Scorch City Page 11

  Westermann blinked. He couldn’t get Deyna out of his mind, trying to figure out why he was here, what it meant. He wasn’t focused on what he was doing, feeling his arms push Stanic hard in the back. Stanic, unable to pad his fall with his arms behind his back, fell hard on his face.

  “Shit.”

  “You feel like talking now?”

  “The girl, she had sores on her?” Stanic’s voice was up an octave in panic.

  Westermann lifted Stanic’s chin off the street with the toe of his boot.

  He saw Grip looking over, worried for once. Westermann knew he wasn’t a natural with the hard stuff; had no sense for it. He knew Grip had seen this before, Westermann either going too soft or, like now, going too hard; or at least too hard for out here in the middle of the street.

  “Lieut, there’s people watching out from their windows.”

  Westermann pulled his foot from under Stanic’s chin, which dropped to the pavement. Grip walked over.

  “You got a name for us?” Grip asked.

  “Lenore.”

  “Lenore got a last name?”

  “I don’t know. Lenore. It’s probably not even her real name. Shit. But it must have been her, all sick and with those sores. Haven’t seen her in a few days.”

  The girl, moonlit, turning slowly in the current as she floats downstream.

  Lenore, moonlit, gently turning in the current as she floats downstream.

  Grip knelt down so that his face was closer to Stanic’s. He noticed the blood running from Stanic’s nose and lips. “Lenore got a place?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Okay. I’m going to help you up and then you’re going to take us there. Got it? Or the lieut gets another pop at you.”

  “Yeah, I got it,” Stanic said, resigned. “I’ll take you there.”

  30.

  Moses Winston couldn’t see the crowd—the stage lights hit him in the eyes, everyone behind the lights was invisible—but he could hear them and he could feel them, the place shaking. He had his head tilted back, squinting against the sweat flowing into his eyes. Behind him, a fat white cat played a stand-up bass. The guy had shown up with his instrument earlier; asked if he could back Winston up. Winston had said, “Show me,” and damned if the cracker didn’t play a hell of a bass. Winston didn’t change it up for the bassist, just playing like hell. But the cat went with it. No problems.

  They’d smoked some mesca back in the alley. There must have been something in it or it was some kind he hadn’t smoked before, because his thoughts seemed to fray, even as he played. He closed his eyes and saw a newsreel he’d caught at a picture show years ago: bombs exploding one after another somewhere in Germany, the perspective from above, in an airplane. He played in rhythm to the bombs in his head, each pick of a string another detonation. He was playing the music of violence, of destruction. He played different kinds of music: desire, violence, despair, pain. He played devotion sometimes when he was playing at a church or, lately, the Community. Tonight there were explosions in his head and he broadcast them into the world with his guitar.

  Winston didn’t see Cephus giving him the signal to end the set, so the bassist gave him a little tap on the shoulder and Winston stopped almost immediately. The cheering came to him as an almost physical thing; a wave of sound. The stage lights were dimmed and the house lights turned up and the crowd was suddenly visible. Winston gazed out over the faces, Negro and white intermixed. Each face seemed to stand out to him through the smoke, though one more than the rest. His breathing went shallow. He heard the bassist behind him, saying his name. He turned away from the crowd, felt some of the tension ease.

  The bassist said, “Look over there at the bar. You see that guy, nice clothes, between those two lookers?”

  Winston took in the bar, letting his eyes glide down the people sitting there, until he thought he saw the right cat.

  “Negro, got some salt in his hair?”

  “That’s right. You know who he is?”

  Winston shook his head, still staring at the man as he talked to one of the ladies sitting next to him.

  “That’s Floyd Christian, Moses. He owns the Palace. You heard of it?”

  Winston had heard of the Palace from other musicians. It was the pinnacle of the City’s Negro music scene. Yeah, he’d heard of it—his destination, eventually. He was confident of that.

  The bassist continued, “He’s here to see you, Moses. Word about you is spreading around. If he likes what he sees, you could be playing the Palace this time tomorrow.”

