City of the Snakes (19 page)

It takes half an hour to get the coffin to the hearse—everyone wants to touch it for good luck, or to express their farewells—and another half hour for the hearse to clear the block. Only a fraction of the crowd has been invited to the crematorium. The chosen few gather on the steps of the church. There are seventy or eighty of us, Fabio’s children (no room for grandchildren, bar one or two favorites) and nearest friends.

When the crowd clears enough for us to push through to our vehicles, we make our way to the crematorium. I’ve brought my motorcycle, even though I virtually never use it when in Al Jeery mode. It’s a long ride and I’d miss the start of the service if I biked.

I park out back, flash my invitation to the guard at the door, and join the rest of the mourners in a large chamber, the walls of which are draped with billowing curtains. Flo and Zeba stand inside the door to the chamber, greeting and directing the mourners. I get shunted to the third row from the front on the left, next to the wall. I don’t have a great view of the coffin, which suits me fine. I hate funerals.

When everyone’s settled, the priest from St. Jude’s steps up and delivers a final, heartfelt tribute to Fabio. He avoids hypocrisy—says he knows how Fabio made a living, and as a man of God he can’t approve—but admits respect for the pimp. “He was a man of honor who kept his word and did no harm unto others—unless they did it to him first!”

At the end of his speech, he clears his throat and blushes. “I, uh, normally I’d hang around until the end, but Flo and Zeba have a special send-off in mind and I can’t really…” His blush deepens. “I’ll wait outside,” he mutters and scurries away to whispers of confused amusement.

Zeba faces us. She’s weeping but grinning at the same time. “We all know Fabio was a womanizing bastard,” she grunts, and is greeted by a round of cheers and claps. “His final wish was to go with a flourish, and though he never said what he intended, Flo and I have come up with something we think he’d like.”

As Zeba sits, a door at the side of the chamber opens, the lights dim and “Big Spender” starts to play over the PA. As we crack up, six chorus girls enter, faces covered with masks—life-size photos of Fabio’s face. They kick their stockinged legs high, split skirts parting to reveal flashes of thigh, glittering tops tight around their breasts.

The girls gyrate in front of the coffin, race down and back up the aisle, then gather in a line and strip. Many of the men are hooting encouragingly, some of the women too. Practically everyone’s smiling and laughing, though a lot of the smiles are flecked with tears. The first girl whips off her top to a raucous cheer. Then the second, the third, all the way down the line, until the six are naked from the waist up, dancing lewdly, masks of Fabio still in place, wiggling their breasts and hips.

In all the unexpected excitement, I almost miss Fabio’s exit. As the strippers jiggle down the aisle, his coffin glides backward on a conveyer
belt, through a pair of lace curtains, never to be seen again. I salute him as he goes, wishing him luck wherever he winds up.

“If that doesn’t satisfy the horny old goat, nothing will,” one of his daughters in the seat ahead of me mutters to her husband.

“What’d really make his day,” he murmurs, “would be if they slipped back there and jumped his dead bones.”

As I’m laughing at their comments, the music dies, the lights come back up, the strippers gather their clothes, bow one final time to the mourners and start to leave. Those closest to the aisle are already on their feet, in a hurry to get back to Fabio’s house for the wake. Since I’m by the wall, I stay seated and wait for the way to clear. As my eyes wander, I notice one of the strippers standing nearby. It’s hard to tell with the Fabio mask, but I get the impression she’s staring at
me
.

I stare back at the stripper, smiling awkwardly, trying not to ogle her breasts. Then she removes her mask and I forget her breasts entirely. It’s Ama Situwa!

As my jaw drops, she sends the Fabio mask flicking toward me. Instinctively I duck to avoid it. When I look again, she’s gone. Not waiting to question my sanity, I bound from my seat, leap over the people in the rows ahead—ignoring their indignant roars—duck through the door and race down a corridor.

It branches at the end. The right fork leads to a room where I can hear loud conversation and laughter—the strippers. I doubt that Ama Situwa will return to her colleagues—I can always trace them through Flo and Zeba later if I have to—so I turn left and pick up speed.

