said, looking nervous, “but we put some bacon aside for her and a couple of the guys brought some dog food samples.” He held up two small bags of dry kibble with green labels declaring the food within to be “natural” and “healthy.” Looked like the dog ate better than the people.

Tanker mumbled thanks and took the bags and the box and stepped out of line. We followed him a few feet away to an alley mouth where he put the box on the sidewalk and opened it before ripping open the bags and pouring them in. Bella sat still and stared at Tanker, though her eyes shifted toward the food once or twice before he said, “OK, Bella. Eat.”

Bella leapt for the food and began crunching it down. We watched for a few moments. I noticed the ease with which the mutt reduced even the hardest-looking kibble to dust and thought I wouldn’t like to be on the wrong side of her jaws.

“I saw a hand,” Tanker said, still watching his dog, “down in the stairs by the record shop.”

“You mean Bud’s? On Jackson?” I asked.

“Yeah.”

“You’re sure it was a hand?” I questioned.

Tanker glared at me and a swirl of black fury roiled around him. “You think I’m stupid? Think I don’t know what I see with my own eyes? It was a hand, sister. A hand just like yours.” He slapped my left hand with his right, and the dog stopped eating, going tense and alert, staring at us. “I seen body parts. I see body parts flying through the air like crazy birds. A freakin’ hand!”

Bella had begun to growl low in her throat.

Quinton, keeping an eye on the dog, grabbed Tanker by the shoulder. “Hey, hey. She’s not dissing you. She just wants to be sure. We’re trying to figure out what’s happening to people here. You know—like Tandy.”

Tanker breathed heavily through his mouth, staring at me. I stood still and looked back with as much blank calm as I could muster to cover my wariness. As with his dog, I didn’t think it would be wise to rile him. Finally Tanker waved at the dog, making a down-patting motion with his hand. “Peace, Bella.” The dog sat down by the remains of her dinner, but she kept an eye on her master.

He turned his focus to Quinton, cutting me out of the conversation. “Tandy’s gone, man.”

“I noticed that,” Quinton said. “I want to know who else you haven’t seen around lately. Who’s missing?”

Tanker stepped backward until he could lean against the stained wall of the alley. His breath had slowed down and the nightmare color around him had drained away, but he still seemed agitated. “John Bear. Haven’t seen Bear in a while.”

“Was he staying in the bricks, too?”

“Man, you know Bear wouldn’t sleep inside. He’s the bear, he sleeps with the bears. Crazy mofo.”

“But he hasn’t been sleeping in the park lately, has he? In this cold?”

“No. I haven’t seen him. I seen his blanket—Jay had it.”

“So Bear’s missing and so’s Tandy. Anybody else?”

“I don’t know,” Tanker snapped. “I don’t know and you and your questions can go to hell! And I don’t want your help!” he added as an afterthought. Then he grabbed Bella’s leash and gave it a sharp jerk as he began to stalk off down the alley. “You go to hell!” he shouted back.

Quinton took my hand and pulled me away, into the street. “We’d better move on.”

“What just happened?” I asked, falling into step beside him.

Quinton shook his head. “Tanker’s got problems.”

“I imagine most of the people down here have problems.”

“Yeah. Well. Tankers got more. He used to drive a gasoline tanker—hence the nickname—and he was in an accident that killed a couple of other people in a pretty ugly way and gave him those scars. The company blamed him, fired him, and refused to pay his medical bills. Later it came out that the company was using cheap retreads on the tractors and that was the cause of the accident, but by then it was old news and Tanker was on the skid. The icing on the cake is that Tanker got burned trying to save people in the cars, but one of them came apart as he was hauling him out—in the smoke, Tank didn’t realize the guy’d been sheared in half by the steering column. He kind of flipped out after that.”

The story shook me and I studied Quinton’s face; he looked grim and didn’t meet my eyes. I couldn’t think of what to say, so we just walked on in silence.

