“Let me at the bitch!” Earless screamed, her face twisted in anger. “I’ll rip her eyes out!”
Grue held the pleaser in his vice-like grip, lifting her off the ground. “Earless! This isn’t helping!”
After several seconds, her struggling ceased and she calmed down.
“You finished, Earless?” Grue asked.
Earless glared at him and then turned to face Cori. “This ain’t over, breeder.”
Cori did not respond. She stood with clenched fists while Noose held onto her arm.
“Go watch the rain, Earless,” Grue told her. She complied. He looked at Cori. “Sorry about that, Cori. She’s hyped on drugs. She doesn’t know what she’s saying.”
“Don’t talk to me,” Cori said, breaking free of Noose’s grip and walking back toward the bedroom. “I’ve got work to do.”
“Cori…” Noose followed her, but she turned around and her expression told him everything. He went back to the table and sat down with Grue.
“Sorry about that, Noose,” Grue said again.
“Earless does her best to screw things up, doesn’t she?”
“It’s the drugs, Noose. She wasn’t like this before she got hooked on the stuff.”
“I don’t see how you lasted this long in the biz with her by your side.”
“We did pretty well back in the day. Things just turned bad after we had a couple of setbacks. Never really got back on our feet. But the Stiltzkin hit–” He stopped and frowned.
“The Stiltzkin hit was going to turn it around for you?” Noose finished for the goon. “Don’t worry about me, Grue. You pulled the Stiltzkin’s biz, but you didn’t order it. Whoever’s behind this would have found another hitter to do the job if you had refused.”
“You’re right about that. And with ten million being offered, he wouldn’t have had any trouble finding lots of takers. Actually, that ten mill was going to finance our retirements.” Grue sighed and looked out the window, watching the rain. “I got a friend in Arizona with a wiz setup on some outback freeway, running a little town. Well, it’s a diner and gas station, mostly. He can always use another hand or two for security against pirates and neobeasts. Hell, he could probably even use a gimli.”
Surprised, Noose did not respond immediately. Finally, he said, “Thanks, Grue, but I doubt you or Earless would sleep easy with me around.”
“Relax, Noose. I know you’re straight. Word is no one’s straighter. You always stick to your contracts.”
“I got a rep to uphold.”
“So?” Grue pressed.
“So, I say we concentrate on finding Smith’s boss.”
“What about after?”
“There might not be an after,” Noose said, taking out a cigar and lighting it. “Now, our other leads aren’t panning out yet. We might as well get back to Smith. How did he find you?”
“He walked up to Earless at a club and said he had a job for us.”
Noose looked at the pleaser, who slapped another drug patch on her neck. “Hey, Earless, come here.”
She looked at him, spit in his direction, and turned back to the pharmaceutically enhanced psychedelic rainfall.
“Get your skinny ass over here, Earless,” Grue growled. She moped to the sofa and sat next to the goon.
“What?” She nodded like a bobble-head and grinned stupidly.
“How did Smith contact you?”
Earless shrugged. “I was at a bar trolling for a boytoy. He came over to me and said he had biz for me and my pals.”
“Did he say why he chose you?”
“No. I didn’t ask. He had the bizzy biz, we needed the creds. You ask too many questions, some fixers start walking.”
Noose frowned. “If you don’t ask enough questions, some fixers end up shooting you in the back.”
“I guess you’re right. I can’t believe that asshole was planning to kill me the whole time I was ru–” She stopped, eyes wide.
Grue’s stared at her. “The whole time you what?”
“Nothing,” Earless said, looking down at the table.
“You’re holding something back.” Grue slammed a fist on the table. “What were you going to say?”
She looked up, eyes squinting almost shut as she stared at the goon. “I was going to say he was a real asshole for having me shot after I rubbed him so good. There! You happy?”
“You slept with Smith?” Noose asked in surprise.
“Why didn’t you say so before?” Grue demanded, amazed at her revelation.
