Dames for Hire

by S. C. Jensen

  The gun man shivered again, and I hoped I wasn’t going to have to do laundry after he was finished with his tough guy act. I said, “What do you want?”

  “I’m just here to drop a hint,” the woman said. “And to see if you’re the kind of woman who knows how to pick one up.”

  “What kind of hint?”

  “Lay off the Bell girl,” the woman said. “And we can all be friends.”

  “Great,” I said, feeling a little dread creeping up my spine next to Dex’s mojo. “I can do that. Who’s the Bell girl?”

  The woman tsked and stood, stepping out of the shadow completely to reveal a long, narrow frame in a tightly wrapped coat like a thin, black cigarette. Long, bare legs emerged from the bottom of the jacket and made me wonder what she was wearing underneath. A thin, red scarf cut the white flesh of her slender neck. Black shoes with skyscraper heels scratched marks in the dust on my floor. She wore a little hat perched at an unnatural angle on her white-blonde hair, and in her hand, she held a pistol with barrel almost as skinny as she was. She said, “Perhaps you ought to get your memory fixed along with your door.”

  “That’s an idea,” I said. “But what’s your interest in the matter?”

  “We’re just here to deliver a message,” she said, her voice hardened, and her pale eyes peered over my shoulder at the gunman. “Isn’t that right, Dex?”

  Dex shifted his weight behind me, and for a fraction of a second the gun wavered from the back of my neck. I dropped my elbow into his gut and heard the wind explode from his lungs. I reached back, grabbed his wrist, and twisted so that the barrel of the gun dug into his shoulder blades. The NRG drink pooled in an electric green puddle at our feet. I pushed him in front of me like a human shield and crouched behind him. His pink scalp glistened beneath the thin, closely shaved, white-blonde hair, just like the woman’s. She held the gun in our direction with the steady arm of a pro.

  “I can shoot, you know,” she said breathlessly. “Would you like to try me?”

  “I guessed as much with a small bore like that,” I said. “I’d rather you didn’t. And I bet junior here feels the same.”

  “Should have kept your hand out of your pants,” she hissed at her partner. He flinched, and I ducked a little lower, in case she decided she didn’t mind dropping him to get to me. But then she laughed. A cheerful little tune like the shearing of metal. “My brother gets a little over-excited at times.”

  “What’s the deal with the Bell girl?” I said. “Who is she to you?”

  She kept the gun trained on me and sidled toward the door. “You are testing my patience.”

  “Know a guy by the name of Bobby Mook?”

  “Maybe I do,” she said. “Maybe I don’t. I know a lot of guys. I didn’t come here to talk about them. I came to deliver a message, and I think you heard me the first time.”

  I kicked the would-be gunman toward his sister, but I hung onto the gun and made sure I covered her with it.

  She laughed again. “It’s not loaded. I never let him carry a loaded gun.”

  “That rates with me,” I said. “I prefer them that way.”

  “I heard about your accident.” She smiled ruthlessly. “Lucky vetch. Not many people in this city can afford an upgrade like you’ve got. By the look of this pinch hole you live in, you can’t either. Maybe you have well-connected friends, but they won’t be enough to save you if you don’t lay off the girl.”

  “I’ll keep it in mind.” I tossed the gun on the floor and kicked it toward her. “Now take your kid brother and drift.”

  She grabbed him by the scruff of the neck like a naughty puppy and shoved him into the hallway. Then she bent her knees to pick up the piece between her feet, keeping the slim black barrel of her gun pointed at my left eye. I didn’t doubt she could hit it if she wanted to. She backed out of the door after him, and I waited until she was out of sight before I slammed it behind her.

  “Thanks for dropping in,” I muttered and then said to the apartment, “Alright, scaredy cat. You can come out now.”

  Mittens pranced into the living room on its little white feet. “Took you long enough.”

  “You were a big help,” I said and went into the kitchen to clean up the mess left by my spilled NRG drink. “Can I run the sweeper bot, or are you going to have a conniption fit?”