We headed up the hill toward the Union Gospel Mission in Chinatown, hoping to catch some more of the undergrounders sitting still to have dinner.

UGM took in families and women as well as men and were a little more open to letting us come in and talk to people, though I was pretty sure they wouldn’t have let me in without Quinton beside me. The volunteers running the kitchen and dining room told us we could talk to anyone in the common room, but we couldn’t go into the sleeping areas and that was fine by me. I figured most of the people we wanted to see would be awake, but I was surprised by how many people had already gone to bed.

“Homeless is hard work,” one of the volunteers said. “These people are on their feet all day, and having no home doesn’t mean a lot of them don’t work or try to get work. If nothing else, they panhandle, sweep sidewalks, wash windows, do manual day labor, and walk their rounds, looking for work, or food, or recyclables—whatever they do to put a little change in their pockets. They hit the hay while the night’s still young and its not only because the good places to sleep fill up fast. Sometimes going to bed early is the only way to get any sleep at all.”

That puzzled me. “It seems quiet compared to the street and its warm. Why don’t they sleep?”

“They’re worried about being robbed or attacked. Even in here where we try to make it safe.”

I looked at the heaving roomful of people. In such a mob scene, where no one was turned away until the shelter was full, crimes would be easy to perpetrate.

Though the theft of what these people owned was petty to the law, it would be much more important to the people who had so little to begin with. Assault of some kind would be even worse.

“They must live in a state of constant paranoia,” I said.

“Yup. That’s why a lot of them drink or use drugs—though we don’t allow that here—so they don’t have to feel so much. Despair’s an easy trap to fall into.”

I could see that too in the sick, sad colors that swirled around many of the figures in the room. Here and there, hot sparks and columns of brighter or cruder emotions pushed up from the low-lying fog of exhaustion. The smell that clung to them seemed to be as much despair or apathy as dirt.

“How do you keep doing this? Doesn’t it grind you down?”

The volunteer gave a tired smile. “The Lord gives me strength. If I can help some of them in His name, even if it’s just a night’s hot meal or a blanket, then maybe they will find hope and strength to rise from this.”

A child’s wail distracted us. “Oh, boy… I’d better go see what that is. You know, if you have a lot of questions about who’s doing what, you might want to talk to Sandy over there.” She pointed and I followed her indication to a woman sitting against the near wall in a bright yellow energy corona that sent tendrils over everything near it. “She’s a little… imaginative, but she keeps a sharp eye on things.”

Then the volunteer left me alone.

I glanced around and spotted Quinton moving slowly through the room. He seemed to be making slow progress, so I thought I’d give Sandy a try. I walked over to where she was sitting and plopped myself onto the floor in front of her. My knee complained a little at the sudden acute angle as I folded my legs.

She was probably in her mid-sixties—though it was hard to tell the ages of the homeless and most seemed much older than they had to be. Her salt-and-pepper hair was clipped very short, and she was curiously round and thin at the same time as if she’d been comfortably well off before something had changed her circumstances drastically. She had a pair of very large glasses that she adjusted on her nose as I sat down. She was still shorter than me, but not tiny, so I guessed she was about average height when standing. She was wearing a white raincoat over a collection of blue and purple sweaters and skirts and ragged work boots. She smelled of potting soil and talcum powder.

She met my eyes at once. “Hello,” she said. “Do you need help?”

“Are you Sandy?” I asked.

She nodded once. “I am Sandy. What do you want?”

“The volunteer back there said you see everything that happens around here, and I’d like to ask you some questions.”

“I can answer some. So long as they don’t blow my cover.”

“Your cover?”

“Yes. I’m undercover. Part of an ongoing investigation. I can’t discuss the details. You’d have to call my lieutenant.”

“Oh.” She didn’t sound much like any undercover cop I’d ever met—they don’t go around saying they’re undercover for one thing. But she seemed willing to talk if I was willing to play along. So I did. “I’ll be discreet when I call. What’s your full name?”

