Dial D for Deadman: A Space Team Universe Novel (Dan Deadman Space Detective Book 1)

by Barry J. Hutchison

  “Thanks,” Ollie croaked, grinning goofily, despite the tears streaming down her face.

  Paradise gestured to the teapot. “More?”

  “What? No!” said Ollie, quite a lot louder than was necessary. “I mean, no. Definitely not.”

  Paradise poured her another cup, anyway.

  That done, she turned to Dan. “So, Mr Deadman, what brings you to my door?”

  “You mean you don’t know?”

  “Of course I know,” said Paradise. “But I’d like to hear you say it.”

  Dan flared his nostrils, then chose those own words of his carefully. “There’s a girl.”

  “You have no idea how often I hear those very words from someone who comes through my door, Mr Deadman,” said Paradise. She sipped her tea. “It seems there’s always a girl. Continue.”

  “Not that sort of girl. A child. Her name’s Nona. She’s six. She was taken two days ago. Two… men, although that’s still guesswork, at this point, snatched her from outside her school. We – well, I – believe she was taken away on a motorcycle. Maybe two. Old style, with wheels.”

  Paradise had remained motionless throughout all this. She still didn’t move now, other than to speak. “And?”

  Dan hesitated. “And I’m going to take her back.”

  “Are you? Mm. Bless,” said Paradise. She set her cup down on the tray. “What’s in it for you?”

  “Money,” said Ollie, helpfully. “He’s being paid.”

  Paradise didn’t take her eyes off the corpse in her armchair. “There are easier ways to make a living.”

  “Not with this face,” said Dan.

  A lot was going on behind Paradise’s eyes, but very little of it made its way to the rest of her expression. “Oh, I don’t know about that,” she said, then she uncrossed her legs, crossed them the other way, and sat up straighter. “You want my help.”

  Dan nodded, but said nothing.

  “What’s in it for me?”

  “A favor,” said Dan.

  Paradise raised one eyebrow until it disappeared behind her hairline.

  “I see. To be used at my discretion, no questions asked?”

  Dan ground his teeth together, the part of his brain that was aware just how bad an idea this was fighting hard to keep the words inside. “To be used at your discretion,” he said. “No questions asked.”

  “How generous,” said Paradise. Dan couldn’t tell if it was sarcasm or not. “How are you at carpet cleaning, by the way?” she asked, glancing at the door through which Dan had entered. The distant fanfare of bowel movements continued to ring out. Paradise smiled and dismissed the remark with a wave. “I jest.”

  She poured herself some more tea, then settled back into her chair. “Oledol, be a dear and fetch me that envelope,” she said, indicating a small coffee table over near the tall glass door.

  Ollie bounded up enthusiastically, like a puppy about to perform its favorite trick. She practically ran to the table, picked up the envelope, then brought it over to Paradise in a few eager bounds.

  “Well done,” said Paradise. She nodded to Dan, indicating Ollie should give the envelope to him.

  “I went over there and got that,” Ollie enthused, handing over the postcard-sized rectangle of paper.

  “Yeah, I noticed,” Dan grunted.

  Ollie hung off, waiting for more of a response, then clicked her fingers several times, winked, and sat down again. “You’re welcome. Don’t mention it.”

  Dan turned the envelope over in his hands, knowing that if he opened it, Paradise owned him. Not all of him, and not all the time, but she owned him, all the same.

  He opened it, and was almost disappointed not to hear a peal of thunder or witch-like shriek of triumph.

  Inside the envelope was a neatly-folded square of cream-colored writing paper. On it, in ever so slightly shaky block capitals, were three codes. He didn’t recognize the exact strings of numbers and letters, but he knew what they were.

  “Tribunal case files?” he said.

  “Correct.”

  Dan looked down at the reference numbers again. “So… what? That’s it? That’s all you can tell me?”

  “Of course not. But it’s all I’m choosing to tell you, Mr Deadman,” said Paradise. “It wouldn’t be very fair if I did all your work for you, now, would it?”

  Dan slid the card back into the envelope, tucked the whole thing into his inside coat pocket, then stood up. “Thanks for the tea,” he said, returning his untouched cup to the tray.

