The Dark Side (25 page)

In the VLTV there's complete silence—no one can believe it. A moment ago Spyder Blue was casting the deciding vote. Now he's dead.

The droid turns to them, expressionless.

“Vote again,” he says.

A
T 1700, AFTER SUPERVISING
the general investigation in Sordello, Justus surprises everyone by announcing that he's heading off for a snack. He says it declaratively and well within earshot of Grigory Kalganov. Someone offers to join him but he says he needs to be alone.

Making all the evasive moves his limited knowledge of Sin allows, he then heads quickly through the humid streets to the square where he spoke with Dash Chin the previous evening. At a food stall he buys a pizza-stick and a fruit-malt. He stands near the statue of the winged demon, which he's managed to remember is called Pazuzu. He starts consuming his meal while looking around, as casually as possible, for signs of the Russian's approach. But it turns out he's only attracting attention—Sinners are nodding to him, smiling, wishing him the best, appealing for help. He's forgotten just how visible he's become since the
Tablet
's adulatory article. It doesn't seem likely that Kalganov will approach him in this fishbowl environment, so after fifteen minutes he trashes the wrappers and starts heading back to Sordello.

But passing through Kasbah he notices a large bar with a flashing sign: “PAZUZU.” He enters immediately and finds an upmarket establishment full of well-dressed businesspeople mingling with good-looking men and women, some of them almost certainly prostitutes. But there's no Kalganov. And suddenly Justus understands. Pazuzu wasn't a rendezvous point; it's the place where the dead hooker plied her trade. It's probably where she picked up Kit Zachary. But again, Justus doubts that he'll get many approaches in such a place, so he goes out and cases the neighborhood, then comes back.

“ 'Scuse me,” he says in a raised voice. “My name is Lieutenant Damien Justus of the PPD. I'm not here to waste your time. But if anyone here knew a local lady called Nina Nebula, also known as Dear O'Dear, also known as Charlene Hogg among many other aliases, or if anyone has any information about her at all, then I'll be in one of the rear booths of Schwab's across the road. And I guarantee—
guarantee
—confidentiality.”

In Schwab's, which is modeled after the old L.A. drugstore, the decor is all spit-shined chrome and fading red leather. A jukebox in the corner is thumping out hundred-year-old hits. The clientele is young and scattered and generally minding their own business. Justus secures the second-to-last booth and makes sure the one immediately behind it is empty.

He waits fifteen minutes and is on the verge of giving up when he hears the back door squeak. He doesn't turn. He's expecting the new arrival, whoever it is, to either flop into the rear booth, thus indicating that he's got information, or whisk by, thus indicating
that he's just another customer. But the person does neither of those things. He passes by casually and then lowers himself into the same booth as Justus, directly across the table.

“You're the new boy, Justus,” he says—pronouncing it “Justice.”

“And you are?”

“A friend of Charlene's.”

The man is swarthy, with Permatanned skin, bristling blond-streaked hair, and a neatly groomed five o'clock shadow. He's wearing a flashy pin-striped suit with exaggerated shoulders—what used to be called a zoot suit—and giving off a thick scent of funeral home lavender.

“Sure you want to be seen talking like this?” Justus asks him.

“Talkin' around corners ain't gonna fool anyone around here. And I figure you knew what I looked like before I sat down anyway—this place is full of reflections.”

Justus doesn't deny it.

“Besides, I don't intend to be here long.” He taps a cigarette from a silver case. “Nutri-Cig?”

“Thanks, no. Can I get you something from the counter?”

“I don't drink milkshakes.” The man lights up his cigarette, blows out the salubrious fumes, and smiles. His canines, Justus notices, have been sharpened into fangs. “You know, I never thought this would be happening—not in a zillion years.”

“This being what, exactly?”

“Me talking to a pig.”

“I'm no ordinary pig, if it makes you feel better.”

“Happy to hear it. I could tell you stories about the pork here that'd make your hair curl. Or fall out.”

