Darkwalker: A Tale of the Urban Shaman (19 page)

“
I mean...” Scather havered. “Well, y’know... We keep on this trail, sooner or later we’re gonna be gettin’ awful damn close to the coast cities.”

“
Better pickings,” was all the Grinder said.

Scather tossed away the last of his meat, his appetite suddenly gone. He wiped his greasy fingers on his jeans. His stomach felt sour. Fortunately they’d found some tobacco in town, and after noting that he was indeed downwind of his Second, he took out a stogie and lit up.

“
Yeah, but...” he started. Sighed. “Look, we get to raiding too close to the cities, eventually they’re gonna get wind of us. Next thing you know they’ll be sending out a troop of guardsmen with heavy artillery to take us down.”

There was another long pause, and Scather had almost decided Grinder wasn’t going to reply at all, when the man spoke again, quietly.

“
Exactly.”

“
Exactly?” Scather demanded. “Exactly? What the fuck? You
want
to bring that kind of heat down on us?”

“
S’matter, Scather?” Grinder asked mildly. “Don’t you want to test yourself against the strongest challenges you can find?”

“
Fuck, no!” Scather jumped to his feet. “That’s insane, Grinder! Man, you run into guard unexpected like, that’s one thing. I’ll fuckin’ murderize ’em. But go askin’ for that kinda fight when it ain’t necessary? That’s just fuckin’ stupid!”

The Bone Grinder showed no particular reaction to Scather’s outburst, but sat calmly contemplating the sunset. When he spoke his words were slow and emphatic, as though he was explaining something to a child. “Then ‘fucking stupid’ is what we’re going to be,” he said, “because that’s exactly what we’re going to do. We’re raiding south and west until the townies send guardsmen out to get us.” He looked up at the Ravager leader now, raised his eyebrows in question. “You got a problem with that?” The Bone Grinder held Scather’s eye for a moment, then looked back to the sunset.

Scather hesitated. He’d had a sense it might come to this, but it was happening sooner than he had expected. The leader of the Ravagers was no coward, but he was also no fool. He knew he stood little chance in a fair fight against his Secondman, so he’d prepared himself. If the challenge had come formally, in the company of the group, he was prepared to use his fighting knives—a fair balance, in Scather’s mind, against the power of Grinder’s hands, which could become deadly claws. But here, by themselves, alone on this hill above the town they’d just raided, the good of the gang superseded Scather’s sense of personal honor. He couldn’t risk Grinder winning a fight between them, if the formalities of the Ravager gang didn’t demand it. It was more important that the gang survive intact than that Scather prove himself the better man. His hand slipped to the small of his back, where the compact machine pistol lay waiting for just such an eventuality. He whipped it out with the speed of a striking snake and aimed it at the Bone Grinder’s head. Just before he pulled the trigger, he muttered, “Sorry, man.” Then suddenly, he was looking at the stump of his right wrist fountaining blood as his hand, still clutching the machine pistol, tumbled down the hill.

Grinder now stood before him. Scather’s left hand groped for his knife, but the Grinder’s claw slashed out in a blur of motion. Scather felt pain in his throat, and then he was tumbling to the ground. Everything was going black, he was as cold as he ever remembered being, and as if from a great distance he heard the Bone Grinder’s voice say, “No, you’re not sorry. And neither am I.”

16. BAY CITY

“
Kind of on the upscale side for a mutie,” Remming mused as they surveyed the clinic from an expensive coffee shop across the street. Dobbs had given Remming and Turrin the mutie’s name and address. They’d checked out his records and discovered he worked at a medical clinic in the Thornhill neighborhood. They were looking at a long, low, adobe-fronted building, very clean, no graffiti, several expensive runabouts parked in front. A small brass plaque beside the main entrance informed visitors who drew close enough to read it that this was the Thornhill Medical Center. The streets were free of trash, and palo verde trees shaded the sidewalks at regular intervals.

“
Upscale for a mutie, sure, but so’s the place he lives,” said Turrin.

“
But not so much. I’ll bet you his neighbors don’t come here when they get the sniffles.”

“
Probably he’s a janitor or something.”

Remming looked at his partner in disgust. “A janitor? Coming in at eight in the morning in a suit and tie? Not friggin’ likely. More like an administrative assistant, or a male nurse or something.”

“
Well,” said Turrin, finishing his coffee, “let’s find out.”

At the front desk Remming asked for Aguilar Cordoba. The receptionist escorted them to a conference room, offered them coffee, which they declined, and assured them Dr. Cordoba would be with them in a moment. The door closed silently behind her, and the two guardsmen looked at each other.

“
Doctor?” Turin said.

Remming just shrugged.

A few minutes later the door opened to admit a tall, well-built man wearing a white lab coat over a light gray shirt and maroon tie. Remming watched the brown eyes behind the silver-rimmed glasses flick from him to Turrin and back again. The man’s expression remained carefully neutral. He wasn’t twitching with guilt, but he was clearly wary.

“
Dr. Cordoba.” Remming stuck out his hand, and the doctor shook it with only the slightest show of reluctance. “I’m Guardsman Remming; this is Guardsman Turrin. Sorry to interrupt your schedule. We’ll make this as brief as we can. We’re investigating a report of cries and shots fired outside your building last night...”

“
This building?” asked the doctor.

“
No sir, the City Arms. We’re checking with all the residents, see if anyone heard or saw anything.”

“
And you came to my place of work?”

“
Well, you know how it is these days, with the killings and all.” The guardsmen weren’t allowed to use the popular name “the Beast” when talking to the public. “City Plaza wants incidents like this checked out as quickly as possible. Did you see or hear anything unusual last night?”

“
No, Guardsman, I’m sorry. I got in a bit late and went right to bed. I didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary.”