  “Do whatever you like with that ... thing.” Mittens licked one of its nanoparticled paws and narrowed its yellow eyes at me. “I suggest the recycling chute.”

  I pulled open the closet where Dex must have been hiding and rummaged around until I found the sweeper. A scorch mark seared one side of the circular bot, and broken wires protruded from the bottom like multi-coloured intestines.

  I dropped the bot in disgust. “You should consider charging for your services. I know a few sweethearts who’d be happy to hire you.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” The cat crept toward the bot and batted at its wire guts. “Maybe you have a rat problem.”

  “I’m sure I do.”

  “Does this mean I can order a new sweeper bot?” Mittens licked its little white fangs with delicate disinterest. “Happy Bots Supply House is having a 2-for-1 deal. You could get the NutriJuicer too.”

  “Careful, Mittens,” I said. “It almost sounds like you care about me.”

  “Your last biometrics got red flagged for a severely unbalanced nutritional profile,” Mittens said. “You’re making me look bad.”

  “Can we afford it?” I picked the can up and tossed it down the chute, then used a damp rag to clean up the analogue way. When I was done, I opened the fridge and took out another can of NRG.

  Mittens eyed the drink skeptically. “Can you afford not to? There’s more to good health than just not drinking, you know.”

  I took my drink into the living room and slumped into the lopsided chair. “I’ll start investing in my long-term health once I’m convinced sobriety isn’t going to kill me.”

  Mittens padded over and put its little, white paws on my knee. I bent forward and picked up the spherical bot beneath the nanoskin and placed the SmartPet on my lap. It purred and nuzzled under my chin, tickling me with its whiskers. “I do care about you, you know.”

  “You’re just saying that so I don’t sell you on the hock market.”

  Mittens bared its little white teeth at me. Maybe it was supposed to be a smile, but I hadn’t paid for the upgraded emo-emulator, so it looked more like the cat wanted to bite me. “I intercepted a call while you were talking to your friends.”

  “Who from?”

  “I don’t know,” Mittens said. “Why don’t you ask? He’s still holding.”

  I cursed and pushed the cat off my lap. Holding up my tattler, I opened the call menu and cursed again. I pushed a button and projected the glowering face of Wallace Flint onto the stained wall of my apartment. He glared at me like a vulture assessing a piece of meat deemed too rotten even for his questionable taste.

  “I do not appreciate being kept waiting.”

  I took a swig of my soda and glared right back at him. “There’s a lot of things I don’t appreciate. Two of them just left, and another one is taking up too much space in my living room.”

  Flint eyed the room with disdain bordering on disgust dripping from his features. “I don’t know that one could call this living.”

  “Maybe you’ve got a better idea about it,” I said. “What with all the cush you’re swimming in. Did you ever manage to pay my retainer, or did that little detail slip your mind? Kinda like the little detail about the heavies that might be interested in chewing me out over my interest in your daughter.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I met the angel in question,” I said. “She gave me a sore jaw. But I had it coming. It’s been a few days since somebody hit me. What I don’t like is having my apartment broken into on account of some high-tech lowlife who doesn’t like to do his own dirty work.”

  “You saw Ang
elica?” he said. “Where?”

  “In Miss Martinez’s apartment,” I said. “Slumming it up in the Heights. You sure the dame has her hooks in Angelica, or is it the other way around?”

  “The Heights?” His face reddened, and he began to look a bit more like a turkey than a vulture. “That’s very interesting. I can assure you that Miss Martinez is after Angelica’s inheritance. Vector probably has his reasons for putting her up in a place like that, but she doesn’t have any money of her own. I know that much.”

  “What exactly are you calling for, Mr. Flint?”

  Flint’s lips tightened and he cleared his throat. “Actually, I—well ... The fact is I called to apologize for my behaviour earlier. I feel we got off on the wrong foot.”

  “Do you have a right foot? Or are you just hopping around on the wrong one until you get tired and fall down?”

  “Alright,” he said stiffly. “I deserve that. I’ve been told I’m not very personable.”

  “That might not be the worst thing I’ve heard about you.”

