Destroying Angel Read online

  “Do you remember me?” the girl asked, voice barely above a whisper.

  More than you know, Tanner thought. More than I know yet. He nodded.

  “It wasn’t a movie, was it?” the girl asked.

  “What?”

  “That day. They weren’t making a movie, were they? Those bodies, they were real.”

  The brief images came back to him, the two dead white bodies being pulled from the slough. “The bodies were real,” he said.

  The girl nodded. She glanced at the stage, then turned back to Tanner, but did not say any more.

  “What’s your name?” Tanner asked.

  She started to say something, stopped, then started again. “Sookie,” she said. “What’s yours?”

  “Tanner.”

  She glanced at the stage again, then grimaced at Tanner. “You like this kind of stuff?”

  “It’s all right.”

  “They’re sleazebugs.”

  “Red Giant and White Dwarf?”

  “Max and Uwe, yeah.”

  “You know them?”

  “I know who they are.” She turned her chair so she could watch the show, and that did it.

  Carla.

  The pain blossomed again, expanding in his chest. It was Sookie’s profile that made the final connection. She looked just like a thirteen- or fourteen-year-old Carla. Jesus.

  He had not known Carla at that age, but she had given him pictures—photos of her as a baby, a young kid, a teenager. He still had them, along with dozens of pictures of her taken during their few years together. He had not looked at any of them in a long time. Christ, she had been dead almost fifteen years now.

  Tanner turned away from Sookie; he just could not keep looking at her. Carla. Jesus. Twenty-six and dead. He picked up one of the empty coffee cups, wishing he had a double scotch right now. Twenty-six and...

  He tried to concentrate on the stage. Max was frantically pounding at the bongos, and Red Giant was grunting explosively between unintelligible words. The pounding and grunting crescendoed, then ceased abruptly. Red Giant raised his arms, shouted, “Devolution of the species!” and the lights went out.

  Applause filled the club. It faded gradually as the spider lights slowly came back up, revealing an empty stage. Cocktail jazz began playing once again over the speakers.

  “That’s their closer,” Sookie said. “Show’s over.” She turned the chair around to face him. “So where you going now?”

  It took Tanner a few moments to realize she had asked a question. “Nowhere,” he said.

  Sookie grinned. “Everybody’s going nowhere. That’s what Mixer says, and I think he’s right.”

  Carla.

  “Who’s Mixer?” he asked.

  “A friend. So where?”

  Where the hell was he going? Staring at her, he had to force himself to concentrate on the reasons he was here. Rattan, the Chain Killer. Max. “I’m staying right here,” he finally said. “Waiting to talk to Max.”

  “Max? He’s coming here?” She sprang to her feet, looking around the club. Max wasn’t in sight. “He’s not a good person.”

  “I know that.”

  “He’s the worst, you should stay away from him.” She kept looking around the club. Max came out from the back of the stage and headed for Tanner’s table. “Oh no, here he comes.” Sookie grabbed her chair, lifted it onto the table, and clambered up beside it.

  “What are you doing?” Tanner asked.

  “I’m getting out of here.” She climbed onto the chair and stood, crouching slightly, hands stretched upward.

  “Wait, why don’t you just... ?”

  Sookie jumped, caught the hanging panel of lights. Tanner heard something tear, and thought the whole thing was going to come down. But the lights held, Sookie swinging back and forth. Tanner thought of Carla again, the ache rising in his chest. “Bye,” Sookie called down. She hooked a leg onto the panel, pulled herself up, and climbed. When she reached the main web of lights, she started crawling along them. He soon lost sight of her behind the glare, but he could follow her progress by the sag and sway of the lights. She was halfway across the club when Max reached the table.

  “Who the hell was that?” Max asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  Max watched the movement of the lights for another minute, then turned his gaze toward Tanner. Tanner could not see Max’s eyes through the grafted mirrorshades; all he could see was his own reduced and distorted reflection duplicated, one in each lens. Max took the chair down from the table, brushed off the seat, and sat in it. Sookie was right, of course. Max was not a good person. One hell of an understatement. But he was the way to Rattan.

