Apocalypse to Go (34 page)

“And what’s all this?” He gestured at the notes.

“Psychic information I’ve picked up over the past few days. Stuff relating to Michael and Sean’s disappearance. I don’t understand all of it, like that bit about the Laughing Woman. I saw her in trance, and she creeped me out.”

Dad held the pad out at arm’s length to read the note. He’s nearly sixty now, I thought. His vision’s changed.

“Huh,” he said. “You wouldn’t remember this, most likely, not with the front of your mind, anyway. That’s Laughing Sal from the old Playland amusement park. You must have been what?—six or seven—and for your birthday we went to that museum of mechanical toys under the Cliff House. She scared half the life out of you. You didn’t believe me when I kept telling you she was just a big wind-up doll.”

The memory flooded back: the enormous automaton, bobbing and swaying, her horrible mechanical laugh, and the way I cried until Dad picked me up and carried me away from her. With the memory came a stab of knowledge.

“She gave generations of children nightmares, I’d wager,” Dad was saying. “A damned ugly thing she was.”

I laid a hand on his arm and interrupted. “Playland! It was down by the beach, wasn’t it?”

“Practically on it. Now, it was long gone by the time I arrived in San Francisco, but there were pictures with the exhibit.”

“That’s where Mike and Sean must be, in Playland, or
the place in this world level that corresponds to where Playland was in Four. Or maybe Playland’s only where we should start looking. I don’t know exactly, but it’s a crucial clue.”

He whistled under his breath. “We’d best go talk to dear old Inspector Spare14. Huh, he’s come up in the world since I last saw him.”

“Wait a minute! Was he the one who arrested you?”

“Oh, yes. He led the team. He was just an ordinary cop, back then, but that’s one reason the magistrate on Five listened when he asked for me. She figured he’d know if I was a safe release or not.”

And was that why Spare14 had gone looking for me back on Four, when I was hunting down Belial? He must have known all along that my father had a big family, and that at least some of us were bound to have talents. Sneak. He could be that, all right. I decided that I could confront him later. We had more pressing problems to solve.

“I see,” I said. “Before we join the others, can I ask you a question about the orbs?”

“Of course.”

“Where did you get them? A Maculate woman’s been telling me that they’re stolen property.”

He laughed, just softly and briefly. “No doubt she sees it that way. My guild on Five confiscated them from the Maculates. They attuned them to me when I passed my apprenticeship. Huh! It’s taken her long enough to find them—no, wait.” He paused to count something up. “The spotted hag that owned them originally must be long dead by now. I suppose this one learned about them some way or another and set about tracking them down.”

“Why do the guilds keep them away from the Maculates? Or is that a secret?”

“No real secret at all, though I’m not sure who knows about it. It’s something I learned in prison.” His voice trailed away, and for a moment he looked out at nothing. “You hear a lot of strange stuff inside. Some of it’s even true.” He forced out a smile. “But I believe this particular story. Some of the Maculates hunt for ape. It’s their favorite food. Not many apes are left on their home world, so they
have to hunt elsewhere. The meat fetches a very high price on the black market back on Two.”

“Black market?”

“Well, the Maculates are civilized. Most of them would never eat a sapient species. But there are always a few, you know, in any race, who like crossing the lines. Eating ape gives them a thrill, I suppose.”

“Sapient?” I turned cold when I remembered the meat locker I’d seen in the mirror-vision. Chimp and gorilla parts? I only wished. “You mean us, don’t you? Human beings.”

“Yes.” He smiled, but it wasn’t a pleasant smile. “I’m afraid I do.”

I scrambled up from the floor. “There’s something I’ve got to tell Ari right now.”

“Oh? About Playland?”

“That, too. But we left his buddy guarding our flat back home, and two of the Maculates have already tried to break in.”

“Y
OU CAN USE THE TRANS-WORLD ROUTER
in my desk,” Spare14 said. “Do you think you can reach your friend that way?”

“Let’s hope,” Ari said. “Let me just get my phone.”

