by Gregg Taylor
“So you don’t remember anything?” She was still grimly focused on the hat. I couldn’t get a read on what she might be thinking.
“I remember things,” I said. “Facts. I knew where the Greyside Gates were, the shuttle pad... had a pretty damn good sense of geography if I do say so myself. Local color, the fact that Civic Events follows Politics on the NewsNet. I knew exactly how screwed I was when my ExStick was missing, how many charges the GAT should have and the smell of both plasma and cabbage without being prompted.”
“That’s quite a resume.” She was trying to be stern, but she was biting the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing at me. “Did you also remember how to tie your shoes?”
“Some people would think that this was serious,” I said, fighting a smile myself.
“Gallows humor I guess.” She shrugged. “But you can’t remember who hit you and you can’t be certain why.”
“I have a general idea of why, actually.”
“Fair point,” she agreed. “But as for where you live, your mother’s maiden name or if you’re allergic to cats, you’re less than clear.”
“That sums it up, yeah.”
“It’s a pretty specific injury,” she frowned, “though not unprecedented. It’s not my field at all.”
“Mine either,” I said. “At least as far as I know.” It occurred to me for the first time that I had no idea what her field was. Or anything about her beyond what she’d told me and what I could see with my own two eyes. I considered this for a moment as she finished with my hat and hung it on the bedpost.
“Why cats?” I asked.
She blushed and walked back into the bathroom, returning a moment later without the washcloth.
“Does it matter if I’m allergic to cats?” I asked.
She looked at me defiantly.
“How many?” I asked.
“Three,” she said, “but I don’t think you’re striking the proper tone here. I am angry with you.”
“You’re not either,” I said, letting my attention drift away from the door more than I should have. “And what’s more, I don’t understand why you’re not. Personally, I would probably shoot me on general principles.”
She sat on the other side of the bed and looked at me intently. Those eyes were more grey than gold now, and there was a fire in them that made my heart skip to consider.
“You had no idea who I was, no reason to protect me. But you dragged yourself to the shuttle pad and kept me out of their hands.”
“They might not have taken you. They might have just followed you.”
“You’ve known all along that you were in over your head, but you also knew that I had no one else. And when you found out just how bad the odds were, you came back anyway. Besides, you’re too damn stubborn to fall down just because you’re half dead, and I happen to find that a very winning quality.”
I was so caught up in the eyes that I didn’t notice they were getting closer until her lips touched mine. They were full and perfect, but the kiss was delicate, tentative – as if the lips expected a rebuke for their transgression. They lingered for a moment near mine, and I could feel her soft breath mixing with my own. Her eyelids opened and I was almost lost.
“I’ll probably regret this for the rest of my life-,” I began.
“But you should watch the door?”
“But I should watch the door.”
“Damn,” she said softly.
“Maybe when no one is trying to kill us-”
“Maybe.” She smiled, rising and walking over towards the desk. “And maybe it won’t be half as exciting then.”
“Half as exciting would still be pretty damn good,” I suggested, renewing my grip on the hand canon.
“Yes it would,” she smiled, picking up my coat from where I had thrown it.
“What are you doing?”
“Snooping,” she said. “Do you object?”
“I guess I don’t.”
“Good.” She started pulling the slips of paper from my pockets and sorting them into piles. “When you picked these up, you didn’t know anything. Maybe now something will mean something. Maybe help you remember.”
“Need I remind you that I was all set to sell you out before I lost my marbles?” I asked.
“Just make sure they stay lost,” she said. “After all, there’s not much on the other side of the table beyond the fear of death and the potential for near-limitless power.”
“Oh,” I said. “Is that all?”
She looked at me sideways. “You’re not allergic to cats, are you?”
I shrugged. “If you have three, then you’d be wearing a lot of their fur, and I haven’t sneezed once.”
“Then my counter-offer remains unchanged,” she said with a waggle of her eyebrow. It was then that I realized that she didn’t take her own sex appeal even remotely seriously. It made me want to let the door watch itself for an hour or so, but I didn’t say so.
I tried to think grim, hard-boiled thoughts. I seemed to be at my best when I was channeling Murder, Sweet Murder, but it had been a long day.
“Look at this!” Claire said excitedly.
“At what?”
She stepped over triumphantly with a slip of paper in her hand. It was written in black, felt-tipped marker and bore the rings of at least two coffee cups, or perhaps the same one twice. The print was fat and the marker had bled; it wasn’t easy to read, but it certainly seemed to say, “Meet Mr. Monarch 3pm. Fountain. Bruce Square.”
“I’ll be damned,” I said.
“Very likely,” she agreed.
“You’re a detective, darling.”
“Aren’t I just though?” she beamed.
“Try and look a little more grim,” I said. “Squint a lot and look like somebody stole your hat and shot your dog.”
“Like you? You think that looks grim?”
“Doesn’t it look grim?”
“It looks a little gassy, actually.”
“You’re full of sass at this hour,” I protested.
“You have no idea,” she teased. She was going to have to stop that very, very soon. I returned to the note.
