Dames for Hire

by S. C. Jensen

  Mittens put its paws on my knees and stretched its little pink nose up to touch mine. The nanoparticles were cold and tingly. The cat blinked slowly, registering and recording the record for my personal file. Satisfied, it stalked back toward the charging base in my bedroom. “I need to finish my update. Need anything?”

  “Do I have any clothes that don’t make me look like a washed up pro skirt?”

  The cat made a noise like it was hacking up a hairball. I realized it was laughing. “I didn’t want to say anything, but . . .”

  “Hey, my lifestyle got an upgrade. I’m still working on the wardrobe.” I stalked into the bedroom, tore my damp clothes off, and left them in a pile on the floor. “But Rae found me a job.”

  “As a hooker?” The cat batted a paw at the pile of laundry.

  “Investigative work,” I said, and threw a wet sock at the SmartPet. “I need to get into Gibson Heights and—”

  “And those guys use class dolls.”

  “I’m not hooking.”

  “Look.” Mittens yawned up at me. “You’re not getting into a high-cush compound like the Heights with your wardrobe as anything but a pro skirt. You might not even be able to pull that off.”

  I rummaged through my closet for anything that wasn’t covered in sequins, transparent panels, or imitation fur. I cursed. “Did I really think I looked good in this crap?”

  “I’m not sure what kind of exam you have to pass in order to buy your own clothing,” Mitten said. “But I think you skipped the certification process.”

  “I need normal clothes,” I said. “Plain clothes.”

  “You need cush.”

  I brought up my credit accounts on my tattler and checked to see if Flint had deposited the retainer yet. Nothing. I cursed again and pinged Rae. No answer. “Well I don’t have any.”

  I found a sleeveless black dress at the back of my closet with a hideous tulle skirt and a neckline that looked like it might be diving for my belly button. I tore off the bottom half and grabbed a pair of standard issue HCPD uniform trousers in dark grey that I’d forgotten to hand in when I got retired.

  “It’s not awful,” the cat said after I finished buttoning the pants. “But you’ll never get past security on your own. You should call Dickie.”

  Dickie. Why hadn’t I thought of that? “You’re a genius.”

  “Compared to you,” the cat said, and flopped onto its side to bat at the iridescent tulle skirt I’d dropped on the floor. “But that’s setting the bar pretty low.”

  I ignored the cat and pinged Dickie Rho. Dickie comes from money. His parental units run a wildly successful PornoPop franchise out of the HoloCity Biz District. Big money. I met Dickie back in my days on the Grit beat. I’d busted up a hive of wanna-be gangsters who’d tried to level up their criminal game and failed. Kidnapping can be a quick and easy way to make money in HoloCity, but you’ve got to be big-time enough to be heard. Poor Dickie had been hanging upside down in a makeshift cell for a week when I’d found him, and his parents hadn’t even noticed he was missing. The thieves were too small-time to know what to do about it. Dickie never did go home after that. He hung around the station for a while, trying to get my number. Eventually I gave in. Other than Rae, Dickie is the only friend of mine to stick around through the mess of my accident and the even bigger mess of getting sober. He had some strange ideas about going into business together that I’d avoided so far, but maybe it was time.

  He picked up instantly, his eager round face popping out of my tattler like an old-fashioned jack-in-the-box. “Bubbles Marlowe! To what do I owe the pleasure?”

  “Cut the crap, Dick. I need your help.”

  His black eyes disappeared into little crescents above his round cheeks as he grinned from ear to ear. He rubbed his hands together in front of his face. “You talked to Rae.”

  I groaned. “I should have known you had something to do with this.”

  “I’m telling you, P.I. work is perfect for retired cops,” he said. “You know the streets. You know the brass—”

  “The brass is trying to kill me, Dick,” I said. “And everyone on the streets remembers me as either a cop or a drunk. They don’t exactly trust me.”

  “You have that cool arm now, though. You’re a cyborg, Bubs. With boobs. People will pay top cred for a cyborg detective.”

  “With boobs.”

  He nodded enthusiastically. “Let me do your marketing. I’ve got spreadsheets—”

  “I need to get into Gibson Heights.”

  Dickie’s smile faded. “The Heights? The job rates then, huh? That’s tricky.”

