Irregular Verbs (9 page)

She nodded again, two quick jerks.

I took a step towards the door, paused. “Before we go—do you have a copy of the Lotus Sutra, the 1903 British Buddhist Society edition with the missing line on the fifth page?”

“I don’t think so,” she said, throwing a glance at the pile of books on the floor. “Is it important?”

“Probably not.” The door jingled as I opened it for her, and I threw a quick glance left and right before stepping outside.

The lights were on at Falcone’s, neon dancers flickering onto the sad sacks slouched around the door. When the engine cut I opened the door, turned to Zoe. “You coming?”

She frowned. “I thought you wanted me to stay here.”

“Right. Sure, I forgot.” I got out of the car, fixed my gaze on the bouncer at the door to the club. “If I’m not back in twenty minutes send a rescue party.”

“Don’t you carry a gun?” she asked.

I shook my head. “Bad karma.” I shut the car door behind me, cut into the line right in front of the bouncer. He wasn’t that big a guy, an inch or so shorter than a grizzly bear.

Somehow without taking a step he filled the space between me and the door. “There’s a cover.”

“I’m not here for the floor show,” I said. “I need to see Falcone.”

“What’s your name?” he asked. I told him, and he flipped through a little pad that he held in his left hand. “Not on the list,” he said.

“I understand,” I said. “But I need to see Falcone. He’ll be sorry if he misses me.”

The bouncer nodded slowly, then brought his right hand up in a fist against my jaw. Somebody somewhere was uncorking a bottle of champagne. “I don’t think so,” he said.

I took a step back, stopped myself. “Okay,” I said, stepping back up to the bouncer. “But I need to see Falcone.”

“No,” the bouncer said. He put his hand on my chest, flat, and pushed. When he saw I wasn’t going anywhere he swung back and socked me in the stomach. “No,” he repeated.

A cough flew out of me, spattering blood in his direction. I straightened up, kept my hands at my sides. “I need to see Falcone,” I said, my voice a bit slurred.

He drew his fist back, and I flinched. He paused. “You gonna swing back?” he asked. I shook my head. “You one of those guys who likes getting beaten on?”

I shook my head again, regretted it. “I need to see Falcone,” I said again.

A look crossed his face, pity or maybe disgust. His fist was still drawn back, but his posture had gone slack. After a minute he shook his head slowly, stepped aside. “Go in, then,” he said. “You tell Falcone those lumps were from me.”

“Sure,” I said. “Thanks for the comp.” The way my jaw was rattling, though, I don’t know if he understood me.

Falcone’s was a classy place, the kind where they spray the girls with a mister instead of just letting them sweat. Nina Simone was on the speakers, singing “Please Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood” good and slow, and there was a girl at each end of the T-shaped stage following her rhythm. It was a little bit like the Stations of the Cross: you could get up and walk from clothed to undies to nude if you didn’t feel like waiting.

I let my gaze drift from the stage and looked around the room. It was full of the same guys I had seen outside, slouched and embarrassed. They sat at the stage if they could, or else close to it, staring at the girls without blinking. A few of them chatted up the waitresses, dancers on their off-shifts, and every now and then one would slip the girl a bill and the two would vanish up the back stairs.

Fratelli Falcone was sitting at a table near the back. Unlike his customers he faced away from the stage: he knew the dancers were there. A girl sat on either side of him. One of them was buttoned up in a shirt, jacket and tie, like a Catholic schoolgirl. The other was dressed about the same but the effect was different, with the tie loosened, the shirt halfway undone and the skirt about six inches further north.

“Buddy,” Falcone said, spreading his arms wide as I came near him. He had a sharp face, with a nose you could use to climb mountains. A walking stick leaned against his knee and he wore a brown cape with a fringe like feathers. “So long since we’ve seen you.”

I looked at one girl then the other, and finally tried to stare Falcone in the face. “Not my scene anymore,” I said.

“Oh? And what are you into now?”

I raised my hand to my still-aching jaw. “Being beaten up,” I said, “but to tell you the truth I’m getting tired of it. So how about we get right to business: what does the name Roger Adams say to you?”

