CHAPTER 23
Rakkim slipped out the side door of the half-empty office tower, stepped out into the cool night air. Jeans and a dark blue sweatshirt, the hood pulled low on his forehead. R U Having Fun Yet? That’s what the assassin had asked him. A message in blood on Marian’s living room wall. Let me find you, motherfucker, and we’ll see who has fun. Rakkim had told Colarusso he didn’t have a chance against the assassin, but nothing was certain. He just needed to get lucky. Luckier than a man could hope to be.
Broken glass crunched underfoot, the sidewalk cracked and crumbling. Four A.M. and alone in Bellytown, what the locals called the rundown neighborhood surrounding the vast open-air market that kept the city fed. Four A.M. and hungover from church wine, his stomach knotted with anger and fatigue, but he didn’t want to sleep-every time he closed his eyes, he saw Marian’s face in the bathtub, her hair floating around her. A dead mermaid far from the sea. He wondered where Sarah was, and if she was safe. Most of all, he wondered if she knew what she had started.
A yellowed newspaper tumbled down the street, carried by the wind. Bellytown was poorly lit, the building lobbies barred and boarded up, home to squatters and busted retirees and immigrants from the hinterlands come to find fortune in the capital. The government had been talking about tearing it down for years, tearing it down and starting over, but talking was all that had been done.
Colarusso had dropped off Rakkim an hour ago in the alley behind the office tower, helped him load the boxes into a service elevator before driving home. Rakkim had been sleeping in a vacant office suite since Redbeard had called him in. He wouldn’t stay there more than another day or two now, just long enough to skim through the journals, then take them to his next hideout. First though, he was going to talk to Harriet.
The assassin was out there and he wanted Rakkim to know it. He was either hoping Rakkim would panic or he was just too arrogant to contain himself. Arrogance and self-indulgence were occupational hazards for assassins. Snatching lives did that to you. Such godlike power hollowed out even a strong man eventually, and assassins were weak by nature, weak men with a special gift. By announcing himself, the assassin was counting on Rakkim to lose his focus and make a mistake. It was the assassin who had made a mistake, though, and if the assassin didn’t realize it, that was another mistake.
Music came from the apartment building across the street…old music from the war before the last war, music from when people touched and held each other in public. Some ancient pensioner must be having trouble sleeping or had got up to pee and thought of better times. The music stopped, then the same song started again, and Rakkim imagined the old man or old woman playing it over and over, summoning up who knows what memories. He kept walking.
The sidewalks were filling with workers headed toward the main market, men dressed as he was, hands in their pockets, cigarettes in their mouths. Trucks full of produce rumbled through the streets, horns blaring, the air thickening with the smell of ripe fruit and vegetables. He stepped into a Star-bucks, its windows grimy, the interior crowded and loud. He ordered a double espresso and a cinnamon roll. A few moments later, the barista set down his order and he handed her $6, told her to keep the change.
The money was pretty, you had to say that much for the new regime. He barely remembered the old money, but he knew it was green and showed the faces of dead men. The new bills were brightly colored, a mix of blues and pinks and yellows, larger than the old money. No dead presidents. The five-dollar bill showed the mosaics of the Detroit armory, the ten showed the fallen Space Needle, the twenty pictured the crescent moon over the ruins of New York City, the fifty showed the capital’s Grand Mosque, and the hundred showed the holy Kaaba, the great black cube in Mecca, radioactive for the next ten thousand years.
He belted down the espresso, started on the cinnamon roll as he walked out the door. He hadn’t realized how hungry he was. He finished the pastry, carefully licked his fingers clean. After everything that had happened, he still had the habits of a good Muslim at least. Christians looked askance at Muslims for licking their fingers after eating, considering it unhygienic and a mark of poor manners, but Muslims knew better. Food was a gift from Allah, and who knew which morsel contained the blessing of God?
He saw Harriet up ahead, pushing through the crowd, forcing people to make way for her enormous girth. She was a bully in a long fur coat; a blubbery matron in her sixties with bright orange hair and a staircase of chins jiggling with every step. She leaned over one of the fruit stands and picked up a peach, brought it to her nose for a quick appraisal, then tossed it back down and barreled on. The fruit vendor glared, but didn’t complain.
Rakkim followed her. Harriet was a creature of habit, making her regular rounds of the market, always among the first customers of the day, so she could select the best for her discriminating palate. Predictability was no danger to her. She needed to be available to potential clients, and besides, she was protected. Rakkim saw a man on the opposite side of the street eating from a bag of hot chestnuts as he kept pace with her, a stocky brute in a blue peacoat with the collar turned up, a watch cap pulled low. Home is the sailor…but he was no sailor. He didn’t have the saltwater squint. Another bodyguard was just a few steps behind Harriet, a tall fellow using a cane, but he was no cripple; the sole of his right shoe didn’t have the proper wear pattern for the dragging he was putting on, and he wasn’t rotating his hips enough. People thought all it took to play the part was a heavy walking stick, but a whole set of subtle markers had to be learned, and the man hadn’t put in the time.
Harriet checked out another vendor’s peaches. Picked one up, ran a thumb over the skin, sniffed. She nodded, then handed over a succession of peaches to the proprietor. After paying, she tucked the paper bag of fruit into a shopping bag, then crossed the street to the Muslim butchers’ stalls. Rakkim strolled after her. He saw one of her bodyguards shift position, the one in the peacoat sensing his interest. Good catch.
The butchers were in full tilt over the cutting tables, sharpening their knives as they bent forward, the sound like giant insects clicking their mandibles. Their white aprons blotchy with blood, the butchers muttered as they worked, endlessly repeating the name of God. It wasn’t strictly necessary; Muslim law only required that the name of God be pronounced at the time of slaughter, but the Black Robes had deemed the name of God could not be invoked too often, and the butchers were eager to comply. The Christian butchers were on the far side of the market, near the main garbage dump. The Christians sold meats slaughtered improperly, animals killed by stunning, and their stalls were next to the fishmongers that sold seafood devout Muslims wouldn’t touch: crabs, lobsters, oysters, mussels, and octopuses.
“Hello, Rakkim.” Harriet eyed the perfect T-bones as the butcher behind the counter waited patiently for her decision. She was a devout atheist, contemptuous of all believers, but she knew the best of everything was reserved for the faithful. She pointed at one large, well-formed cut of meat, then turned, gave Rakkim an awkward embrace, her fur coat warm and steamy in the damp. She smelled like $300-an-ounce French perfume. “You look like shit.”
Rakkim fingered the rich brown fur. “Muskrat?”