Spares (22 page)

Club Bastard was an explosion of thrashing groovesters, contained within a barnlike building in the middle of a party floor. You couldn’t have gotten anyone else into the club without first compressing them to the size of a pea, and I suspect that when I pushed my way into the club someone must have been popped out of a window the other side. Music crunched out of massive speakers along every wall, competing with the cacophony of five hundred people all shouting at once. The music was Predictive Trance, the notes and words all fresh-minted in real time by a bank of computers on the far wall. The algorithms used for generating the lyrics are keyed to the effect of various recreational drugs, and thus the more out of it you get, the better you become at predicting what the words will be.

I shouldered my way through to the bar, buffeted on every side by bright young things. The line at the counter wasn’t very deep, probably because everyone in the place was bombed on happy drugs. Dying tendrils of the Rapt I’d taken were sparkling periodically in parts of my
brain, and being surrounded by glittering eyes and expensive highs was not what I needed. I was grimly conscious of the fact that what I did need was more Rapt, and that I shouldn’t allow myself to have it. I was also still shouldering thoughts of the spares away as hard as I could. I knew I had to find them soon. Nothing had changed—including the fact that I didn’t know where to start looking. I wasn’t in a great state, to be honest, and had no high hopes of ever feeling better.

The gorilla behind the bar stared at me impassively when I got there, waiting for me to speak.

“Is Johnny in?” I asked, trying to look tough.

“Who wants to know?” the man said. He was trying even harder than me and succeeded only in looking like two types of shit in a one-shit waistcoat.

“I do, obviously, you stupid fuck,” I said, not impressed. “Or I wouldn’t have asked. Is he in or not?”

Huge hands closed around my arms. A Vinaldi goon stood on either side of me, two jabs in my back making it clear they were armed as well. The barman grinned.

“He’s expecting you,” he said.

The two goons steered me through the crowd toward a glass wall on the other side of the club. The glass was chroma-keyed to reflect only flesh tones, creating a shifting mirage of disembodied arms and heads. As we approached, a door opened to one side making it clear that the wall was one-way glass. I was bundled unceremoniously through the doorway and into the space behind.

Up a short flight of steps and into a large room, stretching the length of the wall. Sofas, bookcases, full AV rig; points of red and green LED’s in the semidarkness. Jaz Garcia stepped out of the gloom, gripped me by the throat, and pulled me forward.

“Careful,” said a voice. “I want to hear his explanation before I let you remodel salient features of his body. Though trust me, that will be an upcoming presentation.”

Garcia punched me solidly in the face, to promote
cooperation and let me know the score. Then his other hand loosened barely perceptibly as he swung me round and let go. I was thrown accurately into a large chair facing the glass wall, and I had to admire his technique.

I knew what was going to happen. Maybe Nearly would look after Suej. Beyond the one-way mirror I could see all the happy youngsters below, dancing for their lives. Have fun, I thought to them. Shout those lyrics. You won’t even hear the gunshot when it comes.

Another man thrust his hands into my jacket and came out with my gun, which he placed carefully on a table. Then he waved some kind of detector over me. Nothing bleeped, and the man stepped back out of sight. Garcia had disappeared to stand behind me, and the scene was almost set. I heard a chair being scraped along the floor in front of me, and then set down, back toward me.

Vinaldi sat himself down in it, arms folded over the back of the chair. I wondered if guys like him had to go to some orientation class when they started out, to make sure they got things like that just right. I made a mental note to ask Dath in the unlikely event of my ever seeing him again.

He didn’t say anything for a while, so I started the ball rolling. “You wanted to see me,” I said, striving for a tone of friendly interest.

Johnny didn’t say anything again, or rather continued not to say anything. He kept that up for long enough that my remark disappeared as if I’d never made it. This was obviously to be his show, and his alone. I decided to just wait and let him have it his way.

“Randall,” he said eventually, “you ought to be congratulated. There should be statues to you. You are truly a very stupid man.”

“I try,” I said, and Garcia struck me across the back of the head with a gun. It hurt like fuck.

Vinaldi smiled thinly. “What made you think you could do this?”

“Do what?” I said, blinking my eyes against the pain in my head. “Tell me, Johnny, what is it you think I’m doing?”

“In a way it is reassuring that all my problems come down to you. It is reassuring to me because I thought I had some kind of miniseries-sized revolt on my hands, and now I find all I have is some stupid ex-cop with a death wish. I see you’re fucked up again, which is no surprise to me. Your life is no use to you, is your problem, and tonight Jaz will put you out of your misery.”

I stared back at him then, something beginning to strike me as wrong with this picture. Partly it was what Vinaldi was saying, mainly the atmosphere around me. Grimly celebratory. These guys thought they were putting an end to something here. I didn’t know what that might be.

“What are you talking about?” I asked Vinaldi, genuinely interested. “I haven’t even started trying to take you down. When I do, you’ll know about it and you won’t have time for this kind of conversation. You’ll be too busy digging bullets out of your face.”

I was expecting another blow from behind, but it still surprised me with its force. My head was thrown forward and I resolved to pace myself a little better. Two more like that and I’d be out, and I hadn’t been really rude yet.

“Five of my closest associates have been killed,” Vinaldi said. “And you’re trying to tell me you’ve got nothing to do with it?”

I stared at him for real, then. “Nothing at all,” I said, genuinely astounded.

Vinaldi laughed humorlessly. “Jaz said you’d say that. Me, I thought you’d have the sense to realize the position you’re in and tell the truth, but Jaz, he says you’re stupider than that.”

“Jaz would know,” I said. “He’s the yardstick, after all.”

