Hang Wire Read online

  “Leave them,” said Jack.

  Nadine spun around, and Jack saw her face was red and angry. “What? Jesus, Jack, really?”

  Jack had one eye on the man in the black suit. He was covered in ash, and a thick tentacle of blood and spit trailed from his mouth. Jack grimaced.

  “Earth to the Magical Zanaar, come in please?”

  He turned to Nadine. “Leave it to me.”

  Nadine sighed. “I don’t know who’s the biggest idiot,” she said. “You, or me for staying here.” She swore and marched away.

  Jack rolled his shoulders. She was right, of course. He took off his top hat and rubbed his forehead.

  Malcolm’s Celtic dance group, Stonefire, were a relatively new addition to the troupe, having joined only this year for the circus’s West Coast tour. Jack hadn’t been sure at first; dancing didn’t seem quite the traditional circus act, and he wasn’t sure how authentic Stonefire was, their choreographed dancing and acrobatics more a modern pastiche, a romantic ideal of the noble Iron Age tribes of Europe. But they’d been a wow with the crowds, something foreign, exotic, dancing to drums and pipes, the main ring alive with braziers and torches. Crowds loved fire, and there was fire-juggling and fire-eating. Some of the dancing was pretty acrobatic, and some of the dancers were just pretty. Barefoot Celtic lasses in skimpy leather was good for business. Tickets sales were up; the ringside was packed on every night of the tour.

  Jack sighed and picked his cigar from the ground. He only had two left, and didn’t want to waste them. He turned to the man in black, flanked by Sara and Kara. The girls looked pale. Jack wondered if that was because of the fight or because of the man they were helping keep upright.

  “You OK?” Jack asked, brushing dirt from the cigar.

  The man in black’s face was gray, the same shade as the ash that covered the ground – the ash that covered the front of his suit too, and his hair, thick and curly. The only color on him was the splatter of bright, arterial blood across the bottom half of his face that dripped thickly from his jaw. The blood on the ground was darker where it had mixed with the ash and dirt.

  The man pulled his arms away from the gymnasts, and straightened his jacket. He looked at Jack, and Jack flinched. One of the man’s eyes was a dark brown; the other was light gray, almost white. Jack was used to it but that didn’t stop him being a little repulsed now and again.

  The man in black smiled, showing his teeth red and pink. “Mr Newhaven, I’m perfectly fine.”

  Sara and Kara had shuffled away, and Sara was playing with the cuff of her leotard, like she wanted to be somewhere else, anywhere else, away from the man in black.

  Jack waved his cigar at the pair. “You girls go get cleaned up and back to practice. Another show tonight, remember.”

  The girls exchanged a look.

  Jack coughed. “And maybe talk to Nadine. Make sure she hasn’t called the cops or anything, OK?”

  The girls nodded in union, and left. Jack watched them leave, then reached forward, brushing the dirt and ash from the man in black’s suit.

  “Jesus, Joel, this is too much…”

  As his fingers brushed against the man’s chest, the man in black grabbed Jack’s wrist and pulled it up. The fingers of his other hand found the fob pocket on the front of his waistcoat and disappeared inside, like he thought Jack was going to pickpocket him there and then. The two men stared at each other as the seconds grew long, then Joel released Jack’s wrist. The ringmaster staggered backward, rubbing his forearm. Joel’s grip had been as cold as ice.

  “I’m sorry,” Jack said, quietly. “I’m sorry.”

  Joel walked across the burned ground, and picked up his hat. It was tall, narrow – not a top hat like Jack’s, its sides gracefully curved, the brim curled, but something far more old fashioned. A stovepipe hat, Lincoln-style. It was partially collapsed and covered in ash, but Joel popped it back into shape and began brushing it with his sleeve.

  “Are you OK to operate the carnival tonight?” asked Jack.

  Joel stopped brushing and held the hat out in his hands, turning it this way and the other, like the battered antique was in prize shape.

  “I don’t need to operate the carnival. You know that, Jack.”

  “I know, but –”

  “You know, so why ask?” Joel fixed Jack with those eyes, one so brown it was almost black, one as light as the sky before a snowfall.

