Hang Wire Read online

  He stopped when he realized the angle of the gully was steeper than it looked, but he kept sliding a foot or more toward the cave entrance before he came to halt. Nothing but dry dirt and loose rock, of course… except for the fact that Joel was sure there was something drawing him in. Not like being pushed, like some fellow settler desperate for a valid claim in the land run had hidden in the cracks and crevasses of the gully and had come out to shove Joel to his death, hoping his neck would break, and if that failed that he would be on the ground long enough for his attacker to smash his brains out with one of the heavy stones that lay scattered in some abundance around the cave.

  No, this was more like being pulled, like there was a lasso around Joel’s middle, drawing him gently, slowly in.

  Joel’s fingers found the coin again. This time it was cold but there was something else too, a sensation he couldn’t quite describe, like when you sometimes touched the metal rim of a wagon wheel just as you got off after a long journey. A spark, a pinprick, like being licked by the trailing edge of a whip. The sensation was gone in a second and Joel took the coin out, now used to the cold.

  But not used to the force that seemed to emanate from it. The coin was moving, or wanted to move, toward the cave. It wriggled in his fingers, back and forth, back and forth. Joel took a step forward, watching the coin, watching the cave.

  Then he let go of the coin, and it dropped to the sandy soil like any coin would, and it did not move. With his other hand he brushed the handle of the gun on his belt, ready to draw.

  Then a cold wind came from the cave, carrying with it the smell of metal and the voice, calling out, far away. The sun dropped in the sky and caught the face of the coin in the dirt, throwing up a shining, glittering flare into Joel’s eyes.

  The cave called again, and hand on his daddy’s gun, Joel stepped forward.

  MURDER IN THE CITY

  …and in developing news this hour, the San Francisco Police Department has released the name of the woman whose body was found in a back street close to City Hall last week.

  The woman has been identified as Lucy Winters, 23. Relatives have been informed.

  Police are appealing to any witnesses who were in the vicinity of Olive and Polk in the city center in the early hours of July ninth, and have conducted a door-to-door of nearby businesses and residences. While no further statement has been made by the SFPD, a source close to the investigation told this news organization that the death of Lucy Winters followed the same pattern as that of an elderly resident of Chinatown the previous week. The unnamed Chinese male was found hanged in an apparent ritual murder inside a food import warehouse, but our sources could not speculate on the connection between the two deaths.

  We’ll have more news as it comes to hand.

  — I —

  SAN FRANCISCO

  TODAY

  Ted gave up fighting after a while. No matter how much he insisted he was OK, no matter how gently he protested at being led to the back of the ambulance by two paramedics, resistance was most definitely useless. The whole damn street was caught in the red and blue strobe of the vehicle’s lights, bleaching the faces of the Chinatown onlookers in alternating flashes of color.

  Reluctantly, Ted now sat in the back of the ambulance and let the paramedics fuss as much as they wanted. It was their job, after all, and a mighty fine and important one at that. Pissing off the San Francisco Fire Department was rather low on his list of priorities. Figuring out what had caused the explosion at the Jade Emperor was currently at the top.

  One of the paramedics pressed a button and the blood pressure sleeve inflated for a second time; Ted felt fine, really, no problem, no pain except for his upper arm being crushed by the damn cuff wrapped around his biceps.

  “Hey,” Ted said. The paramedic didn’t move his eyes from the digital readout, but his eyebrows went up half an inch.

  Ted sighed and closed his eyes and focused instead on being the model patient. He felt fine, honestly, no problem, and just hoped they wouldn’t decide to take him to the hospital. Now that would be embarrassing.

  “Stop fidgeting.”

  Ted opened his eyes and saw Alison leaning against the open door of the ambulance, arms folded, the crowd behind her still eager for a quick glimpse at whatever tragedy was unfolding. Well, thought Ted, sorry to disappoint, but there is no gore, no blood, no wailing and gnashing. Rubberneckers.

  The cuff hissed and deflated, and Ted felt an almost nauseating relief as the blood surged back into his arm. The paramedic moved farther back in to the ambulance. Taking his cue, Ted rolled his shirtsleeve down.

