Striper Assassin

by Nyx Smith

  “You’re saying that one of these shadow spirits was here?”

  “I’m saying a shadow was born here. It was summoned, but could not be controlled. I’m not sure why that is. The interference is too intense. There may have been a flaw in the magic. The shadow won the battle for control. Likely, it killed whoever summoned it. Perhaps it even possessed him. I can’t be sure. That’s all I can tell you.”

  “You think this shadow-thing is still around?”

  “Did Satan willingly give up paradise?” Feinberg shakes his head. “The entity is too powerful to simply disappear.”

  “How powerful?”

  Feinberg takes a drag on his cig, then says, “Would you say the sun is powerful, Lieutenant?”

  “It’s as powerful as God, in other words.”

  Feinberg pauses a moment, then says, “God? I don’t think so. But something like God, perhaps.”

  33

  The final cars of the freight train clatter past. The clanging bells of the grade crossing fall silent, the flashing red warning lights go dead. As the red-and white-striped barricades rise, Raman twists the throttle and rides the Harley chopper over the grade crossing, up the road and between the rusted chain-link gates of the abandoned naval base. Another short road brings him to the stocky buildings standing along the waterfront.

  The boat is already waiting, idling beside the concrete bulkhead where land meets water. He can hear the low rumbling murmur of the engines. The craft is not clearly visible in the murky dark, but he knows well enough what it looks like.

  It’s a GMC Riverine, sleek and black, a model they don’t list in the catalogs. More than twelve meters long and fitted with concealed weapon mounts, computer-controlled miniguns, rocket launchers, and other special hardware like a satellite uplink. As Raman approaches, an elf in a black duster steps from the boat carrying a submachine gun under one arm. Raman pauses before him.

  Weapons check.

  “Está bien. “ The elf nods toward the boat.

  Raman steps aboard, the elf following close behind. The boat eases away from the bulkhead and begins to rumble out toward the center of the river, cutting smoothly through the water, heading south, away from the city.

  Raman leads the elf down a short flight of steps into the luxuriously appointed rear cabin. It is furnished in black and gold, and has a bar standing to one side and a plush sofa sweeping around two walls. Alongside the bar is an elaborate console that appears to integrate a desktop computer with various communications equipment, including a telecom. A big Asian male stands to the left, a large ork male to the right. A woman in black mirror-shades and a gleaming gold body suit that clings to her like a second skin sits on the curving sofa, more or less in the middle. Her name is Sarabande. Raman has dealt with her before.

  She finishes sipping from a glass, then holds it out to a skinny male in a white servant’s jacket, who takes the glass, puts it behind the bar, and then leaves. “Buenas noches,” Sarabande says. “Would you care for a drink?”

  Raman shakes his head. He does not like distractions while engaged in biz. Any biz. He ate and drank fully before coming.

  “You’re prompt as usual, amigo.” Sarabande pauses and leans her head to the side. Raman gets the distinct impression that she is scrutinizing him closely from behind her mirrorshades. It’s the way she always behaves around him, careful, attentive to detail. “So, what are you calling yourself this week?”

  “Ripsaw.”

  “It suits your costume. Is that an Amerind jacket?”

  “It was.”

  “Now it’s yours.”

  “Yes.”

  “I understand. Sientese.” She gestures casually toward the portion of the sofa sweeping along the right-hand wall. Raman takes a seat, and Sarabande crosses her long, gold-clad legs. The movement is nothing if not elegant. Perhaps she planned it that way. “I have someone new for you to meet. I think you’ll like her. She’s just arrived from Sâo Paulo.”

  Within moments Raman sees the long, firmly contoured legs of a woman descending the stairs on heels like stilettos. Then the body comes into view, lusciously curved and clad in a filmy black body stocking. The woman moves like a cat, slowly and sensually. Her hair is a heavy mane of onyx silk. Her eyes glare even as her mouth puckers. She strolls past him, gazing down at him over her shoulder. She pauses before Sarabande, then turns to stroll back the other way.

  Her eyes never leave him, except when she turns, changing direction with an arrogant toss of her hair.

