by Adam Carter
“You own this club?” I asked.
“Who are you?”
“Detective Reynolds.” I flashed my card, which was actually something I had mocked up that morning from a few mangy leaflets in the hotel foyer. I put it away quickly enough for this woman not to have had a good look.
“And this?” the woman asked, indicating Cassiel.
“Local ninja division.”
“There is no local ninja division.”
“Who says?”
“I’ve never seen one.”
“If you’d ever seen anyone from the local ninja division, you’d already be dead.”
The woman narrowed her already narrow eyes but I did not flinch. “Fine,” she said in a clipped tone. “What do you want, Detective Reynolds?”
“There was a fight reported here last night.”
“There was no fight here last night.”
“I said the fight was reported last night.” I was using the standard technique I had learned from a fortune teller. Provide information and then, when that information did not pan out, claim you were saying the opposite. “I didn’t get your name, ma’am.”
“Delilah Samson.”
“Is that your real name?”
“It’s what you’re getting.”
Since I did not really care about her name, I let her have that one and plunged ahead. “One of your girls was being harassed by a client and someone got hurt.”
“One of my girls?” she asked sceptically.
“Are you denying this happened?”
“You’re probably talking about Gloria.”
“Might be. Could we have a word with her?”
Delilah called over to someone and the floor shook as something gargantuan stomped over to join us. The woman was like no one I had ever seen before, male or female: it was as though some dark god had got drunk one night and thrown a gorilla into a blender with a mountain and tucked the resultant monster away in the dingiest dive possible. It was not even that the woman was huge, with trunk-like legs and meaty arms as wide as my head – what got to me was that she didn’t seem to possess a neck.
“Gloria,” Delilah said, “this is Detective Reynolds. She thinks someone touched you inappropriately or something.”
“Actually,” I said, straining my neck as I looked up, “I may have been talking about someone else. One of your dancers, perhaps.”
“One of our dancers?” Delilah snorted, glancing towards the smooth floor studded with poles. “One of my girls or one of my dancers? Make up your mind, Detective.”
“One of your dancing girls.”
“That’s strange, because all my dancers are male.”
I opened my mouth, closed it, opened it, closed it and probably opened it again, but by that point I had accepted that I had no idea how I was going to respond.
“I don’t think you’re really a detective,” Delilah said.
“Well I don’t think your name’s really Delilah, so we’re even.”
“Except I have a two-ton bouncer.”
“And I have a ninja, so we’re still even.”
Delilah glanced uncertainly towards Cassiel and I realised her presence was the only thing which had thus far saved me from a truly painful pounding. I silently prayed that Cassiel would continue to say nothing, because I knew for a fact things would go pear-shaped the instant she opened her mouth.
“What say we leave our muscle to one side and talk about this sensibly?” Delilah said.
“Sounds good to me. Cass, keep Gloria company, but don’t touch the alcohol. She can’t handle her drink,” I told Delilah. “Last time she was in a club she downed a glass of vodka, thinking it was water. They were scrubbing blood out of the walls for weeks.”
“You are a decidedly odd person,” Delilah said and walked off.
I looked to Cassiel and attempted to convey without words that I wanted her to pretend to be someone tough. She straightened her back, placed her hand upon her sword and leaned against the bar. The leaning against the bar thing was, I had no doubt, to stop her knees from buckling. The poor kid had come from such a closed society and was now standing in a male strip club. It might well have been making real all her teenaged fantasies, but that was none of my business.
Delilah took me across to the other end of the bar. I had half expected for her to pour us drinks, but she clearly did not want me to linger. “What is it you want?” she asked, turning to look me directly in the eyes. “Does it have anything to do with the fight?”
“I didn’t even know there was a fight,” I admitted. “I’m after information on the whereabouts of two people.”
“And you think they might be regulars of my club?”
“No, I doubt they’ve ever been here.”
She frowned. “Then why are you here?”
“I think the wrong people may have got their hands on them, and I think the wrong people frequent places like this.”
“This is a high-class establishment.”
“Then I pity the state of the rest of the city.”
Her narrow eyes became slits. “What are the names of these people you’re looking for?”
“I’m not going to tell you that.”
“The names of the people after them?”
“Not going to tell you that, either.”
“Then what, pray tell, do you expect me to do for you?”
That was a good question, but I had an answer prepared. “I want you to keep your ears open for anyone who mentions selling two people to a reputable organisation.”
“That’s a little vague.”
“It’s enough.”
“And what do I get out of it?”
“Do you like drugs being circulated in your club?”
Delilah scowled. “Do you know how difficult it is keeping that stuff out? The police are raiding everywhere lately, sometimes on just a single tip off. Every other night we have drug problems and it’ll only be a matter of time before the police raid my joint and shut me down.”
“Then you’ll love what I have to offer.”
“Would that be drugs?”
“No.” I handed over my camera. “There’s a building across the river. Might be a warehouse, I never could quite figure that out. There are drug runners operating from there. I snapped a few of their faces.”
