Procession of the Dead (23 page)

“I could ask the same about you,” I replied cheekily.

“Doctor’s orders. I need to exercise. I don’t have time for a gym, so I jog up and down these stairs as often as I can.” He glanced at Ama. “Who’s your friend?”

“This is Ama, my secretary. I’m moving up in the world.”

“What’s she doing here?” he asked.

“I’m showing her the ropes. Introducing her to the staff, helping her get her bearings. You know.”

“There are people paid to do that.”

“Sure there are, but…” I patted Ama’s butt in a way I’m sure she despised. “There’s nothing like the
personal
touch.” I winked slyly.

Ford chortled, the sound of a corpse having a seizure, and moved down past us. “Use the elevator next time,” he said. “I might have shot you if it was darker.”

“Yes, boss.” I grinned and held the expression until he turned out of sight. Then we looked at each other and sagged.

“Christ,” Ama wheezed. “I come here dozens of times by myself, no hassles. The first night I bring you, Ford fucking Tasso turns up! Are you a jinx, Raimi?”

“Let’s hope not,” I said. “You’ve got to admit, though, I handled him pretty well.”

“You were OK.”

“Just OK? What would you have done if you’d been alone?”

“Dropped my drawers and fucked him placid,” she laughed.

We made it to the nineteenth without further surprises. It housed a huge room the length of the building. It was dusty and I found myself coughing. Ama loaned me a handkerchief. I thanked her between convulsions. It was dark up here, lights set at infrequent intervals, too few and weak to be much use. Ama drew a small flashlight from one of her many pockets and flicked it on. She moved away from the door, into the heart of the gloom. I followed quietly, gazing around with interest.

Boxes stood in huge piles like silent guardians wherever I looked. Each pillar was set apart from its companions by three or four feet. A maze of passageways ran through the towers.

“What’s in these?” I asked, tapping one of the piles.

“Everything. There are no clear divisions. Maps, blueprints, newspaper clippings and personal files. Minutes from secret government meetings, stuff he must have paid a fortune for. Lists of kennels, retirement homes and schools. Medical records. Photographs of hobos. Anything you can put on paper.”

I moved among a few of the skyscrapers, brushed against one by accident and froze, expecting it to topple. But it didn’t even shimmer. I gave it a harder push but it was solid. Samson would have had his work cut out for him here.

“This place is like a museum,” Ama said. She was gliding between the pillars too. “Records going back centuries. Nearly all of it’s original. I bet the curators in this city would keel over in shock if they knew a place like this existed.”

“What about the guards?” I was starting to feel edgy about the lack of security. The open window was hard enough to buy, but to move so easily up the stairs and through floors like this… How could The Cardinal’s people be so careless?

“You have to listen for them,” she said. “But they’re easy to avoid—they carry lights and are noisy. Like I’ve said, the reputation of Party Central is its prime defense. People just don’t believe anybody could ever get in.”

“Still…” I couldn’t shake the feeling something wasn’t right. I had a nasty suspicion that a regiment of Troops would burst in and spray us with lead. Well, it was too late to worry. I should have done that earlier. I was here now, far beyond the boundaries of caution.

“Where’s the file?” I asked, not wanting to waste any more time. We’d tempted fate enough already.

“Over here.” She led the way to a smaller stack. “I targeted it because of its size. The taller ones are a pain in the ass. You have to drag out a ladder to get to the top, then pick the upper boxes off and climb down, up again, down again and so on. It takes ages. I stick to the small towers as much as I can.”

She pulled the paper down, one stack after another. I assisted her and within a minute we were two-thirds of the way to the ground. “Stop,” she said. “It’s around here.” She began removing single sheets, then found the pot of gold and handed it across.

It was a slim cardboard file. Four letter-sized sheets nestled inside. Just as she’d said, no indication of importance. The name was on a white sticker, stuck in the middle of the front.
ayuamarca
.

I examined the first sheet. A long list of names, single-spaced, a neat ruled line through the majority. Leonora Shankar was the first name, unlined. Paucar Wami was a bit further down. Then a mass of crossed-out names. I recognized none of them, with one exception—Inti Maimi. There was one further unlined name near the bottom—Conchita’s.

The second page. Two survivors. I knew one of them, a general in the Troops. Inti Maimi was here again, near the bottom, once more neatly crossed out.

Two more untouched names on the third sheet. One meant nothing to me. The other was the mayor. “You see this? The goddamn mayor’s part of—”

“Shh!” She put a hand over my mouth, flicked off the flashlight and crouched. I squatted beside her, though I didn’t know what the emergency was. A few seconds later I heard footsteps. One of the Troops. He was carrying a flashlight and shone it around the stacks of paper, going through the motions. He didn’t come near us and I soon heard a door flapping open and shut. We stood and stretched.

