The girl stood there looking as though she’d never move from that spot, trembling like a dead leaf about to drop. Then with her shoulders slumped, she trudged back to the street, those high heels working their magic around puddles so deep you couldn’t see bottom.
I stepped out from my poor excuse for shelter and cleared my throat. The girl half-turned to look back at me. Then she stopped—not something most women would do in a dark alley when a strange man makes a surprise appearance.
“You scared me, Mister,” she said all breathless and coy, sauntering over. But she didn’t look scared. She looked like a drowned mime with the black eye paint streaking her cheeks. “Y-you lonely?” she stammered, shivering.
I showed her the magazine cover, and her eyes lit up like a kid’s on Christmas. What do you give the girl who has nothing? Pictures of girls who have everything. “You want this?” I hoped it would do the trick.
“Instead of cash you mean?” Her expression darkened at the prospect.
“In exchange for some information.” I nodded toward Carl’s door. “Is he alone?”
“What?”
I tucked the rag back into my coat and turned away.
“No, wait.” She had her frail hand on my arm—a girl’s hand. She couldn’t have been more than sixteen, young enough to still have hope for a better life. “I answer your questions, you’ll give me that magazine?”
I nodded.
She sniffed. “All right. Yeah, he’s by himself. Won’t spare a bite, hogs it all to himself.”
“Any new girls?”
“What?”
“New recruits. Little ones?”
She looked like she’d tasted something foul and stepped back from me. “You into that?”
The magazine made a reappearance. “Hey, I’m just asking.”
She blinked in the rain. “I don’t know. It’s not like he lets us all hang out together or anything. But if you’re looking for little girls, Carl’s not your guy.”
“Then who is?”
“Hell if I know. You ask a lot of questions, you know that? My time’s money.”
I handed over the magazine. “Beat it.” I didn’t want her around for what came next.
She didn’t have to be told twice. Cursing me like a sailor, she staggered back to the street. I waited until she was out of sight, then came alongside the door and knocked twice, paused, then rapped three more times, reaching for my shoulder holster and snub-nosed revolver. I used it as soon as the bolts slid back and the door swung open.
Cauliflower Carl let out a disrespectful oath as the butt end of my gun cracked him between the eyes, and he staggered back flailing, arms out to the sides and crossed-eyed—kind of how he’d always looked right after a KO, just before he ate the mat.
“Stay on your feet.” I kept the gun muzzle level with his gut as I shut and locked the door behind me. He released another belligerent oath. “And quit using the Lord’s name in vain. He doesn’t like it, and neither do I.”
He slumped into a well-worn armchair facing the cabinet TV and turned toward me with his good ear. The other one was a swollen, shriveled mess. You’d think he’d wear something to cover it, but he shaved himself bald, skin white as a maggot’s, and never wore hats. Dark-eyed and broad-jawed, he had the look of a Scandinavian Neanderthal about him, the world’s first documented missing link. “Screw you, Madison!”
“No thanks.” I glanced at the screen where two men were duking it out. “Who’s carrying your stake tonight?”
He smirked up at me, and it was the ugliest thing I’d seen all day. His own mother must have near had a heart attack when she’d seen that mug pop out between her thighs.
“What the hell do you want?” He dabbed at his forehead gingerly. There’d be a goose egg come morning, maybe sooner. Already I could see the swelling, and it would be getting a helluva lot worse without ice.
“Met your girl out there. She’s a real peach.”
Carl grumbled something unintelligible.
“How’s that? I don’t hear so good,” I mimicked his catchphrase.
He lapsed into a string of curses, ending with, “You’ve got no right coming in here like this, throwing your weight around. Ivan hears about this, he’ll—”
“So you’re working for him now?”
“I work for nobody but myself. Nobody! You hear me?”
“I’m sure there are worse nobodies to work for,” I muttered.
“How’s that?”
“You’re a real self-made man,” I spoke up so he could hear.
“Yeah!” He glanced at the fight, broadcasting live from Ivan’s massive casino, The Coliseum.