  “My door is always open, Mr Deadman,” said Paradise. “But next time, do call ahead, so we can avoid any…” She gestured vaguely in the direction of the door. “You know.”

  “I’ll bear it in mind,” Dan said. With a tilt of his head, he indicated for Ollie to stand up. She did her ‘missed the joke’ expression, and briefly mirrored the movement with her own head, but otherwise didn’t move.

  Paradise leaned over and whispered theatrically. “I think he wants you to go with him, my dear.”

  “Oh,” said Ollie. Then, louder: “Oh, oh!”

  She jumped to her feet, bumping the table as she rose, then made a frantic grab for all the cups as they toppled over, filling the tray with hot liquid.

  “Sorry, sorry, totally my fault,” she said. She tried to scoop the hot tea up by bringing her hands together into a bowl shape in the center of the puddle, but it was exactly as effective as it sounds.

  “Oh, please,” said Paradise, bustling her away. “Compared to the mess Mr Deadman has left me to clean up, a drop of spilled tea barely even merits a mention.”

  Dan had a feeling the ‘mess’ the old woman was referring to wasn’t limited to the shizz-stains on her carpet. “Seriously. You don’t have to kill them,” he said. “They were doing pretty good.”

  “Before they explosively soiled themselves into unconsciousness, you mean?”

  “Don’t kill them. That’s all I’m saying.”

  Paradise tapped a hand on her knee a few times, and smiled up at him. “That sounds like two favors, Mr Deadman. I’d think carefully about that, considering they were all extremely amenable to the idea of killing you.”

  Dan glanced over his shoulder at the door, muttered quietly, then turned back to Paradise. “Fine. Two favors. But if any of them try to shoot us on the way out, deal’s off.”

  “Very good,” said Paradise, bowing her head in agreement. It made her skin-flaps jiggle disturbingly. “You’ll be hearing from me, Mr Deadman.”

  Dan headed for the door. “I’m sure I will,” he said, then he stepped out, gesturing for Ollie to follow.

  “Thanks for the drink. You have a nice house,” said Ollie, before Dan caught her by the arm and bundled her through the door. “Bye!”

  “I told you to stay in the car,” Dan said, taking her by the arm and leading her towards the exit. Ollie didn’t answer, her focus instead currently on the groaning, semi-conscious guards currently balled up on the floor in slowly expanding puddles of their own excrement.

  With a grunt of effort, one of them reached for his blaster, which had fallen onto the carpet beside him. “I wouldn’t,” Dan warned, kicking the gun away as he passed. “And believe it or not, you guys owe me one.”

  The air in the hallway was unpleasantly warm, and even more unpleasantly sour. Even Dan’s nose objected to the stench, and considering what it had to put up with at the best of times, that was saying something.

  Outside, the cool night breeze proved a welcome relief. The sudden refreshing change snapped Ollie out of her gobsmacked trance.

  “Huh?”

  “I told you to wait in the car,” Dan repeated, pulling her along the path, being careful to keep her away from the trees.

  “Some guy came and asked me to come inside,” Ollie said. “He took me in the back door. She seemed nice. Paradise, I mean.”

  “Again, you’re a terrible judge of character,” Dan said.

  He tipped his hat to the gate guards, who w
ere in the process of using the fence to pull themselves back to their feet. They both glared at him, but as he was moving away from the compound now, saw no reason to engage him. They could both absolutely have taken him down if they’d wanted to, of course, but he was leaving, so there was really no need. No point wasting the energy now, even though they’d definitely have won, now that he wasn’t taking them by surprise.

  “And stay out,” said one, although not until Dan was back in the Exodus, and safely out of earshot. He waited until the car had driven off before shaking a fist for emphasis. He watched the Exodus’s tail lights vanish into the night, then gave a satisfied nod. It hurt, quite a lot.

  “Yeah,” he muttered, limping back over to his post. “That showed him.”

  * * *

  Dan trudged up the final few steps, repeating himself for what felt like the hundredth time. “Look, what part aren’t you getting?” he asked. “She might have given you tea. She might have seemed friendly. But she isn’t.”