  “She’s called Dominique.”

  Raman feels a stirring of interest, of suppressed excitement. He has of late come to appreciate Latin women, particularly the ones with fire, who challenge him with all the brazen defiance of a hot-blooded she to prove his maleness, to take her, overwhelm her, and bring them both to bliss. He has a feeling that he would enjoy proving himself to this she. No less than he has enjoyed doing to all the others he has taken in his life.

  Dominique pauses before the stairs, gazing at him steadily.

  Raman looks back at Sarabande, careful to conceal his interest. Willing females are never difficult to obtain. They appear to him along the shoulders of rural highways. They approach him in bars. They are offered to him as incentives. He could probably have a different one every night, maybe two or three, if he felt so inclined. He has even gotten the impression from time to time that Sarabande herself might surrender to him were he to show a definite interest. But perhaps that is only her witchiness, mere trickery; perhaps not. With a female like Sarabande it is hard to be sure. Sometimes her mouth speaks one way while her body speaks another.

  “What is the job?” he asks.

  Sarabande gestures; Dominique goes up the stairs. The carrot has been offered—now for the work. “It’s yours, if you want it,” Sarabande begins, slowly recrossing her legs. “It is an elimination.”

  “The target?”

  “A technician called Striper.”

  “The back-up?”

  “Naturally, that is confidential.”

  A strange thought comes to mind, perhaps suggested by something in Sarabande’s manner. If so, the clues are very subtle, too subtle for him to be certain. “Perhaps I am the back-up.”

  Sarabande says nothing.

  “Perhaps a first attempt has failed.”

  Sarabande gives no indication of even hearing his remark. “The target is not fortified, but the threat-level is high. I am prepared to offer one hundred thousand nuyen.”

  Raman grunts. He does not mind eliminations except that they are troublesome. Work of this nature often requires extensive planning, both in terms of execution and to ensure his own escape. He is often placed in an antagonistic position relative to police, something he prefers to avoid. The work he likes best involves threats or thefts. Those jobs are the easiest. He lets Sarabande wait a few moments, then says, “I have heard of Striper. In Hong Kong. She uses magic.”

  “That should be of no concern to you.”

  Indeed, he has no hesitation concerning magic. Where appropriate, he has even hired mages to further his work. Magic sometimes simplifies matters. “Technicians can be difficult targets. A user of magic makes for an even more difficult target.”

  “Hence, the price I am quoting, and certain fringe benefits.”

  Raman pauses as if considering this, then says, “Two hundred kay.”

  “I’m offering one.”

  Raman shrugs. “I have expenses.”

  “I have other available technicians.”

  “None as good as me.”

  “Perhaps, perhaps not. We have had a long and lucrative relationship. That is why I say the job is yours if you want it. If not, I will take it elsewhere.”

  Raman smiles. “No one worth one hundred kay would take this job for a hundred kay. And you know it.”

  They pass several moments in silence. Sarabande re-crosses her legs. “Naturally, I’m also prepared to pay expenses. Shall we say fifty thousand? And, if you wish, you
may use Dominique until the job is complete.”

  Offering Dominique is so blatant a ploy that Raman almost smiles. The last thing he wants is one of the fixer’s own shes watching over his shoulder while he’s working. That Sarabande would even suggest such a thing amuses him. This she has fire, too.

  The extra fifty thousand make the total acceptable. Not great, not bad. Likely, he will use only five or ten thousand for any equipment he may need. That leaves him with most of a hundred and fifty thousand nuyen to do with as he wishes.

  “Very well,” Raman says. “One hundred and fifty thousand. I will have two-thirds in advance.”

  “The entire sum will be placed in advance in a Carib guarantee account.”

  That, too, is acceptable. “Where is the target now?”

  “In Philadelphia.”

  That is good. He hates having to commute to work.

  “I have a datachip you’ll want to review.”

  “Later.”

  “Of course.”

  Dominique awaits him in the forward cabin. For her, Raman has a treat she will not soon forget.