Ari strode across the living room and charged into the bedroom. Dad and I sat down on the couch. Jan drew his Beretta—on general principles, I supposed—and took up a watch at the window while Spare14 fussed with the equipment in his desk drawer. I concentrated on banishing Possibility Images of a half-eaten Itzak.

“I could take your Ari back to Four,” Dad said, “not that I want to face your mother just yet or Eileen and Jim, either.”

“You wouldn’t have to,” I said. “There’s an overlap area in South Park. The vitrification, you know.”

“Ah. I used to know where other gates were here in SanFran. The entire level is full of them.” He smiled. “Like a Swiss cheese. But it’s been a long time since I walked round this city.”

Spare14 glanced our way and pushed out a sickly smile that might have been an apology. He returned to working on the router. Ari strode out of the bedroom with his laptop in one hand and his cell phone in the other.

“Come sit down,” Spare14 said to him. “I’ve set up a separate password for you.”

“Thanks,” Ari said. “Let’s hope I can reach his phone. I’ve got no idea how often he picks up e-mail.”

“If he’s skyping LaDonna,” I put in, “he’s bound to be online a lot.”

“If he’s doing what?” Dad muttered.

I did my best to fill him in on thirteen years of digital progress while Ari and Spare14 fiddled with the router and the cell phone. They swore now and then in several languages. At last Ari smiled and held his phone to his ear.

“It’s ringing,” he announced.

We all fell silent, staring at Ari, until he grinned and spoke in Hebrew into the phone. I only recognized one word, “Tzaki.” It was enough, especially since they switched to English after a few exchanges.

“No, I’m not having a joke on you,” Ari said. “You saw the footage, didn’t you? Well, that’s one of them… Yes, with the claws… What?… I have no idea if they’d cook you or eat you raw, but I’d rather we didn’t find out… Stay away from the flat. We don’t care if she claws the furniture… Yes, by all means tell LaDonna everything.”

At that point Ari lapsed back into Hebrew, and I assumed that Tzaki was doing the same. In a few minutes he clicked off and sighed in profound relief.

“There,” Ari said. “He won’t go near the place unless the alarms sound, and if that’s the case, the police will be there ahead of him. I don’t suppose our spotted harridan will risk meddling with the police. They’re armed if she does.”

“Oh, great,” I said. “A dead Maculate on our steps—that’s all we need! I wonder what the neighbors will say about that to Mr. Singh?”

“Let’s hope it doesn’t happen.” Ari turned to Spare14. “Do you have any idea where they’re finding the transport orbs?”

“I don’t, no.” Spare14 looked faintly mournful.

I felt my father’s impulse to speak, quickly stifled, and turned to look at him. He looked blandly back, as innocent as the morning dew, to use one of his favorite phrases. Neither Spare14 nor Ari had noticed. Jan, however, quirked an
eyebrow and gave Dad a pointed glance. I decided to change the subject.

“You know,” I said, “I’ve been thinking about what happened to Nuala, the girl who was the Chief’s mistress. You told me that all they found of her was one leg, right? I wonder if the rest of her ended up in a Maculate’s stomach?”

Talk about a successful ploy—the others forgot orbs and looked as sick as I felt. Spare14 cleared his throat several times with a little gulp.

“Good God,” Spare14 said. “I surmised she’d been murdered by a rival gang.” He cleared his throat again. “But it never occurred to me that she might have been eaten.”

Jan went dead pale and wiped sweat from his forehead. Ari appeared utterly unmoved, but I could feel the cold Qi of rage pouring out of him.

“That renegade Maculate with Storm Blue,” I continued, “the one that broke into my LDRS. He must have transport orbs at his disposal. I’m sure he’s the guy we chased off our front steps.”

“Wait,” Ari said. “If he’s a world-walker, and he’s in the gang, why would they need Michael?”

“You don’t have to be a world-walker to use a transport orb,” Dad broke in. “You trigger it by shattering the outer shell.”

For instance, I assumed, by throwing it hard onto a sidewalk.

“Thank you.” Ari nodded his way, then turned back to Spare14. “We can use this. When Hafner finds out what happened to his mistress, no doubt he’ll be willing to help us.”

“A sudden change of heart,” Jan muttered, “about the CBI.”