“I got a private life, you know. I sleep with a lot of people. It’s what I was engineered to do. It wasn’t any of your business.”
“It is my business when it screws with our job,” Grue said angrily.
“Who says it screwed up our job? I don’t think he ordered us killed because he didn’t like the sex.”
“Mixing biz and pleasure ain’t a good idea.”
“Blow off, Grue. You’re just looking for ways to push the blame for the biz going sour. It wasn’t my fault Smith tried to kill us. Hell, I probably could have gotten him to let us go.”
“Get real, Earless. You couldn’t have saved us if you’d rubbed him right there in the salvage yard.”
“The hell I couldn’t. He always quivered and begged for more.”
“No use arguing over it,” Noose cut in. “Earless, where did you hook up with Smith?”
“At an apartment.”
“Which apartment?”
“A cheap one down in Blackzone.”
“Why the hell didn’t you say something about this earlier?” Grue demanded.
“Um…you didn’t ask.”
Grue threw his hands up in exasperation.
“I assume you remember which apartment it was?” Noose asked.
“Cheap Pleaser Suites.”
Noose stood up and grabbed his coat.
“Going somewhere?” Grue asked.
“All three of us are. Ms. Congeniality here is going to show us where her little trysts went down.”
“I am?”
54
Cheap Pleaser Suites squatted between two taller buildings. All three looked like they might have been built back before World War III. Crumbling facades, cracked steps, and rotting garbage didn’t seem to bother the stumbling patch-heads and brazen neorats.
“Ah,” Grue said, stepping out of the rented car, “what a wonderful place for a romantic rendezvous, Earless.”
“You think so?” Earless said cheerily, peeling a spent turbo patch from her neck and tossing it onto the garbage-strewn street. She replaced it immediately and shivered as the concentrated drugs seeped into her system.
“Oh, yeah! It’s a regular poke and choke.” Grue shook his head, noting the drunks sprawled on either side of the entrance.
“Well,” Earless giggled, “we did a lot of that.”
“Which apartment was it, Earless?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Marvelous,” Noose muttered.
They walked up the steps into a small foyer. The elevator was out of order, and a metal gate barred the stairs. A panel on the wall displayed a number of buttons. Noose pressed the one marked “Manager”. After he pushed it several more times over the next couple minutes, the face of a frail-looking woman appeared on the screen.
“Ye-yes?” she asked. She looked about fifty and had long grey hair pulled back tight, with a few wild strands waving about that she tried to push away from her face. She pressed a tissue against her nose and sneezed. Her left eye blinked several times.
“I got some questions and I’m paying for answers.”
The woman did not respond immediately, but looked away, revealing a chip socket behind her ear. “What kind, what kind of questions?”
“Questions about a tenant. Open up.”
“You cops cops?”
“Not likely,” Noose grunted. “Just open up and meet us in the hall. I want to know what room someone’s staying in.”
; “I c-couldn’t do do that that.”
“It’s worth five hundred.”
The woman squinted at him, then nodded quickly several times. “Hurry hurry up. I’m just at the next next floor.” The gate buzzed and clicked open.
“Five hundred creds?” Earless squealed. “What the hell are you giving five hundred creds for? That chiphead would’ve taken fifty.”
“I don’t want to haggle,” Noose said, walking through the gate and leading the others up the stairs. The woman stood in the hall. She wore a pale pink bathrobe pulled tight around her rail-thin frame. She hopped and jittered, stumbling in her sandals.
“Who?” she demanded, looking down the stairs with suspicion.
Noose held up the picture of Smith.
“Yeah, I know know him. What about him?”
“Room number?”
“Four eleven. Where’s my money money?”
Noose handed her a card. “Unlock his door.”
“What? You never said anything-”
“Do it. Now.”
“Now. Now. Yes. Okay.” She jumped back into her apartment and shut the door.