  “The necklace didn’t try to blow her up,” Ollie pointed out. “Doesn’t that mean she’s OK”?

  “How would I know?” asked Dan. “It’s your necklace. But seriously, trust me. Paradise is not your friend. She’s the bad guy.”

  Ollie skipped from side to side on the stair behind him. She clearly wanted to go faster, but Dan’s lumbering plod was holding her back. “Then how come you said you’d help her?”

  “Because she’s not the worse guy,” Dan said. “There’s always a worse guy. So, you do what you have to do to stop the worse guy, even if it means siding with the bad guy from time to time.”

  The final step groaned under his weight as he reached the top. “Make sense?”

  “But she seemed really nice,” said Ollie.

  “Yeah, well things ain’t always what they seem,” said Dan, pushing open the outer office door. “If you want to survive Down Here, you have to learn to expect the unexpected.”

  Something invisible slammed into Dan with the force of a charging Igneon. He flew backwards past Ollie, who had skipped sideways out of his path just a split-second before. She turned and watched, open-mouthed, as Dan’s upper back dented the wall behind them. Grimacing, he fell forwards, smashing his forehead on the bottom step. His skull emitted a distinctly hollow clonk as it met the stair. He lay there, nose pressed against the wood, not moving.

  “Well,” Ollie whispered. She swallowed, as a shape unfolded itself from the shadows of the office, and her necklace began to glow. “Pretty sure he wasn’t expecting that.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Dan twitched.

  OK.

  OK, that hurt.

  He felt winded, which was stupid, of course, because he had no need to breathe.

  Still, though.

  Ow.

  He was lying down, he realized.

  Sort of.

  Down, definitely, but more ‘slumped’ than ‘lying’.

  Had he blacked out?

  Was that even possible?

  He was just starting to contemplate lifting his head when something hit him again. Or grabbed him, maybe. Whatever, he went from moving slowly to moving extremely quickly in the space of a half-second.

  ‘Moving extremely quickly,’ very soon became ‘not moving at all’ as he hit the wall again.

  No, a different wall, this time. As he slumped to the floor, he recognized the darkened door of the office below his and knew he’d been tossed down another flight of stairs.

  “That was uncalled for,” Dan grunted, pushing himself up onto his hands and knees. There was a sound like rustling leaves. Thrusting a hand inside his coat, he grabbed for his gun, but something stamped on his back, and Mindy eluded him as he was driven hard against the exposed floor boards.

  “Wheeere issss shhheeee?” rasped a voice in Dan’s ear. He had no idea what had spoken, but the stink of the Malwhere was palpable. Didn’t exactly sound friendly, either.

  “Who?” Dan asked.

  Dan was launched upwards in a blur of speed. His back hit the ceiling, then gravity dragged him back to the floor.

  The weight was on his back again almost immediately. “Youuuu kn-kn-knowww whoooo.”

  Dan tried to turn, but whatever was holding him down didn’t budge an inch. He twisted his arm to make a grab for it, but found nothing. Finally, he sighed.

  “Look, sorry,” said Dan. “I think you got the wrong guy.”

  His leg wrenched and he was suddenly sliding back and sideways across the floor in a wide arc. He fumbled for Mindy again, and this time his hand found her grip.

  Unfortunately, at exactly the same moment, his ribs found the metal railing of the staircase. Something inside his chest made a sound like a rotten branch snapping. The gun flew from his hand, slid along the floor, then clattered down the next flight of stairs.

  “Wheeere…” the voice demanded. Dan’s head was pulled back, then pain exploded inside his skull as it was driven against the floor.

  “Issss…” His head came back again, he thought, although everything was still spinning from the first time, and he couldn’t be all the way sure. It wasn’t until it was smashed against the floor again that he was able to confirm it.

  “Sheeee?”

  Dan’s spine creaked miserably as his head was pulled back for a third time. The word burst from his lips before his skull could be introduced to the floor yet again. “Wait! OK. OK,” he said. “I’ll tell you.”

  The grip on his head and the pressure on his back both eased off until he could feel neither. Tentatively, he raised himself onto his elbows and one knee. Nothing attempted to hammer him prone again, so he persevered until he’d made it all the way back to his feet.

