Hell's Horizon (17 page)

13

Y
ears of training evaporated. I froze, arms dropping, eyes widening. Wami’s face filled my vision. The sound of his blood splattering onto the floor crowded the cavities of my ears and deafened me to all else. The city could have gone up in flames and I wouldn’t have noticed. There was only the head, its eyes gouged out, the skin at the sides of the nose peeled away to create a pair of thumb-size holes, chin chipped in two (hammer and chisel? a drill?) where the heads of the snakes should have met.

I was so obsessed by the head, I didn’t stop to ask how it got there, who hung it from my lamp and where he was now.

A hand slid over my right shoulder and fingers gripped my throat. Another hand darted around the left side of my face. On the middle finger was a ring, a four-inch spike protruding from it. It was one stroke away from making a gooey puddle of my left eye.

“Drop your weapon, relax, do nothing stupid.” It was a soft but confident, cruel voice. I let the gun slip from my fingers and allowed my arms to hang by my sides.

“Sit,” my captor said and I felt the edge of a chair—it must have been the one I kept by the window of my bedroom—bite into the backs of my legs. If the head in front of me hadn’t been so distorted by pain, I would have sworn it was laughing.

The hand around my throat withdrew. Seconds later, so did the hand with the ring. A fool would have dived for the gun. I sat firm.

“Where were you?” I asked, sickened to be caught so cheaply.

“Under the bed,” he chuckled. “Isn’t that where all the bogeymen hang out?”

It must have taken more than the few seconds I was frozen for him to slide out, fetch the chair and cross the room after me. Why hadn’t I sensed him? Even a ghost would have made some kind of noise.

“Who are you?” I asked. “What do you want?”

“In time,” he replied, then reached forward and poked the head. “Know who this belongs to?”

I gulped. “Yes.”

“Say his name. I want to hear it.”

I licked my lips. I didn’t know what was happening but I had to play along. Whoever this guy was, he’d killed the man many said couldn’t be killed. He wasn’t to be taken lightly.

“It’s Paucar Wami,” I croaked.

“Indeed?” He sounded amused. There was a long pause. I came close to bolting. Managed to stay in check, though it wasn’t easy.

“Do you know why I am here?”

The question caught me by surprise. I couldn’t answer. Then I felt something sharp scratch along the width of my bare back and the words tumbled out.

“No. I don’t even know who you are. How could I—”

“Enough.” He patted my right shoulder. “I am not here to kill you.” His hand crept forward and he pointed at the head. “I have had enough killing for one night.”

“Could I have that in writing?” My chattering teeth made a mockery of the show of bravado.

“I will write it for you in blood if you wish,” he teased. Then, “Do not, at any stage, turn around. If you gaze upon my face, I will have to kill you.”

“Who are you?” I asked, calmly this time. It was possible he was playing with me, and had no intention of letting me live, but things didn’t seem as desperate as they had at first.

“Ask instead who I am not,” he replied cryptically.

“OK. Who aren’t you?”

“I am not
him
.” The hand poked the head again. “And
he
is not Paucar Wami. His name is—was—Allegro Jinks.”

I frowned and focused on the tattooed features hanging from the thin wire. The face was the image of how I’d pictured Wami. I began to mutter, “I don’t follow. If he isn’t—”

Then the penny dropped and I groaned.

Paucar Wami—as my assailant most surely was—laughed. “I see I have no need to introduce myself. Good. I hate formal introductions.”

“Why are you here?” I asked. “What do you want?”

“I want nothing, Al. I come as an ally, bringing you this fine head as a goodwill token. I was going to send it by mail, but I thought you might appreciate the personal touch.” I felt his breath on the back of my neck as he leaned in closer to whisper, “You were looking for me. Asking questions. Spreading rumors. You said I killed the Hornyak girl. I could not stand for such slander. Normally I would have put a quick end to the lies. But I could not understand why you were so sure of my involvement. I did some digging and discovered she had been seen with a Paucar Wami ringer.”

“A
ringer
?” I almost looked over my shoulder, then remembered the warning. “It wasn’t you with Nic?”

“I never met Nicola Hornyak or even heard of the girl until your queries drew my attention to her.” I felt him pressing into my back. I didn’t move, though the temptation to shy away from his touch was great. He stroked the dead man’s cheeks, caressing the writhing snakes, one after the other.

“These beauties belong to me and no other. No one else has a right to wear the snakes. When I heard of the impostor, I made the rounds of various tattoo parlors, to find out who had copied them without my permission. A slim Chinaman called Ho Yun Fen was the guilty party. Quite an artist. A shame to kill him, but lessons must be taught. Ho Yun remembered the snakes, the customer’s name and that a pretty white girl had been with him at the time.”

“When was this?” I asked, curiosity getting the better of my fear.

“Five weeks before her death. Yes,” he said as I opened my mouth to form the question, “the girl was Nicola Hornyak, though that only came out when I paid a call on Mr. Jinks. He protected her identity as vigorously as he could, given the circumstances, but in the end was forced to part with the secret, painful as it was.”

I stared at the ruined face of Allegro Jinks and made up my mind to tell Wami anything he wanted to know, the second he asked.

“Did Jinks kill her?”

“No,” Wami sighed. “She rang him earlier that night and told him to stay in, that she would come to see him. He fell asleep waiting for her. Heard nothing more of her until she made the papers the next week.”

“That was his story?”

“That was the
truth
.” I could feel Wami’s smile. “Men don’t lie when you scoop out their eyes, then start on their genitalia.”

My testicles retreated at the thought.

“Did he know who killed her?” I asked, driving the picture of the dismembered Jinks from my mind.