  Neither of them said anything. The club slowly emptied, and a crew came out on stage, setting up electrical equipment: microphones, floor lights, wrack boxes, and other things Tanner did not recognize. The waiter appeared with a large scotch for Tanner and a stein of beer for Max. The waiter’s eye patch was gone, revealing a metal and glass eye embedded in his forehead. The glass was clouded, and did look blind.

  “On the house,” the waiter said, and immediately left.

  Max drank half his beer, belched long and loud, then drained the other half and belched twice more. He sat back in the chair and stared at Tanner without a word, waiting.

  “I need to talk to Rattan,” Tanner finally said.

  Another long silence followed. Tanner did not like being unable to see Max’s eyes.

  “I’m not a cop anymore,” Tanner said.

  Max snorted. “I know that.”

  “I don’t expect you to take me to him. Just let him know I’m looking for him. It’s an old matter, and all I want to do is talk. He will want to talk to me, Max.” He paused. “Tell him it concerns angel wings.”

  Max did not respond. Tanner sipped at his scotch, resisting the urge to down it all at once. Max wasn’t a hell of a lot more predictable or stable than Dobler. And he was far more dangerous.

  Max turned away from him and watched the crew at work on the stage. “You’re fucking crazy, Tanner, you know that?”

  “Will you talk to him?”

  Max turned back. “Got a pen?”

  Tanner gave him his pen, and Max wrote on the back of the beer coaster. He slid the pen and coaster across the table.

  “Tomorrow night, at exactly the time and place written there, you show up. Follow the damn instructions. You won’t be talking to Rattan, but I’ll be there to let you know if it’s possible.”

  Tanner pocketed the pen and coaster. “Fair enough.”

  Max shook his head and stood. “Tomorrow, then.” He walked down to the stage, around it, and through the back door.

  Carla.

  He could not stop thinking about her now. Tanner finished his drink, then got up to leave. A bar, he thought, a real bar. That’s what he needed now. He headed for the street.

  O O O O

  Tanner was drunk, and it wasn’t helping. Why am I doing this? he asked himself. It wasn’t making him feel any better, and it wasn’t making him forget. Hell, he wasn’t really sure he wanted to forget.

  He was in a drinker’s bar—no glowing ferns, no doo-wop neon, no lounge show entertainment. The place was dark and quiet except for the occasional clink of glass and vague muttering. The television set above the counter was on without sound, showing an old black-and-white sports movie. Taped to the corner juke was a sign:

  PLAY THIS ON PENALTY OF DEATH

  A recurring theme, he thought. And the place was full. Every seat at the bar was taken, and most of the tables and booths were occupied. Tanner was sitting at the bar between a bald old man who stank and a middle-aged woman wearing lederhosen. He had not spoken to either one.

  The bartender came by and looked into Tanner’s eyes. “Another,” he said. Statement, not question. Tanner nodded, and the bartender refilled his glass.

  Tanner looked down at the scotch, but wasn’t sure if he could drink any more. Carla. Carla never drank, but she
had no problem putting anything else into her body: pills, needles, smoke, inhalers, injectors. Whenever he was with her, Tanner had felt helpless, unable to do anything except watch her, try to keep her from lurching in front of cars, crashing through plate glass, or taking a header down a flight of stairs.

  And then the day came when she pumped too much of the shit into herself and stopped her own heart. Dead. Twenty-six and dead. Accident or deliberate, he never knew. It was, he came to believe, an irrelevant distinction. She was fucked up, and she was dead.

  That was why he had become a cop, and why he had gone into Narcotics. A personal crusade, save the world, save people like Carla from themselves. What a dumbfuck. It had not taken long for him to realize the absurdity and hopelessness of it. But it had taken years of swimming in the shit, and Freeman’s death, to finally give it up.

  But Carla. Late morning, early afternoon, that had been the best time. After she worked through her hangover but before she started in again. Her eyes clear and smile bright, her laughter clean and real. Her skin warm and firm, with color. Her tongue and lips delicious. Her body wrapped around him, her arms and hands and thighs and breasts...

  Christ.

  The bartender came by again, looked at Tanner, and said, “Another?” This time there was some question.