  “Where’s Benny?” he asked. He had no idea where anybody was. The only thing he did know was that his thirty-seventh birthday had ended with a bang a little bigger than intended, but as he was the only one sitting in the back of an ambulance, he assumed everyone else was OK. Alison seemed to be in one piece, anyway.

  She jerked her head back up the street. “She’s talking to the owners. Material for the blog.”

  Ted nodded. Made sense. A journalist had to be ready, eyes and ears open, forever searching for the story, the scoop. Ted included. That the little explosion had disrupted the dinner arrangements of a table full of San Francisco’s finest online reporters was perhaps a happy coincidence. The story had landed, almost literally, in their lap.

  “What did the police say?” he asked.

  “Why don’t you ask them yourself?” Alison backed away from the door and a uniformed officer appeared from around the side of the vehicle. He took one look at Ted, and, as though he’d forgotten a common courtesy, knocked on the inside of the door with his knuckles. The paramedic reappeared from the recesses of the ambulance with some paperwork, and the two nodded a greeting.

  “He’s all yours,” said the paramedic, his attention now shifted from his patient to his clipboard.

  Ted sighed. Great. First paramedics, now the police. This was not quite his idea of a fun night out.

  “Mr Kane?”

  Ted nodded. “That’s me.”

  “How are you feeling?” asked the officer, in a tone that suggested he lacked any interest in Ted’s wellbeing at all.

  Ted glanced at the paramedic, and nodded at the officer. “Just fine,” he said, but as he stood from the gurney and moved to hop out of the back of the ambulance he rocked on his feet, dizziness threatening to overcome him. He sat back down. Alison gave him a look, and Ted frowned. “Well, little woozy, maybe.”

  The officer took a small notepad from inside his jacket and flipped it to a blank page. Alison crept forward a little and stood on her toes to watch over the officer’s shoulder as he began to jot his notes.

  “Tell me what happened tonight, sir.” The officer had his pen at the ready. The pen was short. Ted didn’t think it looked that comfortable to write with.

  He thought for a moment, and nodded slowly.

  This was going to take some explaining.

  “It was a fortune cookie.”

  The officer licked his lips, and his pen remained resolutely motionless. The cop’s eyes remained fixed on Ted’s.

  “A fortune cookie?” asked the officer.

  “Yep, a fortune cookie. An exploding fortune cookie.”

  “So a fortune cookie exploded, blowing out half the windows down the street and landing you in the back of an ambulance?”

  “In a word, yes.”

  The officer licked his lips again and turned to Alison, who just shrugged.

  “Look,” said Ted. “We were out for my birthday…”

  Alison organized it, of course, although Ted thought he might have given a hint here and there. He didn’t think it was quite right to organize your own birthday dinner. Not that it was a milestone age, but he was turning an odd number – not just odd, but prime. Ted wasn’t good at math, but he had a thing for numbers. Alison knew this, although she thought his little numerical obsession was pretty dumb. But she organized dinner and drinks and friends, and kept the prime nature
of Ted’s age to herself. Ted was just dying to tell everyone. Because, he rationalized, they were all friends and colleagues, right? Some from the blog, some not. And they wouldn’t mind if he waxed lyrical about the beauty of the number thirty-seven, would they?

  OK, maybe they would. Well, some of them. Not Benny. Ted wondered, through the haze of a little too much wine, whether he was stereotyping by assuming the young Asian woman would be good at math. He immediately felt stupid and decided not to bring it up.

  There were other guests from the Bay Blog: Alison, of course, the two Kevins, Daisy and Zane. Ted didn’t really care much for Zane’s company, but it was one of those situations where if you invited so-and-so and so-and-so, you really had to invite Zane as well.

  Then there was Andy and Lisa. Andy was an iPhone developer and he had an office that was far too plush and had way too much of a nice view of the Golden Gate Bridge. Lisa was his wife, and Ted didn’t think she worked, although he’d never quite figured it out.

  Rounding it off had been Victor, Kate, Klaire-with-a-K, and Barry and Amos. Ted was always vaguely jealous of Amos, having a name like that. It sure beat Ted.