Falcone gave a slow, wide shake of the head, taking in a good look at each girl. “That is not a name I know,” he said. His voice was oilier than the grill at the Jackal’s. “Buddy my friend, I think you have been working too hard. How would you find a visit to the Champagne Room? On the house of course.”

Despite myself I looked at the two girls: the first looked away demurely, while the second locked eyes with me and ran her tongue across her lips. I shook my head. “Another time,” I said.

“These are my best girls, Buddy,” Falcone said. He sounded disappointed. “It’s never just business to them, they are very talented at making it seem natural.” He took his hand off the girl to his right and waved it in the air, looking for the right word. “Genuine.”

“Is that what happened to Roger?” I asked. “Did he get too tight with one of these girls? Is that what he can’t let go?”

“Please, Buddy. You know as well as I that, in my business, discretion is—”

Before he could finish speaking his eyes went wide. I congrat-ulated myself for watching them, instead of the many more interesting things in the room: they gave me just enough warning to dive out of the way. Falcone had a few more seconds than I did but nowhere to go, and when the shot came a big red splotch opened up on his chest.

I prayed the shooter was as distracted as I was and turned around, staying low. He was in the doorway, a dark shape in a long coat and hat turning away.

“Hey!” I shouted. “You’re gonna shoot me, make it stick!”

He didn’t slow. Swearing under my breath I stood up, checked on Falcone. He was dead. His two girls were comforting each other, and it took me a minute before I remembered why I had come.

To my relief Zoe was still in the car. She looked startled when I opened the door. “What happened to you?” she asked.

“Which part?” I asked.

She reached her hand up to my cheek and I flinched. “You might have cracked your jaw,” she said.

“Why don’t you kiss it better?” I said, sitting down next to her.

She smiled and gave me a kiss. It was just a peck on the cheek, but you would never confuse it with the kiss you’d get from your grandmother. “So where to now, shamus?”

I shook my head. “You go home,” I said. “I don’t know whether that guy was gunning for me or Falcone, but now I know he wasn’t after you. Better you go where it’s safe.”

“I can’t stand the thought of re-shelving all those books,” she said. “Besides, you need a driver. You’re in no condition to walk.”

I mulled it over for a minute. “Okay,” I said. “You know how to get to One Padmasambhava Place?”

“City hall?”

“Falcone wasn’t a very nice guy but he was well-connected. Nobody would take a shot at him without the mayor’s say-so.”

She frowned. “He won’t be in his office at this hour.”

“That’s what I’m hoping for.”

After what had happened at Falcone’s Zoe wasn’t too happy to be staying in the car, but she wasn’t crazy about breaking into city hall either. I left her outside to watch the door while I slipped in the back way and up the stairs to the mayor’s office.

I slipped the pick from my coat pocket and worked the lock. The stencil on the door read
HON ROBT. BOONE, MAYOR
, and when I got it open I saw that name repeated a dozen times or more on plaques, awards and honorary diplomas mounted on the wall. Pictures of the mayor with dignitaries and people so famous even I had heard of them filled what was left of the space, and the marble-topped desk was cluttered with trophies, mementoes and even a bust of the man himself. It made me wonder how a guy ever got anything done in a place like that, surrounded by his own name and face.

It wasn’t the mayor’s face I was interested in, though, but his brain: that is to say the files he kept in the room beyond. The mayor’s life had been one long climb up an endless ladder, and you don’t get to be boss of a town like Bardo City without having the dirt on everyone else in it. If he had his hooks into Roger, the reason would probably be in there.

I switched on my flashlight, played it over the filing cabinets. They were unlabelled, so I got the top drawer of the first one open and started to flip through the folders. They were full of a lot of juicy material, things that would surprise you about people you think you know, but nothing about Roger. I was just starting to think that I had had a few better ideas in my life when I heard a noise from the office.

“Who’s there?” a voice called. I froze, trying not to breathe too loudly. A second later the office lights went on. “Come on out,” the voice said. “I know you’re in there.”

I sighed, walked out into the office with my hands up and saw the mayor standing there. He had a long face and he looked like he needed a shave, but it wasn’t going to happen: his kind hadn’t shaved in a million years and weren’t about to start now. He had on a shaggy blue coat, its arms trailing down past his knees, and bright red pants. Standing behind him was a taller guy, thin and with about as much expression as an ice cube. He was dressed in a long grey coat, smooth except for the lump in the right pocket.

