Procession of the Dead (17 page)

I filed my papers back at the office. Sonja was there, sullen, glaring at me, but she brightened up when she saw the signed forms. She’d been trying to land Reed for almost as long as The Cardinal had. She asked how I did it, making an effort to bridge the chasm between us. I only grunted. She’d tricked me and lied to me. I wasn’t prepared to forgive and forget. I gave her the forms to finish, made a curt excuse and left.

I wandered the streets of the city for a few hours before making my lonely way back to the Skylight. Could I really betray The Cardinal? It should have been an unthinkable question. He’d spared me. Brought me into the fold, set me up with a great job, told Ford Tasso and Sonja to teach me. I was going to turn on him after all that, on account of a cat burglar who’d seduced me on the stairs? It was crazy.

I had to give her to him. For all I knew she was a plant, and he’d put her in my way to test my loyalty. If she wasn’t—if she was genuine—revealing her was all the more imperative. I should go home, shower, pick up my phone and tell The Cardinal all about Ama Situwa and the threat she posed. Feelings—the stirrings of what might be love, but which was probably just horniness—be damned.

I’d about made up my mind when my cell rang. It was one of The Cardinal’s secretaries. He wanted to see me ASAP. He’d heard about my deal with Cafran and wanted to congratulate me in person. That was the deciding factor. I’d go there and tell him face-to-face. Ama Situwa was finished. The hell with Adrian too. I had my own neck to worry about and that mattered to me more than any other’s.

Just when my future had been settled, my phone rang again. This time it was one of Conchita’s doctors. She’d had a visit from her husband, suffered a relapse and tried to kill herself. He said she’d nearly succeeded. He asked me to come as swiftly as I could. They’d drugged her but she was still conscious. If I couldn’t help her, she’d have to be taken someplace where professionals could care for her. He didn’t come right out and say I was the only thing between her and the nuthouse but it was what he meant. Forgetting all my other troubles, I barked at Thomas and we made it to the Skylight in record time. The Cardinal would have to wait.

When I reached Conchita’s apartment, I was told she’d calmed down since they called, due to exhaustion, drugs and the blood she’d lost. She was in her bedroom, resting, crying, staring at the ceiling, half-dozing. The doctors wanted me to come back in the morning, but then a nurse came out and said Conchita had been asking for me, so they decided I’d better go in after all. They warned me to be gentle with her, comforting, understanding. As if I needed telling.

I entered, closed the door and crossed the room to the frail figure stretched across the bed. “Hey, little one,” I said softly.

Her eyes opened and she smiled weakly. “Hi.” Her voice was faint and pained. “I thought you weren’t going to come, that I’d die alone tonight, that I’d lost you.”

“Don’t be silly. You can’t lose me. I have a homing device stitched into my skull. It always brings me back, whether I like it or not.”

“Silly.” She grimaced. “It’s been so long since I tried to kill myself. I forgot how much it hurts.” She began to weep. I cuddled her gently.

“Shh. Don’t cry. There’s no need. I’m here. I’ll help. I promised to protect you, didn’t I? Forever.” I backed off just enough so I could see her face. “What did he say, Conchita? What did the bastard say to make you want to end it all?”

“He was awful, Capac,” she moaned. “He didn’t mean to be. He was trying to help, like you are now, only he doesn’t know how. He wanted to prepare me.” Her eyes were brimming with tears. She shook her head sadly and some of the tears trickled out. “Poor Ferdy. He always tried to do what was best for me. He was just never very good at it.”

“He’s still alive?”

“Of course,” she sniffed. “Ferdy will never die. He’ll go on forever and ever, horrible and helpless as always.”

“I thought he was dead.”

“No. It was Ferdy. He’d lost some weight but otherwise he didn’t look so different.”

“What did he say to make you do such a… a foolish thing?”

She stared at me coldly, the maturity of her age in evidence for once. “He told me you were a gangster.”

My face fell. “Conchita, I… I was going to tell you. I didn’t want—”

“It’s all right,” she said. “I don’t mind. I had my suspicions anyway. But he also said you were an Ayuamarcan.” That word again! It shocked me coming from her lips. “He said getting close to you would be a bad idea, but I knew that anyway.”

“Why would it be a bad idea, Conchita?” I asked quietly.

“Because almost all the Ayuamarcans end up dead,” she replied. “A few get to live—the chosen few—but the rest… By telling me, he hoped to soften the blow.” She snorted. “Stupid monster of a man.”

“I don’t understand,” I said, letting her go, moving away.

