Carlucci's Heart

  Again, this is for Dianne with love

  And for my sisters, Janiece and Ronna—my two biggest fans

  ISABEL

  Her keepers had called her Isabel, but she had not heard that name in a long time. She missed the sound of it, the warmth she felt inside whenever Donya, one of her keepers, had said it. Isabel.

  She rarely got close to people anymore, though she often saw men and women here, watched as they moved past her hiding places. Strangers, all of them. But it was even more rare that anyone saw her.

  Isabel was a long-tailed macaque, and she now lived in the Core, deep in the heart of the Tenderloin, wandering along its dark, subterranean passageways, squeezing through old ventilation shafts and rusted, twisted metal ductwork, climbing shadowy stairways through ruined buildings. Her fur was a rich brown and gray that almost shined on the rare occasions she stood in full sunlight, the sun beaming down on her through some jagged opening in the brick, stone, metal, or concrete. Her eyes were rimmed with soft brows. Her right index finger had been cut off at the first knuckle, but she did not remember how that had happened. She ate insects, and food scraps stolen from the people who lived in these old and crumbling ruins, and she drank water from pools that formed after the rains. She thought she had seen other monkeys in here, but she could not be sure.

  Life was different for her now. She did not really know where she was, but most of the time it was darker and damper than it had been where she had lived before. She also felt heavier, and it had taken a while for her muscles to adapt to the extra weight. Here, no one came to feed and water her, no one came to talk to her. But here there was no cage. Here she was free.

  Isabel had been quite sick just before she’d been released into the Core, and she had almost died. She couldn’t be sure, but she thought her keepers had done something to make her sick. And when she had recovered, they had done something else, this time to make her sleep, and when she had awakened, she had been here, in the Core. Alone, and free.

  She was a quiet, careful monkey now.

  Isabel dozed, warm and comfortable. Dream images flickered through her thoughts. She sat on a flat stone, bathed in the light from the sun shining down on her through an uneven opening in the brick wall.

  Sounds alerted her scrape and click.

  Isabel’s eyes opened, her head jerked, and she whirled around, blinking in the light. A shadow moved toward her, a man holding up some kind of netting.

  Isabel didn’t hesitate. She attacked.

  She lunged at the man’s face, sharp incisors bared, clawing at him with her hands.

  The man cried out, threw his arms across his face. Isabel’s teeth slashed skin and muscle of an arm, a shoulder, her fingers clawed at air, then found hair and clothing, dug into something. The man jerked back, Isabel continued slashing and biting. Then the man fell backward, twisted around, and landed on top of Isabel, crushing away her breath. He kept rolling, and she let go.

  She lay with eyes wide, gasping for breath that wouldn’t come. Sharp pain sliced her chest. The man, howling now, scrambled away from her.

  Breath returned with more sharp pain, and she bounded to her feet, dizzy but prepared to defend herself. But the man was gone, leaving behind a pile of netting. She could hear his screams fading into the darkness.

  Isabel tasted blood, and knew it wasn’t hers.

  PART ONE

  EXPOSURE

  CHAPTER 1

  Caroline entered the DMZ at dusk. Not a great time of day, but better than it would be in an hour or so when darkness fell. She didn’t want to be here at all, but this was where Tito lived. Tito didn’t want to be here either, but he was broke and dying and he had no real choice.

  Walking the streets of the DMZ the narrow strip that ran along the north and west outer walled edges of the Tenderloin was all right during the day if you really watched yourself; but at night the place turned into a free fire zone. After dark, the Tenderloin itself was a lot safer; even the cops avoided the DMZ once night fell.

  Street traffic was practically at a standstill, cars and trucks and pedalcarts and bikes and jits creeping forward in jerking fits and starts amid shouts and curses and blasting horns the final rush while light remained. The sidewalks were just as crowded, and Caroline had to shove her way along, pressed in by bodies on all sides.

  She wore blue jeans and an old gray sweatshirt. Her sidepurse was wrapped tight against her ribs under the sweatshirt. In her back pocket was a canister of Ass-Gass.