  34

  Cop Central is on Race Street, between Seventh and Eighth. The thirty-story complex that stands there now replaced the old police headquarters building about fourteen years ago, after the old one burned to the ground. Right about the time that Minuteman Security took over the city’s police contract. Kirkland had no problem with the change in corporate leadership. He’d been a card-carrying member of the Philly P.B.A. almost ten years before Minuteman came into town. He knows where he’ll stand the next time contract talks come up. So does every other cop.

  He catches an elevator to the fourteenth floor and gets off in front of a pair of smoky, plasti-paneled doors. The lettering on the smoky panes reads:

  Homicide Bureau

  Central Division

  He pushes through the double doors and cuts an immediate left, avoiding the aisle through a rabbit warren of cubies leading up the center of the room. The aisle along the left-hand wall goes past the doors and windows of holding cells dressed up as “interview rooms.” Kirkland is barely halfway up the aisle when one of his men, Detective-Sergeant Murphy, steps out through the door of Interview Room 3.

  “Hey, boss—”

  “Not now. Murphy.”

  “You really gotta see this.”

  Yeah, right. Kirkland stops, looks at Murphy, looks through the window to IR 3. The girl sitting at the macroplast table looks to be in her early twenties. She wears a broad-brimmed black hat and matching pullover. Her hair is black, too, and long, tumbling over her shoulders. Kirkland can see clearly that her eyes are beet-red and her face looks clammy. Kirkland returns his gaze to Murphy. “So?”

  Murphy smiles like something hurts. “She walked in about an hour ago. You know those DOAs on Bridge by the waterfront?”

  Kirkland exhales heavily, takes out a cig, lights it. Just another day on the job, a few more killings he hasn’t heard about. Yet. “Gimme the short form.”

  Murphy nods. “Three guys turned up dead at the Delgato Moving and Storage warehouse. News snoop found ’em. They were ripped up pretty bad. Ever hear of a slag named Hammer?”

  “Maybe three million. What’s your point?”

  “Well, one of the DOAs was called Hammer. A local kick-artist. Been moving into the big time. Wetwork. Anyway, this girl here walks in downstairs and tells the desk she was part of Hammer’s team till their last job came along.”

  “What job?”

  “Ace Striper.”

  That’s real interesting. Anything that involves a name like Striper is real interesting as far as Kirkland’s concerned. The question is whether the girl in the interview room is a psycho manic-depressive with masochistic guilt-delusions, or does she really know something?

  “What’s her name?”

  “Dana Giachetti. She’s a mage.”

  Kirkland wishes he had a cig for every hosed-up hustler he’s heard claim that. He could open a smoke shop. The name doesn’t ring any bells. Kirkland decides that this is a problem Murphy can wrestle. “Delgato’s is a mob joint, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Find out if there’s a connection. If the mob’s bringing in hired talent like Striper we may be in for another war. Cross-ref with Organized Crime and D.E.A. Get somebody on it. Pump the girl for everything she knows and then get an A.D.A. in here and pump some more. If she decides to walk, make her an accessory and book her.”

  “Boss, this ain’t my first day on the job.”

  “Tell me about it. Some other time, Murphy!”

  Kirkland’s already moving on, heading up the aisle. Murphy closes his mouth, smiles, nods and waves a hand as if to signal okay. Murphy’s a good detective, he just takes too damn long to explain things. Kirkland’s got about five thousand items on his mind at any one moment and another ten thousand demanding his immediate attention just going to the goddamned John.

  Did Striper hose Robert Neiman and the other Exotech execs? Did Exotech hire some kick-artist named Hammer to ace Striper in revenge? Are any of those individuals or organizations into something that Kirkland hasn’t even heard of yet?

  Kirkland grunts.

  The only thing he hates more than unanswered questions is the prospect of unanswered questions leading to still more questions. He should’ve become an auto mechanic like his father.

  The aisle crossing the rear of the room is flanked by a carpeted space where sit the bureau’s five civilian data aides. Passing quickly through them, Kirkland is through the door of his office before any of them can even look up at him. He flips on the kaf maker, sits down at his desk, snuffs his cig, and immediately lights a new one. Taking a deep drag, he flips on the telecom. The unit has a monitor screen, integral computer, and the city phone directory in its memory.