  A shape watched him. Dan couldn’t really say what shape it was. In fact, ‘shape’ probably wasn’t even the right word. It was a suggestion of a shape. Not a real, tangible thing, but a presence. Nothing more. No wonder he hadn’t been able to grab it.

  “Wheeere—” it began, the words ejecting out of the very air around it. Dan held up a hand as he waited for the ringing in his ears to abate, and for the world to stop spinning.

  “OK, OK, gimme a minute,” he said. He adjusted the collar of his coat, then jabbed a thumb in the direction of the staircase. “Up here. Come on, I’ll show you.”

  The presence followed him up the stairs onto the landing midway between this floor and the one above. Dan looked back at it a couple of times, but it never seemed to move while he looked directly at it, only to instantly appear behind him the moment he turned away.

  Creepy fonker.

  Stooping, he picked up his hat and squashed it back onto his head. Ollie stood at the top of the stairs, her eyes wide and her whole body shaking. “Up there,” said Dan. “You want to find her? Look up there.”

  The presence’s voice came from right behind him. “Shhhooow meeee.”

  Dan tutted. “Seriously?”

  Something jabbed him in the back, urging him on.

  “Alright, alright, fine.”

  He marched on up the stairs. Just for a moment, he felt his eyes flick towards Ollie when he passed her, but he forced them to face front as he continued onto the landing and through the door into his office’s reception area.

  Dan felt the thing’s mood darken as he limped over to the filing cabinet and reached for the bottom drawer. “In here,” he said.

  He was suddenly airborne again. It was as if the world had taken one big jump to the left and forgotten to tell him. The wall hit him like a speeding cargo-lev, and he had to grab for the top of the filing cabinet to stop himself falling again.

  “Shheee ca-cannot possssibly beeee in theeeere.”

  “Well, obviously she’s not in the fonking drawer,” Dan conceded. “But she wrote down where to find her, and the address is in there.”

  He glowered at the shapeless mass, then shot the drawer a pointed look. “So, do you want to know where she is, or not?”

  “Yessss.”

  “OK, then.
Now we’re getting somewhere,” said Dan. He wrenched open the drawer in a series of rusty screeches and increasingly violent tugs, then began rummaging inside.

  The thing about being one of the galaxy’s foremost authorities on the Malwhere, was that you tended to pick up a few things. More often than not, it was information and knowledge. How to deal with the burns of some big acid-spitting frog-beast, for example, or the precise location of a Mal-ghoul’s nutsack, and the optimum angle at which to drive a steel toecap into it with all your might.

  Sometimes, though, Dan picked up other things. Actual things. They were artifacts, he supposed, but usually little more than trinkets and junk. He’d usually sell them, to help pay the rent.

  Rarely, though – very rarely – he’d get his hands on something potentially useful. Something that could help give him an advantage where he might otherwise have none, and help tip the odds in his favor.

  He had found four such items in his life. Well, technically his afterlife. Two of them had, until a moment ago, been in the bottom drawer of the filing cabinet in the reception area of his office.

  Now, they were on his hands.

  Dan flexed his fingers, creaking the synthetic material of the gloves. He felt a crackling around his wrists like static electricity, and gave a satisfied nod.

  “Hurrrry uuuu—” the presence began, but Dan cut it off with a devastating right hook that sent it squirming and pulsating across the room.

  The atmosphere in the office changed in an instant, turning from threatening to terror-stricken. The presence took on a vague sort of oblong shape, emitted a series of sounds that might have been words, had consonants never been invented, then threw itself at Dan far less enthusiastically than before.

  Dan jabbed at the thing, stopping it abruptly in its tracks. The glove sent a tingle through his arm each time he connected. Bam. Bam-bam!

  “Found these in a market in the Remnants,” Dan said. He paused to hammer a series of hooks into what would have been the thing’s ribs, had it not been a homogenous floating mass of nothingness. “The guy said they allow the corporeal to interact with the non-corporeal. Which, if you ask me, is just a long-winded way of saying they let a guy like me punch the living shizz out of whatever the fonk you are.”