The Water Knife (24 page)

M
aria came awake in Hell, to the sight of a man burning in fire.

Smoke poured off him, satanic, with hellfire blazing around him, just as it had burned in paintings that her mother had painted long ago, when she still did art.

The burning devil man crouched over her, hungry, as if he were about to cut out her heart and feed.

I died
, she realized.
I died. I went to Hell for leaving Sarah
.

And then the devil spoke.

“Here, take some water.”

The vision faded, replaced by a brutal-looking man, scarred and wearing a ballistic jacket. Behind him the sun blazed, haloing him in red light, burning over Phoenix, tinted to amber as it shone through the autofilters of the apartment’s floor-to-ceiling windows.

Maria retched.

“Take it easy, girl,” the man said. “You took a big bump.”

She felt her forehead. A huge tender goose egg was growing above her right eye. The scarred man leaned close. When Maria flinched, he backed off, holding up his hands.

“I won’t hurt you, right?” He repeated it in Spanish. “
¿Me entiendes? ¿Hablas español? ¿Inglés?
You understanding me?
¿Comprendes?
”

“English is good.”

“Okay. Good. Let me see your eyes.”

Hesitantly, she submitted to his inspection. For such a terrifying man, he was gentle. His hands, rough and large, cupped her jaw. His fingers traced over her bruise, then spidered through her hair, pressing gently at her skull. He peered into her eyes.

Maria couldn’t take her eyes off the man’s scar. It ran from his
jaw down his neck and then disappeared under his ballistic jacket, an angry dark puckered thing against his brown skin.

He let her head go and leaned back. “You got yourself a concussion. Take it easy. Don’t run around too much. You might want to sleep awhile.” She already felt drowsy, but he poked her. “But not now. You can’t sleep now. Not yet. Got to make sure you can wake up. You took a big hit when you fell.”

“You mean when you grabbed me,” Maria accused.

The scarred man smiled, unapologetic. “Couldn’t let you knife me, could I? Much as I got a soft spot for the ladies, I don’t like it when they cut me.” He laughed slightly at that, and touched his scarred neck. “Not much fun, you know?”

Maria looked at him seriously. “I would’ve cut you, for sure.”

“Because of what happened to your friends? You think that was about to happen to you?”

She glanced over at Mike, lying beside her, skull-blown on the carpet, blood pooled around him. She swallowed. Nodded.

“Were you here when they got killed?”

“I was hiding under the bed.”

The scarred man broke off at that, seeming to be shocked. Maria said, “I let her get shot, while I hid. I let her get shot.”

The man nodded, taking it in. “You got lucky.”

“Is that what it is?” She could still feel Sarah’s hand slipping out of her grasp. “Is it lucky when they shoot your…your…best friend, but they don’t think to look for an extra girl?”

“Yeah.” His expression was solemn. “It’s lucky as hell. When the Skinny Lady comes calling, it’s always lucky when she misses.”

The way he said it made him sound like a true believer. Like a Merry Perry in a revival tent, knowing truth and God in a way that people outside could never know.

For a second the scarred man’s face seemed almost soft, but then the man asked, “You see who did it?” and the feeling was gone, and he was just another terrifying monster like all the others, squatting on the floor beside her with blood all around.

She looked away. “I just saw their feet. I was hiding under the bed.”

“Was there a woman here, too? Short brown hair? Anglo? Middle-aged, maybe? Come and talk to them? Or maybe she came and talked to your man here?”

“He wasn’t my man.”

“I’m not judging.”

Maria shook her head. “They took her.”

“So there was a lady here?”

“Yeah.” She shook her head. “They hit her. They were searching for something on Mike’s computer.”

“They get what they were looking for?”

Maria thought about it. “I don’t think so. They needed a password.” The man made a sour face as he studied the apartment again. He got up and went and shook out a woman’s purse. Plucked at something with his fingertips and pocketed it. Caught Maria watching.

“I was following the lady,” he explained. “Bugged her purse and her truck.” He sighed. “Didn’t think she’d walk herself straight into a trap.”

The man went over and looked down at Mike again, sprawled out with his robe half off. “Ibis,” he said, holding up a business card and reading the name. “A dead man from Ibis.” He looked down at the man. “And what was Ibis up to, Michael Ratan?”

“He drilled for water,” Maria volunteered.

“That what he told you?”

It felt like the scarred man was mocking her, and she didn’t like it. “He said they drill and frack for water and try to open up new aquifers.” She glared at him and added, “And he said it wasn’t going to happen.”

The scarred man laughed darkly. “Well, that much was true, anyway.” He pocketed Mike’s wallet and scanned the apartment again.

“You got someone to look after you?” he asked Maria. “Someplace you can rest up, not get your head beat in? Maybe got someone who can keep an eye on you, make sure you wake up?”

“Why do you care?”

He looked surprised, then thoughtful. “You’re right. I don’t.”

He made another quick sweep of the apartment, then walked out the door, leaving Maria alone with the blood.

A
ngel didn’t have any reason to care about the bangbang girl, and he had every reason to get the hell out.

