Babylon Terminal Page 3

  Neon bled through the dark, blinking and rolling and washing down from the signage and billboards scattered across the cityscape, piercing the rainfall and painting everyone in colored swaths as they slipped from one shadow to the next. It all looked so hopeless, dull and empty, and it was.

  The night was alive now; people everywhere throughout the city, the crowds thicker and more aggressive the deeper into night we went. I parked in one of the designated spots, then hurried up the steps of headquarters, negotiating my way around the degenerates and homeless scattered along the way before slipping through the heavy double doors at the summit.

  Dusty and dimly lit, HQ was quiet and mostly empty. Everyone was either on the street this time of night or huddled at their desks doing paperwork. I followed two long hallways and passed several offices before reaching our department, a large open room with numerous desks scattered throughout, one main office in the rear for the captain and three large windows facing the city streets below.

  I crossed the room, glancing briefly at the stacks of paperwork and as yet unfinished reports covering my desk before continuing on to Cap’s office.

  Overweight, disheveled and pasty, he was a barrel-chested bear of a man with a snow-white horseshoe of hair ringing his bald head and a black leather eye patch, compliments of a runner that had taken his eye out with a screwdriver years before. Cap had been in the field and just another Dreamcatcher like the rest of us for years before making his way to captain, and the stories about him were legendary. No one knew if they were true because no one could remember much beyond their own lives with any real clarity—were our memories really memories? No one knew for sure—but his scars had come from somewhere.

  I found him slumped over his desk, a black phone pressed to one of his cauliflower ears. He saw me and held a finger up, then pointed to one of the chairs positioned in front of his desk. A small black-and-white television on a file cabinet in the corner played an old gangster flick, the sound turned down.

  Rain sprayed the windows, blurring the world outside. I sat down.

  Cap was barely speaking, and when he did so it was softly, so I knew he was getting his ass chewed out. I also knew shit rolled downhill and I’d likely be next in line.

  A moment or two later, he hung up the phone, dropping the handset back into the rotary cradle with deliberate care. He was doing his best to control his emotions but I knew that wouldn’t last long. Never did.

  “Shadow said you needed to see me ASAP.”

  He opened his middle desk drawer, rummaged around in it and came out with a packet of fizzy tablets. With a groan, he hoisted himself up and out of his chair and over to a water cooler to his right. “Somebody took down the Creep,” he said. Water trickled into a small paper cup. “Don’t suppose you’d know anything about that.”

  “He was running,” I said, feigning indifference.

  “Was he now?” Cap dropped his tablets into the water, watched them fizz. “I didn’t assign you that case, did I?”

  “No.”

  For the first time, he looked right at me with his one eye.

  “No, sir,” I said.

  “Feel free to go right ahead and correct me if I’m wrong here, hotshot, but isn’t that how this works? You get assigned a runner and then you go find him. That’s what we do here, and how we do it, isn’t it? There been some procedural changes I’m unaware of?”

  “I got word from an informant on the street he was running. I checked it out, and he was already on the move, trying to put together enough supplies to get out of the city. Found him on the outskirts of Chinatown, chased him down and terminated him.”

  “Without authorization, let’s not forget that part.”

  “He was running and already had a head start on me. If I waited around for authorization and paperwork and everything to get rolling, he’d have been long gone by the time—”

  “Shut the fuck up.” Cap gulped down the bubbling water in a single gulp. Grimacing, he said, “Seriously, just shut your mouth. I’m tired and I’m not feeling well and I don’t need this shit tonight. Joey the Creep was on the goddamn payroll. You know that.”

  “He was a piece of shit, Cap.”

  “And one of our best informants.”

  “He was a runner.”

  “He was under our protection!” He slammed a meaty fist onto his desk. Everything shook. Old bastard could still throw with the best of them. “And therefore, he was on the list and not to be terminated without prior authorization!”

  “Unless the Dreamcatcher in the field feels there are extenuating circumstances that necessitate immediate termination,” I reminded him.

  “Did you just quote me handbook, you motherfucker?”