“Don’t worry,” she said, following me. “I’m not going to listen. He frightened me when he came. I tried to kill myself because I was scared. I couldn’t face losing you. But you’re different. You’re not like the others. You can beat him, I know you can. You’re not like them… or me.” She nodded when I looked sharply at her. “I’m one too. I’m weak like the others. But you can turn the tables on him, Capac. You’re stronger than the rest of us.”

“I still don’t understand,” I said. “What does Ferdinand Wain have to do with this? How can a nobody who’s supposed to be dead wield so much influence? How does he tie in with this Ayuamarca list? What power does he—”

“Ferdinand who?” she interrupted.

“Ferdinand Wain,” I groaned. Was she forcing him out of her thoughts already? Shutting reality out again?

“Who’s that?”

“He’s…” I reached across and touched her hand. I didn’t want to continue but I couldn’t let her retreat, not until I had the information I needed. I had to push her, much as I might hate myself for it. “He’s your husband. Ferdinand Wain.” She stared at me numbly and shook her head.

“No, Capac,” she whispered.

“Yes, Conchita.”

“No!” she screamed. Then grabbed my face and stared at me, horrified. “I thought you knew. I thought that was why… God. I’m not married to Ferdinand Wain, Capac. My husband is Ferdinand
Dorak
.”

“Who… ?” My mind reeled. I knew the name but couldn’t admit it.

“Dorak,” she repeated. And then, sitting back, face ashen, eyes starting to well with tears, she said, “I’m married to The Cardinal.”

ama situwa

I
sat alone in Shankar’s, as far removed from the morning regulars as possible, and brooded over the events of the previous night. I had no appetite. I’d ordered a glass of orange juice but lost interest in it after a couple of bitter sips.

Ferdinand Wain didn’t exist. The name was a cover, something toserve up to doctors, nurses, hotel staff and gullible fools like me. Conchita was married to The Cardinal.

I still had trouble accepting it. How could that old monster have won the hand of sweet, innocent Conchita? Then again, maybe she hadn’t always been this way. The fragile, defenseless woman holed up in the Skylight might be a result of the illness which wrecked her body. What was she like before?

Conchita said nothing of importance after hitting me with the bombshell. I asked a few more questions about the Ayuamarcans but she waved them away with exhausted mumbles, saying only that they were dead people. She fell asleep in my arms. I held her for a long time, staring off into space, feeling her weak heart beating softly. She didn’t stir when I left.

Three people had now mentioned this Ayuamarca file. The killer, Paucar Wami—I’d recalled this morning that he’d said Adrian and I were Ayuamarcans, and realized that was why I’d instinctively linked him with Adrian’s disappearance. Ama Situwa, who claimed to have invaded Party Central. And The Cardinal’s diseased wife. An unlikely trio, unconnected in any other way as far as I could see. But who were the Ayuamarcans? What linked them? And why did so many wind up dead?

A thin hand tapped my shoulder and disturbed me. I looked up,startled, expecting the angel of death, but it was only Leonora. “May I sit with you?”

“Sure.” I stood and pulled out a chair. She thanked me and sat, setting down a plate with a sliced pineapple on it.

“You look like a man with too much on his mind,” she said. “Islife with Dorry getting you down?”

“It has its darker moments,” I confessed. “I never guessed it would be this complicated. I thought I’d take a few months to settle and after that it would be easy. I’d be told what to do, I’d learn and rise through the ranks, same as any other business. I wasn’t prepared for the intrigue, the uncertainty, the madness.”

She laughed. “You face the same maze as all Dorry’s favorites. The higher one flies in this city, the stranger things get. If it is any consolation, it is a sign you are going places. He is testing you.”

“I wouldn’t mind a test but some days I feel like I’m being set up for a fall. Like he’s planning to exploit me and toss me aside when he’s finished.”

“It is possible,” she admitted. “I do not think those are his plans, but I have been wrong before.”

“That’s a big comfort,” I said sarcastically.

She touched my arm sweetly. “There are no safety nets with Dorry. You knew that when you came aboard. It is too late to complain now.”

“You’re right. Sorry. It’s been a hard week.”

“They will get harder,” she said gloomily. She ate a slice of her pineapple and glanced around the restaurant. A tiny flicker of doubt crossed her face. Then she dismissed whatever was troubling her and smiled. “I love this place. It is my home. In many ways my life began the day I opened for business. I have watched the great men and women of this city sweep through, seen history in the making. Dorry was a nobody when I established this restaurant and only guttersnipes came. Then, as his power grew, this became the place to be. I remember the night he brought the president here. He looked so happy, the most powerful man in the country on one arm, Con—”

She stopped and grimaced.

“Conchita on the other,” I finished.

She blinked, surprised. “You know about Conchita?”

“I met her in the Skylight. We’re good friends.”

“Does Dorry know?”