  Tanner looked down, saw he’d emptied his glass without realizing it, then looked back at the bartender. “I’m not unconscious yet, am I?”

  The bartender refilled his glass.

  O O O O

  Tanner woke with cotton-mouth and a clouded head. He lay on the futon in Rachel’s extra room, fully clothed, with no clear memory of getting here from the bar. He thought he remembered some kind of bouncing ride, sprawled out on the back of a cart, something like that. Surprisingly, he had no headache.

  He got up and wandered through the apartment. It was one in the afternoon, and the place was empty. Rachel was either gone or locked in her bedroom.

  Tanner shaved and showered and put on clean clothes. In the kitchen he ate two pieces of dry toast while making coffee. The heat was oppressive, the humidity so high there was a sheen of moisture on his arms and face. Breathing was like being in a sauna.

  When the coffee was done he poured a cup and took it out onto the platform and sat on the bench. The narrow strip of shade wasn’t any comfort. He drank the coffee steadily, not really thinking about anything, in the window across the way he could see two naked women dancing together, holding each other tightly. Street sounds, floating down from over the building, were muted.

  He finished the coffee, went back inside for another cup, then returned to the bench. The women were still dancing. His head felt clearer now and he let himself think about the night before. Stupid, he told himself. Get completely drunk like that in the Tenderloin. And for what? It didn’t change anything. All that was over, years ago. Fifteen years. She was dead. She was dead yesterday, and she would still be dead tomorrow. Nothing new.

  Tanner set down the coffee, put his head in his hands, and quietly wept.

  NINETEEN

  TANNER DID NOT like the feel of the place. He stood at the end of a long, windowless corridor of concrete. Pale blue fluorescents hummed and flickered overhead. The door behind him, solid metal, had locked automatically when he closed it, so there was no way back.

  Just after midnight, as instructed, Tanner had entered the Dutch East India Company, a store specializing in exotic electronic imports: head juicers, spastic vibrators, mind tuners, orgone generators, spitzers, spinal frequencers, bone boomers. The sales clerk, wearing electronic wrist and neck collars, led Tanner through the back rooms, then pointed him to the door, which was now locked behind him. Nothing else to do, he thought. He moved forward.

  His footsteps echoed off the concrete walls. There were no doors, nothing to break the surface of the walls except an occasional featureless panel of shiny metal. No one appeared, and he could hear nothing but the hum of the lights and the echoes of his own footsteps.

  At the end of the corridor was a narrow opening in the left wall. Tanner stepped through it into a tiny cubicle as featureless as the corridor. A metal panel slid across the opening, slamming tightly shut. He tried pushing and pulling at it, though he knew it would not open. Nothing. Tanner stood and waited.

  Then he heard the quiet hiss of gas. He looked down and saw the faint signs of air movement—eddying dust—near tiny vents, though the gas itself was invisible. He did not move. His lungs quit working for a few moments, connections broken. He wanted to shout at Max that he was being absurd and melodramatic. He also wanted to bang and kick at the door. He fought down both urges. Breath came finally, halting, then regular, taking the odorless gas into his lungs. There was nothing he could do, except hope that the gas was meant to put him to sleep, not death.

  A few more deep breaths, struggling for calm. Tanner sat on the floor and waited, wanting nothing more now than to awaken from sleep one more time.

  O O O O

  And he did awaken. Tied to a chair. The glare and heat of the sun in his face. Max seated in another chair a few feet away, mirrorshades brightly reflecting the light.

  “Good morning,” Max said.

  Tanner turned his head from the glare, blinking rapidly. They had him next to the window, directly in the sunlight. Eyes turned away from it, his vision adjusted and he could see the rest of his surroundings. The room was small and unfurnished; Red Giant stood in the middle of the room, head and upper body in shadow, mirrorshades directed at Tanner. He did not say a word. Tanner had the feeling the duo’s roles were now reversed—here, Red Giant would remain silent, and Max would do all the talking.

  Tanner looked back at Max. He had to keep his eyes partly closed against the glare. “Why are you doing this?” he asked. He tried to keep his voice calm and even.