  “Do your parents still live there?”

  “Sure.” He rubbed the back of his neck with a pudgy hand. “But I haven’t really talked to them since . . .”

  “Does security know? Could you get me inside?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe. At least they won’t shoot me for trying. Probably.”

  “Please?”

  Dickie squeezed his eyes shut and scrunched up his face like he’d eaten the daily special at Rikki Tikki Takeout. He opened one eye and said, “I want to be on the case.”

  “It’s not a case, Dickie. I’m just doing a favour for Rae.”

  “You don’t have to let me interrogate anyone.” Dickie gesticulated wildly and the background of his ’gram lurched and swayed. “But I can help. Behind the scenes, like. And I have a hat you could wear.”

  “You’ll help me?”

  “I’m already in the boiler.”

  “You have your own car?”

  “I’ll call when I’m outside,” he said, and hung up on me.

  I sighed and ran a hand through my hair. Mittens pawed at my pant leg and I looked down.

  “Did you fill out my warranty documentation?” The cat licked one of its paws and then yawned, exposing two long canines. “The section specific to disposal of the companion in the case of—”

  “You’re worried I’m going to kack it?”

  “Not exactly,” the cat said, then padded over to the circular charging disk in the corner of my bedroom. “As long you aren’t drunk, I’ve fulfilled my contract.”

  “Whoever wrote your code was a prick, you know that?”

  Mittens shrugged. “I’m a cat.”

  “I should have gone with Buster the excruciatingly positive bunny.”

  Mittens blinked at me one last time. “Upgrade time. Try not to die.”

  The skin blinked off. I threw a pillow at the spherical bot. It wasn’t as satisfying as I’d thought it would be.

  Chapter Five

  Dickie and I sat outside Gibson Heights in his personal boiler car. The car, a slick black maglev pod, looked like it belonged in the neighbourhood. In the hat and jacket he’d brought me, I almost looked like I did too. The jacket did a pretty good job of hiding the upgrade, which was a bonus. High-cush joints like the Heights usually required preregistration of cybernetic enhancements and special licensing for anything that might be used to mishandle, maim, or murder one of their high-paying guests. Dickie assured me that he had an in through security, and that he’d made a deal so they wouldn’t scan me.

  “Are you sure this is a good idea?” I looked up at the glittering dome of translucent solar screens. I only saw one entrance.

  “It’ll be fine.” Dickie leaned back in the buttery leather seats. “Me and Hawkins go way back. But don’t mess it up. He wants my car as collateral.”

  I pulled on a black glove to cover my metal hand and put Dickie’s hat on my head. “How do I look?”

  “Like you just stepped out of an Old Earth noir film.” Dickie grinned. “You ooze private eye.”

  “Do I need antibiotics for that?” I glanced at my reflection in the window of the boiler. “I feel like a hitman.”

  “Might not be a bad impression to give,” Dickie said. Then he told the car to call security.

  The entrance to the dome split open into a series of triangular panels and spun open like the iris of a mechan
ical eye. The boiler slid silently into the opening of a pitch-black interior chamber and lurched to the left. Dickie winced. “I guess we’re taking the scenic route.”

  “Why are we moving sideways?”

  “Hawkins must have keyed us into the lower-level garage,” Dickie said. “Makes sense. Less traffic down there. He’s not supposed to let me back on the premises.”

  “Why is he risking his job to help us?”

  “He’s risking his job for a chance to score my car.” Dickie’s usually jovial face tightened in a joyless smile. “You may have some trouble from security once you’re on your own.”

  “Great,” I said. “Thanks for the heads up. Who is this guy?”

  “We used to gamble. When I lived here. He lost some money, and I left before he had a chance to win it back. I think he thinks I ghosted him on purpose.”

  “Well, I hope he won’t be too broken-hearted if he gets beat again.”

  Dickie shrugged. “You bring a gun?”

  “I haven’t used a gun since—”

  “Okay.” Dickie peered out the window into the blackness as the car dropped down to another level. “Okay. If it comes to it, he takes the car.”

  “Still want to be a detective?”

  A sheen of sweat had broken out on Dickie’s forehead, faintly illuminated by the glow of the interior lights. “I always liked the down-and-out ones best.”