“Nobody bosses you around,” I added.
“Damned straight.”
“You want to pimp out little girls on the side, earn a little extra moolah, then you do it. Make them stand out in the pouring rain—”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He glared at the TV.
“And if they die from pneumonia, you go and snatch a pretty little one from her parents, fresh meat, ripe for the picking.” A mixed metaphor, but regardless, I flicked the photo of young Mao at him and he grappled with it, flustered by the unexpected assault. Despite the punchy reflexes, his reaction time was fast enough when his eyes managed to focus on the picture.
“It’s a damn kid!”
“What do you call that girl outside?”
“A nuisance,” he spat. “Listen, Madison, I don’t know what you’re trying to get at here, but I run a legitimate business. You don’t like it, you can take it up with Ivan.”
“Maybe I will.” If I knew how to get to the bastard. His security was tighter than the Prime Minister’s.
“You can bet your ass I’ll be telling him about this.” His eyes flicked toward my gun. “Busting in here, playing cowboy. You’re on thin ice. You hear me?”
“I’m not the one missing an ear.”
“Thin ice!” he roared, rising to his feet.
“Stay put, Carl. I’m not through with you.”
“Yeah? Well I’m through with you.” He took a step forward, flinging Mao’s photo back at me. “You come in here making accusations, insulting my dignity. You get the hell out!”
I held up the photo, one last-ditch attempt. “You’re telling me this isn’t one of your girls.”
“You’re a sick man, Madison, even to suggest it.” More curses from the former heavyweight.
“My mistake.” I slipped the photo into my breast pocket. Keeping my gun trained on him, I unlocked the door and prepared to enter the onslaught outside. I could hear the downpour intensify as if in anticipation, eager to soak me to the bone—after eating through my coat. A few more weeks of this lousy weather, and I’d need another one. Nubuck crap never lasted long under the acid, even with that pricey polymer sealant available now. “You said you’d speak to Ivan.”
Carl clenched and released his fists with every breath. He was doing well at containing himself for an old punching bag. “Start saying your goodbyes to this town, Madison. The last thing we need is some Lone Ranger playing hero around here.”
“I’ve got a living to make, same as you.” I had the door open, but I paused. A chilled gust of wind flapped the coat around my knees. “Feel free to tell him about this kid.” I tapped the photo, located over my heart now. “I’m just trying to get her back to her folks. That’s all.”
Carl didn’t say anything, and he didn’t advance on the door as I shut it, holstering my revolver and flipping my collar up against the cold. Blowing out a short sigh at this dead end, I stepped through sheets of rain and forged ahead. That’s when a clatter arose from the door, and I turned back, reaching for my gun out of reflex. The bruiser leaned outside, squinting at me. The egg I’d given him looked more pronounced in the lamp light.
“Madison, you’ll never find that girl. Don’t waste your time,” he shouted.
Ironic advice, considering the time I’d already wasted here. “Give me somet
hing, Carl. You said it yourself, she’s just a kid.”
He blinked at me, weighing his words in that thick, Cro-Magnon skull. Then he blurted, “She’s the golden goose!”
As much as I wanted him to clarify whatever the hell that meant, he’d already slammed the door and bolted it up tight. I’d worn out my welcome.
* * *
Unfortunately, Cauliflower Carl wasn’t the only schmuck in town working out of his living quarters, and vice versa. For yours truly, my office was also home sweet home and had been ever since the rent on both had become too much to bear. When I’d had to let Wanda go, the angel was kind enough to offer me the couch at her place.
“You gotta sleep somewhere, Charlie,” she’d said, smacking that signature wad of gum as she packed up her office—a potted lily, a framed photo of her mother from before she’d passed, a book of poetry by Dickinson. “Whatcha gonna do, spend the nights here?”
Wanda the Prophetess.
“I’ll be okay,” she’d continued. “I got the apartment Ma left me. Rent-controlled. Don’t you go worrying about me none.”