  “Questions,” Max said. “And then I may kill you.”

  “Did you talk to Rattan? He’ll want to talk to me, Max, he’ll want to hear this.”

  Max nodded slowly. “I imagine he would.”

  “Did you talk to him, for Christ’s sake?”

  Max snorted. “If I ever do talk to him again, one of us will be dead by the end of the conversation.”

  Jesus Christ, Tanner thought, have I ever fucked up.

  Max cocked his head. “You really didn’t know, did you?”

  Tanner shook his head. “I still don’t.”

  Max grinned. “We had a parting of the ways. A difference of opinion. A contretemps.” He paused, leaning forward. “I tried to kill the motherfucker, and I missed, and he knows.” Max leaned back. “Now, what I want to know is what you, and the cops, and Rattan have going.”

  “Christ, Max. I told you I wasn’t a cop anymore. You said you knew.”

  “And I still know, but that doesn’t mean shit. You and Rattan and the cops are running something, and I want to know what it is.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Max, believe me.” He didn’t, but he began to wonder about it. “What I need to talk to Rattan about, it’s old business. It’s personal, it’s got nothing to do with cops.”

  Max slowly shook his head. “You don’t get it, do you, Tanner?” Max leaned forward again. “I will kill you. I got no problem with that.”

  Tanner breathed in deeply, and slowly let it out. “I get it, Max. But I don’t know a thing about it. Christ, Rattan killed two cops, they aren’t going to have anything to do with him.”

  Max erupted from the chair and lunged forward, but stopped with his face just a few inches from Tanner’s. “I don’t want to hear that kind of shit, motherfucker!” He straightened and turned to Red Giant. “Bring her in.”

  Red Giant left the room. Christ, now what? Tanner thought. He was having trouble breathing again, and it wasn’t because of the ropes. He wished he did have something to tell Max. “Not a good person,” Sookie had said. No shit. How the hell was he going to convince Max he didn’t know anything?

  Max paced the room, not t
alking. Tanner wanted to say something, try to get Max to understand, but he could not think of a thing to say that wasn’t just as likely to make things worse. Try telling him about the Chain Killer, Rattan’s three-year-old message? Shit. He closed his eyes and waited.

  The door opened and closed. Tanner opened his eyes and turned to see Red Giant leading a woman across the room. Tanner did not know who she was. She was gagged, her hands bound behind her back. Strands of her blond hair were plastered to the sweat on her face. She looked strong, but she hung limply in Red Giant’s grip, and her eyes were dead with despair. She had given up, and seeing Tanner did not, apparently, give her renewed hope.

  Red Giant pushed her into the chair Max had been using and tied her to it. Max turned his gaze to Tanner.

  “She’s looking for Rattan, too,” Max said. “And not for the killings. She’s a cop, the two of you are both looking for Rattan, and you tell me there’s nothing going on.”

  There probably was something going on. Tanner thought, but he had no idea what it was.

  “For Christ’s sake,” Tanner said, “I don’t even know her.”

  Max went crazy again, stomping across the floor, shoving his face into Tanner’s. “What is this shit from you?” He dug a wad of paper from his back pocket. “And what is this?” He unwadded the paper and held it in front of Tanner’s face. It was the note Lucy Chen had given him with Francie Miller’s name and address. “You don’t fucking know her?”

  Jesus, this was Francie Miller? Man, they were both in deep, deep shit. He looked at the woman, who gazed emptily back at him. “No,” Tanner said. “I don’t know her. I’ve never seen her before. It was just a name someone gave me, said she could help out if I got into trouble.”

  Max slowly shook his head, crumpling the paper and dropping it to the floor. “Well, Tanner, you’re in trouble, but I don’t think she’s going to be much help.” He backed away and looked at Red Giant. “Hand it.”

  Red Giant withdrew a knife from a sheath strapped to his belt and handed it to Max. Max took the knife, approached Francie Miller, and put the tip of the blade against her throat. She blinked once, and her eyes widened, coming back to life. But with fear. Max looked back at Tanner. “I am not fucking around here, Tanner. And I want some answers.”