Another crunch from behind, and this time a firework of stars went off above my right eye. So much for
pacing myself. I shook my head and glanced through the glass wall for a moment, trying to refocus on something. It took a while. The crowds outside were still dancing, though there seemed to be some sort of confrontation happening far off at the main door.

I tried to reorient myself around what was going on. It seemed to come down to this: Vinaldi thought I was the guy who was whacking his associates. He had to be fucking crazy.

“You’ve got to be fucking crazy,” I said. “You think I’m going round clipping your friends?”

“I know you are.”

“As you keep pointing out, I’m not a cop anymore. I’ve got no problem with your associates. My only problem is with you.”

“So you try to take me down from the outside. Slow death. I frankly admire the ambition.”

“So do I, but it isn’t me. I wasn’t even in town when the first guys were killed,” I said.

Vinaldi smiled, with real humor this time. “You think I’m going to believe a word you say?”

“You’d better, because it’s true. And if it isn’t me trying to take you down, then it must be someone else.”

Without taking his eyes off me, Vinaldi signaled into the gloom behind him. The henchman who’d frisked me padded out of the darkness, carrying something. Out of the corner of my eye I saw that something was still going on in the club beyond the glass, but then my attention was utterly taken.

On the floor in front of me had been placed a cardboard box.

I leapt toward it, but Jaz and another goon smacked me back into the chair, pinning my arms to stop me from doing it again.

“Who the fuck’s in there?” I shouted, still struggling vainly. “If it’s Jenny or David I’m going to kill every fucking one of you!” Jaz and his colleague laughed good-naturedly; I wasn’t in a position to do anyone any harm.

But the atmosphere changed. Vinaldi looked at me strangely. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m not joking, Vinaldi; if it’s David or Jenny you’re fucking dead.” The Rapt in my head had finally cleared enough for Nanune’s death to strike home; and I was out of control with the realization. “Whatever it takes, you’re dead.”

Vinaldi’s frown intensified. “I know nothing of this David or Jenny. Are you trying to be clever, Randall?”

I stared at him, not knowing what the hell was going on.

Deep breath. “Who’s in the box?” I said.

“Someone you were seen talking to yesterday.” Vinaldi nodded, and the henchman leaned over to open the box. I could see what was in there before he lifted it out, and felt a wave of relief wash over me.

The hood from the Minimart.

“This was delivered an hour ago. That’s why you’re here, Randall. You come and disturb me at my home and I think ‘Let him go, he’s nothing.’ Then this is delivered and I have to reconsider.”

“Johnny,” I said. “Listen to me. I went in this guy’s store, and he made me. That’s all. I didn’t bomb the place and I didn’t cut his head off. I’ve got problems of my own: All I wanted was to get out of town. Then at Howie’s an hour ago I got a box just like this one with the head of a friend of mine in it.”

“Bullshit,” Jaz said. “Look, boss, let me just kill the fuck now. I’ll do it as slow as you want.”

Vinaldi waved Jaz back, looking carefully at me. A bleeper went off somewhere in the background of the room, but no one paid any attention to it. I let my eyes run across the crowd on the other side of the glass, trying to think how the hell I was going to convince him. Something in the view caught my eye, but then it was gone. My mind was racing, trying to fit this into the picture. It wouldn’t fit.

“Something’s going down,” I said rapidly, trying to
think as I spoke. “Someone killed Mal, maybe looking for me, maybe not. But they wanted Mal, too, because of some murders he was looking into. I came to you last night because I thought you’d done them, or had them done.”

“I told you, you fuck, I don’t have women murdered except on special occasions.”

“But somebody does, and those two women were tied to you. Maybe the other three were too. Just like it was your guys who got killed—they all come back to you. And the same guy killed Nanune.”

Vinaldi got as far as asking who the hell Nanune was when the bleeper on the desk sounded again, louder and more urgently this time. He turned furiously: “Jesus, there’s four of you here—can’t one of you answer it?” Then he turned back to me, and I saw his not inconsiderable intelligence trying to sift through what I’d just said. Maybe he’d come up with an answer. I hoped so. Perhaps he could let me in on it. “So who—?”

A rustling sound. Not heard, but sensed. In my head, as it had been in the elevator. Neck going cold, I whirled my head to look out the glass, suddenly understanding what I’d noticed through the wall out of the corner of my eye.

“He’s here,” I said.

“Boss,” shouted the guy at the desk. “Something’s getting fucked up out there.” I had time for a sliver of déjà vu and then everything went ballistic. Jaz and the others scrambled for their cannons amidst a blizzard of swearing.

“Who’s here?” Vinaldi asked me, confused, but I didn’t have to answer because the door was opened and the question was answered.

The man with the blue lights in his head.

He calmly shut the door behind him and fired. Jaz spun away, hit in the arm. The other hoods forgot all their training and stared at the man in the doorway, hypnotized by the flashing blue lights.

“Hey, Johnny,” the man said, leveling his gun at Vinaldi. “Looking good. Remember me?”

For the first time in maybe his entire life, Johnny Vinaldi looked utterly dumbfounded. He stared at the man, brow creased, seemingly unaware of the laser sight on his forehead.

“Shutdown,” the man with the blue lights said as he pulled the trigger, and I did something completely unexpected. Unthinkingly bracing my heels against the heavy chair I was sitting in, I launched myself at Vinaldi, smashing into his chair and knocking the pair of us across the floor. The bullet whistled through the air just above us, Vinaldi’s eyes still locked on the man with the lights.

The man appeared to notice me for the first time, and laughed delightedly in recognition. “Hey, Jack’s here, too,” he said merrily, meanwhile holding his gun to the side to shoot Vinaldi’s second henchman. “What a happy coincidence. There’s people who are really pissed at you. You and I got stuff to talk about.”