The Dark Side (23 page)

“What the fuck's he doin'?”

“Is he still chasing us?”

There's a sudden
whump
. It reverberates through the interior of the VLTV. And Macleod takes his foot off the pedal, astonished. He glances around, but everyone else is looking up. Then there's a scrabbling sound. A dragging sound. So Macleod brakes—he stops the VLTV entirely. Wondering if he himself is hallucinating.

“He's on top of this thing now!” says Spyder Blue.

“He's crawling on the roof!”

“It's like a safari!”

“He wants to eat us up!”

“Fuck, man, is this part of the tour?”

Macleod doesn't answer. His whole body is tensed, his ears cocked, trying to make sense of it all.

Then there's more scrabbling—directly above the driver's seat. And
thumps
, as if someone is pounding on the roof. Trying to break in.

Macleod stares upward, waiting for some sign of what it is.

“No one fuckin' believed me, man!” exclaims Spyder Blue. “
No one fuckin' believed me!
”

Then a head appears at the top of the windscreen—upside down.

Macleod blinks a few times, then takes it all in.

It's a man. Or at least it looks like a man. Black-haired, black-suited, and black-eyed. Looking in at them. And smiling. Smiling like an idiot.

Macleod doesn't know what to do. Part of him is scared shitless. Another part is delighted—because whatever the hell is going on, it's interesting. It's
more
than interesting. It's everything you'd want in a Dark Side tour. He just hopes the band is enjoying it.

“Looks like a fuckin' narc!” says Maxx Dee, chortling, as the black-suited man swivels his body and drops down to the lunar surface in front of them.

B
ACK IN THE SIN
vehicle bay, Justus is greeted by a gum-chewing Dash Chin and escorted swiftly to a police car.

“Okay,” he says, getting inside, “tell me what we've got.”

“Two bodies,” Chin says excitedly. “Just wait till you see! This is real butcher's-window stuff!”

“A terrorist attack?”

“Supposedly. There's another statement too.”

“At the crime scene?”

“Right next to the bodies.”

“And what's it say?”

Chin sniggers. “You'll see.”

Justus, who's spent the entire journey from the rocket base hoping for an uncontaminated murder scene, wonders just how many cops have handled the statement already. “And the victims?”

“Kit Zachary—ever heard of him?”

“Who is he?”

Chin starts the car. “A builder—biggest builder in Sin. Least he was when he got up this morning.”

“And why would terrorists be killing a builder, exactly?”

“He was a high-profile builder. A big cheese. A real mover and shaker here.”

“With political ambitions?”

“He had his hat in the ring, sure.”

Justus nods. “And the other person?”

“Huh?”

“You said there were two bodies.”

“Oh,” laughs Chin, backing out of the vehicle bay, “that's just some whore he was with.”

They race recklessly through the streets, nearly clipping a couple of tourists, and in no time they reach Sordello, the red light district of Sin. Here, in a labyrinth of neon-washed streets, Chin brings the car to a jolting halt outside a narrow multistory brothel called Cherry Poppins. A crowd of half-dressed prostitutes, many resembling famous sex symbols, are being restrained by the police. Two of the cops are bashing someone with a truncheon.

“Third floor, sir,” Chin says.

“You're not coming up?”

“Gotta spare my appetite—haven't had a bite to eat since last night.”

Justus doesn't insist because he doesn't trust Chin anyway. Inside the brothel he's directed to a cage elevator but he elects to take the stairs. Halfway up a bunch of cops are grinning and joking. Justus hears a few comments in advance:

“. . . didn't even get his dick out—”

“. . . one helluva head job, though—”

“. . . yeah, probably got the instructions mixed!”

But when they see Justus they stiffen, give unconvincing nods of deference, and zip tight until he passes.