“I've no doubt.”

The man sucks in smoke. “So believe me, I
wanna
believe in
you.
Everyone
in this town wants to believe in you—you can feel it in the air.”

Justus shrugs. “I can't control what people think. But I don't owe anything to anyone, if it makes a difference.”

“That's what the
Tablet
said.”

“The
Tablet
quoted me saying a lot of things. Most of which I didn't really say.”

“Well, that's what the shit-rag does. But then there was that commentary by Bill Swagger—you read that?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Said we didn't need your type around here. Said you had a real nerve, treating us like little kids, and this place is functioning real well as it is.”

“That's what I read.”

“Well, you know what, you can forget about what you did say or didn't say to that weasel Reilly. Because it's the Swagger piece that bought you cred in Sin.”

“That so?”

“Everyone in Sin knows Bill Swagger is Fletcher Brass's pet toad. When Swagger croaks, we know he croaks for Brass. So if he croaks when you walk in, and he croaks loudly, then people figure you must be okay after all.”

“I know nothing about that,” Justus says.

“ 'Course you don't. And that's why I feel sorry for you.”

“How's that?”

“ 'Cause you're being used. And you can't even see it.”

“Used in what way?”

“I don't know. But you're being used.”

“Maybe you're right.”

“I am right.”

“Doesn't mean I shouldn't raise some hell while I can.”

“Before you get killed—is that what you mean?”

Justus is surprised, hearing it said like that. “I can look after myself,” he says.

The man taps his cigarette over an ashtray, chuckling. “You're crazy,” he says. “You stay here, they'll get you in the end.”

“Or maybe
I'll
get
them
.”

“Then you're not just crazy—you're psychotic.”

“And what does that make you, if you're sitting here talking to me?”

The man snorts. “You think I give a shit anymore? About anything? Man, I'll say what I like, to whoever I like, and they can do to me what they please.”

“Then it sounds like we're both fucked.”

Now the man looks a little surprised. He sucks on his cigarette and then blows out a stream of bright green smoke. “Hey, I like you; I really do.”

“Lotta people 'round here say that. You gonna tell me what you're here for?”

“Gettin' edgy or something?”

“For your sake as much as mine.”

A youth in a camouflage jacket has slid into the next booth, nursing a chocolate malt.

The man glances briefly over his shoulder. “I don't give a shit, I tell you,” he says. “I seen it all, I heard it all. But I got something that protects me—something that gives me strength. Know what that is?”

“No idea.”

“I got honor. Ask anyone in Sordello. Dexter Faust always looks after his girls. They're more to me than just merch.”

Justus is pleased to establish something useful. “So you looked after Charlene Hogg?”

“You think I'd be sitting here if I didn't?”

“How long did she work for you?”

“I dunno—two years, maybe.”

“And you looked after her well?”

“ 'Course I did. She was like a little sister to me.”

“Then you'll excuse me for saying you don't look too broken up for a guy whose sister's just been killed.”

Faust scowls again. “What—you think I haven't seen my girls killed before?”

“In the same way?”

“ 'Course.”

“So a girl lures a target into a room—”

“It happens, if the money's good.”

“—only to get killed herself?”

“That happens too, if the stakes are high.”

“Did you warn Charlene about this?”

“Didn't think I needed to.”

“And you think she was paid to draw Kit Zachary into that room?”

“Top dollar.”

“By whom?”

“Well”—Faust sighs and blows out more smoke—“that's the big question, isn't it? You think if I knew, I'd just tell you?”

Justus wonders if he's angling for money. And if he can even trust the pimp anyway—perhaps he's on someone's payroll. Perhaps his only purpose is to muddy the waters.