  He presses a few sensor keys. The Unit Calling screen of the local telecommunications grid appears on the monitor. Two bleeps and an attractive blonde appears. “Good afternoon, KFK Plaza, my name is Melissa,” she says melodically. “May I help you, sir?”

  “Mister Torakido, please.”

  “Who may I say is calling?”

  Kirkland holds his shield case up to the telecom’s visual pickup, showing his badge and ID card. “Lieutenant Kirkland, Homicide.”

  “One moment sir. I’ll connect you.”

  The blonde is replaced on the screen by an aerial view of the KFK headquarters building, situated on an expansive, rolling patch of green-turfed land that the voice-over informs him is located somewhere just outside Tokyo. The vid, accompanied by orchestral music, goes on to tell about the humanitarian philosophy of KFK International. The vid doesn’t run long enough for Kirkland to hear about the organization’s many contributions to improving the quality of life of all humanity, which is what usually comes next in promos like this.

  Instead the screen blanks. The brunette who next appears is attractive enough to have been the recipient of a small fortune’s worth of cosmetic surgery. Kirkland looks very closely but doesn’t spot even the tiniest flaw in her deep blue eyes and tawny complexion.

  “Good afternoon, Lieutenant,” she says in a dulcet, British-accented voice. “I’m Theona MacFarlane, Mister Torakido’s confidential assistant. How may I help you?”

  “I’d like to talk to your boss,” Kirkland says.

  “Mister Torakido is out of his office at present. Perhaps I can be of assistance.”

  The words and tone of voice give nothing away, but the woman’s expression is pointedly interested, like she’s been sitting around all day waiting for him to call. Kirkland wonders what’s going on. Corporations are usually big on talk and short on action where police investigations are concerned.

  “Okay, it goes like this,” he says, deciding to take the offer of help where he finds it. “I’m investigating the deaths of Robert Neiman—”

  And that’s as far as he gets. Before Kirkland can get another word out of his mouth, MacFarlane says, “Yes, Lieutenant
. I know.”

  She’s clued in. Kirkland isn’t sure whether that implies that MacFarlane is anything other than well-informed. He wonders about it, though. “Then maybe you’re aware that I’ve requested certain info from the president of Exotech, a Mister Bernard Ohara. Things like employment files, data on the Special Projects Section, information that could be critical to my investigation.” Without waiting for MacFarlane to respond, he adds, “So far I’m not getting much cooperation.”

  MacFarlane’s expression becomes one of subdued surprise. “You made these requests to Mister Ohara personally?”

  “Yeah. Face-to-face.”

  Another very subdued look of surprise; then, again, the pointed look of interest. “Tell me exactly what information you would like. Lieutenant.”

  The look and the request together convince Kirkland that something is definitely going on behind the scenes at KFK International. What it is, he can only guess. His primary interest is the Special Projects Section: who worked there? when? what were they doing? He also wants personnel files on all the dead executives and their associates, living and deceased. He runs down the list.

  MacFarlane says, “I must tell you, Lieutenant, that Kono-Furata-Ko prides itself on being a responsible corporate citizen, and that it has always been the policy of the corporation to cooperate with the official investigations of any legitimate public authority, such as the police.”

  Kirkland nods, he’s heard speeches like this before.

  “Give me one hour,” MacFarlane says.

  Kirkland is surprised enough about the time frame that he hesitates, and then it’s too late to respond. She disconnects. The screen blanks. He takes a long, slow drag on his cig. Then the door to his office swings open and in walks Captain Henriquez, Commanding Officer, Homicide Bureau, Central Division. Henriquez’ office is two doors over. Kirkland lights a cig on the embers of the last one and sits back in his chair.

  “How’d it go in Germantown?” Henriquez says.

  “It looks like things’ll get worse before they get better.”

  “Better? You and I’ll be back in Traffic Division before that ever happens.” Henriquez drops into one of the two plastic-molded chairs facing Kirkland’s desk. “Where do we stand?”