Whatever had happened inside that apartment raised his hackles. It wasn’t the bodies, and it wasn’t the blood—he’d seen plenty of both. It was that everywhere he went, killers had gone before him, wrapping up the people who might give him answers.

It never rains in Phoenix, except when it’s raining bodies
.

And the bodies did seem to be raining. Texas hookers and Ibis execs and Las Vegas spies and Phoenix water lawyers and stubborn journalists. It reminded him of how it had been down in Mexico, before the Cartel States took control completely. People dying in front of restaurants and car dealerships, hanging from overpasses, and a lot of them, just like the journo, disappearing and never coming back.

Should have kept a tighter tail on her
.

The more Angel thought about it, the more the whole game looked broken. Whatever rights James Sanderson had been selling, they were in the wind, and there wasn’t any way Angel was going to dig them up without another lead.

He came out of the residence hallway, emerging onto a gallery overlooking one of the Taiyang’s many atriums.

The Taiyang Arcology was built much like the Cypress developments of Catherine Case’s own imaginings, with deep tunnels down into cool earth for air exchange, and numerous atriums for greenery, and water processing that also allowed natural light to penetrate into the complex’s residences.

He reached an upper park path that spiraled lazily down through the levels. Greenery and moisture, the scent of citrus…the feel was
so familiar that he suspected Taiyang had contracted with the same biotectural firms that Vegas had used.

It was almost disorienting to know he was in Phoenix, feeling the same cool comfort that he enjoyed in his own condo in Cypress, while beyond the polarizing glass the Sonoran Desert blazed away at 120 degrees.

Angel was so distracted, he almost missed the Calies.

It was just a stray glance, old paranoid habit, that picked out the pair of clean-cut gentlemen in suits making their way around the deep pools ten floors below.

They could have been mistaken for businessmen here to make money in partnership with Shanghai investors—except that one of them was the same guy he’d dropped in the morgue.

The same damn guy.

Angel drew back from the rail and scanned the atrium, checking the jogging paths that wound down through the garden levels and threaded between open-terrace restaurants and coffee shops. He scanned the balconies of residences above and below.

There
.

Two more Calies were stationed at a skywalk that led out of the residence tower and toward the shopping and business district of the Taiyang. They were trying not to look like sentries, but they were clearly on the hunt, both of them wearing data glasses and scanning people as they passed. Angel wondered if it was his facial scan they were looking for.

He spied another Cali, wearing jogging spandex and doing stretches on a park bench.

They’re like fucking roaches
.

And another. This one sipping a latte at a café. Angel wouldn’t have noticed him at all except that the TV screens by the café were showing the destruction of a dam up in Colorado, and the Cali wasn’t watching. Everyone else was riveted, but he had his back to the TV so he could observe the gardens.

Angel eased back the way he’d come, wondering how many exits were being watched, and if he’d just pinned himself inside a trap.

What a goddamn mess.

He turned and headed back down the hall, looking for emergency exit signs, wondering if he was boxed.

Ahead of him the hooker girl was coming out of the Cali’s apartment. “Hold that door.” He swept in past her, pulling her with him.

“What the—”

“Some very bad guys are coming, and you’re going to help me walk past them.”

He cast about the apartment as he stripped off his ballistic jacket. It stood out too much. He needed something business. Something that blended…

“What if I don’t?” the girl asked.

“Then you’ll end up a fuckton worse off than your dead-ass girlfriend. These people play for keeps.”

The girl’s eyes widened with fear, and Angel felt ugly for it. He could see himself from her perspective. A scarred thug with a gun shoving her around, threatening her with torture and death if she failed to obey. It made him feel less than a man. The opposite of Tau Ox, playing the hero.

That’s ’cause you’re not the hero,
pendejo.
You’re the Devil
.

And now the Devil needed saving.

He went into Michael Ratan’s closet and grabbed a suit coat. The fit was loose. Ratan had been a bit of a fatty. Easy living on California’s hardship expat pay. Angel smoothed the coat. It would do.

“Who’s coming?” the girl asked.

“Calies. And I want you to tell me if you recognize them.”

“I’m going to see them?” Her voice hitched with terror.

Hats. Ratan sure did like his western wear. Angel grabbed a cowboy hat and put it on. Sort of liked how it looked. Grabbed a belt with a silver-and-turquoise buckle so big it screamed money. Hell, yes. This would do it.

“You ready?” Angel asked as he plucked Lucy’s purse off the counter. He stuffed his ballistic jacket into it, wishing he were wearing it instead. He didn’t favor taking a bullet without armor.

If it’s a shootout, I’m dead anyway
.

The Chinese would lock the place down and come after him with every bit of security they had.

The girl was holding a little clutch purse to her, and…

Angel laughed. “You’re taking a
book
?”

“I can read, okay?”

Angel took it from her resistant hands.
Cadillac Desert
. “I’ll be damned.”

“He gave it to me,” she said defensively.

“Sure he did.”

“He did!”

“I don’t care.” He dumped it into Lucy’s purse and held it out to the girl. “You got to carry this. I can’t be holding it.”

He could feel time running out. The Calies would be knocking on the door any second. There was no other explanation. Six Calies staking out the Taiyang was too many for coincidence. They were coming here. The girl finished stuffing her own belongings into Lucy’s oversized purse.

