Vicious Circle

“Good-bye, Abbie,” I said, standing up and shifting my ground to face east. Not toward Mecca: toward somewhere else entirely, on the other side of the city. “Good-bye, and good luck. I hope it all works out for you.”

I whistled again, a tune I hadn’t played for a good long while now: “Henry Martin.” An electric prickle played down my arms to the tips of my fingers.

The Charles Stanger clinic was a good few miles away, but ghosts—when they travel at all—aren’t limited to light speed. All the same, I’d gotten through two complete renditions of the song and well into the third before I felt their presence stealing upon me, approaching on some vector that had nothing to do with north, south, east, or west. I didn’t look around. I felt, in some weird way, as though the dead girls might not take to Abbie if they saw me talking to her, as though the taint of the living might cling to her and make her seem alien to them.

There was a whispering of sound that had no words in it I could make out. Then there was silence, and the silence lengthened. The feeling of their nearness faded from me, leaving behind a more acute awareness of how cold the stone was under my stockinged feet, and how stale the air smelled.

When the last echoes of the tune had died from the air and from my mind, I turned around again.

I was alone in the cell—and more tired than I’d ever been.

Twenty-four

BASQUIAT WAS AS GOOD AS HER WORD. THE CHARGES WERE dropped and I was released back onto the street in the middle of Saturday afternoon. The clothes I’d left at the Whittington hadn’t turned up, though, so I was still stuck in the natty outfit I’d taken from Sallis. It was smelling even riper than when I inherited it.

The first thing I did was to go out to Walthamstow and check on Nicky, because I didn’t believe Fanke’s bland assurances that his cultists had left my favorite dead man in one piece. But Nicky was none the worse for wear, and even inclined to be a little smug—even though most of the cinema apart from his inner sanctum up in the projection booth had been comprehensively trashed.

“See, Castor,” he said, “I got everything here insured eight ways from Sunday, and I already put in the claims—through proxy companies, naturally; got to keep that footprint small. Anyway, I’m gonna build it up again ten times better. I mean, fuck air-conditioning. I’ve got a freezer on order from a place in Germany that fits out hospital morgues. You’re not gonna know this place.”

I looked at the outside of the projection booth’s door. The wood had been split with axes or crowbars—but all that had done was to reveal the metal underneath.

“It must have been a hell of a siege,” I said.

Nicky shrugged, some of his good mood evaporating. “Yeah, it was fucking scary, all right. I had to watch while they smashed everything up. Then they spotted the cameras and took them out, so I couldn’t even do that. It was . . . I dunno . . . like having scabies, or something, like watching little insects crawling around under your fucking skin.

“Hey, I’m sorry about your friend. You know that, right? If there’d been anything I could’ve done, then I would’ve done it. They brought fucking blowtorches in, for Christ’s sake. Nothing to stop them, once they had me shut in up here. I tried to call you again when they took her, but by that time they’d brought one of those phone jammers in, so all I got was static.”

He hesitated, as if realizing belatedly that he should have covered this part of the conversation first. “So is she okay?”

“Juliet?”

“Ajulutsikael. Don’t anthropomorphize her. That’ll get you in trouble somewhere down the line.”

“Doesn’t the use of a female pronoun already anthropomorphize her?” I asked.

Nicky scowled. “Anyone who can give a dead man an erection has earned that pronoun, Castor. Consider it an honorific.”

“She’s fine, Nicky. Thanks for asking. Back to her old self by this time, I’m sure.”

“And my payment? You know, the five questions?” He looked at me hopefully.

I shrugged. “All I can do is ask her. The deal was that you’d keep her safe, Nicky. She may take the view that you’re in breach of contract.”

“Breach of—?” He flared up. “Hey, I was invaded, Castor. I kept my part of the deal, ten times over.”

He had a point. I said I’d get back to him, and left him choosing thermostatic valves out of a catalog. They’ve got some really nice ones these days.

* * *

At Pen’s, to my far from huge surprise, I found all my worldly goods stacked up out in the driveway. I tried my key in the lock and it didn’t fit. Quick work, under the circumstances.

I rang the bell, and Pen’s sister Antoinette answered. She folded her arms in a no pasaran stance, which she does pretty well despite being only an inch or so taller than Pen. She’s got Pen’s coloring, too, but she went into politics, stood for local councillor, lost three times, and got herself a hatchet face that never cracks a smile.

“Hey, Tony,” I said. “Can I talk to her?”