But now? Now that I had reformed, changed into Dex-Daddy? Ignored and even snubbed the Passenger? Could I still do it?
I didn't know if I could, and I didn't really want to find out, but it seemed like my sister had left me no choice-just like in every other situation involving family, my options were limited to either impossible or unpleasant.
So I closed my eyes and listened, waited for the sly whispered hint.
Nothing. Not a leathery rustle of wings, not a suggestion of offended disregard, not even an almost-syllable of huffish dismissal. The Passenger was as silent as if it had never been there at all.
Oh, come on, I said silently to the place where it lived. You're just sulking.
There was at last a ruffle of aloof disregard, as if I were not worth answering.
Please…? I thought at it.
For a moment there was no response, and then I quite clearly almost heard a kind of reptilian Hmmph, a reordering of wings, and then a snide echo of my own voice right back at me-And stay away-and then silence, as if it had hung up on me.
I opened my eyes. Deke was still dead, and I had no more idea about how and why than I'd had before my mini-seance. And quite clearly, if I was going to come up with any kind of idea, I was going to have to do it alone.
I looked around. Deborah was standing behind me about thirty feet away and she stared back at me with angry expectation. I had nothing to tell her, and although I did not know what she might do when I told her that, I had a feeling that we were beyond arm-punch territory into something new and potentially much more painful.
All right, then: Scientific forensics was for the others, there was no time for diligence, and the Passenger was on huffy hiatus-that left dumb luck. I looked around the body. There were no telltale footprints from tailor-made left-handed shoes, nobody had dropped a one-of-a-kind matchbook or a business card, and Deke had apparently not scrawled the name of his killer in blood. I looked further around, and at last something caught my eye. In the heap of plastic trash bags overflowing the garbage can by the door, all of the bags were semitransparent yellowish brown industrial garbage bags. But one of them, shoved into the pile halfway down, was white.
It almost certainly meant nothing: Probably the cleaning service had run out of the other bags, or somebody brought their garbage from home. Still, if I was really relying on luck, I might as well roll the dice. I stood up, trying to remember the name of the old Roman goddess of chance-Fortuna? It didn't matter. I was quite sure she only spoke Latin, and I didn't.
I approached the garbage pile carefully, not wanting to disturb any potential evidence that might be lying on the ground, and I crouched again, putting my face a few inches from the white bag. It was smaller than the others, too, a standard kitchen trash bag that anybody might use at home. Even more interesting, it was much less than half-full. Why would anybody throw away a bag of trash that close to empty? At the end of a business day, maybe-but this one was shoved in under three or four others; it had either come out at the same time only part-full… or somebody had shoved it into the pile later. And why not just drop it on top of the heap? Because somebody in a hurry wanted to hide this bag, and had done a half-assed rush job.
I took a ballpoint pen from my pocket and poked at the bag with the blunt end. Whatever was inside was soft, yielding-fabric? I pushed a little harder and the inside of the plastic bag came up against something, close enough so that I could just see dark red blotches on whatever was inside, and I shuddered involuntarily. It was blood; I was certain. And even though it was not really one of my Passenger-driven hunches, I was reasonably sure the blood had not come from someone inside the theater cutting their finger on the popcorn machine.
I stood up and looked for my sister. She was in the same place, still glaring at me. "Deborah?" I called. "Come look at this."
She crossed the space between us quickly, and as I squatted down again, she did, too.
"Look," I said. "This bag is different from all the others."
"Big fucking deal," she said. "That's the best you got?"
"No," I said. "This is." Once more I poked at the bag with my pen, and once more the awful red stains swam into view pressed against the white plastic. "It's probably a coincidence," I said.
"Shit," she said with quiet violence. Then she rose up and looked over at the barricade. "Masuoka! Get over here!" Vince looked at her like a deer caught in the headlights, and she yelled, "Move it!" He clumped into motion and hustled over.
Standard procedure is only one step away from ritual, and so I have always found it kind of comforting. I really like doing things that have definite rules and a well-established order, because that means I don't have to worry about how to fake something appropriate for the occasion. I can just relax and follow the correct steps. But this time, the routine seemed dull, pointless, and frustrating. I wanted to rip open that bag, and I found that I was fretting with impatience as Vince slowly and methodically dusted for fingerprints; all over the garbage can, the wall behind it, and then each individual garbage bag on top of the white one. We had to lift each bag up in careful gloved hands, dust it, examine it under regular and then UV light, and then cautiously open it, removing and examining each item inside. Junk, garbage, waste, crap. By the time we finally got to the white bag I was ready to scream and fling the garbage at Vince's head.
But we did get to it at last, and the difference was obvious immediately, even to Vince, the moment he dusted.
"Clean," he said, goggling up at me with surprise. The other bags had been like mosaics of smudged and greasy fingerprints. This one was as pristine as if it had just come out of the box.
"Rubber gloves," I said, and my impatience burst. "Come on, open it up." He looked at me as if I had suggested doing something indecent. "Open it!" I said.
Vince shrugged and began to carefully undo the plastic tie. "So impatient," he said. "You must learn to wait, Grasshopper. All things come to those who-"
"Just open the goddamn bag," I said, which startled me a great deal more than it did Vince. He just shrugged again and removed the tie, placing it carefully into an evidence bag. I realized I was leaning in a little too close, and I straightened up-and bumped into Deborah, who had been leaning over me. She didn't even blink, just hunkered down into the position I had left.
"Come on, goddamn it," she said.
"You guys must be related or something," Vince said. But before I could kick him, he opened the top of the bag and began to peel it slowly back. He reached into it cautiously and, with a truly irritating lack of speed, began to pull out "Deke's shirt," Deborah said. "He was wearing that this afternoon." She looked at me and I nodded: I remembered the shirt, a beige guayabera sprinkled with light green palm trees. But it had a new pattern on it now, an awful wet soaked-in swirl of blood, kept damp inside the sealed bag.
Slowly and carefully Vince pulled the bloody shirt out of the bag, and as it came all the way out at last, something else clattered onto the ground and rolled away toward the building's back door. Deborah said, "Shit," and jumped up to follow the thing as it wobbled to a stop a few feet away. I came right behind her and, since I was wearing gloves, I bent and picked it up.
"Let me see," Deborah demanded, and I held it out on the palm of my hand.
There was not really much to see. The thing looked like a poker chip, perfectly round, the edges grooved like a gear. But it was jet black, and on one face there was a gold symbol embossed onto it. It looked something like a 7, except it had a line drawn through the vertical leg.
"The fuck is that?" Debs said, staring at the symbol.
"Maybe a European seven?" I said. "That's how they make 'em sometimes, with the line through it."