  Ted was just thinking about someone else he knew with the frankly outstanding name of St. John when the table went quiet. He blinked and smiled sweetly at Alison, finally noticing that particular look she was giving him, the look that indicated sharp and stabby death was imminent if he didn’t start paying attention.

  Zane licked his lips and for a moment Ted thought he was being too harsh on him. So he was a bore. Ted had known worse.

  “Sorry,” said Ted, “what was that, Zane?”

  Zane’s smile grew two inches, and he pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose a little. They were nice glasses. Thick black frames, gold arms, the design perfect for his face. He had taste. Maybe, thought Ted, he needed to be friends with Zane, proper friends. They could go fishing, or catch a game of whatever-it-was that they both liked, and then shoot the shit in a bar and eat peanuts. Zane had cool glasses. If Ted needed glasses – and he didn’t, but if he did – then he thought he might go for a pair like Zane’s.

  “I was saying,” said Ted’s new best friend, “don’t you think the new paper recycling policy at the office is just ridiculous?”

  He snickered. It was unpleasant, a sort of snort through the nostrils and hiss through the teeth, in rapid alternation. Ted watched Zane’s hipster glasses slide down his nose as Zane looked around the table, catching the eye of each diner to ensure that he had their full attention. Most of them smiled and then glanced back at their food. Benny’s grin was the widest, but then Benny seemed to get on with everyone at the blog. Even Zane.

  Ted decided he didn’t like Zane after all. He probably didn’t like football. Ted didn’t like football either, but that was beside the point.

  Ted laughed a little too loud and quickly stuck his nose in his wine glass. Under the table, Alison nudged his calf with the side of her foot, but as Ted emerged from his sweet Californian rosé she was looking the other way.

  “You’re right,” said Benny through a mouthful of noodles. As she spoke the tail ends rotated through her lips, wet with sauce. It was fascinating and revolting. Ted wondered if she was doing it on purpose.

  Benny swallowed. “I don’t know what gets into Mazzy’s head, but the last thing we need is another two sides of company policy to hang from the noticeboard. Am I right?”

  Now she was looking at Ted. She was doing it deliberately. Ted was sure Benny had even winked. Ted opened his mouth to say something but before he could figure out quite what he wanted to say there was an intake of air from the other end of the table and Zane started up again.

  Please God, thought Ted. Save me, or kill me. Whatever you choose, do it soon.

  “I officially declare I have eaten all the prawns in the Bay area.”

  Alison laughed at Ted and leaned forward for a kiss. As their lips touched, the table erupted in applause.

  “Sir, madam, sir.”

  Ted stretched back in his chair as the waiter set down a tiny white plate for each guest, a single golden fortune cookie in a crisp, sealed plastic bag sitting on each. It really had been a mighty fine meal. The wine had been mighty fine too. Mighty fine. Ted closed his eyes and listened to the crackle of plastic being torn and the dull snap of cookies breaking. For a second it sounded like someone was whispering over his shoulder. Ted jolted in his chair and opened his eyes quickly, feeling slightly foolish. But nobody had noticed.

  “‘A rising tide lifts all boats,’” said Andy. This was met with hrmms of appreciation from all.

  “‘You are a leaf on the wind, a leaf on the wind,’” said one of the Kevins. Benny laughed, and proceeded to explain at length how this was from the TV series Firefly. Ted wanted to tell her it was probably a coincidence but as Benny got into it Ted decided not to shatter the illusion.

  “‘As the sun rises in the east and sets in the West, seize the day!’” Klaire sat back and admired her tiny strip of paper with a nod and a downturned mouth. Someone suggested her fortune would have sounded better in Latin.

  Benny played her cookie around on its little plate, and as soon as Klaire had dropped her fortune back on the table, she picked her little plastic bag up, like she’d been holding back and the excitement had finally gotten to be too much for her.

  “My turn!” she said. She loved this stuff, really she did.