  “I’m sorry. I…” Jack rubbed his forehead. It was the stress, making his world wobble, making his ears fill with the sound of the ocean.

  Joel landed his hand on Jack’s shoulder, and Jack jumped. He ground his teeth together, tight, tight.

  “How much longer?” he asked.

  Joel smiled. “Soon, Jack. Soon.”

  Jack nodded toward the marquee of Malcolm’s dance troupe. “And them?”

  “They’re part of it, even if they don’t know it. They’re tools to be used,” said Joel.

  “And the fights? Will they stop?”

  Joel chuckled. “They can’t help it. It’s not them, remember.”

  Jack looked at the ground. “Does… does it know? About us? Is that why it makes them fight?”

  “Maybe,” said Joel with a smile. “It doesn’t matter. We control it. Not the other way around.”

  “It’s going to get worse, isn’t it?”

  Joel clicked his tongue and walked away, saying nothing but “Soon, Jack, soon” over his shoulder. But Jack didn’t know if he was talking to him, or to the power sleeping beneath their feet.

  — IV —

  SAN FRANCISCO

  TODAY

  Morning. The best time of day – of that Ted had no doubt whatsoever – and the most perfect moment is when you wake and it’s dark and you glance at the clock and it’s 5.58 and the alarm is going to go off in two minutes and you lie back and close your eyes and prepare for the day ahead and you’re had exactly the right amount of sleep and your body’s own internal alarm clock has gently lifted you back to consciousness and you’re not tired and you’re ready and with a second to spare you reach over and turn the alarm off even before it has sounded and you’re ready to go ready to go ready to –

  The phone’s ring was like warfare, like a construction worker opening a seam in the side of Ted’s head with a pneumatic jackhammer. Ted had got what he’d wanted – out and under, a deep, deep sleep, the kind of sleep that isn’t to be disturbed. And when you are disturbed, when you are brought up from the abyssal depth like a diver rising too fast, too fast, your day is not going to go well.

  Ted reached out and his fingers knocked against wood. He opened an eye, wondering how the bedside table had managed to move itself during the night, and saw unfamiliar shapes. No, not unfamiliar. He knew what they were, but half asleep he couldn’t reconcile them. There was a TV, and the table next to him was low and long, red maple, scattered with magazines and remote controls.

  He lifted himself up on the couch on one elbow. How had he gotten there? His phone continued to ring, its vibrate setting making it dance on the coffee table. He grabbed it, didn’t check who was calling, and collapsed back onto the couch, his eyes firmly shut.

  “Mm?”

  “This is some sleeping in.” It was Alison. The line was clear and lacking in the usual muffled quality of her cell. There was noise on the other end, too. Someone else talking.

  Ted thought about Alison’s statement, pondering it for a few seconds. She could have spoken in Chinese for all he knew.

  “Ted?”

  Eyes open, heart pounding.

  “Shit,” he said. He was awake now, lying on the couch. His head wasn’t sore but his body was, like he’d just finished a workout. Sleeping on the couch would do that.

  Alison laughed in his ear. “Don’t worry. I told Mazzy about last night.”

  “What did she say?”

  “She asked me to ask you how you were. So?”

  Ted frowned, rubbed his forehead. “Mm?”

  A
lison sighed. “How are you? You sleep OK?”

  “Um,” said Ted. Then he paused. He concentrated, hard. “Yeah, I guess. I think I overslept though.” He scrambled for the TV remote and waved it at the set. The screen flickered and Ted’s eyes searched the screen, looking for the ever-present clock displayed against the breakfast news.

  “I think you needed it,” said Alison.

  On the TV, someone in blue spandex was trying to sell Ted an exercise bike in fifty-two easy payments. There was no clock on display. He was lost, deep in infomercial territory.

  “Oh, shit,” he said.

  Alison laughed again. After a moment, Ted joined her.

  “Damn, do I need coffee.”

  “Forget coffee. It’s nearly lunch. I’ll come get you.”