“Mister Monarch?” I almost snorted. “Gar, this guy takes himself seriously. I am not looking forward to meeting him. Again.”
“That’s it!” Claire said.
“Brilliant, Holmes,” I said. “You’ve done it again.”
“Do you want to hear my detecting or not?” she scowled.
“Do I still get paid?” I asked. “Because if I do, knock yourself out.”
“You got a telephone call, you wrote this note. Meet Monarch at three.”
I had the thread now. “The next thing I remember it was half-past four.”
“The man in the alley. The man you...”
“Killed,” I said.
“It must have been him. It must have been Carter’s lieutenant.”
“Maybe,” I said. “If I were their only lead, it stands to reason that Monarch would come himself.”
“And you killed him.” There was no hesitation the second time. There was something like relish at the thought.
“It would explain why they haven’t been the most co-ordinated operation in history,” I nodded. “Unless Monarch had a second, Carter is probably calling the shots himself. And he’s lost his best man.”
“See?” she said happily.
“But if that’s what happened, why did it go down at the office? Why not in scenic Bruce Square across town?”
“Who knows?” she said. “We’ll probably never know if you can’t tell us. But you can stop worrying about the murder charge.”
“How so?” I said.
“You can’t murder a Shade, Finn. Or at least you can’t be charged with it. Omniframe says Shades don’t exist.”
“And Omniframe’s the law. You have a very optimistic way of looking at things, you know that? The cops are still going to want to know what happened to their John Doe.”
“The
re was a case in New Coast a year ago,” she began excitedly. “A man found that the Shade he employed as a bodyguard was having an affair with his wife. He shot the Shade in the face at a party in front of his wife and a hundred of her closest friends. Took the back of the man’s head right off. He was charged with unlawful discharge of a firearm and fined fifteen hundred credits.”
“Well,” I said, “I can’t afford that either, so let’s not go around confessing to things just yet.”
“Granted.” She beamed at me.
“Don’t look quite so pleased, peaches,” I scolded. “We’re not out of this yet.”
“But our odds are better,” she said, walking around to the far side of the bed again. She leaned in and rested a knee on the opposite side, and slid her hand under the pillow. When it came back out, she was holding poor Felco’s ACS Monitor in her hand. It was the perfect size, the right sort of graceful shape. I was right, it was more of a ladies gun.
“Finn,” she said quietly but in deadly earnest, “there are a hundred uniformed guards in this hotel, a chair under the door and two guns under the pillows. What do you say we let the door guard itself for an hour or so?”
I should have said no. Anything else was deeply unprofessional and probably dangerous as hell. I should have said no.
I said not one word, but slipped my gun under the other pillow and let the door be damned.
SIXTEEN
It took me no more than half a second to realize that the sound was a knock at the door. It was morning, but only just. You could make an argument that I had been both lax and unprofessional, but I was not stupid. I had slept, but I had slept on top of the covers and with my pants on. Never let anyone surprise you in the nude. You’ll spend so much energy trying to protect your flapping extremities that you won’t have a hope in hell.
When the knock came, I was out of bed in an instant, bare feet on the floor and the GAT in my hand. I had my thumb resting on the safety but I held off, preferring total silence.
Claire raised her head from the pillow still in a fog, not having slept nearly long enough. She was still naked, and seemed confused as she looked up at me. The knock came again, and this time a voice came with it.
“Miss Marsland?” it called. It was thin and pimply. No substance behind it, though there could easily have been two more impressive baritones standing behind the speaker. I padded over to the door in silence, the GAT in my right hand, signaling with my left as best I could for Claire to vamp a response.
“Miss Marsland? I have a message for you.” I looked out the peep-hole. There was only one person in sight, a thin, weasel-faced kid of about twenty in a hotel uniform. I couldn’t see either side of the door, but he didn’t look left or right, and I didn’t buy him as poker-faced enough to pull that off if he wasn’t alone. But still... I slid the chain-lock off without a sound.
“J-just a moment,” Claire called behind me, “just a moment, I’m not decent.”
It was a good stall, but I could hear her behind me and knew she was going for the robe, not the gun under her pillow. Just like a woman. She was beautiful and fierce and clever and willing as hell, but not the kind to meet her destiny in the buff. Just as well, I knew nothing of her skills with a pistol and didn’t want to get shot in the back this morning if I could help it at all. I would have to move quickly.
I threw the door open and broke the kid’s nose with the butt of my gun. That knocked him back about a foot, and gave me clearance to sweep the hall on either side, satisfy myself that Tweedle-dee here was alone, and haul him into the room by his hair.
He still hadn’t had a chance to protest properly when I threw him bodily into the bathroom and brought my bare foot up into his groin as hard as I could. He made not one sound, but the breath left his body as if it might never return. I took a fistful of his hair again and brought his face down against the edge of the bathroom counter twice, leaving a smear of blood on the cool, white surface.
