Our Lady of the Ice (7 page)

“Take your hands off that,” Sala said, in a cold, hard voice. Eliana jerked her hand back as a reflex.

“Touchy,” she said, trying to make her voice light.

Sala glared at her and sucked hard on his cigarette, the ember flaring. Then he jammed it into the half-f ashtray. Beads of sweat shone on his forehead, jeweled in the red lights.

It was warm in here. Rich-man warm. But Eliana could tell that wasn’t why Sala was sweating. The guy had no idea what he was doing.

“Must be important,” she said, leaning back, toying with the end of a lock of her hair. “To get you so worked up.”

“It’s nothing.” Sala lit another cigarette. He kept glancing nervously around the dining room. Eliana wondered if he had a gun. She hoped he didn’t. Because she was about to do something very stupid.

The music was still carrying on in the background. The girl was still dancing. It was an old song. Eliana remembered her mother listening to it, dancing around the living room alone. It was after Eliana’s father had died, around the time when her mother went to work at one of the atomic power plants. Her mother had hated that, making energy for the mainland when she couldn’t afford to return there herself.

“I’m really not interested,” Sala said, not looking at her.

“That’s really too bad,” Eliana told him, and then, before she had a chance to think about it, she shot her arm out and grabbed the envelope out from his hand. He resisted. Sala’s eyes widened and burned with anger.

“What the—”

Eliana used up all her strength to rip it away from him, and then she ran. She tore through the dining room, music pounding in her ears, hoping she hadn’t torn whatever was inside the envelope. Sala shouted something. The businessman looked up at her, bored, and then she was in the entranceway, and then she was outside, the dome lights blinding.

“Get back here, you fucking bitch!”

Sala. Eliana whirled around, caught sight of him in the doorway. His hands were empty. No gun.

She shoved the envelope into her coat and ran, down the side street and out into the open bustle of the docks. Sala was still shouting behind her. People stopped, looked at her, looked at him. She ignored them. She just kept running.

Mr. Vasquez had taught her, when he’d first made her his assistant instead of just his secretary, that she needed to learn how to run and she needed to learn how to shoot. She’d never really learned the latter. But running came easily to her, even in her pumps and stockings, and it wasn’t long before she’d made it to the supply market, a few blocks from her car.

She collapsed onto a bench beside a fish vendor and sucked in air. White dots of light kept flashing in her vision, but the more she breathed, the more sporadic they became until they disappeared. Sala wasn’t anywhere in sight. She’d lost him.

Eliana reached into her coat. Pulled out the envelope. She undid the fastener and slid out the contents—not enough to read, but enough to check. Looked official, whatever it was. Parchment paper, rows of smudgy boxes filled with off-center typing, like a birth certificate.

Weird.

She slid the document back into place. Fastened the envelope.
The fish vendors were shouting at each other, swapping dirty jokes and roaring with laughter. Eliana set her purse in her lap, dropped her hand inside. She still expected Sala to appear out of the crowd, but he never did.

And when she was sure it was safe, she walked to her car, and then she drove back to the smokestack district.

CHAPTER FIVE

DIEGO

Diego was down at the Loro, sharking the pool tables while he waited for Garcia to show up with Batista Almeida’s money. The bartender had the radio on, tuned to a news station; the newsman was going on about the electrical troubles that had been plaguing the city the last few days. That was the phrase they used—“electrical troubles.” Everybody Diego knew was calling it what it was: blackout. The lights had been growing dimmer and dimmer, and flickering sometimes. You’d hear the hum of a heater, and then, for two or three seconds, you wouldn’t.

The news was blaming it all on the
AFF
, of course. Probably got their information from the city. The city was always blaming the
AFF
or the robots for their own damn problems.

Diego was in the middle of a thirty-dollar hustle when one of Mr. Cabrera’s robots showed up, sliding in through the maintenance hatch next to the jukebox. The guy Diego was scamming, some poor lost soul from Madrid, saw it first, jerking his head up and then missing his shot by a mile.

“The hell?” he asked.