“Nice night for a party,” I said as the tall guy patted me down.

“Just what do you think you’re doing here?” the mayor said, hunching forward. His wide nostrils flared as he took a long whiff of me. “Do you have any idea who I am? What I can have done to you?”

“Since I’m in your office, I’d guess that I do,” I said. I turned my head to the guy who had been frisking me. “What’s your story?”

“He does what I tell him,” the mayor said. “That’s all you need to know. Who are you?”

I shrugged. “A monkey’s uncle.”

The mayor hissed at me, his fangs showing. There was a noise from out in the hall, and the blank-faced guy turned towards it and then back to the mayor. “Should I check it out?” he asked.

“Sure,” the mayor said. He showed his teeth again. “He’s harmless.”

I waited until the mayor’s stooge had left before I spoke again. “Let’s cut the games,” I said. “What did you have on Roger Adams?” I watched his little eyes for a reaction. “What was it you offered him? Fame? Power?”

“Listen,” the mayor said, grabbing me by the neck, “I don’t know who you think you are, but I’m asking the questions here. So why don’t—”

There was a shot out in the hall, and we both froze. Still holding my shirt the mayor turned his head around. Zoe appeared in the doorway, a dull grey pistol in her hand. A moment passed before she levelled it at the mayor and fired. The shot hit him in the back and threw him into me, both of us toppling to the ground.

“Oh my God,” Zoe said. “Buddy, are you all right?”

With effort I lifted the mayor’s body off of me, climbed to my feet. I patted my chest all over, feeling for blood. “Bullets don’t always stop at the first body, you know,” I said.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I just saw him holding your neck and I thought—”

“Where’d you get the gun?”

She looked down at the pistol still in her hand, took a deep breath and dropped it. “I saw those men going into the building, so I came up to see if you were all right,” she said. “The man in the coat found me, he drew his gun—I was so scared, I just grabbed it and—”

“You took a big risk,” I said. “You should have stayed in the car.”

“I wanted to, but I just couldn’t—couldn’t stand the thought of losing you.” She kissed me once, quickly, and then again. “But it’s all over now. You’re safe, and I guess with the mayor dead your case is over.”

“I guess so.” I kissed her again, then took her hand in mine, raised it to my lips and kissed it. “Now that I know you killed Roger.”

She tried to pull her hand away but I held it fast. “What are you talking about?”

“Did you meet him at Falcone’s?” I asked. “That’s why you wouldn’t come in, wasn’t it, even when I was going to let you? That’s why you shot Falcone, before he could tell me anything.” I kissed her hand again. “Powder burns, angel.”

“I just shot two men,” she said. “I saved your life.”

“Sure. But you had those burns before, in the car.” I reached out with my free hand, stroked her cheek. “You met Roger at Falcone’s, but it wasn’t sex, was it? Oh, maybe at first, but that’s not why he couldn’t let go of you. He let go of his gut, of sex, his ego—but he couldn’t let go of love.”

She turned her head away. “What are you going to do with me?” she asked. “Turn me over to the police?”

“And risk that sweet neck?” I shook my head. “All that matters is I know. He can let go of you, now, and move on.”

“And me?”

“You’ll move on, too,” I said. “Everybody’s looking for love.”

My office had never looked so much like home as when I got back. Roger was still sitting in the chair in front of my desk, his fingers interlaced, looking nervous.

“What happened to you?” he asked.

“Slightly more complicated case than usual,” I said, lowering myself into my chair. “Don’t worry, I worked it out. You should be able to go on now.”

Roger let out a held breath, got up and picked up his suitcase. A frown crossed his face.

“What is it?” I asked.

“It’s still heavy.” He held it out to me. “Here.”

I took the briefcase from him, felt its weight in my hand. I put it on my desk, popped it open: it was empty, but still felt like it was packed with bricks.

“You said it would be lighter,” he said.

“It should be.” I furrowed my brow, trying to work things out. “Tell me, Roger—you ever hear of a thing called tape echo?” He shook his head. “That’s when you record on a tape more than once, and a little bit of the old recording doesn’t get covered up. Well, that can happen with souls, too—if you’ve been through here a few times, you might have something from a past life still stuck in there.”