We’d talked by phone a couple times since. She had a desk job in the mayor’s office now, located Stage Left in Ivan the Terrible’s political puppet show. You know what they say about crime thriving when good men do nothing? The same’s true when there are no good men left around, period. The United World had taken most of them, ground them up in a war machine and spit out the bones, all in the name of protecting democracy. Well, this was what democracy looked like when the government couldn’t afford anything besides maintaining its war efforts: all manner of scum rose to the surface in the cities to fill in the void.
“How’s the pay?” I’d asked her. I had to know.
“I can eat. You might want to apply yourself.”
Maybe I would—if I could ever stomach the thought of not being my own boss. And the prospect of playing a part in Ivan’s machine, no matter how loosely affiliated, made me sick. There were very few actual civil servants in local politics anymore; most were just monkeys on the Russian mobster’s payroll. I didn’t like the idea of her working there, and the sooner I could hire Wanda back on full-time, the better. But she was her own woman. I’d never been the boss of her, except in title.
I slipped the key into my office door and shook the rain from my coat. But it didn’t take more than a split-second for me to tell that the place wasn’t locked the way I’d left it.
I went for my holster just a fraction of a second too late. The door had already whipped open, tugged from the inside, and I stood face to chest with a goon crammed into the biggest suit I’d ever seen. He smirked down at me, my hand frozen inside my coat like a kid’s in the cookie jar.
“Charlie Madison?” he rumbled, a jolly enough giant, but there was nothing friendly about the eyes under his black fedora. “You Charlie Madison?”
“I don’t think so,” I said.
He frowned. “Huh?” Knuckles on fists the size of Easter hams crackled at his sides.
“According to the name on the door, you must be Charlie Madison,” I said, slipping my fingers around the grip of my revolver. “Isn’t this your office?”
“No.”
“Then what are you doing here?”
I pulled out my gun and squeezed the trigger, but the shot went wild, exploding in the narrow hallway with a round that punctured my doorframe, splintering the molding. The goon’s physical reflexes were ten times faster than the cold molasses between his ears, and when one ham-hand had knocked my shooting arm aside, his other came up under my chin and tightened, lifting me off the floor.
“This is your office,” he rumbled.
“We have a winner,” I wheezed, face flooding with hot blood. “Ivan send you?” Fast work, as I’d come straight from Carl’s place.
Without a word, the goon carried me into what had been Wanda’s front office and locked the door, tugging the revolver from my grasp and pocketing it. “There’s somebody here to meet you.”
“Great,” I managed, little more than a ventriloquist’s dummy in his grip.
We entered my office where the streetlight filtered through the blinds, casting the three men at my desk in featureless silhouettes. The two standing were obviously hired muscle, almost as big as my ventriloquist friend. A broad-shouldered, colossus of a man sat in my chair, which squeaked under his sheer volume. The goon shoved me forward, releasing his choke hold, and I staggered a few steps to regain my footing and some of my composure, coughing and rubbing at my neck.
“Good evening, Mr. Madison,” greeted the man in my chair with a thick Russian-coated accent. “I hope you do not mind our intrusion into your very busy evening.”
“Not at all.” I couldn’t tell if it was Ivan or not with the room so dark, but even if I’d been able to see his face, I wouldn’t have recognized it. Nobody knew what Ivan the Terrible looked like, and he worked hard to keep it that way. “I’d say to make yourself at home, but you appear to be quite comfortable already. At my desk.”
“Ah yes. This is a nice chair you have.” He shifted his weight and it squealed in agonized throes. I couldn’t help wincing; the thing had cost me a pretty penny. “My mandroid likes it very much.”
So Ivan wasn’t here in the flesh. Leave it to him to get something like this machine off the black market: Eastern Conglomerate army surplus. How he’d managed to sneak it into the States was beyond me; for years, the UW had wanted to get their hands on a mandroid for reverse engineering purposes, to create their own platoons of mechanical soldiers. But this one’s only purpose was to serve the agoraphobic needs of a paranoid mobster.
“What’s the special occasion? I’m at a loss here.”