“I hate chipheads,” Earless chirped, jumping up the stairs, her long slender legs taking two at a time. Grue took three at a time, leaving Noose, still not fully recovered from his wounds, to bring up the rear. Grue prevented the pleaser from running out into the hall on the fourth floor until Noose caught up.
“You took long enough, gimli,” Earless scoffed.
“Piss off,” Noose replied. “Anything, Grue?”
“Nothing. It’s dead.” Grue said, holding his firearm close against his leg.
“Dead dwarves don’t dance,” Earless said with a grin.
Grue pushed the pleaser up against the wall. “Quiet!”
“Forget it,” Noose growled, pulling out his Stormer and stepping into the hall. They walked down to room 411. Grue moved past the door and leaned against the wall. Noose tested the knob and found it unlocked.
“That chiphead remembered to unlock it?” Earless said with surprise.
Noose nodded at Grue and then opened the door, leapt inside, and crouched by the wall. Grue stepped in after him, tracking his Ultima across the empty room. Earless peeked through the door. When nothing happened, Noose moved slowly into the dark room. Lights buzzed to life as Grue and Earless followed him in and closed the door. A dirty sofa sat in the middle of the otherwise unfurnished room. Stains and neon paint splattered the vidwall. Candy wrappers, pizza boxes, beer cartons, and other garbage littered the floor. Sheets concealed the windows.
“This the place?” Noose asked Earless.
“Yup!” Earless replied, hopping into the kitchen and opening the fridge. She pulled out a GoNerds cola, punctured the seal with a finger, and drank.
“This what it looked like when you were here?” Noose asked, kicking through some of the garbage.
“Almost. Except there was a lot of clothing scattered around.”
Grue plugged a cord from his neuroport into the vidwall.
Noose strode down the hallway to the bedroom. On the floor was a mattress with rumpled sheets and pillows. He checked the closets, which were empty. The bathroom contained no clues. He returned to the living room.
“Nothing back there. This must have been his slumming pit. Someone who brokers ten-meg biz doesn’t live in a dump like this. He probably used it to score cheap, brain dead joygirls.”
“Hey!” Earless sputtered, soda spraying from her mouth. “Who you calling cheap?”
“Cheap vidwall security, too,” Grue said as the screen blinked to life showing a video of Earless and Smith, covered in neon body paint, grinding away on the floor.
“Oh, I remember that,” Earless said wistfully. “That was good.”
“Just a sec,” Grue said. The screen cycled through a variety of icons before settling on a phone image. “Okay. We have voice access.”
“Replay last incoming message,” Noose said.
The chiphead manager appeared on the screen. “Hello, hello. You still haven’t told me me if you want to keep the apart-apartment for another month. I got got other people wanting in, so make up your freaking mind mind or I’ll rent the the place out to someone someone else.”
“That wasn’t much help,” Earless scoffed.
“List all messages for the past three weeks,” Grue said. One of the listed messages lacked a return number. “That looks interesting. Play message seven.”
The video remained blank, but an audio message played. “Paicek, where the hell are you? You are not answering the secure line as instructed. If you’re screwing another whore when you should be bringing those cards back, you’re dead. Pick up the phone!”
“He sounds funny,” Earless said.
Noose nodded. “German accent. Smart enough not to leave a video message. Anybody recognize the voice?”
“No, but he left this message an hour after Smith tried to kill us at the junkyard.”
“Must be someone up the chain from Smith.” Noose sat down on the arm of the sofa. “This little trip turned up more than I’d hoped. Smith’s real name, Paicek. And his supervisor’s voice. We’ll take the audio message and see if Cori can find a voiceprint match.”
“How likely is that?” Earless asked.
“She can hack the Reggie criminal database easy. If he’s in there, we’ll find him.”
Noose stood up and holstered his Stormer. “Okay, we better be thorough. Grue, you check the rest of the messages. Try to get any outgoing numbers. I’ll fine-tooth-comb the rest of the apartment.” He moved back down the hall.