“Sharp ears,” I complimented her.

“You get used to it,” she said. “I’ve been here so often, and it’s so quiet, I really think I could hear a pin drop.”

I turned to the fourth and final page. This wasn’t full. The names stretched a third of the way down. Three unlined names. One near the top that I didn’t know. Ama’s, a few lines above my own. And the third—some guy called Stephen Herf.

Ama gasped and clutched my wrist. She couldn’t say anything. She didn’t have to. The strength of her grip conveyed her shock quite adequately.

I looked at my name, just below Herf’s, and traced the neat line through it with my left index finger. The ink was still fresh.

“Well,” I said softly, smiling grimly in the gloom, “isn’t that a bitch.”

coya raimi

I
was striding down the stairs, one hand clutching the file, the other clenched into a fist. My face was a pale, furious mask. Ama was rushing to keep up, tugging at my shirt, trying to slow me down.

“What are you going to do?” she asked.

“Go home, Ama,” I replied brusquely.

“What are you going to do?” she repeated, quickening her pace.

“Go home!” I snapped.

“No!” She swung in front of me, blocking my path. “Not until you tell me where you’re going.”

I clutched her arms and gazed into her eyes. They were fiery, uncertain, full of fear, love and pity. I wished we’d met another time, when I could have loved her. But we hadn’t. We were here, now, and dead men can’t afford love.

“It’s over,” I said. “You were a test—I failed. You were a trap—I’m caught. Go home.”

“You’re blaming
me
for this?” she said incredulously.

“I don’t blame you for anything. You were just one of his pawns. He set things up so you’d draw me to the point where I had to make a choice, and I made the wrong one. My mistake. All mine. Now go.”

She shook her head angrily. “Ever think that maybe
you’re
the bait?”

I frowned. “What do you mean?”

“You think everything The Cardinal does revolves around you. Maybe you’re not so important. Maybe I’m the one he’s after, the one he wants to trap. Maybe
you’re
the pawn.”

I thought about it. “Perhaps. Your name appeared before mine on the file. But I’ve heard The Cardinal wax lyrical on the subject of women. I think it’s safe to assume you’re not that important to him. No woman is.”

“What are you going to do?” she asked again.

I ran my fingers along the spine of the file. Her eyes grew round as she realized I meant to confront him. “Run!” she gasped. “Run away with me. It’s the only way. We can call that driver friend of yours and—”

“No,” I said. “Where would we go? Where couldn’t he find us? And what sort of a life would it be, living in fear and doubt? Remember telling me you couldn’t bear the present, not knowing about your past?”

“But we have each other now,” she said. “We can build a future together.”

“But we’d still obsess about the past.”

“He’ll kill you.” She switched tack. “If you go down there, you’re dead.”

“Probably. But if that line through my name means what we know it does, I’m dead anyway. This way I go down fighting. I don’t have to wait for Paucar Wami to sneak up behind me in the dark.”

“But you can run,” she hissed. “You don’t have to fight. There’s a chance.”

“There was never a chance,” I said sadly. “Not when we came here and openly defied The Cardinal. We came to find the truth. We made our choice. Now we’ve got to die with it. At least
I
do. Your name’s untarnished. He doesn’t want your head yet. Go home. Forget about me, The Cardinal, all this. Try and live a normal life. You might still be able to.”

“I’m coming with you,” she said. “I’ve come this far, I might as well—”

“No.” My voice was as firm as my resolve. “This is my last stand. I’m going there tonight to face the end. I’ll kill him or he’ll kill me, and that’ll be that. This is my battle, Ama. You might face your own later, but not tonight. Not here, now, with me.”

“What will you say to him?” she asked.

“I don’t know. I might not get a chance to say anything. If I do, I’ll probably ask what this is about, what the list is, who we are, who we were. Maybe he’ll tell me before I die.”

“I’ll ask one final time,” she said, pulling away and glaring at me. She was shaking and there were tears in her eyes. “Come with me. Leave The Cardinal, your job, this city. Make a life with me somewhere else.”

“There is nowhere else,” I said slowly. I touched her one last time, her face, her nose, her lips. “He’s everywhere, Ama.” I tapped my head. “He’s in here. I can’t run from him any more than I could run from myself.”

“Then fuck you, Capac,” she sobbed, and fled, never looking back. I almost ran after her. My heart almost won the day and I opened my mouth to shout, “Stop, wait, I’m coming!”

