Fiddleback Trilogy 1 - A Gathering Evil Read online

  "I'm more notorious than I am famous, I am afraid." Her right hand swept up over her head as she tucked hair behind her left ear. "There was a time when I would not have been allowed access to City Center—just like everyone you met today except for Alejandro and, maybe, Hal. Like the others I grew up a Mike . . ."

  "Mike?"

  "Ah, bureaucratspeak. Marginal Income, Knowledge Exiguous, Sterile. MIKES was a classification used by United Nations bureaucrats to classify various populations in the newly freed Eastern Europe in the 1990s. They were the ones that were judged to be able to maintain a minimal existence without government hand-outs, yet their chances for advancement in the society were seen as non-existent. The term has bled over into popular use." She looked toward the people crowding City Center. "To the folks here it retains its original meaning and is something you threaten young, misbehaving children with becoming. The folks in Eclipse, on the other hand, cling to it defiantly. Every time something in their lives improves, they've beaten the margin and take pride in the victory."

  We arrived at the restaurant and removed our shoes at the door. After we put on slippers, we were taken to a low table by a Japanese woman in traditional dress. The tables were cunningly arranged over a pit into which people could put their legs if they could not tolerate kneeling throughout dinner. I put my case down in the leg well and knelt.

  Marit watched me and pouted slightly. "Now we can't play footsie."

  I smiled, but shook my head. "Very poor manners in a fine restaurant like this. You're a big girl, you should be able to behave yourself for a little while."

  "A little while, perhaps. I'll just save it up."

  The waitress came, and we ordered sushi a la carte. Marit also ordered a whisky sour, but I refrained from getting a drink. "Marit, you were saying you grew up a Mike?" I kept my voice low as I asked the question.

  She nodded. "My parents owned a small store at Oak and 36th Street. That's fairly near the Lorica Citadel, so we got some traffic from the Proles working for them. I made it through high school, then someone mentioned that Lorica was hiring candidates for their security forces. I applied and, because of some complicated quota formula put together by Nerys Loring, I was accepted as a cadet. I trained and, after six months, was put on the force. That was five years ago."

  "How did they train you?"

  "Weapons training, both handguns and long guns, unarmed combat, antiterrorist tactics and crowd control. We also took courses in proper manners for parties, how to be discrete, and some very basic detective skills. For the most part we were trained to be seen but not heard, to protect our execs and keep folks from unauthorized access to the citadel."

  "Interesting." As she spoke I cataloged information on the potential threat level of opposition at Lorica. "Still, that's not the sort of duty that's likely to make you infamous."

  She smiled shyly but her blue eyes sparked mischievously through a thin veil of black hair. "No, no, it isn't. I had been with the security force for just over a year when Lorica decided it needed a corporate video to instruct their executives how to act in various security situations. At times the gang wars in Eclipse threaten the citadels, so we wanted our people to know what to do in that sort of emergency. I was picked to be one of the security people in the video."

  She fell silent as the waitress brought our food and her drink. Marit broke apart her chopsticks and rubbed them together to get rid of splinters. I aped her, unknowing if I knew how to use them. As I tried to imitate the way she held them, the chopsticks dropped perfectly into place in my right hand. I picked a single grain of rice from my plate and ate it.

  Marit nodded her appreciation of my dexterity, then continued. "Back in those days, I was not much to look at. My mother belonged to a rather repressive church, so cosmetics and clothes like these were seen as the devil's tools. I guess I'd grown up figuring that I'd meet my Prince Charming when he off-loaded beer flats into my father's store, so I never set about dolling myself up as bait."

  "So Cinderella awaited the cinematic fairy godmother's touch?"

  She smiled. "Ugly Duckling tale from beginning to end. When they got through with me, I couldn't recognize myself in the mirror. All of a sudden I looked beautiful. In shock, I think, I did everything I was told to do on the set and the video became a hit within Lorica. I'm told copies have even showed up in rental shops under 'Action/Adventure—Do It Yourself' headings.

  "That video brought me to the attention of the marketing department in Lorica. All of a sudden I found myself shucked out of flak-suits and stuffed into slinky gowns so I could 'smile and point at the product.' An agent found me, and I signed a modeling contract, though Lorica hired me exclusively. Suddenly I found myself one of the Nomenklatura."

  "A gnome." I spread some wasabeon tekka-maki and smiled. "Such success leads me to find your spending time in Eclipse rather odd."

  "Oh, the first year was wonderful. I moved my parents into the Lorica Citadel, and I bought a place of my own. I traveled, I attended parties and even had a couple of bit parts in films shot in Hollyweird. I was on top of the world. I had just turned 20, and I was definitely an enfant terrible." She sipped some green tea. "As they say, 'Pride goeth before a fall.'"

  "Actually, it's 'Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.' Proverbs 16:18."

  My correcting her brought her head up. "You are rather amazing, Mr. Caine." She smiled. "Of course, with that name, why should I be surprised at your quoting the Bible."