A moment earlier he had been standing in the hallway, sure of his safety and confident in his mission. Now he was on the bathmat and I had satisfied three of the four criteria for a successful launch of hostile negotiations. He was hurt, he would continue to feel worse for the next several minutes at least even if I took no further action, and he had seen his own blood in a dramatic fashion. I pushed him into the shower stall to complete the picture – he was now in a space that was easily cleaned if you had to put a hole in him. It was just as well, since I had clearly tagged him in the groin with some ferocity, and he began to vomit.
I turned the water on him, partly to get his attention and partly to wash away the stink of bile. I left it nice and cold. Nobody wanted to die cold and wet. He threw up a few more times, until he was obviously just heaving on reflex.
“That’s enough,” I said.
He started to lift his head to protest. I shoved the Double-Z’s barrel in his face and flipped the safety off. This was why I had waited. The gun made a deeply satisfying whirr as its plasma generators powered up. It spoke more eloquently that I could possibly have done.
Claire appeared at the door, clutching her robe at the neck, the Monitor in her other hand. There was a lot of leg on display, but I had taken a very good look only a few hours earlier and my friend with the gun up his nose seemed a little too preoccupied to notice. I smiled at her. She seemed alarmed for some reason.
The whole exchange had taken thirty seconds. Opportunity had knocked and we had taken a piece, even if he was only a pawn.
“Oh God,” the pawn said, sobbing a little.
“Shut up,” I ordered. I didn’t really want him to shut up, and I knew he wouldn’t be able to anyway. He was too frightened. He would blubber and plead and think at the same time that I might kill him for defying me, but he would be unable to help himself. It would help to free him from the illusion that he had any control over what was about to happen.
It took almost six seconds for him to speak again, which was five seconds longer than I thought it would.
“Please,” he said through his tears, “please, I’m just the desk clerk.”
“Drake,” Clare said. I noticed that we were on a post-coital first name basis, but other than that I ignored her. She was trying to call me off and she was dead wrong.
“You’re the desk clerk,” I said. It was not a question. This was intentional, as it would force him to wonder if he should answer me or not. He blubbered and nodded, which was an interesting compromise. I smacked him across the puss with the GAT, just in case he thought he was clever. He did not seem to.
“Drake, for God’s sake!” Claire protested.
“Does anyone know that you’re here?” I asked her. “Anyone back in New Coast?”
“No,” she answered, beginning to understand.
“Then who could have sent you a message?” I asked her.
“But how is that his fault?”
The man in the shower was panting less, perhaps sensing he had an advocate. I threw him backwards against the wall of the shower stall and raised the GAT as if I meant to kill him then and there. He flailed and wept anew.
“All messages are logged,” I said. “All calls are recorded. He’s not even supposed to confirm that you’re staying here. He knew damn well what he was doing wasn’t right. What did you get for it, kid?”
The punk didn’t answer at first. There is a fine art to flexing your finger on something as sensitive as the trigger of a plasma cannon in such a way that it can be seen from a distance without risking taking someone’s face off at an inopportune moment. I appeared to have the knack, because he squealed and threw his hands out in front of him in a useless defensive gesture.
“Five hundred!” he shrieked.
“Five hundred?” I asked, amused. “Wasn’t worth it, was it, kid?”
He shook his head.
“Let me see it.”
He seemed confused.
“Let me see it!”
He pulled five bills from his pocket with a
trembling hand and said nothing.
“Tear it up,” I ordered him.
He did it. It took a second, but he did it. The pieces floated in the water at the bottom of the stall and started to clog up the drain.
“They wanted to know if she was still staying here.”
He nodded.
“You told them she was.”
He nodded.
“You give them a room number?”
He nodded again. The kid was getting good at this.
“Did they ask you if there was any way out of here but the front door?”
He looked a little amazed and nodded again.
“What did you say?” I asked.
“All other exits are opened only by a fire alarm or general security alert. The main lobby door is the only way out.”
I turned off the shower. He looked back and forth a little frantically, as if uncertain if this welcome development was quite as positive as he wished it to be. Good to keep them guessing.
“So what was the message?” I asked.
“W-what?” He seemed surprised.
“Did they actually give you a message, or were you just supposed to see if she was in her room?”
“They gave me a message. They invited Miss Marsland and her gentleman friend to breakfast.” His tone seemed accusatory. I made a note to fix that later.
“Breakfast?”
“Yes, sir.” Ah. Now that was just plain snotty. I kicked him in the face, but not as hard as I could have. Claire said nothing. That was a positive sign. She might still think I was a psychopath, but at least I was her psychopath and that was something.
“Breakfast where?” I asked politely.
“What?”
“We were invited to breakfast,” I said.
“Yes.”
“Where were we to go? For breakfast,” I said patiently.
“Kemble’s... on Ivory Lane, just past the Avenue of Martyrs.” The kid had no idea what to make of me at this point. I found this good.
“A of M and Ivory, huh? Sounds pricey.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good breakfast?”
“I- I don’t know sir. Would you like me to find out?”
“No, Sparky. I would like you to sit still until I have decided whether or not to shoot you.”