Almost.

But I couldn’t abandon the mystery. I was destined to face him, provoked by nature and instinct. Having come this far, there could be no going back. I let my mouth close and watched her flee, listening to the fading sounds of her feet.

After a time I resumed my descent, concentrating, not thinking of Ama or the fragility of life. Thinking about
the woman
and the other faces I could dredge up from my obscure past. There were lots of kids in school uniforms or gym clothes, running around, climbing ropes, playing ball. I had a whistle in my mouth and then I was kissing
the woman
and then I was at a funeral and then I was laughing and then Iwas…

Then I was there.

His secretary tried to stop me. She said he was asleep and could never be disturbed when sleeping. I pushed past her. She tried to sidetrack me but I shoved her to the floor. She scrabbled to the intercom to warn The Cardinal or summon the Troops. I didn’t care. It was too late in the day to worry about secrecy.

He was asleep on a bare mattress in the middle of the room. Curled up like a boy or a dog, snoring lightly, face twitching from one dark dream or another. Hatred and disgust swept through me. An overwhelming desire seized me and, crazy though it was, I stamped across the room, stood above him, drew back my right foot and kicked him in the gut.

“Wakey-wakey, motherfucker!” I shouted, laughing in spite of myself. I’d gone over the edge and fallen into the abyss of madness which Paucar Wami was so interested in.

The Cardinal’s eyes shot open and he rolled away from me, surged to his feet and staggered for a few seconds, blinking sleep from his eyes. As soon as he focused on me, his mouth foamed and he shook with rage.

“Got your attention?” I smiled. “Good. Now I want to know exactly what—”

I got no further. He was on me, roaring, an enraged panther, striking to kill. I discarded the Ayuamarca file and met his charge. We clashed like colliding trains, screaming, kicking, punching and tearing at each other. His nails scratched my face and narrowly missed my eyes. He got his head close to mine and bit into my left ear, drawing blood, almost choking on it. I punched his stomach repeatedly, hoping to break a rib and puncture a lung.

When his head slipped, I bit for his jugular. It was slippery and my teeth slid off his neck, so I was forced to settle for his meaty shoulder. He ripped chunks of my hair out and beat my back. I spat into his eyes. Raised my arms and struck the upper part of his body, hitting his nose, his cheeks, cracking his lips. He kicked my shins and knees. My legs buckled and I nearly went down. He got two fingers up my nostrils, while I got one in his ear. We pushed at each other for a few seconds, trying to force our way through the orifices to the brains within.

As our initial fury faded, we broke and circled each other warily, panting, drooling, hunched offensively, eyes narrow and focused. He was surprised that I was still on my feet. Not many men had fought The Cardinal like this and lived so long. I knew he’d respect my strength. It wouldn’t stop him from killing me but it might stop him from pissing on my corpse.

He ended the standoff and charged, bellowing like a bull, head down, looking to smash me into the wall. I skipped out of his way but only just—he caught my side with his head and I felt something in my rib cage snap.

He was on me as quickly as he could turn. Which wasn’t quickly enough. I threw myself at him and slammed my knee up between his legs. If I’d connected, I’d have driven his balls through his brains and the contest would have been over, but he brought his thighs together in time and trapped my knee just short of its mark. It made him scream in pain, but it wasn’t the killer blow that I’d hoped for.

His fingers sought my eyes, thumbs pressing into the bones of my cheeks. I chopped at his throat and his breath caught. He withdrew slightly and I pushed after him, seizing the initiative, chopping again at his neck and arms. He lashed out with both fists, one aimed at my stomach, the other at my face. I moved quickly and blocked one of the incoming fists. The other smashed my nose to a pulp. Blood spurted everywhere, into my eyes and mouth, blinding and gagging me. I staggered away and shook my head, trying to draw air. The Cardinal gave a roar of triumph and came after me, fingers stretched to strangle, sure of the kill.

I had one last move. Gathering all the strength my battered body could muster, I swung my right leg up in a final blind kick. I couldn’t see where I was aiming but knew the general region I wanted to strike. I caught him in the testicles with the full weight of my foot, clean and vicious. Beautiful. He screamed breathlessly and fell back, rocking, whimpering.

Before I could crawl after him, the door crashed open and several Troops raced in, guns leveled, fingers squeezing triggers. A few shots narrowly missed me, shrieking by my ears and striking the wall. I collapsed and waited for the end.

“Stop!” The Cardinal roared, and the firing ceased instantly. “Get the fuck out of here,” he snarled. “Go!” he shouted when they hesitated, and they fled, closing the door behind them. I’d been spared death by firing squad again. It was getting to be a habit, one I wasn’t in any rush to break.