“What do you want me to do?” Earless called after him.
“Relive old memories?” Noose said with a shrug.
“Good idea. Grue, can you download the sexvids for me?”
55
A dim light filtered in through tinted windows back at their hideout. Noose and Grue ate breakfast at the kitchen counter while Earless sprawled across the sofa. Cori, jacked in to her keyboard, read off the vidwall: “Paicek, Gary L.”
Noose smiled at her. “Good work! What else did you get?”
“He was a former Regional trooper. Assigned to the governor’s personal guard for six months prior to being fired.”
“Fired?” Grue said around a mouthful of toast. “Why?”
“He got frisky with Xin’s sixteen year-old granddaughter.”
“Paicek never could keep his pants zipped,” Earless said, grinning and tugging at her necklace.
“It says that the governor personally requested the official review of Paicek that resulted in his termination from the force.”
“Doesn’t sound like there’d be much love lost between those two,” Noose said.
“All the love was with the granddaughter, I guess.”
“I haven’t matched the chopper pilots yet, but I did get data on the fake Reggies you told me about,” Cori said. Three more images appeared on the vidwall. “The ones that attacked Munk at Ulric’s.”
“How’d you find them?”
“Hacked Ulric’s security,” she said, smiling. “It was good, but I’m better. I snagged their images from his security video and searched the Reggie database.”
“They were real cops?” Grue asked, reading the short dossiers beneath each picture.
“Former cops. They were on the governor’s detail at the same time as Paicek. All three later quit the force.”
“The governor seems to know a lot of the players in this biz,” Noose said.
“Could be coincidences,” Earless suggested.
“I don’t believe in coincidences,” Noose said. “It’s too neat. Sounds like Xin’s using former cops to run his black ops.”
“Why would he use someone who rubbed his granddaughter?” Earless asked.
“He’s a politician. He’d use anyone for anything.”
Grue agreed with the dwarf. “The governor ain’t never been too keen on us gennies.”
“You’re outvoted,
slut,” Cori said smugly. Grue tensed, and Noose rose from his seat, ready to interpose himself in another catfight.
Earless just stared at Cori. Finally, a wide grin spread across her face. “You know something, breeder? If you weren’t such an ugly, stupid bitch, maybe you could get someone better than a short little gimli to curl your toes.”
Grue grabbed the pleaser and dragged her to the window, growling like an irritated bear. Noose pulled Cori into the bedroom. “It doesn’t help us any when you antagonize each other. You could try and lay off.”
“Why?”
“So we can get to the end of this without you two scratching out each other’s eyes.”
“There’s only one way this is going to end, and that’s by me killing her.”
Noose had never before heard such malice and conviction come from Cori. It unnerved him.
“We made a deal not to kill them.”
“You made a deal, Noose. I never promised anything. As soon as Xin takes his fall, Earless and Grue are gonna follow him. If you don’t do it, I will.”
“You don’t want to do that. You’re not a killer.”
“Everyone in the shadows ends up killing.”
“Killing them won’t bring back Pamela.”
“You were ready to kill everyone a few days ago.”
“Grue and Earless were just the tools. I gave them my word, Cori.”
“When was the last time a murderer’s word given to another murderer meant anything?”
Noose’s phone buzzed. He checked the text message. “The Professor wants to see me. He must have the results of the chopper pilots’ blood samples. You better come along. I don’t want you fighting with Earless.”
“I’ll stay in the bedroom.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay.” Noose managed a weak smile. “I’ll be back pretty quick.”
Cori said nothing.
Noose left the room and closed the door. Grue was having another tall stack of banana pancakes while Earless sulked on the sofa. The dwarf donned his overcoat.
“Going somewhere?” Grue asked.
“My contact might have identified the chopper pilots.”
Grue rose. “I’ll come with you.”
“I don’t think so. I don’t give away my contacts. Plus, someone has to keep the ladies from ripping each other’s throats out.”
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