Diego looked over his shoulder and scowled when he saw the robot. One of the newer ones, egg-shaped and covered in lines
of lights. Its shell had been carved up with that flower from the Florencia’s sign. Mr. Cabrera left his calling card on anything he could.

The lights glowed green. It had a message.

“What the fuck is that doing in here?” the Spanish man asked.

“They come in sometimes.” Diego leaned his pool cue against the table. “Excuse me.”

He walked away. The robot whirred behind him. Diego could feel the Spanish man watching after them both, but Diego knew better than to finish up the game if Mr. Cabrera was waiting.

“Hey!” the Spanish man yelled as Diego pulled open the door leading outside. “Where are you going?”

Diego ignored him. He went out onto the street, the robot tagging along like a puppy. This part of town, the streets stayed empty, even during the day.

“I’m waiting for Garcia,” Diego said.

The lights on the robot’s back flickered.

Diego sighed, rolled his eyes. “Come on.” He led the robot down the street a couple of blocks until he found an alley where no one would bother them.

“All right, you little asshole,” he said. “Show me what you’ve got.”

The lights flickered again. The damn thing wanted authentication.
Jesus.
This wasn’t going to be anything Diego wanted to hear.

He pressed his palm against the robot’s sensor. A pause, then the lights went blue, and the robot spoke in Mr. Cabrera’s voice.

“Are you alone?”

“Yeah, man, I’m alone.”

The robot stalled out, lights flickering again. It didn’t like his answer.

“Yes,” Diego said, all proper like he was talking to Mr. Cabrera himself.

The lights went still. “I need you to come to the Florencia as soon as you get this. Not as soon as you’re able. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Confirm you got the message.”

Diego kicked at the gravel in the alley. Garcia was going to be
fucking pissed, showing up at the Loro without a contact. No way to say that to the robot, though. It only understood two things: “Yes” and everything else, which pretty much amounted to “no.”

“Yes,” Diego said.

The robot didn’t move, and for a minute Diego thought he might have answered wrong. But then with a click and a whir it shot straight up in the air and disappeared into the dome lights. Dim, of course, dimmer than they ought to be.

As soon as you get this.

The Florencia wasn’t far from here, maybe twenty minutes on the train. He left the alley, heading for the closest station. It never occurred to him not to.

Mr. Cabrera asked him to show up, he showed up. The man had seen something in him when he was a little kid—a hardness, he’d told Diego once, a strength that the other kids lacked. And so Mr. Cabrera had dragged him out of the streets. He’d saved Diego’s life. Coming when he was called was the least Diego could do.

*  *  *  *

The Florencia’s
CLOSED
sign was blinking in the window when Diego got there, washed out by daytime lights. Mr. Cabrera closed the Florencia sometimes in the afternoon. He liked having the cooks make a special lunchtime steak just for him.

Diego banged on the front door of the Florencia until Mateo answered, his pale, thin face set into his usually snooty frown. “You’re late,” he said.

“I was at the Loro, doing my fucking job. Let me in.”

Mateo sneered, but he pulled the door open. The Florencia was eerie when it was all shut down like this, no afternoon regulars smoking cigarettes while the girls danced onstage.

“Making you stick around, huh?” Diego asked as he sauntered in. The stage lights were still on, he noticed, that dark murky blue that was supposed to make the girls look their best.

“Someone had to be here to let you in.” Mateo slunk back over to his place at the podium. A stack of menus sat waiting for the evening crowd.

“He’s back in the office,” Mateo added.

Diego didn’t answer, just made his way first through the dining room and then through the swinging doors that led into the narrow hallway that took you out to the docks. Mr. Cabrera’s office was the first door on the left. Diego knocked once to be polite and then went in.

“I got your message,” he said.

Mr. Cabrera was at his desk, smoking a cigarette with slow, considered movements. A record played in the background, some jazzy number Diego didn’t recognize.

“Good afternoon, Diego,” Mr. Cabrera said. “I trust it’s been going well?”