The corridor leads to the rear of the crematorium, no further forks or doors. I burst out into sunlight, drop to my knees in case anyone’s waiting with a gun and raze the area with my gaze, desperately wishing I’d packed my .45. I spot Situwa at the far corner of the building to my left, tugging on a T-shirt. She’s on a moped. I start toward her, realize I have no hope of catching her on foot—the engine’s already running—so turn and dart for my motorcycle in the parking lot.

By the time I clear the lot, I’m sure Situwa will have vanished, but to my delight I catch sight of her overtaking a car that has stopped for a yellow light. Cutting lanes—almost getting wiped out by a van—I come
down with a jarring thud on her side of the road, take a few seconds to straighten, and set off after her, ripping through the gears, eyes locked on the figure in front.

Within a minute I’ve already closed the gap by half and know she’s mine for the taking. Secure in this knowledge and thinking clearly—aided by the fresh air—I ease up on the throttle. I close the gap another seventy or eighty feet over the next few minutes but maintain that distance, giving her the run of the city, to see where she’ll lead me.

As we bypass traffic, I ponder the situation and come to the obvious conclusion that this is a setup. The woman wants me to follow her. She’s leading me somewhere specific and I bet friends of hers will be waiting when we arrive. The intelligent thing would be to cut her off, knock her from her moped, interrogate her on territory of my own choosing. But I let her keep her lead, eager to know whom she’s running to.

She heads for the city center. I start to think she’s leading me to Party Central but then she takes a turn for the docks. That would be a good spot for an ambush—plenty of deserted warehouses—but then she turns again, away from the river. I stop speculating and simply follow.

Several minutes later she pulls up at the base of the Manco Capac statue and leaps from her moped. I draw up beside the abandoned bike, stand my own beside it and pad after her, closing the distance to forty feet by the time she reaches the door at the foot of the statue and races inside.

The Manco Capac statue is the city’s largest monument, standing an incredible nine hundred feet high, an immense tribute to the founding father of the Incas. Construction commenced a decade ago but the doors were only opened to the public the year before last. I’ve never been inside but I’ve heard a lot about it—it’s home to a supposedly world-class Inca museum, and the views of the city are allegedly second to none.

I pause at the entrance. There’s a sign proclaiming the statue closed for the day, but the door’s unlocked and there are no guards. This feels bad but I’m not about to turn tail now. I might be weaponless, but my hands are the hands of a killer, so I’m never truly unarmed. Wiping my palms on my pants, I take a calming breath, then start up the stairs after Ama Situwa.

After a long climb I stop at a steel door. I flex my fingers, take hold of
the handle, pull the door open and throw myself through, rolling across the floor, anticipating action.

Nobody here.

I stand warily and study my surroundings. I’m in the lowest section of the museum, where a gift shop and an Incan-themed restaurant predominate. No sign of Ama Situwa. I step up to the window of the gift shop and check the display. Useless bric-a-brac, but on the left I spot a thick-headed walking stick, and just behind that a belt of ornamental knives. I kick in the glass—no alarm sounds—and grab the walking stick and knives. The stick’s hefty and will serve as a club. The knives are flimsy but better than nothing. I strap on the belt, slide out a knife and hold it by my side, and advance.

The statue is hollow and tiered with crystal floors of different colors. On each floor a dazzling array of cabinets and display stands boast all manner of Incan ornaments and tools, garments and jewelry, maps and information sheets. I ignore all of it and search for Ama Situwa, who’s lost me amid the aisles of memorabilia and artifacts.

I move up floors cautiously. I sense she’s waiting for me at the top but I don’t rush. The museum’s deserted, lit by dim security lamps. My footsteps echo loudly. I don’t try to muffle them. Whoever’s waiting with Ama Situwa knows I’m coming, so the element of surprise isn’t in play.

Finally I leave the last of the display cabinets behind and come to a door marked
SOLARIUM. AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY
. I know all about the statue’s solarium. A lover of everything Incan told me about it many years ago, when work on the statue was in its infancy. A circular room full of mirrors designed to harness the full blast of the sun and amplify it. Access is restricted and allegedly no bribe will get you past the security guards if you haven’t been given the go-ahead by the relevant authorities.