“Detective Sergeant Sandra Livengood.”

“Thank you, Sandy. Here’s the situation. I’m a private investigator—”

She interrupted me. “Oh, I know who you are, Ms. Blaine. I see you in the Square all the time. We’ve checked you out. Go on.”

That startled me a little, but it was plausible that she had seen me and did know who I was if she spent enough time in Pioneer Square. Though it was strange that I didn’t recognize her. In spite of that creepy factor, I went on. “I’m trying to discover if there’s been anything… strange going on in the area around the underground accesses in Pioneer Square.”

“Oh, that. Yes, there’ve definitely been more of them lately.” As she was talking to me, she scanned the room, watching constantly.

“More what?”

“Zombies. I’m pretty sure some of them are recently coined, not just immigrants or plants. The new ones smell less.”

“Immigrant zombies? Where do they come from?”

“Oh, for the love of—They come from China. On boats. In containers. Or they come in from Tacoma and Bellingham at their master’s bidding. You can bet we’ll figure out who he is someday. We can’t let this zombie thing get out of hand. Luckily, they’re easy to kill.”

If I hadn’t seen one myself, I’d have thought she was totally bonkers. As it was, I thought she was mostly bonkers. “What did you mean by ‘recently coined’?”

“I mean they’re the recent dead raised by whatever voodoo someone is up to. I really could wish the department was a little more on the ball about that—I know they’re fragile, but that doesn’t mean zombies aren’t a threat for as long as they do survive. Good Lord, they’re not exactly the sort of things you want crawling around in infrastructure. Next to bioterrorism, there’s not much worse than a zombie in the water supply. They’re no treat in the electrical systems, either.”

“Could their appearance be related to the spate of disappearances and deaths among the homeless?”

“Certainly! I wouldn’t be surprised in the least. Now you mention it, I think the first one turned up a few weeks after they found that leg at the construction site on Occidental South. I’ve found a few bits and pieces since then.”

“What sort of bits and pieces?”

“Body parts. Let me think. A few fingers, a toe, a hand, a foot, most of an arm.”

“Where did you find them?” I asked, leaning forward.

“Some of the fingers I found in the alley behind the kite shop. The arm was down under Jackson Street. The foot… I think that was up against the wall by the Grand Central Bakery’s glass porch, though that might have been the hand—I’d have to look at my notes. The toe I found on Yesler in a stairwell. No—I’m confusing that with the hand. Definitely. I found the hand in the stairwell by Bud’s Jazz Records. The toe was on Yesler, but it was just next to the door the Underground tour uses when they come up from the bank. The tourists probably walked right past it and didn’t notice—it looked like a piece of dog dropping.”

“Surely a toe looks like a toe?”

“Not really. Even fresh they don’t look too impressive, and you might not notice if they’re dirty and bloodless. That’s a thing to note—the bodies and the parts have all been quite bloodless. The scenes aren’t cleaned up, so the perp isn’t wiping up afterward. There just isn’t much blood.”

“Which bodies are you referring to?”

“Hafiz and Jan. I didn’t see Go-cart’s body, but I heard it’s the same way—not enough blood. Believe me—when you cut into arteries there’s a lot of red, even when the body’s been dead a while. Saw a man hit by a train once—God, what a mess that was.”

I put a lock on my imagination and pushed that vision aside. “Any ideas on why there’s so little blood?”

She frowned and finally turned to study me. “I don’t like to advance theories without more evidence, so I’d rather just say something is draining the blood or keeping it from flowing. Could be a lot of factors. You need an autopsy report to know for sure.”

Her attention shifted over my shoulder and the bright energy around her slammed down to a narrow yellow outline that hugged close to her body. Sandy stood up in a rush and grabbed her bag. “I have to go. My suspect is on the move.” She darted off through the crowd and ducked out the front door before I could see who she might be following as her energy shadow vanished in the sea of homeless diners. I couldn’t decide if I thought she’d been incredibly helpful or incredibly nuts.