“Okay, I got it,” she said.

Angel studied her appearance. In that tight black party dress, she’d blend well. And with her he might just slide past. Rich narco in his cowboy duds and a little piece of Texas tail. It could work. Too bad about the bruise on her face, though. Or maybe that made her seem more real, Angel thought sourly.

“It’s some kind of shitty world you live in, girl.”

“What?”

“Nothing. Come on.”

She looked painfully unsteady, either from the hit to her head or the horror of all the deaths. He held out an arm.

“Lean on me.”

She didn’t even resist as he tucked her up against his body and guided her out the door. She clutched at him as if he were her white knight. The girl was a mess, for sure.

Ahead of them the Calies came around the corner.

Angel pulled her closer. “Pretend you like me,” he murmured. “Like you’re hot for your boyfriend.”

She clung closer. Angel lowered his head to peer into her eyes, letting the cowboy hat shield him from the Calies’ gazes. “Maybe we go out to the clubs tonight, eh,
muchacha
?” he said, squeezing her possessively as the Calies went by. “You like to dance for me again?”

And even though he could feel the terror trembling under her skin, she smiled up at him and said words back, breathy and simpering. “Yeah, Papi. You want to see me dancing, Papi? You like that, Papi?” A liturgy of coquettish encouragement, delivered so smoothly she might as well have been the happiest girl in Phoenix. A lucky Texas bangbang who had hooked her very own fiver.

Under all her fear, the girl was ice.

The Calies’ footsteps receded behind them. Angel steered Maria out to the atrium, keeping an eye out for more Calies. They caught an elevator, but as they were descending, he picked out two more Calies guarding the main exit. More aggressive than the others. They were slowing people with badges, getting a look at each face individually as they passed. Angel slapped a button and managed to stop the elevator at level five.

“What’s going on?”

“Little problem, that’s all.” He steered her out of the elevator and started talking to distract her. “You got someplace you can go after this?”

She still looked frightened, but she nodded. “Yeah. I got people. A…guy.”

“He nice?” Angel scanned for other exits. The Calies had everything staked out.

“He looks out for me,” she said.

Angel motioned for her to take a seat on a park bench. They were right beside a small koi-filled infinity pond, part of the Taiyang’s recycling systems. The pool spilled over a lip and cascaded four stories down into a lily-pad-studded pool at the bottom. From there, Angel could see, the water flowed into an artificial cave.

It was almost definitely the same biotectural firm that Catherine Case had used for her Cypress developments. The water beside them would find its way into the bowels of the Taiyang, where it would be filtered and turned into drinking water.

He stared at the pool and its living river, with its lily pads and bioluminescent fish, feeling envious. The water could leave this park and garden space, but he couldn’t. Not with those Calies holding all the exits with their fancy badges.

Angel scanned the area for emergency exits, but nothing stood
out. Overhead the television displays kept blaring the news about the destroyed dam in Colorado.

“Watch the TV,” Angel said.

“Why?”

“ ’Cause everyone else is, and we’re blending in.”

The wreckage was immense. Blue Mesa Dam, plus the Morrow Point and Crystal Dams as well. All on the Gunnison River. The river where Ellis had been, trying to make buys.

Case was going to be pissed.

The girl was staring up at the broken dam. “Who did that?”

The same question Catherine Case probably was asking, but with the pointed addition of
why didn’t I know it was coming?

Angel didn’t envy Ellis, if he ever surfaced again. Case would put his head on a spike for missing this.

“California probably. They’ll deny it, but it was their water. Colorado wasn’t sending it down the way they were supposed to.”

“How come?”

“Farms are drying up, cattle are dying. Standard stuff.”

“So California blew up the dam?”

“Looks that way.”

Angel scanned the people around him, trying to come up with a way out of the trap, seeing no help in the mix of Chinese technical talent and Zoner finance types watching the shit hit the fan in Colorado.

He spied the jogger Cali still doing his stretches. Nobody seemed to be looking for Angel in particular. Or else his outfit and companion were enough to throw them off. The two Calies he’d passed before were coming down again—he could see them getting on the glass elevator.

“Do me a favor,” Angel said to Maria. “Look over slow and easy at the elevator coming down. You recognize either of those two guys? They the ones who killed your friend?”

She glanced over, then turned her gaze back to the TVs. “I—I didn’t really see them. Just their shoes.”

“And they don’t match?”

“No.” Her brow knitted. “One of the guys had cowboy boots. Jeans, too. Not business suits.”

“But it was two guys who took the woman?” he asked. “You sure about that? Did either of them have a business suit?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think so. But I mostly just heard them.”

“She was alive, though, when they took her out?”

“I think so. They wanted to ask her questions.”

Angel scanned the Calies again. “You’re sure about the cowboy boots?”

“Yeah.” She sounded definite.

Angel leaned back, disappointed. None of the six Calies Angel had spied so far were dressed casually. For a second he’d hoped he might find a lead on what had happened to Lucy. If she wasn’t dead already, she’d be dead soon. Professionals didn’t leave witnesses. “Were you friends with the lady?” Maria asked.