  Ted looked around like he was expecting Alison to be standing behind him, behind the couch in his apartment. The feeling that he wasn’t alone was still there from last night. In the dead air that followed Alison’s voice, it sounded like there was someone else on the line, whispering into his ear.

  “Ted?”

  “Where are you?”

  “Still at the Asian Art Museum. Meeting went fine.”

  “Oh,” said Ted. “Sorry. Great, I’m glad.”

  “So, lunch?”

  “If lunch comes with coffee, then count me in.”

  “See you in twenty.”

  “See you,” said Ted. Alison disconnected. Ted kept the phone to his ear, listening, his other hand massaging his forehead. But there was no one there. Then he put the phone down and watched a whole troupe of spandex-clad aerobics junkies do synchronized cycling on their machines as the camera panned and zoomed like it was the finale of a Hollywood blockbuster.

  Ted heaved himself off the couch. A shower. Coffee. These were, right now, his two most favorite things in the world. Throw in some sunshine for good old vitamin D and some fresh air to blow the cobwebs away, and he’d be back in business. And, really, starting his thirty-eighth year with a hangover – of sorts, anyway – seemed entirely appropriate.

  He tossed the phone onto the couch and headed for the bedroom, unable to shake the feeling that his head felt like it was made of lead. Heavy, slow, like his neck couldn’t support it properly and if he moved it too quickly it would wobble. Maybe it would fall off.

  Between the living area and the bedroom was a dining area, another red maple table, the bigger brother of the coffee table, square in the center. There were some papers, and Ted’s laptop. As Ted passed it, he saw the laptop was on. It showed an empty white window, a new document opened in his word processor.

  Not empty. There were lines of text in a column. A short sentence, the font italic. Repeated again and again. Ted stopped, leaned on the back of the nearest dining chair, and stared at the screen.

  You are the master of every situation.

  You are the master of every situation.

  You are the master of every situation.

  Ted reached forward, swiped his fingers on the trackpad, scrolling down the page. The text went on. And on.

  Ted withdrew his hand and the scrolling stopped around page sixty-four.

  He rolled his lips, unsure. He didn’t remember falling asleep on the couch, and he certainly didn’t remember sitting down and typing the fortune out on his laptop beforehand. But he remembered the restaurant, the bang and the flash, and the paper strips raining from the ceiling. Alison hadn’t mentioned the fortunes. In fact, nobody did, not in the immediate aftermath. Ted wondered if, lying where he had, he was the only one who had seen. Seen how there was nothing up on the ceiling of the Jade Emperor except rolling black clouds, how the paper was falling, falling like autumn leaves. How when he looked up again, once he was upright, there were no black clouds, nothing but a black ceiling and green lanterns swinging on their short chains.

  You are the master of every situation.

  Ted closed the laptop’s lid and went to take a shower.

  It was a bright morning and it was going to be a hot day, Ted could tell. San Francisco had a peculiar little microclimate, the way it was surrounded by water on three sides. A day could blow hot and cold and hot again, sunshine in one part of the city and chilly fog somewhere else. And then things could swap over.

  But not today. Today it felt different, at least to Ted. He wondered why he was so sure, but he was, so that was that.

  “What’s up?”

  He looked at Alison as they walked down Howard Street, coming up to the Moscone Convention Center. The flags were flying, and a fleet of taxis was in steady rotation outside the front of the complex. Something big was in town, but nothing that Ted could remember. Which meant the blog wasn’t covering it, which meant it was something boring like a medical conference. You know, important stuff.

  “What’s up?”

  Alison laughed. “You’re smiling. You’re not supposed to smile. At least not in public. You must be feeling better.”

  “Oh,” said Ted, and he realized that yes, he was smiling. The sun was warm on his face and for a moment he felt like he could leap a tall building in a single bound. “I told you I was OK.”

  “You did,” she said, and she looped her arm through his. They slowed their pace as they came to the big intersection at Howard and Fourth. Three police cars, lights and sirens blazing, hurtled through the intersection. Ted and Alison watched as the cars pulled up a block to their left. There were more police down there, several cars and a van. Cops were walking around, along with some men in black bomber jackets and blue baseball caps.

