Vicious Circle

FFs, Bourbon had said, by which I presumed he meant fast-forwards, rather than, say, back issues of the Fantastic Four comic book. So Peace had an amphetamine habit. Well, he wouldn’t be the first exorcist to keep his pencils sharp with chemical assistance—or the last. Interesting that he’d looked so wiped, though: could be that was an after-effect of fielding all my various attempts to raise Abbie’s spirit, as well as hitting that screamer back my way earlier in the day. Maybe if I kept up the pressure there, I’d get through his guard.

Or maybe the next ricochet I caught would mulch my brains until they leaked out of my ears.

I crossed to Carla’s table and sat down in the just-vacated chair. She was just getting up: she looked at me with a certain amount of surprise and not much pleasure. Close up, she was an even more impressive lady than she had been from across the bar. Not tall, but very solid; at a distance you could tell yourself that some of her bulk was fat, but from this range, I could see that she was made of something harder and less yielding. She looked to be about forty, and her slablike face under its layers of foundation makeup looked like a red brick wall. Her incongruously soft brown eyes were cordoned off like a crime scene with lines of mascara; the rest of her features had disowned them. She was altogether the wrong shape for a belly shirt, but that was what she was wearing nonetheless: the pixie skirt was another red herring, but I felt that the wrestler’s boots were an honest statement of intent.

“I’m closed,” was all she said.

I shrugged as if I was easy either way. “I’m not buying,” I said.

“Then fuck off.” No rancor; nothing personal. But no give, either.

“I’m just looking for someone you know. Dennis—”

“I said fuck off.” She put a warning finger in my face. “I don’t know you.”

“Well that’s true. My name’s Castor. Felix Castor. My friends call me Fix.” I held out a hand, which she didn’t even look at. Instead she just got up and made to walk around the table, past me toward the bar. Having a good deal more tenacity than sense, I jumped up, too, and stepped into her way. She really wasn’t tall, her head was only on a level with my fourth rib.

She stopped. There was a silence, which started with her and then moved on out across the bar. Without turning around, I knew we’d just become a local center of attention.

“Sport,” she said, in the same cold tone, “you really don’t want to do that.”

“Maybe not,” I conceded. “I really do want to meet Dennis Peace, though. Maybe you could tell him I’m looking for him. Felix Castor. He can get my number from Bourbon Bryant, or leave a message for me here.”

“You’d better move aside now,” was all Carla said.

I moved aside. She glanced up at me once: a hard, unreadable look. Then she went on past me to the bar, and there was a collective breathing out in a number of different keys.

Okay, so my intended charm offensive had fallen a little flat. Well, in terms of charm, anyway: I’d managed the offensive part well enough Never mind. Bourbon had given me some food for thought, and some leads to follow, enough to be going on with for now.

* * *

The rain was coming down again heavily, and the slick black asphalt of Soho Square reflected the fragmented glitter of a few car headlights like shooting stars in a clear sky. It wasn’t cold, though: in fact it felt good after the canned air of the cryptlike bar. I didn’t even turn up my coat collar as I walked.

It was well after midnight now, and there weren’t many people around. Two heavyset guys—one of them very, very tall—were talking in murmurs at the edge of the pavement. They stepped to either side to let me pass in between them, one of them flicking a cigarette away over his shoulder.

I’d left the car on the other side of the square, so the quickest way was right through the cramped little park area in the middle. I rounded the Tudor folly that used to be an ice cream stand and the farther gate came into view: it was closed, which wasn’t a good sign. A few more steps brought me level with it, and I gave it a tug. Nothing doing, they’d locked it for the night.

I turned around, to find the two men I’d walked past moments before now heading straight toward me. “Gate’s locked,” I said mildly. I wasn’t looking for trouble, and I didn’t automatically assume that they were: true, they were still heading toward me even though they knew now that there was no through road. But maybe they were hard of hearing; there’s an innocent explanation for most things if you keep an open mind.

“Good,” said the guy on the left, speaking from way back in his throat. He drew a knife from his belt in a smooth, practiced motion. The one on the right, the bigger of the two, who had eyebrows so thick they looked like bottle brushes, smacked his fist into his palm. Oh well, I only said most things: I guess this was the exception that proved the rule.