  The redness deepened and the growl came back into his voice. “You listen here, Marlowe. I’m paying good money to—”

  “Are you?” I yawned. “When is that again?”

  Flint jabbed at something off screen and my tattler pinged. “Fine. There you are. Your retainer is paid. Can you afford some manners now?”

  “Manners don’t come cheap in the Grit, Mr. Flint,” I said. “But I thank you all the same. Now do you know anything about the thugs who just tried to rough me up over ‘the Bell girl’ as they call her? I don’t see why this case should get so tough if all I’m doing is smearing the red broad with her own lipstick.”

  “Thugs?” he sounded shocked. “Perhaps you had better come over to discuss matters. This is getting out of hand. I’ll send my car for you. Can you come immediately?”

  “Sure,” I said. “But I can get there on my own.”

  “Nonsense. I’ll send my driver for you. Her name is Constance. You may rely upon her absolutely. Expect her within the hour.”

  I yawned again and wondered if I could catch a nap before the chauffeur made her debut. “Okay. Have her call up and I’ll come down. She won’t want to leave her car unattended in this neighbourhood.”

  I hung up and lay back in the chair, wondering if this was the line Flint used on all the ladies. Mittens insisted on being picked up again. I set the SmartPet on my chest, turned its purring module to a relaxation frequency, and took a nap.

  Chapter Seven

  When I got the call, I headed downstairs and was surprised to see the relentless grey glare of the sky had dulled to a charcoal-stained smear above the glittering black towers of the HoloCity skyline. Either Flint’s driver got lost or our visit wasn’t quite as high priority as Flint has pretended it was. But the nap had done me good and the rain was holding off. It was as nice an evening as we saw in the Grit.

  “Ms. Marlowe?” A small, hard-looking woman stepped out of the lengthening shadows next to my building. She had sun-browned skin and cropped, grey hair and the grim expression of a street soldier.

  “Yeah,” I said. “You brought a boiler car?”

  She tipped her head toward the alley where a slick grey machine hovered silently like an animal waiting for a chance to strike. She opened the passenger door for me and said, “Don’t ding it. It’s new.”

  “I thought Flint spent his last credits buying off the Trade Zone R&D team for the honour of their consideration,” I said. “Looks like he let a few chips slip through the cracks.”

  “Mr. Flint doesn’t mind spending money where it counts,” the driver said, and slipped into the front seat. “Get in. And this car is off-grid. I don’t want any distractions while I’m driving.”

  I shut my mouth and climbed into the boiler. The off-grid model had a lot more bells and whistles than Dickie’s high-tech auto-driver. It made me a little nervous to be in a human driven vehicle. Too many variables. Too many things to go wrong. But as Constance zipped in and out of grid traffic, dropped wheels to take the machine off the maglev tracks, and generally kept us off the radar of HCPD and TZ scanners, I could see the appeal.

  Constance drove us into an area of the city I wasn’t familiar with. Low-slung concrete buildings spread over landscaped steppes in an imitation of an archaic adobe village. No visible tech marred the illusion. Constance dimmed the lights on the boiler car and weaved her way onto a dark-grey street. Little light from the evening sky seeped in between the buildings as we glided from shadow to shadow.

  I leaned forward and spoke next to the driver’s ear. “What is this place?”

  “They call it the Bricks,” she said. “Don’t let the low-tech appearances fool you. These Luddites are drenched in cush. It’s not cheap to stay off the grid.”

  “Tell that to the Grit skids.”

  “Being a pinch doesn’t keep you from being watched.” Constance gritted her teeth and a muscle pulsed in her jaw. We pulled up to a moulded concrete wall with a metal gate out front. The letters E.B. swirled across a crest in the centre. “Here we are.”

  “E.B.?”

  “Evangeline Bell,” she said without a trace of feeling. “Flint’s dead wife. She was queen of low-tech luxury. A member of the Mezzanine Rose and everything.”

