I crossed a small property that I’d chosen because the Thousand Storks detail sheet reported it as being unoccupied, protected by only an alarm system and the TS patrols. From inside the tree line at the rear of the property I spent thirty minutes watching the Afronzo grounds beyond. I saw a single foot patrol. A man wearing a blue windbreaker rather than the expected blazer. He carried a flashlight that he played over the ground in front of him. I’d worried there might be dogs and was grateful there were not. Dogs are difficult. Small, fast targets; it can take up to three shots to hit one with small arms when they charge head on.
As soon as the man passed, I walked out of the trees, not at all steady on my legs, crossed the grass that looked no worse for the drought most people suffered the world over, went up to the lighted window of the guest cottage, peered through to see a man within a few years of my own age seated in an imitation Colonial chair, a bottle of overpriced cognac at hand, a book facedown in his lap, staring into the brown liquor in his snifter. I fired three shots. He was profile to me, so I concentrated fire on his head rather than his chest. Three bullets generally guarantee nothing flukish can happen. Odd deflections caused by a pane of glass, ricochets off the curve of the skull, bullets passing through areas of the brain that are used only for monitoring activity in the appendix, are all made allowable by the presence of the second and third bullets. Such things do not happen in threes. The gun was a silenced HK Mark 23.45 from my travel kit. Three bullets in the head from that size weapon meant death. Satisfied, I headed for the main house.
It took only slight reflection to surmise where I might find Afronzo the younger. A conical tower was affixed to the back of the house, an architectural feature that suited his tastes as I had inferred them.
There was an exceptional mechanic’s garage to service the fleet of luxury vehicles parked in the roundabout at the rear below the tower. One of the roll-up doors was raised three feet. Park’s Subaru was inside, doors open, contents strewn, the hollow spare on the ground, empty. I wormed under and found the inner door that led to a laundry, thence to a kitchen, to a supplementary dining room, and a hall that ended at a curl of stairs.
Imelda and Magda were at the top. Sitting on a refinished church pew cushioned in gold velvet, outside a single door. Magda held a BlackBerry where they could both see the screen.
Imelda had a hand over her mouth.
“Oh, my God. You didn’t tell me he was that nasty.”
Magda clicked a button.
“Oh, yeah. Read this one.”
“Oh. My. God. Is he?”
Magda was nodding.
“He totally backs it up. And he likes to send pics, too.”
“Show me, show me.”
Both had split the Velcro seams on their corset-style body armor, wearing it peeled open so they could bend to sit.
I shot Imelda in the heart. Magda flinched at the blood, causing her to move the BlackBerry, giving me an unobstructed shot at her heart. I took it. I closed distance and shot them each once more, head shots.
The door was unlocked.
The room on the other side covered 270 degrees of the tower’s circumference, windows running the outer wall. Cager apparently had used the same designer as he had at Denizone. A postapocalypse medieval revival.
He was sitting in an imitation Eames lounge chair that had been made with oxidized copper rather than plywood. His right hand was fitted into the ergonomic contours of a glossy black gaming hub. His other hand held his phone, thumb flicking over the keys as he occasionally stole glances away from the wall-mounted LCD display to read the messages constantly announcing themselves with the opening note of the theme from 2001: A Space Odyssey. On the LCD, an elegant figure in an absurdly long windblown black cape scampered and leaped on a plane of subtle geometrics, responding to the slight movements of his fingers and palm on the hub. It took me a moment to realize that his character was dancing, re-creating Cyd Charisse’s dream ballet with the wind in Singing in the Rain.
On the floor next to his chair was a pile of several objects. The travel drive. A journal. The backup thumb drive Park had worn around his neck. The disk I’d given him with the recording of the mass murder at the gold farm. And his father’s watch.
I closed the door firmly.
He didn’t look up.
“What is it?”
I moved into his peripheral vision.
“I need to know what happened to Officer Parker Haas.”
He looked up.
“You’re that guy.”
He removed his hand from the game hub and took out his comb and raked his hair.
“You look very angry. I think.”
He put the comb away.
“That’s odd.”
I was not cruel. I had questions and I asked them. When he was slow to answer, unused to doing promptly what was required of him, I demonstrated the advantages of brevity. But I was not cruel. Not as I received the information I needed. Nor when I killed him. Three bullets. Like father, like son.
Confusion had begun to reign when I left several minutes after I had arrived. Something had been seen on a security screen somewhere deep within the house. Several blue windbreakers were gathered at the guest cottage. Their energy was focused on the grounds.
Still, as I came out of the garage, I was seen by one of the windbreakers. He called to me. I kept walking, cutting across the parking area through the cars that were already taking on the patina of relics from another age. Behind me I heard two sets of rapid footsteps. I measured the distance to the trees. Still moving, I glanced through the windows of the cars to see if they had been left with keys in the ignition. They had not. The HK was seated in its shoulder holster under the black sport coat I’d worn. I had two rounds still left in the gun and a twelve-round backup clip. But that was all I carried. My legs would not allow me to run. When my pursuers reached me, I would turn and use one bullet on each, swap to a full clip, and perhaps have time to strip them of their weapons. After that I would need to take cover before a full assault began. I was looking for the heaviest vehicle in the lot when two Thousand Storks fast attack vehicles pulled into the drive. I changed course and walked toward them. The four Storks in each vehicle jumped out and split into twos, ignoring me entirely as they ran past. And my pursuers, taking their cue from the specialists who clearly knew who I was and why I was there, pulled up and turned back, allowing me to walk unmolested down the length of Madrono, circling back to where I’d parked the STS. The car, myself, and all activity in my locale helpfully ignored by Thousand Storks for the one hour between 11 p.m. and midnight. As I’d requested, and as Lady Chizu had ordered, in exchange for the wonder that was Cipher Blue.
Park’s journal and the other items in my possession, I now drove south to find the end of the story.
I did not linger in the nursery when I returned to the Culver City house. What I found there was not meant for me, or for anyone else. It was shameful to gawk at such a thing, since there were only two people who could understand its meaning. Perhaps a third person, some day. I left the room and searched for what I’d come for.
Park had left the safe open. From inside I took the certificates of marriage and birth, Omaha’s medical records, the detective’s badge Park had been given for his Dreamer assignment, and the broach that had been his mother’s. In a nightstand cabinet I found a stack of black journals with red spines, Rose’s diaries from high school to just a few days before. I took a case from a pillow on the bed and filled it with the black and red books. There was a photo album. A shoe box of letters. Park’s academy diploma. A framed square of white cardboard with a smeared green imprint of a baby’s foot. These all seemed relevant, and I took them.