  “You think he likes what he sees so far?” Winston asked. But he knew the answer. He’d had cats like Christian catch his act before and they never left disappointed.

  “You joking?” the bassist said.

  They were silent for a moment; the question unspoken.

  The bassist said, “You don’t need me at the Palace. You need to do for yourself.”

  Winston nodded, shook the bassist’s hand. He felt the man’s respect and returned it.

  The bassist said, “Cephus is going to try to talk you out of leaving, maybe say some shit about the Palace. Don’t listen to him.”

  Winston looked at Cephus behind the bar, slinging drinks, his face like a goddamn tomato.

  “Hey,” the bassist said, stepping down from the stage to get a drink. “Looks like you got a friend wants to talk to you.”

  Winston turned and saw a huge cracker with a blond army cut and a scar on his upper lip. Lenore had pointed him out one time on the street. Koss. Winston had remembered that, thinking if someone mentioned that name, he’d want to know they were talking about this enormous man with the leopard tattoo.

  He walked to the edge of the stage, knelt down so that his face was closer to Koss’s. Too loud to hear otherwise.

  “Can I help you with something?”

  “Yeah, I think you can,” Koss said.

  “Okay.”

  “You seen Lenore lately, Moses?”

  Winston felt the chill. “No,” and cut himself off before he said sir, a habit he was trying to break.

  “I think maybe you did about a week ago. Am I right about that?”

  Winston stared at him, too high to really feel the impact the words.

  Koss kept on. “But you haven’t seen her since, have you?”

  Winston had nothing to say.

  “I’ve seen her, though. Keep that in mind.”

  Koss walked away with a grin. Winston shook his head, wondering if that really hadn’t made sense, or if it was the mesca. He looked up and lost himself in the sea of faces.

  31.

  Frings sat at a table in the back of the Cairo, sipping a whiskey on the rocks and chatting with a gink named William Ebanks, a Bohemian of sorts. Up front, Renate, decked in a long, tight emerald dress, sang a seductive number in Portuguese. Frings sat in the back to avoid her notice. She hadn’t been home in a week. He didn’t want to talk to her, just enjoy the music and talk with Ebanks.

  The Cairo was run by a private club called the Pharaohs that occupied the building next door. Ebanks was a third-generation Pharaoh, a guy whose bohemianism was supported by family wealth. As far as Frings knew, Ebanks had never worked a day in his life, though he seemed to collect a new academic degree every few years.

  They’d smoked a reefer earlier in the Pharaoh’s library, an imitation of a London gentlemen’s club library, Frings thought, with dark, floor-to-ceiling bookshelves holding leather-bound books; well-padded chairs; and heavily shaded table lamps. Ebanks had long since failed to shock the other Pharaoh members with his open marijuana use, now considered a club eccentricity along with Fitz Dalgliesh’s extended and intense conversations with empty chairs and ancient Hamish Strachan’s habit of arriving for dinner from his upstairs room without some essential piece of clothing.

  Ebanks knew of Renate’s affairs, but was not the type to bring it up.

  Frings asked, “You ever been down to the Uhuru Community, Bill?”

  E
banks smiled broadly, widened his eyes, and raised his eyebrows—a signature expression. “But of course. Wherever there is a chance to sample something unusual, Frank, I explore.”

  “What’d you think?”

  “What, the shantytown?”

  “That’s right.”

  Ebanks shook his head. “Poverty, Frank. You wonder how a place like that is ever going to rise above it. What kind of hope is there for those people?”

  “Did you go in alone?”

  “No. I had a chum—a Negro—who went with me. Not a big deal, but we kept our eyes open. Why do you ask?”

  “I went in today. It’s an interesting place.”

  “No doubt about that. Interesting cats there, interesting reefer, but a little spooky, too. Did you pick up on that, the weird Caribbean vibe—like voodoo or something?”

  Frings had picked up on something in the shanties, putting it down to the poverty and the foreign roots of most of the people. Ebanks had traveled, though, and if he found it weird, maybe there was something to it.

