Darkwalker: A Tale of the Urban Shaman (33 page)

As I got closer to the bright glow ahead it resolved in-to the tunnel’s mouth, an arched opening showing a view of the docks and the bay beyond. In the center of the picture was the silhouette of a running figure, veering left. I leaped from the walkway, crossing the tracks, following his lead.

Outside, the tracks curved sharply to parallel Water Street, one going left, one right. He broke into sunlight, crossing the left-hand track. I put on a burst of speed and hit sunlight, heard the train. I wasn’t even close to making it across as the tram cut off my sight of him. I slowed my run, counting cars, seven of ’em, and then I was across the tracks. He was still in sight, pelting across Water Street and down the quay between a docked cargo vessel to one side and the open water on the other. Crossing Water Street, dodging another runabout, with the tram and its noise vanishing into the tunnel, I could hear the sirens again. Yep, he did just what I was afraid he’d do, dammit. When I reached the end of the dock, I dove in right after him.

The water wasn’t as cold as I’d expected, but it was still a shock. Under the surface, treading water, I looked desperately around. The water was pretty clear. No sign of him.

When I came up for air I realized I was done here. I had blown it. In the time it would take to get an organized search of the area going, he’d be long gone. For all I knew he was growing gills and swimming away underwater at that very moment.

There was no convenient ladder at this end of the dock, so I had to swim the length of the ship back toward land to find one. When I reached it the thing was slick and hard to get a purchase. I reached the street level to find several guard runabouts parked at the entrance to the dock, and Auden approaching across the tarmac. I sat down on the asphalt, catching my breath, still seeing an occasional white flash. Seawater running from my clothes formed a puddle around me.

Auden stopped a couple of feet away. “Lost him?” he asked.

“
Looks like.”

“
Probably no point in searching, but I’ll put a few men on it anyway.” He barked orders at the uniforms coming up behind him. They hurried away.

I looked at Auden. “How’d you get here?” I asked.

“
I kept you in sight from the street until you went into the tunnels. That bulkhead accesses a maintenance tunnel for the Water Street line. Unless he doubled back on himself, he was going to end up here.” He took a case from his pocket, took out a cigar.

“
And if he did double back?” I asked.

“
I sent men to Point Street Station, just in case. But my bet was here.”

“
Your bet paid off. For whatever that’s worth.”

“
Yeah,” he said, lighting the cigar. “I’ll be sure to put my winnings in my retirement fund.” He fished in his overcoat pocket, pulled out a small package. Looked like a paper-wrapped sandwich. “They found John Hamblin, you know. His dead body was stuffed in a dumpster over on fifth.” He looked down again at the package in his hand. “Fuck,” he muttered, and threw the package hard at a nearby trash can. It hit the side, and the contents splattered over the pavement. I was right, it had been a gyro. He sighed, walked over and picked up the paper, dropped it in the can. The gulls would take care of the rest. I could see one eyeing the remains of the sandwich already.

“
Lost my appetite anyway,” Auden growled. “What I really want is a drink. Four years without a drop, and the goddamn Beast drives me back to it. You want a drink, Railwalker?”

“
Yeah. But it doesn’t sound like a healthy choice for you,” I said.

“
Fuck that,” he grunted. “I’ll worry about healthy when the Beast is in the ground.”

I couldn’t tell the guy how to live his life. But an alcoholic is not the man you want at your back. Not when he’s drinking, anyway. I stood. The lightning flashes had backed off, and my head was pounding a little more softly. I really did want a drink, but it probably wouldn’t help the headache. The hell with it, I thought. The Beast has killed Tyburn and gotten away; there’s little enough more we can do tonight.

“
I haven’t eaten yet,” I said. “I’ll join you for that drink, if you’ll join me in a meal.” He nodded. I added, “But so help me, the day you fail to back one of us up because you’re drunk, it will become my mission to make your life a living hell. Assuming I’m alive to do that.”

“
Fair enough.”

Auden’s runabout held a spare set of clothes, jeans and a sweatshirt. The jeans were a little long for me, and the sweatshirt a little tight across the shoulders, but they’d do well enough for grabbing a bite to eat. My boots still squelched a bit, leaving damp footprints behind, but I could live with that for an hour or two. Auden knew of a place not far away, said it looked like a dive but served excellent burgers and moderately good whiskey. He was right on both counts. We demolished the burgers quickly, Auden’s appetite apparently having returned. When we sat back with our coffee and drinks Auden’s look was evaluating.

“
Tell me something,” he said. “Byer leave, I get the impression you’ve dealt with Boss Roth before. But I haven’t seen a Railwalker in Bay City for many years, and then it wasn’t you. How and when did you meet Roth?”

I told him.

29. WOLF

I was about twelve when my Pa nearly lost me to Wendell Crichton in a card game.

Until that happened, I never quite knew what I really meant to my Pa. Sometimes he’d call me his “lucky charm” and swear the only times he won were when I was with him. Other times he went the other way, claiming I jinxed his luck, made him lose. I never knew if he was going to insist I sit by him through a whole night of gaming, and I’d be nodding off to the low murmur of men’s voices growling out bets and the smell of hooch and tobacco, or whether I’d be sent out to sit alone in a parking lot behind some anonymous bar or casino, waiting for him to come collect me when the games finally ran down. It was pretty confusing for a kid. It seemed like I was somehow responsible for whatever the Fates threw at my father, good or bad. That’s a heavy load for a kid to carry, especially when your Pa loses more often than he wins.