But Faust blows out more shimmering green smoke. “Forget it, man.” He seems to have read Justus's mind. “You really think I'm after cash? I don't care anymore, I tell you. I'm nobody's bitch. So I'll tell you everything I know. I'm not sure who's at the top of the tree, no, but I do know who Charlene was dealing with.
And that's exactly why you should be scared, man, you should be real—”

But he doesn't get to say another word. There's a whirl and a flash as the tousle-haired youth swings over the top of the booth with a bowie knife. And carves open Faust's throat before the pimp can even raise his hands.

Justus, no stranger to sudden attacks, springs to his feet but crashes against the table. The tousle-haired youth is already bolting away.

Justus reaches out to stem the far-jetting blood—Faust's carotid has been severed—but it's too late. The pimp is gasping and his eyes are rolling. He's as good as gone.

“
Call an ambulance!
” Justus cries to the lady behind the counter, even as he's disentangling himself from the booth and launching through the store in pursuit. The killer is already in the street.

Justus has chased people before. Through abandoned tenements, across tiled roofs and tin shacks, down refuse-strewn alleys. But that was a long time ago, and in an entirely different gravity. And his first reminder that he's out of his depth comes when he loses control and smashes into the doorjamb, almost dislocating his shoulder before he's even left the store.

He spins out into the street anyway, nearly crashing into passersby, and sees the killer—that camouflage jacket and head of tousled blond hair—weaving expertly through the crowd and away. For a moment Justus feels an almost paralyzing sense of defeat—it seems impossible that he might ever catch up under these circumstances. But then he remembers that his legs, being fresh from Earth, will be twice as powerful as his quarry's. Most of the muscles in his body will be twice as powerful. So what he loses in dexterity he can make up in strength. And with that thought his blood starts surging again.

He begins to run before the killer is lost to sight. It's tricky—his body has hardly any weight, and his strides are disconcertingly huge—but at the same time it's strangely addictive. “
MOVE! MOVE!
” he cries to the Sinners and tourists in his path. He's crouched low, tensed at the shoulders and barreling forward, unable to stop. “
MOVE! MOVE!
” And though most people get out of his way, a few of them get a palm in the face or an elbow to the head as he pounds down the street and makes a wild turn into a branching arcade, still keeping the killer in sight—but only just.

The arcade is long and garishly lit. Justus bounds over benches and fake hedges and garbage receptacles and makes up significant ground. But his constant exhortations—
“MOVE! MOVE!”—
only alert the kid, who glances back—he can't seem to believe that Justus is following him—then increases his speed. But the very act of looking over his shoulder has momentarily blinded him; he loses control and crashes into a souvenir stall, scattering postcards and knickknacks everywhere.

For Justus it's an opportunity to catch up, but by now he's built up such a head of steam that he overshoots the mark—he goes straight past the killer and collides with a juggler on a unicycle.

The killer, meanwhile, has sprung to his feet and taken off. Justus pushes himself up, with juggling clubs raining down around him, and sets off again, determined not to fall behind.

The two men hurtle around a curving street. They bounce off walls. They course through the kitchen of a fish restaurant. They set pots and pans clanging. They leap over tables. Justus considers using his zapper, but he's not confident of his ability to aim in a crowded area. So they go on. They ricochet through alleys. They burst through a food court. They bound across a plaza. A couple
of times Justus is so close that he's actually reaching out to grab the killer's collar when a sudden change of direction throws him completely off course.

But now they're in a strip of parkland—it's the circle of green surrounding the Temple of the Seven Spheres. And the killer, ploughing through tourists and musicians, is charging for the grand entranceway—he's going to hide in the great ziggurat itself. He's leaping over the rope barrier. He's plunging into the darkness. And Justus, pushing away an attendant, goes in after him—forty meters behind now and fearful that he'll lose track of him in the mass of tourists.

It's gloomy on the first floor, with walls of matte-black decorated with quartz stars. People are milling about and inspecting displays. A sound-and-light show is in progress. There are silhouettes and shadows, incessant babble. There's so much activity, in fact, that only a lady's shriek saves Justus from losing the killer entirely. But there he is, his camouflage jacket and tousled blond head, bobbing and weaving for the ramp.