Delilah took the camera as slowly as she could, although I could see her eyes light up at the possibility. She flicked through the pictures and tried not to react.
“You recognise a few faces,” I said.
“All right, I admit that I do. If any of these guys shows his face again, Gloria’s going to give your ninja cop some competition for how long it’ll take to get the bloodstains out.”
“So we have a deal?”
She pocketed my camera, which was a little annoying since I’m hardly made of money. “We have a deal,” she said. “Where can I contact you?”
“We’ll contact you.”
“Somehow I knew you were going to say that.”
“You’d better go. I won’t have anything for you until tonight at the earliest and I think our bodyguards are about ready to kill each other.”
I looked over to see Cassiel was quaking in fear. To an untrained eye it may have looked like she was boiling over in rage, but I knew I had to get to her before she started weeping. “We’re done here,” I told Cassiel as I hurried over to her. “Time to go.”
Whether Gloria or Delilah said anything else before we left, I had no idea, for my heart was pounding so hard I could barely hear my own thoughts. Once we were back on the street, Cassiel released a great exhalation and I realised much of her shaking was due to her having been holding her breath all this time.
“What are you doing holding your breath?” I asked as she leaned against a wall and placed her hands upon her knees.
“I was afraid I’d say something stupid, something they’d kill us for.”
“If my negotiations had taken much longer, you would have passed ou
t.”
She said nothing to that, just took in a lot of deep breaths. I understood then we were going to have to have a proper talk. It seemed our little conversation the previous night had not done the trick. “Cass, I’m glad you’ve stopped crying. That’s a good start – no, that’s a great start. But you have to act tougher. Everywhere we go, people mistake you for some silent, deadly warrior. We can use that, but only if you can keep it up your end.”
“I’m more a silent worrier.”
“At least you still have your humour.”
“Humour?”
Folding my arms, I leaned against the wall opposite her, which wasn’t far away in a city where the tall buildings are packed so close together. “If you don’t buck up, Cass, Gordon and Iris are going to die.”
“You don’t think I know that?” she scowled. “You don’t think I don’t understand that my … my weakness is going to get them killed? I’m not an idiot, Roz, I’m just young and I’m lost and I’m afraid. My being here is slowing you down, but there’s nowhere for me to go because we don’t have a way off Ganymede. I know, all right? I know I should have stayed on the Glory; but there’s nothing I can do about that now.”
“Cass, don’t have a breakdown on me.”
“Just tell me what we learned in there.”
“Nothing, yet. How do the police find someone? They put their informants to work. That’s what we’ve just done. In the meantime, we have to do our own detective-work and see what pays off.”
“You have a lead?”
“I wish. We’re afraid Gordon and Iris have been captured by Securitarn, right?”
“Yeah. So?”
“So, let’s go stir a hornets’ nest.”
“Are you nuts?”
“No, spouting cliché keeps me sane.” I grinned, although Cassiel has never understood my humour and was not about to in that instant. “Oh come on, Cass. Let’s just go ask the wrong people the right questions.”
Begrudgingly, she got back to her shaky feet. I could already tell this was going to prove a very difficult rescue operation indeed.
CHAPTER FOUR
We could have marched straight into the nearest Securitarn building, but that would have got us killed, so we didn’t do that. Instead, I put to use all the skills I had learned back during my bartending days.
I should take a moment to explain who Securitarn are, in case you’ve been living under the proverbial rock all your life. Securitarn are, as their name suggests, a large security firm. They specialise in offering every form of security service, from installing the latest burglar alarms to training and hiring out the best guards money can hire. Their research and development department has always been keeping one step ahead of the competition, and recently I learned their morality is somewhat questionable. In an attempt to create some form of bio-weapon (the exact purpose of which still eludes me) they conducted secret experiments on their own staff. Iris Arowana worked for them as a security guard – they used the security guards they had themselves trained – and was kidnapped in the night by her employers. They implanted a huge database into her brain, allowing her to access vast amounts of information in the blink of an eye. She was the only subject to survive the process and was helped in her escape by a Securitarn mechanic named Gordon Hawthorn.
Becoming lovers, they went on the run and eventually faked Iris’s death. To return to a huge place like Ganymede was, therefore, pretty stupid of them; but they had something they felt morally obliged to do and I have to respect that.
Which leads me back to how my experience as a bartender could help with our current plight.
I considered getting a job working in the local hangout for Securitarn employees, but that would have taken a lot of time and would have involved my making up a CV, which was not something I was good at even when I wouldn’t be making the whole thing up. The fastest way to obtain information, however, was not by getting a job and listening to drunks pour their hearts out. There was a much quicker, much easier, solution; although I doubted Cassiel would like it.