  Renate’s set ended and, along with it, talk of the Uhuru Community. The conversation drifted. Another reefer appeared from Ebanks’s jacket pocket and they passed it back and forth while Ebanks enthusiastically related his recent interest in Buddhism, his discovery of a guitarist who was tearing up the Checkerboard, and some hash he’d tried a couple of weeks ago.

  Frings listened and watched Renate talking with a couple of her musicians onstage, experiencing that weird feeling he sometimes had after smoking reefer, that distance from people he wasn’t actually interacting with. His nights with her seemed a vague memory.

  “Listen, Bill, are you going to donate any money to the mayor’s campaign?”

  Ebanks laughed. “That fascist?”

  “He’s hardly a fascist.” Ebanks’s politics were strange, but mostly revolved around his being able to do whatever the hell he wanted without any hassle. Anything that got in the way was “fascism.” “You’ve got a problem with him, wait until you see Vic Truffant.”

  Ebanks rolled his eyes. “Really? Frank, you know that there’s nothing I find more excruciating than politics. I really can’t get too excited about the choice between one fascist and another.”

  Frings sighed, ordered another drink, and talked into the night, knowing that his apartment would be empty when he returned.

  32.

  Joey Stanic lead Grip and Westermann to the flop that Lenore shared with two other prostitutes: two filthy mattresses on the floor, a threadbare couch, broken door to the bathroom.

  “Jesus,” Grip said, pushing Stanic down on one of the mattresses.

  “Where are the other two?” Westermann asked.

  “Better be out on the street,” Stanic mumbled, sulking. A rhythmic pounding sounded from upstairs, as if someone were ramming a pole against the floor again and again. A red neon light flashed across the street, the rhythm not in sync with the pounding above.

  Just then, the bathroom door came open and a young woman walked out, wearing a ragged dress. She looked nervously at Stanic—registering the cuffs—then at Grip and Westermann. She didn’t say anything. The veins in Stanic’s neck shone blue through his skin.

  “What’s your name?” Westermann asked, showing his badge out of courtesy.

  The woman looked to Stanic for guidance.

  “Don’t worry about him,” Grip said. “He knows what’ll happen if he touches you after this.”

  She didn’t seem too sure, but said, “My name is Belle.”

  “Belle,” Westermann said, keeping his voice soft, “I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but Lenore is dead. She was murdered.”

  Belle frowned a little, more, it seemed, because it was expected than because she was upset by this news.

  Westermann and Grip exchanged looks. The pounding continued. The flashing lights. Art Deyna.

  Westermann continued, “Do you have any idea who might have wanted to kill her?”

  Belle looked to Stanic again. Westermann wondered if this was instinctive, getting his permission to talk, or whether he was the first person to come to mind. Westermann didn’t figure Stanic for the murder; didn’t think he was playing it the way a murderer would.

  “No ideas?”

  “Could be anyone,” she said, her voice barely audible.

  “But no one in particular?”

  She shook her head. “She didn’t know anybody. Not really.”

  Westermann moved closer to her, bending a little to make sure they were in eye contact. “Do you know anybody?”

  She frowned.

  “What kind of fucking question is that?” Stanic asked from the bed.

  “Shut the fuck up,” Grip barked at him.

  “Belle, did Lenore have any possessions? Any things?”

  Belle pulled out a drawer from a battered bureau, removed a pile of papers and a book, and handed them to Westermann. Grip came over, standing next to Westermann at an angle where he could also see Stanic. Westermann worked his way down the stack, handing items to Grip: Holy Bible; picture of the Virgin Mary torn from a magazine; handwritten letters in Cyrillic; and, at the bottom, three pamphlets from the Church of Last Days.

  Grip whistled. “What are the odds?”

  “Long.”

  “I guess I know where I’m headed tomorrow.”

  “Let me think on that. Maybe I’ll take that one myself.” Westermann turned to Belle. “Anyone else you know missing? Someone you haven’t seen around?”

  Belle looked confused.

  Stanic said, “Whores are always missing. They come back after a few days with a john or a hop jaunt. They come back.”