“
Okay, sir, thank you for your time. We’ll show ourselves out.”

Back on the sidewalk in the bright morning sunlight, the two men turned left and headed downtown.

“
A mutie doctor.” Remming shook his head. “That’s fucked.”

“
He don’t look like his picture in the file, that’s for sure,” said Turrin.

“
He can’t be a shapeshifter. They don’t exist.”

“
So what, he’s a normal who stole a mutie’s ident? That doesn’t make any sense.”

“
No,” Remming allowed, “it doesn’t. Could be he’s just a mutie looks especially normal.”

“
Maybe it’s all bullshit,” said Turrin. “Maybe Dobbs is blowing smoke up our arses. You know, he’s got something against this guy, and he’s trying to set him up.”

“
Could be. File says he’s a mutie, and Dobbs hates muties.”

“
Can’t be that Dobbs is right, can it? This guy can’t be the Beast. He don’t look anything like what Auden described.”

“
I dunno. I doubt it. But sure as hell something stinks here.”

Surprising for the neighborhood, the steps up to the front door of the Cat’s Meow were clean and in good repair. At Morgan’s knock the door was opened by a massive mutant in suit pants that were out at the cuffs and a white shirt with sleeves rolled to the elbow. His skin was a pasty, yellowish color, his eyes set far apart on his wide skull.

“
Help you?” he said.

“
I’m here to see Sally Marks.”

“
Santa Monica Sal? And you are?”

“
Railwalker Morgan.”

The man straightened, peering down at her. “Railwalker?” he said.

She raised a hand, palm out. “I know, you don’t see Railwalkers around much any more. I get that a lot.”

A smile split his face. “I’ll bet you do,” he said. “Come in, Railwalker Morgan. It’s Sal’s turn at laundry today.” He led her down a hall and gestured to a door. “Down the stairs is the laundry room.”

Like the rooms above, the laundry was ancient, but clean and well maintained. The brushed metal of the washing machines gleamed. The walls were clean and white, the lighting some kind of full-spectrum bulb instead of ugly fluorescents. Morgan had never been in the laundry of a harlot house before. She’d expected mountains of flimsy negligees and frilly lace nothings, and there was a basket full of those, but the only mountains in sight were of sheets and towels. Which, on reflection, made sense.

Folding those sheets and towels at the other end of a long table was a skinny blond in hot pink and a shorter, heavier, dark-haired woman with coffee-colored skin. Sal’s tan, Morgan noted as she got closer, had that orange tinge that suggested it came out of a bottle rather than from the sun, and her platinum blond hair showed darker blond roots. From a distance she looked like a surfer girl. Up close neither the artificial tan nor the liberal makeup quite disguised the spidery veins of rosaceae spread across her cheeks and nose. The darker woman’s makeup was somewhat more subtle.

“
Afternoon,” the blonde said when she looked over and saw Morgan.

“
Hi,” Morgan said.

The dark woman peered at Morgan’s facial tattoo. “Say,” she said, “you’re one of them Railwalkers, aintcher?”

“
Aye,” said Morgan. “Morgan am I, Walker of the Rails Between the Worlds. Twenty-three blessings, sister.” She held out her hand. The woman shook it.

“
Della Santiago.”

“
Well, what do you know,” said the blonde. “Never thought I’d see a Railwalker in this place. Santa Monica Sal am I.” She laughed. “Walker of the streets of this city, when I’m not holed up in the Cat’s Meow. Member in good standing of the Harlot’s Guild. Come freely and go safely, and all that.” They shook.

“
We should offer you tobacco and coffee, but I think our machine’s coffee is probably about as stale as it comes. So maybe you can make do with a cigarette?” She held out a battered package of cigarettes. “No offense.”

“
None taken, thankee,” Morgan said, accepting the proffered cigarette. Sal held out a lighter, flicked it several times before it finally caught flame. Morgan took a token puff, then set the white stick smoldering in the ashtray.

Sal lit up her own and puffed luxuriantly. Della elbowed her in the ribs, and she said “Oh,” and slid the pack toward her friend.

As Della lit up, Sal asked, “So what brings a Railwalker to our humble cathouse?”

“
Came to talk to you folks, actually.”

“
Really?” Sal laughed. Then she looked darkly at Morgan. “Oh, I see. The guard can’t track down this Beast, so Roth asked the Railwalkers in.”

“
About damn time, is what I say,” said Della. “Useless fuckin’ shits, them guardos.”

“
I suppose you want to ask us about Suzi,” said Sal.

“
Suzi Mascarpone.”

“
Was that her last name?” asked Della. “Thought she might be an Eye-tie. I only knew her as Suzi, or Zee.”

“
Sometimes,” offered Sal, “she called herself Suzi Creamcheese.”

“
Ain’t that a mindfuck, though?” Della shook her head. “You’re friends with somebody for years, you never even know their last name ’til they’re dead.” She sniffed and blinked away a tear. “Man, if anything we got to say can help you nail the fucker killed her, we’re so there.” She looked at her friend for confirmation, and the blonde woman nodded vehemently. “Whadda ya wanna know?”

“
What can you tell me about her?”

“
Suzi, she was good people,” said Sal.

“
Even if she was a fuckin’ Marilyn,” added Della.

“
You don’t generally like the Marilyns?”

“
Why should we?” Della snorted. “Don’t see themselves like harlots, most of ’em. Want to be thought of as priestesses, y’know? High fuckin’ priestesses of sex, too good to associate with the rest of us.”

“
Zee wasn’t like that, and you know it,” said Sal.

“
She could be. Sometimes.”

“
Besides, there’s those in the guild who act like that, from some of the expensive houses.”

“
Fuck ’em all, we’re as good as them any day.”

Morgan looked from one harlot to the other. Della raised an eyebrow at her and said, “What, you don’t think so?”