  A man wearing a wire head-cage blocked her way and screamed something at her, but his handler banged a shock stick against the head-cage, sparks flying and shutting him up. Caroline pushed her way around the man, who was now whimpering and shaking his head and blinking spasmodically. A shiver of pity rolled through her. The handler, a short squat woman in boojee overalls, snarled at Caroline as if she had been responsible for the man’s outburst, and Caroline hurried away.

  She worked her way along the block, fighting her own edgy claustrophobia and generalized anxiety. Across the way, the outer walls of the Tenderloin rose above the street like dark, inanimate guardians, buildings attached to one another, all gaps, streets, and alleys filled in, barricaded to keep the DMZ from leaking into the Tenderloin. In the dimming light, street lamps cast vague, amorphous shadows cut through with the glare and flash of shop signs, the syncopated flicker of slithering neon. The air was heavy with the stench of sweat, bubbling grease, and a sweetish, drifty burnt odor.

  Just past Turtle Joe’s she ducked into an alcove unmarked except for a crude skull-and-crossbones spray-painted in red on the crumbling brick arch. The grille-covered door was unlocked, as always, and she pushed it open. When she closed the door behind her, she cut off the noise and stink of the street.

  The dimly lit entry was small, with a close, musty smell. Stairs were on the left, and directly in front of her was the hallway leading to the ground-floor rooms. On the right wall was a bank of mailboxes, but it had been years since any mail had actually been delivered to this building. The place was quiet. The Sisters of the Forgotten had already been through, delivering meals and comfort. The death house was settling down for the night.

  A pale, thin girl about nine or ten stepped out of the hall and stared at Caroline. The girl was dressed in ragged, faded red overalls and black tennis shoes, and the right side of her face and neck was streaked with welts. She opened her mouth wide, hacked once, then ran back into the hall. A man yelled from far down the hallway, and a door slammed. Caroline turned away and started up the concrete stairs.

  The stairwell was lit by bare bulbs screwed into ceramic sockets set in the cracked plaster ceiling. The walls were smeared with green and blue paint, streaked with soot. Graffiti was surprisingly sparse, and she didn’t bother to read what was there. She was already familiar with most of it, and all of it was depressing.

  Everyone in the building was dying. Some would die soon; others would be able to stretch out the pain and misery for a year or two. A few would die of newer, exotic diseases such as Chingala Fever or Pilate’ s Chorea or Passion, but most were sick with more mundane terminal diseases. Like Tito, who had AIDS. Caroline was grateful for the knowledge that, no matter how bad she got in the next few years, she would never end up in a death house like this.

  She stopped on the third-floor landing and leaned against the wall, trying to catch her breath. She tired easily, so far the only manifestation of the Gould’s Syndrome that would almost certainly kill her within the next several years. But she no longer felt sorry for herself. She would probably die before she was thirty, but it would be with less pain and suffering than most of those who lived here; it would be a hell of a lot less than what Tito was going through right now.

  Tit
o was being ravaged by spiking fevers and monstrous headaches and a severe, recurring ear infection; some sort of neuropathy made his hands ache constantly; and right now he had a good strong case of thrush going so he could hardly swallow a thing. But he’d called her this morning from Mama Chan’s where he’d actually eaten some breakfast, and said he was feeling better, so maybe some of the meds were finally working and he was through the worst of this phase. They were going to watch a couple of movies, and then she’d spend the night on the sofa, keeping him company.

  She pushed away from the wall and walked toward Tito’s room. The hallway was carpeted with a thin, stained brown runner worn through in spots and dotted with dozens of cigarette burns. The air smelled of sickness—a thick, warm, cloying stench. Muted sounds of televisions and radios leaked through the walls, interrupted by the occasional fit of coughing or other, unidentifiable noises.

  She knocked on Tito’s door. She thought she heard movement from inside, but there was no answer. She knocked again. “Tito, it’s me. Caroline.” More scrabbling sounds.

  She tried the door, found it unlocked. She pushed it open and looked inside.