  Grip said, “You didn’t hear me last time? Shut it.”

  Stanic made an exasperated noise and Grip was on him, pulling him roughly to his feet by the back of his collar and pushing him hard against the wall. As he unlocked the cuffs, Grip said, “I am going to come by here every few days, asshole, and if I see that anything has happened to Belle here, I don’t care if it’s some john that done it or what, I am going to rip your fucking balls off and make you chew them up. Do you understand?”

  Stanic gave a dismissive laugh. Grip cuffed him on the back of the head and his face hit the wall.

  “Shit,” he said. “Yes. I get it.”

  Westermann handed Belle his card, but was sure she would never contact him; too much to lose. Grip opened the door.

  Stanic said, “Hey, I know how I know you. You’re the guy, your dad’s a lawyer. Big Rolf Westermann. What’re you doing rousting pimps like me?”

  Westermann put his hand in Grip’s chest, keeping him from going after Stanic. “Let’s get out of here. We’re done.”

  The sidewalk still teemed. Grip could feel the tension in the atmosphere rising as people grew increasingly drunk. The police presence was more visible now; cops everywhere. Another consequence of the System—lots of cops in place before the trouble starts. Grip knew plenty of beat cops who hated Westermann—most cops felt the way Wayne did—but Grip fucking loved what the guy had done; it made for better policing. If guys were uncomfortable, fuck them. Shut up and do your goddamn job.

  “So, what do you think?” Westermann asked. Another thing Grip loved about Westermann, always asking and listening; smart enough that he wasn’t defensive about other people having their insights.

  “About the church?”

  “Yeah. Is there any way it could be a coincidence?”

  “I don’t think so. You’re the numbers guy. But, Lieut, I think maybe you’re making this more complicated than it needs to be.”

  “Tell me more.”

  “Well, like I said before, I noticed those currents by the riverbank and me and Morph tested it out to see how stuff floated downstream. And like I said, we found that unless someone carried that girl over to the riverbank to drown her right there, then she must have got pushed in the water over by the Uhuru Community. So now there’s another girl turned up in basically that exact spot, so I f
eel like I was right on that. Two dead girls on the riverbank by the Uhuru Community. Okay, so that’s one connection. The next connection is that this girl, Lenore, and the second girl, they’ve both got some kind of crazy disease, maybe African. Now I don’t know if there’s many Africans in the Community, but you can’t tell me there aren’t any. So that’s connection number two.”

  “So, you’re saying …”

  “I’m not saying anything, but it seems like the place to focus our efforts is the Uhuru Community. This thing about the church of what?”

  “Church of Last Days.”

  “Yeah. It’s interesting; maybe not a coincidence. But against what we’ve got over at the Community, now that we have a second body? We need to check them both out, but the Community’s where the action is. But it’s your call, of course.”

  Westermann thought about this as they walked, balancing the protection of the Community against further arousing Grip’s suspicions. He didn’t see how he could dispute Grip’s argument. “Okay. I’ll think about it. Maybe you and Morphy head over to the Community tomorrow and work that angle. I’ll follow up on the church connection. Like you said, we can’t just leave that alone.”

  Ahead, the next block up, something was happening; a different distribution of bodies; a different pitch to the din. Westermann and Grip sped up to a trot; saw other cops converging ahead of them.

  They pushed their way through a crowd to where there was some room. A space had been cleared by a fight. Two Negroes were facedown on the ground, cops kneeling on them, getting out the cuffs. Two other Negroes, one bleeding above an eye, hovered, breathing hard. Two cops were holding back a group of six white men. They were young, crew-cut. Two had blood on their shirts, another held his hand to his mouth, blood sluicing through his fingers.

  A fire hydrant by the curb was cracked, leaking water in a thin spray. The standing water was lit red by the storefront neon and mixed with blood where the Negroes lay. Westermann heard Grip mumble under his breath.

  “What’s that?”

  Grip nodded over to a group of men, two white men, one fat, one obese, and a powerfully built Negro between them. “See the Negro over there?”