“This is the place,” I said. The bar was on ground level, which was common in Rinden. I always assumed it had something to do with the businesses not wanting to take responsibility for drunk people falling out of windows or down stairs or something, but I’m not an expert. It looked pretty much the same as any bar in the area. It had a lot of windows, through which we could see a large open space and many empty tables, for it was early in the day and there were none of the large crowds one would see in the evening. I could see that several people inside were wearing uniforms, which was precisely what I was after, for these were shift workers. All I would have to do would be to identify the Securitarn guards by their uniforms, insert a little charm and it would all be over.
“How did you know Securitarn guards come here when they’re off duty?” Cassiel asked.
“It’s close to one of their offices and it’s cheap.”
“How do you know it’s cheap?”
“It’s a Drownhole.”
“A what?”
“A Drownhole. They don’t have Drownholes on Themisto?”
“We don’t have bars on Themisto.”
“No bars?”
“We have holy water, but I don’t think that counts.”
“You’re telling me no one drinks alcohol on your whole world?”
“Oh, people drink alcohol. We just don’t have bars where we all hang out.”
Themistonian society was weird, but it was not my place to say. “I didn’t think I’d ever meet someone who’d not heard of Drownholes. They’re a chain of bars. They’re the cheapest places around, which is why they turn up all over the shop. Their beer’s not watered, it’s just cheap, and their food is … well, I’m not sure it’s actually food.”
“And people pay to come to places like this?”
“Most people spend every spare penny they have in places like this.”
I could see Cassiel did not understand, but then I’m not going to say it made sense. All through history people of the working class have toiled hard in the day and spent their money in the evening. It’s what makes the whole idea of pirates burying treasure nothing more than fantasy.
“Is this place going to be as seedy as the club?” she asked.
“No, this is just your standard pub.” It occurred to me she had never even been to a standard pub. She was having so many new experiences in my company it was a wonder she had been allowed out with me at all.
We walked through the front door and no one paid us any attention, even with Cassiel dressed the way she was. I moved slowly to the bar, eyeing people up and allowing them to notice me so I could become a part of their peripheral vision. I ordered two drinks, a vodka for me and a whisky for my companion, and handed Cassiel her drink.
“Oh, I can’t,” she said. “I don’t drink alcohol.”
“But you’re a teenager. All teenagers drink alcohol. They drink far too much of it, if you ask me. God, I’m sounding old.”
“No, really, I don’t.”
“You don’t have to drink it. It’s a prop to help you fit it.” I popped a straw into her drink, which would help with the illusion because of her mask. “Just pretend.”
She accepted this but I could tell she wasn’t happy. I wondered whether anything would ever make this girl happy, but supposed she was just worried about Gordon. This was fast becoming something of an adventure to me, but Cassiel had known Gordon and Iris longer than I and she was allowed to be concerned.
Sauntering back to one of the tables, I approached someone who was sitting by herself. She was around fifty and nursing a pint of something sour-looking. She was scrolling through news items projected from a screen embedded into the table before her and I could see an interface just below her left earlobe through which she could listen to the reports without disturbing anyone else. Most importantly, she was wearing a Securitarn uniform, which meant she was the very woman we needed to talk to.
“Hi
,” I said. “This seat taken?”
“There are plenty of tables,” she said without looking up. “Go sit at one of those.”
“Yeah, but they don’t have interesting people sitting at them.”
At this she did look up. There was confusion to her face, but no interest. She had never thought she would get such a response and it had thrown her. That had been my intention, which meant I had to press my advantage. Sliding into the seat opposite her, I extended my hand.
“Max Reynolds,” I said, sticking with my earlier name.
She took the hand without thinking. “Amrit,” she said. “Do I know you?”
“Nope. This is my friend Cass.” I did not give Cassiel a pseudonym for two reasons. Firstly, she wasn’t on the run from the law, and secondly because I did not trust her enough to remember to answer to one.
“You’re Themistonian,” Amrit said. “I’ve never met a Themistonian.”
“Yeah,” I said, my lie about Cassiel being my ninja bodyguard dying on my lips. “We’re Themistonians.”
Amrit’s expression soured as she looked me in the eyes. “You’re a little exposed for a Themistonian.”
“I’m not religious,” I said quickly. “Cass here is, hence the get-up. If I was religious, I’d still be on Themisto.” I laughed, but even to my ears it sounded desperate.
“Was there something you wanted?” Amrit asked.
What I intended was to find a Securitarn guard and entice him or her out the pub and into an alleyway, where Cassiel would then whip out her sword and pretend to be a martial arts queen. That particular plan was dying as quick a death as a puddle in the desert and I was at something of a loss for a scheme to replace it.
“We’re after information,” Cassiel said, slipping into the chair next to me before I could stop her. Since I didn’t have a plan of my own any more, however, she was welcome to try whatever she felt might work.
“What’s it worth?” Amrit asked.
“People’s lives.”
I tried not to groan.
“Strangely,” Amrit said, “I was thinking more in terms of money.”
“Money?” Cassiel asked. She glanced to me but was determined to continue the interview herself. “I don’t have any money. We don’t use money on Themisto but I do understand the concept.”