“No. He was not acquainted with her ways. She picked him up a fortnight or so prior to his tattooing. Gave an alias. Never told him where she lived. Used him as she pleased.”

“For sex?”

“And more. The tattoos were
her
idea. He did not want them. She performed acts of wanton abandon—which I blush to think about—to win him over. She also made him shave his scalp—he had a full head of curly locks when they met.”

“Did she say why?”

“She told him it would make him look sexy.” Wami chuckled. “Which, dare I say, is true enough.”

Once again my eyes fixed on the snakes, but now I focused on the shaven head and noticed it was covered by a light layer of bristle. As I stared, trying to make sense of the craziness, Wami spoke again.

“So much for my story. How about yours? Any idea why your girlfriend would have kitted Allegro out like this?”

“She knew a medium called Rudi Ziegler,” I answered, client confidentiality be damned. “She took Wami—Jinks—to see him. Said he was her demon lover. Maybe she’d heard about your exploits and thought this was how a demon would look.”

“Interesting. Allegro mentioned her interest in the occult. Do you think I should pay a call to Mr. Ziegler?”

“No. He’s a harmless old quack. He had nothing to do with her death.”

“Then who had?”

“I don’t know,” I groaned. “I thought it was you until you turned up with that.” Meaning the head.

“It was not
you
?” Wami asked casually.

“Me? ”
I blinked.

“Concern is a fine form of camouflage. Nobody is going to suspect a man so determined to bring her killer to justice, a hero who charges around, accusing all but himself.”

“I didn’t kill her.”

“It makes no difference to me if you did or not. I will let you live either way. But confessing can do wonders for a man’s soul.”

“I didn’t kill her.” Stiffly this time.

“Very well,” Wami sighed. “Just thought I would ask.” There was the briefest of sounds as he stood. “I will be off then.”

“That’s it?” I asked, startled.

“Unless you want to share a beer and pretzels,” he laughed.

“That’s all you came for? To show me the head and tell me about Jinks?”

“And clear my name. I need not have. Many murders in this city are attributed to me, and usually I care not what people think. But I knew of your connection to The Cardinal and also…” He paused, then shrugged (I knew by the rustling of his jacket). “It was pride. I solved the mystery and wanted someone to share it with.”

“You only solved part of the mystery,” I reminded him. “You didn’t find out who killed Nic.”

“That is of no interest to me. I wanted to know who was impersonating me and why. If the Hornyak girl was alive, I would pay her a visit and ask why she demanded the makeover, but even
I
have never managed to pry secrets from the dead.”

“How can I trust you?” I asked. “You might have ordered Jinks’s tattoo yourself, to serve as a red herring.”

“To what end?”

“To stop me sniffing around after you.”

Wami laughed loudly. “I said you interested me, Al Jeery. You never irritated me. If you had, I would have sent you the same way as Allegro Jinks. You may inquire after me further, if you wish, but I would not recommend it.”

“What about Jinks?” I asked, sensing—more than hearing—Wami begin to retreat. “Aren’t you taking him with you?”

“Al,” he chuckled, “
I
disposed of the body. It is only fair that
you
take care of the head.”

“But if I’m caught with it…”

“You will not be.” My bedroom window slid open and there was a slight creaking as Wami eased through. The fire escape at the rear had collapsed years before. He must have been clinging to the wall, like a bat. “Count to fifty,” he said. “And Al?”

“Yes?”

“Count slow.”

Then he was gone, leaving me to make the slowest count of my life.

I wanted to take Wami’s revelations and run with them. What had Nic been up to with Allegro Jinks? Why the façade? Had it been a game, making her lover up to look like a famous serial killer for a thrill? Or had somebody put her up to it?

I pushed the thoughts aside and concentrated on the problem closest at hand—the head. I had to get rid of it quickly. Paucar Wami could whistle carelessly while carting heads around, but if I was found with this, I’d be screwed. There were people—Howard Kett for one—who’d love to send me down for a long stretch, and this would provide them with the perfect opportunity. For all I knew, that was what Wami was setting me up for.

I cut down the head—the knots in the wire would have taken too long to unravel—and stuck it in a plastic bag, wrapped that in a pillow case, then dumped the package in a black bag and tied it shut. Quickly wiped up the worst of the blood with a rag and squeezed it into the sink. I’d clean up properly later. Disposing of the head was my first priority.

I dressed in dark clothes, grabbed the bag and skulked down the stairs. I had no basket on my bike so I rode one-handed, the other holding the bag above the knot, ready to toss it away at a moment’s notice.

I arrived at the Fridge unimpeded. As I keyed in the security code, I was certain a posse of cops would spring out of nowhere, but they didn’t. When the door slid closed behind me, I fell against a nearby wall and relaxed, feeling safe for the first time since I awoke to the sound of drips.

A male clerk helped me check in the head. He didn’t raise an eyebrow when I dumped the bag on the counter and told him I wanted to make a deposit. “Will you be requiring a casket or a box?” he asked politely.

“Are you kidding me?” I growled.

“No, sir. The choice is yours.”

I told him a box would be fine. When he asked for the corpse’s details I said I’d rather not provide any. He keyed something into his computer, then swiveled the terminal around and handed me the keyboard. “Do you have a clearance code, sir?” I shook my head. “Then please type in your name and position, then press Enter.”

“I don’t want to give my name.”

“I understand, sir. I won’t see your name, only your status. I need that to ensure you have clearance.”

I did as he asked and pressed Enter, not turning the screen back to him until I’d seen my name disappear to be replaced with a string of coded numbers. The clerk examined the data, nodded, then handed me a brief form and an envelope.