  “I made a decision. I stand by it.”

  Cap sat down, his old rickety chair squealing as if in pain. “How’s Julia doing?”

  “Fine.”

  “Word is you two been having some trouble.”

  “All due respect, sir, what’s that got to do with—”

  “Cut the shit, boy. You forget who you’re talking to?”

  I held my ground, returning his gaze with a defiant one of my own.

  “Word is Julia and the Creep was old friends.”

  “She knew him, so what?”

  “They didn’t call him the Creep for nothing. Maybe you didn’t like them being friends. Hell, I know I wouldn’t want my old lady running around with that scumbag. What’d you do, go have a little chat with him? Things get out of hand?”

  “He was running.”

  “Where the fuck was that moron gonna go? He could barely find his way out of a room without a flashing light over the door, and you expect me to believe he—”

  “Look, that’s what happened, I don’t know what you want me to say.”

  Quiet a while, we sat there staring at each other until he finally said, “I need a full report on my desk by tomorrow night, you understand me?”

  I nodded.

  “Come again?”

  “Yes, sir, I understand.”

  “Solid informants like the Creep are hard to come by. This one’s not gonna go over big. I’m already taking heat for it from up above. You know what that means. We don’t get this right, more heat’s coming, and guess who’s gonna take the brunt of it?”

  I shrugged. “I was just doing my job.”

  “Uh-huh. I don’t believe your lying ass for one minute. But you put together a report and get it on my desk and I’ll back you.”

  “Thanks, Cap,” I said, standing.

  “Don’t thank me. Only reason I’m backing you is because you’re one of the best I’ve got, one of the best there’s ever been.” He pointed at me. “So since that’s your story, you make damn sure you stick to it through thick and thin, right? I might burn when it’s all said and done in this shitty world, but it’s not gonna be for you, you hear me?”

  “Loud and clear.”

  “No,” he said, slamming his fist on the desk again. “I said do you hear me?”

  “I hear you. Your voice tends to carry.”

  He shuffled through paperwork on his desk. “Fuck off before I change my mind.”

  I turned to leave.

  “Go home and get some rest,” he added in a softer tone. “You look like shit.”

  I got the hell out of there, but home was the last place I was headed.

  * * *

  Like blown-out speakers, the sounds of night and madness rang in my ears as I tried to sort my thoughts and ignore the heartbeat of the city. Driving through the congested streets at a snail’s pace, I maneuvered through the hordes, rolling back through Lenore’s neighborhood. Unlike earlier, nothing was deserted now, everything was alive and bustling and shaking with the drumbeat of the damned. A square of numerous adult bookstores and sex clubs alongside ragged but brightly lit movie marquees advertising an array of sleazy porn and exploitation flicks glided across my dingy windshield, bloody sacrifices bathing my face, multicolored phantoms feigning esc
ape.

  SIN-DEES, rocking full-tilt boogie now, sported a line halfway around the block, but thankfully my business with Lenore was done. If things panned out, I’d never have to see the bitch again, much less be in her presence or talk with her. Images of what she and the others within those walls were up to drifted across my tired mind. I shut my eyes in the hopes it might ward off the visions. It didn’t, so I drove on, eyes open and following the strip until I’d hit another intersection, this one dark and quiet. Here, only the occasional ghost stumbled along the dim streets, a pale face barely visible now and then from the mouths of dark alleys.

  I stopped, watched the street a while.

  Turning left would take me to the freaks, the real dark shit, the crazies that worked nightmares and the worst of the worst. The sickest degenerates and most disturbing miscreants lived down there in the deep darkness where literally anything was acceptable long as you had the juice and the desire. Evil incarnate, a carnival of sorrow and pain, lust and violence that featured every fear or phobia imaginable, it was our Hell, and a place I stayed out of unless I had no other choice.