  Mouse crouched in the rear corner, stuffing Tito’s coin box into an already overloaded duffel bag. He looked at her and grinned, metal teeth flashing. Mouse was just under five feet tall and skinny, with short, spiky blond hair he never combed, and a neuro-collar grafted onto his neck. He wore a Mutant Alligators T-shirt, faded green jeans, and black Stasi boots. The neuro-collar flashed a patterned series of red lights, and Caroline wondered what that meant.

  “Where’s Tito?” she asked.

  “Gone,” Mouse said. He finished stuffing the coin box into the duffel bag and squatted on the floor with his back against the wall, blinking at her. He had tiny pink mouse eyes, and she never trusted them.

  “Gone where?”

  Mouse shrugged. “Mens came and took him.”

  “Who?”

  “Two mens.”

  Tito’s room was about fifteen feet square, and sparsely furnished—a foam rubber mattress, an old sagging camel-back sofa, a small metal desk and chair, a couple of short, rickety bookcases; a half-size refrigerator and a double-burner hot plate on top of some cheap plywood cabinets. There was a toilet stuck back in a tiny alcove; no bath or shower. Tito didn’t own much, but as Caroline looked around the room, all the surfaces and shelves were pretty much bare. She stared hard at Mouse, at the huge, bulging duffel bag at his feet. Only the TV remained, still on its stand by the window. Maybe Mouse was going to come back for it on his next trip. Some friend he was.

  “What the hell are you doing?” she asked him.

  Mouse grinned and snapped his metal teeth. “Tito’s not coming back. He don’t need this stuff.”

  “How do you know he’s not coming back?”

  Mouse just shook his head.

  “How do you know, Mouse?”

  “Those mens. They take you away, take you to the Core, you never comin’ back. I know.”

  Caroline shut the door, leaned back against it. She was starting to get pissed. “When were they here?”

  “Half hour ago.”

  “Where were you, Mouse?”

  “Hiding?” Then he tipped his head back and hacked out a laugh.

  “Mouse. What did they want with him?”

  “Don’t know,” he answered, with another shrug. “Don’t want to know.”

  “Didn’t you hear anything? They must have said things to Tito, asked him questions.”

  “Try not to listen. Hear no evil.” Grinning again.

  “Mouse. You heard something, didn’t you.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Maybe what?”

  That damn shrug again. Then, with a heavy sigh he said, “Maybe something about Cancer Cell.” Mouse closed his eyes for a moment, grimacing.

  “Cancer Cell?” The name was only vaguely familiar. “What the hell’s that?”

  “Ask you daddy,” Mouse said. “You daddy’s cop man, yes?”

  “My father’s a cop, yes.”

  Mouse got to his feet, grabbed the duffel bag, and hefted it. The weight gave him a definite list.

  “Leave that here,” Caroline said. “Tito might be back.”

  “No,” Mouse said. “He’s not coming back. You don’t coming back from the Core.”

  “Leave it, Mouse.”

  “No.” He crouched, then with his free hand pulled a gravity knife from his boot, chunked the blade into place. A nasty blade, gleaming. “No.” He flashed his metal teeth at her one more time. The neuro-collar was now blinking a deep blue.

  All right, Caroline thought. Everything Mouse was taking could be replaced when Tito came back. If Tito came back. She didn’t think Mouse would actually hurt her, but it was always a possibility. So she moved away from the door, gave him a clear, wide path to it.

  “Go, then,” she said. “Now.”

  Mouse nodded. He closed up the blade, tucked the knife back into his boot, then staggered to the door, half-carrying, half-dragging the duffel bag.—You keep the TV,” he said, grinning at her one final time. “Piece of shit, anyway.” Then he opened the door, lurched through it, and headed down the hall.

  Caroline slammed the door shut and threw the two dead bolts. She was suddenly very afraid for Tito. What the hell was Cancer Cell? She’d heard the name before, but she couldn’t remember anything about it. She couldn’t imagine Tito involved in anything that could get him kidnapped or killed. Or had he gone with them voluntarily? She wasn’t sure she could trust Mouse’s version of what had happened. Maybe no one had come for Tito. Maybe he’d just gone out for a while, and Mouse had decided to ransack the place. Mouse and Tito had been something like friends, but that might not mean that much to Mouse.