“Sure.” Diego lingered in the doorway. It was funny, how Mr. Cabrera could make him nervous like that.

“I’m sorry I had to call you away from the Loro,” Mr. Cabrera said. “But I have a job for you.”

“Yeah?” he said.

“Sit, sit.” Mr. Cabrera gestured with his cigarette, the pale smoke drifting in thick lines through the room.

Diego’s skin was already crawling, but he couldn’t let Mr. Cabrera know that. Showing Mr. Cabrera his weaknesses always made him feel like an orphan again, like Mr. Cabrera would decide he didn’t want to take Diego in after all.

He sat.

“I had a meeting today,” Mr. Cabrera said. “With a little weasel of a man. An engineer from the city.”

“That so?”

“It is indeed, Diego. He’d been trying to get in contact with me since yesterday, in fact, claiming he had something that could destroy an old acquaintance of mine.”

Diego shifted in his seat, waiting. He wondered how involved this job was going to be.

“You know who that acquaintance is, Diego?”

“No, sir,” said Diego, “I don’t.”

A pause. Mr. Cabrera breathed in his cigarette smoke.

“Marianella Luna,” he said.

Oh.
Her.
Mr. Cabrera’d had it out for her ever since her husband
had passed six months ago. She’d taken up with Ortiz and his ag domes, a little scheme that threatened Mr. Cabrera’s whole wintertime smuggling enterprise.

“You finally ready to take care of her?” Diego fucking hoped not. Too high-profile, and he hated that kind of work.

“No.” The answer was slow to come. Considered. “At least not at this juncture.”

At least not ever, Diego hoped.

“No, your target is the man I was supposed to meet with this afternoon. He’d promised me a way to remove Lady Luna from the equation, without the risks of our—usual methods.”

Just come out and say it,
Diego thought, feeling hollow.
Killing people.

“Unfortunately, he showed up for our meeting empty-handed. The story he gave me was elaborately far-fetched—he claimed one of my call girls ran off with his proof.” Mr. Cabrera laughed. “Suggested I search the whorehouses. I did, but we didn’t turn anything up.”

“Proof of what?” Diego asked.

“Come again?”

“You said the girl ran off with his proof. What was it for?”

“I’ve no idea, which is what I need you for. He refuses to tell me outright—wants the reward for his effort, I suppose. The man’s a complete idiot. Too used to dealing with city bureaucrats. But I’m sure with a bit of your persuasive techniques he’ll give up the information easily enough.”

“Why would a whore steal proof from him?”

“Feeling chatty today, Diego?”

Diego shrugged.

“I doubt any of my girls was involved at all. Who knows what the man was playing at, but it didn’t work. Which is why he needs to be punished. No one toys with me like that.”

That was really what this was about, Diego knew. Not just getting the information from some city engineer. Mr. Cabrera was big into honor and vengeance and punishing the stupid. It was a code Diego had learned after Mr. Cabrera had taken him in, but not one he’d ever completely understood.

Mr. Cabrera rummaged through his desk drawers and pulled out a piece of paper that had been folded over three times. He handed it to Diego, and Diego opened it up. It was an address.

“He lives there. I don’t know if he has a family or not.”

Diego didn’t say anything.

“I don’t need him dead, but I’d like the information before sunup tomorrow. Do whatever you feel is necessary to get it.”

Diego folded the paper as small as he could make it and then slipped it into his wallet. “Sure,” he said. Then, “And his name? Just to make sure I got the right guy.”

“Oh, of course.” Mr. Cabrera smiled. “Sala. Pablo Sala.” He stood up, and Diego did the same. They shook hands. Always the businessman, Mr. Cabrera was.

“Feel free to take one of the cars,” Mr. Cabrera said. “You know you’re one of the few men I trust with them.”

And Diego couldn’t help himself, hearing that. He smiled.

*  *  *  *

The dome lights were dim by the time Diego arrived at Sala’s house, despite it being the middle of the afternoon. A boon for Diego, since darkness made him seem more sinister, which got the mark talking faster. About the only benefit to these blackouts.