  Julia wouldn’t go down there, I thought, watching the shadows slowly moving like fog, beckoning, luring me and anyone else stupid enough to entertain them down into the hole where all the forces of pure darkness awaited me. A few runners had tried hiding there before making their break, but few ever made it back out. We’d even lost some Dreamcatchers there, not killed or held captive, just lost to the madness that ruled there. I’d been to the first few streets of the neighborhood and that was enough. I could see no reason why Julia would go there, it made no sense, and much as I felt bad about outright lying to Cap, I’d already made up my mind that I was on the way out myself. If I moved through those gates and went looking for her down there, it was not only possible but probable I’d never come back.

  I turned right instead, increased speed and followed the dark streets until I’d reached the outskirts of the city. Mostly old abandoned and blown-out buildings and empty lots overgrown with waist-high weeds and strewn with garbage, the area housed several rotting behemoths no one really knew much about, giant mills and factories and the like nobody remembered. In fact, I’d never met anyone who remembered this neighborhood being anything other than what it was now, so no one was sure if these places had ever been alive and thriving.

  Some things are born dead.

  End of the night, didn’t much matter.

  Bobby Blade’s place was a ramshackle cottage tucked away at the end of a lonely winding road. Just beyond the last of the abandoned buildings, an area dotted with bungalows, most boarded up, rotting and long forgotten populated the sparse lots. I pulled up out front, sat in the car a few minutes and looked the place over. Hadn’t been there in a few months, but bathed in the glow of headlights, with its chipped yellow paint and faded black shutters, it looked more or less the same as it always had, like the rotting carcass of a giant bumblebee. Considering the overgrown grass in the front yard and the rusty pickup on blocks in the weed-infested driveway, it didn’t appear as though anyone still lived there.

  But Bobby was here. Bobby was always here.

  I stepped out of the car and made my way across the yard.

  A dull yellow porch light came to life, cutting the darkness. I was still about twenty feet from the front door when it opened and a woman moved into view. A tattered screen door was all that separated us, but the moon was nowhere in sight and I had trouble making her out.

  I stood where I was. Never could tell with Bobby, he changed girlfriends like most guys changed socks.

  The moment she spoke, I knew we were strangers.

  “That’s good right there.”

  “I’m here to see Bobby,” I told her.

  “Who are you?”

  “Bobby knows who I am.”

  “I asked you a question.”

  “And I answered it.”

  She kicked open the screen door and moved out onto the steps, a shotgun leveled at me. “Who are you?”

  I put her at about thirty, but it was hard to tell. She’d sustained a lot of damage. Wiry brown hair styled in a mullet and bad skin didn’t help. She wore old cotton shorts and a spaghetti strap tank top with a cracked decal of a kitten on it. Her feet were bare and filthy as the rest of her. “Go get him,” I said evenly. “I’m in a hurry.”

  She didn’t respond but didn’t flinch either.

  From behind her, inside the house, I heard Bobby say, “Easy, baby. I’d know that voice anywhere.”

  The woman lowered the shotgun, albeit reluctantly, then turned and went back inside. A moment later she reappeared, sans weapon, and said, “Okay, come on.”

  I slipped inside and followed her through a kitchen that hadn’t been cleaned in months. Dirty dishes were piled high in the sink, and trash littered the floor. I did my best to ignore the smell of rotting garbage. Nothing ever changed.

  Bobby was sitting on a threadbare couch in a small den decorated with yard-sale furniture and velvet paintings. The shades were drawn, and but for a few burning candles, the room was cast in darkness. He wore his typical outfit: imitation silk shirt, polyester slacks and brown huarache sandals with black socks. A razor blade earring dangled from his left ear. Blind as a mole, he had no idea how ridiculous he looked, and no one ever told him.

  “Listen to you,” he said through a gurgling laugh, “all badass out there talking to my special lady friend. I’m here to see Bobby. What’s happening, baby?”

  I looked around for a place to sit, decided to stand. “Need to talk.”

  “Cool.” He reached down by his leg, retrieved a tall glass bong and set it in his lap. “Sit down and we’ll give it a shake, see what falls out.”