“Let me think.” Spare14 drummed his fingertips on his desk. “We need to decide how to approach him. Perhaps we should let the rumors circulate before we do. When are you meeting the leader of the BGs—José, isn’t it?”

“Yes, that’s his name,” Ari said. “At three o’clock. Soon, in other words. I agree about waiting to bring in Chief Hafner. For one thing, I don’t think we should try to follow up on the Playland tip till after I’ve spoken to José.”

“I agree, too,” Jan said. “We need all the advance information
we can get before we move into the ruins. Especially if Storm Blue have an ape-hunter in their ranks.” He glanced at me. “You don’t think he’s a professional, do you?”

The memory of the meat locker rose in my mind. What I’d thought were chimp parts might well have been the remains of children. I nearly gagged but steadied my voice. “He could be a pro, yeah. If he is, what do you bet he comes here to hunt? The cops don’t care what happens to people who don’t have money and who do have physical problems. The outcasts, in other words. He can get away with murder.”

“Oh, yes.” Ari’s voice was quiet and steady, but I could pick up his rage. “The helpless always make good victims.”

The psychic atmosphere in the room turned morbid. And Miss Leopard-Thing, then, could sell his kills back at home. No wonder she could afford all those silver chains.

Before we left, Spare14 gave Ari a wad of local currency and a pair of keys to the front door, a compromise, I supposed, to keep him from picking the locks again. I repaired my makeup and put more curl in my hair. I also told Dad to call me Rose, not Nola, and explained why.

“All right.” Dad glanced Ari’s way and made a snorting sound. “My
wild
Irish Rose, eh?”

“I’ve asked her to marry me a hundred times,” Ari said. “In any sort of ceremony she’d like.”

I’d never heard him sound defensive before. It had a certain charm.

Dad turned my way and looked at me with a gimlet eye worthy of Aunt Eileen. “I see that we’ll have to all sit down and discuss this later.”

I felt a dark cloud of lawful wedded doom hovering over me.

Rather than stay in the company of two TWIXT officers, my father came with us when Ari and I went to meet José. Getting to walk down a street with family, being outside without the StopCollar—it was all a grand luxury to him, he told me, even if we were on Interchange.

I was too aware of the Chief’s bounty on Nuala to enjoy anything. Some of the people we passed stared at us openly,
although I realized that most were looking not at me, but at my father’s gray hair. He looked poor, and he was a lifer—not the usual combination in SanFran. Still, every now and then I noticed someone studying me. I could practically hear them drooling at the thought of Chief Hafner’s reward.

We walked over to Mason, then caught a cable car down to Market. We sat on the outside bench and clung to poles like the apes we are. I was painfully aware that I sat between father and boyfriend; occasionally they glanced across me to each other but never smiled. After a few uncomfortable blocks of this, Dad leaned back against the wooden bench and studied the passing view as if he were memorizing it. At the Sutter Street stop, he turned to me.

“About those transport orbs,” Dad said, “it’s Wagner the Fence we’ll be wanting to see—that is, if he’s still in business. His establishment used to be just down the street from Lefty’s.”

“Uh, Dad, you know this guy?”

“I did a bit of business with him years and years ago.” He frowned, thinking. “The old man might well have passed on by now. Well, we’ll see.”

The shop had indeed survived where Dad remembered it.
Wagner and Son, Used Books
filled the ground floor of a soot-stained brick building a few blocks up from Market. A big sheet of orange cellophane covered the front window. Through the orange glow I could see stacks of books, piled any which way on top of a table. A small brass plaque on the door read, “Mitch Wagner, proprietor.”

Before we went in, Ari unbuttoned his denim shirt to reveal the shoulder holster, then held the door for me. It took my eyes a few minutes to adjust to the gloom. Dust motes drifted in the orange light from the window. Strands of cobwebs hung from the ceiling and swayed in the draft from the door. Dad went straight to the back of the store, well, as straight as anyone could walk in there, because books crammed the entire small store, on shelves up to the ceiling, in piles on the floor. Ari followed Dad, but before I could join them, St. Maurice appeared in the crowded aisle.