Finally Justus enters a room on the third floor. There's an unmade bed, a bedside table, Pompeian sex murals on the walls, and suspended from the ceiling a spinning mirror ball that's throwing out shards of white light. There are plenty of cops too: Hugo Pfeffer, Jacinta Carvalho, Prince Oda Universe, and the surly Russian Grigory Kalganov among them. Pfeffer's eating a hot dog. Carvalho's got a steaming coffee in a Styrofoam cup. They're slouching around, looking like they're discussing the latest baseball results. Then, when they see Justus, they straighten self-consciously and shift to reveal the featured tableau.

“Need a barf bag, Lieutenant?” one of them asks.

Justus shakes his head. “I've seen worse,” he lies.

The man looks to have been about fifty-five. He's still in a well-cut suit, but his head's barely attached to his body. From what Justus can figure, he must have been attacked from behind with a heavy blade, probably a meat cleaver. There are thick gashes around the neck and shoulders and one crushing blow to the back of the head. Blood everywhere—owing to fewer clotting agents, the blood of long-term lunatics shoots farther when arteries are severed—though it's difficult to make it all out against the room's cherry-red decor. The girl, purple-haired, pouty, and to Justus curiously familiar-looking, appears to have had her throat slashed. Her windpipe is visible. Her eyes are unnaturally wide open, like she couldn't believe what was happening. She's wearing pink toenail flashers that are still blinking on and off.

“Any idea what exactly happened here?” Justus asks.

No answers at first, but then someone pipes up:

“We were waiting for you, Lieutenant.”

“Yeah, you're the man in charge.”

“You're the chief detective.”

Justus ignores the insolence. “Okay, then, you can at least tell me what you know. When were the bodies discovered? And by whom?”

The cops look at each other. Finally Grigory Kalganov offers, “It was me, Lieutenant.”

“You answered a call?”

“I was in the area. The receptionist hailed me.”

“And this receptionist was the one who found the bodies?”

“That is so.”

“And has this receptionist been interviewed?”

“Not by me.”

Carvalho interjects: “We're still trying to find her.”

“What,” Justus asks, “she's out to lunch, I suppose?”

Carvalho doesn't know.

Justus looks back at Kalganov. “Did you seal off the scene immediately?”

“I called for backup.”

“But you didn't set up a cordon?”

“That is not my job, Lieutenant.”

“Then how many others—cops and others—have been through here since you arrived?”

“Fifteen, sixteen.”

“Sixteen. What about the Forensic Response Team?”

Kalganov shrugs.

“You mean to say they haven't been called?”

Carvalho says, “They're on another job.”

“Something more important than a murder?”

“A hotel break-in. A tourist got robbed.”

“And a robbery is more important than a homicide in this town?”

“Depends. It was a big tourist. A travel writer.”

“So no one's done a sweep of this room?”

“Not yet.”

Justus has already noticed that no one is wearing gloves or shoe covers. He points. “And what's behind that door there?”

“That's the bathroom.”

“Well, how many people have—?”

But at this stage a high-pressure toilet flushes noisily and the bathroom door opens. Chief Buchanan, hitching up his pants, squeezes through.

“Ah, Lieutenant,” he says, sniffing, “pleased you could make it. Traffic problems or somethin'?”

Justus ignores him. “I was just about to ask about Forensics.”

“What about them?”

“It would have been preferable if they'd been here already. Done a survey of the crime scene—that bathroom in particular. But I guess we'll have to work with what we've got.”

Buchanan, not missing the rebuke, grunts skeptically. “Why? What the fuck's so interesting about the bathroom?”

Justus shrugs. “A high-profile businessman enters a mid-range brothel with a prostitute. We can't say for certain that they're here for sex, because neither of them is unclothed. But we can conclude with some certainty that this was a setup. The wounds to Mr. Zachary's body—and I'm only assuming the body hasn't been moved by now—tell us he was attacked from behind. So he had enough time to enter the room, maneuver around the bed here, and turn to the girl. Meaning the killer wasn't visible when he came in. Meaning that more than likely he or she was hiding in that bathroom.”

“Very sweet,” says Buchanan, and addresses the others. “Didn't I tell you this guy was like Sherlock Holmes?” Mumbles
of agreement, then Buchanan raises an objection. “But you say Zachary wasn't here for sex?”