  “The Last Humanist cult?” I sat back and pondered that. The Last Humanists forbade the use of cybernetic enhancements, medical or recreational, as they interfered with the Absolute Purity of the human mind and body. “I guess Angelica didn’t take to the programming, huh?”

  “Angelica has always been a bit of a—” Constance’s shoulders stiffened and her hands gripped the control wheel. “What is this?”

  The car swung onto Flint’s private drive just as two figures emerged from the shadows with guns drawn. I heard a voice I could have done without hearing.

  “Hands up, ladies!” The words trembled out of Dex’s mouth like he had something to be excited about. “This is a heist. Get out and line up against the car. I’m gonna frisk ya.”

  Constance’s eyes slid toward me and then back toward the pink faced lunatic waving a gun around.

  “If I know this guy, the thing’s not loaded,” I said under my breath.

  Constance nodded.

  “Get out the car!” Spittle flew through the air, illuminated by the low, amber light of an old-fashioned street lamp. I pushed my door open slowly.

  Constance burst out on the opposite side and planted herself with her arms stretched across the roof. A pistol designed for the casual boar hunter was gripped in her steady hands.

  “You asked for it,” Dex shouted, and I dropped behind the open door just as a burst of flame burst out of the end of his gun. The passenger side window burst with a crash. The tinkle of falling glass landed on the pavement like rain.

  I guessed he’d found some ammunition.

  A crack like the sound of a bangtail breaking the sound barrier split through the quiet night, and Dex dropped to the ground with the top of his blond head opened up. He landed with one arm twisted underneath his body and a lump straining at the front of his pants. His brains sprayed out behind him on the damp, black pavement.

  Footsteps thudded away from the car, and I guessed the woman in the black cigarette coat wasn’t sticking around to pick up the pieces. Constance didn’t give chase. She inspected the window and cursed under her breath.

  “Flint’s not going to like this.”

  I stood up and wiped the sweat off my forehead with my flesh arm. My upgrade seized against my leg as I tried to relax my muscles.

  “Nice shot,” I said.

  “Who says it was me?”

  “I didn’t bring a gun to this little party,” I said. “You always carry a big-game cannon like that?”

  “Never hurts to be prepared,” she said. “They must have been after Miss Bell.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “It’s Thursday night,” she said. “I’m usually ferrying her ass back from t
he clubs right about now, on the glow-down after a full day of drinking and losing money.”

  We went over to the body and poked around a bit. There was nothing much to see unless you like blood and grey matter. I said, “Kill those lights. Let’s get out of here.”

  “But Mr. Flint is expecting you.”

  “You think Flint is going to want to keep you around after you just blew a guy’s top off?” I said. “No police. He was very explicit about that. Take me back to my place. We’ll get our stories straight and try again.”

  She appraised me coolly and put the hand cannon back in a holster hidden beneath her leather jacket. “All right. I get it. You got anything to drink?”

  “No,” I said. My throat tightened and a trickle of sweat ran down my back. “And I picked a damned fine time to quit.”

  She smacked the hood of the boiler and cursed again. “Brand-new car too. Punks like that really grind me.”

  “Yeah, well, you ground a couple of inches off that one,” I said. “I think we can call it even.”

  She got in the car and slammed the door. I got in behind her. She said, “We’ll see if Mr. Flint agrees.”

  WE PICKED UP BARBEQUE Tacos from Fusion Confusion on the way back to my place. The ostensible beef looked almost like animal protein, and the tacos even had a few vegetables that might have once seen natural light. Mittens would be proud. But when we got up to the apartment, the cat was hiding out in my bedroom.

  Constance had parked the car in the alley behind my building, insisting that its internal defence systems were up to anything the Grit could throw at it. I wondered how she’d feel about a Molotov-cocktail thrown in through the busted window, but I didn’t bother to say anything.

  Sitting on the floor of my apartment with the takeout containers between us, I didn’t have much of an appetite. I never did get used to dead bodies, and this was two in one day. Constance dug in heartily.

  “Nice place you got here,” she said through a mouthful of maybe-meat. The funny thing is, she seemed almost serious.

  I snorted. “Compared to what?”