“I don’t have any money,” I said, wondering why I was cursed to have the same things happen to me time and time again.
“Then you fucked,” said the pierced one, who spoke with a lisp and looked denser than three bags of shit in a one-shit trumpet.
I thrust my hands into the pockets of my jacket, and found Mal’s drive. I couldn’t barter with that. In the other pocket, the computer chip which held Ratchet’s brain. For a second I considered it, but no more. He’d helped me enough. I couldn’t let go of him again.
“Don’t suppose dropping Howie Amos’s name is going to help?” I hazarded, beginning to panic. I was losing time, and lots of it.
Burn-face shook his head. As a last resort I put my hand into my inside pocket and yanked out my wallet.
“Here,” I said. “You can have this.”
He took it, and flicked through. There was no more than ten dollars in it, but then he found my old own-Card.
“This’ll do,” he said, and they stepped aside. I didn’t volunteer the information that trying to use the card would get them more police attention than crapping on Chief McAuley’s head. I figured they’d find out soon enough, and it was about time they retired anyhow. I stabbed the “down” button, leaped in, and slumped to rest my face against the elevator walls as it started to drop.
It was when I stepped out on 8 that I realized my wallet had also held my only photograph of Henna and Angela. I couldn’t go back. Memory would have to be enough.
I ran through 8’s lamp-lit streets, past so many places I knew, past the beginning of the side street which led down to Howie’s place. As I tore down the main drag, toward the restaurant with the entrance to the chute, I felt like I was going in reverse, as if the video of my life had reached its end an hour ago and was now being rewound, spooling past everywhere I had ever been, back toward some point where it would end again. End, or perhaps begin.
I skidded taking the corner into the final straight and almost lost it, but managed to stay upright and careered toward the restaurant doors. I could see something was wrong: There were no tables outside and no lights on behind the windows. A solid kick on the door told me it was locked. I glanced around, saw no one, and shot out the lock. Then I shoved the door open and ran into darkness, turning to slam the door shut again behind me. I hoped to Christ Yhandim and his goons had gone the wrong way. If not, then this route might get me a few extra seconds. It wasn’t much; but the way things were going, a few seconds could make all the difference.
I threaded my way through the stacked tables and chairs toward the restrooms at the back, ears tuned for any sound from the streets outside. I was ready for it, and had in reserve a burst of speed which might just get me out in time.
What I wasn’t ready for was a lamp being switched on above one of the back tables. It dropped a soft pool of yellow light for a couple of yards, revealing a man standing by the wall.
“Howie said you’d be passing through,” he said.
“Hello, Johnny,” I replied, and swung my gun to point straight at his heart. “You’ve got two minutes to explain why you killed my wife and daughter for Maxen, and then I’m going to blow you apart.”
“When did you work it out?” Johnny said; slowly sitting back down. I stayed where I was, gun still held out, safety off.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe just now, maybe earlier. You knew about what happened with Maxen’s brother. I don’t think you heard a rumor. I think you heard it from him. All that talk about atonement. Then a choice of words which in retrospect was kind of precise. You didn’t put out the hit on Henna and Angela, but it was you who carried it out.”
Johnny didn’t say anything. Time was passing, but suddenly that didn’t seem important anymore. I had to understand. Dying seemed preferable to never understanding.
“Why, Johnny?”
“Maxen came to me, Jack. I was just a hood then, you know how it was. I was trying to get somewhere, but all the markets were sewn up. McAuley was tight with the old guard, and there wasn’t much I could do. Then some of Maxen’s guys came and found me, and took me up to see the boss. Maxen said he wanted into the rackets, that legit money wasn’t enough.”
“So you went in with him.”
“The offer didn’t exactly seem negotiable. I sat in a very small room with several guns pointed at my head and it occurred to me that I didn’t have much to lose. I say no, and he’s going to ice me there and then. I say yes, and I’m going to end up running most of New fucking Richmond.”
“On the end of Maxen’s leash.”
“We’re all on leashes, Jack.”
“So he greased the NRPD for you.”
Vinaldi sighed. “It wasn’t like I had carte blanche, but my competitors started getting a lot more cop attention than I did. I started clearing up floors, adding them to our collection. Maxen fed capital when I needed it, worked the brass when things got out of hand. It was going good until you got involved.”
He stared at me, his face tortured.
“Why’d you have to do that, Jack? Things were the way they’ve always been, just a little more organized. Maxen and I could have sewed the place up, and everyone would have been happy. Fewer people would have gotten killed in the crossfire every day, we’d have made lots of money, and everything would have been cool. If you’d come to me early on I’d have put you on the payroll. You were a good cop. We could have used you. Why did you have to get nosy? Why couldn’t you have just left it alone?”
I didn’t have time to explain, and I don’t think my explanation would have convinced even me. The truth was I didn’t know.
“Because I’m stupid, probably,” I said. “Or because I thought I was atoning for something myself.”
Vinaldi shook his head. “So what happens is suddenly we’ve got problems, because you and Mal are digging too deep. Doesn’t matter so much about me, because it’s generally known what side of the line I’m on. But for Maxen—it’s a problem. He can’t afford anyone to suspect that New Richmond’s premier white man is running all the shit.”
I could understand that. People like to feel that God and the Devil are different beings. Vinaldi ran a hand across his face. His eyes were hooded, and when his hand came away I noticed his fingers trembling.
“So Maxen comes to me and says he wants a show of loyalty, that I’ve got to prove I’m in with him up to the hilt. He tells me we need an object lesson. He already hates your guts because you whacked his brother in The Gap, but even he knew that had to be. If you hadn’t killed Cedrif he’d have been court-martialed anyway. But now you’re putting everything Maxen owns at risk, and so it’s got to happen, and he wants me to do it, Jack. It’s going to be my special job.”
Vinaldi breathed out heavily, and then looked at me steadily. “You made it easy for me, Jack. You took Phieta away from me. Maybe you thought I was just some typical wiseguy who kept a wife for show and screwed around on the side. Or maybe you were just fucking her to get closer to me. But I loved that woman. I didn’t know about what was happening, but Maxen had photographs and he showed them to me. Phieta was my wife, Jack, and she was running around with you. She didn’t love me anymore, even when you were gone, but I wouldn’t let her go. You know what happened after she took you out of town, to the Farm? She killed herself.”
The entire city seemed silent around me then, as if nothing else happening in it mattered, as if none of it had any bearing on me. All I could do was listen, and keep my gun trained on Vinaldi’s heart.
“After he showed me the pictures, Maxen pumped me with Rapt, and two of his guys took me down to your floor. They stood outside while I went in, and they took me away when I was finished. I didn’t know until I was actually in your living room that Maxen had deliberately overdosed me. I didn’t know what I was doing, Jack. It was just going to be a clean hit. Then the walls went away and I was back in The Gap and everything happened the way it did.”