“Before I rip your throat out,” The Cardinal panted, shuffling gingerly around the room, “perhaps you’d like to tell me what this is about. Why the fuck did you come here tonight?”

“Recognize this?” I wiped blood away from my face, stumbled over to the mattress and picked up the abandoned sheaf of papers. “
Ayuamarca?
All those non-people with lines through their names? The line through mine? Ring a bell?”

He sneered. “Some people are never satisfied. I gave you all you wanted—money, women, power. I spared your life and offered you this city. How do you repay me? You fuck some bitch on my stairs, plot behind my back, break into my castle and ransack my most private files. Ever hear of
gratitude
? ”

“Why is my name crossed out?” I shouted. “Why are you going to kill me? What’s happened to Adrian and Y Tse? Who are—”

“Stop! ”
he screamed, baying like a hound. “Always fucking questions! I tell you not to question me, not to probe, and what do you do? On and on like a parrot.”

“Who am I?” I demanded. “Why am I on this list? Where did I come from? Where did you find me? Why don’t I have a past? Where does Ama fit in? How do you make people vanish? How did you make Leonora forget Y Tse?” I spat out the questions as fast as I could, striding forward, jabbing a finger at him, until I was close enough to jab his chest. “Who am I? What have you done with my past? How are you—?”

He began to shake. His face trembled and his lips drew back over his teeth. His hands clenched and unclenched. His head swiveled, the bones of his neck creaking as he flexed them. He wanted to attack. He was building up for an onslaught so psychotic and fierce, I knew I couldn’t withstand it. I’d reached my physical limits but The Cardinal, it seemed, was just warming up. I was years younger but I couldn’t match him. Leonora had called it right—he was superhuman.

But he didn’t want to attack. He wanted me alive, at least a while longer. He tried to control his rage. He placed his hands on his head and squeezed so hard I thought his skull would shatter under the strain. His face was red and his nostrils dilated wide enough to deliver a calf. He turned away, looking for something to vent his fury on. His eyes were bulging. They settled on his large chair, the one he enjoyed lying back in when entertaining visitors. He picked it up and tossed it at the reinforced window that had been built to stop bullets. The glass splintered under the force of The Cardinal’s missile and flew out into the night in a thousand pieces, down into the black unknown of thecity.

He was calmer after that.

He brushed a hand through his hair, stroked his cheeks and began to breathe normally. Walked over to the window, examined the damage and tutted. “If only I’d thrown that chair at you, Mr. Raimi, I’d have saved myself the embarrassment of an ignominious stalemate and, of more immediate concern, would still have had something to sit on. Good chairs are hard to come by. Still, I have a certain amount of money and power. I suppose I’ll find one eventually.” He grinned, the old Cardinal again, relaxed and in control. “You’re a halfway decent opponent.”

“Does that mean you’re going to explain things now?” I asked. “Have I earned that right?”

He laughed, pulled out a spare chair and sat. “You’re too much, Mr. Raimi. Always pushing and prodding. Tenacious, like a bloodhound. That amused me for a time but I’m starting to lose interest.” He pressed a button. “Miss Fowler? Send the Troops in please.”

“You’re going to kill me?” I gasped.

“Of course,” he said, directing the incoming Troops to line up against a wall in the time-honored way of firing squads everywhere. “The Ayuamarca file never lies. I hadn’t planned to kill you for a few more days, but now I think the time is ripe.”

“At least tell me who I am,” I pleaded. “That’s all I want to know, who I am and why this happened. You owe me that much.”

“I owe you nothing,” he barked. “You were a man going nowhere, a shit-eating fly I took a liking to. I gave you a chance to make something of yourself. This could all have been yours. I wasn’t joking about that. But you blew it, so you die and I search again for an heir. Are your weapons ready, gentlemen?”

“So you’ll let me die in ignorance.” I spat at his feet. “You’re a prick.”

“We all die in ignorance,” he smiled. I sensed hope in that smile. If I kept him going, I might stumble across the words that could save me. I knew they existed. He would have killed me already if they hadn’t. He was throwing me an invisible lifeline. He wanted me to save myself. But why? I couldn’t be that important to him. My death wouldn’t cause him any hurt or inconvenience. So why was he so reluctant to…?

It came to me and I knew instantly this was my chance. “OK,” I said, drawing myself erect, wincing at the pain, but smiling in spite of it, because I’d found the way. “If you’re not going to answer my questions, we’ll stop it here. Let me go.”