Dames for Hire
Page 11
Weiland whistled. “Too rich for my blood.”
“C2H6O doesn’t roll off the tongue like it used to.” I slid a hand into the breast pocket of my white, synth-leather vest and took out a piece of bright-pink chewing gum.
“Where’d you get the cush, Bubbles?” Weiland’s eyes hardened. “I hope you’re not overstepping your line.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Gum’s not that expensive, Detective. Even for us skids.”
“The arm, Bubbles. An enhancement like that is worth a lot of dough. If you’re taking dirty money from the wrong kind of people, Chief Swain’s not going to be happy. I hope your business license is legit at least.”
“Sure. Swain only likes dirty money when it’s in his own pockets.” I folded the gum against my tongue and pulled it into my mouth, biting hard. I chewed for a few seconds and then let him scan my P.I. ticket. “It’s sweet that you’re concerned. But I keep my nose clean.”
The music thumped hard enough to ripple the amber surface of Weiland’s drink. He spun the glass on the surface of the bar and gave me his cop stare. “By whose standards?”
I slid off my stool and stepped back out of the reach of his meat hooks. “It’s not a drug case.”
“Who’s the pro skirt?” Weiland tipped his head toward the stairs.
I gnawed on the gum and shrugged. “Not who I hoped she was.”
“You’re pretty clammed up for someone with a clean nose.” Weiland dropped to his feet and stepped a little closer. His pores oozed sweat and he reeked of cologne. Designer stuff applied with the delicate touch of a sledgehammer. “You sure there’s nothing you want to tell me?”
“My clients have a right to their privacy.”
Weiland held out his chip, but the bartender waved him away. His dishrag gaze had a practiced, saggy look, but his big ears twitched. “On the house, Detective.”
Weiland dropped his arm without acknowledging the weasel-faced man beside him. He stared into my eyes and bent his bull-thick neck toward me and grinned. I didn’t flinch.
“I’d like to believe you, Bubbles.” He reached for my shoulder with a hand that could swallow my face and picked a piece of glitter off my vest. My hands balled into fists, and a nerve twinged in my left shoulder, but I stood still. He wiped the glitter on the end of my nose and tugged a strand of my chin-length, pink hair. “You look good. I don’t want to have to mess you up.”
“I made a promise, and I’ve kept it.”
“Let’s hope your word is as good as your dye job.” Weiland stepped out of my airspace, and I breathed in a refreshing lungful of sweaty pheromones. “We’re watching you.”
He made his way for the exit like a shiny black iceberg, slow and insistent. The drunks and pinches stumbled and fell out of his way in a wave of technicoloured confusion. When I was sure he had left the building, I went for the stairs.
The bartender’s nasal voice cut through the throbbing bassline. “What about my tip?”
I flipped him a metallic finger and pushed my way into the crush of bodies. The back stairs were a narrow tunnel of dirty black paint and suggestive graffiti that glowed under the club lights like holographic PornoPop ads. I had no burning desire to see what kind of sleazy digs the techRose pros were working, but if my girl was up there, I’d plug my nose and like it just fine.
A couple of glam boys were sucking on each other’s faces on the staircase. I grabbed the top one and hauled them out of my way with my upgrade. They stuck together like mollusks and didn’t miss a beat when I shoved them back into the crowd. An androgynous person with a shaved head and a long pink robe peered at me from the shadows of the tunnel. A puddle of questionable liquid pooled at the base of the stairs. I wrapped my metal fingers around the rail and hoisted myself over it and onto the third step.
Something caught my vest and yanked me backwards. I twisted just far enough to land on both feet in the ooze. Perfectly good pair of treads, ruined. A mug that was all jaw glowered down at me with piggy little eyes squinting out of folds of pasty pink flesh. The bouncer let go of my vest and grabbed the front of my shirt.
“That’s her, Bug.” A greasy little man peeked out from behind the thug’s elbow. “Show her the street.”
The bouncer blinked his eyes at me and seemed like he was thinking about it. I put my hands up. “C’mon, LeRoy. Call off your goon. I’ve got a job to do.”
“You’ve got a hell of a lot of nerve, Marlowe.” LeRoy Lemieux was five feet of fury wrapped up in an orange suit that screamed louder than techRose’s sound system. He bounced on his toes like Terra Firma’s tiniest prizefighter and bulged his pumped-up amphetamine eyes at me. “I seen you chatting up that slick dick detective. I seen it with my own eyes.”
The thug twisted his fingers into my shirt, making it hard to breathe.
“I’m not working with the PD, LeRoy.” I tugged at the bouncer’s hand with my soft fingers and let the prosthesis hang limply at my side. No need to flash my goods if I didn’t have to. LeRoy couldn’t afford security goons with all their neural pistons firing, let alone with cybernetic upgrades. I didn’t want to hurt the idiot. “Even if I wanted to, they wouldn’t have me.”
“I don’t need your kinda trouble in my club, sister.” An oily black curl broke free of LeRoy’s coif and dangled between his jumpy black eyes. “I seen you, and I don’t like what I seen. Show the lady the pavement, Bug. Let her feel it.”
The bouncer blinked again and grunted. The command finally hit the lump of flesh inside his cranium, and he heaved me off the ground. My boots dangled above the puddle, dripping electric green bile. The goon turned slowly, like he wasn’t quite sure where he was supposed to be going with his load. LeRoy spun on his heels and twitched his way toward the exit, his suit glowing like a pylon.
A shriek like tearing metal ricocheted down the stairwell toward us, and the bouncer paused. LeRoy whipped his greasy head around and hit me with a beady-eyed glare. His eyes twitched to the top of the stairs and then back to me. LeRoy vibrated on the spot, torn between competing urges. The lunk couldn’t be trusted to find the door on his own, but that scream had come from his merchandise.
I swung my prosthesis into the bouncer’s kidney and gave him a little extra hydraulic kick for fun. His maw opened like the gates of hell, and a burst of air like the off-gas from an outhouse hit me in the face. The piggy eyes disappeared into slimy pink folds of flesh, and the bouncer dropped like a lump of putty onto the grimy floor. I hit the ground running. LeRoy reacted fast, but when he tried to cut past me, I let him kiss the wall. The phantom arm beneath the cybernetic one screamed in protest. I ignored it, dodging glow-ups and dazed dancers like a pinball pro.
Another shriek tore through the techno pounding from the dance floor. Clubbers near the stairwell glanced vaguely at the corridor and shuffled their way into the crowd and away from the action. An orange blur slipped by on my left, and I reached for him with metal fingers. Missed. But LeRoy’s heels slid in the puddle at the bottom of the stairwell, and I hit him hard from behind. I launched myself over his prone body with a boot on his narrow shoulder, plastering him into the steps.
A pale-skinned girl with white hair and barely enough clothes to dress a doll scrambled down the stairs toward us. Mascara-black tears streaked down her face like claw marks, and she grabbed onto my vest with long, silver fingernails, screaming.
“She’s dead!” The girl dropped onto the stairs, dragging at my collar with her painted talons. “Somebody killed her. She’s dead.”
I picked the girl up and pushed her into LeRoy where he was peeling himself off the stairs. He went down in the slime again, shouting, “Stop her. Bug, you idiot, what am I paying you for? Stop her!”
But I was way ahead of them. I flew through the glowing, black tunnel toward the dressing rooms with a sick feeling in my chest.
It was my girl, I knew it.
It was my girl and I was too late.
Want to read more about Bubbles’ adventures as HoloCity’s o
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