Pa had been on a bad losing streak that spring when we rolled into Bay City. Did I say “rolled”? I misspoke. We walked. Pop had lost the jeep back in some berg or other; I don’t remember the name. I do remember the place had only one small bar where the games went on, where Pa had been playing with hard men who smelled of animals and grain. We left there riding on a donkey who could barely carry the two of us. Pa lost that animal in the next town over, which I remember was called Sitio Ancho because it sure didn’t look much like a city to me. From there we ended up walking into Bay City, which did look like a city, in spades. I don’t know who Pa got to stake him to the first couple of games he played in Bay City, but he must have found someone, since his losing streak, if it didn’t turn to winning, at least eased up some. We had a room where the roaches would actually run and hide if you turned on the light, instead of hissing at you to back off and get out of their face.

I guess I’ve been presenting a kind of one-sided picture of my father here. I’ve been citing all the bad stuff, and none of the good. It wasn’t like he was an evil man. He never mistreated me, not really. Oh, he walloped me a few times. Sometimes I probably even deserved it. Now and then, when he was losing regular, and drunk, he might light into me for no other reason than that I was a convenient target. But if he was stupid and unconscious sometimes, and a slave to his addiction, he could also be wonderfully charming and loving and generous, too. He had what my profs at the Railwalker Academy called “the glamour.” I’ve seen him lose money he never had to men who would have killed you for looking at them wrong, and not only escape with his life, but charm them into lending him tram fare to get home. That’s how we ended up with that donkey.

Still, life with my Pa wasn’t all roaches and sticky carpets and dingy sheets. I’ve been talking mainly about his losses, but he sometimes won big, too. There were times we spent weeks in the most expensive hotels in the western cities, catered to by uniformed servants, and indulged in whatever fancies crossed our minds. When Pa was on a winning streak, nothing was too good for his kid. And because he did have his winning streaks, and he knew how to work them, my Pa had a reputation in the gambling community. Which meant that when the chips were down, he could sometimes get into high-stakes games on nothing more than his name, and his winning smile.

I can’t say I know it for a fact, but I can guess that that’s probably how he got into that game in Bay City that time. If you’d made a list of the players sitting at the table that night, except for my father, your average Bay City resident would have assumed it was some sort of high-level city conference. And for all I know, it may have been; there were many games my father attended where much more than just gambling went on. You’ve heard the cliché about how deals are made in smoke-filled rooms... Well, my father and I were there for many of those deals. We weren’t parties to the negotiations, just to the card games, games which served as the excuse for certain persons of power to gather together in an informal setting.

This particular night there were many powerful men present, and a couple of women, but I would remember only two of them. One was Wendell Crichton. The other was Micah Roth.

Pa was losing badly that night. I could tell by the way his leg was twitching. Not that I couldn’t have followed the play—by the age of nine, I knew the games and the odds almost as well as my Pa did. Poker, jackflash, crops, roundabout, you name it, I knew it. But I wasn’t really following the play, not in any conscious, intentional way. Tired and sleepy, sitting on the floor by my father’s chair where he could touch my head for luck now and then, the leg told me all I needed to know. Pa was not doing well.

I came alert again when I heard my father say my name. He wasn’t addressing me, he was talking to one of the other players. “He’s a good boy,” I heard him say. “Smart, industrious, worth a fuck of a lot more than twelve K.”

Alarm bells went off in my head as I realized suddenly what was happening. I now knew exactly what my father thought I was worth: twelve thousand bucks.

“
No,” said another voice. “I’ll cover.”

“
I didn’t hear the man ask for anyone to cover for him,” said another.

I dragged myself to my feet, looked around the table. It was clear immediately what was happening. The others had all dropped out. It was down to my father and the two men who had spoken. One was big, blond, and balding, with the face of a man used to getting what he wants; the other was smaller, but denser, with the build of a boxer, lank black hair, piercing eyes, and thick, stubby fingers, a man who looked used to physical labor. I would later learn that the blond man was Wendell Crichton, the boss of Bay City, and the darker man was Micah Roth, head of the Federation of Labor Unions. At that time, however, to me, they were simply the Dark Man and the Light Man. And intuitively, I knew that the Dark Man was on my side, while the Light Man was an enemy.

The atmosphere around the table crackled like static on a frigid day in February. Everyone was staring at my Pa. I looked at him too. He glanced at me, then back at the other players. At last he said, “Sure. Thanks, Micah. I appreciate it. I’ll accept your cover.”

The blond man looked disappointed, and the dark man didn’t exactly look pleased, either.

Later, as we were leaving the place, the dark man approached us. My Pop started to voice his thanks again, but the dark man, Micah Roth, put him up against the wall of the building, his forearm across my Pa’s throat.

“
Spare me your thanks, arsehole,” he said. “And know this. I may not be able to track all your movements, all your games and all your bets, but I will have the word out to watch you. And if you ever wager away this child’s life again, and I hear of it, I will find you, and I will make you regret it. Do you understand me?”

Pa nodded, so far as he was able with Roth’s forearm pinning his neck to the wall. Roth released my father, glanced briefly at me, then walked away.

Seven years later, at the age of sixteen, I left my Pa and went to work with a construction company in Santa Brita. It took me another three years to save up that twelve thousand, but I finally did it. When I had the total amount I traveled down to Bay City and looked up Micah Roth. By that time the People’s Takeover had happened, and Roth was now the City Boss in place of Wendell Crichton.

As it turned out, it took some doing to reach Roth, even with the money I had to offer. When I finally made it past the secretaries and official filters and dropped the cash on Roth’s desk, it was clear that he remembered me and my Pa, and what this was all about.

“
You didn’t have to do this,” he said.

“
Yes,” I said, “I did.”

He examined me with that laser gaze for long moment, and then said, “Yeah. I understand why you did. Thank you.”

“
We square?” I asked.

“
Yeah, we’re definitely square.’

“
Good.” I walked out of his office.

Auden had listened quietly to my story. When I’d finished, he nodded. “Yeah,” he said, “that sounds like Micah Roth.”