  Why, indeed? A man with a killer's name and an assassin's rifle quoting the Bible. Is that irony, or some inside joke I missed until now? "So, how far did you fall? From enfant terrible to enfant perdu?"

  "Not quite that badly, I think. A highly placed Lorica executive decided that since Lorica owned my contract, they owned me. When he tried to press his claim, he discovered that Lorica's security training is very effective. I broke his perfect smile and severely dented his self-image. His wife made his life a living hell after that and her mother, a substantial stockholder, made Lorica get rid of me. News of a scandal was leaked to the tabloids, and they managed to wedge it onto the front pages between stories about UFO baby-eaters and a man who impregnated his grandmother to give his father the brother he never had."

  "That sounds horrible."

  "It was, for a while. My agent got me some work in Japan, so I lived over there for a year. When I returned here everything seemed smoothed over, but there were still ripples. Through friends of a friend I met Rock and bought a handgun. Rock introduced me into Coyote's circle and I, in turn, was able to get a number of people to patronize Alejandro's gallery down on Seven. It's part of the Mercado."

  "I would like to see it at some point." I reached across the table and caressed her left hand. "So, for the past two years, you have given Coyote entrée into the City Center society."

  "More or less. Coyote does not have me introduce him to people. I've only met him twice—and that's if you care to define meeting as talking to a shadow in the middle of a dark warehouse. Most often I get instructions through Jytte or by phone, just like you did today. Coyote generally describes a problem to me and asks if I think there is a gnome who would be willing to help with it."

  "Gnomes would help with a problem in Eclipse?"

  "Sure, if it's presented to them in the right way." She dipped the tip of her index finger in her drink, then licked the liquid off. "Most gnomes are good people, but they are very wrapped up in their lives and careers. With some you appeal to their sense of fairness, especially if you know of a parallel from their own life where they could have used some help. Others get caught up in the delicious danger of dealing with someone from Eclipse. Others act because they want to exact revenge on someone in City Center and the best way they can hurt them is to screw up some sort of power play going down in Eclipse."

  Marit smiled impishly. "I just do my job and collect information, rumors and lies that I funnel to Coyote. Then, when he needs me to do something,
I do it."

  "Like help me?"

  "Exactly."

  I squeezed her hand. "Jytte seems rather different. What is her story?"

  Marit shrugged uncomfortably. "Jytte is very private, but she has told me something. Do you mind if I don't violate her confidence?"

  I shook my head. "I'd be upset if you did. I just want to put her into perspective. She's clearly had body augmentation surgery. I gather it did not go well."

  Marit took a sip from her drink. "Every so often you hear rumors about someone or something that gets tagged with the name Pygmalion."

  "Like the sculptor from Greek mythology."

  "Right. It's said he likes bringing beauty to life. He kidnaps people who are not beautiful and changes them. I think this would be a good thing, if he actually asked the people he worked on if they minded."

  I nodded. "From the job done on Jytte, this Pygmalion could make a great deal of money with his skills."

  "Ah, but that would necessitate two things: his doing what the client wants and his willingness to let his clients leave. Jytte escaped and, in the process, has blanked out much of what she endured at his hands. She has no idea who Pygmalion is. There are other times when a beautiful corpse gets dumped in Drac City or Boxton and Eclipsers just assume it is one of Pygmalion's failures. Most of those are suicides. I guess some folks can't stand being made pets."

  "I can't blame them."

  "Nor can I." Marit smiled. "Jytte is slowly coming to terms with herself, but she feels much more at home with her machines. I can't remember when I last saw her outside the meeting place."

  We spent the rest of the meal eating in relative silence because the tables filled up around us. In many ways I think we would have run out of things to talk about anyway because Marit was better at getting information out of people than she was sharing it. Despite her having been open about what had happened to her, she had been detail-vague, so that I would have had to work hard to attach names with people. I suspected that might be a natural defense mechanism, especially after having been up so far and then having fallen so low, but I also felt Coyote would have encouraged that tendency in her.

  Of course, had the discussion turned to me, it would have ended soon enough. So far in the day I had discovered I could read Japanese, could quote the Bible and had excellent taste in weapons of individual destruction. I doubted those revelations would have made for good table conversation. That went double for my excursion with the Reapers.

  I paid the bill and tipped well, but left the money on Marit's side of the table so the waitress would remember her and not the boy-toy escort she'd had. Marit noticed what I had done and laughed loudly enough to draw attention to herself, and that triggered a host of whispers that covered me with anonymity as we left the restaurant.

  Marit led me all the way around the mall to the elevator bays between the Goddard Towers. One stood not as tall as the other and she, naturally, pressed the button for the larger, grander of the pair. "Where are we going now?"

  "You'll see."

  A bit uneasy about venturing off to a mystery destination, I let myself take solace in the fact that in the briefcase I had enough hardware to hold off almost anything this side of a heavy weapons squad of security guards. As the elevator doors closed, Marit inserted a coded card into a slot on the wall.

