He searched through the garbage that littered the alleyway for something heavy. Spector was tired and unsteady. It was probably some kind of hangover from what that Insulin bitch had done to him.
The Astronomer had to be using up power fast. That was the only reason Spector was still alive. The Astronomer needed him to help recharge his powers, which he’d do later with For tunato’s girls. When they got together to ofF somebody, there was something about the way Spector killed people that made it easier for the Astronomer to eat their energy, or whatever the hell it was he did to get his power. The Astronomer always channeled some of the juice to him. It made Spector feel great, and not many things could anymore. He might have a chance to kill the old bastard before then if the Astronomer was weak enough. Otherwise, the Astronomer would get charged to the limit and then nobody could stop him.
He dug into a dumpster and pulled out a broken marble paperweight. It was shaped like a rearing horse, only the head was gone. Spector knelt down and set his mangled arm against the asphalt. He positioned the paperweight over where the bones had been broken and practiced bringing it down several times, then raised his arm as high as he could. He closed his eves and pictured the Astronomer’s head under his raised hand. Spector brought the paperweight down as hard as he could. There was a snap. He ground his teeth together to keep from screaming and did it again. Another snap. He dropped the headless horse and pulled his bones into line. After a minute or two he let go. His arm was fairly straight, but he still couldn’t rotate his wrist. The bones were knobbed and didn’t slide over each other the way they should.
Spector shakily stood up, his arm hanging limply at his side. He hurt even worse than usual and his suit, the only one he owned, was a mess. He walked slowly down the alley to ward the street, hoping that this was as bad as it would get.
Fortunato stepped carefully over the heavy power cables the cops had strung up in the tunnels. There were are lights every few feet. The walls were slick and cratered with tiny bubbles. Fortunato guessed that one of the Masonic aces must have drilled them with some kind of heat power.
The main chamber was thirty feet across. There was a battered Persian rug on the floor; somebody had ground out their cigarettes on it. The furniture was cheap vinyl junk that had spent some time in the rain.
Plainclothes cops in latex gloves were gathering up bits and pieces and putting them in ziplock bags. One of them had just picked up a disposable plastic syringe. Fortunato took the man’s wrist and bent over to sniff the needle. The cop stared at him.
“Heroin,” Fortunato said.
“Been a lot of it around,” the cop said. “Cheap as dirt these days.”
Fortunato nodded, thinking about Veronica. She could be on the street right now, tying off, raising the bright blue vein inside her elbow…
“Over here,” Altobelli said. “I don’t know what the fuck he is.”
Fortunato recognized him from Water Lily’s description. He was one of the nightmares, a weird little genius who’d re built the Shakti device for the Astronomer. His fear and hatred of cockroaches had turned him into one.
“Kafka,” Fortunato said. “That’s what they call you, isn’t it?”
“Not,” the man said, “to my face. As a rule.” He sat on a tobacco-colored couch in the corner. The parts of him that weren’t covered by a white lab coat were the same brown color as the couch-skinny legs with spikes coming out the back, hands like tweezers, a flat, noseless face, with nothing but lumps where the eyes should have been.
Fortunato stood in front of him. All he felt was cold. “Where is he?”
“I don’t know,” Kafka said.
“Why aren’t you dead like the others?”
The faceless head swiveled toward him. “Give me time. I’m sure I will be. Some of those … children … outside were having some sport with me. By the time I got here I heard screaming. I hid in a back tunnel.”
“Did you hear anything else?”
“He told someone else-a woman-to meet him at a warehouse when she was done. There was something about a ship.”
“What kind of ship?”
“I don’t know”
“Who was he talking to?”
“I never knew her name. I only saw her once or twice. Besides, my eyes are nearly useless. I could try to describe her smell to you.”
Fortunato shook his head. “Is there anything else? Anything at all?”
Kafka thought for another few seconds. “He said something about four o’clock. That was all I heard.”
Demise had said it was all going to happen by four A. M. A yacht? Fortunato wondered. Some kind of cruise ship? Not likely. Nothing that traveled on water could take him far enough fast enough to keep Fortunato from finding him.
Which meant a spaceship. But where in hell would the Astronomer be able to come up with a spaceship?
“Have them cremate me, will you?” Kafka said. ” I hate this body. I hate the idea of it being around after me.”
“You ain’t dead yet,” Altobelli said. “For Christ’s sake.”
“As good as,” Kafka said. “As good as.”
On the way back out Fortunato said, “He’s right, you know. The Astronomer is going to come after him. You need a guard around him at all times. Like SWAT guys with M16s.”
“You’re serious, aren’t you?”
“He got the Turtle,” Fortunato said.
“All right. You got it. Procedure in a case like this, the perp goes to the jokertown lockup. That’s Captain Black’s turf. But I’ll keep a detail of my own guys with him. We’ve got enough shit on our faces for one day.”
They came back up into daylight. “Now look,” Altobelli said. “You be careful. You see this Astronomer character, you call for backup, you understand?”
“Right, Lieutenant.”. “Sure you will,” Altobelli said. “Sure you will.”