  The lights in the garage came on in a jarring burst of white, dimmed slightly by the tinted glass windows of the boiler car, but bright enough to make me jump. A guy in a black suit banged on the top of the car with the palm of his hand, and Dickie pushed a button. The doors opened like the wings of a shiny black beetle, and Dickie and I stepped out into the garage.

  “Long time no see, Mr. Rho.” Hawkins looked me up and down through a pair of black visilens glasses. Thin tubes ran from the arms of the glasses, curved behind his ears and then spiralled inside to an invisible cochlear comm implant. He nodded almost imperceptibly. “This is your friend?”

  I shifted my weight so that my upgrade was behind me a little in case he was scanning. “I need to see Scarlett Martinez.”

  Hawkins flipped up his glasses. The spirals remained in his ears, but the lenses split away to rest on the top of close-cropped curls. Brown skin feathered slightly between his eyebrows, and his dark eyes were like empty black wells. Slowly, he smiled. He had very fine, very white teeth.

  “Nobody sees Miss Martinez unless she asks for them.”

  Dickie groaned. “Come on, Hawkins. You said you could get us in.”

  “You are in.” Hawkins’ voice had a dangerous edge to it. “But you aren’t getting up to see Miss Martinez.”

  “My boss isn’t going to like that,” I said.

  Hawkins curled a lip around his pretty teeth and leaned toward me conspiratorially. He whispered, “And who might that be?”

  “Mick Vector sent me,” I said. Hawkins snapped back like I’d slapped him. “It’s a time sensitive matter.”

  Dickie pulled at his collar and bugged out his eyes at me. “Vector? You didn’t tell me you were—”

  “Is that so?” Hawkins smiled wider. His eyes darted over me again. “Do you have any proof?”

  “Why don’t you call him yourself,” I said. “You can tell him you’re the one holding up the message.”

  Hawkins looked a bit nervous then. “If you’re lying, I’ll lose my job.”

  “Dickie,” I said. “Sweeten the deal.”

  “I’m already leaving the car as collateral!”

  “You take me up alone,” I said. “Dick and the car stay here. And while you wait, you can play another game of ... What was it, Dickie? The last game you won?”

  “Matgo, but—”

  “That’s two chances on the car,” I said. “Just to let me deliver a message.”

  The parking garage was full of neatly stacked boiler cars, mostly steel and gunmetal blue. Dickie’s little black number was nicer than a lot of them. Could be the rest were guest cars—I didn’t know a lot about personal boilers; I could barely afford to rent a hack pod—but I had a feeling Dickie’s ride was worth some cush, even in the Heights.

  Hawkins licked his lips. “Why didn’t Vector send one of his regular guys?”

  “Why don’t you call up and see if she’ll see me. She’ll see me.”

  He stood there, frozen with indecision.

  I said, “Get in the car, Dick. I’ll come back with Vector.”

  “Wait a minute now.” Hawkins growled to cover his nerves. “I’ll call.”

  He gave a voice command and flipped the visilenses down so Dickie and I couldn’t see the doll when she picked up. Hawkins turned away from me anyway. A stupid move if I’d been carrying, but maybe he’d scanned and knew I wasn’t. The upgrade wasn’t armed, even if it could be considered a weapon alone. I could have broken his neck.

  His growl softened into something he probably used to talk to kittens and little old ladies, “Miss Martinez? It’s Hawkins. Sorry to bother you. Yes. Heights Security. Sure, we’ve met. Yes. Yes, I’m sure you do. It’s all right. Say, there’s a broad here to see you. Says she’s got a message from Mick Vector. I didn’t want to let her up, but she’s insisting I call. Yeah, Vector. No, I don’t know her. All right. Sure. Yeah. Thank you, Miss Martinez. Sorry to bother you.”

  I clenched my upgrade into a fist against my thigh. Dickie watched me with his eyes wide. He shook his head slightly. Sweat stains blossomed under his arms, turning the slick grey fabric of his dress shirt black.

  “She’ll see you,” Hawkins said, and I almost hit him anyway.

  I was so sure my plan wasn’t going to work.

  I relaxed my arm and said, “Of course she will.”

