Carlucci's Heart Read online

  Cage wore faded denims, a charcoal gray long-sleeved shirt, and black leather boots. His dark brown hair was long and straight and, though he was only thirty-nine, heavily streaked with gray. He wasn’t tall, just five-foot-nine, but he was strong and quick. Sometimes not quick enough, though. A long thin scar ran along his jaw—a souvenir from a reluctant patient whose life Cage had been trying to save. And there were other scars, too, that weren’t visible.

  A muted flapping sound came from somewhere within the Core, and Cage searched the shadowy ruins for its source. He didn’t see anything at first, only heard a faint, high whistle added to the flapping. Then a dark, shivering form rose from one of the taller buildings near the center. A strange glow came to life within the thing, giving it shape. It appeared to be an enormous dove, frantically flapping its wings and craning its neck as it climbed in an ever widening spiral. But the motion of its wings was wrong, stilted and far too regular, and Cage knew it wasn’t alive. When its spiraling route brought it closer to him, he could see pale white jets of propellant streaming from it.

  The mechanical dove rose high above the Core, circling and climbing, becoming smaller and dimmer. The flapping sounds faded, and only the dim glow of its internal light was visible, a pale and shrinking blotch against the sky.

  Suddenly the dove exploded with a brilliant burst of light followed by faint popping sounds. Hundreds of glittering message streamers fell through the darkness, like skyrocket flares that didn’t burn out. The streamers drifted and fell with the air currents, spreading out over the Core and the Tenderloin.

  One of the streamers drifted near Cage, and he stepped to the edge of the roof, steadied himself, then reached out over nine stories of empty air. He caught the message streamer and stepped back from the edge. The streamer glowed and tingled in his fingers, like electrified tinsel. He stretched out the streamer and read its message:

  YOU ARE BECOMING.

  NOTHING CAN STOP YOU NOW.

  Fortunes from the Core, but without the cookie. He smiled, wadded the streamer into a tiny ball, and tossed it over the edge of the roof.

  He stood gazing at the Core for a long time. Almost certainly he was going to end up in that godforsaken place before this business was over. He didn’t much like the idea, but it was going to happen. He knew it.

  Gravel crunched behind him, and he turned to see Nikki cross the roof toward him. She was a couple of inches taller than he was, and probably just as strong. Dreadlocks, gold cheek inlays, and a smile to die for. Black shock suit that hid her weapons and med-kit better than it did her figure. Cage loved her.

  Nikki stopped about a foot away from him and frowned.

  “These people are bloody assholes,” she said. “Haven’t even met them, but just talking to them, I already know they’re assholes.”

  “I know,” Cage said. “But we need them for this.”

  Nikki closed her eyes for a moment and shrugged. “Angel says they’ve arrived.”

  “Good. Let’s go.”

  “Afterward, you want to go dancing?”

  Cage nodded. “Maybe.” Then, “Sure, we’ll go dancing.” And he got just what he was hoping for Nikki’s smile. “But first, let’s see what we can do with the assholes.”

  They were to meet Stinger and his jackals in Binky’s Arcade down on the second floor of the building. Stinger. Everyone’s got to have a fucking moniker, Cage thought. It was absurd.

  He and Nikki walked into crashing waves of sound and shifting colored lights. The place was crowded, the music and voices loud. The front section of Binky’s was a series of stunner booths, and Cage watched the jerking forms visible through the opaque glass, the jerking almost in sync with the thumping sounds coming from within the booths he’d probably end up treating some of these people over the next few days.

  He moved past the stunner booths and onto the dance floor, Nikki right behind him. They pushed their way through the gyrating dancers, bumping and shoving and fending off flailing limbs. The air was stifling, heavy with perfume and smoke and sweat. His eyes burned.

  The rear section of Binky’s was a restaurant and bar. Cage and Nikki stepped through the array of acoustic baffles, and the sound cut back by more than half. It was still fairly noisy, but now the music was relatively muted. Conversation was possible.