I scanned the room and caught sight of Quinton talking to someone who was hidden from my sight. I eased toward him and came level with Quinton as he squatted down in front of an old, rough-skinned native man.

“No, don’t think I’ve seen him in a while,” the man was saying in a tired mumble as I arrived. He poked the food on his tray with a fork in a desultory way and didn’t meet Quinton’s eyes. He had a round face graced with a mouth that folded in over mostly toothless jaws, making his chin thrust forward. His hair was coarse gray strands that brushed his shoulders. The aura around his head was small and pale, as if even the energy of the Grey was running low here. “Aside from them what died, I’d guess there’s a few gone missing.” Cheap, hoppy beer clung to his breath and his coat had a scent of garages and motor oil to it. He looked up as I came to a stop beside them, jerking his head over to peer at me from one eye and going silent and scared.

“She’s OK, Jay. This is Harper. You’ve seen her around the Square,” Quinton said. “I’m not sure…”

“You like to sit near the first tree on the Square, near the Pioneer Building’s door,” I said as I recognized him. “You remember back in October when I gave Zip back his lighter when he dropped it?”

He hesitated, licking his lower lip as he thought about it. Then he grunted.

“Uh. Yeah. I do know you. You gave him money, too. We had some good smokes that day, me and Zip.”

“That’s good. May I sit next to you?”

Jay grunted and slid over, dragging a stained blanket patterned in gray, red, and black along the bench under his legs. I sat down in the tight space between him and the next diner, who shot me a glance and hunched over his tray possessively.

Guessing, I asked, “Are you Blue Jay?”

Another grunt and a nod. “Yeah. Not a good name, but it’s my name.”

“Oh? Why isn’t it a good name?”

“Jays. They’re talkers, braggarts. Too smart for their own good, but lazy.”

“You don’t seem that way.”

“Oh, I was. I was.” He nodded to himself. “I try to be better now I’m old.”

“Jay,” Quinton said. “Stop flirting.”

Jay blushed. “Not flirting.”

“You are too, you old fox.”

“No, foxes are bad—they mean danger and death are nearby. I seen a fox last night, running through the alley behind that fancy bar.”

“Which bar?” I asked. It was too odd a coincidence that we’d both seen a fox on the same night.

“Oh. That martini place—with the devil on the sign.”

“Marcus’ Martini Heaven?”

Jay nodded. “I guess.”

The bar was about three blocks from where Will and I had been confronted by the hairy creature and the zombie. At the reminder, I felt my gut wrench and had to swallow hard and clasp my hands together against a sudden cold frisson of memory and a lick of anger at Will for abandoning me there. I must have looked as upset as I felt, maybe I’d gone pale—I certainly felt chilled enough—because Quinton gave me a worried glance. I shook him off.

“I don’t think anyone else died last night,” he said.

“Not that I heard of,” Jay replied. “But could be something else. Could be… another gone somehow.”

“You mean missing? Like Tandy?” Quinton continued.

“Could be.”

“Who’ve you noticed missing?” Quinton asked.

“Well, Tandy and, uh… Little Jolene. What’s his name… The guy always has a forty going…”

“Prankerjheri.”

Jay slapped his thigh and nodded. “Jerrycan Jerry.”

“What about Bear?”

“I told you I haven’t seen Bear.” He plucked at the blanket and lowered his head further. “I found his blanket, though.”

“I thought I recognized it. Where did you find it?”

“In the bricks.” He stood up. “I’ll show you.”

We followed Blue Jay back out into the cold, he wrapping himself in the dirty blanket and us making due in the icy air with just our coats. As we headed back toward Pioneer Square, I glanced up and saw a ring around the moon—ice in the air. I shivered and followed Quinton and Jay through the freezing darkness and the streets empty of life but thick with the shades of the dead.