“He does now.” My face blackened as I thought of her almost killing herself. “What’s the story with them?” I asked, moving my glass to one side so I could lean closer. “Did he really love her?”

“As much as he could, yes.” She sighed unhappily. “I thought Conchita would be the saving of him. He was so violent in the early days. When I first met him, he was a common thug, a brutal bully. He’d never learned to suppress his rage. He lashed out like a hyperactive child. He was an animal. I spent years coaching him. I saw the potential, the man he could become. I devoted myself to him. I am not sure why. There was simply something about him which drew us together.

“He was suspicious. He had never trusted anybody before. I do not think he knew his parents. He grew up on the streets, sleeping in garages and deserted houses. He could not read, could barely talk coherently. I changed that. I taught him how to speak, read, reason, act. The one thing I could not teach him was how to love. He had no interest in companionship. Then Conchita came along.”

Leonora was lost in the world of the past. I hardly dared breathe lest I disturb her. “She was so lovely. Petite but full of life. She persevered with Dorry as I had, put up with his tantrums, overlooked his rages, loved him wholly. They were like Beauty and the Beast. He roared at the world and she laughed. In public she would tickle his stomach and rub her nose across his neck. Nobody dared smile.”

“She calmed him?” I asked.

“No. She helped, as I had. But he went on killing people as if they were flies. His private life never distracted him. When the disease ruined her mind and drove her away from him, many people expected him to fly into a rage and take it out on the city. He did not. It was business as usual, no matter how much he was hurting inside.”

“
Did
she hurt him?” I asked.

“I think so. It is hard to tell with Dorry. He was certainly sullen when she left, and distant on occasion. But he did not grieve for her. I think he is incapable of grief. I cannot say how close he came to loving Conchita, but he was as far from loving her in the way you or I can love as this planet is from the sun. He has no true human emotions except for hate and rage.”

Leonora fell silent after that and by the way she concentrated on her pineapple I knew she didn’t want to talk about this anymore. I didn’t mind. I’d already learned more about The Cardinal than I expected to. I gazed around the restaurant as I mulled over our talk. “Have you seen any sign of the Lap man today?” I asked.

She laughed. “Who on earth is the
Lap man
? ”

“Y Tse,” I chuckled.

“Who?”

I stared at her, heart sinking. “Leonora,” I said, voice shaking, “don’t you dare sit there and—”

She raised a hand. “Quiet.” She thought for a few moments. “I want you to tell me about this ‘Lap man.’ ”

“But you know—,” I began angrily.

“Please,” she snapped. “Humor me.”

Sighing, I described him, then went on, “He used to be The Cardinal’s right-hand man. He spends most of his time here, a lot of it with you. He acts crazy but he’s not. The two of you are close friends. I have a feeling you might have been more than that once, though neither of you has ever said anything. His real name is Inti Maimi. Shall I go on?”

She was staring at the table, quiet as a corpse. When she looked up, her face was haggard. “I cannot remember anything about him.” When my lips twisted into a sneer, her hands shot across the table and gripped mine. “Capac, I swear that name means nothing to me. I am not saying he does not exist. I do not doubt your description. But I do not remember him.” She released me.

“It has happened before,” she said softly. “But never so strong a sense of it. When I woke this morning, I felt something wrong, that something was missing. Like when you go into a room and forget what you wanted when you get there. There was a gap in my mind that I could not account for. I now know what it was.”

“What are you saying, that you’ve forgotten him? That’s impossible. You don’t just forget a person. You can’t.”

She smiled bitterly. “You have much to learn, Capac. I
have
forgotten him. And it is not the first time. Conchita often mentioned names that meant nothing to me, people she insisted I knew. This was a long time ago. I thought it was her illness, that she had concocted imaginary friends. But as the years passed, I began to think she was the only one who did
not
have a problem.

“Conchita berated others in our circle, insisting we knew people when we did not.” She shook her head. “I am old and have seen many strange things in my life. The brain is complex, twisted. It can be manipulated. I have seen men walk on live coals, hold their breath underwater for an hour, recall events that occurred before they were born.” She finished the last of her pineapple and waited for me to speak.

“Y Tse remembered people too,” I said. “He sometimes argued with you about it. He thought you were playing along with The Cardinal. I thought that of Sonja when Adrian—one of my friends—went missing.” I looked at her pleadingly. “What does it mean, Leonora?”

She shrugged softly and rose. “I do not know what is happening, but only two people apart from you ever spoke of the people the rest of us had apparently forgotten—Conchita, who went mad, and your Y Tse, who has disappeared.” She bent and kissed my forehead. “Dorry’s world is darker and deeper than even I can imagine. Be careful, Capac.”