  Cage stopped and looked out over the tables and booths. He spotted Angel at the bar, who cut his glance toward a booth near the back. A tall, thin man in the booth caught Cage’s eye. The man was older and better dressed than Cage had expected he wore a dark suit and tie, and his short, thick, styled hair was more than half gone to gray. Mid to late forties, maybe even a little older. Cage had expected a young techno-punk or street medico. Three people sat in the booth opposite the man, but Cage could only see the top of the back of their heads.

  “That Stinger?” Nikki said.

  “I think so.” Cage turned to her and smiled. “Maybe it won’t be so bad.”

  “Hah.”

  Cage and Nikki made their way through the tables, and as they approached the rear booth the thin man nodded at those seated across from him. The three jackals slid out of the booth, walked to the rear, and stood side by side against the back wall of the restaurant, keeping their attention on Cage. All three were heavily muscled and wore cheap black suits over black T-shirts; all three looked ramped up to their eyeballs.

  Up close, Cage could see that the thin man’s suit was probably silk, and the dark green tie was made from reptile skin. The man sat with both arms on the table, hands relaxed. His jacket and shirtsleeves were too short, exposing his wrists. Or maybe this was the current fashion.

  “You Stinger?” Cage said.

  The man nodded. “You must be Cage.”

  “Yeah, I must be.” He slid into the booth, and Nikki slid in next to him.

  “Who’s the nigger bitch with you?” Stinger asked. His voice was calm, his tone matter-of-fact.

  Cage hesitated a few moments, eyes going hard, then said, “That’s not helpful.”

  Stinger smiled. The index finger of his right hand rubbed at the pitted surface of the table, but he made no other response.

  Nikki’s hand lashed out across the table and latched into Stinger’s wrist with her barbed finger hooks. She smiled back at him.

  “Just try pulling away,” she said. “We’ll see what I rip out from under your skin.”

  Stinger didn’t move, just looked down at the blood leaking from the tiny holes in his skin. Cage kept an eye on the jackals, who were leaning forward, tense, eyes wide, but waiting for a signal from their master.

  “The nigger bitch’s name is Nikki,” Cage said.

  Stinger looked at her, tipped his head slightly. “My apologies, Nikki.”

  The barbs retracted with faint clicks, and Nikki released his hand. Stinger brought his wrist to his mouth, then gently licked and sucked at the blood until his skin was clean and white again. He laid his arm back on the table and sighed. “Business, then?” he said.

  Cage nodded. “Business.”

  A waitress approached the booth, but a look from Stinger warded her off. Cage stared at the man, assessing him. Stinger was twisted up way too tight, despite his outward appearance of calm; too slick and hard and mean. But there was something else, something he couldn’t quite identify. Something wrong with Stinger.

  Without shifting his gaze, Cage took a folded piece of paper from his back pocket and slid it across the table. “That’s a list of the drugs we need, and the quantities.”

  Stinger took the paper, unfolded it, and read. His mouth twitched into a slight smile. “Don’t want much, do you?” His voice was overly sarcastic; there wasn’t much subtle about Stinger.

  “That’s what we need,” Cage replied. There was something about Stinger’s eyes. They were red, but in a strange way, not bloodshot, exactly. Injected. And the way his lips and tongue worked at themselves…

  “You used to be a doctor,” Stinger said to him, shaking his head. “What
a fucking waste.”

  “I’m still a doctor,” Cage replied.

  Stinger continued to shake his head. “Slaving your ass off in street clinics and death houses. You used to have a hell of a practice doing image enhancements, making a goddamn fortune. A lot safer, too. And you slammed it all to do this? What happen, you get a dose of brain fever from one of your patients?”

  Now Cage caught a whiff of something masked by Stinger’s Body-Scent—like sweat gone sour. And a foul stench to his breath. Christ, Cage thought, the man is sick. Not with the flu or a cold, nothing simple like that. Drug-induced? Maybe. Some other toxin? Something bacterial? Viral? Something. Something bad.

  “Well? Why’d you give it all up?” Stinger asked. He frowned, apparently waiting for a response.

  But Cage wasn’t going to give him one. He wasn’t going to talk to this stranger about his life, the decisions he’d made. The only person he talked to about things like that was Nikki, and not always with her.