  Ted felt Alison’s grip on his arm tighten. He looked down at the top of her blonde head, and she said, “It’s happened again.”

  Clementina Street, left of Fourth Street, was cordoned off, and Fourth itself was down to one lane, the police directing a growing crawl of traffic. Yellow police tape snapped and flickered in the breeze. There were people there already, just a small group of pedestrians, some in suits, perhaps convention center attendees from just across the street. There were some in orange vests and hardhats, construction workers from a nearby apartment building right on the corner of Clementina.

  Ted and Alison joined the edge of the group. Ted could see another two police cars down the closed-off street, and an ambulance, its red and white paintjob instantly recognizable from just the night before.

  Ted felt his heart kick, like he needed to get away, a moment of déjà vu so strong it made him feel sick. Perhaps it was just seeing the ambulance there. For all he knew, it was the one he’d sat in just hours ago.

  Alison pulled on his arm. “You OK?”

  Ted frowned, confused, and then nodded. “Yeah. It’s just… you know.” He looked down the street where people in uniforms were milling around. They couldn’t see anything. Nobody could. But everybody knew what was going on.

  “I know,” said Alison. “You don’t think anything like this would happen in your town. Right in your home, where you live. It’s like –”

  “Like it doesn’t feel like your home anymore,” said Ted. “I know.”

  “That’s four now.”

  “Jesus,” whispered Ted. His head pounded.

  Of course it had happened before. Several times. San Francisco, like an unfortunate number of other cities across the United States, knew what it was like to have a serial killer in their midst. There was David Carpenter, the so-called Trailside Killer, back in the late Seventies, although he hadn’t committed his crimes in the city itself. The San Francisco Witch Killers, early Eighties. And of course the Zodiac Killer, responsible for five deaths and a series of cryptic letters sent to the local press. Unsolved to this very day.

  And now a new name to add to the list: the Hang Wire Killer. Unsolved, ongoing, three deaths – four, now – each the same: the victims were founded hanged in quiet streets or back alleys in the city, dangling from fire escapes or lampposts, strung up with a thin steel cable. And the press sure did love a nickname. The Hang Wire Killer had arrived.

  “Doesn�
�t make any sense,” said Ted.

  Alison squeezed his arm. “Never does.”

  “I mean,” he said, turning to Alison, “why the wire? Why not rope? Wire is heavy, resistant. It would be awkward, difficult to do it with wire. Doesn’t make any sense.”

  “They’ll catch him.”

  Ted snorted, and Alison gave him a sharp look that made Ted frown and shake his head. “Don’t get me wrong, I hope they will,” he said. “But remember the Zodiac Killer. That guy is still out there.”

  Alison returned her attention to the crime scene. Clementina Street was narrow and quiet, but they were right next to the convention center. Someone must have seen or heard something, surely? This part of town would have been busy, even late.

  “Come on,” said Ted, gently pulling at Alison’s arm. “There’s nothing to see and nothing to do. We just have to let the police do their job.”

  “You’re right,” she said as they walked away. “We’re lucky, in a way.”

  “Lucky?”

  “The blog,” said Alison. “Lucky that we only cover community events and local news.”

  “Roller-skating dogs.”

  “Exactly. Roller-skating dogs. I’m not sure I could handle reporting on something like this.”

  “Real news,” said Ted. He glanced at the flags fluttering outside the convention center as they walked back along Fourth, to the intersection. The offices of the blog were just a few minutes away. “Important stuff.”

  “Hmm?”

  Ted smiled as the crossing light went green. “Nothing,” he said.

  — INTERLUDE —

  PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA

  1903

  “For the last time, Mr Duvall, we’re leaving. It’s over, finished. The circus is breaking up. Each of us is going his separate way, never to see nor speak to the others again. We have to do this. It’s over, Mr Duvall. Over.”

  There was no arguing with Mr R S Barnett. He was the boss, the ringmaster, the manager, the accountant. He was everything. The Great Barnett Show was more than just his creation, his livelihood. It was his life.