  "27th floor selected. Thank you, Ms. Fisk," the elevator intoned.

  "Cute."

  She smiled. "It gets better."

  She was right. The elevator took off swiftly enough to put a bend in my knees. "Thanks for the warning."

  "De nada."

  As we reached the 27th floor, the back of the elevator opened, and we stepped into another box. Marit pushed the "Close Door" button. The cage shut itself up, then sent us hurtling along sideways. It eventually slowed and moved to the left before stopping. When it did, the front of the cage opened up, revealing the foyer of a sprawling apartment.

  "Welcome to my home."

  I stepped from the transversor box, and the doors clicked shut behind me. The foyer, which was easily the size of Estefan's living room, opened on to a living room and dining area that could have accommodated his whole house. The wall I faced, which looked out to the south, had a full view of the Sumitomo-Dial corporate citadel and, beyond it, to South Mountain Park. With nightfall all I could see was the black outline of the mountain against the stars and the red beacons atop the broadcasting towers there.

  The rooms themselves looked like layouts from a home decorating magazine. The living room featured white leather couches and chairs, with glass tables and track lighting arranged to illuminate the abstract pictures hanging on the walls. The dining room was a bit more traditional with a cherrywood table and matching chairs that were so polished they all but glowed. A hutch and some smaller wooden pieces contained crystal and china. A gold-and-crystal chandelier hung over the middle of the table, ready to impale the bowl of fruit that served as a centerpiece.

  Marit pointed to the right and the shorter half of her apartment. "That way is the kitchen. Anything you can find in there you can eat. I don't really know what I have, but Juanita and Anna never seem to complain about the food when they are here during the days."

  Pointing off in the other direction she indicated the doors on the right side of the long paneled hallway. "Those are the guest bedroom, my office and my media room. At the end of the hall is the master bedroom. The doorway on the left is the guest bathroom."

  I frowned and set my briefcase by the wall. "I don't see the things we bought earlier."

  Marit thought for a second, then shrugged. "Roger probably had one of his boys hang the suits in a closet and put the other clothes away for you. We might have given Roger the wrong impression." Her smile slowly grew. "Of course, we do have to figure out where you are going to stay tonight."

  I don't think I'd been making any assumptions, but that question had never occurred to me. Clearly going back to the hotel was as potentially dangerous as retrieving my car—perhaps more so after Paul Gray died trying to kill me. Similarly, returning to Estefan's home would be unwise. Not only would it put him in jeopardy, but it would make me easy to find again. Estefan might like Coyote and feel that he owed him, but that did not mean his neighbors had not seen me or could keep their mouths shut if they had.

  "The hotel and Estefan's place are out." I looked down angrily. "And, without credit cards, all the money in the world will not get me a hotel room."

  Marit shook her head. "You misunderstood me. I always assumed you would spend the night here. I was just trying to determine if you would have the guest room all to yourself or, if, perhaps, you felt adventurous."

  I raised an eyebrow. "Do you mean, Ms. Fisk, you would give me the master bedroom?"

  She came to me and slid her hands up over my chest and around my neck. "I could do that or you can consider this: You can remember, what, the past 48 hours?"

  I brushed her lips with mine. "Approximately."

  "And during all that time people have been trying to kill you?"

  "It seems that way."

  She slipped my jacket off and let it fall to the floor. "Then why don't we spend time tonight ensuring that tomorrow, when you think back on your life, you will have something to smile about."

  Awakening in a dark typhoon, with its deafening winds shrieking, is not a pleasant experience. I sat bolt upright in the bed, clawing the sheets with my right hand to find Marit, but she was gone. Sweat poured off me as if it were blood and my throat had been cut. I tried to swing my legs off the bed, but I met resistance. As I looked down I saw the lower half of my body had been wrapped in a gray silk cocoon.

  When the wind's howls changed from sound so keenly sharp that it made my teeth buzz to colors no less painful or vibrant, I realized I was dreaming. Even so, the knowledge that I was trapped in a dream did not drain the fantasy of its power. Instead the rainbow winds became a vortex that focused itself beyond the window looking east and eclipsed the dawning sun. T
he whirlwind flashed with crimson and a neon green, then pulsating, electric-blue tendrils climbed up through it like ivy assaulting a wall.

  I hate dreams and always have because here my mind creates problems it knows I cannot solve. It confronts me with situations I would avoid. Like an ancient oracle, it poses riddles that it calls answers, then leaves me to agonize over meanings that are trivial at best and drawn from experiences I do not really remember.

  Dreams drain off the mental strain that would drive the sane mad.

  This dream, however, was different, and I recognized it instantly. While it did not surprise me that I might feel this dream alien, given its womb was made of memories I had no way to access, I felt this dream came from outside. This was not a dream of my making, yet it imposed itself on me and used the symbolism I would use. Like a cancer, it masked itself in things I recognized so I could not escape it.