City of Night

pleasant.
    Although he was engineered to be autistic for the purposes of Father’s experiments, which makes him different from others of the New Race, he shares much of their programming. He is incapable of suicide, for instance.
    He isn’t permitted to kill except when instructed by his maker to do so. Or in self-defense.
    The problem is that Randal is terribly fearful in his autism. He feels easily threatened.
    Hiding in the Dumpster, he had killed a homeless man who had come searching for soft-drink cans and other small treasures.
    The hobo might not have meant him any harm, might not in fact have been capable of causing him harm, yet Randal had dragged him headfirst into the Dumpster, had snapped his neck, and had buried him under bags of trash.
    Considering that mere newness frightens him, that the smallest change fills him with trepidation, any encounter with a stranger is more likely than not to result in a violent act of self-defense. He has no moral concern about this. They are of the Old Race and must all die sooner or later, anyway.
    The problem is that snapping the spine of a hobo in a deserted alleyway is not likely to draw attention; but killing someone in this house will be a noisy affair certain to reveal his presence to other residents and possibly even to neighbors.
    Nevertheless, because he is hungry and because the refrigerator no doubt contains something tastier than spiders and earthworms, he steps out of the laundry room and into the kitchen.
     
     
     

Chapter 26
     
    Each carrying a suitcase full of weapons, Carson and Michael left The Other Ella.
    As the daughter of a detective who had supposedly gone bad, Carson believed that she was under closer scrutiny by her fellow officers than was the average cop. She understood it, resented it—and was self-aware enough to realize that she might be imagining it.
    Fresh from consorting with the likes of foulmouthed Francine and courtly Godot, crossing the sidewalk toward the unmarked sedan, Carson surveyed the street, half convinced that the Internal Affairs Division, having staked out the scene, would at any moment break cover and make arrests.
    Every pedestrian appeared to take an interest in Carson and Michael, to glance with suspicion at the bags they carried. Two men and a woman across the street seemed to stare with special intensity.
    Why would anyone walk out of a restaurant with suitcases? Nobody bought takeout in that volume.
    They put the bags in the trunk of the sedan, and Carson drove out of Faubourg Marigny, into the Quarter, without being arrested.
    “What now?” Michael wondered.
    “We cruise.”
    “Cool.”
    “We think it through.”
    “Think what through?”
    “The color of love, the sound of one hand clapping. What do you think we have to think through?”
    “I’m not in a mood to think,” he said. “Thinking’s going to get us killed.”
    “How do we get at Victor Frankenstein?”
    “Helios.”
    “Helios, Frankenstein—it’s still the same Victor. How do we get at the Victor?”
    Michael said, “Maybe I’m superstitious, but I wish the Victor had a different first name.”
    “Why?”
    “A victor is someone who defeats his adversary. Victor means ‘winner.’”
    “Remember that guy we busted last year for the double homicide in the antique shop on Royal?”
    “Sure. He had a third testicle.”
    “What the hell does that have to do with anything?” she asked impatiently. “We didn’t know that till he’d been arrested, charged, and had his jailhouse physical.”
    “It doesn’t have anything to do with anything,” he admitted. “It’s just one of those details that stick in your mind.”
    “My point is, the guy’s name was Champ Champion, but he was a loser anyway.”
    “His real name was Shirley Champion, which explains everything.”
    “He’d had his name legally changed to Champ Champion.”
    “Cary Grant was born Archie Leach. The only name that matters is the born name.”
    “I’ll pull to the curb, you roll down your window and ask any pedestrian you want, have they seen an Archie Leach movie. See how much born names matter.”
    “Marilyn Monroe—she was really Norma Jean Mortenson,” he said, “which is why she ended up dead young of an overdose.”
    “Is this one of those times you’re going to be impossible?”
    “I know that’s usually your job,” he said. “What about Joan Crawford? She was born Lucille Le Sueur, which explains why she beat her children with wire