  She crossed the room to the sink and opened the cabinet above it. It looked like all of Tito’s meds were still there, forty or fifty little plastic bottles. She picked one up, shook it. Maybe half full. Same thing with two others she checked. If Tito had gone somewhere on his own, he would have taken some of them with him. But why hadn’t Mouse taken them? Probably because they were all half-ass meds, the only things Tito could get from the free clinics cheap antibiotics, weak painkillers, ineffective antidepressants, and unproven immune system boosters. Mouse probably couldn’t get shit for them on the street.

  Caroline took a quick tour of the room, but except for what was missing nothing seemed out of place. No signs of struggle. She went to the window, pulled it open, and looked out into the air well between the buildings. Night was falling quickly, and she could barely see the weeds and garbage at the bottom of the air well. She wasn’t sure she’d be able to see a body if one was lying there. Then she craned her neck around, looking up. Brick walls rose to a rectangle of darkening sky three more floors above her. Boarded windows, screened vents, cracks of light, the rusted remains of what had once been a fire escape.

  She pulled her head back inside, but remained at the window, her gaze unfocused. She would wait for Tito. Yes. She would wait through the night and see if he came back; she was better off not going out into the DMZ now anyway. And if Tito wasn’t back by morning? Maybe wait some more; she’d worry about it then. She turned away from the window, walked over to the hot plate, and put on water for tea.

  Caroline woke in the middle of the night, sitting up abruptly. She listened intently, unable to see a thing. Something had awakened her, some sound. Street noise filtered in through the window, the DMZ night some kind of irregular banging, a motor revving, muted popping sounds, someone screaming in a strange, deep monotone but she was sure that wasn’t it. Something else. Something inside the building.

  Heartbeat loud and fast, she sat without moving, eyes gradually adjusting to the darkness. The room was empty, no strange shadows or movements, and she didn’t hear anything unusual faint snoring from the room next door; tinny, Spanish music from somewhere below her; a creaking floorboard above.

  There. Something. A hum she felt more tha
n heard.

  She eased the blanket aside and stood, then padded barefoot across the room to the door and put her eye to the peephole. The hall lights were out, but there was a faint, shifting blue glow. Her view was distorted by the peephole, and the glow was dark and dim and shadowy, but she could make out hooded figures moving past the door, steps slow, bodies swaying in unison to a slow, unheard rhythm.

  What was this? Who were they?

  Phantoms. She could almost see through them; inside the hoods, where their faces should be, she saw only darker shadows and a deeper blue glow. She shivered, feeling and hearing the deep, penetrating hum, feeling suddenly cold. She wanted to back away from the door, retreat into a far corner of the room, but she remained where she was, transfixed, hardly breathing, hardly moving. The ghostlike figures moved past the door and progressed slowly along the hall, humming and swaying, the glow fading until it was out of the peephole’s range, and only complete darkness remained.

  She returned to the sofa and sat, knees pulled up to her chin, and wrapped herself in the blanket. Where are you, Tito? What happened to you?

  She remained on the sofa, watching the dark and listening to the night. She did not sleep.

  CHAPTER 2

  Ryland Cage crouched on the Tenderloin rooftop just before dawn, gazing out across the street at the dark, crumbling ruins of the Core. The Core was four square blocks of Hell in the black heart of the Tenderloin. Or four square blocks of Chaos, if you were a different kind of believer. Maybe it was a little of both. Walled off by street barricades and crash nets from the rest of the Tenderloin, the Core was a bleak pocket of ruined buildings, unnatural darkness and eerie quiet, and rubble-strewn streets deserted except for the shadowy movement of animals or ghosts. Strange lights did break through the darkness on occasion: flickering candles or fires visible through windows or shattered walls, pulsing glows of shimmering blue, pale drifting clouds of phosphorescence. Some people thought there was something supernatural about the Core, that it was inhabited by spirits, demons, banshees. Cage suspected the truth was far more horrible that only human beings lived inside the Core.