  Nikki. Cage glanced at her hand, the one that had grabbed Stinger and finger-hooked him, drawing blood. His hand out of sight under the table, Cage reached into the med-kit belted around his waist and removed two disinfectant wipes, pressed them into Nikki’s hand. He rubbed her fingers with them until she got the message and began to work them herself.

  Stinger sighed heavily, finally giving up on an answer. He tapped at the list. “You can’t afford to buy all this,” he said.

  “No,” Cage replied, working hard to keep his concentration on the business. He glanced at Stinger’s wrist, at the tiny fresh droplets of blood that had formed on the surfaces of the finger-hook punctures.

  “But you’re willing to trade your services.”

  “Up to a point, yes.”

  “One day a week of image enhancements at the clinics of our choosing. Or perhaps other surgeries or treatments, depending on our needs. For one year.”

  Cage hesitated, still having difficulty concentrating. He was worried about Nikki, though he knew there was probably no reason to be. But he’d seen too much weird shit in the past few years. “One day a month, for a year,” he finally said. “If we get monthly shipments of that size.” He gestured at the piece of paper still laid out on the table under Stinger’s hand.

  Stinger laughed. “Too much, Cage. You overvalue your services.” He paused, shrugging, “One day a month, fine. But only four shipments, one every three months. Not negotiable.”

  It probably wasn’t. Besides, Cage didn’t have the stomach for hard-edged negotiating with this man right now. Stinger was ill, and Cage wanted to get away from him; the man probably didn’t even know he was sick. Cage hoped whatever it was wasn’t an airborne transmitter, or that his nose filters could do the job; or the I.S. boosters he’d taken last week.

  “All right,” Cage said. “One year, four shipments. First delivery before I make a single cut.”

  “Good enough, Cage. We’ll be in touch with delivery place and time, and with your first assignment.”

  Stinger put out his hand, but Cage didn’t move. He stared at Stinger’s hand, then up into Stinger’s red-rimmed eyes. He nudged Nikki, and she slid out of the booth.

  “I want to see you at the delivery,” Cage said.

  Stinger smiled. “What, is this some kind of setup? Entrapment?”

  Cage didn’t answer. Stinger and his people knew him better than that. But he very much wanted to see Stinger again, see if the guy got any sicker, see if he could figure out what Stinger had.

  “We’ll see,” Stinger said, still smiling.

  Cage and Nikki stood on the sidewalk, the signs for Binky’s Arcade pulsing directly above them. The air out here was cool and fresh, and Cage breathed deeply.

  “What the hell was all that in aid of?” Nikki asked him. “With the wipes? What was that about?”

  He shrugged. He didn’t want to worry her about what was probably nothing. “Stinger’s sick,” he answered.

  “With what?”

  “No idea. Just didn’t want to take any chances.”

  “Great.” Nikki dug into her shock suit with her left hand, brought out a wipe, and gave her right hand another thorough scrub, including the finger hooks. She walked over to a burn canister and tossed in the wipe.

  “So what do you think about these people?” she asked when she rejoined him.

  “Just what you said,” Cage replied. “Assholes. And Stinger, in spite of his silk suit, the biggest asshole of all. But we’ll do business. These guys have pharmaceutical resources no one else has, and at costs that beat the hell out of the streets.”

  “So you’re pretty sure he’s linked up to Cancer Cell?”

  “Oh yeah. No one else could provide this shit, outside of New Hong Kong.”

  Nikki didn’t seem convinced, but she half-nodded. “Let’s go dancing, then.”

  Cage nodded back, and smiled. “Sure, Nikki. Let’s go dancing.”

  CHAPTER 3

  Carlucci felt like shit. He threw off the covers and sat up in bed, slightly dizzy. A sheen of sweat coated his skin; his throat hurt, and his eyes ached. He looked at the clock. Almost noon. Christ.

  He pushed himself up and onto his feet and staggered into the bathroom, where he threw cold water on his face, then drank deeply, wincing with pain each time he swallowed. Then he raised the toilet seat and pissed, one hand on the tank to hold himself up. He flushed, lowered the seat and lid, and sat down, resting up before getting into the shower.