I stared at her as she walked away, my head spinning. This was getting crazier all the time. I wanted to sit and pick at the puzzle all day but I had an appointment to keep. The Cardinal had summoned me the night before. I’d already kept him waiting and I knew he wouldn’t be too happy about that. I’d hoped to clear my head before I faced him, but that evidently wasn’t going to happen and there was no point delaying our meeting any longer. Pushing my chair back, I went to find Thomas and told him to drive me to Party Central.

The green fog was smothering the city again, so it took us longer than usual to get there. Ford Tasso was coming out of the building as I headed in. He grabbed my arm and jerked me to a halt. “Where the hell have you been?” he roared. “He’s seething like the fucking Antichrist! Nobody stands up The Cardinal. What the fuck were you thinking?”

“I had other things on my mind,” I said.

“You… ?” He gawked at me but I didn’t care.

“Do you want to drag me up to make it look like you tracked me down?”

He shook his head. “Just get the fuck up there quick as you can.”

I took my time checking in my shoes—little rebel that I was—then took the elevator and paused outside his door. The secretary was eyeing me wickedly, ruffling her papers. I didn’t care. After what he’d done to Conchita, I thought the bastard deserved a bit of comeback. I waited until I heard the secretary grinding her teeth, then knocked once and entered.

The Cardinal was prowling in front of the window like a bull. He even snorted when he saw me. “Well, Mr. Raimi,” he growled, “you finally decided to grace me with your presence. I hope I haven’t torn you away from anything important?”

I opened my mouth and let the words flow without thinking. “I’m late. Live with it.” Then I sat.

The Cardinal stared at me flatly, then closed his eyes and rubbed the lids with his fingers. “Are you testing me, Mr. Raimi? Do you want to know how far you can push me before I snap?”

“No. I just don’t have any sorry excuses to offer. I couldn’t come until now. That’s the end of the matter as far as I’m concerned.”

He opened his eyes and scowled. “I’ve killed men for looking at me crooked. Why should I let you get away with insolence like this?”

It was probably a rhetorical question but I began to answer it. “Because you want me to be your…” Then I stopped, thinking I’d gone too far.

The Cardinal cocked his head. “To be my successor?” he said mockingly.

“Maybe,” I said softly, deciding to push it now that the issue had been raised.

“You really think I’d choose you ahead of men I’ve known for decades, who’ve proven their loyalty a hundred times over?”

“Maybe,” I said again, a whisper this time.

“Are
you
loyal?” he asked.

I thought of Ama Situwa. “When it suits me.”

“A strange answer. But I like it.” He smiled suddenly, startling me. “Yes, Mr. Raimi, I’ve singled you out as a possible heir.” My heart rate shot up but he raised a cautionary finger before I got too excited. “But I hope to live a long time yet and others will undoubtedly come along. Plus there are several who already have a strong claim. Don’t get carried away. I’m not about to hand the reins over anytime soon, certainly not to one so immature. We’ll see how you progress over the next decade. If you’re still going strong, if you still want it, we’ll talk about it then.”

“Of course I’ll want it,” I said.

“Don’t be too sure. The man who replaces me must be cruel, heartless, self-centered. He must live for and love nothing more than this empire. Is there anybody you would die for, a mother, sister…
friend
? ”

“Yes,” I answered shortly, thinking of Conchita, maybe Ama too. “There is.”

“In the end,” he said softly, “you’ll have to betray that person. If you hope to replace me, you’ll have to learn to let go of those you love. Can you do that, Mr. Raimi, sacrifice those you are closest to, renounce your humanity and become a monster like me?”

I thought about it for a full minute before I answered. “I don’t know.”

“One day,” he said, “you’ll find out. On that day you’ll learn if you are fit to succeed me.” His eyes flickered as he added bitterly, “Pray for your soul’s sake that you are not.”

We discussed business after that. I told him about my deal with Reed, how I’d used his daughter to seal it. The Cardinal was worried I might have threatened her, but I assured him it had been aboveboard.

“He believed you could persuade her to marry you?” he asked incredulously.

“Who knows—it might prove to be the truth.”

The Cardinal grinned wickedly. “Pursuing romance so soon after my warning about getting involved with people?”

I shrugged. “Like you said, it’ll be a decade before I get anywhere. Why not have a little fun in the interim?”

We talked more about the future. He outlined the route he expected me to travel. A few more months in the insurance line, then a year or so with his legal team, learning everything there was to know about the law, “or at least enough to fake it.” After that I’d be free to flit between one area of the company and another, feel my way around, find my niche, specialize or generalize as I saw best. He said no man worth his salt could be led about by the nose. I’d be guided while I was learning the basics, but after that I was on my own.