There are no guards on the door today, but I pause before entering. The glare of the mirrors is meant to be blinding and visitors have to wear colored goggles. The glass of the roof is tinted, cutting down the glare, but it can be retracted at the push of a button. If I go up, unprotected, and somebody pushes that button…

I have to risk it. Situwa could be hiding on any of the floors beneath—I gave them only a cursory once-over—but I know in my heart that she’s
waiting for me in the solarium, along with whoever sent her to me as bait. I could try to wait them out, but this is their game, not mine. I must respect the rules.

Pushing through the revolving door, I find myself on a set of narrow, steep stairs. I swap my walking stick from my left hand to my right as I climb, and the knife vice versa, just to give myself something to think about while ascending.

At the top of the stairs I hit the domed solarium. The walls are embedded with mirrors. The glass roof is tinted a dark gray-blue color. The floor of the room is mostly covered by a huge, circular stone. A strangely carved block juts from the center of the stone, maybe five feet high. Standing in front of the block, a long knife held between his hands, is a robed, blind
villac
. At the base of the stone, legs dangling over the side, rests Ama Situwa.

“Welcome, Flesh of Dreams,” she greets me, smiling blankly. I get the feeling she isn’t in control of herself. She’s being manipulated.

“Who are you?” I ask, striding forward. Before I reach her, she swings her legs up, rolls away from me and comes to her feet. I stop at the edge, remembering a similar stone from many years earlier. The
villacs
called it the
inti watana
. When I tried to mount it, I received a crippling electric shock.

“You have a keen memory, Flesh of Dreams,” the woman with Ama Situwa’s features says. “This platform, like the other, will repulse those who set foot on it uninvited. You may test it if you wish, but I would not advise it.” She doesn’t sound like a woman. Her voice is deep and masculine.

“Who are you?” I ask again.

In answer she removes her T-shirt, slides out of her skirt and slips off her shoes and stockings.

“Who are you?” I ask for the third time.

“Ama Situwa,” she answers.

“Ama Situwa’s dead.”

“Yes.” She smiles a corpse’s grin. “And today she dies again.”

The naked woman walks to the priest at the center of the platform. He steps to one side and she jumps and hauls herself onto the stone block,
drapes herself across it, facing me, body arced, pubis high. The
villac
walks around the block, muttering words in a language I don’t understand.

The priest comes to a halt at the front of the block and sets the blade of his knife to the flesh of the woman’s throat. She doesn’t look alarmed, merely stares calmly at the ceiling, breathing steadily.

“Stop,” I say softly. “You don’t have to do this. Let’s talk.”

The
villac
ignores me, presses down, then drags the blade from right to left, severing the woman’s vocal cords. Ama Situwa’s body jerks but she doesn’t beat him off. She holds her head as still as she can while he makes a second cut, then a third, slicing deeper each time, right through the neck, until her head flops over the edge of the block, connected to her body by only a thin flap of flesh.

I watch the sacrifice neutrally. I’ve killed too many people to feel sickened or appalled. If the priest meant to shock me, he failed.

Ama Situwa’s blood runs down the sides of the block, soaking into the stone of the platform. The
villac
steps away, knife hanging by his side. Dropping the knife, he raises his arms above his head and chants. I consider launching one of my own knives at him—I could hit him from here, though I don’t think the cheap blade would do much damage—but choose to wait. I want to see what he does next.

While I’m studying the priest, I spot movement at the center of the platform. My gaze flicks to the block, back to the priest, then returns to the block, my eyes widening. I thought the movement was Ama Situwa’s body shifting, or another priest entering the solarium, but it’s nothing so simple. A tiny cloud of green fog has formed around the dead woman’s body and rises to the ceiling, dispersing as it does. As I watch, mystified, I realize that the body on the platform is growing translucent, fading away. She’s disappearing, flesh and bones transforming into tendrils of a vapid green fog that drifts upward and separates, becoming invisible dust motes, until both woman and fog are no more.