“A man who is straight and to the point,” the Russian chuckled. “This I like.”
“If I’d known you were coming over, I would have cleaned up the place. Well, maybe not so much, but I would’ve at least gotten you something. Like an oil can, maybe.”
“And funny, too? I had no idea.”
“Wait till I get started.”
“Mikhel, he likes jokes. He knows many good ones.” The mandroid gestured to the goon behind me. “Tell Mr. Madison a joke now, Mikhel.”
Mikhel rumbled deep in his chest, prematurely anticipating the punch line. Then one of his ham-fists caved in my left kidney and I crumpled to the floor, landing on my knees with a tight grimace.
“Funny, no?” The Russian’s tone had dropped thirty degrees. “Now you see I have a sense of humor myself.”
“What’s this about?” I managed.
“Hmmm.” The mandroid’s fingertips met as he leaned onto my desk, creaking beneath him. “I think you know. You have been a very social man this evening. You entertained some guests, you visited the old newspaper man, you spent some time with a prostitute. Then you roughed up one of our community’s most upstanding citizens—a local hero, no less. A champion. Do I paint a clear enough picture for you?”
“You’ve been watching me.” Or he had one of his henchmen tail me. But I’m usually keen on noticing that sort of thing, and I hadn’t seen a soul.
“My eyes and ears, they are everywhere, Mr. Madison.”
I nodded. “Then you’re the man I need to see.” I reached for the photo of little Mao, and you would have thought I’d gone for a hand grenade the way the goons whipped out their hardware and leveled the business ends at me. “Easy. It’s just a picture.”
“You are full of surprises,” said the Russian as I held up the black and white photo between two fingers. “And who would this be?” He motioned for Happy Ham Fists to bring it to the desk.
“She was abducted from her parents three nights ago.”
“Hmmm.” The mandroid slid the photo closer for inspection. “A case you are working on, yes?” He looked up at me, but I still couldn’t make out his artificial face in the dark. “Your last, is it not?”
“I wouldn’t plan on it.”
He nodded. “Yes, I seem to remember this chi
ld. She was taken from her parents—but not three nights ago.”
I released a low curse. “Her parents were here—”
“I am well aware who came to see you, Mr. Madison. But they were not this child’s parents.”
I should have been more specific. “Adopted, then. But he’s her father—”
“No.” A thick finger tapped the photo. “This child went missing from Little Tokyo years ago. She was taken due to her rare … gift.” He nodded once. “An Anglo couple—the husband claimed she was his daughter, and you know how the authorities tend to side with war veterans on such matters.” He made it sound like common knowledge. “Harrison is their name, I believe.”
“There was never anything about it in the news,” I murmured.
“Why would I want such a thing made known to the public? When I myself planned to find this girl?”
I blinked at that. “You?” Ivan the Terrible wasn’t known for his philanthropy.
He chuckled, but it lacked any real mirth. “What is more surprising—that I would wish to find the child, or that I have been unable to do so, as of yet?”
“Both.”
“You are an honest man, Mr. Madison, and I find you amusing. I believe we can do business together.” He rose from my desk, giving it his full weight as he pushed down with shoulders squared, hauling his mechanical bulk upward. “From now on, you will work for me.”
How to decline such a gracious offer? “No thanks.”
“If you are concerned about the retainer in your pocket, consider it a bonus. That couple—the Harrisons—are no longer paying for your services. They are … where are they now, Mikhel?” The mandroid snapped his fingers as if suffering from a sudden memory lapse.
“They swim with the fishes,” Mikhel rumbled with a whole lot of mirth.
“Ah, yes. As much as two corpses are able to swim, that is. Mr. Harrison, he was a crafty devil, devious, with all manner of military contacts to keep me in the dark. If there is one thing I cannot abide, it is the military! Give me weak-willed local politicians any day.” He sighed, shaking his head. “But I digress. Mr. Madison, find me this girl, and you will be allowed to continue doing business in this city—provided you do not get in my way, of course.”
The Malfeasance Occasional Page 16