  I looked to my right, where his girlfriend stood glaring at me, arms folded across her chest. I noticed she’d propped the shotgun in the corner. “I need you to give us the room.”

  “Go fuck yourself.”

  Bobby chuckled, sightless eyes hidden behind big black sunglasses. “Easy now, baby, it’s just the Monk.”

  “He don’t look like no monk to me.”

  “He’s not a for-real monk. Ain’t even his name, it’s just what we call him.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “‘Cuz he under the hood, baby, mysterious motherfucker, Dreamcatcher extraordinaire.”

  She glared at me with the level of disgust I expected.

  Bobby laughed again and slapped the couch. “Known this boy forever and ever amen. We all in the shadows, but he in deep, it’s how he rolls. Except for one, don’t nobody really know the Monk. He don’t allow it. Ain’t that right, Monk?”

  I bit my lip. “I don’t have a lot of time, Bobby.”

  “Reba, baby,” he said, smiling wide, “do me a solid and grab us some beers.”

  She rolled her eyes and sauntered off to the kitchen.

  “What you need?” Bobby asked.

  “You know why I’m here.”

  “Of course I know why you’re here.”

  I pretended not to notice the pile of cocaine on the glass coffee table before him. “Then tell me what you know.”

  Bobby wiped his nose with the back of his hand, then reached down with the other to make sure the bowl on the bong was properly packed with weed. “You come to see the wizard. Well here I am, baby, make your wishes.”

  “Was Julia here?”

  He hit the bong, drew the smoke deep into his lungs and held it. When he finally exhaled and coughed a cloud of smoke in my direction, he nodded. “Why you wasting time asking questions you already know the answers to?”

  “When?”

  “Last night.”

  “Anyone with her?”

  “All by her lonesome, baby. Said she come from Joey the Creep’s place.”

  Reba returned, put a beer on the table for Bobby and held another out for me. I took it, popped the cap and took a long pull. “Did she stay the night?”

  An evil smile crept along Bobby’s lips.
“This is Julia we’re talking about, ain’t it? Of course she stayed the night. Her and Reba got along real good.”

  I heard Reba snicker under her breath from somewhere behind me.

  “Baby, we were fucked up!” Bobby chuckled. “You know Julia.”

  Yes, I did. I also knew Bobby.

  “Seeing as you weren’t here—out of respect, my brother—I just watched.”

  “Liar,” Reba muttered.

  “Hey, everybody knows the rules,” he added quickly. “She gonna go hugging me, them titties are getting squeezed. I’m blind, bitches, can’t see what I’m doing.” He held the bong out for me. When I didn’t take it, he hit it again. “Next night Julia was gone with the wind, baby.”

  “Did she say where she was going?”

  “To the ocean.”

  “Nothing else?”

  Bobby sat statue still.

  “I got to find her, Bobby.”

  “She’s running.” He put the bong on the floor, felt around the table until he located his beer. “And don’t nobody run less somebody or something chasing them, you feel me? Maybe you’re running too.”

  I shook my head even though he couldn’t see me. “I’m not running.”

  “Well your lady is.”

  “Who is she running from?”

  “You, baby, who you think?”

  My heart sunk but I masked it best I could. “Why would she run from me?”

  “You’re chasing a ghost, Monk. Dig it, Bobby Blade knows all. I’m blind, but I can see. Hallelujah and praise Jesus! I can see! I can see!”

  “I’m going after her.”

  “Business is business, right?” He licked his lips, drew a deep breath, then let it out slowly as a sigh. “You know that better than most, Monk. She’s got a long way to go, big area to cross to get to the ocean.”

  “If it even exists,” I added.

  “Either way, between here and there, it’s bad, baby.”

  “How the hell would you know? You never leave this fucking house.”

  “The blind man’s got eyes everywhere.” Bobby smiled and scratched the side of his face with his pinky nail, which was considerably longer than the others and painted bright red. Reba was smiling too. They were laughing at me, and it turned them on. “Don’t nobody ever come back. Last two supposedly made it to the ocean was Matt the Cat and Frisco Sean. You remember them.”