The houses cast long shadows across the patchwork yards. Diego drove past Sala’s house and then parked half a block down. His gun was a weight in its holster.

Get in, get it over with.

The houses all seemed abandoned, their doors and windows shut tight. Diego walked up to Sala’s front door. Rang the doorbell.

A minute passed. Another. Diego shifted his weight, started looking for ways to break in. Maybe Sala wasn’t here. That was always easier anyway, hiding out in the dining room until they got back home.

The door creaked open.

“Yes?”

“You Pablo Sala?”

The man in the doorway blinked, his eyes round and enormous behind his glasses. “Yes,” he said. “Who are you?”

“I work for Mr. Cabrera.” Diego smiled, although he didn’t do it to look friendly. “Sent me to get some information out of you.”

“Oh, well, I don’t—”

“You mind if I come in? It’s fucking freezing out here.”

“I guess—”

Diego pushed through the doorway. Sala turned and stared at him. Diego pulled the door shut. Flexed the fingers in his right hand.

Sala took a step back. “Look,” he said. “I’m not ready to meet with him yet. I’ve got to get the documents back first, okay? Some little bitch stole them—”

Diego lashed out at Sala and hit him square in the chest. Sala went flying backward and hit the floor hard.

“He doesn’t give a damn about your documents,” Diego said. “Just tell me what was on them.”

Sala scrambled backward. “I told him to search—”

“He didn’t find anything.”

Sala’s face darkened, and Diego kicked him in the side. Not too hard, not enough to do any permanent damage, but enough to hurt. Sala gave a yelp of pain and curled in on himself.

“He wants to know what’s in the documents.” Diego pulled out his gun. “He thinks you’re wasting his time.” And then he dropped down to his knees and slammed the gun across Sala’s face, hard enough that Sala’s nose cracked and blood gushed over his mouth.

“I’m not, I swear!” Sala tried to squirm away, but Diego pinned him down. Sala’s eyes were wide with fear, but his voice didn’t tremble when he spoke. “I’m not stupid. I want credit for this. I put my job on the line. Does Cabrera really think he’s the only one who has thugs in this town? If Alejo Ortiz found out—”

Diego paused, ready to hit Sala again. “The councilman? The guy from the commercials?”

“Yes!” Sala fumed. “But I’m not telling you any more, Mr.—”

Diego struck him rather than offer a name.

Sala bucked against the floor. “I can get the proof again,” he gasped. A few drops of blood sprayed across Diego’s face. “She wouldn’t let them go missing this long, no way in hell. Probably paid off the girl who stole them from me.” Sala pushed himself up
to sitting. His arms trembled. Diego watched with that cold detachment he’d cultivated over the years. It wasn’t something that Mr. Cabrera’d had to teach him either—that, he’d learned as a child, scrabbling for his survival.

“That’s why you couldn’t find them,” Sala said, peering up at Diego, his eyes already turning dark and swollen. “The girl’d taken them over to her.”

“None of Mr. Cabrera’s girls would do that. They’re loyal.”

Sala laughed. Blood oozed between his teeth. “So maybe it wasn’t one of his girls. Maybe it was someone pretending, ever think of that? I bet some detective sent his secretary after me. Tell him to shake down the
PI
firms.”

Diego’s heart stopped beating. He took a step toward Sala.

“What?” he said.

“The girl who ran off with the proof!” Sala rubbed at his temple. “God, I should have seen it earlier. Marianella
hired
someone—”

“What’d she look like?” Diego wrapped his hand around the gun’s grip. Properly. The way you grip a gun for shooting. His thoughts whirred in panic. “The girl who ran off with your proof?”

“Why does it matter?” Blood gleamed on Sala’s face. “I told you, just go to the
PI
firms—”

“It matters.”

“I don’t kn-know,” he stuttered. “Young. Good-looking. She was wearing red lipstick.”

Diego thought about waking up in Eliana’s bed after a night out, his face and neck smeared with red. Red on the pillows and the sheets.