  She examined the cookie at first, still inside its plastic envelope, turning it around in her fingers like a rare and wonderful thing. Then she carefully grasped the bag on either side of the main seam, and tugged. Kate hooted and slapped the table, begging her to get on with it. At this interruption, something dark passed over Benny’s face, but it was replaced quickly with a smile and as Ted looked around the table he wasn’t sure anyone else had seen it – except maybe Kate, who dragged her hand off the table and onto her lap quickly, her own smile suddenly gone.

  Benny extracted the cookie from its bag. She turned the cookie around, grabbed it by the horns, and pulled. The cookie split neatly in two, nary a splinter out of place. With almost surgical stillness, Benny reached inside for the curl of white paper.

  “‘Perhaps you’ve been focusing too much on yourself,’” she read. The table was silent for a moment.

  Then Kate hooted and slapped the table again, and everyone burst into laughter. Ted smiled and drained the last oily dregs of wine from his glass, but when he put it down he could see that Benny wasn’t happy. She was staring at his little piece of magic advice, pulling the strip of paper tape so tight it began to twist at the center. True enough, it was a strange fortune. But sometimes the makers liked to spice things up a little and get funky with their words of wisdom, didn’t they? If anything, Benny was lucky, having received by random chance a keeper, a fortune odd enough, good enough, to slip into your wallet as an amusing reminder.

  Ted watched in silence as the conversation was re-ignited around the table, everyone discussing the best fortunes they had received in the past. Benny was as still as Ted, and Ted realized that his friend really did love this stuff. She was disappointed, that much was obvious, but perhaps she was taking it a little too seriously.

  “Great advice,” Ted said, reaching past Klaire to knock Benny’s shoulder with his fist. It was just a light touch, but Benny rocked on her chair a little too much. Ted frowned and Benny placed her strip of paper back down on the plate, between the two neat halves of her cookie.

  “Hey,” said Alison. Her wine glass had miraculously refilled itself, and she used the base of it to point at the untouched cookie on Ted’s plate.

  “Aha!” said Ted. He glanced at Benny and gave a wink, although his friend didn’t react. Ignoring her, Ted carefully rolled the cuffs of his shirt up, stuck his elbows out, and flexed his fingers like a concert pianist about to play Chopin. Andy laughed and someone nudged Benny, who smiled weakly now but still rocked on her chair. Ted saw it out of the corner of his eye, but quickly return
ed his attention to the cookie. The party may have come to a halt for his friend for some reason, but not for him.

  “OK, OK…” said Ted, clapping his hands. Then he picked the cookie up and yanked the bag open. The cookie clattered onto his plate.

  “Sounds like you gotta good one there!” said Amos.

  Ted laughed and picked the cookie up, feeling over its surface with his thumbs, picking the optimal line of weakness to shatter the puny confection in one mighty push.

  “Here we go,” he said. He pushed.

  Ted felt the rough surface of the thing give under the pressure. It didn’t occur to him that anything should be different, that one of these things was not like the others. As the cookie collapsed in on itself and he was lit by a bright red and white light from within, Ted had this absurd vision of the Sesame Street four-square, three monsters holding up fortune cookies and, in the top-left, Benny holding hers delicately with a smile. One of these things is not like the other. He shook his head and blinked the vision away. Too much wine, too much salt, too much MSG. Didn’t MSG make you crazy?

  Then the world exploded in red and blue and yellow like a Chinese firecracker, and Ted cried out as the restaurant disappeared into a black void filled with falling stars.

  Ted blinked, and blinked again. He was flat on his back on a thick carpet. He raised himself up, enough to see an overturned table, the floor covered with broken crockery and glasses, the sticky remains of a large meal scattered about. There was movement all around, as diners scrambled to flee. The waiters, in their white jacks and black bow ties, were shouting and running, helping people out.

  Ted looked up, and saw it was snowing.

  He blinked again and watched tiny strips of paper fluttering down from the ceiling.

  Ted held his hands out, amazed at the tickling sensation on his palms and fingers as the tiny paper strips drifted from the ceiling. He craned his neck up, but it was dark above, like there was a stormy cloud deck above the swinging green lanterns. The paper strips were falling from somewhere higher, and they weren’t stopping.