“I said we can't be certain.”

“Well, why would a man come to a fuck shop if it wasn't to fuck?”

“Did he have a history with prostitutes?” Justus asks.

“Who doesn't?”

“I mean, would a man like that—a very high-profile and successful businessman—really need to come to a sordid place like this?”

“Sometimes the restaurant is the best part of the meal.”

An image of Buchanan in sexual congress appears in Justus's mind but it's mercifully brief. “Well, it's not important at this stage, I grant you. But he was lured up here on false pretenses, that's almost certain. The girl didn't flee when the killing started, so she's possibly in on it. When the killer finished with Zachary he turned on her—she wasn't expecting that. So she was probably hanging around for a payoff. And what we need to find out now is where Mr. Zachary met her in the first place—I'm assuming it wasn't Reception?”

“They didn't see anything,” Carvalho offers.

“So prostitutes just take their clients up these side stairs, is that it?”

“That's about right.”

“And this room is the regular office of this particular prostitute?”

No one seems sure.

“Okay,” Justus goes on, “then we've got some work to do. We're gonna have to look for a murder weapon in this building—the size of these wounds suggests something that'd be difficult to conceal in your pocket. Maybe a bloody coat was disposed of as
well—there'd be more than enough red stuff to leave a mark. And we need to find out where this prostitute solicited for customers. Was it a bar? A hotel lobby? The streets?”

“Could be any of those,” says Buchanan.

“Either way, we're gonna have to find out. And then we're gonna have to visit those haunts and find out if anyone saw her with Kit Zachary. If anyone overheard a conversation between them. If she's got any friends or colleagues she might have confided in.”

“And what's that going to prove?” Buchanan says.

“It might be crucial.”

“Doubt it. Zachary was lookin' to get laid. Found some hooker and took her to a room. Some guy pops out and kills him, that's all.”

Justus blinks. “You're not seriously suggesting that the killer just happened to be in the bathroom? By sheer coincidence?”

“I ain't suggesting that at all,” Buchanan says. “I'm just sayin' that even if it was all arranged, wasting time with cockamamie questions ain't gonna get us anywhere.”

“This is hardly cockamamie—this is procedure.”

“On Earth, maybe—not here.”

“That's funny. I thought I was in charge of this investigation.”

“You
are
in charge. But you're
green
.”

“Then you're welcome to appoint someone more experienced if you like.”

“I ain't doin' that. You're doing a great job.”

“You keep saying that.”

“And I ain't lyin'.” Buchanan turns to the others. “Am I lyin', fellas? Haven't I been tellin' you what a great job this guy is doin'?”

Everyone nods. But some of them are smiling.

“Okay, then,” Justus says, “well, while I'm
still
in charge I want
to know everything possible about the girl—and I don't care how cockamamie it sounds. I want to know where she operated, who she worked with, if she'd been hired by Zachary before—I want to know all that, and I want to know it by six o'clock. I also want to know everything about Zachary's movements. I want to know his general routine. I want to have a list of everyone he's spoken to in the last forty-eight hours. I want a preliminary report from the FRT on my desk as soon as possible. And I understand there was a terrorist statement?”

“More bullshit,” says Buchanan.

“Who's got it?”

“Prince's got it.”

“Then may I have a look at it?”

Buchanan makes a dismissive gesture to Prince Oda Universe. “Prince—give the lieutenant here a look at that garbage, will ya?”

The eight-foot Nigerian, his head almost touching the ceiling, hands across a printed page which, much to Justus's relief, is in a Ziploc bag.

He glances up. “Turn off that mirror ball and get me some light in here.”

“De ball
is
de light,” rumbles Price Oda Universe.

So Justus squints and reads the page.

THE PEOPLE'S HAMMER BANGS ANOTHER CROOKED NAIL

KIT ZACHARY = BIG-BUSINESS BLOODSUCKER

NO MORE LANDLORDS!

NO MORE BRASS!