  “I’ll have one of the boys escort you,” Hawkins said. He made a brief call, then he turned to Dickie and reached into the inner pocket of his black jacket. Dickie flinched when he saw what was in Hawkins’ thin brown fingers. “This time, Mr. Rho, we use my deck.”

  Another black-suited security goon appeared from behind the guard shack at the centre of the garage. He was at least twice as big as Hawkins and not half as pretty to look at. His wide, pink neck oozed out of the tight collar like putty, and his face had the flat, dull look of someone who made his living getting punched.

  Hawkins said, “Mungo here’ll show you up.”

  Dickie narrowed his eyes at me. “Rest up, Bubbles. It’s going to be a long walk back to the Grit.”

  I tried to smile reassuringly at Dickie, but it came out more like a grimace. Then I followed Mungo toward the lift with a pit in my stomach. Could be he was leading me to a quiet place where he planned to clock me and leave me for roach food, but Gibson Heights probably didn’t tolerate roaches. Just in case, I stayed on his right and kept the upgrade between us. I had never used it in a fight. It barely did what I wanted it to when I was standing still, but I figured I had a better chance of lumping him up accidentally this way, if I flailed and fell over when he attacked me.

  Mungo led me inside a tiny white box. The two of us fit inside like a pair of tinned sausages. Mungo took up more than his fair share of the air and filled the rest of it with a smell like onion peels and spoiled milk. I sucked shallow breaths through my teeth and told myself not to cry. He keyed in a complex series of numbers on the manual keypad inside the box.

  “Impressive.” I decided to try to alleviate the tension the old-fashioned way. By making an ass of myself. “How long did it take to memorize that?”

  Mungo grunted noncommittally.

  “You know the Martinez dame?”

  Another grunt.

  “Silent type, huh?” I flicked up the collar on my coat as if that might protect me from the swamp gas oozing out of his pores. “Me too. Never know when you’re going to say something that gets you in trouble.”

  Mungo slammed his hand against the keypad, wrenched the sliding door open with a paw the size of my head, and grunted again.

  “I�
��ll try it now,” I said. “Lips zipped. Case in point.”

  Mungo put his meat paw on the back of my neck and pushed me into a long corridor made of transparent concrete blocks illuminated by internal lights in variegated colours. Ghost-like shadows moved on the other side of the blocks, becoming flesh toned the closer they came to the wall. I was starting to get an idea of the kind of work Scarlett Martinez did for Mick Vector. I looked away from a cluster of intertwined bodies which, through the glaze of the concrete, looked like an abstract sculpture made of disembodied limbs. Impossible to tell which bits belonged to which or where they were going.

  Mungo kept his eyes forward and walked me down to the end of the hall, where he stopped at a narrow black door with the number nineteen on it in small golden digits. He rapped on the door twice and stood where the security camera could clearly see his face. He rattled off another long alpha numerical code I didn’t have a hope of remembering, stepped aside, and pushed me forward. A buzzer sounded inside the apartment and the door opened.

  A tall, bronze-skinned woman in a trim, white pantsuit opened the door. The blouse beneath the fine lines of her jacket was little more than fine mesh, displaying the ample curves of her statuesque body. Long, red hair fell in sculpted waves over the shoulder of her suit like a tide of blood washing over a bone white shore. Full lips, painted a burgundy so deep it was almost black, spread in a wide smile over neat white teeth. She said, “Vector, huh?”

  I glanced at the lump of meat beside me and shrugged.

  “Drift,” she said to Mungo. “I can handle it from here.”

  Mungo obeyed without a grunt and moved silently through the hall of flittering ghosts, back toward the elevator. For a big guy, he was pretty light on his feet.

  “So.” Scarlett Martinez breathed out with a contented sigh, and her lip curled up on one side. “Why are you really here?”

  “I’d like to speak to you.” I swallowed, feeling intensely conscious of how fatale her femme act might just be. “On behalf of—”

  “Come inside before you start talking business,” she said, and opened the door the rest of the way. I stepped inside the apartment and the door swung closed behind me with a hydraulic hush. The air inside was warm and sweet with a milky haze settling in uneven layers as if somewhere, someone was chain-smoking kretek. The walls of the apartment were covered in a textured, burgundy velvet and were reflected in infinite repetition within two strategically placed mirrors. Tiny things, each about the size of my own flat.