  Goddamn spring vaccination; every time it hit him like this. The semiannual vaccination cocktails five or six vaccines mixed together didn’t bother Andrea much, and Caroline and Christina, his two daughters, hardly felt any effects at all from them, but Carlucci got sick every damn time. He’d be all right by the end of the day, or maybe the next morning, but right now he wanted to drop into a coma for a few hours.

  He popped some aspirins, took a shower, and by the time he got dressed and moved around a bit, he was feeling better. Andrea had set up the coffee maker before going to work, so all he had to do was start it. He ate two pieces of toast while waiting for it to finish, then took his coffee out onto the deck in the backyard.

  The temperature was mild, and the sky almost clear, the blurred sun shining down through a pinkish-brown haze.

  Early spring after another mild winter, and there had been no heat waves yet. A pleasant time of the year in San Francisco. In fact, it was Carlucci’s favorite time of year the weather was usually good, and the homicide rate almost always took a dip.

  Frank Carlucci was half an inch over six feet, and half a dozen pounds short of two hundred—a bit stocky, and constantly struggling to keep from changing from stocky to fat. He was closing in on fifty-six, and he needed more exercise than he got, but right now he felt like he could hardly walk.

  He sat in one of the cushioned chairs, set his coffee on the small square table beside him, and looked out over the garden. The garden was lush and colorful and overgrown and streaked with rot and burn. It needed a lot of work. Neither he nor Andrea had managed to put any time into it yet, no weeding or pruning or thinning; nothing, really, since the fall. The big camellia in the back corner had already bloomed and dropped, the crocuses had come and gone, and half of the other plants in the yard were already beginning to flower. But there was too much brown streaking the leaves it looked like rust and there would be other problems less visible, all consequences of the crap in the air and the rain. He and Andrea needed to get out and do the special fertilizing, get some clean soil, and give the plants more filtered water.

  At times like this, Carlucci thought seriously about retiring. He could sure spend more time out here, sitting in the sun and drinking coffee, puttering around in the garden; and more time sitting down in the basement and playing his trumpet. He’d like to build a greenhouse and grow vegetables. He’d like to read more. He was only fifty-five, but there were times when he felt older, and he was sick of that. A lot of it, he knew, was the job.

  He h
ad spent more than half his career in Homicide, and maybe that was too long. Carlucci was very good at his job, and he took satisfaction from that, from the cases he was able to solve, from the stimulation and rush he sometimes got from the work, and from the conviction that he in fact did some good.

  But since his promotion to lieutenant, which pretty much took him off the streets, he had become less and less satisfied. The position was primarily administrative, supervising teams of detectives, assigning cases, overseeing his part of the division, and he didn’t care that much for the job. He felt too distanced from the cases, almost uninvolved. He tried to make the job work better for him by stretching things with a few of the Homicide teams, like Hong and LaPlace, or Santos and Weathers, he would attach himself as a kind of informal extra detective, working directly but unofficially on an occasional homicide. He also tried to get out on the streets with some regularity, maintaining his contacts and informants, his leeches and weasels. His superiors knew what he was doing, but they let it go because he was good, and because he never got too far out of line, and because they knew he was never going any farther up the ladder in the department.

  But there were limits to what he could do, and those limits were getting to him. He wasn’t sure how much longer he could put up with the situation. Recently he had been thinking he might have to do something drastic either resign the commission and go back to the streets (which almost nobody ever did voluntarily); or retire. Vaughn, the Chief of Police, might not let him do the former, while he would happily encourage Carlucci to do the latter.

  He got up and went back inside for a fresh cup of coffee. The house was quiet and peaceful; yet it also felt empty to him. Caroline had moved out several years earlier, soon after the Gould’s Syndrome had been diagnosed, but it had only been a month now since Christina had done the same and moved into an apartment with her best friend, Paula Ng. He felt he should appreciate the quiet, the time alone with Andrea, but without the presence of his daughters he brooded even more than usual. He wished he saw them more often; Caroline, especially.